Transhuman

by Ben Bova

  “Yahoo does. Google. A dozen search engines.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but how’d he know which place to go to?”

  Hightower shrugged. “He’s stubborn. And he’s pissed off. He won’t give up easily.”

  “Well, if he gets in your way, arrest him for hampering your investigation. You’ll have my complete support. And the White House’s backing, too. I’ve notified the Salem office; they’ll be able to give you a hand if you need it.”

  “I ought to be able to handle this by myself,” Hightower said. Then he added, “With my little sidekick.”

  The director let the sarcasm pass. Instead, he said, “Now listen, Jerry. This White House guy wants you to hold Abramson wherever you find him. Just keep him on ice and notify me immediately. I’ll tell the White House and he’ll fly out to you. He wants to confront Abramson himself.”

  “That’s not our regular routine.”

  “I know. But this comes from the White House, Jerry. I’ve checked with the Bureau in Washington. Do it their way.”

  Hightower felt uneasy. But he said merely, “If that’s the way you want it, chief.”

  “That’s the way it’s got to be.”

  * * *

  LUKE SLEPT FITFULLY that night, his dreams filled with visions of his wife, Adele, alive and vibrant and happy. But he couldn’t reach her; every time he fought his way through crowds of strangers to be near her, she slipped away, out of reach, out of touch.

  Yet she spoke to him. “You’re getting younger every day. You’re a handsome, intelligent, accomplished man.” And he realized she spoke with Tamara’s voice.

  His eyes snapped open. It was starting to get light outside. He sat up, swung his legs off the bed, and stepped to the window. Pushing the curtains back, he saw another gray, cloudy dawn rising. How do these people stand it? he asked himself. This bleak climate. Their suicide rate must be way higher than Massachusetts’s.

  Padding his way to the bathroom, Luke realized that he had slept the night through without needing to urinate. He shook his head. If my prostate is still enlarged, and maybe even growing a tumor, how come I don’t have to piss every couple of hours?

  I’ll have to ask Tamara about that; she’s a physician, she ought to know.

  Tamara. He looked down and saw that he had the beginnings of an erection. “Fountain of freaking youth,” he muttered. “Next thing, you’ll start breaking out with acne.”

  Shaking his head, he did his business at the toilet while mentally reviewing his plans for the day: Shannon had set him up with a surgeon to take tissue samples from his prostate. Tamara was going to run Angie through another physical, then take the kid outside for a walk—if the weather wasn’t too cold or wet.

  Angie’s starting to complain about being cooped up in her room all the time. That’s good. That means she’s feeling stronger, antsier.

  And so are you, he told himself. Coming on to Tamara like that. You must be going nuts.

  But as he looked into the mirror over the bathroom sink, Luke had to smile at his image: skin smoother, hair darker, jawline firmer, eyes clearer.

  And your brain’s getting just as stupid as it was when you were a kid, he admonished himself. Freaking fountain of youth is making an idiot of you.

  Then he remembered what it had felt like to kiss Tamara. And have her kiss him back.

  Forget it! he commanded himself. But he couldn’t.

  * * *

  DEL VILLANUEVA AWOKE slowly, groggily. For a few moments he didn’t know where the hell he was. Blinking at the unfamiliar surroundings, he slowly remembered: Portland, Oregon. Airport Marriott Hotel.

  He sat up and, on a sudden hunch, reached for the bedside telephone. Ignoring the automated instructions, he dialed for the operator.

  After a half-dozen rings, a human voice answered, “Front desk.”

  “Connect me with Mr. Hightower’s room, please.”

  “You can dial that for yourself if—”

  “I don’t know his room number.”

  “Oh. Let me look it up for you.” A pause. Del fidgeted impatiently. Then the voice came back, “I’m afraid Mr. Hightower checked out about half an hour ago.”

  Damn! Del thought as he put the phone down. He was right here in the same fucking hotel all night!

  He threw the bedcover back and went to his carryall to dig out his laptop. Still naked, he sat on the sofa and booted up the computer.

