“Good dog,” Tucker radioed back.
Pride spiked through him-and a raw affection that ached.
They had all watched Kane’s hunt, huddled around his phone’s tiny screen. His shepherd had spotted four guards stationed out in the grounds-then he snuck up to a pickup truck parked crookedly in the circular drive fronting the entrance to Burj Abaadi.
“He’s found Amanda’s scent there,” Tucker said. “She’s on the island!”
“Can you get Kane up into the bed of that truck?” Gray asked.
“No problem.” It was never hard to get Kane to take a ride. He sent the command. “UP IN THE TRUCK!”
The dog immediately backed a yard-then, with a burst of speed, he launched from his haunches and flew over the side and landed in the rear bed, skittering slightly to avoid hitting what lay there.
Kane danced around it, sniffing intently.
Seichan leaned closer. “Is that an open casket?”
Gray pointed out the bits of tape along the edges. “That’s how they moved Amanda. No wonder she was never spotted at the airport. They crated her here, likely under diplomatic seals.”
Kowalski looked over his shoulder. “Yeah, but where is she now?”
They all stared up at the fifty-story tower, spinning slowly in the night. They all recognized the truth.
The hunt was just beginning.
But were they already too late?
2:32 A.M .
The tiny boy rested on Amanda’s bare belly, quiet now.
The furnace of her body, stoked to a fiery dampness by the delivery, kept him warm. A small blanket covered him, but a tiny fist protruded, no bigger than a walnut.
Amanda stared, consuming him with her eyes. With her arms bound to the sides, she could not hold him. That was the worst cruelty. Even giving her this moment with her child was necessity, not compassion. She had read all the baby books. The newborn was placed facedown to encourage the draining of any fluid; the skin-to-skin contact encouraged her body to release its own natural oxytocin, to help with the final contractions to push the placenta free.
Her body had performed its ageless duty.
Spent, exhausted, she tried to stretch this moment for an eternity.
“My baby boy,” she whispered, tears streaking through the sweat of her heated face; she wanted him to hear his mother’s voice at least once. She willed all her love, christening him with the name murmured in the night with her husband, Mack, his broad hand resting on the bump of her stomach.
“My little William.”
But, sadly, the child was not her husband’s, at least not genetically. She knew some of the truth, saw the medical records in the terrifying note that sent her fleeing in terror out to the Seychelles. Still, Mack had loved the baby as much as she did. It shone in his face, even after the truth was known.
New tears flowed, for the family that was never to be.
Voices intruded, but she never took her eyes off her child.
“Petra, make sure you collect at least five milliliters of blood from the umbilical cord. We’ll need the sample serum-typed, in addition to the standard tests. I’ll also want to harvest some umbilical stem cells.”
Amanda listened, realizing the truth. They were already parsing her child into parts.
“Dr. Blake, the radiant bed is ready,” Petra called from the side. “I’ve prepared the vitamin K and the eyedrops. Did you want to perform the APGAR assessment?”
“No. You can do it. I should pass on word about the delivery as soon as possible.”
Blake shifted from the foot of the delivery bed to Amanda’s side. He reached to scoop up the child.
“No, please,” Amanda begged. “Another minute.”
“I’m sorry. It’s better this way. You did beautifully.”
She strained forward, a sob breaking out of her hoarse throat. “Nooo…!”
Ignoring her plea, he lifted William from her belly, taking away his warmth, leaving a hollowness that she knew would never go away.
Blake walked her boy toward a tiny bed under harsh lights-and the nurse with cold eyes. Amanda pictured the shining tray of silver dissection tools.
Her sobs turned into wracking cries. She rocked within the limits of her restraints. Still, she never took her eyes off her boy.
2:38 A.M.
Dr. Edward Blake stood by his desk, bone-tired and bleary-eyed. A deep-cushioned chair beckoned, but he remained standing. He didn’t want to be relaxed, not during this call.
“Yes, everything went smoothly,” he reported. “The genetics continue to remain stable. After we run the baselines, we’ll be testing the stability of the helix assembly under various environmental rigors and stresses.”
That was the purpose behind Petra’s macabre work in her lab: to separate out various vital organs-brain, heart, lungs, and others-to keep those tissues alive indefinitely, so that rigorous tests could be performed upon them. Amanda’s child was destined for that lab.
“I believe we have reason to be optimistic about this boy,” he finished.
“OPTIMISM IS IRRELEVANT,” the speaker countered, the voice digitally flattened and tweaked to an arctic severity-though Edward suspected that iciness wasn’t all computer-generated. “ONLY HARD FACTS MATTER.”
He swallowed. “Of course. We’ll start generating actionable data within the day.”
“TISSUE SAMPLES SHOULD BE HARVESTED AND COURIERED STATESIDE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”
“Understood. I received the list. My assistant is already prepping stem and skin cells. We’ll have intestinal and alveolar biopsies within the hour, and cortical and spinal sections by day’s end. But I do have another question.”
Silence encouraged him to continue.
“The mother… was there a final consensus on what to do with her?” Edward could guess the answer. A massive graveyard had been dug into the jungles outside of his Somalia camp.
“SHE MAY STILL PROVE TO BE BIOLOGICALLY USEFUL. AS OF NOW, WE DON’T KNOW IF THESE RESULTS ARE BROADLY REPLICABLE OR IF THERE IS SOMETHING UNIQUE ABOUT HER GENETICS.”
Edward was surprised at the depth of his relief. He pictured Amanda’s tender love shining through the sweat and tears, the strength in her eyes when he took her baby away. That blend of toughness and maternal protection must have touched him more than he imagined.
“Should we confine her here?” he asked hoarsely. “On Utopia?”
“NO. OUR PLANS REQUIRE HER TO BE SHIPPED BACK TO THE STATES.”
Surprised, Edward absorbed this and ran various scenarios through his head. He had lightly sedated Amanda for the short hop from Somalia, to facilitate her passage through customs. But a trip to the States was a longer
