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  “But I thought this first patient, Gaston, didn’t have an aneurysm,” Zaboyan said. “I was told that the device was placed after he volunteered for the experiment.

  “This was well before your time, Alex.” Stone cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t say he volunteered. He agreed to the device to prevent being reported to the police.”

  “The police? For what?”

  “Improper contact with a client.”

  Zaboyan considered this for a moment. The man was basically an undertaker for cadavers at the medical school. “Improper what?”

  Stone glanced at a squirrel a few yards away. “Let’s just say his sexual persuasion drifted toward the nonliving.”

  Zaboyan raised his eyebrows. “So he was blackmailed?”

  “Let’s don’t go there,” Stone said quickly.

  “In any event, device failure is a known complication,” Zaboyan said, repeating himself.

  “I understand that, Alex.” Stone leaned forward abruptly. “But there’s another reason we don’t need this Eli Branch to be snooping around. Do you remember hearing about a child, in the early years of RBI, who had a graft placed in him as the final human subject before FDA approval?”

  Zaboyan leaned away from his CEO, uncomfortable with the closeness. “Don’t tell me we tested the graft on kids?”

  Stone acknowledged this with a single nod. “The graft recipient was a retarded boy.”

  “That’s bullshit, Harvey. No way someone approved the graft for pediatric placement.”

  Harvey Stone remained calm. “Who said anything about approval? Anyway, it happened.” He took the memo and held it up facing Zaboyan.

  “What does this have to do with Branch?”

  “You won’t believe it. The retarded kid was Branch’s brother.”

  “You’re right,” Zaboyan said. “I don’t believe it.”

  Stone stared at him. “I don’t care if you believe it or not, we had better retrieve the graft from this doctor’s brother before he links it back to us. If someone finds out the graft was illegally placed in a human subject, not to mention a child, our whole company will be destroyed.”

  That statement got Zaboyan’s attention. “You say ‘retrieve it’ like that’s easy. We’re talking about another operation, a big one.”

  Stone confirmed his understanding with a nod.

  “Whatever it takes.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MID-SOUTH MEDICAL CENTER

  1:16 P.M.

  The office Eli had been given adjoined his laboratory space in the old North Research Building. It was a square room just big enough for a desk pushed against one wall and a bookcase opposite it. No window. The bookcase held surgical texts that Eli had accumulated through his years of training: Sabiston’s Textbook of Surgery, and Schwartz, revered names in the field and known around the world.

  He propped his feet on the desk and looked in the bookcase across from him. He had kept textbooks from medical school, such as Stryer’s Biochemistry and a less-than-current text on genetics. His favorite book was one his father had given him upon graduation from medical school—a rare, antiquated text of classical anatomical illustrations by the master, Vesalius.

  The desk was pressed wood with hard-to-open metal drawers. Two framed pictures adorned the wall above an outdated computer. The first picture showed Eli standing in a row with six other Vanderbilt chief surgical residents, all wearing long white coats, together with their devoted mentor and friend, Dr. Tarpley Hopkins. Next to this photograph hung a three-by-two-foot aerial photograph, taken at night, of Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, with sixty thousand red and blue fans screaming for their beloved team. The photograph captured the Ole Miss Rebels taking a goal-line defensive stand against the driving Georgia Bulldogs. Staring at this picture always gave Eli a deep twinge of homesickness. And now, the fist-in-the-turf stance of the linemen seemed to hold personal significance.

  All his diplomas remained unframed in manila folders at his house. He had estimated the cost to have all of them framed, his bachelor’s degree from Ole Miss, medical degree, Founder’s Medal for service to student government, even the Coffey Award that was given to the graduating medical student who published the highest quality research paper. Given his meager salary as a surgical resident and monthly payments to his brother’s facility, the cost of framing them all was an unnecessary luxury.

