A Treasure Deep (6 page)

“But—”

“Leave it alone, Rose,” Hector commanded. “We
decided to trust Mr. Perry. We’ve made the right choice. Look, he
even brought us more money than we agreed to. Who does that these
days? No one, that’s who. Let him alone.”

Perry could see that Rose was not satisfied,
but there was nothing he could do about that. Secrecy was part of
the deal. They had a right to be curious and he regretted that he
couldn’t bring them into the picture, but sometimes situations
dictated actions.

“Well,” Perry said, rising from the chair.
“I’ve taken enough of your time. I do thank you for your
trust.”

“And I thank you for the check,” Hector
said.

“I can see myself out,” Perry offered. “When
we pack up everything, I’ll come to say good-bye.”

“Gracias,” Hector said, slipping back into
Spanish.

Perry looked at the man in the chair who had
given them the go-ahead to search and dig on his property and
wondered if he would live to see the end of the project. “Via con
Dios, amigo.”

THE ROOM WAS dark, made so by thick plastic blinds
that hung like vault doors against the window wall of the
nineteenth floor of the Straight Building, home and headquarters of
RS BioDynamics. The brilliant late-afternoon sunlight pressed
against the glass and blinds, attempting to fulfill its purpose of
dissolving all darkness. It failed. The room was a sepulcher, and
its lone inhabitant preferred it that way. The darkness’s only
enemy was the soft glow of four computer monitors that did little
more than tint the gloom with muted illumination.

The room was large, a man-made cavern of
extreme expense. The floor was hand-laid teak; the walls were
dressed in thick purple drapes. No pictures hung anywhere. Despite
enough room to hold a houseful of furniture, only a single
glass-topped desk broke the monotonous expanse. There were no
chairs, no sofas, no place for anyone to sit. Such things just
encouraged people to stay longer than the owner cared to entertain
them. It was from this large desk that the computer monitors
trickled forth their anemic light.

Dr. Rutherford Straight was behind the desk
in the only chair he’d sat in for more than six years. His body
leaned forward, swayed from side to side, then bobbed up and down.
His eyes were closed, completing the darkness he craved, but he was
not asleep. His mind was awash with thoughts, ideas flying through
the gray matter like angry hornets around a threatened nest. Music
as dark and thick as the shadowed room bounced from the hard floor
and ceiling. Baritones, sopranos, deep brass tones from horns,
sharp notes from violins and violas filled the space like smoke
from a fire. Mozart’s classical compositions fit the room and its
lone inhabitant as if they’d been hand-tailored by the maestro for
this purpose.

A bell, gentle as a kitten’s mew, added three
notes to the concert. Other men would have missed the addition, but
not Rutherford Straight. Nothing got by him. Fifteen years ago,
just three years out of university with his doctorate, Newsweek
magazine had declared him the “most brilliant scientist since
Pasteur and more significant to the realm of biogenetics than
Gregor Mendel.” Others had joined in the chorus of praise:
Technology Review, Scientific American, the Journal of the American
Medical Association, and twenty other periodicals, scientific and
popular, had shown his face on their covers or in their pages.

His mind made him conspicuous, his research
made him famous, and his forty-eight patents on biological material
and genetically enhanced animals had made him a billionaire. “No
man knows more about the processes of life than Dr. Rutherford
Straight, nor does anyone know how better to make millions from
that knowledge.” The words had been inked in the Wall Street
Journal.

The bell chimed again, but Rutherford ignored
it.

How ironic life had become. How viciously,
bitterly ironic, that a man who knew more than anyone about the
processes of life would have so much of his own existence stripped
away. In college, through graduate school, he had been vibrant,
healthy, and had moved with the spring of youth. He’d been out of
grad school less than a year when he noticed that the sharp edge of
his strength had been dulled. He ignored it. There was research to
do, a company to found, patents to be obtained and defended.
Genetic manipulation of food and animals were the keys to the
future. Humans, too, could be altered, life extended, babies
improved, and much more. Time was one thing he couldn’t control,
and he was therefore committed to not squandering it.

