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CH047

T
here was
no moon and no sound, except the booming of the surf in the darkness and the whine of the damp wind. Tortuguero beach extended for more than a mile along the rough Atlantic coast of Costa Rica, but tonight it was no more than a dark strip that merged with a black, starry sky. Julio Manarez paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark. A man can see by starlight, if he takes the time.

Soon he could make out the palm trunks and debris scattered over the dark sand, and the low, scrubby plants whipped by the wind off the ocean. He could just see whitecaps in the churning seas. The ocean, he knew, was filled with sharks. This stretch of the Atlantic coast was bleak and inhospitable.

A quarter mile down the beach he saw Manuel, a dark shape hunched beneath the mangroves. He was keeping out of the wind. There was no one else on the beach.

Julio started toward him, passing the deep pits dug by the turtles in previous days. This beach was one of the breeding grounds for leatherback turtles, which came up from the ocean in darkness to lay their eggs. The process took most of the night, and the turtles were vulnerable—in the old days, to poachers, and now mostly to the jaguars that roamed the beach, black as the night itself. As the newly appointed conservation chief of the region, Julio was well aware that turtles were killed every week along this coast.

Tourists helped prevent this; if tourists were walking the beach, the
jaguars stayed away. But often the cats came after midnight, when the tourists had gone home to their hotels.

It was possible to imagine an evolutionary selection pressure producing some defense against the jaguar. When he was in graduate school, in San Juan, he and the other students used to joke about it. Were tourists agents of evolution? Tourists changed everything else about a country, why not its wildlife? Because if a turtle happened to possess some quality—perhaps a tolerance for flashlights, or the ability to make a plaintive, pained mothering sound—if they had something that drew tourists and kept them hanging around into the night, then those turtles would be more likely to survive, and their eggs more likely to survive, and their offspring more likely to survive.

Differential survival that resulted from being a tourist attraction. That had been the joke, in school. But, of course, it was theoretically possible. And if what Manuel was telling him was true…

Manuel saw him and waved. He stood as Julio approached. “This way,” he said, and started down the beach.

“You find more than one tonight, Julio?”

“Just one. Of that kind I was speaking of.”

“Muy bien.”

They walked down the beach in silence. But they had not gone far—perhaps a hundred yards or so—when Julio saw the faint purple glow, low to the sand, and pulsing slightly.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Manuel said.

She was a female
of perhaps one hundred kilos, a meter and a quarter long. She had characteristic shell plates, about the size of his palm. Brownish, streaked with black. She was half buried in the sand, digging a pit at the rear with her flippers.

Julio stood over her and watched.

“It starts and stops,” Manuel said.

And then it began again. A purple glow that seemed to emanate from within the individual plates of the shell. Some plates did not have
the glow and were dark. Some glowed only occasionally. Others glowed each time. Each pulse seemed to last about a second, rising quickly, fading slowly.

“So how many turtles like this have you seen?” Julio said.

“This is the third.”

“And this light keeps the jaguars away?” He continued to watch the soft pulsing. He felt that the quality of the glow was oddly familiar. Almost like a firefly. Or a glowing bacterium in the surf. Something he had seen before.

“Yes, the jaguars keep their distance.”

“Wait a minute,” Julio said. “What is this?” He pointed to the shell, where a pattern of light and dark plates emerged.

“It only happens sometimes.”

“But you see it?”

“Yes, I see it.”

“It looks like a hexagon.”

“I don’t know…”

“But it is like a symbol, wouldn’t you say? Of a corporation?”

“Perhaps, yes. It is possible.”

“What about the other turtles? They show this pattern?”

“No, each one is different.”

“So this might be a random pattern that just happens to look like a hexagon?”

“Yes. Julio, I believe it is. Because you see the image on the shell is not so good, it is not symmetrical…” Even as he spoke, the image faded. The turtle was dark again.

“Can you photograph this pattern?”

“I already have. It is a time exposure, without the flash, so there is some blurring. But, yes, I have it.”

“Good,” Julio said. “Because this is a genetic change. Let’s review the visitor log, and see who might have done this.”

CH048

J
osh.”
It was his mother, on the phone.

“Yes, Mom.”

“I thought you should know. You remember Lois Graham’s son, Eric, who was on heroin? There’s been a terrible tragedy. He died.”

Josh gave a long sigh. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “How?”

“In a car crash. But then they did the autopsy or whatever. Eric had a fatal heart attack. He was twenty-one, Josh.”

“Was it in the family? Some congenital thing?”

“No. Eric’s father lives in Switzerland; he’s sixty-four. He climbs mountains. And Lois is fine. Of course she’s crushed. We’re all crushed.”

Josh said nothing.

“Things were going so well for Eric. He was off drugs, he had a new job, he’d applied to go back to school in the fall…he was getting bald, was the only thing. People thought he’d had chemo. He’d lost so much hair. And he walked stooped over. Josh? Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“I saw him last week. He looked like an old man.”

Josh said nothing.

“The family’s sitting. You ought to go.”

“I’ll try.”

“Josh. Your brother looks old, too.”

“I know.”