  For a surgeon-scientist, there were distinct advantages in having one’s office so close to an active research laboratory. The proximity allowed ongoing contact with the research personnel, who usually included technicians, medical students, and perhaps a surgical resident, if one was fortunate enough to be assigned one. Since his office was separate from the academic offices of his partners in the Department of Surgery, he was not subject to interruptions or drop-by visits and complaints from his fellow surgeons about salaries too low, malpractice insurance too high, and an administration that took them for granted.

  Eli had envisioned being able to sit in his office and read the latest scientific journals while looking across bench tops layered with beakers and flasks, a new PCR machine, a dissecting microscope—all of this, while his minions labored to uncover the next big discovery in molecular oncology research.

  In theory, and as elucidated in his contract, the vision seemed possible. But that was months ago. Now, Eli sat at his desk and looked through the office door at two parallel, waist-high benches of solid black Formica that stretched the length of his lab. The countertops held a fine layer of dust and little else except for a rack of test tubes and two glass beakers left by the previous lab occupant, a Dr. Pinkston, whose grant was rejected after being funded for over a decade. That forced Pinkston to leave the university. In the corner of the laboratory sat an open cardboard box. A tangled wad of plastic tubing wrapped around a metal rod flowed out the top of the box.I had better equipment in my sixth-grade science class.

  In the back of the lab, a separate door led to the walk-in closet-sized incubator room. The only valuable resource that Eli possessed were cells he had engineered to express high levels of a naturally occurring, tissue-dissolving enzyme that enhanced the ability of cancer cells to invade. He had worked for two years at Vanderbilt to successfully insert the matrix metalloproteinase or MMP gene, isolate the colony of cells, expand the population, and characterize the enzymatic production using state-of-the-art molecular techniques. Before Eli left Nashville, he was told that after many previous attempts by his mentor’s laboratory staff, Eli had been the first to be successful in establishing the cell line.

  The cells were engineered to churn out matrix metalloproteinase, a family of enzymes that degraded the extracellular tissue, a foundation of sorts that normally kept cells in their proper orientation and position. Early on, Eli recognized the importance of this enzyme. When human cells go awry and become cancerous, they secrete MMPs to dissolve this matrix, an important step in the progression of cancer that allows cells to migrate, invade, and become metastatic. The cells that Eli constructed were crucial to cancer research and to understanding this enzymatic process so that anticancer therapeutics could be developed.

  Since his return to the University of the Mid-South Medical Center, Eli had checked the incubator each day to ensure that the temperature was maintained at precisely thirty-seven degrees Celsius and that the chamber was clean without signs of bacterial infection or fungus that could kill the cells. He’d have to check that his lab was connected to the hospital’s backup generator that would power the incubator in case of an outage. These cells were Eli’s only hope for establishing a successful laboratory, publishing papers, and advancing in the academic world. He would do anything to make sure they were safe.

  On a scrap piece of paper, Eli listed the items he would need to begin his research: a Western Blot apparatus to measure protein levels, a PCR machine to amplify DNA, a centrifuge, a freezer to stock antibodies. The list was long. But at the top he wrote what he needed most: an experienced and qualified techni
cian.

  Though his laboratory was lacking all these needs, at least he had the space—three hundred square feet. Not bad for a start-up. And as part of his recruitment package, he had inherited Vera Tuck, the lab technician who worked for Dr. Pinkston during his twelve years at the university. Eli knew that good technicians were an invaluable asset to a successful laboratory. From ordering supplies to running experiments and maintaining the laboratory notebook, a research effort would come to a screeching halt without the work of a good tech. And when one was available, especially a technician with a decade’s worth of experience, they were usually hired within a few days by a basic scientist from one of the many labs on campus.

  Eli pulled open the top drawer of his desk and removed the employment contract. He read it, again, and wondered why Ms. Vera Tuck had not been employed during the six months since the lab was vacated by the unfunded Dr. Pinkston.

  We’re holding a lab tech for you, Dr. Fisher had emphasized during Eli’s recruitment.She’s got over ten years’ experience.

