his researchers must’ve been electrified.
Dear God, they’d hoped to extend the life span-and instead they defeated
death altogether! So they were eager to move on to development of
similar methods of genetic alteration for human beings.”
“Yes.”
“in spite of the mice’s unexplained tendency to frenzies, rages, random
violence.”
“Yes.”
“Figuring that problem might never arise in a human subject. . . or
could be dealt with somewhere along the way.
“Yes.”
Ben said, “So.. . slowly the work progressed, but too slowly for Eric.
Youth-oriented, youth-obsessed, and inordinately afraid of dying, he
decided not to wait for a safe and proven process.
“Yes.”
“That’s what you meant in Eric’s office tonight, when you asked Baresco
if he knew Eric had broken the cardinal rule. To a genetics researcher
or other specialist in biological sciences, the cardinal rule would
be-what?that he should never experiment with human beings until all
encountered problems and unanswered questions are dealt with at the
test-animal level or below.”
“Exactly,” she said. She had folded her hands in her lap to keep them
from shaking, but her fingers kept picking at one another. “And Vincent
didn’t know Eric had broken the cardinal rule. I knew, but it must’ve
come as a nasty shock to them when they heard Eric’s body was missing.
The moment they heard, they knew he’d done the craziest, most reckless,
most unforgivable thing he possibly could’ve done.”
“And now what?” Ben asked. “They want to help himT’ “No. They want to
kill him. Again.”
“Why?”
“Because he won’t come back all the way, won’t ever be exactly like he
was. This stuff wasn’t perfrcted yet.”
“He’ll be like the lab animals?”
“Probably. Strangely violent, dangerous.”
en thought of the mindless destruction in the Villa Park house, the
blood in the trunk of the car.
Rachael said, “Remember-he was a ruthless man all his life and troubled
by barely suppressed violent urges even before this. The mice started
out meek, but Eric didn’t, so what might he be like now? Look what he
did to Sarah Kiel.”
Ben remembered not only the beaten girl but the wrecked kitchen in the
Palm Springs house, the knives driven into the wall.
“And if Eric murders someone in one of these rages,” Rachael said, “the
police are more likely to learn he’s alive, and Wildcard will be blown
wide open. So his partners want to kill him in some very final manner
that’ll rule out another resurrection. I wouldn’t be surprised if they
dismembered the corpse or burned it to ashes and then disposed of the
remains in several locations.”
Good God, Ben thought, is this reality or Chiller Theater?
He said, “They want to kill you because you know about Wildcard?”
“Yes, but that’s not the only reason they’d like to get their hands on
me. They’ve got two others at least. For one thing, they probably
think I know where Eric will go to ground.”
“But you don’t?”
“I had some ideas. And Sarah Kiel gave me another one. But I don’t
know for sure.”
“You said there’s a third reason they’d want you?”
She nodded. “I’m first in line to inherit Geneplan, and they don’t
trust me to continue pumping enough money into Wildcard. By removing
me, they stand a much better chance of retaining control of the
corporation and of keeping Wildcard secret. If I could’ve gotten to
Eric’s safe ahead of them and could’ve put my hands on his project
diary, I would’ve had solid proof that Wildcard exists, and then they
wouldn’t have dared touch me.
Without proof, I’m vulnerable.”
Ben rose and began to move restlessly around the room, thinking
furiously.
Somewhere in the night, not far beyond the motel walls, a cat cried
either in anger or in passion. It went on a long time, rising and
falling, an eerie ululation.
Finally Ben said, “Rachael, why are you pursuing Eric?
Why this desperate rush to reach him before the others?
What’ II you do if you find him?”
“Kill him,” she said without hesitation, and the bleakness in her green
eyes was now complemented by a Rachael-like determination and iron
resolve. “Kill him for good. Because if I don’t kill him, he’s going