Mark of the Wiseman (The Wiseman Series Book 1)

by Hightower, R. Caresse

  When the man left, the Lao girl looked up at Dr. Chang.

  “What are you looking at?” he complained.

  Dr. Chang looked at her arm, and she followed suit, straining to see what he was doing. He wrote down the number from her arm before scrubbing his hands at a large, stainless steel sink.

  A woman in scrubs walked in. “Got another one, huh?”

  Dr. Chang nodded.

  “Last one?”

  “I have four more,” he said.

  Lynn pulled a metal cart draped with a white cloth toward her. She and Dr. Chang slipped on latex gloves and Lynn removed the cloth, revealing a row of shining metal instruments. She checked the bottom of the cart.

  “Where is it?” she asked.

  “I was in a hurry.”

  “You don’t have it?”

  “No.”

  She gave him an incredulous look. “You want to do this without sedation?”

  “Yes. Now stop gawking and let’s get started. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  He tightened the gag on the girl’s mouth.

  Lynn’s look was disapproving, but she picked up the ultrasound probe with an aspiration needle attached to it. “If you want me to do this without sedation, you’re going to need to hold her legs down.”

  Iris writhed on her cot as her abdomen convulsed. She was back underground with the other girls and the Chinese man was forcing pills into her mouth. She choked when he poured water down her throat.

  As she coughed and sputtered, he said something to her. He repeated it. She didn’t know what to do. She could tell he was mad again, but she didn’t understand what he wanted from her. He grabbed her jaw and looked into her mouth. He said something else and let go. Turning to the rest of the room, he yelled something, then went up the stairs and slammed the door.

  Khone leaned close to Iris, her oversized gown exposing a tan shoulder.

  “Are you alright?”

  Iris turned and squinted at her. It took several seconds before she could focus. Khone’s shoulder-length, jet-black hair was mussed and her tired, brown eyes were bloodshot. Dried blood dotted her cracked lips, and there was a bruise on her face. Despite her current appearance, Iris could tell that Khone was a beautiful girl.

  “Hmm.” Iris cringed against another cramp. “I’m bleeding.”

  Khone looked down and saw Iris’s soiled gown. “It will stop.”

  Ratana spoke. “You’re lucky they didn’t kill you.”

  Khone looked over Iris’s shoulder as Iris carefully twisted on her cot.

  “They killed a girl for fighting before,” Ratana said.

  “How long have you been here?” Khone asked.

  “I don’t know.” Ratana covered her mouth and coughed. Iris saw a number and puncture marks on her arm. Her wrist was bruised where the shackle clamped against her bone. Her hair still held remnants of dirt and twigs.

  “Will he ever let us go?” Iris asked.

  Ratana shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. I have asked others, but no one knows. Some of these girls don’t even speak our language.”

  Khone’s eyes filled with tears and she let her head rest on the brick wall. “We’re going to die here.”

  Iris and Ratana looked at each other, but said nothing else.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Late the following summer, William swore loudly at the control pad. A single flat line scrolled across the screen. The gestation time read twenty-three weeks.

  He looked at Dr. Chang. “That was the last one.”

  Dr. Chang pulled a binder off a shelf and turned around in the tight space of the storage closet, making a few notes. “Just under six months. We were close.”

  “Have you heard from New Life?”

  “No. I think eleven embryos are all we’re going to get from them.”

  William entered the delivery codes into the control pad and the fluid started to drain from the pod.

  “So the adjustment you made to the viability exchange unit didn’t work,” Dr. Chang said.

  After their previous failures, William concluded that the trace vitamins in the unit were insufficient.

  “I wouldn’t say that.” William put on a pair of latex gloves. “This one lasted longer than any of the others. I think adjusting the unit was helpful… it just wasn’t enough. I wish we could keep going.”

  “We’re down to our last box of RespirGel. Liling says she can’t get anymore.”

  The pod opened and William lifted the fetus and placenta interface. “I need to think about this. I can’t afford to make any more mistakes.”

  Dr. Chang’s phone rang. “It’s Liling.”

  “Put it on speaker, please.”

  Dr. Chang answered. “Hey, Liling. I’ve got you on speaker. William’s here.”

  “Hi, Dr. Chang, Dr. Wiseman. I just saw the alert. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me too,” William said.

  “Do you need me to do anything?”

  “No,” William said. “I think it’s time to take a break for a while. Thanks.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Okay. Bye.” Liling hung up.

  Dr. Chang put the phone in his pocket. “So…?”

  “So that’s it. We take a sabbatical.” William picked up the bucket of pod fluid.

  Dr. Chang looked as though he wanted to say something.

  “What?” William asked.

  “Nothing.” Dr. Chang pointed to the open pod. “Need help with clean up?”

  “No. Since you usually do it, I figure it’s my turn anyway. Let me give this some thought. I’ll get back to you after exams.”

  Biltmore’s campus was quiet. Most of the faculty and students had started Christmas break. William holed himself into his supply closet, without Dr. Chang or Liling, and implanted one of his and Eve’s embryos. He disabled their remote access from the control pad so they wouldn’t see the active pod.