  Eli had been to his lab every day for the past week, but he was yet to see this Ms. Tuck with so much experience, who was being held from all the other labs on campus, just for him.

  He reached across to the bookcase. The latest issue of the campus phone directory had just been distributed. He flipped to the T’s and found Tuck, Vera, research lab assistant. The address matched that of Dr. Pinkston’s lab and was obviously wrong. But at least Vera Tuck existed. He turned back to the front of the directory, curious about his own existence. He found three employees with the last name of Branch but Eli Branch was not listed—anywhere.

  Great. I’ve moved back home and am virtually unknown.

  He flipped to the D’s, then the Da’s, to the spot where Dr. Daily’s name would be listed. She wasn’t there either. He thought about her daughter in the ICU and made a mental note to go by and see her.

  He tossed the directory onto his desk and pushed the chair into a reclining position. He had been out of residency for only two weeks, after eight years of not sleeping every third night of call, and with just three hours of sleep since Gaston’s emergent operation, already he was fatigued. His head met the back cushion and he closed his eyes.

  Moments later he heard the rattle of a cart pushed over uneven tile in the outside hallway. One of the wheels screeched with each revolution. Eli sat up and stretched his facial muscles to appear awake. The screech grew closer, the cart banged against the door of his lab.

  He remained still, hoping that whoever it was would continue to another lab down the hall. But the struggle at the door continued, metal ramming into wood.

  “Damn Jew Baptist Obesities,” a woman’s voice blurted out, accompanied by more cymbal-like crashes.

  Eli eased from his chair and peeked into the lab. The shopping cart was wedged in the door frame, a petite woman of forty, maybe fifty years, at the helm. She wore a dress covered in bright yellow daisies, so long that it dragged on the floor. Strands of peroxided blonde hair, in desperate need of shampoo, hung over her eyes.

  “Sanctification of Mary. The bastards.” She repeated “bastards” over and over as she jerked the cart and banged the wheels against the floor.

  Eli backed up a step into the safety of his office.

  It couldn’t be. Please. No.

  She was silent now, the cart still.

  “Dr. Branch?”

  Eli said nothing.

  “Dr. Braaa-anch, is that you?”

  Eli froze. How could she know?

  “Need a little help out here.” Then, under her breath. “Jew Baps. Jew Baps. Jew Baps,” and she banged the cart some more.

  Eli emerged with a surprised expression as though just noticing her presence. “I’m sorry,” he said, “let me help you.”

  She was even shorter than Eli first realized, a diminutive presence for such an outburst of racial and religious curses. The bright colors of her dress contrasted sharply with moldy gray skin and dark neck hair that crept toward her ears like a web. When she spoke, her head twitched and pulled to the left.

  “My equipment transporter is wedged in the door, Dr. Branch.”

  Equipment transporter?

  Eli looked at the shopping cart. The name of its owner, Piggly Wiggly, was stamped in plastic on the side. The cart was filled with standard equipment needed for any molecular research lab. Glassware, an electrophoresis unit, Western Blot, a state-of-the-art PCR machine, even a small centrifuge that made the bottom rungs of the cart sag.

  “Just lift up on the front, Dr. Branch.”

  Eli wished she would stop using his name so frequently, as if they had known each other for years.

  She lifted the cart by the handle and Eli saw rope-like veins protrude from her neck. Together, they maneuvered the cart across the threshold and into his lab.

  “Where did you get all this stuff?” Eli asked, as though talking to a college roommate moving into the dorm.

  “Them Jew Baptists down the hall.” She said this with a proud smile and an extra tic for emphasis.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Dr. Branch, they don’t need them, got more supplies than ever they’ll use. Now you,” she said, emphasizing her reference to him with a crooked finger, “you ain’t got no cash.” This last phrase was enunciated with streetwise slang and a cocky tilt of her head.

  “How do you know who I am?”

