Robin Cook - Chromosome 6

Back at the Toyota, Kevin secured the chain to the trailer hitch. When he got back to the window well he gently pulled on the chain. He could see it was tied securely around the central bar.

“Looks good,” Kevin said. “Let’s see what happens.”

He climbed back into the vehicle and made sure it was in its lowest four-wheel drive gear. Looking out the back window, Kevin cautiously eased the car forward to take the slack out of the chain.

“All right, here we go,” Kevin said to Melanie and Candace. He began to press on the accelerator. The heavy-duty Toyota engine strained, but Kevin couldn’t hear it. The hum of the motor was drowned out by the frenzied beat of a popular Zairean rock group.

Suddenly, the vehicle lurched forward. Hastily, Kevin braked. Behind them they heard a terrible clanging over the sound of the music like someone hitting a fire escape with a curbstone.

Kevin and the women winced. They looked back at the opening into the army post. To their relief, no one appeared to check out the awful sound.

Kevin jumped out of the Toyota with the intention of going back to see what had happened when he almost ran into an impressively muscled black man heading right for him.

“Good job, man! My name’s Warren and this is Jack.” Jack had come up alongside Warren.

“I’m Kevin.”

“Cool,” Warren said. “You back these wheels up, and we’ll see what we can do with the other opening.”

“How did you get out so quickly?” Kevin asked.

“Man, you pulled out the whole friggin’ frame,” Warren said.

Kevin climbed into the car and slowly backed up. He could see the two men had already detached the chain.

“It worked!” Melanie said. “Congratulations.”

“I must admit it was better than I thought,” Kevin said.

A moment later, someone thumped on the back of the Toyota. When Kevin looked, he could see one of the men wave for him to go forward.

Kevin used the same driving technique he’d used the first episode. With approximately the same amount of power there was the same sudden release and unfortunately the same clanging noise. This time a soldier had appeared at the window.

Kevin didn’t move, and he prayed the two men he’d just met did the same. The soldier proceeded to bring a wine bottle to his lips and in the process knocked several of the empties off the sill. They shattered on the stone pavement. Then he turned and disappeared back into the room.

Kevin got out of the vehicle in time to see two women being extracted from the second window well. As soon as they were free, all four rushed for the car. Kevin went around to detach the chain but found that Warren was already in the process of doing so.

They all climbed into the Toyota without discussion. Jack and Warren squeezed into the jump seats in the back while Laurie and Natalie joined Candace on the middle bench.

Kevin put the car in gear. After a final glance at the army post, he drove from the parking lot. He didn’t switch on the lights until they were away from town hall.

The escape had been a heady experience for everyone: triumph for Kevin, Melanie, and Candace; surprise and utter relief for the crew from New York. The seven exchanged terse introductions; then the questions started. At first, everyone spoke at the same time.

“Wait a second, everybody!” Jack shouted over the babble. “We need some order in this chaos. Only one person at a time.”

“Well, damn!” Warren said. “I’m going first! I just want to thank you guys for coming when you did.”

“I’ll second that,” Laurie said.

Having cleared the central part of town, Kevin pulled into the parking lot for the main supermarket. There were several other cars. He stopped and turned off the lights and the engine.

“Before we talk about anything else,” Kevin said. “We’ve got to talk about getting out of this town. We don’t have a lot of time. How did you people originally plan on leaving?”

“By the same boat we came in on,” Jack said.

“Where’s the boat?” Kevin asked.

“We assume it’s where we left it,” Jack said. “Pulled up on the beach under the pier.”

“Is it big enough for all of us?” Kevin asked.

“With room to spare,” Jack said.

“Perfect!” Kevin said with excitement. “I was hoping you’d come by boat. That way we can go directly to Gabon.” He faced around quickly and restarted the engine. “Let’s just pray it’s not been found.”

He drove out of the parking lot and began a circuitous route to the waterfront. He wanted to stay as far from the town hall and his own house as possible.

“We have a problem,” Jack said. “We have no identification or money. Everything was taken from us.”

“We’re not much better off,” Kevin said. “But we do have some money, both cash and travelers checks. Our passports were confiscated when we were put under house arrest this afternoon. We were destined for the same fats as you: to be turned over to the Equatoguinean authorities.”

“Would that have been a problem?” Jack asked.

Kevin let out a little derisive laugh. In the back of his mind, he could see the skulls on Siegfried’s desk. “It would have been more than a problem. It would have meant a hush-hush mock trial followed by a firing squad.”

“No shit!” Warren said.

“In this country, it is a capital offense to interfere with GenSys operations,” Kevin said. “And the manager is the one who decides whether someone is interfering or not.”

“A firing squad?” Jack repeated with horror.

“I’m afraid so,” Kevin said. “The army here is good at it. They’ve had a lot of practice over the years.”

“Then we’re even more in debt to you people than we thought,” Jack said. “I’d no idea.”

Laurie looked out the side window of the car and shuddered. It was just sinking in how seriously her life was on the line and that the threat was not yet over.

“How come you guys were in the soup?” Warren asked.

“It’s a long story,” Melanie said.

“So is ours,” Laurie said.

“I have a question,” Kevin said. “Did you people come here because of Carlo Franconi?”

“Whoa!” Jack said. “Such clairvoyance! I’m impressed, and intrigued. How did you guess? What exactly is your role here in Cogo?”

“Me, in particular?” Kevin asked.

“Well, all of you,” Jack said.

Kevin, Melanie, and Candace looked at each other to see who wanted to speak first.

“We were all part of the same program,” Candace said. “But I was just a minor player. I’m an intensive-care nurse for a surgical transplant team.”

“I’m a reproductive technologist,” Melanie said. “I provide the raw materials for Kevin to work his magic, and once he has, I see to it that his creations are brought to fruition.”

“I’m a molecular biologist,” Kevin explained with a sigh of regret. “Someone who overstepped his bounds and committed a Promethean blunder.”

“Hold up,” Jack said. “Don’t go too literary on me. I know I’ve heard of Prometheus, but I can’t remember who he was.”

“Prometheus was a Titan in Greek mythology,” Laurie said. “He stole fire from Olympus and gave it to man.”

“I inadvertently gave fire to some animals,” Kevin said. “I stumbled on the way to move chromosome parts, particularly the short arm of chromosome six from one cell to another, from one species to another.”

“So you took chromosome parts from humans and put them into an ape,” Jack said.

“Into the fertilized egg of an ape,” Kevin said. “A bonobo to be exact.”

“And what you were really doing,” Jack continued, “was custom-designing the perfect organ transplant source for a specific individual.”