Robin Cook - Shock

The women were surprised at the small size.

"It's because of the storage for the automatic convertible top, Spencer explained.

Deborah scratched her head. "I guess we'll have to spoon."

Joanna nodded. "You're biggest, so you get in first."

"Thanks a lot," Deborah said. She climbed in headfirst and rolled onto her side. Joanna followed suit bending her body to fit in against Deborah's. Spencer slowly closed the lid to make sure there was no problem with arms and knees, and then raised it again.

"It's actually more comfortable than the iron lung," Deborah commented.

"What iron lung?" Spencer asked.

"That's another story," Deborah said. "Let's get this current chapter over with."

"All right, let's go!" Spencer said. "Now don't panic. I'll stop and let you out as soon as it's reasonable. Okay?"

"Button it up!" Deborah said cheerfully, trying to make the best of a bad situation.

The trunk lid came down with a thud and an expensive-sounding click. Once again the women were thrust into darkness. The next thing they heard was the garage door retracting, followed by the car engine starting.

"I guess we should have thought about coming to Spencer earlier," Deborah said. "We could have saved ourselves some grief."

The women felt the car back out of the garage, do a three-point turn, and then motor down the driveway to the street.

"This is an ignominious way to be leaving this place," Joanna said.

"At least we're leaving."

"I felt rather bad for the good doctor," Joanna said after they'd driven for a while.

"What we told him certainly took him by surprise."

They drove in silence for the next few minutes while the women tried to guess where they were. Eventually they felt the car come to a stop with the engine still going.

"We must be at the gate," Deborah said.

"Shush!" Joanna said.

The trunk lid was so well insulated that the women couldn't hear anything until the engine revved again, and even then it was more vibration than noise. After they'd driven a short distance they could tell they were on gravel. A few minutes later the car stopped again, only this time the engine was turned off.

"You'd think he would have driven a bit farther away from the gatehouse," Joanna said.

"I was thinking the same thing," Deborah said. "But hell, at least we're outside the gate, so we might as well ride in style."

They heard the welcome sound of the key in the trunk lock, followed by a popping-up of the trunk cover. Joanna and Deborah looked up, and their hearts leaped in their chests. Spencer was nowhere to be seen. Instead they were looking up into the sneering faces of the Wingate security chief and his henchman.

SPENCER LOOKED OUT FROM his office window at the expansive, verdant lawn. Beyond were the spire of Bookford's church and a handful of chimneys sticking up through the budding trees. It was a pleasant sight, and it helped to a degree to calm his roiling emotions. He couldn't remember the last time he was quite so overwrought. To make it worse, he'd not slept in more than twenty-four hours and was still recovering from his recent alcoholic debauchery.

Spencer cleared his throat. "What concerns me is not just what the women knew, but how they found out." Spencer turned from the window and faced Paul Saunders and Sheila Donaldson, who were calmly sitting in armchairs in front of his desk. "I mean, I was blown away when those two women showed up inside my house, especially since you supposedly had a small army looking for them. If that doesn't smack of incompetence, I don't know what does. But more important, if those two could find out in one day everything that you people have been doing around here, so could someone else."

"Spencer, calm down," Paul urged. "Everything is under control."

" 'Under control,' " Spencer repeated sarcastically. "If this is under control I can't imagine what things would have to be like to be out of control." He returned to his desk chair and sat down heavily.

"We're in full agreement," Paul said calmly. "We know we must find out exactly how the women managed to find out what they did."

"They knew about gestating human clones in pigs," Spencer said. "You didn't tell me about that last night. For chrissake, what's that about anyway?"

"It's to rid us of dependence on the Nicaraguan women," Paul said. "As soon as we've perfected the technique, that will be a major source of new eggs apart from the oogonia cultures."

"Well, how the hell did they learn about it?" Spencer roared.

"We'll find out," Paul said. "Trust me!"

"How can you be so confident?" Spencer demanded. "Kurt Hermann and his bozos have been grilling those women down in the gatehouse since three A.M., and you admitted yourself five minutes ago, they've learned nothing."

"I beg to differ," Sheila said. "I've been doing the debriefing so far, not Kurt, and it's not true we've learned nothing."

"You've been talking with the women?" Spencer questioned.

"Absolutely," Sheila said. "It was under my specific orders that I be paged the moment they were apprehended. As we're trying to tell you, we're just as concerned as you about uncovering their methods. And we are making progress. For instance, we've learned that it was your access card which got them into both the server room and the egg room."

"Oh, I see," Spencer said, glaring back at his two supposed subordinates. "So I'm to blame for this debacle."

"Allotting blame is not our intent in the slightest," Paul said.

"That's not a lot of information after six hours," Spencer said.

"They are extremely intelligent women," Sheila explained. "They recognize that the information they have is important. They are not pushovers by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm being patient."

"We're using the good cop, bad cop routine," Paul explained.

"Exactly," Sheila said. "Obviously, I'm the good cop. While we're having our meeting, Kurt is having his first go at talking with them. He's the bad cop. As soon as we finish here, I'll go back down and intervene. I'm confident we'll have all we need to know by noon at the latest."

"Once we have the information," Paul said, "we'll make the appropriate operational changes. We've already started in regard to computer security. From now on, access to the server room will be limited to Randy Porter alone."

"We should look at this whole unfortunate affair as a learning experience," Sheila said.

"Precisely!" Paul chimed in. "And we should look at it as a further stimulus for us to move the entire clinic, research labs and all, offshore like we discussed last evening. By the way, Spencer: What did you think of the plans I gave you last evening for the Bahamian Center?"

"The plans looked good," Spencer admitted reluctantly.

'And your response in general to the idea of moving offshore?" Paul asked.

"I must admit I like it," Spencer said. "I like the idea of having even less regulation than we've had to deal with here, even if that hasn't been that much of a bother."

Spencer nodded. "Let's get back to the women. What's to happen them after their debriefing?"

"I don't know,' Paul answered.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Spencer demanded, feeling his ire rise again.

"I don't want to know," Paul said. "I leave that kind of problem up to Kurt Hermann. That's what we pay him for."

"You leave the problem to Kurt Hermann and yet retain the ovaries," Spencer sneered. "Is that what you are telling me?"

"Harvesting the ovaries was a mistake we made in the past," Sheila interjected. "There's no doubt we shouldn't have done it. We realize it now, and it will not be repeated. As an explanation, it happened back when we were struggling with a critical egg shortage."