Chapter Twenty-four

I'm on a bed, in a dreamscape room enveloped in pastel fog, watching a Melania butterfly the size of a man pump his massive orange and black wings above me. His voice is mellifluous, hypnotic, and I feel the soft wind of his wings against my face, cooling, scented, enveloping. It is the softness of eternal peace.

"Your body is a realm of fertility," he is saying, his tones echoing in the shadowy haze around me, sonorous and caring. "You are special." Then, iridescent blues and purples shimmering off his wings, his face evolves into the orange and black mask of a jaguar. "You are one of the special ones. Together we will create life."

Did he say "special"? Marcelina said I was . . . like Sarah . . .

Now his eyes are boring in and I'm thinking of the Chinese . . . Am I human, dreaming I'm a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming I'm human?

As he moves over me, the rest of his butterfly form disappears and he's become a lithe jaguar whose lips are touching mine. The sheet over me melts into my skin as the soft spotted fur of his underbelly presses onto me. And his face has turned even more feline and sensuous, with dark eyes that look directly through me. I can feel his whiskers against me as he sniffs down my body, then explores my groin with his probing tongue.

Before I realize what's happening, his thighs press against mine and he knowingly insinuates himself into me. It all happens so naturally and effortlessly I scarcely . . . I see only an intense twitch of his animal ears, erect and directed toward me, as he enfolds me completely, his hot male breath urgent. As he grinds his thighs against mine, he emits growls, low in his throat, then nips lightly and lovingly at my cheek, his pale fangs benign and delicious.

I cling to him, bathed in sweat, falling into him, wanting him, but now . . .

He's changing. . . . My God. No! He's . . .

His face is becoming a jade mask with eyes that burn a fiery red, a spirit of evil. He's plunging something deep into me, metal, cold and cutting. Far inside, reaching, while my mind fights through the waves of pain that course down my lower body. I struggle back, but my arms just pass through empty air. Stop. The eyes, the hard metal . . . Time turns fluid, minutes are hours, lost, and I don't know . . .

Finally---it could be years later--he growls one last time and the room begins fading to darkness. Then a blessed numbness washes over me. He's gone. . . .

And I dream I am dead.

Sometime, probably hours later, I sensed my consciousness gradually returning. Around me the room was still dark and, remembering the "dream," I came fully awake with a start, my heart pounding. What had . . . it done to me? I was shivering, with a piercing, pointed ache in my groin. I needed air.

I rose up unsteadily and reached out, and realized I was in a hospital bed with metal bars along one side.

What! How did I come to be in this? Then I began remembering. I was at _Baalum_, in Alex Goddard's Ninos del Mundo clinic. And I'd been trying to get Sarah and take her home.

Instead, I'd passed out and then . . . an attack, some unspeakably evil . . .

Get out of here. Now.

I settled my feet onto the floor with a surge of determination, and that was when I sensed I was in a different place from where I'd . . . Where--!

I gazed around in the dark, then reached out and felt something on a table beside the bed. It was a clay bowl full of wax. What . . . a candle. And next to it I touched a plain book of matches. My hand was trembling from the pain in my groin, but I managed to light the candle, a flickering glow.

My wristwatch was lying nearby on the table. Someone must have taken it off and placed it there. I picked it up and held it by the candle, and for a moment I was confused by the seconds ticking off. Then I realized the time was . . . How could that be! It read 4:57 A.M. Had I been out for hours?

I gasped, then raised the candle and gazed around. The walls were brown stone--or maybe they just looked like stone. Yes, now I recognized it. I was in the fiberglass-walled operating room I'd seen on Alex Goddard's closed-circuit monitor.

What was I doing in here?

My arm brushed against the table and I felt an odd sensation. Glancing down, I realized there was a Band-Aid on the inside of my left wrist. What was that about? Earlier he'd taken blood from my right arm, but then he'd just swabbed it, so why this bandage? And what in hell was I doing in an operating room? I hadn't agreed to any procedures. Did he come back for a second--?