“I tried to tell him it was like his father. To cheer him up. But Adam just looks
so old.
”

“I know.”

“What’s going on?” she said. “What have you done to him?”

“What have
I
done?”

“Yes, Josh. You gave these people some gene. Or whatever that spray was. And they’re getting old.”

“Mom. Adam did it to himself. He sucked down the spray himself because he thought it’d get him high. I wasn’t even with him at the time. And you asked me to give the spray to Lois Graham’s son.”

“I don’t know how you could think such a thing.”

“You called me up.”

“Josh, you’re being ridiculous. Why would I call? I don’t know anything about your work.
You
called
me
, and asked where Eric lived. And you asked me not to tell his mother. That’s what I remember.”

Josh said nothing. He pressed the tips of his fingers against his closed eyes until he saw bright patterns. He wanted to escape. He wanted to leave this office, this company. He wanted none of this to be true.

“Mom,” he said finally. “This could be very serious.” He was thinking that he could go to jail.

“Of course it’s serious. I’m very frightened now, Josh. What’s going to happen? Am I going to lose my son?”

“I don’t know, Mom. I hope not.”

“I think there’s a chance,” she said. “Because I called up the Levines in Scarsdale. They’re already old, the two of them. Past sixty. And they sounded just fine. Helen said she was never better. George is playing a lot of golf.”

“That’s good,” he said.

“So maybe they’re okay.”

“I think so.”

“Then maybe Adam will be okay, too.”

“I really hope so, Mom. I really do.”

He got off the phone. Of course the Levines were fine. He had sent
sterile saline in the spray tubes. They hadn’t gotten the gene. He wasn’t about to send his experimental genes to some people in New York he didn’t know.

And if this gave his mother hope, then fine. Keep it that way.

Because right now, Josh didn’t hold out much hope. Not for his brother. And ultimately not for himself.

He was going to have to tell Rick Diehl. But not now. Not right now.

CH049

G
ail Bond’s
husband, Richard, the investment banker, often worked late entertaining important clients. And none was more important than the American sitting across the table from him now: Barton Williams, the famous Cleveland investor.

“You want a surprise for your wife, Barton?” Richard Bond said. “I believe I have just the thing.”

Hunched down over the dinner table, Williams looked up with only slight interest. Barton Williams was seventy-five, and closely resembled a toad. He had a jowly, droopy face with large pores, a broad, flat nose, and bug eyes. His habit of placing his arms flat on the table and resting his chin on his fingers made him look even more like a toad. In fact, he was resting an arthritic neck, since he disliked wearing a brace. He felt it made him look old.

He could lie flat on the table, as far as Richard Bond was concerned. Williams was old enough and rich enough to do whatever he wanted, and what he had always wanted, all his life, was women. Despite age and appearance, he continued to have them in prodigious quantities, at all times of day. Richard had arranged for several women to drop by the table at the end of the meal. They would be members of his staff, dropping off papers for him. Or old girlfriends, coming by for a kiss and an introduction. A few would be other diners, admirers of the great investor, and so dazzled they had to come and meet him.

None of this fooled Barton Williams, but it amused him, and he
expected his business partners to go to a little trouble for him. When you were worth ten billion dollars, people made an effort to keep you happy. That was how it worked. He viewed it as a tribute.

Yet at this particular moment, more than anything else, Barton Williams wanted to placate his wife of forty years. For inexplicable reasons, Evelyn, at age sixty, was suddenly dissatisfied with her marriage and with Barton’s endless escapades, as she referred to them.

A present would help. “But it better be damn good,” Barton said. “She’s accustomed to everything. Villas in France, yachts in Sardinia, jewelry from Winston, chefs flown in from Rome for her dog’s birthday. That’s the problem. I can’t buy her off anymore. She’s sixty and jaded.”

“I promise you, this present is unique in the world,” Richard said. “Your wife loves animals, does she not?”

“Has her own damn zoo, right on the property.”

“And she keeps birds?”

“Christ. Must be a hundred. We got finches in the damn sun room. Chitter all day. She breeds ’em.”

“And parrots?”

“Every kind. None talk, thank God. She never had much luck with parrots.”

“Her luck is about to change.”

Barton sighed. “She doesn’t want another damn parrot.”

“She wants this one,” Richard said. “It’s the only one like it in the world.”

“I’m leaving at six tomorrow morning,” Barton grumbled.

“It’ll be waiting on your plane,” Richard said.

CH050

R
ob Bellarmino
smiled reassuringly. “Just ignore the cameras,” he said to the kids. They had set up in the school library of George Washington High in Silver Spring, Maryland. Three semicircles of chairs around a central chair, where Dr. Bellarmino sat while he talked to the students about the ethical issues of genetics.

The TV people had three cameras going, one at the back of the room, one at the side, close on Bellarmino, and one facing the kids, to record their expressions of fascination as they heard about the life of a working geneticist at the NIH. According to the show’s producer, it was important to show Bellarmino’s interaction with the community, and he could not have agreed more. The kids were specially picked to be bright and knowledgeable.

He thought it would be fun.

