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He stomped back inside. Bradley Gordon, his chief of security, stood in the lobby’s waiting area, leaning over the counter, talking to Lisa, the receptionist. Lisa was cute. That was why Rick had hired her.

  “Goddamn it, Brad,” Rick Diehl said. “We need to review security tapes of the parking lot.”

  Brad turned. “Why? What is it?”

  “Somebody stole my Porsche.”

  “No shit,” Brad said. “When did that happen?”

  And Rick thought,Wrong guy for this job. It wasn’t the first time he had thought it.

  “Let’s check the security tapes, Brad.”

  “Yeah, sure, of course,” Brad said. He winked at Lisa, and then headed back through the keycard-swipe door, into a secure area. Rick followed, fuming.

  At one of the two desks in the little glass-walled security office, a kid was minutely examining the palm of his left hand. He ignored the bank of monitors before him.

  “Jason,” Brad said, in a warning tone, “Mr. Diehl is here.”

  “Oh shit.” The kid snapped upright in the chair. “Sorry. Got a rash. I didn’t know if—”

  “Mr. Diehl wants to review the security cameras. Which cameras are they exactly, Mr. Diehl?”

  Oh Jesus.Rick said, “The parking lot cameras.”

  “The parking lot, right. Jason, let’s start forty-eight hours back, and—”

  “I drove the car to work this morning,” Diehl said.

  “Right, what time was that?”

  “I got here at seven.”

  “Right. Jason, let’s go back to seven this morning.”

  The kid shifted in his chair. “Uh, Mr. Gordon, the parking lot cameras are out.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Brad turned to Rick. “The parking lot cameras are out.”

  “Why?”

  “Not sure. We think there’s a cable problem.”

  “How long have they been out?”

  “Well—”

  “Two months,” the kid said.

  “Two months!”

  Brad said, “We had to order parts.”

  “What parts?”

  “From Germany.”

  “What parts?”

  “I’d have to look it up.”

  The kid said, “We can still use the roof cameras.”

  “Well, then show me the roof cameras,” Diehl said.

  “Right. Jason, bring up the roof cameras.”

  It took them fifteen minutes to rewind the digital storage and begin to run it forward. Rick watched his Porsche pull in. He watched himself get out and enter the building. What happened next surprised him. Within two minutes, another car pulled up, two men jumped out, broke into his car quickly, and drove it away.

  “They were waiting for you,” Brad said. “Or following you.”

  “Looks like it,” Rick said. “Call the police, report it, and tell Lisa I want her to drive me home.”

  Brad blinked at that.

  The problem,Rick reflected, as Lisa drove him home, was that Brad Gordon was an idiot, but Rick couldn’t fire him. Brad Gordon, surf bum, ski bum, travel bum, recovering alky and college dropout, was the nephew of Jack Watson, a principal investor in BioGen. Jack Watson had always looked after Brad, had always seen that he had a job. And Brad invariably got into trouble. It was even rumored that Brad had been fucking the wife of the vice president of GeneSystems up in Palo Alto—for which he was duly fired—but not without a big stink from his uncle, who saw no reason why Brad should be let go. “It’s the vice president’s own fault,” Watson famously said.

  But now: No security cameras in the parking lot. For two months. It made Rick wonder what else was wrong with security at BioGen.

  He glanced over at Lisa, who drove serenely. Rick had hired her to be the receptionist soon after he discovered his wife’s affair. Lisa had a beautiful profile; she could have been a model. Whoever had refined her nose and chin was a genius. And she had a lovely body, with a narrow waist and perfectly enhanced breasts. She was twenty, on her summer break from Crestview State, and she radiated healthy, all-American sexiness. Everyone in the company had the hots for her.

  So it was surprising that whenever they made love, Lisa just lay there. After a few minutes she seemed to notice his frustration and would begin to move mechanically, and make little panting sounds, as if she had been told that was what people did in bed. Sometimes, when Rick was worried and preoccupied, she would talk to him, “Oh baby, yes, baby, do it, baby,” as if that was supposed to move things along. But it was only too obvious that she was unmoved.

  Rick had done a little research and discovered a syndrome called anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure. Anhedonics exhibited a flat affect, which certainly described Lisa in bed. Interestingly, anhedonia appeared to have a genetic component. It seemed to involve the limbic system of the brain. So there might be a gene for the condition. Rick intended to do a full panel on Lisa one of these days. Just to check.

  Meanwhile, the nights he spent with her might have made him insecure, if it were not for Greta, the Austrian postdoc in the microbiology lab. Greta was chunky and had glasses and short, mannish hair, but she fucked like a mink, leaving them both gasping for breath and covered in sweat. Greta was a screamer and a writher and a howler. He felt great afterward.

  The car pulled up at his new condo. Rick checked for his keys in his pocket. Lisa said matter-of-factly, “You want me to come up?”

  She had beautiful blue eyes, with long lashes. Beautiful lush lips.

