The Athena Factor

  Sheela took a deep breath, lifting her head and removing her dark glasses. She looked from one to another, the deadness in her eyes affecting Lymon as no words could. “DNA is easy to obtain—I understand that. But if someone like Krissy wanted a Sheela Marks baby, how do you prove you can actually provide it?”

  Lymon felt a cold wash of understanding. “Oh, my God!”

  “That’s right,” Sheela said woodenly. “You’ve got to be able to prove the DNA comes from the person you say it does. The customer has to know beyond a doubt that you’ve got the real thing; that he’s not being bilked.”

  “I’m dense,” O’Grady growled. “What the hell are we talking about?”

  “The reason for the celebrity hits.” Lymon swallowed hard. “It’s advertising. Don’t you get it? If you’re going to offer your client a chance to have a baby with Mel Gibson’s DNA, you have to prove it’s the right stuff. I mean, you can’t show someone a pile of DNA and say, ‘That’s it. Meet Mel Gibson’s DNA.’”

  “Son of a bitch,” Sid whispered, a half-vacant expression on his face as his mind worked it over. He sat back, stiff-armed, unblinking.

  “The questionnaire,” Lymon added, another piece falling into place. “Christal wondered what they were screening for.”

  “Excuse me?” O’Grady asked as he scribbled furiously in his notebook. “What questionnaire?”

  “It’s the Genesis Athena web site,” Sid filled in. “I sent a copy to Tanner down at Quantico. We’re going to want to access that site and have Tanner play with it for a while.”

  O’Grady chewed at his lip, his dark face furrowed. “You’re telling me that someone is stealing DNA from movie stars, and … what? Selling it to whom? People to have babies with? Now, I don’t know that much, but doesn’t having a baby mean you’ve got to have a sperm and an egg?” He gestured with one hand. “It’s not like a piece of skin or a hair follicle can get a woman pregnant. You read?”

  Sid worked his jaw back and forth. “That was then, Sean. You ought to see the things they can do now.”

  “But, sure, that sheep Dolly and all. But it takes a laboratory, right?”

  “Yeah,” Sid agreed. “These cutting-edge labs can mix and match, do just about anything with DNA. It’s like ordering a car made to custom specs. You can choose everything.”

  “So,” O’Grady asked, “where’s the laboratory?”

  Sheela whispered, “Find Krissy, and you’ll know.”

  “Who?” Sid asked.

  “The lunatic who’s having my baby,” Sheela said softly.

  But, beneath it, Lymon could hear the cracked-glass tone in her voice.

  Christal was contemplating her growling stomach when a low knock brought her bolt upright and out of bed. She was on her feet, prepared for anything when the door—or was it a hatch?—opened and swung back.

  A young man stood just beyond the threshold. The first thing she noticed was his inquisitive brown eyes. They seemed to sparkle with anticipation. She figured him for his midthirties, with sandy blond hair, a strong-jawed face, and a tentative smile. Two muscular men in coveralls stood behind him, darkly visaged, with close-cropped hair. Arabs? They had a menacing air about them. Security, perhaps?

  “Ms. Anaya?” the brown-eyed man’s voice was laced with a seasoning of Scottish. He wore a white-knit sweater and brown cotton pants.

  “Who wants to know?” She propped her hands on her hips, knees flexed, ready to flee or fight.

  “Dr. Gregor McEwan, at your service.” His smile deepened. “Hungry, perhaps?”

  “Why would I be hungry?”

  “It’s been two days since ye’ve eaten. Come, then. Let’s take you off to the cafeteria.”

  She glanced over his shoulder, and he read her concern as she eyed the guards. “Oh, don’t be worrying about them, now. They’re more for my protection than yours.”

  “Really?”

  “What if it turns out that ye’re not friendly? EX-FBI? Against a marshmallow like me? You could probably pull my arms out of their sockets and twist off my head.” He waved her out. “Come. Let’s eat. Surely you can’t plan your escape on an empty stomach.” His smile mocked her, an unsettling arrogance in his sparkling eyes.

