nothing about love and sex, but he was equally ignorant, and they had embarked on a voyage of discovery together. She blushed as she remembered the things they had done in the back row of the Moviedrome on Saturday nights. The exciting thing about Bobby, as with Steve, was a sense of passion constrained. Bobby had wanted her so badly, and had been so inflamed by stroking her nipples or touching her panties, that she had felt enormously powerful. For a while she had abused that power, getting him all hot and bothered just to prove she could do it. But she soon realized, even at the age of thirteen, that that was a foolish game. Still she never lost the sense of risk, of delight in playing with a chained giant. And she felt that with Steve.
He was the only good thing on her horizon. She was in bad trouble. She could not resign from her post here at JFU now. After the
But it was too late for her to take a more cautious stance. Her only hope was to press on stubbornly, using the FBI data, and produce scientific results so convincing that people would look again at her methodology and debate its ethics seriously.
It was nine o’clock when she pulled into her parking space. As she locked the car and walked into Nut House she had an acid feeling in her stomach: too much tension and no food.
As soon as she stepped into her office, she knew someone had been there.
It was not the cleaners. She was familiar with the changes they made: the chairs shifted an inch or two, cup rings swabbed, the wastebasket on the wrong side of the desk. This was different. Someone had sat at her computer. The keyboard was at the wrong angle; the intruder had unconsciously shifted it to his or her habitual position. The mouse had been left in the middle of the pad, whereas she always tucked it neatly up against the edge of the keyboard. Looking around, she noticed a cupboard door open a crack and a corner of paper sticking out of the edge of a filing cabinet.
The room had been searched.
At least, she reflected, it had been done amateurishly. It was not like the CIA was after her. All the same it made her deeply uneasy, and she had butterflies in her stomach as she sat down and turned on her PC. Who had been here? A member of the faculty? A student? A bribed security guard? Some outsider? And why?
An envelope had been slipped under her door. It contained a release, signed by Lorraine Logan and faxed to Nut House by Steve. She took Charlotte Pinker’s release out of a file and put both in her briefcase. She would fax them to the Aventine Clinic.
She sat at her desk and retrieved her E-mail. There was only one message: the results of the FBI scan. “Hallelujah,” she breathed.
She downloaded the list of names and addresses with profound relief. She was vindicated; the scan had in fact found pairs. She could hardly wait to check them out and see whether there were any more anomalies like Steve and Dennis.
Ghita had sent her an earlier E-mail message, saying she was going to run the scan, Jeannie recalled. What had happened to that? She wondered if it had been downloaded by last night’s snooper. That could explain the panicky late-night call to Ghita’s boss.
She was about to look at the names on the list when the phone rang. It was the university president. “Maurice Obeli here. I think we had better discuss this report in the
Jeannie’s stomach tightened. Here we go, she thought apprehensively. It begins. “Of course,” she said. “What time would suit you?”
“I was hoping you might step into my office right away.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
She copied the FBI results onto a floppy disk then exited from the Internet. She took the disk out of her computer and picked up a pen. She thought for a moment, then wrote on the label SHOPPING.LST. No doubt it was an unnecessary precaution, but it made her feel better.
She slipped the floppy into the box containing her backup files and went out.
The day was already heating up. As she crossed the campus she asked herself what she wanted out of this meeting with Obeli. Her only objective was to be allowed to continue with her research. She needed to be tough and make it clear she was not to be bullied; but ideally she would soothe the anger of the university authorities and de-escalate the conflict.
She was glad she had worn the black suit, even though she was sweating in it: it made her look older and more authoritative. Her high heels clacked on the flagstones as she approached Hillside Hall. She was ushered straight into the president’s lavish office.
Berrington Jones was sitting there, a copy of the
Maurice Obeli was in his wheelchair behind his big desk. With his usual abrupt manner he said: “The university simply cannot tolerate this, Dr. Ferrami.”
He did not ask her to sit, but she was not going to be scolded like a schoolgirl, so she selected a chair, moved it, sat down, and crossed her legs. “It was a pity you told the press you had canceled my project before checking whether you had the legal right to do so,” she said as coolly as she could. “I fully agree with you that it made the college look foolish.”
He bridled. “It was not I who made us look foolish.”
That was enough being tough, she decided; now was the moment to tell him they were both on the same side. She uncrossed her legs. “Of course not,” she said. “The truth is we were both a little hasty, and the press took advantage of us.”
Berrington put in: “The damage is done, now—there’s no point in apologizing.”
“I wasn’t apologizing,” she snapped. She turned back to Obeli and smiled. “However, I do think we should stop bickering.”
Once again Berrington answered her. “It’s too late for that,” he said.
“I’m sure it’s not,” she said. She wondered why Berrington had said that. He ought to want a reconciliation; it was not in his interests to be inflammatory. She kept her eyes and her smile on the president. “We’re rational people. We must be able to find a compromise that would allow me to continue my work and yet preserve the university’s dignity.”
Obeli clearly liked that idea, although he frowned and said: “I don’t quite see how.…”
“This is all a waste of time,” Berrington said impatiently.
It was the third time he had made a quarrelsome interjection. Jeannie choked back another waspish rejoinder. Why was he being like this? Did he
“We have already decided the university’s course of action,” Berrington said.
She realized she had mistaken the power structure in the room. Berrington was the boss here, not Obeli. Berrington was the conduit for Genetico’s research millions, which Obeli needed. Berrington had nothing to fear from Obeli; rather the reverse. She had been watching the monkey instead of the organ-grinder.
Berrington had now dropped the pretense that the university president was in charge. “We didn’t call you in here to ask your opinion,” he said.
“Then why did you call me in?” Jeannie asked.
“To fire you,” he replied.
She was stunned. She had expected the threat of dismissal, but not the thing itself. She could hardly take it in. “What do you mean?” she said stupidly.
“I mean you’re fired,” Berrington said. He smoothed his eyebrows with the tip of his right index finger, a sign that he was pleased with himself.
Jeannie felt as if she had been punched. I can’t be fired, she thought. I’ve only been here a few weeks. I was getting on so well, working so hard. I thought they all liked me, except Sophie Chapple. How did this happen so fast?
