Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-threeThe monitor's picture was in color, but the predominant hue was brown. Where was this? The OR had to be some­where in the clinic, but still . . .The space looked flawlessly sterile, obviously an operat­ing theater, but it was certainly like none other on earth. The walls were not white or pale blue; they had the shade of stone and were decorated with Maya picture writing and bas-reliefs. It was as though a sacred chapel had been converted into a surgery. I guessed this was what he meant by "cos­metic changes." A door was visible on the right side of the screen, and moments later Alex Goddard strode through, coming in from the hallway.So, it must be right next door. God, the place looked an­cient and haunted.I watched as he walked over to a basin and scrubbed his hands, then donned a white surgical mask. Next he flipped various switches on the walls. Finally he put on a second mask that glistened like some green crystalline material.What was that for? Then it hit me. A "jade" mask . . .That was something Sarah had mentioned in her ramblings. So she must have seen this too. Which meant. . . not everything she described was just some drug-induced hallu­cination. The mask part was very real. . . .Now Marcelina was rolling a steel operating table, bearing a dark-haired Maya woman, through the doorway. The pa­tient looked like all the others down in Baalum, except that she had a strange expression on her face. She appeared to be tense and very afraid, as her eyes kept darting around the room, then to the "jade" mask Alex Goddard was wearing— most likely papier-mache covered with shiny green granules.When she was in position, he walked to the corner and flipped another switch, whereupon there started the deep droning of a chant, probably from speakers in the walls, that sounded like Kekchi Maya.He bent over her and said something in the same language, after which Marcelina placed a rubber mask over her nose and mouth. Her eyes still frightened, the patient uttered a few words, perhaps a final prayer, then inhaled deeply. As her eyelids fluttered, he turned and opened what appeared to be some kind of stone tableau, covered by its own bas-relief. It was, I finally realized, merely painted fiberglass—that was what the whole room was—and inside were CRT monitors designed to display various vital life functions. As Marcelina helped him, he began attaching sensors to the patient's body.When the woman's eyes had fully closed, he removed his green mask and tossed it into a box.It's all fake. The room, everything. Just likeBaalum. But now he's got Sarah's mind caught in his thrall. I've got to make her understand nothing here is real.Marcelina was carefully watching the screens, her apprehension obvious as she fiddled uncertainly with the knobs."Oxygen steady." Her voice was small and uneasy. "EKG stable."He immediately stripped away the sheet that had been covering the patient. Beneath it was an open-sided gown colored in brilliant stripes of red and blue. He pulled it back with absent precision, then turned to Marcelina."Shave her and scrub her."With the woman now under sedation, Marcelina put on her own surgical garb: She pulled a blue plastic cap over her hair, then secured a white OR mask over her face. While she was finishing the preparations, he turned and walked to the far side of the room, where he abruptly seemed to disappear through the wall.What . . . There must be a panel there, a camouflaged door.He was gone for a moment, then reappeared carrying a long metal tube that looked to be emitting white vapor. He next opened yet another ersatz stone cabinet to reveal a mi­croscope with a CRT screen above it. He took out three glass ampules from the tube—frozen embryos, undoubtedly—and placed them in a container. When he switched on the micro­scope, its CRT screen showed him whatever he needed to know. Interesting. In surgery, he was coldly efficient, no "hu­man touch." Here he was the "scientist" Alex Goddard.Next, Marcelina activated an ultrasound scanner and be­gan running the wand over the woman's stomach. The screen above the table showed her uterus and her Fallopian tubes with flickering clarity.He'd been readying the embryos, and now he walked over and carefully inserted a needle into the woman's abdomen— ouch—his eyes on the ultrasound scan, which indicated the precise location of the needle's tip.I watched as the screen showed the needle on its way to its destination, a thin, hard line amidst the pulsing gray mass of her uterus. Seconds later all three embryos had been im­planted with such flawless precision it was scary.Did I want to undergo this deeply invasive procedure at the hands of Alex Goddard? The very thought left a dull ache in my stomach.While Marcelina bandaged her and began preparing her for return to wherever she'd been, he turned off the systems, then closed their "stone" cabinets.I thought back to some of the "hallucinations" Sarah had poured out. She'd mentioned the green mask, and she'd also relived some sinister event that seemed to her like disappear­ing down a long white tunnel. Was that her own anesthesia? Did he perform an in vitro on her too?I jumped as I heard the "bump, thump, bump" sound of the operating table being rolled out of the OR and back down the hall. For some reason I thought of the sound of fate knocking on the door, like death coming to take Don Giovanni. Did Alex Goddard have plans to take me, only with drugs and medical sleight of hand? It wasn't going to happen.I switched off the monitor and turned to stare at the computers. Why were they here