Or . . . that was what he'd done. He'd injected me with an IV drug. The bizarre vision I'd had was his cover for some perverse invasion of my body. My God, I'd been unconscious since yesterday afternoon. During all that time, what could he have done to me?

I was fist-clenching furious. Looking around the "operating room," I wanted to rip the place apart.

When I tried to stand, I realized my groin was tender and sore as hell, all across my panty-line, only somewhere deep, deep inside, in my reproductive . . . It was like after he'd given me those shots up at Quetzal Manor. I checked and saw no red needle-punctures this time, but the pain was much worse. That sick butterfly-jaguar dream was no dream. I'd been raped by . . . The bastard.

I pushed aside the pain, edged across to the door, and tested it. Unlocked. Good. Go find the SOB right now. Tear his head off.

I pulled back the door, took a deep breath, and checked out the hallway.

Whoa! How did they get here? In the dim light I made out two uniformed Army privates down at the end near the slatted windows, dozing in folding metal chairs, their AK-47's propped against the plaster wall.

Why were they here? Just a cool, breezy place to hang out? Or were they in place to guard me?

The breeze was causing the candle's flame to cast flickering shadows across the hall, so I quickly re-closed the door.

Now what? I was trembling as I returned the candle bowl to the table and sat down on the bed. Soldiers with guns were outside my room at five in the morning. In the farthest end of Guatemala. What was I going to do?

I gazed around at the "stone" walls and tried to think. My mind still felt clouded from whatever drug he'd given me, but it was beginning to . . .

Wait. I saw Alex Goddard come into this very room with embryos from the lab, which is connected by the steel door to his office. . . .

Where there was a phone.

Time to call the embassy, get some help to get the hell out of here.

I sat there thinking. All right. I'd need to wait an hour or so--now I'd get some low-level flunkie stuck with the graveyard shift--but there was something I was damned well going to do immediately. With the lab right next door, I could try to find out why Goddard had just performed medical rape on me. There had to be some connection. According to him, the lab was for "plant research." But if that was all he was doing, why was the Army here? Right outside my door? I felt a pump of adrenaline that made me forget all about my pain. Before I got the hell out of _Baalum_, I was going to know what he was really up to here.

God, I feel miserable. I really hurt. All the more reason . . .

I took the candle, stood up, and moved to the opposite wall to begin looking for an opening in the fiberglass "stone." It appeared to have been made from impressions from the room atop the pyramid, rows and rows of those little cartoon-face glyphs, mixed in with bas-reliefs, but there had to be a door somewhere. I'd seen him walk right through it. As I ran my hand along the surface, I was struck by how their hardness felt like stone. But it couldn't be.

What was I looking for? There certainly were no doorknobs. I came across a hard crack, next to the bas-relief of a feather-festooned warrior, but as I slid my hand down, it ended and again there was more rough "stone." Solid.

Damn. I stood back and studied the wall with my candle. He'd come in from the left, which would be about . . .

I moved over and started again. This time my fingernail caught in a crevice that ran directly down to the floor. Then I discovered another, about two and a half feet farther along. It had to be the door.

I felt along the side, wondering how to open it, till I noticed that one of the little "stone" glyphs gave way when I pressed it. When I put my hand against it harder and rotated it, the panel clicked backward, then swung inward. Yes!

And there it was: the lab, CRT screens above the incubators, gas chromatograph in the corner. This, according to him, was where he tested the rainforest plants the shamans and midwives brought in. But what about what he'd just done to _me_?

I was still worried about the Army guys outside, but I walked in, trying to be as quiet as I could. The first thing I did was head for the row of black boxes above the bench. Those, I assumed, were being used to maintain a micro-environment for incubating plant specimens. And sure enough, the dimly lit windows revealed rows and rows of petri dishes. They were clear, with circular indentations in the center. . . .

But wait a minute. Those weren't just any old lab dishes. And no plant extracts were in them either, just clear liquid. That was odd, very fishy.

I stood there puzzling, and then I remembered seeing pictures of lab dishes like these being used for artificially fertilized embryos. At the beginning, freshly extracted human ova are placed in an incubator for several hours, afloat in a medium that replicates the inside of a female Fallopian tube, to mature them in preparation for fertilization. Goddard had said something about tests on the blastocyst, the first cellular material created after fertilization. So was he using actual fetuses? My God. I felt like I was starting to know, or guess, a lot more than he wanted me to.

