Transhuman (22 page)

His granddaughter. Abramson has kidnapped the child because he refused to allow the medical profession to give up on her. He's on the run with her, trying to use his scientific expertise to save the kid's life.

Rossov smiled to himself. Control the child and you control her grandfather.

It's not Abramson I want, he realized. It's his granddaughter.

Still smiling, he reached for his phone and called the Boston FBI headquarters.

*   *   *

L
UKE ABRAMSON KEPT
as still as he could manage while the MRI machine hummed away. He lay on a white-sheeted table that trundled slowly through the machine's tunnel. He felt nothing, but he saw in his mind's eye the sculpted magnetic fields producing images of his innards.

Prostate cancer.

At my age the tumors will grow so slowly that I can pretty much ignore them, he told himself. But then he thought, Wait. That's what happens to men at my
chronological
age. I'm not seventy-five physically anymore. The tumors will grow faster. They'll kill me—and put me through a lot of pain first.

Stop the telomerase accelerators? Go back to being a creaky old man with arthritic knees and high blood pressure and asthma? End the experiment before you see how far you can go?

He started to shake his head, then remembered that he had to keep still as long as the frigging MRI equipment was at work.

Maybe I can get selective, he thought. Maybe I can keep on taking the accelerators for my general body and tailor a set of inhibitors for the goddamned prostate.

Tailored telomerase treatment. Is it possible? Maybe. Why not? I'll have to take samples of the prostate tissue, identify the particular telomeres, then develop a set of inhibitors to inject specifically into the prostate.

That could work, Luke decided. I've got everything I need right here. Shannon's given me free run of her facility. I could push telomerase therapy to a new level!

He didn't realize that his scan had finished until the technician—a seriously overweight black woman—announced cheerily, “All through! You can get up now, Professor Abramson.”

I'm not all through, Luke thought as he sat up on the table. I'm just beginning.

*   *   *

W
HEN HIGHTOWER TOLD
his chief that he was being saddled with an outsider in the Abramson investigation, the director frowned at the news. When Hightower told him that the outsider was from the Fisk Foundation, the chief's frown morphed into a more pensive look.

“Quenton Fisk?”

“Quenton Fisk,” Hightower confirmed.

“He's got friends in high places.”

“We've already got that White House guy looking over our shoulders.”

“He's on the phone every damn day, asking how we're doing.” The director drummed his manicured fingernails on his desktop for a few moments, then said, “Let me make a few phone calls.”

Toward the end of the afternoon, the director called Hightower to his office. Before he could take a chair the director grumbled, “Looks like the senior senator from New York wants us to ‘accommodate' Mr. Fisk.”

“Are we going—”

“And both senators from Massachusetts,” the director added.

“Friends in high places,” said Hightower.

The director pulled in a deep breath. “Okay. Be nice to the guy. Let him think he's helping you. But don't let him know anything about internal FBI procedures. Got that?”

It was about what Hightower has expected: milk Novack for whatever information he could provide, but don't let him in on the action.

“Got it,” he said. Then he stood up and went back to his own cubicle.

When he passed his secretary's desk, the woman looked up at him, phone pressed to one ear. Covering the phone, she whispered, “A Mr. Novack. Calling from New York.”

Hightower nodded and went to his desk.

Novack sounded almost jovial. “We went through Abramson's graduate students for the past fifteen years. There's a Shannon Reese who is now the widow of Carter Bartram and is living outside of Portland, Oregon.”

Hightower scribbled the name on his desk pad.

“And get this,” Novack continued. “She owns the Bartram Research Laboratories. They specialize in biomedical research.”

“A good place for Abramson to light in.”

“You bet!”

“Thanks. That could be an important lead.”

“When do we go out there?”

Hightower's first instinct was to retort, “What's this
we,
white man?” But instead, he said, “This is FBI business. I can't take a civilian along.”

“The hell you can't!” Novack flared. “You wouldn't know about Bartram if I hadn't told you.”