  Christal considered her options. Her belly wasn’t going to fill itself based on the dreams she’d been having of steak, enchiladas, and cheeseburgers. Nor would she gain any understanding of her situation by staring at the walls of her prison. “Sure.”

  When she stepped out into a white corridor the air seemed fresher. The steel walls were lined with piping, thick wire, and welded braces, all covered with a heavy coat of paint.

  “This way, then.” McEwan started off, motioning her to walk at his side. The corridor was just wide enough for the two of them.

  “So, where am I?”

  “Aboard ship. Her name’s the ZoeGen.”

  “And just where are we, exactly?”

  “I can’t say … exactly. Navigation’s not my thing. Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. Well, maybe a couple of hundred miles off the Maine coast, actually.”

  She gave him a skeptical look. “How long was I unconscious?”

  “Aboot twenty-four hours. Maybe a tad longer.”

  “Why did you kidnap me?”

  He gave her a sheepish sidelong look. “I’m afraid some of our people panicked.”

  “Panicked? That’s an understatement. Do you know what you just unleashed? People are going to miss me. That means federal as well as local police involvement. Hank and his little band of friends are going to be at the center of a hurricane.” They stepped through a bulkhead and took a right into a wider companionway. She glanced over her shoulder, aware of the lurking presence of the guards. They watched her with flat brown eyes, faces expressionless.

  “Nothing we can’t make amends for,” he said hopefully. “I really do apologize. We’ll see what happens, and it’s currently under discussion, but I’m sure we can reach some agreement that will be mutually acceptable.”

  Was he a lunatic? Or just plain nuts? “Gregor, you can’t kidnap a person, drug her, transport her across state lines—hell, out of the country—and not expect a whole ration of shit to fall on you!”

  “Oh, I don’t know. They took me in the beginning. Bagged me right in front o’ me own house. It was only after I understood the potentials and the money to be made that I took over running the program for the Sheik. And a good choice it was. I’m now in charge of research and laboratory operations.”

  “Wait. You mean you changed sides—in spite of what they did to you?”

  “Ach, what? Hold a little kidnap against them when I could be in charge of the most advanced genetics laboratory in the world? What others do in theory, we do in practice! Lass, I don’t even have to write a grant proposal here.”

  He chuckled at that and pushed open a large double door. Inside Christal found a rather mundane-looking cafeteria—perhaps thirty by forty—packed with tables, plastic chairs, and a food line of steam tables staffed by four women, also Arab, if she was any judge of such things. She counted fifteen people, still more Arabs given their looks and the sibilant tongue they spoke, who sat at the tables, eating. They were dressed in lab wear: green smocks, pants, and the women all had loose headwear that could be draped over the face. Females, she noted, sat strictly to themselves at a back table, and cast curious glances her way.

  “Help yourself,” he instructed as he led her to the line, picked a tray out of a rack, and added silverware, napkin, and a plate from their various stacks and holders.

  She was famished, no doubt of it. No doubt, too, that she needed to keep her strength up. The fare was mostly European in nature: roast beef, lamb, potatoes, gravy, steamed cabbage, bread, and cheese—but couscous, hummus, falafel, and other dishes smacked of different appetites by the other diners. She opted for Coke, while he took juice from the machine at the end of the line.

  She followed Gregor to a chair, settling herself across from him.
The table was a Formica-topped ubiquitous model that might have been found in any institutional lunchroom in the world. Neither of the guards had taken a tray. Instead they discreetly seated themselves far enough away for privacy, close enough to be there in case Christal lunged for McEwan’s throat. Her days with LBA had heightened her sense of awareness about these things.

  “Who are the Arabs?” She inclined her head toward the others and attacked her plate.

  “Geneticists. Lab techs. They’re the muscle and bone of Genesis Athena.” That flare of arrogance betrayed itself again. “Most of them, I trained. So they’re the best in the business.”

  As she wolfed her food, she asked, “I don’t get it. Why steal celebrity DNA?”

  McEwan studied her thoughtfully as he neatly cut roast beef into cubes, skewered them with his fork, and chewed. “We want to be the first.”

