“Never.”
“Maybe it might be worth chatting with Mrs. Blakemore,”
Valerie said. “Get an idea from her how close the boys are.”
“I suppose.”
“I’d be happy to see VJ if you think he would be willing,”
Valerie offered.
“I’d certainly appreciate it,” Marsha said. “I really think I’m too close to the situation to evaluate him. At the same time, I’m terrified at the thought he’s developing a serious personality disorder right under my nose.”
Marsha left Valerie in the elevator, thanking her profusely for taking the time to hear her out, and for offering to see VJ. She promised to call Valerie’s secretary to set up an appointment.
“Your husband called,” Jean said as Marsha came back in the door. “He wants you to be sure to call back.”
“A problem?” Marsha asked.
“I don’t think so,” Jean said. “He didn’t say one way or the other, but he didn’t sound upset.”
Marsha picked up her mail and went into the inner office, closing the door behind her. Flipping through her mail, she phoned Victor. Colleen patched the call through to the lab, and Victor came on the line.
“What’s up?” asked Marsha. Victor didn’t often call during the day.
“The usual,” Victor said.
“You sound tired,” Marsha said. She wanted to say he sounded strange. His voice was toneless, as if he’d just had an emotional outburst and was forcing himself to remain calm.
“There are always surprises these days,” Victor said without explanation. “The reason I called was to say that VJ
and Philip are at home.”
“Something wrong?” asked Marsha.
“No,” Victor said. “Nothing is wrong. But I’m going to be working late so you and the others go ahead and eat. Oh, by the way, there will be security watching the house from 6
P.M. until 6 A.M.”
“Does the reason you’re staying late have anything to do with the harassment?” Marsha asked.
“Maybe,” Victor said. “I’ll explain when I get home.”
Marsha hung up the phone but her hand remained on the receiver. Once again she had that uncomfortable feeling that Victor was keeping something from her, something that she should know. Why couldn’t he confide in her? More and more, she was feeling alone.
A particular stillness hung over the lab when Victor was there by himself. Various electronic instruments kicked on at times, but otherwise it was quiet. By eight-thirty Victor was the only person in the lab. Closed behind several doors, he couldn’t even hear the sounds of the animals as they paced in their cages or used their exercise wheels.
Victor was bent over strips of film that bore darkened horizontal stripes. Each stripe represented a portion of DNA that had been cleaved at a specific point. Victor was comparing his son David’s DNA fingerprint—one taken when David was still healthy—and one of his cancerous liver tumor.
What amazed him was that the two did not entirely match.
Victor’s first hunch was that Dr. Shryack had given him the wrong sample—a piece of tumor from some other patient. But that did not explain the vast homology of the two strips; for whatever differences there were between the two fingerprints, much was the same.
After running the two in a computer that could numerically establish areas of homology versus the areas of heterogeneity, Victor realized that the two samples of DNA differed in only one area.
To make matters more confusing, the sample that Victor had given Robert contained some small areas of normal liver tissue in addition to the tumor. In his habitually compulsive fashion, Robert had carefully fingerprinted both areas of the sample. When Victor compared the normal liver DNA fingerprint with David’s previous fingerprint, the match was perfect.
Discovering a cancer with a documented alteration in the DNA was not a usual finding. Victor did not know whether he should be excited about the possibility of an important scientific discovery or fearful that he was about to find something that he either couldn’t explain or didn’t want to know.
Victor then started the process of isolating the part of the DNA that was unique in the tumor. By initiating the protocol, it would be that much easier for Robert to complete the work in the morning.
Leaving the main lab room, Victor went through the dissecting room and entered the animal room. As he turned on the light there was a lot of sudden activity in each of the occupied cages.
Victor walked over to the cage which housed the two smart rats whose water contained the single capsule of cephaloclor.
He was amazed to find one rat already dead and the other semicomatose.
Removing the dead rat, Victor took it back into the dissecting room and did an autopsy of sorts. When he opened the skull, the brain puffed out as if it was being inflated.
Carefully removing a piece of the brain, he prepared it to be sectioned in the morning. Just then, the telephone rang.
“Dr. Frank, this is Phil Moscone. Louis Kaspwicz asked me to call you to let you know that the hacker has logged onto the computer.”
“I’ll be right there,” said Victor. He put away his rat brain sample, turned out the lights, and dashed out of the lab.
It was only a short jog to the computer center; Victor was there within a few minutes.
Louis came directly to him. “It’s looking good for the trace. The guy has been logged on now for seven minutes. I just hope to hell he’s not causing any mischief.”
“Can you tell where he is in the system?” Victor asked.
“He’s in Personnel right now,” Louis said. “First he did some sizable number crunching, then he went into Purchasing.
It’s weird.”
“Personnel?” Victor questioned. He’d been thinking the hacker was indeed no kid, but some competitor’s hired gun.
Biotechnology was an extremely competitive field, and most everybody wanted to compete against the big boys like Chimera. But an industrial agent would want to get into the research files, not Personnel.
“We got a positive trace!” the man with the two-way radio announced with a big smile.
There was a general cheer among all those present.
“Okay,” said Louis. “We’ve got the telephone number. Now we just need the name.”
The man with the radio held up his hand, listened, then said, “It’s an unpublished number.”
Several of the other men who were already busy breaking down their equipment booed at this news.
“Does that mean they can’t get the name?” asked Victor.
“Nah,” Louis said. “It means it just takes them a little longer.”
Victor leaned against one of the covered print-out devices and folded his arms.
“Who’s got a piece of paper?” the man with the radio said suddenly, holding the radio up against his left ear. One of the other men handed him a legal-sized pad. He jotted down the name given him over the radio. “Thanks a lot, over and out.” He switched off his radio unit, pushed in the antenna, then handed Louis the paper.
Louis read the name and address and turned pale. Without saying anything he handed it to Victor. Victor looked down and read it. Disbelieving, he read it again. What he saw on the paper was his name and address!
“Is this some kind of joke?” Victor said, raising his head and looking at Louis. Victor then glanced at the others. No one said a word.
“Did you program your PC to access the mainframe on a regular basis?” Louis asked, breaking the spell.
Victor looked back at his systems administrator and realized the man was trying to give him an out. After an awkward minute, Victor agreed. “Yeah, that must be it.”
Victor tried to remain composed. He thanked everyone for their effort and left.
Victor walked out of the computer center, got his coat from the administration building, and walked to his car
