There was a peculiar scent in the air, almost like musty flowers, except that it was more medicinal than stale.
They did not go upstairs. They turned to the right and walked through a doorway into what appeared to be a drawing room. It was lavishly furnished with Victorian couches and love seats piled with pillows, woven hassocks and Pembroke tables. The walls were covered with gilded framed paintings of romantic landscapes and hunting scenes.
Shadows rent the room, which made it difficult to see, so that Jude did not notice right away that someone else was there — sitting in a chair. Instead he felt the presence of another person, intuiting it from the way his escorts let go his arms and turned toward the chair, backing away slightly.
Then Jude saw him. Sitting in a high-back chair, which gave off the pretentious grandeur of a throne, was an elderly elegant man with a strong hatchet face.
Jude knew instantly that this was the man he had heard Skyler and Tizzie speak of so often — Baptiste. Uncle Henry.
The phone rang in the operating room at the most inconvenient of times. Still, with the first operation about to begin, they thought they should answer it. Who knew what kind of problem could have arisen?
"Dr. Higgins, it's for you," said the assistant.
The doctor took the call, annoyed and frowning at the interruption, and put the receiver down none too lightly.
"Wouldn't you know," he said peevishly. "Problem in the ward. I'll straighten it out and be right back. Don't do anything until I get back — I won't be long."
He pushed through the double doors into the prep room, took off his green cap and smock and slippers and threw them into a bin, angry that he would have to put on fresh ones and scrub down all over again. He quickly put on his clothes, a pair of chinos, a striped pink and blue shirt, and loafers. He looked over at the gurney where the clone was lying in a daze, ready to undergo deep sedation. Expertly, his eyes sized him up, those parts that were visible — skin, muscle tone, eyes. No doubt about it, a good specimen.
Then he pushed through the second set of doors and walked into the ward, like a stern headmaster.
Dr. Higgins was as good as his word. He came back into the operating room in no time, scrubbed, clothed in green and ready to go. He was pulling the gurney with the clone behind him, and the others rushed to assist him.
They readied the instruments, counting them and placing them in correct order on the tray. They adjusted the overhead lights and moved the clone from the gurney to the operating table. They took his readings, attached the electrodes to monitor heart and brain, swabbed his trunk thoroughly with antiseptic, shaved him, covered his mouth with an oxygen mask, and gave him a huge dose of anesthetic.
It was a routine they had all done hundreds of times in their careers, separately, and yet they knew that all those times had only served to prepare them for this time.
"You do the first one," said Dr. Higgins grandly. "You take the first honor."
The female surgeon was taken aback, but pleased by the professional respect she felt was long her due.
She quickly stepped into place beside the body while the others took their positions, the anesthetist at the top of the table, the top assistant at her right elbow next to the tray of instruments. The surgeon held her right hand out as if for a tip. She didn't have to say a word — the assistant placed into it the thick, crisscrossed handle of the first cutting knife.
"All right, gentlemen. Let's do it," she pronounced, almost with a touch of melodrama.
And then she placed the blade under the sternum, in the center of the rib cage, and pressed down squarely so that it penetrated the pale skin. The first trickle of blood rose like a tiny fountain.
Baptiste told the Orderlies to leave and gestured Jude toward a chair with a languid air. He tipped the fingers of his hands together and contracted them so that they looked like two spiders touching the legs. For a long while, he was silent, almost as if he were waiting for Jude to speak. But then he did.
"This is a meeting I have imagined many times," he said.
"And why is that?" Jude asked.
Baptiste sighed. "It's a long story," he said.
"I know most of it," Jude declared.
"Do you?"
The question was swathed in a patronizing tone that Jude found hard to bear.
"Yes."
"Such as?"
"I know about the Lab. I know about Arizona and how it got started there. I know about the island, Crab Island, and the clones and how they were raised as nothing more than banks for spare parts. I know about the scientific breakthroughs and how you sold the knowledge to rich people and how you all expected to live one hundred and sixty years."
Baptiste was listening closely, but he did not appear to be impressed.
"I know about W, the conspiracy" — here Jude paused for effect. "I know the names of everyone who's in it."
Baptiste cut him off. "No matter. They won't be in it for long."
"You mean because they're aging. I know about that, too. Progeria. They all have it. The members of the Lab have it. Their children have it. You have it."
Baptiste nodded and shrugged.
"I know that you've killed people."
Baptiste shrugged again. "Clones," he said. "We killed clones, not people."
"Clones are people."
Baptiste looked at him again with a patronizing air — as if to say, you have so much to learn.
"And Raymond. How about him? You killed him?"
"We most certainly did not. That was the FBI. My boy, please learn to tell your various conspiracies apart."
Jude was aghast at the man's equanimity, but also fascinated.
"No, Raymond was not ours. We can't claim him. There was one — a long time ago — but that was all." He did not elaborate.
"My father."
"Your father, my boy, was killed in a car accident. And there was no one who grieved more than myself. I loved him deeply."
"That's not what I heard."
"Well, you heard wrong." Baptiste looked up solicitously. "Say," he added suddenly, "would you care for some coffee? Some tea?"
Jude was totally flummoxed. "For Christ's sake. You jail me. You beat me up. And you invite me over for tea? What the hell is going on? What are you up to?"
Baptiste allowed himself a thin little smile.
"I thought you said you knew everything."
"Not everything. Almost everything."
"Evidently, not the most important part. The puzzle with the missing piece — and that one piece contains everything of significance in the puzzle. Do have some tea."
Jude relented. He was quietly seething. Baptiste rang a small bell. An elderly black man appeared, took the order and left. Baptiste settled back in his chair. He had the air of a man about to divulge a matter of great importance, and he was enjoying it.
"You say you were beat up? The Orderlies?"
"Yes."
He nodded gravely. "That's most serious. They are not allowed to disobey instructions. Still, they've been very upset. You did — at least in their eyes — kill their brother. And they were bred for aggression, so to speak. And then they were the first to get the treatment — it was still in the experimental stage back then — and the counterreaction struck them first. It's hard, when you're bred for strength, to be losing it so rapidly."
"The treatment — you mean, telomerase?"
Baptiste simply nodded, looking at his watch.