  Now the deed was done and it was too late to wonder if it had truly been the right thing.

  He didn’t want to answer any questions. He didn’t want them to know what he’d done... what he’d been doing. Introducing recombinant DNA into a fetus was never discussed in their meetings. It was a personal consideration from the start, but William felt it prudent not to mention it.

  After he used his IGF-1 mimic, and the last fetus was still underweight with underdeveloped organs, he knew he’d have to find something more effective, more powerful. Even in the midst of their illegality, altering human DNA felt off limits. But again, what was done was done.

  William looked into the pod, at the placenta interface where his son or daughter lay.

  “I’ve done everything I can, little one. It’s all on you now. Don’t let me down.” He rested his forehead on the pod and closed his eyes. “Don’t let us down.”

  Sterling found William in the break room. “Dr. Wiseman?”

  William finished pouring his coffee. “Good morning, Sterling.”

  “Good morning. How was your New Year?”

  “Not bad. Yours?”

  “I didn’t really do much.” Sterling fiddled with his clipboard and lowered his voice. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  “Sure.”

  Sterling looked over his shoulder. “Can we go to your office?”

  “Of course.”

  William walked upstairs to his office with Sterling in tow.

  “I, uh, was doing the equipment inventory for last year and Dr. Chang seems to have ordered a lot of stuff.”

  William shrugged. “Okay.”

  “I can’t find anything he ordered. Some of it isn’t even itemized, which makes reconciliation impossible. I don’t even know how he got it past Purchasing.”

  “I’m sorry that happened, but I’m not sure how I can help you.”

  Sterling unclipped a manila envelope from his board and handed it to William. “Some of the items were purchased for a study you and he are supposed to be
working on.”

  William sifted through some of the papers from the envelope. “We just finished some data cleaning. We wouldn’t be making any purchases.”

  Sterling nodded. “I’ve asked Dr. Chang about the equipment and he told me it was in a lab in Wilson Hall. It wasn’t there.”

  “Did you check upstairs?”

  “I’ve checked everywhere. Twice.”

  William looked at the envelope in his hands.

  “His assistant told me he’s gone to a conference in California and won’t be back until next week. I can’t wait that long. I need to find this stuff.”

  “Can you let me talk to him? I’ll get back with you after I do.”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  William nodded. “Don’t mention it.”

  After Sterling left, William went over the equipment list that was ordered under William’s unrestricted account. Dr. Chang even forged William’s signature on a few lines. It did look like his handwriting, but William had never seen these forms before.

  “What the hell?”

  William tightened his grip on the pages until they wrinkled in his fist. Dr. Chang had ordered parts to build an amniotic tank. It was the same list he and Dr. Chang had made prior to Penelope’s cooperation. It was the list that was supposed to have been discarded.

  He doubted that even if he confronted Dr. Chang, he’d get the truth; and if anyone found out about this, it could implicate William.

  He had to find out on his own.

  William waited until dark before he made the drive to Dr. Chang’s neighborhood. He pulled into the driveway and looked around to see if anyone was watching. Thankfully, there was a row of evergreens that hid him from the neighbors. He checked under the doormat for a spare key. When he didn’t find one, he looked under a couple of empty flower pots.

  Nothing.

  He got the tire iron out of the trunk and walked to the back door. He pried it open quickly and closed it behind him. Dr. Chang had entertained many times here and William knew his way around. The house was decorated tastefully, but sparingly. There was hardly a place to hide anything. William made a quick sweep of the entire house, finishing in the kitchen. He even checked the refrigerator.

  “Well, that’s it then,” he said to a block of cheese.

  It was time to leave. How would he explain the breakin? He cocked his head. Technically, anyone could have broken in, but what if one of the neighbors saw him driving to or away from the house? William needed a cover story.

  On the way out, as he tried to conjure up a tale, he dropped his car keys. When he bent down to get them, he noticed the hardwood floors were scratched. No, not scratched. Gouged. Something heavy had been pulled or pushed across the area. He looked around and saw that the legs to the china cabinet matched the gouges in the floor. William pressed his face against the wall and peered behind the cabinet. There was a door.

  “What in the world?”

  William’s arms strained as he pushed the heavy piece of furniture away from the clandestine door. There was a padlock on it. William worked on the lock with his tire iron, but made slow progress. He studied his options. He wouldn’t be able to get the padlock off, but the hinges attaching the door to the frame looked promising. He worked on them instead. This better not be an insane stash of weird porn, he thought.

  He was perspiring by the time he pried off the last piece of metal. The door yielded slowly, opening on the wrong side. He turned his head away sharply and took a step back from the stench. Someone had tried to mask the odor with bleach. Covering his mouth and nose with the crook of his elbow, William descended a flight of stairs he never knew existed. He steeled himself for what could only be dead bodies.

  “What the…?”

  In the weak, flickering light of a naked bulb overhead, William saw gurneys lined up. He saw bare feet, legs and the hems of hospital gowns as the room opened up in front of him. Five sickly looking young women chained to the walls stared at him in silent horror, their eyes sunken, their faces pale. One of them tried to ball up and hide her face behind her knees.