in this "place of miracles"? What did they hold? Maybe that was where I should be. . . .That was the moment when the heavy office door swung open and Marcelina appeared."Your room is ready now." Her English was heavily ac­cented but sure. "He sent me to show you. And I can wash any of your things if you like."My room? Whoa! Since when had I checked in?"Marcelina, we need to talk. What happened to Sarah the last time she was here? Was she operated on like that woman just now?"I also planned to ask her about all the bizarre trappings surrounding the procedure. Why was the woman so sucked in by his phony Mardi Gras mysticism? Had Sarah fallen for it too?"Sara was one of the special ones. You are surely blessed too. You resemble her a lot." She looked at me, affection in her dark eyes, then turned and headed out the door. "But come, let me take you up."Of course I resembled her; she was my cousin. But so what? I didn't like the odd way she'd said it. And what about my question?Watching her walk away, clearly nervous, I realized this was the moment I'd been dreading—when I had to make a decision about how far to play along with Alex Goddard. Steve couldn't be reached, yet, but I still might be able to handle the situation on my own. The first thing to do was to get down to Sarah and talk some sense into her. Then I had to arrange for a way to get us both out.So . . . probably the best way to accomplish that was to go along with my own medical charade for a few more hours, to give me time to scout the scene and come up with a plan. A room would be a base to operate from.Still, I was feeling plenty of trepidation as we ascended the marble steps to the second floor, which had a long, car­peted hallway with doors along each side. Then, when we started down the hall, I caught the sound of a baby crying."What's this floor for?" I remembered Alex Goddard had claimed it was to provide a postpartum bonding period, but I wanted to confirm that with my own eyes."This is the recovery ward and nursery. Here, let me show you." She paused and pushed open the door nearest us. I looked in to see a Mayan woman resting on a high hospital bed and wearing a white shift, with an ornate wicker cradle, wide and deep, next to her.Marcelina smiled and said something to her that sounded like an apology for the intrusion. The room was lit only by candles, but I did make out how oddly the woman stared at me, as though she was seeing a spirit. Why was that? Because I was agringahere in the middle of the forest? But it seemed something more."The birth of a child is a sacred thing for us." Marcelina was discreetly closing the door again. "When a woman car­ries a child she will take walks to themilpas, to the river, to the orchards, just so her little one can be in its world. Then, after her baby is born, our tradition holds that she should be alone with it for a week and a day. So their life's breath can become one."I could sense her heart was deeply entwined with the peo­ple here at Baalum."Marcelina, how long have—?""Well, what do you think?" said a voice. I looked around to see Alex Goddard coming up the stairs behind us. And my anger welled up again. Everything about him was just too . . . manipulating.He'd changed back to his black sweatshirt and jeans and was carrying a tray. The costume event was over. In an instant Marcelina slipped quietly around him and headed back down the stairs, almost like a rabbit startled by a fox. He smiled and moved past me."All those trappings just now, the fake green mask." I decided to challenge him head-on. Start forcing him to show his hand. "What's—?""Merely a little harmless theater." He looked back. "The forest Maya like to think they're being ministered to by a shaman." Then he indicated I should follow him. "By the way, in case you do get hungry, I brought you something you can have in your room if you like. Then you can make yourself at home and rest a bit."Hold on. I was being given the illusion of freedom, but in reality I was nothing more than his prisoner."That room next to your office. The steel door. What's in—?""That's the heart ofBaalum." Pride in his voice. "The real reason I'm here.""You mean drug research?"He nodded. "Did you know the Central American rain forest easily contains a hundred thousand plant species? Over half of all pharmaceutical drugs are derived from plants, yet less than one percent of those here have been tested for phar­macological potential. Still, the old shamans and midwives all know of herbs they claim can cure everything from men­strual cramps to cancer." He smiled. "They also know which ones have powerful contraceptive properties, which is par­ticularly helpful in my primary study, fertility and fetal vi­ability. I take the specimens they bring and perform a rough screening in the lab to determine if they're actually pharma­cologically active. If they do test positive, I then examine their effect on the blastocyst, the early form of embryonic cell formed just after fertilization, to see whether they affect cell division and viability and . . . the miscarriage rate here is very low, so some of these plants . . ." His voice trailed off as he pushed open the door of a suite at the end of the hall. It had a stone floor, a simple bed, and through the slatted windows the light of midday filtered through, along with the birdcalls of the rain forest. Any other time and place, I'd have felt like I was staying at a rustic nature retreat.But this wasn't some other time and place. And what about Steve? Where was he? Maybe he was somewhere worse. Thinking about him, I was startled to hear myself say . . ."Incidentally, I found out the man I've been trying to have a baby with didn't show up at his hotel in Belize last night. He was driving there from Guatemala City. I'm very worried. I keep hearing about how people get 'disappeared' in this country. He's—""Could his name be Steve Abrams?" Goddard turned back, still holding the tray.It was a moment that stopped my heart. For a second I wasn't even able to speak."How . . . did you know?" I finally managed to say. "I never mentioned—""That's the name they gave me. I received a call this morn­ing from Guatemala City. From Colonel Ramos's office, in fact. As you might suppose, he's well aware you're here, and he said you were seen dining night before last at a downtown restaurant with a man by that name. They think he's in the country because of you, and they're trying to locate him."I felt the life go entirely out of me. My God what was going on? Steve was now the subject of a manhunt in a police state. Did he even know?"I told them you were here for purely medical reasons." He sighed with frustration. "And that they were being irra­tionally paranoid but . . .""So they don't actually know where he is, right?" I was still trying to breathe."As of this morning. If they did they wouldn't have called up here." He walked over and set the tray down on a rustic table next to the bed. "I wouldn't worry too much about it. He's committed no crime. They just want to make sure you realize your presence has not gone unnoticed."Dear God. What had I dragged Steve into? If they found him, what would they do? I could only pray he was deft enough to elude them. If anybody could . . .Then I looked at the tray. An empty syringe was there. Also, there was a large bowl containing some kind of soup. I was finally growing ravenous, but still . . ."What's this for?" I indicated the syringe."I just need to take a little blood for some tests. Don't worry, it won't hurt a bit."Hold on. How far do I have to play along to stay in his chess game?Then I glanced down again at the tray. "And what's in that bowl?""Right now diet is crucial, so I've had Marcelina prepare you a healthy broth of soy extract and buckwheat and rainforest herbs that—""What kind of rainforest herbs exactly?" I was starving, but no way in hell—"Medicinal ones. Part of your program of wholeness." He turned, with that faraway look of his, and opened the window slats. Beyond them I could see foliage, now alive with flocks of multicolored birds. The forest was in full cry. "You know, so many drugs are waiting to be discovered up here." He was gazing out. "Beyond this window is a giant pharmacy, but if it goes like the rest of the Peten, it'll soon be bulldozed to make way for more cattle ranches."He came back and picked up the syringe. That was when I noticed it didn't seem to be entirely empty. It appeared to contain traces of a yellow substance, though maybe I was imagining. . . ."Look, about the blood test. I don't think—""Consider it a free medical screening." He firmly gripped my arm as he plunged the needle into a vein. Seconds later he was capping off the syringe, red with my blood. "I'm running a batch of tests this afternoon, so one more sample won't make any difference."While he swabbed my arm with alcohol, I looked down again at the bowl of broth he'd brought. Forget about it. I'd find something in the kitchen later."I want to go down and see Sarah." Get started immedi­ately. Push and maybe I could catch him off guard. "I'm very worried about her.""Of course." He nodded. "Whenever you wish.""I was thinking, as soon as possible.""Then I'll send Marcelina to take you, the minute she's finished downstairs. But I assumed you might want to at least unpack first."With that he disappeared as quietly as he'd come.I walked over and stared out at the birds flitting past the slatted window, feeling my hopes go up. The colors and thefreedom. I wanted to be one of them, to take Sarah and just fly away. . . .Then, feeling vaguely drowsy, I settled myself down on the edge of the bed. The next thing I knew, though, the cha­otic music of the birds had begun to sound amplified as though they were swirling down a long, echoing hallway. In spite of myself, I felt my consciousness begin to drift.Shit, that needle he just slammed into my arm. It wasn't to take blood you idiot. You suspected that, but he was too fast. Shit. Shit. Shit. Don't let him do it. Stay awake.But now the tunnel was growing. I pulled myself up and staggered in slow motion to the door and tried it, but it seemed to be locked. I couldn't really tell, though, because the tunnel was swallowing me.No! I banged my head against the door, hoping the pain would bring me back, but the room just swirled even more.The tunnel. Now it was all around me, shadowy and dim. I thought I glimpsed Sarah at the end of it, wearing a white shift, beckoning me, but when I reached out for her, to take us away, all I could touch was empty mist.Chapter Twenty-fourI'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 atBaalum, 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 ofBaalum, 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 tome?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 offour 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 thatin vitroon 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.ALKALOIDSCARDIAC GLYCOSIDESPHENOLICSSAPONINSTERPENOIDSBiology 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 thoughtI was going to throw up. I took a deep breath, slowly, and stopped myself. Before I got Sarah and we got the hell out ofBaalum, 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.