  Luke would go to some medical facility, he reasoned. A hospital or a laboratory somewhere in the area.

  Doggedly, he started searching for the hospitals and research institutions in and around Portland. There were tons of them.

  Bartram Laboratories

  SHANNON BARTRAM MARCHED herself down to the reception lobby. A pair of FBI agents had arrived, asking about Luke Abramson.

  The reception area was small, since the labs didn’t receive that many visitors: just the receptionist’s desk and a pair of curved couches for waiting salesmen and such. Shannon saw through the floor-to-ceiling windows that the gray overcast outside was thinning. We might see some sunshine before the day’s over, she thought.

  The two men got up from the couch by the windows as she approached them. One of them was big, massive; his black ponytail made him look like a Native American. He wore a tight-fitting suede sports jacket and chinos. The other was shorter, not much above Shannon’s own height. Wiry build, but his face looked as if it had been carved out of granite. Grayish hair cropped down to a military buzz cut.

  Extending her hand to the big man, she said, “I’m Shannon Bartram. What can I do for you gentlemen?”

  Hightower reached into his back pants pocket, pulled out a leather wallet, and flipped it open. “I’m Special Agent Jerome Hightower, ma’am.” Turning his chin a bare inch, he added, “And this is Edward Novack.”

  “What can I do for you?” Shannon repeated.

  “We’re searching for a Professor Lucas Abramson. He’s wanted for kidnapping.”

  “He’s not here,” Shannon lied.

  Hightower looked pained. “Ma’am, would you mind if we looked through the building?”

  “I certainly would mind. This is a research establishment, and I can’t have my staff disturbed. Besides, there are five buildings altogether and—”

  “We know that,” Novack said. “And we know that Abramson came here a few days ago.”

  “Nonsense. In any case, I can’t have my staff upset by your poking into our facilities.”

  Hightower said, “Ma’am, we could get a court order.”

  “Go ahead and do that, then. Good day.”

  Novack started to say something, but Hightower silenced him with a heavy hand on his chest. “Ma’am, it’s like this. Abramson kidnapped a little girl. We’re trying to find the child and return her to her parents.”

  Shannon almost blurted that the “kidnapped” child was Luke’s granddaughter, but she caught herself just in time.

  “If we have to get a court order,” Hightower went on, looking pained, “we’ll come back with a squad of police officers who’ll be authorized to turn your place upside down. You don’t want that, do you?”

  Standing her ground in front of the oversized FBI agent, Shannon said stubbornly, “You go ahead and do what you have to do. I won’t willingly allow you to search this facility.”

  “We know he’s here,” Novack said, in his rasping, almost snarling voice. “If you’re hiding him, that makes you an accessory to kidnapping. We could arrest you right here and now.”

  “Arrest me?”

  “That’s right. Put the cuffs on you and take you downtown to be arraigned.”

  Shannon blinked several times. “You’re trying to frighten me,” she said, her voice fluttering slightly. “You’re bullying me.”

  “Ma’am,” said Hightower, playing the good cop, “we just want to find that little girl and return her to her parents.”

  “You can’t do that. She’s under treatment.”

  Hight
ower glanced down at Novack, then said, “You mean she’s here.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “She’s here,” Novack snapped. “And that means Abramson’s here, too.”

  Shannon looked from Novack to Hightower, her mind churning.

  Before she could think of what to say, Hightower explained, almost gently, “Look, ma’am, we’re not going to take him away from here.”

  “You’re not?” Novack snapped.

  “No. If the little girl is under treatment here, we won’t move her. But we’ve got to see Abramson for ourselves and make sure that he’ll stay here until we can get this situation straightened out.”

  Shannon wavered. “You’re not going to arrest him?”

  “My orders are to keep him here. Somebody from Washington wants to talk to him.”

  Trying to sort it all out in her head, Shannon asked, “Can you wait here for a few minutes?”

  Hightower nodded. Novack looked as if he wanted to object, but he remained silent.

