Horrible sight, I tell you. Just gone. Gone.’
The picture of the helicopter was replaced with a photograph of the Serendipity Rose, which now became the backdrop behind the newsreader.
‘The billionaire scientist was returning to his offshore floating research laboratory and clinic, where he offered the prospect of designer babies for those able to afford his six-figure prices. Dr Dettore had this past weekend delivered a no-holds-barred paper to a Union of Concerned Scientists conference in Rome, in which he denounced the Vatican’s latest call for international regulations against experimentation on human embryos as a crime against humanity.’
The newsreader paused and the backdrop changed to a recent photograph of Dettore on a podium behind a bank of microphones.
‘No stranger to controversy, Dr Dettore has had his work compared to Hitler’s eugenics programme, and had featured on the front cover of Time magazine.’
John hit the mute button on the remote and stared grimly at the screen, feeling in a state of shock.
‘What do we do now, John?’
‘I called the clinic six times today, hoping I could speak to someone else – his colleague, Dr Leu. I got a number not in service message. I emailed twice. Both times the emails got bounced back, not able to be delivered.’
‘We have to get a second opinion.’
‘I spoke to Dr Rosengarten.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He was adamant he had not made a mistake.’
‘He’s hardly going to admit it, is he?’
‘No, but-’ He hesitated. Naomi, white as a sheet, looked terrible. How could he tell Naomi what Dr Annand had told him? That Dettore had most probably made a mistake, but not over the gender – over the entire embryo?
How could he tell her she might be pregnant with someone else’s child?
‘Why would a helicopter explode, John?’
‘I don’t know. Engines can go wrong – jet engines can blow up sometimes.’
‘The man said it was like a bomb.’
John stood up, walked the few paces across the small room to the Deco fireplace and looked at a photograph of Halley sitting in a toy police jeep, beaming happily. One of those rare moments of respite in his short little life. He felt angry, suddenly. Angry at Dettore for dying – irrational, he knew, but he didn’t care. Angry at the loss of the chance of the funding for his own research that Dettore had discussed with him. Angry at Dr Rosengarten. Angry at God for what he did to Halley. Angry for all the shitty hands he seemed to be picking up in life.
He heard what Naomi was saying; the implication was loud and clear.
Bomb.
There were plenty of crazy people out there. Fanatics who hated progress, who believed only their way was right. And irresponsible scientists, too, who believed the whole world was their laboratory and that they could do what they wanted, blow up small Pacific atolls, design generation after generation of biological weaponry, tamper with the germ line of the human species, all in the name of progress.
And in between were people who just wanted to live their lives. Some of them innocents like Halley, born into a living hell.
Science could prevent the tragedy of little children like Halley. Progress could one day eliminate diseases like his. Dettore was right when he said that preventing scientists from being able to do their research on embryos was a crime against humanity.
‘Don’t ever forget why we’ve done this, Naomi,’ he said, his voice raised in anger that was spawned from utter, helpless frustration.
Naomi stood up and walked over to him and put her arms around his waist. ‘You’ll love our baby, won’t you? Whatever happens, you’ll love her?’
He turned and kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘Of course.’
‘I love you,’ she said. ‘I love you and I need you.’
She looked so scared, so vulnerable. His heart felt wrenched. ‘I need you, too.’
‘Let’s go out tonight – some place cheerful.’
‘What do you feel like? Mexican? Chinese? Sushi?’
‘Nothing spicy. How about that place Off-Vine?’
He smiled. ‘That was the first place I ever took you to eat in
LA.’
‘I like it there. Let’s see if they have a table.’
‘I’ll phone.’
‘Do you remember something you said to me there? Sitting out in the courtyard? You said that love was more than just a bond between two people. It was like a wagon-train circle you formed around you that protected you against all the world threw at you. Do you remember?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘That’s what it is going to have to be like from now.’
24
Shortly before midnight, Naomi was violently sick. John knelt beside her in the bathroom, holding her forehead, the way his mother used to hold his when he was a child.
She had thrown up everything inside her, and now it was just bile coming out. And she was shedding tears.
‘It’s OK,’ he said gently, struggling hard against the smell not to retch, too. ‘It’s OK, darling.’
He wiped her mouth with a wetted towel, dabbed her eyes, then helped her back to bed. ‘Feel better?’ he asked anxiously.
She nodded, eyes open wide, bloodshot, expressionless. ‘How much longer’s this bloody sickness going to go on for? I thought it was meant to be morning sickness?’
‘Maybe it was something you ate?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
John turned off the light and lay still, feeling the damp heat coming off her body, his stomach still queasy from the smell of vomit.
‘What do you really think it was?’ she asked, suddenly.
‘Think what was?’
‘What made the helicopter crash. Do you think it was a bomb?’
There was a long silence. John listened to her breathing; it was steadily becoming less jerky, more rhythmic. Then, just as he thought she was deeply asleep, she spoke again.
‘He had enemies.’
‘A lot of scientists have enemies.’
‘Do you have enemies, John?’
‘I’m not well enough known. I’m sure if I was, there’d be a bunch of fanatics violently opposed to my views. Anyone who dares to stick their head above the parapet and be counted is going to have enemies. But there’s a big step between disliking what someone does and blowing them to pieces.’
After some moments she said, ‘What do you suppose is going to happen to his lab – ship?’