hundred feet high.
There was no sign of the pilot or any other crew, nor of anyone working in here. Surreptitiously, John slid his cellphone out of his pocket, switched it on and looked at the display. There was no signal.
The stewardess pressed something on a device she was holding and stainless-steel elevator doors, a short distance ahead, slid open.
The steward said, ‘Please step in, Dr Klaesson and Mrs Klaesson.’
The four of them travelled down for several seconds in silence. Then the doors opened onto the gleaming platform of an immaculate underground railway station. A solitary, bullet-shaped carriage, its door open, sat on a monorail.
As they boarded it, feeling as if they were in some surreal dream, Naomi and John exchanged glances but said nothing. They were beyond surprise at this moment, just running on adrenaline. They had come too far to question or challenge anything any more. They were running on hope.
They took two seats and their escorts sat in the two opposite them. The doors hissed shut, and moments later the carriage began to accelerate silently and without vibration, into a dark tunnel.
After two minutes they emerged into a station that was identical to the one they had just come from. The doors opened and they followed their escorts out and into another elevator. It seemed a long ride up. John’s stomach dropped. Then, moments later, the floor pressed up against his feet, and before he was fully aware of it, they had stopped.
The doors opened onto a wide, handsome corridor that had a corporate feel, as if it might be the head offices of a bank or of some major global company.
Naomi shot John a quick glance. What is this place?
And he shrugged back, I have no more idea than you. Then he took another look at his cellphone display. Still no signal.
Now they were being led along the corridor. Past closed, windowless doors. At the far end, the stewardess opened a door and led them into an ante-room. Another exquisitely beautiful woman, also in her early twenties, at most, with short brown hair and a deadpan expression, sat at a desk. She, too, was wearing a white jumpsuit.
‘Dr and Mrs Klaesson,’ announced the stewardess.
In contrast to their escorts, she gave them a pleasant smile, stood up, walked across to grand, double doors and opened them. Then, in a clipped Boston accent she said, ‘Will you please go through,’ and stepped aside for them to pass.
John let Naomi go first and followed her into a large office, with a white carpet and striking modern furniture, the centrepiece of which was an oval, slate-grey desk. And from behind which a figure was rising.
A tall, lean, tanned man, dressed also in dazzling white, with dark, luxuriant hair swept immaculately back and tinged with elegant grey streaks at the temples. Stepping around the side of his desk, he strode across the room, arm outstretched, to greet them. He did not look a day older since they had last seen him four years ago. If anything, he looked younger.
‘Hi, John! Hi, Naomi!’ he said in his warm, assertive Southern Californian accent.
Naomi took a step back as if she had seen a ghost. Then both of them stared at the doctor in stunned silence.
122
‘What the hell’s going on?’ John said. ‘Do you want to explain to us?’
Beaming at them and ignoring the question, Leo Dettore shook each of their hands, saying, ‘So great to see you guys again!’ He beckoned them to a seating area around a coffee table. But John and Naomi stood still. Behind the geneticist, a wall-to-floor window the width of the room looked out across the campus of buildings, and over to the mountains beyond.
‘You died,’ Naomi blurted. ‘You died – it was on television, in the papers, you-’
‘Please, sit down; you must be shattered. Let me get you something to drink. Water? Coffee?’
‘I don’t want a drink,’ Naomi said, emboldened now. ‘I want to see my children.’
‘Let me have a chance to explain and then-’
‘I WANT TO SEE MY CHILDREN!’ Naomi shouted, close to hysterics.
‘Where the hell are we?’ John said. ‘Just tell us where the hell we are?’
‘That’s not important,’ Dr Dettore said.
‘WHAT?’ Naomi exploded.
‘Not important? We’ve been travelling for twenty-four hours, and it’s not important?’ John marched up to him and raised his fist threateningly. ‘We want our children. We want Luke and Phoebe. If you’ve harmed them in any way, I’ll kill you, I swear it, you bastard, I’ll tear you apart!’
Dettore raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘John, I’ll take you to see them right now. They are safe here. OK?’
‘Yes, right now.’
Unperturbed, Dettore said, ‘Do you think I went to all this trouble to bring you here if I wasn’t going to let you see them?’
‘We have no idea what’s in your sick mind,’ John said. ‘If you’re capable of faking your death then what the hell else are you capable of?’
‘WHERE ARE OUR CHILDREN?’ Naomi yelled.
Dettore waited a moment before replying. Then, calmly, he said, ‘Your children came here in order to be safe. Having them here was the only way I could guarantee their safety. You both know that crazy religious sect was on a mission to kill all the children who had been through my programme. There wasn’t an option. But you need to understand that I brought you here because, as Luke and Phoebe’s parents, you have an absolute right to see your children, and to take them home with you – if they want to go with you.’
‘ If they want to go with us? What do you mean by that?’ demanded John. ‘You’ve kidnapped them – and God knows what your agenda is. If they want to go home with us? What kind of arrogance is that? We’re their damned parents!’
Dettore walked back to his desk and picked up a thick document. ‘Did you never read properly the contract you signed on board the Serendipity Rose – either of you?’
John felt a sudden sick, empty sensation deep inside him.
Dettore handed it to him. ‘It has both your signatures on it, and you have initialled every page.’
There was a moment of silence. Then Dr Dettore went on, ‘Just so that you both understand, Luke and Phoebe were taken into safe custody at their own request. You may of course see them, and spend as much time with them as you like. But I think in your own interests you should first take a look at clause twenty-six, paragraph nine, subsection four of this agreement. You will find it on page thirty-seven.’
John laid the document on the table, and turned to page thirty-seven. He and Naomi both read down, found paragraph nine, which was in tiny print, then subsection four, which was microscopic. It read:
Birth parents agree at a time in the future to be determined by the child or children to cede all rights to parental responsibility, should the children so expressly wish, to Dr Dettore, and Dr Dettore shall have the absolute right to adopt said children. In any dispute the wish of the children shall be final and absolute.
At the top and at the bottom of the page were John and Naomi’s initials, boldly written in blue ink.
She was silent for a moment, then said, ‘This can’t be legal. It cannot be binding. They’re three years old! How can a three-year-old have the right to decide its parents? This is rubbish! There isn’t a court in the world where this would stand up.’
‘Let me make something very clear to you guys,’ Dettore said, sitting down opposite them. ‘I didn’t go to the trouble of bringing you here in order to show you a clause in a contract you signed four years ago. I want you to understand that your children have not been coerced or abducted or kidnapped, but are here by legal right, that’s all.’
‘Legal right-’
