"Tibbett?"
"What about him?"
"Do you know he's a member?"
"I do now. What can you tell me about him?"
"Not much. Skyler identified him. He was part of a group that went to the island for some kind of big meeting. Rincon was there, too, but they didn't get a look at him. Anyway, Skyler's sure Tibbett was there. I can't figure him out. The strange thing is, when I look back, I see he's been doing things for me all along. My book was published, it was given a big push. And somehow it was arranged — at least I think it was — for me to meet Tizzie. And the couple of times I've met him, he's always treated me as if I were the one who was special, not him."
"Maybe he's just an old-fashioned gentleman."
"Somehow I doubt that."
"So do I. And that brings me to the point of this meeting."
Jude felt his guard go up. They had reached the riverbank and were standing off to one side. They heard a distant rumble — a train approaching. They stepped farther away from the tracks.
"Go on."
"I thought maybe you could help me."
Jude looked at his friend, who appeared suddenly helpless, almost pathetic.
"Me help you?"
"Look — we don't have time to putz around anymore. We're working against a deadline here. You're in the middle of this thing. You've got Skyler, who can pick them out. You've got Tizzie, who's almost infiltrated the goddamned group. And you are — as you say—special for some reason. We need you three."
"But where is the Lab?"
"That's what I'd like to know."
"But didn't you track them to the island? Didn't you follow them when they left it?"
"Jude — this is what I'm talking about. I didn't even know they were on an island until they'd already left it. And I got no fucking idea where they are now!"
"Christ!"
"I know. It's pathetic."
"Do you know why they left the island? Was it the hurricane?"
"No, that one's easy. The way I figure it, they were all packed up and ready to go. They knew they'd have to leave the day Skyler got away."
The noise of the train was getting louder, so that Raymond practically had to yell.
"So what d'ya say? You gonna help us?"
Jude had time to contemplate the question. The train rushed past, stirring dust and rustling branches and making their clothes flap. It was too loud to talk.
When it had passed, Jude looked at him.
"I may be able to do something," he said. "You want to know who's in the Group? I can get you the list of members, and I can get into their medical records, if we can just find where they are. But I'm telling you — I'm going to demand something in exchange. We'll talk about that later. To start with, I need to see your file."
"That's illegal. FBI files are classified."
Jude just stared at him.
"Okay. I'll see what I can do."
"Okay."
Jude looked off into the woods beside the track.
"Be careful. You were lucky to get off that island, you know. And by the way, there's an all-points bulletin out for you."
"Thanks for telling me. That comes from the other FBI, I take it."
"Right."
"Okay. I'll be careful. You can stop telling me that."
Again, seemingly out of nowhere, Raymond seemed compelled to speak up. His voice seemed full of genuine concern.
"There's something else you should know — these clones. They're not the only ones getting killed. We've lost some guys, too."
Jude started to walk toward the woods. He had hidden his car there, parked along a dirt road that ran for almost five miles before it joined a highway. He could see the surprise beginning to dawn on Raymond's face. "Hey, where the hell you going?"
"This is my stop," Jude replied.
"Fuck."
Jude was pleased to note that he sounded angry.
"You can find your way back, Raymond. And here's something else. Think of it as a down payment on the information I'm going to give you. One of the top conspirators — it's your boss. Eagleton."
By now, Jude was practically shouting.
"That's why we ran away in Washington. So remember — trust no one."
On Friday, Tizzie decided to make her move. That afternoon, she told Alfred that she wouldn't be taking the bus and would have to leave early because her uncle Henry was picking her up. His name would be enough to stop Alfred from asking questions, she had assumed, and her assumption proved correct.
Instead, Alfred just went into a sulk.
At six p.m., she put away the equipment, picked up her purse and paused at the door.
"Don't have them hold dinner," she said. "We'll be eating at Maison Indochine. I'll bring you a doggie bag, if you like."
The sulk turned into a slow burn.
Maybe it hadn't been wise to rub it in like that, but it sure had been fun, she thought going out the door to the courtyard.
Instead of going to the front gate, though, she looked around and then slipped behind the garage into a four-foot-wide dead space that separated it from the fence. There she waited — and waited. It seemed like hours, but it was only forty-five minutes when she finally heard the sounds of doors opening and people heading out — their voices lightened by a sense of release on Friday evening. She heard the bus pull away, then other sounds of people in ones and twos walking toward the gate and slamming it behind them and starting up cars in the lot outside.
Finally, all was quiet. She was about to emerge from her hiding place, when she heard another sound — someone entering by the gate. Was it a night watchman? She hadn't counted on that. She waited for another half hour, listening intently, but didn't hear anything more. Could the person have left without her knowing? Maybe through a back entrance?
She had to risk it.
Slowly and stealthily, she crept out from behind the garage. In the gathering shadows she crossed the courtyard, used her badge to open the front door and climbed the stairs to the restricted area, the second floor. There was the door — and the camera. Was it functioning at night? She couldn't take a chance. She took off her shoe, rose on tiptoes, and slipped it over the lens.
Then she approached the keypunch. 8769. Immediately, there was a responding buzz; the door clicked open. She was inside the restricted area. The smell hit her full in the nostrils.
Light in the first room came in through the windows, just enough to cast a dim pallor over everything. There were rows and rows of metal cages stacked to the ceiling, and inside were rhesus monkeys, one to a cage. Some grabbed the wire mesh with both hands and shook their cages loudly as she walked by. Others sat almost motionless, as if in a stupor. She noticed that these monkeys were stooped and grizzled, with gray hair on their chins and lining their temples.
She moved quickly past the cages and into the second room, the inner laboratory, a clean, windowless chamber where computers regulated the temperature of the dust-free atmosphere. Microscopes and lab machinery told her this was where she wanted to be. She closed the door and turned on the light.
There on the desk was a pile of reports and lab notes. She sat down and skimmed them, and then kept skimming through daily records, charts and graphs, and computer printouts. Gradually, a picture of the research began to emerge. She went to the counter, switched on the microscope and sampled the slides. They were of cells much like the ones she handled — in fact, some of her stained handiwork, red and blue, were stored carefully to one side.
But most of these cells were different.
She looked closely. Before her were dozens, hundreds, of diseased cells that, like the others, mimicked the symptoms of old age. They looked as if they had simply reached the end of the line — the Hayflick limit. That in itself was not peculiar; what was strange was that she could see it happening right before her eyes.