She couldn't believe it. She put in another slide and then bent down to the eyepiece again. There it was — happening again. These cells were in instantaneous terminal crisis. It was as if they passed from the bloom of youth to senescence in the blink of an eye — with no middle life whatsoever. As she peered through the microscope, she had the sensation that she was watching the stages of life play themselves out at high speed — breathtaking in the brutal way that death took the cells at half bloom.
It did not take her long to identify a major part of the problem. The diseased cells were flooded with telomerase, which was odd. Telomerase was supposed to keep cells youthful, by capping the chromosomes with protective sequences of DNA so that the chromosomes did not shorten with replication. All cells had a gene that produced telomerase, but it was switched off and inoperative except in two cases — the cells of the germline, which were passed on from parent to child, and the cells of cancerous tumors.
And yet these other cells, these ordinary cells for skin or bone or organs, were drowning in telomerase. And far from making the cells live longer, the enzyme seemed to be killing them.
It was too much of a good thing. Germ cells and cancer cells. The beginning of life and the end of life.
She turned off the microscope, closed the books, and after a look around to ensure that nothing appeared disturbed, she extinguished the light. It was darker now in the outer room, and as she walked past the cages, her footsteps sounding loud, the monkeys began to stir. One leaned into the cage and screamed at her. Then another. Soon the whole room was in chaos, and she fled between the rows. When she reached the door, she flung it open and quickly closed it behind her. Still the chorus of screams resounded through the building. She reached up behind the camera, retrieved her shoe and ran down the staircase.
Then, as she was crossing the courtyard, she heard another sound, and looked behind her. It was a guard dog, tearing around the building from the rear, coming straight at her. She ran as fast as she could, flung open the door and ran through the entryway to the opposite door. She knew the dog would come around the building after her.
She was right. But she had gained precious time. And now she ran flat-out for the gate. She could hear the low growling, the sound of its paws hitting the ground. Ahead was the door latch. She lunged for it. If it was locked, she would be dead.
It was not. She was through the door and safely on the other side before she knew it, listening to the beating of the paws on the other side, the growls and barks. Only now that it was over did she begin to feel fear overcome her, making her legs tremble. She had to sit down.
She was still sitting when a figure loomed up before her, almost indistinguishable in the growing darkness.
"I knew you were lying," the figure said.
It was Alfred.
Chapter 28
"So how do you want to do this? I call them up right now, we go over there, I denounce you and we see what happens — or we talk first and then I denounce you? Your call."
Alfred was enjoying his position of power. That's the trouble with a sycophant, thought Tizzie. You give him a little leverage and it goes right to his head. A little leverage—hell, he thinks he's got me totally at his mercy.
They were driving on Anderson Hill Road, which dipped and turned around the hills and threadbare lots of Purchase, then merged into King Street and entered the multi-acre estates of Greenwich. They passed a small roadhouse with a red neon beer sign beckoning in the window.
"How about a drink?" she ventured.
"Very good. She picks option number two," he said, in the pseudoresonant voice of a quiz-show narrator.
What an asshole, she thought.
They took a wooden table in a corner. She ordered a vodka straight up and he, not to be outdone, did the same. When it came, she drank it straight down, and so did he.
"Okay, why don't you tell me exactly what you happened to be doing in the restricted lab after dark with no one else around? I'm sure there's a perfectly credible explanation, now that you've had five minutes to think it up."
"What makes you think I was in the restricted lab?"
"The monkeys. They make quite a racket when they see a stranger."
He had her there.
"Not all of them. Some are too old to do much of anything. I wonder why that is?"
The redhead scowled. She had to find a way to play for time. She finished her water and hid the glass under the table. Just then, their second vodkas arrived, and while he downed his, she poured hers into the glass.
"Let me ask you something — why did you suspect me?"
"Give me a break. I've been on to you for a long time. Always leaving. Sneaking around. Women's problems. Christ's sake — what do you take me for?"
She was tempted to tell him. Instead, she ordered another round of drinks — it would begin to affect him soon, she thought.
Time for the calculated risk. Sooner or later, all spies — all double spies, at least — reach the point of no return.
"I might as well tell you," she began. "I don't see what there is to lose."
She saw that she had his attention. He was leaning forward over the table.
"You figured it out quickly. Not everyone would have."
The appeal to vanity — the oldest trick in the book.
"You're wondering who I am working for, aren't you? Who's behind me?"
He nodded.
"I wish I could tell you specifically because it might be important for you—very important. It's crucial for you to know what you're up against — just as it was crucial for me to know what I was up against. These people are playing for keeps — on both sides. Understand?"
He nodded again, a little uncertainly.
This time he ordered the drinks.
"I have to admire the Lab, when I think of all they've done — the breakthroughs, the underground research in Jerome, that island, the colony of clones. It's remarkable stuff."
She raised her glass in a toast. Albert did the same, looking confused.
"It would have been twice as remarkable, don't you think, if the Lab could have done all that without attracting the attention of… certain agencies. But in a way, I suppose they are victims of their own grand design. I mean, it's just too ambitious, too big. The web site. All that equipment. It's quite impressive, really, but how do you think for one moment that it was possible to keep it all a secret? People talk, word gets around. You following me?"
He was. She could tell by a tiny gleam of fear that had crept into the corner of his eye.
"I was trying to think just the other day how many laws have been broken. Murder one — multiple times. Conspiracy. Conspiracy to commit murder. Some of these states have the dealth penalty, you know. Organized crime statutes. RICO. Federal laws. Violations of civil rights. Conspiracy to inflict bodily harm."
She looked off, as if she were contemplating the marvelous scope of the law enforcement system.
"This one starts at the top with capital punishment crimes and goes all the way down to income tax violations and probably even mail fraud. They usually throw that in just for laughs."
"And, of course, these people I'm working for, they know what I'm up to. They know what I'm doing. They even know about you."
"About me?"
"Of course — you don't think they're just going to send me there all by myself and stay out of contact. Why do you think I've been taking those walks at night? Anything happens to me and there's going to be hell to pay."