approval and marketing, another man-made microbe “factory” that produced
a supervaccine against all types of herpes, a new variety of corn that
could flourish even if irrigated with salt water, making it possible for
farmers to cultivate abundant crops in arid lands within pumping
distance of the seacoast, where nothing had previously grown, a new
family of slightly altered oranges and lemons genetically modified to be
impervious to fruit flies, citrus canker, and other diseases, thus
eliminating the need for pesticides in a large portion of the
citrus-fruit industry. Any one such patent might be worth tens or even
hundreds of millions of dollars, and Ben supposed it was only prudent
for Geneplan to be paranoid and to spend a small fortune to guard the
research data that led to the creation of each of these living gold
mines.
Rachael went to the middle of the three doors, deactivated the alarm,
and used another key to disengage the lock.
When Ben went through the door behind her and eased it shut, he
discovered that it was enormously heavy and would have been immovable if
it had not been hung in perfect balance on cunningly designed
ball-bearing hinges.
She led him along a series of dark and silent corridors, through
additional doors to Eric’s private suite. There she required one more
code for a final alarm box.
Inside the sanctum sanctorum at last, she quickly crossed a vast expanse
of antique Chinese carpet in rose and beige to Eric 5 massive desk. It
was as ultramodern as that of the company’s front-lounge receptionist
but even more stunning and expensive, constructed of rare gold-veined
marble and polished malachite.
The bright but narrowly focused lance of the flashlight beam revealed
only the middle of the big room as Rachael advanced through it, so Ben
had only glimpses and shadowy impressions of the decor. It seemed even
more determinedly modern than Eric Leben’ 5 other haunts, downright
futuristic.
She put her purse and pistol on the desk as she passed it, went to the
wall behind, where Ben joined her. She played the flashlight over a
four-foot-square painting, brood bands of sombrous yellow and a
particularly depressing gray separated by a thin swath of blood-dark
maroon.
“Another RothkoT’ Ben asked.
“Yeah. And with an important function besides just being a piece of
art.”
She slipped her fingers under the burnished steel frame, feeling along
the bottom. A latch clicked, and the big painting swung away from the
wall, to which it had been firmly fixed rather than hung on wire.
Behind the hinged Rothko was a large wall safe with a circular door
about two feet in diameter. The steel face, dial, and handle gleamed.
“Trite,” Ben said.
“Not really. Not your ordinary wall safe. Four-inchthick steel casing,
six-inch face and door. Not just set in the wall but actually welded to
the steel beams of the building itself. Requires not one but two
combinations, the first forward, the second reverse. Fireproof and
virtually blastproof, too.”
“What’s he keep in there-the meaning of life?”
“Some money, I guess, like in the safe at the house,” she said, handing
Ben the flashlight. She turned the dial and began to put in the first
combination. “important papers.
He aimed the light at the safe door. “Okay, so what’re we after
exactly? The cash?”
“No. A file folder. Maybe a ring-binder notebook.”
“What’s in it?”
“The essentials of an important research project. More or less an
abstract of the developments to date, including copies of Morgan Lewis’s
regular reports to Eric. Lewis is the project head. And with any luck,
Eric’s personal project diary is in here, too. All of his practical and
philosophical thoughts on the subject.”
Ben was surprised that she had answered. Was she finally prepared to
let him in on at least some of her secrets?
“What subject?” he asked. “What’s this particular research project all
about?”
She did not respond but blotted her sweat-damp fingers on her blouse
before easing the safe’s dial backward toward the first number of the
second combination.
“Concerning what?” he pressed.
“I have to concentrate, Benny,” she said. “If I overshoot one of these
numbers, then I’ll have to start all over and put the first set in