Grave Secrets

“You volunteered to go to Guatemala?”

“I offered my services.”

“You’re being reassigned.”

“Guatemala seemed preferable to central booking.”

“And you speak Spanish.”

“Sí, señorita.”

“You never told me that.”

“You never asked.”

“Were you able to dig up anything on Specter?”

“According to the wife, he’s Albert Schweitzer.”

“That’s not surprising.”

“According to External Affairs, he’s Nelson Mandela. And strictly off limits.”

“Galiano said you’d run into that. Did you talk to Chantale?”

“According to Chantale, her old man’s the Marquis de Sade.” Ryan shook his head. “That is one angry kid.”

“What did she say?”

“Plenty. None of it complimentary. Most notably, she claims Daddy’s chased skirt as far back as she can remember.”

“How could a child know that?”

“Says she overheard numerous arguments between her parents, once caught the ambassador having phone sex in the middle of the night.”

“Could he have been talking to his wife?”

“The missus was sacked out upstairs. The ambassador was doing the deed on the phone in his study. Chantale also claims that shortly before blowing town, she and Lucy stumbled on her father exiting the Ritz Continental with a chick on his arm.”

“Did Specter see them?”

“No, but Chantale recognized Daddy’s companion. Says the lucky lady graduated from her high school two years back.”

“Christ. Did she provide a name?”

“Aida Pera.”

“Do you believe her?”

Ryan shrugged. “I definitely plan to talk to Aida.”

“So the ambassador likes young girls.”

“If the daughter from hell is telling it straight.”

“Did you interview any of the Chez Clémence posse?”

“That pleasure was denied me. Seems the three stooges have all vanished.”

“You ordered those assholes not to leave town.”

“They’re probably off on a geology field trip. My colleagues will round them up.”

“In the meantime?”

He pulled Nordstern’s disc from his pocket.

“We get acquainted with SCELL.”

I slipped the disk from its envelope, inserted it into my computer, and clicked over to the D drive. One file name appeared: fullrptstem.

“It’s a monster PDF file. Over twenty thousand kilobytes.”

“Can you open it?” Ryan had squatted beside me.

“The contents will be gibberish without a reader.”

“Do you have one?”

“Not on this machine.”

“Aren’t those programs available as free downloads?”

“Can’t put anything on a government computer.”

“God bless bureaucracy. Let’s give it a shot.” He gestured with his chin. “Maybe there’s an imbedded reader.”

I opened the file. The screen filled with letters and symbols divided by horizontal dots indicating page and column breaks.

“Damn.” Ryan shifted and his knee popped.

I looked at my watch. Five forty-two.

“I have Acrobat Reader on my laptop. Why don’t I take the disc home, cruise through it, and give you a synopsis during our flight tomorrow.”

Ryan stood, and his knee cracked again. I knew what was coming before he said it.

“We could both—”

“I’ve got a lot to do tonight, Ryan. I may not get back here for a while.”

“Dinner?”

“I’ll grab something on the way home.”

“Fast food is bad for your pancreas.”

“Since when are you concerned with my pancreas?”

“Everything about you concerns me.”

“Really.” I pressed the button and the disc slid out.

“You get sick in the highlands, I don’t want to be rinsing out your panties.”

I considered flinging the disc at him. Instead, I held it out.

He raised his eyebrows. “Why don’t you take that home, cruise through it, and give me a synopsis during our flight tomorrow.”

“Hot damn. There’s an idea.” I slid the disc into my briefcase.

“Pick you up at eleven?”

“I’ll pack lots of panties.”

A truck had overturned in the tunnel, and the trip home took almost an hour. After dumping my briefcase and purse, I dug a frozen delight from the freezer and popped it into the microwave.

While I waited, I cranked up my laptop and opened the PDF reader. The microwave beeped as I clicked on the fullrptstem file.

When I returned, a surrealistic tableau filled the monitor. I stared at the blobs and squiggles exploding from a central mass, then scrolled upward and read the title.

It made no sense at all.

24

“FRIGGIN’ STEM CELLS?”

Ryan had been in a rotten mood since picking me up at eleven. A forty-minute flight delay was not improving his disposition.

“Yes.”

“The little buggers your moron fundamentalists are pissing their shorts to protect?”

“They are not my moron fundamentalists.”

“That’s it?”

“Two hundred and twenty-two pages’ worth.”

“Is it some kind of progress report?”

“And a discussion of future research directions.”

Ryan was in a snit because he couldn’t smoke.

“What genius prepared it?”

“The National Institutes of Health.”

“How come Nordstern had the report on disk?”

“He probably downloaded it from the Net.”

“Why?”

“Excellent question, Detective.”

Ryan checked his watch for the billionth time. At that exact moment the digits on the screen behind the Delta agent changed again. We would now be departing an hour behind schedule.

“Sonovabitch.”

“Relax. We’ll make the connection.”

“Thank you, Pollyanna.”