Mount Dragon

alpha test subject.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t call him a guinea pig, though. Making himself the alpha was very much in character. A man like Burt wouldn’t deliberately risk thousands of lives on unproven blood. He was under incredible time pressure to prove its safety. So he tested it on himself. It’s not unheard of. It isn’t exactly illegal to do something like that, either.” He looked at de Vaca. “You have to admire the guy for putting his life on the line. And he had the last laugh. He proved the blood was safe.”

Carson fell silent. Something was teasing the back of his mind; something that had surfaced as they read the journal. Now it remained just out of the reach of consciousness, like a forgotten dream.

“Sounds like he’s still having the last laugh. In a nuthouse somewhere.”

Carson frowned. “That’s a pretty callous remark, even for you.”

“Maybe so,” de Vaca replied. Then she paused. “I guess it’s just that everyone talks about Burt like he was larger than life. This is the guy who invented GeneDyne’s filtration process, synthesized PurBlood. Now we find he faked his data.”

There it was again. Suddenly, Carson realized what it was in the journal that had raised an unconscious flag. “Susana, what do you know about GEF?”

She looked back at him, puzzled.

“The filtration process Burt invented when he was working at Manchester,” Carson went on. You just mentioned it. We’ve always simply assumed the filtration process works on X-FLU. What if it doesn’t?”

De Vaca’s look of puzzlement turned to scorn. “We’ve tested X-FLU again and again to make sure that the strain coming out of the filter is absolutely pure.”

“Pure, yes. But is it the same strain that went in?”

“How could the filtration process change the strain? It makes no sense.”

“Think about how GEF works,” Carson replied- “You set up an electrical field that draws the heavy protein molecules through a gel filter, right? The field is set precisely to the molecular weight of the molecule you want. All the other molecules are trapped in the gel, while what you want emerges from the other end of the filter.”

“So?”

“What if the weak electrical field, or the gel itself, causes subtle changes in the protein structure? What if what comes out is different from what went in? The molecular weight would be the same, but the structure would be subtly altered. A straightforward chemical test wouldn’t catch it. All it takes is the tiniest change in the surface protein of a virus particle to create a new strain.”

“No way,” said de Vaca. “GEF is a patented, tested process. They’ve already used it to synthesize other products. If there was anything wrong, it would’ve shown up a long time ago.”

Carson reined in Roscoe and stood motionless. “Have any of the tests for purity we’ve done looked at that possibility? That specific possibility?”

De Vaca was silent.

“Susana, it’s the only thing we haven’t tried.”

She look at him for a long moment.

“All right,” she said at last. “Let’s check it out.”

The Dark Harbor Institute was a large, rambling Victorian house perched on a remote headland above the Atlantic. The institute counted one hundred and twenty honorary members on its rolls, although at any given time only a dozen or so were actually in residence. The responsibility of the people who came to the institute was to do only one thing: to think. The requirements for membership were equally simple: genius.

Members of the institute were very fond of the rambling Victorian mansion, which 120 years of Maine storms had left without a single right angle. They especially liked the anonymity, since even the institute’s closest neighbors—mostly summer visitors—did not have the vaguest idea of who those bespectacled men and women were who came and went so unpredictably.

Edwin Bannister, associate managing editor of the Boston Globe, checked out of his inn and directed the placing of his bags into the back of his Range Rover, his head still throbbing from the effects of the bad bordeaux he’d been served at the previous evening’s dinner. Tipping the porter, he walked around the Rover, eyeing as he did so the little town of Dark Harbor, with its fishing boats and church steeple and salt air. Very quaint. Too damn quaint. He preferred Boston, and the smoke-filled atmosphere of the Black Key Tavern.

He slid behind the wheel and consulted the hand-drawn map that had been faxed to him at the newspaper. Five miles to the institute. Despite the assurances, a part of him still doubted whether or not his host would really be there.

Bannister accelerated through a yellow light and swung onto County Road 24. The car lurched over one pothole, then another, as it left the tiny town behind. The narrow road headed due east to the sea, then ran along a series of high bluffs over the Atlantic. He rolled down the window. From below, he could hear the distant thunder of the surf, the crying of gulls, the dolorous clang of a bell buoy.

The road ran into a stand of spruce, then emerged at a high meadow covered with blueberry bushes. A log fence ran across the meadow, its rustic length interrupted by a wooden gate and shingled guardhouse. Bannister stopped at the gate and powered down his window.

“Bannister. With the Globe,” he said, not bothering to look at the guard.

“Yes sir.” The gate hummed open, and Bannister noted with amusement that the rustic logs of the gate were backed with bars of black steel. No car bombers crashing this party, he thought.

The mansion’s oak-paneled foyer seemed empty, and Bannister walked through to the lounge. A fire blazed in an enormous hearth, and a long series of casement windows looked out over the sea, sparkling in the morning light. The faint sound of music could be heard in the background.

At first, Bannister thought he was alone. Then, in a far corner, he spotted a man in a leather armchair, drinking coffee and reading a paper. The man was wearing white gloves. The newspaper rustled between them as its pages were turned.

The man looked up. “Edwin!” he said, smiling. “Thank you for coming.”

Bannister immediately recognized the unkempt hair, the freckles, the boyish looks, the retro sports jacket over black T-shirt. So he had come, after all.

“Good to see you, Brent,” Bannister said, taking the proffered armchair. He automatically glanced around for a waiter.

“Coffee?” Scopes asked. He had not offered to shake hands.

“Yes, please.”

“We help ourselves here,” Scopes said. “It’s over by the bookcase.”

Bannister hauled himself to his feet again, returning with a cup that promised to be less than satisfactory.

They sat in silence for a moment, and it dawned on Bannister that Scopes was listening to the music. He sipped his coffee and found it surprisingly good.

The piece ended. Scopes sighed with satisfaction, folded the newspaper carefully, and placed it next to an open briefcase beside his chair. He removed his ink-stained reading gloves and placed them on top of the paper.

“Bach’s Musical Offering,” he said. “Are you familiar with it?”

“Somewhat,” said Bannister, hoping that Scopes wouldn’t ask a question that would reveal the lie. Bannister knew next to nothing about music.

“One of the canons of the Offering is entitled ‘Quaerendo Invenietis.’ ‘By seeking, you will discover.’ It was Bach’s puzzle, asking the listener to see if he could tell what intricate canonical code was used to create the music.”

Bannister nodded.

“I often think of this as a metaphor for genetics. You see the finished organism—such as a human being—and you wonder what intricate genetic code was used to create such a marvelous thing. And then you wonder, of course: If you were to change a tiny piece of this intricate code, how would that translate into flesh and blood? just as changing a single note in a canon can sometimes end up transforming the entire melody.”

Bannister reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a tape recorder, and showed it to Scopes, who nodded his approval. Turning on the device, Bannister settled back in his chair, his hands folded.