  “You my new boss man. Dr. Elizer Montgomery Branch, says right here on my contract.” She reached into her flat bosom and pulled a folded sheet of paper from her dress. He realized she was not wearing a bra.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, in hopes of avoiding any further exposure. “And you must be Vera.”

  “In the flesh.” She curtsied like a schoolgirl and flipped her skirt, revealing knobby, purple-mottled knees.

  Eli ducked his head to hide a silent laugh, charmed by this daisy-dressed woman with her bag-lady shopping cart.

  “Now help me with this equipment, will you?” Eli looked at the jam-packed “equipment transporter” before him. In the past twelve hours, he had contributed to the death of an old friend, discovered on an X-ray that his brother harbored a defective, life-threatening medical device; and been demoted to a position of rat doctor by his chairman. Now he was being asked to stock his lab with what appeared to be stolen equipment—a felony. Meeting a feisty pathologist named Meg Daily stood out as the absolute highlight of his day.

  Eli looked at Vera, her knuckles clenched white on the cart’s handle. She wasn’t going to budge, and Eli was nearly out of fight.

  “Sure,” he said, with a wink at Vera. He grabbed the PCR machine. “Let’s get this place looking like a lab.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  NORTH RESEARCH BUILDING

  TUESDAY

  2:13 P.M.

  Eli stood at the end of two long bench tops and admired his newly stocked laboratory. What impressed him most was not the amount of equipment, but rather how quickly and expertly Vera had assembled it all. He watched her tapping numbers into the PCR machine, calibrating it to run successive cycles while amplifying a sample of DNA. As she did this, she repeated a new phrase, over and over, one that Eli was not familiar with.

  “Rich Bitch Ink.”

  “Rich Bitch Ink.”

  She turned the words into three-syllable soup and rocked her head back and forth as she sang it. He could not stop watching her, a perplexing combination of mental illness and scientific savvy.

  Vera keyed in the final sequence of numbers and turned to face him. She lightly tapped her fingernails over the top of the centrifuge and twirled around with the hem of her dress in her hand. Like a game show hostess, she danced along the row of stolen equipment, her free hand poised to display each item. As abruptly as she began, she locked a pose and stated, “Dr. Branch, you’re ready for the Nobel Prize trophy.”

  At first reluctant to entrust Vera with access to his lab’s only commodity, Eli unlocked the door to the incubator room and esco
rted her inside. Eli showed Vera the cells and told her, in exact detail, how to culture them—what media to use, how to trypsinize the cells gently, which antibiotics would prevent infection. Eli examined the cells under the microscope, then had Vera take the seat and carefully move the plate to examine both single cells and those growing in colonies.

  “These cells,” Vera said, looking up from the view piece, “very special.”

  “Yes.” Eli was surprised and pleased to find that Vera was not only proving competent, but also falling immediately into the proper hierarchy between a principal investigator and technician.

  Carefully, she examined the details of cellular architecture, how the cells attached to plastic, which looked healthy, and which seemed near death. Eli took the moment to study her. At first she appeared disheveled, hair matted, sundress barely covering her chest, its hem dragging on the floor. Nothing could be more inappropriate laboratory wear. Yet she carried a certain sophistication that somehow peeked through her appearance and vocal outbursts.How had she maintained the same job for so long?

  Was she medicated?

  Probably not.Probably couldn’t afford it, since she had been unemployed for the past six months. Or had the department maintained her health benefits during that time? Just for him?

  Eli realized that, as of now, her health insurance was his responsibility.

  Vera remained intent on observing the cells, her posture awkward as she bent toward the scope. Eli leaned closer to see her face. Her eyes were fixated and glazed, and she had tongued a clump of hair into her mouth, chewing vigorously.

  He stepped back and closed his eyes. What am I getting into?

  A moment later, Eli heard the hallway door open into the lab and a deep voice call, “Hello?”

  Oh great. Here it comes. An investigator from the nearby lab. The lab we’ve been stealing from.

  Vera held her head cocked to one side like a dog pestered by a high-pitched whistle.