“How can you call what you are doing research?” Stephanie questioned hotly. “And I beg to differ with you: There’s no parallel between what we are planning to do and what you are doing.”
Daniel gripped Stephanie’s arm and eased her away from Paul. “Dr. D’Agostino’s point is merely that we will be treating with differentiated cells.”
Stephanie tried to pull her arm free from Daniel’s grasp. “My point is a hell of a lot bigger than that,” she rejoined. “What you people are talking about doing with stem cells is nothing but pure, unadulterated quackery!”
Daniel tightened his grip on Stephanie’s arm. “Excuse us for just a moment,” he said to Paul and Spencer, whose expressions had clouded. He forcibly pulled Stephanie to the side and spoke to her in an angry whisper. “What the hell are you doing, trying to sabotage our project and get us thrown out of here?”
“What do you mean, what am I doing?” Stephanie whispered back with equal vehemence. “How can you not be outraged? On top of everything else, these people are snake-oil charlatans.”
“Shut up!” Daniel sputtered. He gave Stephanie a short shake. “Do I have to keep reminding you we’re here for one thing and one thing only: to treat Butler! Can’t you restrain yourself, for Christ’s sake? The future of CURE and HTSR is on the line. These people are far from saints. We knew that from the start. That’s why they are here in the Bahamas and not in Massachusetts. So let’s not muck up everything with righteous indignation!”
For a moment, Daniel and Stephanie stared at each other with blazing eyes. Finally, Stephanie broke off and hung her head. “You’re hurting my arm,” she said.
“Sorry!” Daniel responded. He let go of her arm, which Stephanie immediately began to rub. Daniel took a deep breath to get his anger under control. He glanced back at Spencer and Paul, who were watching them with quizzical expressions. Returning his attention to Stephanie, he said, “Can we concentrate on the mission? Can we accept the fact that these people are unethical, venal morons and leave it at that?”
“I suppose the aphorism ‘People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’ fits here, considering what we are planning. Maybe that’s why this all bothers me so much.”
“And maybe you’re right,” Daniel said. “But keep in mind we’re being forced to push ethical boundaries. With that accepted, can I count on you to keep your reactions to the Wingate Clinic and its mission to yourself, at least until we get off by ourselves?”
“I’ll try my best.”
“Good,” Daniel said. He took another deep breath for fortitude before walking back to join the others. Stephanie followed a few paces behind.
“I think we’re suffering a bit of jet lag,” Daniel explained to their hosts. “We’ve both been a tad emotional. Also, Dr. D’Agostino tends to exaggerate to make a point. Intellectually, she feels that differentiated cells would be a more efficacious way to take advantage of the promise of stem cells.”
“We’ve been having some darn good results,” Paul said. “Perhaps, Dr. D’Agostino, you’d like to review them before you make a blanket judgment.”
“I’d find that very instructive,” Stephanie managed.
“Let’s move along,” Spencer suggested. “We want you to see the rest of the clinic before lunch, and there is a lot to see.”
In stunned silence, Daniel and Stephanie passed through the double doors into a vast laboratory. Once again, they were taken aback. The sheer size of the facility combined with its array of equipment, from DNA sequencers to mundane tissue culture-incubators, was much greater than either had envisioned or hoped. The only thing lacking was personnel. A single technician could be seen working in the distance at a dissecting stereomicroscope.
“We’re understaffed at the moment,” Spencer said, as if reading his guests’ minds. “But that’s soon to be rectified, as patient demand balloons.”
“I’ll get our lab supervisor,” Paul said, before disappearing briefly into a nearby side office.
“We project to be up to full strength in about six months,” Spencer said.
“How many technicians do you plan to have?” Stephanie asked.
“Around thirty,” Spencer replied. “At least, that’s what our current projections suggest. But if the stem-cell treatment demand continues to increase at its present rate, we’ll have to adjust that figure upward.”