The monitor's picture was in color, but the predominant hue was brown. Where was this? The OR had to be some­where in the clinic, but still . . .

The space looked flawlessly sterile, obviously an operat­ing theater, but it was certainly like none other on earth. The walls were not white or pale blue; they had the shade of stone and were decorated with Maya picture writing and bas-reliefs. It was as though a sacred chapel had been converted into a surgery. I guessed this was what he meant by "cos­metic changes." A door was visible on the right side of the screen, and moments later Alex Goddard strode through, coming in from the hallway.

So, it must be right next door. God, the place looked an­cient and haunted.

I watched as he walked over to a basin and scrubbed his hands, then donned a white surgical mask. Next he flipped various switches on the walls. Finally he put on a second mask that glistened like some green crystalline material.

What was that for? Then it hit me. A "jade" mask . . .

That was something Sarah had mentioned in her ramblings. So she must have seen this too. Which meant. . . not everything she described was just some drug-induced hallu­cination. The mask part was very real. . . .

Now Marcelina was rolling a steel operating table, bearing a dark-haired Maya woman, through the doorway. The pa­tient looked like all the others down in Baalum, except that she had a strange expression on her face. She appeared to be tense and very afraid, as her eyes kept darting around the room, then to the "jade" mask Alex Goddard was wearing— most likely papier-mache covered with shiny green granules.

When she was in position, he walked to the corner and flipped another switch, whereupon there started the deep droning of a chant, probably from speakers in the walls, that sounded like Kekchi Maya.

He bent over her and said something in the same language, after which Marcelina placed a rubber mask over her nose and mouth. Her eyes still frightened, the patient uttered a few words, perhaps a final prayer, then inhaled deeply. As her eyelids fluttered, he turned and opened what appeared to be some kind of stone tableau, covered by its own bas-relief. It was, I finally realized, merely painted fiberglass—that was what the whole room was—and inside were CRT monitors designed to display various vital life functions. As Marcelina helped him, he began attaching sensors to the patient's body.