He spoke about his background and training for a few minutes, and then took questions. The first one made him pause. “Dr. Bellarmino,” a young Asian girl asked, “what is your opinion of that woman in Texas who cloned her dead cat?”

In fact, Bellarmino thought the whole dead-cat business was ridiculous. He thought it diminished the important work he and others were doing. But he couldn’t say that.

“Of course, this is a difficult, emotional situation,” Bellarmino said diplomatically. “We are all fond of our pets, but…” He hesitated. “This work was done by a California company called Genetic Savings
and Clone, and it was reported that the cost was fifty thousand dollars.”

“Do you think it’s ethical to clone a pet cat?” the girl asked.

“As you know,” he said, “quite a few animals have now been cloned, including sheep, mice, dogs, and cats. So it has become rather unremarkable…One concern is that a cloned animal does not have the same life span as a normal animal.”

Another student said, “Is it ethical to pay fifty thousand dollars to clone a pet, when so many people are starving in the world?”

Bellarmino groaned inwardly. How was he going to change the subject? “I am not enthusiastic about this procedure,” he said. “But I would not go so far as to call it unethical.”

“Isn’t it unethical because it makes a climate of normality to clone a human being?”

“I don’t think cloning a pet has any effect on the issues concerning human cloning.”

“Would it be ethical to clone a human being?”

“Fortunately,” Bellarmino said, “that issue is quite far in the future. Today, I hope we might consider real contemporary issues. We have people who express concerns about genetically modified foods; we have concerns about gene therapy, and stem cells; and these are real issues. Do any of you share that concern?” A young boy in the back raised his hand. “Yes?”

“Do you think it is possible to clone a human being?” the boy asked.

“Yes, I think it is possible. Not now, but eventually.”

“When?”

“I wouldn’t want to guess when. Are there questions on a different subject?” Another hand. “Yes?”

“In your opinion, is human cloning unethical?”

Again, Bellarmino hesitated. He was acutely aware his response was going to be broadcast on television. And who could know how the network would edit his remarks? They’d probably do their best to make him look as bad as possible. Reporters had a distinct prejudice against
people of faith. And his words also carried professional weight, because he ran a division of NIH.

“You’ve probably heard a lot about cloning, and most of it is untrue. Speaking as a scientist, I must admit I see nothing inherently wrong with cloning. I see no moral issue. It is just another genetic procedure. We already have done it with a variety of animals, as I have mentioned. However, I also know that the procedure of cloning has a high failure rate. Many animals die before one is successfully cloned. Clearly that would be unacceptable for human beings. So, for the moment, I regard cloning as a non-problem.”

“Isn’t cloning playing God?”

“I personally wouldn’t define the issue that way,” he said. “If God has made human beings, and made the rest of the world, then clearly God has made the tools of genetic engineering. So, in that sense, God has already made genetic modification available. That is the work of God, not man. And, as always, it is up to us to use wisely what God has given us.” He felt better after this; it was one of his stock answers.

“So is cloning a wise use of what God has given us?”

Against his every instinct, he wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. He hoped they wouldn’t use that bit of film, although he was sure they would. Young kids sweat the head of NIH. “Some people think they know what God intends,” he said. “But I don’t believe I know. I don’t believe anyone can know that, except God. I think anyone who says he knows God’s intention is showing a lot of very human ego.”

He wanted to glance at his watch, but he didn’t. The kids were looking quizzical, not enraptured, as he had expected.

“There’s a great range of genetic issues,” he said. “Let’s move on.”

“Dr. Bellarmino,” said a kid to the left, “I wanted to ask about antisocial personality disorder. I’ve read there is a gene for it, and it’s associated with violence and crime, sociopathic behavior…”

“Yes, that’s true. The gene appears in about two percent of the population around the world.”

“What about New Zealand? It is in thirty percent of the white New Zealand population, and sixty percent of the Maori population…”

“That’s been reported, but you must be careful—”

“But doesn’t that mean violence is hereditary? I mean, shouldn’t we be trying to get rid of this gene, the way we got rid of smallpox?”

Bellarmino paused. He was starting to wonder how many of these kids had parents who worked in Bethesda. He hadn’t thought to ask for the names of the kids in advance. But the questions from these kids were too knowledgeable, too relentless. Was one of his many enemies trying to discredit him, by using these kids? Was the whole network plan a trap to make him look bad? The first step toward pushing him out of NIH? This was the information age; it was how such things were done today. Arrange to make you look bad, make you look weak. Push you to say something foolish, and then watch your words repeated over and over for the next forty-eight hours on every cable news show and in every newspaper column. Next, have congressmen call for you to retract your statements. Clucking tongues, shaking heads…How could he be so insensitive? Was he really suited for the job? Wasn’t he really a liability at his post?

And then you were out.

That was how it was done, these days.

Now Bellarmino was facing a dangerously loaded question about Maori genetics. Should he say what he really believed, and risk being accused of demeaning a downtrodden ethnic minority? Did he mute his comments, but still risk criticism for promoting eugenics? How, actually, could he say anything at all?

He decided he couldn’t. “You know,” he said, “that’s an extremely interesting area of research, but we just don’t know enough yet to answer. Next question?”