My thoughts were churning as I looked up and studied the video screens above the boxes. It took a moment, but then I figured out the petri dishes and their chemicals had been placed in the incubators between 4:00 P.M. and 7:30 P.M. Last evening. What--?

I started counting. They were in racks, stacked, in sets of

four by four. Let's see. Five in this incubator, five in the next, five in the . . . There were over two hundred dishes in all!

Impossible. I looked down at them again, feeling a chill. Nothing seemed to be in them yet, at least as far as I could tell, but then human eggs are microscopic. So if ova were . . .

When he supposedly was doing that _in vitro _on the Mayan woman, was he actually extracting eggs?

Get serious. That was not where they came from.

By then I was well along the Kubler-Ross scale, past denial and closing in on anger, but still . . . so many! How could they all--

I turned and examined the row of plastic-covered jugs at the back of the lab, lined up, six in all. Now I had to know what was in them.

I was still shaky, but I steadied myself, walked over, pulled back the plastic, and touched one. It was deathly cold, sweating in the moist air. When I flipped open its Frisbee-sized top, I saw a faint wisp of vapor emerge into the twilight of the room . . .

Then it dawned on me. Of course. They were cryo-storage containers. He'd need them to preserve fertilized eggs, embryos.

I lifted off the inside cover and placed it carefully onto the bench, where it immediately turned white, steaming with mist. Then I noticed a tiny metal rod hooked over the side of the opening. When I pulled it up, it turned out to be attached to a porous metal cylinder containing rows of glass tubes.

What's . . .?

Feeling like I was deep in a medical fourth dimension, I took out one of the freezing tubes. It was notched and marked with a code labeled along the side: "BL -1 la," "BL -1 lb," "BL-1 lc," and so it went, all the way to "g." But nothing was there.

I began checking the other tubes. They all were empty too. So why was he freezing empty containers?

Go with the simple answer. He's getting them ready for new embryos.

I slid the rod back into the cryo-tank, then walked over and hoisted myself onto the lab bench next to the Dancing Shiva, creator and destroyer. And when I did, I again felt a stab of pain in my groin. The bastard. I was shaking, in the early stages of shock. More than anything, I just wanted to find him and kill him. . . .

I thought I heard a scraping noise somewhere outside, in the hall, and I froze. Was he about to come in and check on his "experiments"? Then I realized it was just the building, his house of horrors, creaking from the wind.

I took one final look at the incubators, and all the pain came back. The whole thing was too much for my body to take in. I sat there trying to muster my strength.

Don't stop now. Keep going.

I got back onto my feet. The phone. Use the telephone. Find Steve, alert the embassy, then get Sarah. Do it now, while you still can.

I was holding my breath as I walked over and pushed open the door to the office and looked in. It was empty and dark. Good. I headed straight for the black case of the Magellan World Phone.

When I picked up the handset and switched it on, the diodes went through their techno-dance of greens and yellows and then stabilized giving me a dial tone. Thank you, merciful God.

I decided to start off by calling the hotel in Belize again, on the long shot that Steve had managed to get the hell out of Guatemala. Baby, please be there. My watch said the time was five-twenty in the morning, but he once told me they manned the desk around the clock. No problem getting through, though the connection had a lot of static. But then came the news I'd been dreading: no Steve Abrams.

"He still not come back, mon."

Where was he? I wanted to scream, but I was determined to keep a grip.

All right, try the Camino Real and hope you can get somebody awake who speaks English. Maybe he went back. Please, God.

I had the number memorized, so I plugged it in, and I recognized the voice of the guy who picked up, the owner's son, who was trying his best to learn English.

"Hi, this is Morgan James. Remember me? I'm just calling to see if there's a Steve Abrams staying there now?"

"Hey, _que pasa_, Senora James. Very early, yes? _Momento_." There was a pause as he checked. Come on, Steve, be there. Please, please be somewhere.