  “Dear God,” William breathed, fumbling for his cell phone and still trying to process what he was seeing. He dialed without looking and lifted the phone to his ear.

  “My name is William Wiseman,” he said to the operator. “I need the police and EMS immediately.”

  Dr. Chang’s cul-de-sac flickered with red, blue, and yellow lights. William’s car had long since been blocked in by police cars, ambulances, and black SUVs.

  The house swarmed with people. Exchanges from police radios crackled as William followed Agent Roswell from Homeland Security through the living room and down to the basement. They sidestepped a man dusting for fingerprints and made way for the medical examiner.

  This was the third body bag William had seen.

  Paramedics were carefully helping girls out of the basement after they’d been cut free from their chains. They were crying and wailing in languages he didn’t recognize.

  William felt a tug and turned around. One of the girls had a fistful of his coat and was sobbing an unfamiliar phrase repeatedly.

  “Khawp jai lai lai! Khawp jai lai lai!”

  “You’ll be okay now,” William said to her, noticing the markings on her arm. “You’ll be okay.”

  Her eyes started to close and she wilted to the floor. William caught her before she hit the concrete. A paramedic quickly appeared and swept her away, calling for oxygen.

  Agent Roswell chomped noisily on his gum. He flipped through a small notepad and made a beeline to the far side of the basement.

  William watched another body bag pass by. “How many are there?”

  “Don’t know yet, but if you know anything about these young women, I suggest you tell me.”

  “I told you I don’t know anything about this.”

  Agent Roswell dropped his chin and looked at William. “We’ll see.”

  William swallowed. Everything was moving too quickly. After the police inspected Dr. Chang’s basement, they’d contacted Homeland Security. It was only a matter of time before they searched Dr. Chang’s office at Biltmore. That was just too close for comfort. William needed to get to his own office, but was being detained by Agent Roswell.

  They walked out into the front yard. News reporters were pushing against the yellow caution tape that had been placed around the perimeter. They called William’s name, trying to get a statement. He turned his face away from the cameras and tapped Agent Roswell on the shoulder.

  “I’m not sure I can do anything else for you. Can you ask your men to move their cars? My wife is expecting me.”

  “Oh, you might want to call and let her know you’re going to be a little late. We’re not even close to being done here. You broke into this man’s house.”

  William closed and opened his eyes slowly. “I know.”

  Agent Roswell looked at him wryly. “And you thought you were just going to leave?”

  “I’ll pay for the damages.”

  Agent Roswell harrumphed. “Uh, you’ll do more than that, doctor.” He flipped through his notepad. “Now let me get this straight. You said that you suspected Dr. Chang of having some lab equipment at his house.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that according to this,” Agent Roswell held up the manila envelope Sterling had given to William, “you felt that the equipment could erroneously implicate you for misappropriating industry funding?”

  William nodded.

  “So… you thought it was a good idea to just break into this man’s house instead of going through the proper channels.”

  “Okay, yeah. I may have overreacted.”

  “May have?”

  William rolled his eyes. “I made a mistake. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  “Well, you can think about it on the way downtown.”

  “Are you charging me with anything?”

  “Not formally, but we do want to talk to you. If you need a little motivati
on, breaking and entering is on the table.” Agent Roswell tilted his head toward the reporters. “I’ll leave off the handcuffs as a… professional courtesy.”

  William clenched his teeth. What choice did he have? If he cooperated, he had a chance of getting out of this. It was slim, but still a chance.

  Liling hadn’t answered his calls. William had tried her four times before the police arrived. All he got was her voicemail and he couldn’t leave a message without offering proof that he was into something completely illegal. What could he have said? “The eagle has left the nest. Get the you-know-what out of the you-know-where. Wink, wink.”

  Agent Roswell spoke to a young man, then pointed to William’s car.

  “Follow me,” Agent Roswell said to William.

  Finally, some privacy, William thought. He really needed to contact Liling. When he unlocked his car, the young man opened the passenger door.

  “Whoa, what are you doing?”

  “Oh,” Agent Roswell said. “That’s Agent Weaver. I asked him to give you some company. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Is this standard procedure?” William asked. “I would like some privacy on my way to the station.”

  “I’m sure you would.” Agent Roswell smiled. “Drive safely.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When they arrived downtown, William was escorted into a room. Agent Roswell stood next to a table covered with stainless steel and glass parts, rubber hoses, two laptops, an empty IV bag, and a zip-top bag with a teaspoon of pink gel. He indicated a chair at the table. “Have a seat. We found these in Dr. Chang’s basement. Does any of it look familiar?”

  “Of course.” William sat down. “You can find these in any lab.”

  “Why would Dr. Chang have them in his house?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Oh, I think you have some idea, doctor.”

  “I don’t.” William hated the way Agent Roswell said “doctor.” It sounded derogatory.

  Agent Roswell smiled, but there was nothing friendly about the gesture. He pushed the IV bag toward William. “This says ‘Lactated Ringer’s solution.’ What’s it used for?”