  “To steal DNA?”

  “Not to steal it, to patent it, Ms. Anaya.”

  “You can’t patent someone’s DNA! It’s, well, it’s personal!”

  He laughed at that, genuinely delighted. “Do you know that no law, in any country, protects a person’s exclusive right to their own DNA? Not even in your dearly provincial USA.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “Oddly, bullshit is protected. You can’t walk off with a wheelbarrow of manure from someone’s bull paddock. That’s theft. But once your DNA is out of your body, it belongs to anyone who can lay hold of it.” He spread his fingers wide. “Poof! Gone. It’s no longer yours.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Well, I can’t affect your beliefs, lass, but when you do go home again, you may be well advised to check the statutes. See if you find DNA listed anywhere in the definitions of personal property. Meantime, however, let’s just say I’m right, hmm? There is a huge precedent in law as well as in practice.”

  “What? I can tell you that as a graduate of—”

  “How often have you had a blood test? Oh, say for cholesterol? Perhaps for a blood chemistry board? You know, to measure lipids, bilirubin, hematocrit, things like that.”

  “A few, why?”

  “What happened to the extra blood?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean they may have needed a tenth of a milliliter—that’s less than a drop, eh? But they took a syringe full. That’s an extra three or four whole milliliters of blood. What did they do with it?”

  “Threw it out?”

  “Hardly! They sold it! Some they distilled for plasma, some for insulin, some for albumin—lots of things. Right! So let’s take the insulin, for example. Your body produced it, eh? It was part of you. Does anyone think once it’s drawn that it still belongs to you?”

  She could only stare at him in disbelief. “DNA is different. I mean, as I understand it, I’m still using my DNA. Cells are synthesizing proteins, dividing, things like that.”

  “And all that insulin and plasma? You weren’t using that as well?”

  She stared.

  He chuckled as he spooned up mashed potatoes. “Sorry, lass. No one cares. Laboratories all over the world are taking DNA samples from patients. And, sure as to be, the very second they’re coded, they’re put up for patent. Some come from folk with resistance to diseases, others from people with a tolerance for certain environments, some even from athletes who show certain kinds of muscle tissue. It’s a mad scramble, lass, to see who can get what first. A gold rush like in the wild West. Companies are falling all over themselves staking claims. And, just like those long-ago miners, no one knows which genes are going to be the mother lode!”

  She stared at him, food half-chewed in her mouth. Finally she swallowed and managed to say, “It’s illegal to …” What? Patent another person’s DNA?

  McGregor stabbed another square of meat. “No, lass. Most governments around the world have only passed laws banning cloning. You know, the artificial reproduction of another human being. They’ve said nothing aboot the DNA. In fact, by taking the stance that you c’not reproduce yer own DNA, they have told you ipso facto that the state has more right to regulate your DNA than you do.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Indeed?” He took a drink of juice from his tumbler. “Think of it this way: You’re of the opinion that yer DNA belongs to you and you alone. What’s a clone? A copy of yourself. It’s your own DNA that you’re copying. Not mine, not the president’s, but yours. Now, if that was really the case, could the government regulate it?”

  “But that’s not the same!”

  “Isn’t it? Fact is, you have the right to believe in whatever God you want, read whatever book you want, join any political party—but not to control yer own DNA. If you want privacy, stick to your beliefs, but don’t look to your body, lass.” The twinkle was back in his eye.

  “But laws against cloning—”

  “Are laws that regulate your use of your own personal DNA. In your opinion, you think you should have the say over yer own DNA. I understand that. Most people—bless their simple souls—think they do. What they don’t understand is that through fear that someone might clone himself, they’ve given that control over to the government, business, and, most onerous of all, investors.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “Sheer unadulterated fear, lass. That, and the social conservatives, of course. God bless the Christian religious right, wherever they live. They’ve given Genesis Athena a monopoly.”

  Christal’s mind stumbled over the implications.