Paul reappeared, holding the hand of a slight woman who appeared practically emaciated, with all her bony prominences poking through her skin, particularly her cheekbones. She had gray-streaked, mousy-colored hair and a narrow, knifelike nose that stood like an exclamation point above a small, tight-lipped mouth. She was wearing a short lab coat with the sleeves rolled up over a pantsuit. Paul brought her over to the group and introduced her. Her name was Megan Finnigan, as advertised by the laboratory supervisor nametag clipped to her jacket pocket.
“We’re all ready for you,” Megan said, after the introductions. She spoke softly, with a Boston accent. She pointed toward a nearby lab bench. “We’ve prepared this area with what we thought you would need. If there is anything else, all you have to do is ask. My office door is always open.”
“Dr. Lowell needs a small flask of buffered saline,” Paul said. “He has a fabric sample containing blood whose DNA he wants to preserve.”
“That’s no problem at all,” Megan said. She called out for the single lab technician to get it. In the distance, the woman pushed back from her microscope and busied herself with the request.
“When would you like to start your work?” Megan asked, while Daniel and Stephanie inspected the area of the lab set aside for them.
“As soon as possible,” Daniel said. “What about the human oocytes? Will they be available when we need them?”
“Absolutely,” Paul said. “All we need is about twelve hours notice.”
“That’s amazing,” Daniel said. “How is it possible?”
Paul smiled. “That’s a trade secret. Perhaps after we have worked together, we can share such secrets. I’m equally interested in your HTSR.”
“Does that mean you want to start today?” Megan asked.
“Unfortunately, we can’t,” Daniel said. “We have to wait for a FedEx package before we can start, other than getting the fabric sample into an appropriate salt solution.” He turned to Spencer. “I don’t suppose anything has come for us this morning.”
“When was it sent?” Spencer asked.
“Last night from Boston,” Stephanie said.
“How much did it weigh?” Spencer asked. “It makes a difference when it will arrive. Nassau is, after all, an international destination for a shipment from Boston. If it were an envelope or a very small package, it may get here overnight and be here sometime in the afternoon.”
“It wasn’t an envelope,” Stephanie said. “It will be big enough to hold an insulated pack containing a cryopreserved tissue culture plus a stock of reagents.”
“Then the earliest you can expect it is tomorrow,” Spencer said. “It has to go through customs, which will take an extra day at least.”
“It’s important we get the tissue culture in the freezer before it thaws,” Stephanie said.
“I can call customs and expedite it,” Spencer said. “During our construction over the last year, we’ve been dealing with them almost on a daily basis.”
The lab tech arrived with a stoppered flask of buffered saline. She was a light-skinned African-American in her early twenties who wore her hair in a tight bob. A sprinkling of freckles graced the bridge of her nose, and an impressive array of piercings with associated jewelry ringed the helices of her ears.
“This is Maureen Jefferson,” Paul said, introducing her. “Her nickname’s Mare. I don’t mean to embarrass her, but she has the golden touch when it comes to micropipettes and nuclear transfer. So if you need any help, she’ll be here. Am I right, Mare?”
Mare smiled demurely as she handed the saline container to Daniel.
“That??
?s very generous,” Stephanie said, “but I think we’ll be fine in the cellular manipulation department.”
While the others watched, Daniel took the sealed glassine envelope from his pocket. With a pair of scissors proffered by Megan, he cut off one end. By compressing the envelope from the edges, he got it to open. He then carefully dropped the small, pale-reddish swatch of aged linen into the solution without touching it. It floated on the surface of the fluid. He fitted the flask with its rubber stopper and pushed the stopper in tightly. With a grease pencil, also proffered by Megan, he marked the outside of the flask with the initials ST.
“Is there someplace safe to store this while the blood components elute?” Daniel questioned.
“The entire lab is safe,” Paul said. “There’s no need to worry. We have our own professional security department.”
“Consider the clinic the Fort Knox of Nassau,” Spencer said.
“I can lock it in my office,” Megan suggested. “I can even put it in a small safe I have.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Daniel said. “It’s irreplaceable.”
“Have no fear,” Paul said. “It will be safe. Believe me! Would you mind if I held it for a minute?”
“Of course not,” Daniel said. He handed the flask to Paul.
