journey, with a much higher risk of exposure.
“How do you plan on moving-?”
He was cut off. “SHE’S INTENDED FOR THE FERT/INC LAB.”
Edward had to rest a hand on his desk. He’d visited the Fertilization and Incubation Lab only once-and once was enough. He immediately understood what was demanded of him.
“WE’LL EXPECT HER PREPPED AND AT THE DUBAI AIRPORT BY EIGHT IN THE MORNING,” the speaker finished.
“Consider it done.”
The line went dead before he got out his last word. They didn’t need to hear his acquiescence. It was taken for granted.
He remained standing for two long breaths. The relief he felt at Amanda’s reprieve drained away.
Better she had gotten a death sentence.
He tapped an intercom. “Petra, we’ll need the surgical suite readied.”
Her tinny response followed. “For what procedure?”
He told her, picturing again what he’d witnessed at the Fertilization and Incubation Clinic, that flawless representation of scientific purity, where morality held no sway, a world where only methodology and outcome mattered.
He felt bile churn in his gut.
24
July 2, 6:39 P.M. EST
Charleston, South Carolina
Kat stepped across the threshold.
Amy followed, shadowing behind her, quiet now after her initial cry of shock and dismay. The large steel doors shut behind them, closing on their own with a pop of pressure.
Kat knew they didn’t have much time until their escape was discovered.
With the doors sealed, the ambient light remained low, tinged slightly red, reminding Kat of working in a control room of a submarine during her years in navy intelligence, where the unique lighting preserved night vision. Or maybe the subdued illumination was meant to blunt the horrors residing in here.
A long hall stretched ahead, splitting two rows of tanks full of a pinkish gelatinous fluid. Thin translucent drapes that lined the front of the rows failed to hide what rested in those tub-size steel vessels. Kat stepped to the side and parted one of the curtains.
“Don’t,” Amy moaned, clutching her stolen baton in both hands, but she still followed, clearly needing to stay near Kat-not for protection, merely to remain near a flicker of humanity in such an inhuman lab.
Kat had noted the sign hanging above the hallway.
Fertilization/Incubation Lab
Here lay that purpose given flesh.
A naked woman floated shallowly in semi-viscous fluid, a gelatinous bed to prevent bedsores and to keep tissues moist. Her abdomen swelled with gravid promise, navel protruding, close to parturition. Her breasts hung loosely, never to suckle the life growing within. The patient’s head hung over the edge of the tub, eyes taped shut, neck arched back, as if waiting for her hair to be shampooed. But there was no hair. The bald scalp shone in the weak light, revealing sutured scars and wired electrodes snaking into the skull. Other tubes violated mouth and nose, all running to a rack of monitoring, ventilating, and liquid-feeding equipment.
“What have they done?” Amy asked in a horrified whisper.
Kat stared down the long row, at the other women resting in identical tanks, posed in the same frozen posture of torture, all in various states of fetal gestation. She understood what she was seeing. The women here had been reduced to no more than living brainstems-with only one clear function.
“They’ve turned them into mindless human incubators,” Kat said, trembling between impotent rage and bone- deep sorrow.
She gaped, unblinking, bearing silent witness.
Amy wore the same mask of revulsion.
Kat shied from imagining herself here, unable to balance this monstrous act with the simple wonders and mysteries of her own pregnancies, of carrying those tiny lives inside of her. She staved off the paralysis of horror by remembering her babies’ first cries, the suckle of a tiny mouth on a tender nipple, the grip of little fingers, so demanding, so needy.
She pictured the other four buildings of the clinic complex, of the levels of research and development performed here: the cutting-edge retrieval and cryopreservation techniques for ova and sperm, the advancements in in vitro fertilization procedures, and the latest innovation in embryo culture and transfer. Many of the greatest reproductive and genetic scientists from around the globe worked here or had in the past. How many, if any, knew what trickled down from their groundbreaking research, seeping like toxic waste to pool here with poisonous purpose?
Kat swung away, knowing she had only
“C’mon,” Kat said, sensing time running short.
She returned to the central alleyway between the rows. She had noted glass-enclosed offices at the back and headed there, striding quickly, with Amy in tow. As her mind raced, she considered various exit strategies. There was not likely to be a back door out of this lab, not with what this facility was hiding down here. The only escape was back the way they’d come, through those red steel doors and past that gauntlet of armed guards.
She searched as she strode to the end of the room-for a weapon, for some other means of escape.
She wasn’t the only one searching.
Amy gasped behind her. “Denise…!”
Without turning, Kat reached an arm back and grabbed Amy’s wrist before the young woman could dart to the side, toward one of the shrouded tanks. Amy had come along with Kat to discover the fate of her sister.
“That’s not her,” Kat said, drawing Amy closer. “That’s just a husk, a shell. Your sister died when she was taken through those doors.”
Amy resisted for a couple of steps, then surrendered-knowing Kat was right. They hurried together, each needing the warmth of the other.
The hallway ended at a line of three glass-walled offices, all facing the horror show. Other hallways branched to the left and the right, likely leading to smaller labs, storerooms, and mechanical spaces.
Kat noted the names etched on the three doors. She memorized them, intending to hold the persons accountable if she ever got out of here. But she moved to the centermost and largest of the three. The name on the door read NANCY MARSHALL, M.D., D.Sc., PH.D., A.B.O.G. It seemed the more abbreviated letters followed a name, the less humanity remained.
Through the glass door, Kat spotted a computer glowing with a screensaver depicting a slowly spiraling helix of DNA. She found the lock unfastened and hurried inside, crossing to the computer.
She reached to wake the monitor up, then paused, noting something odd about the screensaver. The glowing, high-definition image detailed a thick double helix of DNA, slowly spinning, all color-coded, mapping out nucleotides, codons, and chemical bonds. She leaned closer, studying a strange abnormality: a
Biology and genetics were not her specialty-but she knew someone at Sigma who could better analyze this data. Reaching to the mouse, she woke up the computer. A standard desktop appeared. She needed to secure as much of the data stored on that hard drive as possible and transmit it back to DC, but she also knew she didn’t have time to crack whatever passwords locked this system from the outside world. There was no way to e-mail or send files electronically. The firewalls around this complex were fierce and military-grade.
