Shock (42 page)

"Are you two trying to suggest to me that you are not disturbed by this episode?" Spencer asked.

Paul and Sheila exchanged glances.

"We certainly take it as a serious event," Sheila said. "It's a learning experience as we said. But it has been contained just like the episode involving the anesthetic catastrophe. Even if this episode with these two meddling women had not ended so auspiciously, we would have been able to cope."

"Listen, Spencer," Paul said. He leaned forward and rubbed his hands together, and then held them up in a conciliatory gesture.

"Like I said last night during our discussion, researchwise we are sitting on a virtual gold mine. With what we are learning from our cloning work in terms of generating stem cells, we will be the biotech leaders of the twenty-first century. Cloning and stem cells are going to revolutionize medicine, and we're going to be at the forefront."

"You make it sound so rosy," Spencer said.

"That's exactly the same adjective I use to describe it to myself," Paul said. "It is rosy! Very rosy!"

The latch on Spencer's office door clicked loudly. Spencer, Paul, and Sheila turned to look. All were taken aback by the interruption. The secretary's face appeared around the door.

"What is it, Gladys?" Spencer demanded. "I said we were not to be disturbed."

"It's Mr. Hermann," the secretary said meekly. "He needs to speak to Dr. Saunders. He said it was an emergency."

Paul stood up. A questioning expression clouded his face. He excused himself and followed the distraught secretary out of the room. One look at Kurt caused a meltdown of all the nonchalance and composure Paul had been studiously maintaining.

"We've got a major problem," Kurt sputtered.

"Why are you out of breath?"

"I've run all the way up from the gatehouse."

Paul snapped open the door to his office and motioned Kurt inside. Paul closed the door behind them. "Well?"

"There's a United States attorney down at the gatehouse," Kurt blurted, running his words together.

"Slow down!" Paul ordered. "What's he doing here?"

"He's got a search warrant, and he and some federal marshals are going through the gatehouse. Plus they're demanding entrance onto the grounds."

"How the hell did he get a search warrant?" Paul was stunned.

"I asked. Apparently it was due to a complaint by a doctor by the name of Carlton Williams."

"Never heard of him."

"His father is some Texan big shot with connections to the Justice Department. The problem is, this Carlton Williams knows the women were here last night and didn't return home."

"Shit!" Paul snapped. "Where are the women now?"

"They're still in the gatehouse basement."

"Has the U.S. Attorney found them?"

"I don't know. I ran up here as soon as I was able to put them off for five minutes. They're threatening to bring in a SWAT team if we don't cooperate."

"Threatening is good," Paul said, regaining some composure. "At least they didn't show up with a SWAT team. That gives us a good half hour, minimum. Let's activate a code red. You get to Randy Porter. Have him put everything onto Zip discs and then erase all the hard drives. Then get yourself and Randy to the hangar and rev up the chopper. I'll get Dr. Wingate and Dr. Donaldson down there after we shred paper files here in the office and have the egg room destroyed. Okay?"

"Roger!" Kurt said. He saluted before dashing out of the office and running full tilt down the corridor toward the fire door. Paul watched him until he disappeared. Paul then took a couple of breaths to bolster his gaining equanimity. When he felt he'd pulled himself adequately together, he returned to Spencer's office. Spencer and Sheila looked at him expectantly the moment he appeared.

"Well," Paul said. "It appears that we're going offshore sooner than we expected . . ."