Robin Cook: Chromosome 6

Unfortunately, he had no idea what to do. He knew he was no hero; in fact, over the years he’d come to think of himself as a coward of sorts. He hated confrontation and avoided it. As a boy, he had even shunned competition except for chess. He’d grown up pretty much a loner.

Kevin paused at the glass door to the exterior. Across the square he could see the usual coterie of Equatoguinean soldiers beneath the arches of the old town hall. They were up to their usual sedentary pursuits, aimlessly passing the time of the day. Some were sitting in old rattan furniture playing cards, others were leaning up against the building arguing with each other in strident voices. Almost all of them were smoking. Cigarettes were part of their wages. They were dressed in soiled, jungle-camouflage fatigues with scuffed combat boots and red berets. All of them had automatic assault rifles either slung over their shoulders or within arm’s reach.

From the moment of Kevin’s arrival at Cogo five years previously, the soldiers had scared him. Cameron McIvers, head of security, who had initially shown Kevin around, told him that GenSys had hired a good portion of the Equatoguinean army for protection. Later Cameron had admitted that the army’s so-called employment was in reality an additional payoff to the government as well as to the Minister of Defense and the Minister of Territorial Administration.

From Kevin’s perspective the soldiers looked more like a bunch of aimless teenagers than protectors. Their complexions were like burnished ebony. Their blank expressions and arched eyebrows gave them a look of superciliousness that reflected their boredom. Kevin always had the uncomfortable sense they were itching to have an excuse to use their weapons.

Kevin pushed through the door and walked across the square. He didn’t look in the direction of the soldiers, but from past experience he knew at least some of them were watching him, and it made his skin crawl. Kevin didn’t know a word of Fang, the major local dialect, so he had no idea what they were saying.

Once out of sight of the central square Kevin relaxed a degree and slowed his pace. The combination of heat and hundred-percent humidity was like a perpetual steam bath. Any activity caused a sweat. After only a few minutes, Kevin could feel his shirt beginning to adhere to his back.

Kevin’s house was situated a little more than halfway between the hospital-lab complex and the waterfront, a distance of only three blocks. The town was small but had obviously been charming in its day. The buildings had been constructed primarily of brightly colored stucco with red tile roofs. Now the colors had faded to pale pastels. The shutters were the type that hinged at the top. Most were in a terrible state of disrepair except for the ones on the renovated buildings. The streets had been laid out in an unimaginative grid but had been paved over the years with imported granite that had served as sailing ships’ ballast. In Spanish colonial times the town’s wealth had come from agriculture, particularly cocoa and coffee production, and it had graciously supported a population of several thousand people.

But the town’s history changed dramatically after 1959, the year of Equatorial Guinea’s independence. The new president, Macias Nguema, quickly metamorphosed from a popularly elected official to the continent’s worst, sadistic dictator whose atrocities managed to out-class even those of Idi Amin of Uganda and Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic. The effect on the country was apocalyptic. After fifty thousand people were murdered, a third of the population of the entire country fled, including all the Spanish settlers. Most of the country’s towns were decimated, particularly Cogo which had been completely abandoned. The road connecting Cogo to the rest of the country fell into ruin and quickly became impassable.

For a number of years, the town was fated to be a mere curiosity for the occasional visitor arriving by small motorboat from the coastal town of Acalayong. The jungle had begun to reclaim the land by the time a representative of GenSys had happened upon it seven years previously. This individual recognized Cogo’s isolation and its limitless surrounding rain forest as the perfect spot for GenSys intended primate facility. Returning to Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, the GenSys official immediately commenced negotiations with the current Equatoguinean government. Since the country was one of the poorest of Africa and consequently desperate for foreign exchange, the new president was eager and negotiations proceeded apace.

Kevin rounded the last corner and approached his house. It was three stories like most of the other buildings in the town. It had been tastefully renovated by GenSys to give it storybook appeal. In fact it was one of the more desirable houses in the whole town and a source of envy of a number of the other GenSys employees, particularly head of security, Cameron McIvers. Only Siegfried Spallek, manager of the Zone, and Bertram Edwards, chief veterinarian, had accommodations that were equivalent. Kevin had attributed his good luck to intercession on his behalf by Dr. Raymond Lyons, but he didn’t know for certain.

The house had been built in the mid-nineteenth century by a successful import/exporter in traditional Spanish style. The first floor was arched and arcaded like the town hall and had originally housed shops and storage facilities. The second floor was the main living floor with three bedrooms, three baths, a large through-and-through living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a tiny maid’s apartment. It was surrounded by a veranda on all four sides. The third floor was an enormous open room with wide-plank flooring illuminated with two huge, cast-iron chandeliers. It was capable of holding a hundred people with ease and had apparently been used for mass meetings.

Kevin entered and climbed a central stairway that led up to a narrow hall. From there he went into the dining room. As he expected, the table had been laid for lunch.

The house was too big for Kevin, especially since he didn’t have a family. He’d said as much when he’d first been shown the property, but Siegfried Spallek had told him the decision had been made in Boston and warned Kevin not to complain. So Kevin accepted the assignment, but his co-workers’ envy often made him feel uncomfortable.

As if by magic Esmeralda appeared. Kevin wondered how she did it so consistently. It was as if she were always on the lookout for his approaching the house. She was a pleasant woman of indeterminate age with rounded features and sad eyes. She dressed in a shift of brightly colored print fabric with a matching scarf wrapped tightly around her head. Besides her native tongue, she spoke fluent Spanish and passable English that improved on a daily basis.

Esmeralda lived in the maid’s quarters Monday through Friday. Over the weekend she stayed with her family in a village that GenSys had constructed to the east along the banks of the estuary to house the many local workers employed in the Zone, as the area occupied by GenSys’s Equatoguinean operation was called. She and her family had been moved there from Bata, the main city on the Equatoguinean mainland. The capital of the country, Malabo, was on an island called Bioko.

Kevin had encouraged Esmeralda to go home in the evenings during the week if she so desired, but she declined. When Kevin persisted, she told him she’d been ordered to remain in Cogo.

“There is a phone message for you,” Esmeralda said.

“Oh,” Kevin said nervously. His pulse quickened. Phone messages were rare, and in his current state he did not need any more unexpected events. The call in the middle of the night from Taylor Cabot had been disturbing enough.

“It was from Dr. Raymond Lyons in New York,” Esmeralda said. “He wants you to call him back.”