“I would've found out sooner or later.”

“But I helped you find out sooner.”

“That's true, but I can't take you along. My boss won't approve it.”

“
My
boss will fry my jeeblies if I don't go. And yours, too!”

When in trouble or in doubt, Hightower told himself, buck the problem upstairs.

“Let me talk to my boss. I'll get back to you.”

“Make it quick,” Novack said. “I've already booked a flight to Portland.”

 

Arlington, Massachusetts

D
EL VILLANUEVA OPENED
the front door. Agent Hightower was standing out in the late-afternoon cold, wearing nothing heavier than a suede jacket that strained across his muscular shoulders. He had parked his black Ford sedan at the curb.

“Come on in,” said Del, standing aside to let Hightower get through the doorway.

Lenore was sitting tensely on the black Danish rocker in the living room. Del gestured Hightower to the sofa, but the agent shook his head.

“I can't stay long,” he told them. “I'm on my way to the airport.”

Del stayed on his feet, too. He was accustomed to being the tallest person in just about any social gathering, but Hightower topped him by a good two inches.

“You said you had something for us when you called,” Del prompted.

Hightower nodded once. “We have a lead. I think it's a pretty good lead, but I might be wrong. It might turn out to be a false alarm.”

Lenore had obviously lost several pounds since Hightower had first met her. Her face was lined, strained.

“Then why…?” she started to ask.

“I want you to know that we're still working your case. We haven't put it on a back burner. We're trying to find your daughter.”

“And you think you know where she is?” Lenore asked, her voice trembling slightly.

“Maybe. Don't get your hopes up too high.”

“Was that CD that Luke sent us any help to you?” Del asked.

“Not really. We couldn't trace where it was sent from. He was too smart for that.”

“But couldn't you get a court order or something?”

Hightower stared at Del. The man watches too many cop shows on TV, he thought. He was lying to the two of them, and he didn't like it. FedEx had cooperated reluctantly, just enough to reveal to him that the CD package had originated in Salem, Oregon. Not Portland, but close enough to add strength to Novack's information about the Bartram Research Laboratories. He had no intention of telling the parents more than he had to.

Yet he felt sorry for the miserable, bewildered couple. This visit was intended to give them some hope, not to let them in on the details of his investigation. The chief would go ballistic if he found out I'd dropped in on them like this, Hightower knew.

He lifted his arm and peered at his wristwatch. “I've got to go,” he told them. “Plane to catch.”

Lenore rose to her feet. “Thanks for coming by, Mr. Hightower,” she said slowly. “Thanks for helping us.”

“We'll find your daughter,” Hightower said. Then he turned to leave.

Del grabbed at his arm. “I'm coming with you.”

Hightower shrugged him off. “No you're not.”

“Yes I am, dammit! This is my daughter. I have a right to go with you.”

“Your place is here with your wife. This is FBI business. We can't have civilians involved.”

“It's my daughter! I have a right—”

“Mr. Villanueva,” Hightower interrupted, “if you try to follow me I'll have to arrest you for hindering an official investigation. You don't want that, and neither do I.”

And he made his way to the door, leaving Del Villanueva standing in the middle of the living room beside his wife, looking angry and frustrated.

As he ducked into his sedan, Hightower wished he didn't have Novack hanging on to his coattails. Civilians shouldn't be involved in a Bureau investigation, he told himself. But what can you do about a civilian who has powerful U.S. senators on his side?

*   *   *

L
UKE AND TAMARA
were sitting side by side in the room Shannon had given him. It was an efficient little bed/sitting room, like something out of a modestly priced hotel chain: bed, dresser, TV set, desk, sofa, one cushioned chair with an ottoman and one wheeled desk chair.

They sat next to each other on the sofa, with the images from the morning's MRI scan spread across the little coffee table.

“I can't see anything that looks like a tumor,” Tamara said.

“Good.”

“The body generates tumorous tissues all the time,” she went on, “and the immune system destroys them.”

