Oliver had two passions—money and flying, the former he shared with his wife Vera, a former nurse’s aide who watched over the children. Of late, he had done considerable flying—little midnight excursions.
As they rounded the eastern flank of the island, the blue and white DeHavilland Beaver came into view at its berth on the small dock just offshore from the compound. If the weather held, Oliver would make another run in the plane later that evening. And because he would mostly be over water, he needed a clear sky to fly.
Oliver pulled the boat up to the dock then took one of Malenko’s shoulder bags as they climbed the dirt lane to the main building, a large brown structure that had once been a fishing and hunting lodge.
Before he entered, Malenko waved to Vera who was in the backyard playground with some of the children. Oliver led him inside where they were met by Phillip who poured Malenko a cup of coffee he had just made. In spite of the fact they were brothers, Phillip looked nothing like Karl back at the camp. Phillip Moy, a former private investigator who had run afoul of the law, had been recruited by Oliver. Phillip was proficient at running background checks on people. He was also handy with machinery and computers, which made him very useful keeping things in operating condition. On occasion he worked with the kids or accompanied Oliver in the dirty work.
“How’s Miss Amber doing?” Malenko asked, sipping his coffee.
“A little dopey,” Phillip said.
“Of course.”
As with all the patients, she had been administered an IV containing a mild tranquilizer that diminished anxiety over being away from home. They had also given her cyclohexylamine, also known as Ketamine, an anesthetic that produced amnesia, effectively blotting out all recall of the enhancement procedure. It was a remarkable drug, almost one hundred percent effective.
While Oliver took the bags upstairs to the bedroom, Malenko followed Phillip down the main hallway to the door in the rear storage room off the kitchen. He unlocked it and the next door at the opposite end, and they descended the stairs to the cellar.
They proceeded into the long bright tunnel that ran nearly a hundred feet under the backyard woods. At the far end was the operating room. Along the tunnel walls were windows spaced a dozen feet apart—one for each dormer. A dormer for each patient. The glass on the windows was thick and one-way visible, a reflecting surface on the obverse side giving the impression of a simple wall mirror, framed to complete the illusion. Because they were underground, the air was cooler and less humid than above. It was also filtered against dust and microbes.
Malenko stopped at the first room and pulled up the blinds on the one-way glass.
Inside was a little girl of six dressed in blue shorts and a white and blue pullover. He tapped the door lightly then let himself in with a master key.
Amber Bernardi. She was a plain child with large dark eyes and black hair. She was also the daughter and only child of Leo and Yolanda Bernardi, owners of Bernardi Automotive Enterprises which had Volkswagen and Porsche dealerships all over New England. Three days ago, they had dropped her off to be enhanced. There was the usual separation crisis: The child cried and fussed until they sedated her after her parents left. Then she was driven here for preop procedures.
To fill her time and minimize distress, they had provided her with television, videos, toys, games, and books. Vera or Phillip would occasionally drop in to chat or take her to the playground. Because of the sedatives, she was quite manageable.
“So, how is Miss Amber today?”
“Fine,” she said, drawing out the syllable.
She was sitting on a chair looking at a book while holding one of the stuffed dancing dolls. Years ago they had ordered a couple dozen of them from overseas because they proved to be a hit with the children. It seemed an appropriate choice, since it was a nearly life-sized version of Ganesha, the elephant god of India.
According to Hindu legend, Ganesha was born as a normal child to Shiva and the goddess Parvathi. But Shiva liked to roam the world. After his son was conceived, he went on a journey and did not return for several years. Because Ganesha had never seen his father, he did not recognize him while guarding his mother’s house. Since his mother was taking a bath, Ganesha demanded that Shiva go away. Angered that the young stranger told him to leave his own house, Shiva chopped off Ganesha’s head and went inside. Realizing that Shiva had killed his own son, Parvathi wailed in grief and demanded that Shiva bring Ganesha back to life. When he confessed that the boy’s head was severed, Parvathi instructed him to take the head off the first living thing he saw and attach it to Ganesha’s body so he could live again. It so happened that an elephant walked by. Instantly, Shiva beheaded the animal and attached its head to his son. Today Ganesha is revered as the god of wisdom.
It was the symbolism that had originally attracted Malenko to the creature. The kids referred to him as Mr. Nisha.
Amber flipped through the book looking at the pictures because, of course, she could not read. “When am I going home?”
“In three days.” Malenko held up his fingers. “How’s that?”
“But I wanna go home now,” she said, her voice thin and distant.
“Well, not for another three days.”
“How come?” she whined.
“Because.”
Because, he thought, you’re a stupid little girl and your parents have dropped a million dollars so you won’t grow up to be a stupid woman who will get herself knocked up by some equally stupid boy and end up wasting away your family’s fortune because you were incapable of a decent education and couldn’t get a decent job and would spend your life producing stupid babies, at least one of whom would go to prison to the tune of $40,000 per year. That’s how come.
“Would you like some milk and cookies?” he asked sweetly.
“Nah. I have some,” she said, and pointed to a paper cup and plate on the floor. She looked at him with flat vacant eyes. “I want some Saltines. I want some Salteeeens.” She began to blubber.
“We’ll get you some in a minute,” he said and got up. He gave her a lasting look. In twelve months, she would be completely transformed—almost another species. After all these years, it still awed him what he could accomplish here. They were right: He was a miracle worker. Perhaps Shiva. Or maybe Jesus, raising the dead. Or Jesus’ father, creating new life.
As he closed the door on Amber, Malenko’s mind tripped back to when the miracles began.
It was 1985, and Lucius had been summoned to the headquarters of the Kiev State Police where two KGB agents led him to a one-way glass wall that looked into an interrogation room within which sat two men in prison clothes smoking cigarettes. The older agent, a Vladimir Kovalyov, explained, “The one on the right is a former researcher from the Steklov Physics Institute of the Academy of Sciences. He was caught selling secrets. The other man shoveled sand in a cement factory in Zhytomyr. He killed a policeman in an antigovernment rally.”
Six days later, the two men were lying side by side on tables in a makeshift operating room the government had set up in the basement of Malenko’s lab. The physicist’s name was Boris Patsiorkovski. He was fortyfour and the father of one. The stupid man’s name was Alexei Nedogoda. He was twenty-nine and the father of two. They were enemies of the state, Malenko told himself, and he sawed off the tops of their heads.