Then the voice came back: "No, nobody by that name stays here."

"Okay . . . _gracias_." Shit. It was like a pit had opened somewhere deep in my stomach.

I replaced the handset, feeling grateful that at least the phone still worked, my last link to sanity. My next call was going to be to the embassy, but I couldn't risk using up my opening shot with the graveyard shift. Maybe by 6 A.M. somebody with authority to do something would be there. Just a few more minutes.

Now what? I felt the aching soreness in my groin again, along with a wave of nausea. I had to do something, anything, just to keep going, to beat back an anxiety attack.

That was when I turned and stared at the computers, the little ducks drifting across the screens.

All right, you know what he's doing; now it's time to try and find out why. The real why. There must be records of what he's up to stored there. What else would he have them for?

"Clang, clang, clang." A noise erupted from somewhere outside the window. In spite of myself, I jumped.

Then I realized it was just the odd call of some forest bird. God, I wasn't cut out for this. Now my head was hurting, stabs of pain, but I rubbed at my temples and sat down at the first terminal.

I'm a Mac fan, hate Windows, so I had to start out by experimenting. In the movies people always know how to do this, but I had to go with trial and error, error compounding error.

After endless false starts that elicited utility screens I couldn't get rid of, I finally brought up an index of files, which included a long list of names.

ALKALOIDS

CARDIAC GLYCOSIDES

PHENOLICS

SAPONINS

TERPENOIDS

Biology 103--which I hated--was coming back. Plant-extract categories. Looks like he actually is doing research on the flora here. But . . . still, what does he need my ova for?

I scrolled on. Scientific terms that meant nothing. Then, toward the end of the alphabetical list, I came to the word QUETZAL.

What was that? I clicked on it and--lo and behold--up came a short list of names. Six in all, organized by dates about a year apart, and each a woman.

My God. First I assumed they were patients from Quetzal Manor who'd come here for fertility treatment, though each was indicated "terminated" at the end, whatever that meant. But as I scanned down, I didn't want to see what I was seeing. The name next to the last was S. Crenshaw. She'd been "terminated" too.

The bottom was M. James. But I hadn't been "terminated." Not yet.

I slumped back in the chair, trying to breathe. How much more of this horror could I handle? Finally I leaned forward again and with a trembling hand clicked on S. Crenshaw.

A lot of data popped up, including three important dates. The first was exactly three weeks after the one in her passport, the Guatemalan entry visa. The second was ten months ago, the third eight months ago. After each was a number: 268, followed by 153, and finally 31.

The count of her extracted ova. Kill him. Just kill him.

A lot of medical terminology I couldn't interpret followed each number, but the note at the end required no degree.

"Blastocyst material from embryos after third extraction shows 84% decrease in cellular viability. No longer usable."

My God, had he made her permanently sterile?

While that obscenity was sinking in, I went back and clicked on my own name. The date was today, the number was 233. He'd just taken 233 of my ova. I stared at the screen and felt faint.

No medical analysis had yet been entered, but it didn't matter. I stared at the screen, feeling numb, for a full minute before clicking back to Sarah's page. Yes, I was right. The last date was just six weeks before she was found in a coma, down the river from here. . . .

No more mystery. He'd been using her eggs to create embryos, and they'd finally stopped working. Not "special" anymore. So her "program" had been "terminated." In the river.

My stomach was churning, bile in my throat, and I thought

I was going to throw up. I took a deep breath, slowly, and stopped myself. Before I got Sarah and we got the hell out of _Baalum_, I was going to smash everything in this lab.

It all had just come together. Those shots of "muscle relaxant" he gave me up at Quetzal Manor, they had to be a cocktail of his "proprietary" ovulation drugs. Then, with my ovaries ripening, he'd lured me here using Sarah. He knew I'd come after her. Next he'd "arranged" with Alan Dupre to fly me here. Finally, a sedative, and he'd harvested 233 of my ova, which he now had out there in those incubators. . . .

But what about proof? To show the world. Morning sounds were building up outside, so I was less worried whether the two soldiers in the hallway were still asleep or not. Truthfully, I was so wired I no longer cared. I clicked on a printer and began zipping off the files of each woman he'd violated, all six.