“Most of the time,” said Luke.

She nodded, tight-lipped. “You don't show any symptoms.”

He made a sardonic grin. “I'm peeing easily enough. And not as often as I used to, before starting the accelerators.”

“But you're not having any difficulties urinating?”

Luke shook his head. It seemed just the tiniest bit odd to be discussing his pissing habits with a dark-haired, good-looking young woman.

“Well,” said Tamara, “the PSA results might be anomalous. We'll take another shot tomorrow.”

“No,” Luke countered. “Tomorrow we start Angie on the p53 gene therapy.”

“Tomorrow?”

“No sense waiting. She's improving. She's stronger than she was a few days ago. Her hair seems to be coming back in.”

Tamara nodded slowly, but Luke knew what was behind her silence. Angie still looked old, wrinkled. Her blood pressure was still high. At least the tests showed her kidney function was still okay. And her fracture was healing nicely. Thank God for small mercies, he thought.

And then he grimaced. Thank God, yeah. Thanks for the kid's brain cancer, big guy. Thanks for killing my wife. Thanks for all the crap you throw at us.

“What is it?” Tamara asked.

“Huh?”

“You look … you look like somebody ready for a fight, almost.”

Luke forced a smile. “We're in a fight, Tamara. A life-or-death battle.”

She nodded. “Yes, I suppose we are.”

 

In Flight

W
HEN YOU FLY
on Uncle Sam's dime you fly coach, Hightower reminded himself. It was uncomfortable for a man his size to squeeze into the tight little seat, especially with Novack sitting beside him. At least Fisk's man took the middle seat; Hightower was on the aisle. Every time the flight attendants went by with their cart he had to lean away or get bumped.

Novack opened his iPad as soon as they reached cruising altitude and busily scrolled through reams of information. Hightower asked for a cola when the cart brushed by and sat quietly, grateful for the silence from his so-called partner.

But the silence didn't last long. Novack closed his notebook, then said, “Should we phone this Bartram woman from the airport, tell her we're coming?”

Hightower looked down at him. “And give her an hour or more to stash Abramson someplace? I don't think so.”

Novack agreed. “So we'll just drive up there and spring a surprise on her.”

Still unhappy about the “we,” Hightower said, “I'll do the talking. I'll show them my ID and they'll assume you're with the Bureau, too. Keep your mouth closed and don't let them know otherwise.”

Novack grinned carelessly. “Right, chief.”

Hightower wondered if the “chief” was a play on his Navaho background.

*   *   *

I
N MASSACHUSETTS, DEL
Villanueva had spent the hour since Hightower's departure phoning people he knew in the travel business, trying to find out where the FBI agent was flying to.

It wasn't easy, but at last a friend whom he regularly played golf with came up with, “American Airlines has a J. Hightower booked to Portland, Oregon. Through Chicago.”

Del flashed a triumphant smile. “Thanks, Bernie! I owe you one!”

“You didn't hear it from me,” his friend said. “This could cause big trouble if anybody found out.”

“Mum's the word.” Del hung up, then phoned his sister and asked her to come and stay with Lenore while he was away.

His ear ached slightly, he'd been on the phone so long. But as he finally hung up he looked across the living room to his wife and announced, “I'm going to Oregon, honey. I'm going to get Angie and bring her home!”

Lenore had stayed in the rocker through all his telephone calls, rocking slowly back and forth, staring at nothing. Now she focused on her husband.

“You've found Angie?”

“I think so.” He got to his feet and headed for the stairs. “Got to pack. Maria's coming over; she'll stay with you while I'm away.”

*   *   *

S
HANNON BARTRAM FOUND
Luke in his granddaughter's room, along with Dr. Minteer. Angela was sitting up in bed, eating halfheartedly from a dinner tray.

Shannon insisted that Luke and Tamara have dinner with her. “You don't want to eat in the cafeteria,” she said.

Luke bantered, “It's good enough for your staff, isn't it?”