  Shannon turned and hurried back toward her office. Hightower sat down on the curved couch.

  Plopping down beside him, Novack demanded, “What the hell’s this business about keeping him here?”

  “Orders,” said Hightower. “From the top.”

  “Washington?”

  “Yeah. Washington.”

  Novack’s brows knit. Then he turned from Hightower to look at the door Shannon Bartram had gone through.

  “Ten to one, she’s going back to tell Abramson we’re here,” he grumbled. “He’ll scram out the back door while we’re sitting here like a couple of chumps.”

  Hightower almost smiled. “If you feel that way, go out to the car and watch for anybody trying to leave. There’s only one road up here.”

  Novack gave him a sour look, but he didn’t move.

  * * *

  LUKE WAS LYING on his stomach, his pants and briefs removed, while a male surgeon and his two female nurses bent over his bare buttocks. To get a tissue sample from his prostate, they were going to insert a plastic catheter into his anus.

  Luke made no secret of his distaste for the procedure, but the surgeon—a youngish man with a pale blond pencil-thin mustache, an air of self-confidence, and a seemingly endless supply of urinary tract jokes—assured him the job would be practically painless.

  “Not like the old days, with those hard catheters,” he said cheerfully, as he slipped on his mask. “Patients would crap blood for a week afterward.”

  Luke grit his teeth. At least the nurses seemed quite professional. And serious.

  Shannon burst into the little room, looking distraught.

  “Luke, the FBI is here!”

  The surgeon straightened up, his eyes glaring at her over his mask. “Mrs. Bartram, you’re not scrubbed or gowned.”

  Luke wanted to throw a towel or something over his bared butt.

  “I’ll stay here, by the door,” Shannon said, paying no attention to the view. She closed the door and leaned against it. “Luke, they know you’re here.”

  “They’re guessing,” he said.

  “They know!” Shannon insisted. “They threatened to arrest me!”

  The surgeon threw the catheter to the floor. “I can’t work like this! We’ll have to reschedule.” To the nurses, he commanded, “Clean him up.” And he stamped out of the room, past Shannon, and into the hallway beyond the door.

  “What should I do?” Shannon asked, her voice edgy.

  She looked distraught, Luke saw, not at all the woman who last night had confidently promised to protect him.

  “They want to search the place,” she went on. “They said they’d bring a squad of police who’ll turn everything upside down!”

  “They’ll need a court order. That’ll take a little time.”

  “They said they won’t take you away. You can stay here. They just want to talk to you.”

  “They didn’t come all the way out here just to talk to me,” Luke said.

  “But they’ll arrest me! They threatened to handcuff me and drag me away!”

  Luke recognized defeat when he saw it. “Okay,” he said, pulling himself up to a sitting position while keeping both hands cupped over his groin. “Let me get my pants back on and I’ll go out and see them.”

  “I’ll go tell them that.” And Shannon bolted out of the room. One of the nurses handed Luke his underpants and trousers.

  * * *

  AS SHE WALKED back toward the lobby, Shannon tried to compose herself. I should call my lawyer, she thought. I can’t let the FBI bully me.

  But when she reached the lobby and the two men rose to their feet, she said to them, “Professor Abramson will see you in my office. In a few minutes.”

  Hightower nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Please wait here. I’ll send someone to bring you to my office once Professor Abramson is ready.”

  Another nod. “Okay,” said Hightower.

  They sat down again as Shannon left the lobby.

  “We shook her up,” Novack said, almost smirking about it.

  “Yeah.” Hightower pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket.

  “Who’re you calling?” Novack asked, fishing for his own phone.

  “The kid’s mother. She’ll be happy to hear we found her daughter.”

  “What about the father? He’s in Portland someplace.”

  Hightower shrugged. He recalled how distraught Mrs. Villanueva had looked, back in her home in Arlington. Tight as a bowstring, worrying herself half to death about her daughter.

  He saw Novack peck a single key on his phone. “Who are you calling?”

  With a sardonic smile, he said, “The man who pays the bills.”