When the woman's eyes had fully closed, he removed his green mask and tossed it into a box.

It's all fake. The room, everything. Just likeBaalum. But now he's got Sarah's mind caught in his thrall. I've got to make her understand nothing here is real.

Marcelina was carefully watching the screens, her apprehension obvious as she fiddled uncertainly with the knobs.

"Oxygen steady." Her voice was small and uneasy. "EKG stable."

He immediately stripped away the sheet that had been covering the patient. Beneath it was an open-sided gown colored in brilliant stripes of red and blue. He pulled it back with absent precision, then turned to Marcelina.

"Shave her and scrub her."

With the woman now under sedation, Marcelina put on her own surgical garb: She pulled a blue plastic cap over her hair, then secured a white OR mask over her face. While she was finishing the preparations, he turned and walked to the far side of the room, where he abruptly seemed to disappear through the wall.

What . . . There must be a panel there, a camouflaged door.

He was gone for a moment, then reappeared carrying a long metal tube that looked to be emitting white vapor. He next opened yet another ersatz stone cabinet to reveal a mi­croscope with a CRT screen above it. He took out three glass ampules from the tube—frozen embryos, undoubtedly—and placed them in a container. When he switched on the micro­scope, its CRT screen showed him whatever he needed to know. Interesting. In surgery, he was coldly efficient, no "hu­man touch." Here he was the "scientist" Alex Goddard.

Next, Marcelina activated an ultrasound scanner and be­gan running the wand over the woman's stomach. The screen above the table showed her uterus and her Fallopian tubes with flickering clarity.

He'd been readying the embryos, and now he walked over and carefully inserted a needle into the woman's abdomen— ouch—his eyes on the ultrasound scan, which indicated the precise location of the needle's tip.

I watched as the screen showed the needle on its way to its destination, a thin, hard line amidst the pulsing gray mass of her uterus. Seconds later all three embryos had been im­planted with such flawless precision it was scary.

Did I want to undergo this deeply invasive procedure at the hands of Alex Goddard? The very thought left a dull ache in my stomach.

While Marcelina bandaged her and began preparing her for return to wherever she'd been, he turned off the systems, then closed their "stone" cabinets.

I thought back to some of the "hallucinations" Sarah had poured out. She'd mentioned the green mask, and she'd also relived some sinister event that seemed to her like disappear­ing down a long white tunnel. Was that her own anesthesia? Did he perform an in vitro on her too?

I jumped as I heard the "bump, thump, bump" sound of the operating table being rolled out of the OR and back down the hall. For some reason I thought of the sound of fate knocking on the door, like death coming to take Don Giovanni. Did Alex Goddard have plans to take me, only with drugs and medical sleight of hand? It wasn't going to happen.

I switched off the monitor and turned to stare at the computers. Why were they here in this "place of miracles"? What did they hold? Maybe that was where I should be. . . .

That was the moment when the heavy office door swung open and Marcelina appeared.

"Your room is ready now." Her English was heavily ac­cented but sure. "He sent me to show you. And I can wash any of your things if you like."

My room? Whoa! Since when had I checked in?

"Marcelina, we need to talk. What happened to Sarah the last time she was here? Was she operated on like that woman just now?"

I also planned to ask her about all the bizarre trappings surrounding the procedure. Why was the woman so sucked in by his phony Mardi Gras mysticism? Had Sarah fallen for it too?

"Sara was one of the special ones. You are surely blessed too. You resemble her a lot." She looked at me, affection in her dark eyes, then turned and headed out the door. "But come, let me take you up."

Of course I resembled her; she was my cousin. But so what? I didn't like the odd way she'd said it. And what about my question?

Watching her walk away, clearly nervous, I realized this was the moment I'd been dreading—when I had to make a decision about how far to play along with Alex Goddard. Steve couldn't be reached, yet, but I still might be able to handle the situation on my own. The first thing to do was to get down to Sarah and talk some sense into her. Then I had to arrange for a way to get us both out.