Disgust flowed through me like a torrent. Heart of Darkness. "The horror, the horror." Alex Goddard had used Sarah in the most unspeakable way possible, then tried to have her murdered. Probably he'd just turned her over to Colonel Ramos.

The same thing must have happened to those other women. All "disappeared" somewhere in Guatemala. But who would know?

One thing I knew. I was next. . . .

The printer was old and loud, but thankfully it was fast. Four minutes later I had what I'd need to nail the criminal. When I got out of here, somebody would have to believe me.

While I was stacking the printouts, I resolved to call the embassy right then, the hour be damned. I was sweating like a gazelle when the lion is closing in. Alex Goddard had just performed primal, surgical rape on me, and now the Army was right outside. I had to get the embassy.

And that was when I realized I didn't have the number. But it had to be in a phone book somewhere.

A quick look around the office didn't turn up one. I considered ringing the Camino Real again, to ask them to look up the number, but then I had an inspired thought. Steve had said Alan Dupre's number was easy to remember because it promoted his business. What was it? I couldn't remember.

Then it came back: 4-MAYAN, the six-digit number they used in Guatemala City. Call the sleazebag and ask him who can get me out of here. He's supposed to know everybody.

Dawn was bringing more and more forest-morning songs through the thin slats of the windows. I walked over and pushed them open, running my fingers out into the air. It felt cool, the touch of freedom, and I thought for a moment about bursting through to escape. Just get Sarah now.

Instead, I walked back to the phone, clenching my fists, and dialed Alan Dupre's number, praying and hoping it was where he lived. Steve had called him late in the evening, so it probably was. I'd thought I never wanted to speak to him again, but now . . . God, let him be there.

The phone, however, just rang and rang and rang.

Come on. Damn.

It rang and rang some more. Then finally--

"Who the fuck is this? We don't open till nine."

The first sound of his voice brought a wave of relief, but then his cocky attitude made me livid all over again.

"It's Morgan James, you shit. Why did you leave me stranded up here? You have no idea what--"

"Oh, you . . ." He paused for a cigarette cough. "You made me walk all the way downstairs just to bust my chops. What the--?"

"Talk to me, you prick." I still intended to strangle him. "I need your help. You owe me. You have no idea what--"

"Hey, lady, you didn't possibly believe taking off in that fucking hurricane was my . . . Let's just say I was acting under duress. I all but didn't get back."

"Well, you can start making up for that right now by springing me the hell out of here." So, somebody had put him up to it, just like I'd thought all along. But who? "I want you to look up the number for the American embassy. And tell me the name of somebody there who--"

"Jesus, you truly don't get the picture, do you?" He paused for another early-morning reefer hack.

"I 'get' that you--"

"Missy, it was a high official at that very establishment 'suggested' I fly you up there. Why the hell else would I do it, for chrissake? You know I'm not a citizen of this fun house. Said party noted that if I didn't, he could make a few phone calls about my residency status, my pilot's license . . . Let's just say it was an offer I didn't see fit to take issue with."

"Oh, my God." I felt like a knife had just plunged into my back. "Was his name Barry Morton? Please tell me."

"Taking the Fifth on that one," he said coughing again. "But you've got primal instincts."

I heard a noise outside and sank lower in the chair. What was I going to do now?

"Listen, do you have any idea where Steve is? They're looking--"

"No shit, Madame Sherlock. I had a long, deeply uninspiring interrogation by a couple of upscale assholes who showed up here in an Army Jeep. They wanted to know where the fuck he was, when I'd supped with him last. Let me inform you, love, you got my old heartstrings buddy in some decided doo-doo."

"I feel guilty enough about that as is, so stop." In spite of all Alex Goddard had done, I felt horrible about Steve, like a self-involved witch. "But do you know where he is now?"

"Haven't the foggiest fucking idea, never heard of the jerk. Shit, hang on." The line went silent, and I could feel my pulse pounding.