Yet as the days passed, his strength waned.
Graceful walking was replaced with a limp. Standing straight gave
way to wobbling. Soon, too soon, a wheelchair replaced his legs.
That was the way with ALS—Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. His future
was darker than the room in which he sat.

The bell chimed again.

“All right!” Rutherford said. He meant to
shout it, but his days of shouting were gone. At least I still have
a voice, he told himself. He could still speak. He had not had
pneumonia, which afflicted every ALS patient sooner or later, nor
had the affliction forced him to have a tracheotomy—yet. Those
things loomed in his future—unless his plan was successful. Raising
a tremulous hand that wore a thin, stiff brace, he muted the music
in the room and pressed a large button on a console mounted to his
wheelchair. The brace, plastic and leather, provided the strength
his wrist could no longer supply.

The automatic door to his office opened with
a whirring sound, and a tall man with broad shoulders and narrow
waist entered. He was dressed in a dark blue tailored suit. A
yellow silk tie hung from his neck with the precision of a plumb
bob.

Rutherford knew the man well. And he hated
him, hated him for his erect stature and the firm muscles that he
knew were hidden away under the suit. He hated him for his freedom
of mobility, his clear, precise voice, and for the fact that he
didn’t drool, a new indignity Rutherford was forced to endure.

He also loved the man. No employee was more
loyal or enduring. Alexander Olek crossed the threshold, and the
automatic door closed behind him. “I was becoming worried,” he said
in a smooth baritone.

With a tightly-trimmed gray beard that
matched the band of hair that formed a reverse crown on his
otherwise bald head, he could easily be confused with a manservant.
As Rutherford’s constant companion, many had made that assumption.
But Alex was much more than he appeared. He’d come on staff as
“personal security” for Rutherford when a disgruntled competitor
had threatened his life for stealing pharmaceutical trade secrets.
The accusation had led to a bitter lawsuit in the civil courts. The
competitor lost the suit and, financially ruined beyond any hope of
salvage, committed suicide a month later. Rutherford had sent
flowers. It was the least he could do, or so he told himself.

“I’m fine. I was just thinking,” Rutherford
replied. His words came intermittently and were often slurred.
“Have we heard?”

“An early report,” Alex answered. “The
flyover went well, and our man is back in Bakersfield. He’s waiting
for the pictures which should be ready within the half hour.”

“He’s sending the images by e-mail?”
Rutherford asked. He struggled to keep his head up and his eyes
fixed on his aide.

“Yes. As attachments.”

“He knows to encrypt everything?”

“Yes, he’s a professional,” Alex offered.
“The e-mail account cannot be traced to us.”

“But he’s not one of us. He’s outside the
office, a hired hand.”

“That’s right. A private detective. I
personally checked his references. He’s tenacious.”

“Just so long as he’s not stupid. Does he
know why we want the pictures?”

“No. I allowed him to believe that it was a
business survey. He was happy with that and asked no
questions.”

“Except what he’d be paid.”

Alex nodded. “He did ask about that, but he
was happy with what I offered.”

“Can he be bought off? Can someone else get
to him?”

“Perhaps in regard to his other cases, but
not this one. I made it clear that I wouldn’t tolerate such a
breach of trust. He understood the danger to his health.”

“I assume that he doesn’t know that he’s
working for RS BioDynamics.”

“I buried the paperwork in a fictitious
business. He can’t trace anything back to us.”

“Were they there?” Rutherford asked. He
closed his mouth and concentrated on swallowing the saliva that had
accumulated. Swallowing was becoming more difficult each week. He
wondered how long he had before all his nutrients would come to him
through a tube in his stomach.

“Sachs Engineering? Yes, and our man said he
saw a fair amount of equipment. It appears they came to dig, not
just hunt.”

Rutherford worked his jaw up and down. “They
must be confident of the location.” He swore quietly. He wanted to
scream the words, but just making them audible was difficult
enough. “This accelerates things.”

“We still have time,” Alex said.

“Only the healthy have time, Alex. Every
minute that ticks by, I move closer to the grave.”

“I suppose that’s true for all of us.”