  Hightower wasn’t surprised. Quenton Fisk would want to know that they’d found Abramson, just as badly as his own chief and the big mucky-muck from the White House did.

  Shannon Bartram’s Office

  LUKE SAT DOWN gingerly; even though they hadn’t gone through with the procedure he felt vulnerable.

  They were sitting around the circular conference table in a corner of Shannon’s office: Luke, Shannon, and the two FBI agents. Hightower’s partner, sitting next to him, was wiry, high-strung. Hightower had introduced him as Edward Novack. They made an odd couple. Hightower looked as imposing and impassive as a monumental statue. Novack was narrow-eyed, suspicious, somehow crafty-looking.

  Shannon appeared outwardly calm, but she seemed paler than Luke had ever seen her before, and her sea green eyes darted from Hightower to Novack to Luke and back again.

  “I did not kidnap my granddaughter,” Luke said, by way of starting the discussion. “I legally checked her out of the hospital.”

  “And took her across the country,” Novack countered, “without telling the kid’s parents.”

  Hightower looked down at the smaller man. “The charge is kidnapping,” he said to Luke. “You can argue about it with a judge. Our job is to find you.”

  Shannon spoke up. “You said Professor Abramson could remain here.”

  “For the time being.”

  “My granddaughter’s undergoing treatment. She shouldn’t be moved.”

  “The treatment has killed off the child’s brain tumors,” Shannon said, forcing a smile.

  Hightower nodded. “That’s good. I’ll have to see the little girl.”

  “Certainly.”

  “And there’s a Dr. Minteer involved, too, isn’t there?”

  Luke said, “I dragged her along with us. She’s Angela’s physician. She’s been looking after Angie since before we left Massachusetts. You can’t charge her with anything except taking care of her patient.”

  Hightower studied Luke. The professor looks a lot younger than he did a few weeks ago, he realized. Maybe he’s dyed his hair, but his face looks younger, tighter, as if he’s had a really good plastic surgery job.

  Carefully, he said, “It seems this case has attracted the interest of the White House. One of their people is
on his way here to talk with you, Professor.”

  “The White House?” Luke asked.

  Novack looked surprised, too. “Not the Justice Department?”

  “The White House,” Hightower repeated.

  For a moment they were all silent. Then Luke asked, “So what do we do now?”

  “You go on treating your granddaughter,” said Hightower. “I’m going to ask the Bureau office in Salem to send a few men here to make sure you don’t try to leave.”

  “I won’t,” Luke said.

  With a nod and an utterly serious expression on his face, Hightower murmured, “Trust, but verify.”

  Shannon seemed to have recovered her spirit. “I can’t have policemen barging in here.”

  Hightower said, “They’ll stay outside. I just need to make sure that the professor doesn’t sneak away from here.”

  Luke snorted but said nothing.

  “Now I’d like to see the child,” Hightower said.

  * * *

  ANGIE WAS OUTSIDE, walking in the wan sunlight with Tamara. Luke led Hightower and Novack to them. The sky was more than half covered with gray clouds, and the slight breeze felt nippy, but the little girl seemed happy enough, walking alongside Dr. Minteer.

  Hightower was taken aback when he got his first good look at Angela. The kid was supposed to be eight years old, but beneath her woolen cap her face looked old, wrinkled skin stretched over bones, eye sockets big, prominent. Then he saw that there was a cast covering her left wrist.

  “What happened to her arm?” he asked as they approached Angela.

  “Hairline fracture of the wrist,” Luke explained. “She fell down chasing a rabbit.”

  Novack looked skeptical, Hightower sympathetic.

  Luke dropped into a squat beside his granddaughter and introduced the two men. Angela squinted up at Hightower.

  “How tall are you?” she asked.

  Hightower grinned at her. “Just tall enough so that my feet reach the ground.”

  Angela laughed. Tamara, standing beside her, looked him up and down, then pronounced, “Six-four, I’d say.”

  “And a half,” Hightower added.

  “You’re big,” said Angela.