  “You see,” McEwan continued, “all these technologies, going way back …” He gestured with his knife. “Take insulin, again. No one objected to processing insulin from human blood that was going to be thrown away anyhow. Doing so was in the best interest of society. Insulin used to be a touchy thing. You couldn’t mix sheep with human with artificial and not have a reaction. The sources had to be pure. Millions of diabetics benefited, and still do. It was the precedent, you see. DNA just got folded into the same blanket, if you get my drift.”

  She glared at him. “So why kidnap me? Why did you have to break the law if this whole operation is legal?”

  He chuckled. “Aye, the grandstanding. Why, advertising, of course. We’ve got the product. Oh, to be sure, we’ll be sending little apologies, and even checks in the mail as things begin to fall into place. Admitting to our stunts, as it were, and offering reparation. Legal division’s already been hard at work over that.”

  “Legal division? You’ve lost me again.”

  McEwan waved his greasy knife. “It’s all going to come out in the next year or so. The clients can’t be expected to keep their silence. What’s the point of having a little Julia Roberts running around the kitchen if you can’t brag aboot her t’yer friends, eh? When it does break, it’s going to be one of the biggest stories since Bin Laden. Thing is, we don’t want to look like simple criminals, so we’ll make restitution to the aggrieved parties.” His expression sobered. “It’s just the right thing to do. Image, and all that.”

  “Wait a minute. You stole all these people’s DNA, you’re going to patent it, and then send them some sort of pittance to make it right?”

  “Aye.”

  “Why not just stick a check in the mail now? It’s cheaper if they don’t have time to think about how they’ve been gypped.” she said sarcastically.

  “Because the less they know now, the easier it will be to get our samples. After the story breaks, things might get a wee bit trickier. People will be more careful—not that it will do them much good, mind you. The common folk in the streets have no idea how much DNA they leave around in restaurants, hotels, their clothes, cars, even when they lick an envelope.”

  Christal shook her head. “I’m still not understanding how this works. You take the DNA, patent it, and then what?”

  “Sell it, of course.”

  “To whom?”

  “Anyone who will pay for it.”

  “Give me an example.”

  McEwan lean
ed back, pushing his empty plate away. “Well, take Princess Diana of Wales. Our marketing research determined her to be one of the most beloved women of all time. Getting the sample was the riskiest operation we ever undertook. I’m sure you heard of it.”

  She jerked a quick nod. “The lab in Paris where her forensic samples were curated.”

  “We had a huge list of applicants just waiting for us to succeed. We’ve done brilliantly. The first embryos have been implanted in the clients. We’ve already got a list of close to two hundred candidates for implantation. We’ve banked over a million and a half in deposits alone.”

  “Embryos?” Christal asked, her fork halfway to her mouth. “Damn it, it just sank in. You meant it when you said ‘little Julia Roberts’ earlier.”

  “Aye,” McEwan said, reading her confusion. “Ye see, Ms. Anaya, we’re not just selling the DNA in a bottle or anything like that. When we sell it, it’s alive and ready to be implanted into the host mother.”

  35

  Hank tried to put the last forty-eight hours into perspective. Genesis Athena, he’d discovered, was nothing if not organized. He’d been surprised to find his luggage unloaded from the cargo hold of the aircraft that had carried them to Teterboro, New Jersey. April assured him his room charge at the Hilton had been taken care of. A physician had met their flight, checked on Christal’s condition, inserted an IV drip, and given her another sedative. The helicopter flight to the marina at Eastham, on Cape Cod, had been both quick and efficient. He and Neal had carried Christal’s somnolent body aboard a sleek cigarette boat; and an hour later, they had watched her lifted aboard the ZoeGen by capable crewmen. Hank had scrambled onto the lowered ladder and up into a hatch that opened in the cruise ship’s side.

  April had led him to her cabin, a snug room with wooden paneling, a plush bed, and most of the amenities. Sex had led to sleep that had led to more sex, and so forth.

  Now, showered, shaved, and rested as he hadn’t been in months, Hank found himself sitting across from April in her cabin, eating breakfast from a room service cart a steward had brought. Pale midday light glowed through the single porthole.