Paul held the bottle up to backlight it with one of the overhead lights. “Can you imagine?” he questioned, squinting at the tiny bit of reddish fabric floating on the fluid’s surface. “We have some of Christ’s DNA! It gives me shivers just to think about it.”
“Let’s not be overly theatrical,” Spencer said.
“How did you manage to get it?” Paul asked, ignoring Spencer’s comment.
“We had high-level clerical assistance,” Daniel said vaguely.
“And how did you arrange that?” Paul asked, as he continued gazing at the fluid-filled flask while slowly turning it.
“Actually, we didn’t,” Daniel said. “Our patient did.”
“Oh, really,” Paul said. He lowered the flask and glanced at Spencer. “Is your patient associated with the Catholic Church?”
“Not to our knowledge,” Daniel said.
“At the very least, he must have some serious pull,” Spencer suggested.
“Perhaps,” Daniel said. “We wouldn’t know.”
“Now that you’ve been over to Italy,” Spencer said, “where do you come down on the issue of the Shroud of Turin’s authenticity?”
“As I told you on the phone,” Daniel said, with barely concealed exasperation, “we’re not involving ourselves in the controversy about the shroud. We’re only using it at our patient’s insistence as a source of the DNA we need for HTSR.” The last thing Daniel wanted to do was get into an intellectual discussion with these bozos.
“Well, I’m looking forward to meeting this patient of yours,” Paul said. “He and I have something in common: We both believe the Shroud of Turin is the real thing.” He handed the flask to Megan. “Let’s be doubly careful now! I have a feeling this little tidbit is going to make history.”
Megan took the flask and held it with both hands. She turned to Daniel. “What are your plans for this suspension?” she asked. “You don’t expect the ancient linen to dissolve, do you?”
“Certainly not,” Daniel said. “I just want to let the swatch sit in the saline to let the lymphocytic DNA present to leech into solution. In twenty-four hours or so, I’ll run an aliquot through the PCR. Electrophoresis with some controls should give us an idea what we have. If we find we have enough DNA fragments, which I’m reasonably sure we will have, we’ll amplify it and then see if our probes pick up what we need for HTSR. Of course, we may have to do the whole exercise a few times and sequence any gaps. Anyway, the swatch will stay in the saline until we have what we need.”
“Very well,” Megan said. “I’ll put the flask in my safe as I suggested. Tomorrow, just let me know when you want it.”
“Perfect,” Daniel said.
“If we’re finished here, why don’t we head over to the clinic building,” Spencer suggested. He checked his watch. “We want you to see our operating rooms as well as our inpatient facility. You can meet the personnel over there, and then we can show you our cafeteria. We’ve even planned a luncheon on your behalf, to which we have invited Dr. Rashid Nawaz, the neurosurgeon. We thought you’d like to meet him.”
“We would indeed,” Daniel remarked.
It seemed to have taken forever, but finally Gaetano was next in line at the rent-a-car concession at the Nassau International Airport. He wondered why it had taken the people ahead of him so long to rent a freakin’ car, since all they had to do was sign the goddamn form. He looked at his watch. It was half past twelve in the afternoon. He had arrived only twenty minutes earlier, even though he’d left Logan Airport at six A.M., before it was even light. The problem had been the lack of nonstop or even direct flights, and he had had to change planes in Orlando.
Gaetano shifted his muscled weight nervously. Sal and Lou had made it crystal clear they wanted him to accomplish his mission in a single day and get his ass back to Boston. They specifically warned him they were not going to brook any lame excuses, even though in the same breath they admitted success depended on Gaetano connecting expeditiously with Dr. Daniel Lowell, which wasn’t a given, since they graciously admitted there were a few variables. Gaetano had promised he’d do his best, yet there wasn’t going to be any possibility whatsoever of getting the job done if he didn’t get the hell over to the Ocean Club hotel ASAP.