Outside the office door, I heard footsteps approaching down the hall. Please, God, please. But then they passed by, terminating where the two soldiers had been dozing. Next I heard the tones of a solid dressing-down in profane Spanish.

"_Tu heres un pedaso de mierda!"_

Then came a familiar voice from the receiver. I couldn't believe it.

"Morgy, why in hell did you let Alan take you up there by yourself?" His tone had a sadness, and a deserved pique, that cut me to the core.

I think I stopped breathing.

"Oh, baby, thank God you're . . ." I was expecting the door to burst open any moment. Men with AK-47's. "Do you know the Army's looking for--?"

"You're completely nuts. I got halfway to Belize and called the motel to see how you were doing, and they told me you'd taken off with this asshole. So I turned around and drove back here. It was after midnight and the Army thugs had just left. Morgy, I'm coming to get you. Soon as the gas stations open. I know a back road to Mexico. We've got to get out of this fucking country immediately."

"Don't try to drive up. It's too dangerous. Can you get Alan to fly you? Sarah's here and she's been turned into a space cadet. I don't know how I'm going to pry her away." I stopped to try to assemble my thoughts. "He's got soldiers watching me. I've got to smuggle her out somehow."

I couldn't bring myself to tell him what was really going on.

"Let me talk to Dupre a second. The fucker. I can't believe he did this to you. But maybe we can come up with something. Otherwise, I may just kill him with my bare hands."

I heard a cough, which told me Alan had been listening in on an extension. It teed me off, but then--he did have to be in on this. Shit. The idea of relying on Alan Dupre for anything . . .

"Well, do it fast. I broke into Alex Goddard's office to use this phone and . . . just hurry."

"You got it."

Now the sound of firm, officer-like boot steps stormed past the door, headed out this time, after which the two young soldiers began berating each other in high-pitched Spanish.

"_Hace falta tener cojones!_"

"_Hijo de tu chingada madre!_"

More and more light was creeping through the slatted windows. A glance at my watch showed the time to be six sharp, but the embassy was no longer an option.

"Listen," Steve said coming back on, "there's some rain due for tonight, but he says he thinks we can try. He claims there's a clearing about a quarter of a mile down a gravel road that goes south. With the rain as cover, maybe we can put down just after dark. Think you can find a way to get Sarah and meet us?"

"I'm not even sure she can walk, at least not far, but we'll be there." I was flashing on her back in the square, proclaiming her happiness. Would I have to drag her out, carry her on my back? Well, I would. "There's some kind of 'ceremony' on for tomorrow morning. The Army's going to be here in double strength because of it, but maybe it'll make for some confusion that'll help. Still, she's--"

"Damn, this is going to be big-time dicey."

"Honey, let me tell you as much as I can about the layout of this place. Just in case."

Which I did. The main problem was, I didn't know exactly where Sarah was.

"Is there anybody there who could help you?" he asked when I'd finished.

"I'm not hopeful." I paused. "Listen, can you get your hands on a gun or guns?"

"What are you . . . Don't even think about it! That's the best way to guarantee we all get killed. I'm not taking on the Guatemalan Armed Forces. And you're not either. We've got to keep this very low-tech. The dark and the rain, that's what we use. They don't shoot back."

At that moment I wanted nothing more than to shoot Alex Goddard. I'd have done it if I'd had the chance. Happily. But I knew Steve was right.

"Okay, look, what time?"

"We'll try to set down about, say--"

There was a crackle as the yellow diodes on the phone erupted in a high-pitched whistle, cutting the connection.

No! My God, had somebody been listening in?

So when exactly was he coming? Around dark? That would probably be about eight o'clock. Or maybe nine . . .

I was closing the phone case when I heard a sound from outside, as though someone had passed the door, then come back to listen.

All right. Get going.

I gathered the printouts, then headed back through the laboratory, where I took a long, last look at the petri dishes being incubated. Should I just dump them now? But then he'd know for sure that I knew.

The time would come, and soon.

As I eased myself back into the fake-stone OR and closed the door, the dawn outside was steeped in forest sounds, clacks and whistles and chirps. That was good, because I needed some stray noise to mask what I was going to do next. Take control.