So . . . probably the best way to accomplish that was to go along with my own medical charade for a few more hours, to give me time to scout the scene and come up with a plan. A room would be a base to operate from.

Still, I was feeling plenty of trepidation as we ascended the marble steps to the second floor, which had a long, car­peted hallway with doors along each side. Then, when we started down the hall, I caught the sound of a baby crying.

"What's this floor for?" I remembered Alex Goddard had claimed it was to provide a postpartum bonding period, but I wanted to confirm that with my own eyes.

"This is the recovery ward and nursery. Here, let me show you." She paused and pushed open the door nearest us. I looked in to see a Mayan woman resting on a high hospital bed and wearing a white shift, with an ornate wicker cradle, wide and deep, next to her.

Marcelina smiled and said something to her that sounded like an apology for the intrusion. The room was lit only by candles, but I did make out how oddly the woman stared at me, as though she was seeing a spirit. Why was that? Because I was agringahere in the middle of the forest? But it seemed something more.

"The birth of a child is a sacred thing for us." Marcelina was discreetly closing the door again. "When a woman car­ries a child she will take walks to themilpas, to the river, to the orchards, just so her little one can be in its world. Then, after her baby is born, our tradition holds that she should be alone with it for a week and a day. So their life's breath can become one."

I could sense her heart was deeply entwined with the peo­ple here at Baalum.

"Marcelina, how long have—?"

"Well, what do you think?" said a voice. I looked around to see Alex Goddard coming up the stairs behind us. And my anger welled up again. Everything about him was just too . . . manipulating.

He'd changed back to his black sweatshirt and jeans and was carrying a tray. The costume event was over. In an instant Marcelina slipped quietly around him and headed back down the stairs, almost like a rabbit startled by a fox. He smiled and moved past me.

"All those trappings just now, the fake green mask." I decided to challenge him head-on. Start forcing him to show his hand. "What's—?"

"Merely a little harmless theater." He looked back. "The forest Maya like to think they're being ministered to by a shaman." Then he indicated I should follow him. "By the way, in case you do get hungry, I brought you something you can have in your room if you like. Then you can make yourself at home and rest a bit."

Hold on. I was being given the illusion of freedom, but in reality I was nothing more than his prisoner.

"That room next to your office. The steel door. What's in—?"

"That's the heart ofBaalum." Pride in his voice. "The real reason I'm here."

"You mean drug research?"

He nodded. "Did you know the Central American rain forest easily contains a hundred thousand plant species? Over half of all pharmaceutical drugs are derived from plants, yet less than one percent of those here have been tested for phar­macological potential. Still, the old shamans and midwives all know of herbs they claim can cure everything from men­strual cramps to cancer." He smiled. "They also know which ones have powerful contraceptive properties, which is par­ticularly helpful in my primary study, fertility and fetal vi­ability. I take the specimens they bring and perform a rough screening in the lab to determine if they're actually pharma­cologically active. If they do test positive, I then examine their effect on the blastocyst, the early form of embryonic cell formed just after fertilization, to see whether they affect cell division and viability and . . . the miscarriage rate here is very low, so some of these plants . . ." His voice trailed off as he pushed open the door of a suite at the end of the hall. It had a stone floor, a simple bed, and through the slatted windows the light of midday filtered through, along with the birdcalls of the rain forest. Any other time and place, I'd have felt like I was staying at a rustic nature retreat.

But this wasn't some other time and place. And what about Steve? Where was he? Maybe he was somewhere worse. Thinking about him, I was startled to hear myself say . . .

"Incidentally, I found out the man I've been trying to have a baby with didn't show up at his hotel in Belize last night. He was driving there from Guatemala City. I'm very worried. I keep hearing about how people get 'disappeared' in this country. He's—"

"Could his name be Steve Abrams?" Goddard turned back, still holding the tray.

It was a moment that stopped my heart. For a second I wasn't even able to speak.