The plan was simple. Gaetano was to go to the hotel, locate the mark, who Lou and Sal were absolutely sure would be lounging on the beach, considering the weather, lure him away from the hotel by some clever ruse, and do what he had to do, meaning deliver the bosses’ message and beat the crap out of him so the message would be taken seriously. Then Gaetano was to race back to the airport and take one of the puddle jumpers back to Miami in time to catch the last flight to Boston. If that wasn’t going to happen for some unknown reason, then Gaetano would carry out his mission that evening, providing the professor left the hotel, and then Gaetano would spend the night at some fleabag flophouse and return the following day. The only problem with the latter plan was that there was no way to guarantee that the mark would leave the hotel, which would mean pushing everything to the following day. If that happened, Lou and Sal would be mad, no matter what Gaetano said, so he felt he was caught between a rock and a hard place. The problem boiled down to the fact that Gaetano was needed in Boston. As his bosses had reminded him, there was a lot going these days, with the economy in a tailspin and people complaining that they did not have the cash to meet their loan and gambling obligations.
Gaetano wiped away the sweat that had beaded along the border of his dark, cropped hair and expansive forehead. He was dressed in what had been carefully pressed tan slacks, a flowered short-sleeve shirt, and a blue sports jacket. The idea was to look upscale so he wouldn’t stand out like a sore thumb hanging around the Ocean Club. At the moment, he had the jacket slung over his shoulder, and his pants had some serious damp creases behind each knee. With his compact bulk, he was sensitive to the moist, tropical heat.
Fifteen minutes later, Gaetano was out in a parking lot that was as hot as Hades, looking for a white Jeep Cherokee. If he was hot before, he was boiling now, with triangles of sweat-soaked shirt under each arm. He was holding his carry-on overnight bag in his right hand while his left gripped his car rental papers and a map he’d gotten from the agent. The idea of driving on the left, as instructed by the rent-a-car agent, had initially given him pause, but now he thought he could handle it, provided he kept reminding himself. To him, it seemed the height of ridiculousness for the Bahamians to drive on the wrong side.
He found the car. Without delay, he climbed in and got it started. His first order of business was to get the air-conditioning on full blast and to redirect all the vents in his direction. After checking the map and spreading it out on the seat next to hi
m, he started out of the lot.
There had been some talk of getting a gun, but the idea had been dropped. First of all, it would take time, and second of all, he didn’t need it to deal with a pissant professor. He checked the map again. The route was pretty simple, since most of the roads led into the town of Nassau. From there, he’d take the bridge over to Paradise Island, where he assumed the Ocean Club would be easy to find.
Gaetano smiled at fate. A few years earlier, who would have guessed that he’d be driving along in the Bahamas, dressed to beat the band, feeling good, and anticipating some action? A quiver of excitement made the hairs on the back of his neck momentarily stand up. Gaetano liked violence in any form. It was an addiction of sorts that had gotten him into trouble in the past, starting in middle school but particularly in high school. He loved violent action movies and violent computer games, but mostly he loved the real thing. Thanks to his size, which he’d attained at a young age, and his athleticism, he managed to come out on top in most scuffles.
The biggest problem had occurred in the year 2000. He and his older brother had been employed as he was now, as enforcers or musclemen, but back then it had been in the big leagues in Queens, New York, for one of the major crime families. A job came up for which he and his brother, Vito, were both assigned. They were to teach a lesson to a cop who was on the take but not coming through with his side of the bargain. It was supposed to be straightforward, but it went awry. The cop pulled out a hidden gun and managed to seriously wound Vito before Gaetano disarmed him.
Unfortunately, Gaetano had seen red. When it was over, not only had he killed the policeman, but he’d also killed the man’s wife and teenage son, both of whom had stupidly tried to intervene, the woman with another gun and the kid with a baseball bat. Everyone was furious. None of it was supposed to have happened, and it caused a huge overreaction on the part of New York law enforcement, as if the cop had been some kind of hero. At first, Gaetano thought he was going to be sacrificed, either whacked himself or given over to the police on a silver platter. But then out of the blue came the opportunity to disappear by going to Boston to work for the Castigliano brothers, who were somehow distantly related to the family the Barreses had worked for.