“It’s not,” Rutherford snapped in a whisper.
“True, we all die, but I’m slipping away faster. Velocity and
acceleration. Velocity and acceleration. I’m falling into the open
maw of death quickly and picking up speed. My seconds are your
hours; my minutes your days. I have more money than time and
without the latter, the former means nothing.”

“Of course,” Alex conceded.

“How did they get there before us? How did we
let them take the lead?”

“I guess it all goes back to the alley, sir.
If Perry Sachs hadn’t interfered, our man would have had the
document sooner. Then we would have had all that was needed. Of
course, there were the translation problems.”

“But he did interfere,” Rutherford said. “He
showed up on his white horse and made a fool of the man you
hired.”

“Yes, sir, he did,” Alex agreed. “It was
unfortunate.”

“It was more than that! It was disastrous. My
life is tied up in this. That’s not hyperbole, Alex. I mean it
literally. This is my last hope, and it’s a flimsy hope at best.
Thin as it is, I have no intention of letting it pass. I want that
material. It’s the only treasure that matters to me. Is that
clear?”

“It is, Mr. Straight.”

“This isn’t going to be easy. There’s
something about this Sachs Engineering. I assume you’ve done the
same research I have.”

“I have. They have money, equipment, and
expertise in building. They may prove formidable.”

“This same Perry Sachs leads the team?”

“Yes. He has the authority to move equipment
and personnel. If our research is right, he always takes the lead
on the bigger projects. Compared to what they’ve built around the
world, this project is small potatoes as far as construction goes,
but if he knows what’s below the ground—and I think we have to
assume that he does—then this will far exceed anything else he is
likely to do.”

“We can’t let word get out, Alex. We simply
can’t. Nor can we let them head off into the sunset with our
prize.”

“Agreed.”

“I want you to oversee the actual operation,
Alex. No more outside hirelings. Understood? Get the pictures, pay
off the private eye, and make sure he doesn’t connect the dig with
us. Do what you have to.”

“It will be handled. We do have one
advantage,” Alex added. “Apparently the site is isolated. The
closest town is two miles away.”

“We need all the breaks we can get. I want
you to send everything you’ve learned to my computer. Send the
pictures too when they come in. I’m going to be involved from
beginning to end on this. I have to be.”

“I understand,” Alex said. As usual, he
showed no emotion. It was one of the things Rutherford appreciated
about Alex. He never coddled him, never patronized him.

Rutherford pressed the large button on his
wheelchair console, and the door to his office swung open again.
“There is no time to waste.”

The moment Alex crossed the threshold,
Rutherford returned his attention to the four monitors before him.
Two displayed video pictures of the eight laboratories that filled
three of the lower floors. The images changed as the surveillance
program cycled through various cameras. At any time, Rutherford
could touch a button with his hand that was still responsive and
cause the system to focus on just one location. He could then zoom
in or out to see the various projects being conducted under his
name. From his desk he could speak to the scientists and direct
their research without leaving his office. There were over forty
different cameras in the building, and he had immediate access to
any of them.

The other two monitors were program displays.
On one was a spreadsheet of a transgenic experiment whose results
would be published next month. He was pleased with what he saw.
Officially, over three billion dollars was spent worldwide in
developing genetically enhanced plants. A comparable amount was
spent on genetically altering animals. The real numbers were much
higher. RS Bio-Dynamics alone spent that much, and they were just
one of the fish in the sea—albeit the largest one. The other
monitor was a written report regarding another successful
experiment. But unlike the previous experiment, which would be
published in a major scientific journal, this one would never see
the light of day. The world, Rutherford had decided, was too
backward to appreciate what he and his team had done.

The world had changed, and most people didn’t
even know it. While the media discussed the ramifications and
ethics of animal and human cloning, almost no one mentioned the
“blending” milestones that had happened in the last five years. In
2002, Japanese scientists successfully combined vegetable matter
with an animal by inserting a spinach gene known as FAD2 into a
fertilized pig embryo which was implanted in a sow’s womb. The end
result was the birth of pigs designed to give healthier pork.