"How . . . did you know?" I finally managed to say. "I never mentioned—"

"That's the name they gave me. I received a call this morn­ing from Guatemala City. From Colonel Ramos's office, in fact. As you might suppose, he's well aware you're here, and he said you were seen dining night before last at a downtown restaurant with a man by that name. They think he's in the country because of you, and they're trying to locate him."

I felt the life go entirely out of me. My God what was going on? Steve was now the subject of a manhunt in a police state. Did he even know?

"I told them you were here for purely medical reasons." He sighed with frustration. "And that they were being irra­tionally paranoid but . . ."

"So they don't actually know where he is, right?" I was still trying to breathe.

"As of this morning. If they did they wouldn't have called up here." He walked over and set the tray down on a rustic table next to the bed. "I wouldn't worry too much about it. He's committed no crime. They just want to make sure you realize your presence has not gone unnoticed."

Dear God. What had I dragged Steve into? If they found him, what would they do? I could only pray he was deft enough to elude them. If anybody could . . .

Then I looked at the tray. An empty syringe was there. Also, there was a large bowl containing some kind of soup. I was finally growing ravenous, but still . . .

"What's this for?" I indicated the syringe.

"I just need to take a little blood for some tests. Don't worry, it won't hurt a bit."

Hold on. How far do I have to play along to stay in his chess game?

Then I glanced down again at the tray. "And what's in that bowl?"

"Right now diet is crucial, so I've had Marcelina prepare you a healthy broth of soy extract and buckwheat and rainforest herbs that—"

"What kind of rainforest herbs exactly?" I was starving, but no way in hell—

"Medicinal ones. Part of your program of wholeness." He turned, with that faraway look of his, and opened the window slats. Beyond them I could see foliage, now alive with flocks of multicolored birds. The forest was in full cry. "You know, so many drugs are waiting to be discovered up here." He was gazing out. "Beyond this window is a giant pharmacy, but if it goes like the rest of the Peten, it'll soon be bulldozed to make way for more cattle ranches."

He came back and picked up the syringe. That was when I noticed it didn't seem to be entirely empty. It appeared to contain traces of a yellow substance, though maybe I was imagining. . . .

"Look, about the blood test. I don't think—"

"Consider it a free medical screening." He firmly gripped my arm as he plunged the needle into a vein. Seconds later he was capping off the syringe, red with my blood. "I'm running a batch of tests this afternoon, so one more sample won't make any difference."

While he swabbed my arm with alcohol, I looked down again at the bowl of broth he'd brought. Forget about it. I'd find something in the kitchen later.

"I want to go down and see Sarah." Get started immedi­ately. Push and maybe I could catch him off guard. "I'm very worried about her."

"Of course." He nodded. "Whenever you wish."

"I was thinking, as soon as possible."

"Then I'll send Marcelina to take you, the minute she's finished downstairs. But I assumed you might want to at least unpack first."

With that he disappeared as quietly as he'd come.

I walked over and stared out at the birds flitting past the slatted window, feeling my hopes go up. The colors and the

freedom. I wanted to be one of them, to take Sarah and just fly away. . . .

Then, feeling vaguely drowsy, I settled myself down on the edge of the bed. The next thing I knew, though, the cha­otic music of the birds had begun to sound amplified as though they were swirling down a long, echoing hallway. In spite of myself, I felt my consciousness begin to drift.

Shit, that needle he just slammed into my arm. It wasn't to take blood you idiot. You suspected that, but he was too fast. Shit. Shit. Shit. Don't let him do it. Stay awake.

But now the tunnel was growing. I pulled myself up and staggered in slow motion to the door and tried it, but it seemed to be locked. I couldn't really tell, though, because the tunnel was swallowing me.

No! I banged my head against the door, hoping the pain would bring me back, but the room just swirled even more.

The tunnel. Now it was all around me, shadowy and dim. I thought I glimpsed Sarah at the end of it, wearing a white shift, beckoning me, but when I reached out for her, to take us away, all I could touch was empty mist.

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 atBaalum, 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 ofBaalum, 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 tome?

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 thatin vitroon 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 ofBaalum, 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.

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