  He thought, what the hell. “Sure,” he said. “Come on up.”

  He calledhis lawyer, Barry Sindler, to report that his wife had stolen his car.

  “You think so?” Sindler said. He sounded doubtful.

  “Yeah, I do. She hired some guys. I have it on security tape.”

  “You have her on tape?”

  “No, the guys. But she’s behind it.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Sindler said. “Usually women trash a husband’s car, not steal it.”

  “I’m telling you—”

  “Okay, I’ll check into it. But right now, there are a few things I want to go over with you. About the litigation.”

  Across the room, Lisa was stepping out of her clothes. She folded each item of clothing and placed it on the back of the chair. She was wearing a pink bra and pink briefs that skimmed her pubic bone. No lace, just stretchy fabric that molded smoothly to her smooth body. She reached behind her back to release the bra.

  “I’ll have to call you back,” Rick said.

  BLONDES BECOMING EXTINCT

  Endangered Species To “Die Out in 200 Years”

  According to the BBC, “a study by experts in Germany suggests people with blonde hair are an endangered species and will become extinct by 2202.” Researchers predicted that the last truly natural blonde would be born in Finland, a country that boasts the highest proportion of blondes. But the scientists say too few people now carry the gene for blondes to last much longer. The researchers hinted that so-called bottle blondes “may be to blame for the demise of their natural rivals.”

  Not every scientist agrees with the prediction of impending extinction. But a study by the World Health Organization does indicate that natural blondes are likely to become extinct within the next two centuries.

  More recently, the probability of extinction was reviewed byThe Times of London, in light of new data about the evolution of theMC1R gene for blondeness.

  CH016

  The junglewas completely silent. Not a buzzing cicada, not a hornbill cry, nor a distant chattering monkey. Utterly silent—and no wonder, Hagar thought. He shook his head as he looked at the ten camera crews from around the world now clustered in little groups on the jungle floor, protecting their lenses from the dripping moisture as they peered upward into the trees overhead. He had told them to be silent, and indeed nobody was actually talking. The French crew smoked cigarettes. Although the German crew maintained silence, the cameraman kept snapping his fingers imperiously as
he gestured to his assistant to do this and that. The Japanese crew from NHK was quiet, but beside them, the CNN crew out of Singapore whispered and murmured and changed lenses, clanking metal boxes. The British Sky TV crew from Hong Kong had come inappropriately dressed. They now had their running shoes off and were plucking leeches from between their toes, swearing as they did so.

  Hopeless.

  Hagar had warned the companies about conditions in Sumatra and the difficulty of filming there. He had recommended that they send wildlife photography teams experienced in fieldwork. No one had listened. Instead, they had rushed the nearest available crews to Berastagi, and as a result half the teams had talent standing by, microphones held ready, as if they were waiting to ambush a head of state.

  They had been waiting for three hours.

  So far, the talking orangutan had failed to make an appearance, and Hagar was prepared to bet he never would. Hagar caught the eye of one of the French team and gestured for him to put out his cigarette. The guy shrugged and turned his back to Hagar. He continued smoking.

  One of the Japanese team slipped through the group and stood beside Hagar. He whispered, “When does the animal come?”

  “When it’s silent.”

  “So, you mean not today?”

  Hagar made a helpless gesture, palms upward.

  “We are too many?”

  Hagar nodded.

  “Perhaps tomorrow, we will come alone.”

  “All right,” Hagar said.

  Just then a ripple of excitement ran through the crews; they jumped to their cameras, adjusted their tripods, and began to film. Hagar heard the soft murmur of voices in many languages. Nearby, the Sky TV man held his microphone close to his lips and spoke in a stage whisper: “We are standing here deep in the remote jungles of Sumatra, and there, just across the way, we see the creature that has aroused the speculation of the entire world—the chimpanzee that is said to talk and, yes, even to swear.”

  Christ,Hagar thought. He turned to see what they were filming. He caught a glimpse of brownish fur and a dark head. The animal was clearly no larger than two feet tall, and almost immediately gave the low moaning call of the pig-tailed macaque.

  The camera crews were electrified. Microphones pointed like so many gun barrels toward the quick-moving animal. They heard more moans from the distant foliage. Obviously a good-size troop was here.

  The Germans recognized it first.“Nein, nein, nein!” The cameraman stepped irritably away from the camera.“Es ist ein macaque.”

  Soon the canopy overhead was thrashing as a dozen macaques swung through the area and headed north.

  One of the Brits turned to Hagar. “Where’s the chimp, then?”

  “Orangutan,” Hagar said.

  “Whatever. Where is he?” His voice was impatient.

  “He doesn’t keep an appointment calendar,” Hagar said.

  “Is this where he’s usually found? Yes? Can we put some food out for him, something to attract him? Make some mating call?”

  “No,” Hagar said.

  “No way to attract him, is that it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “We just sit here and hope for the best?” The journalist glanced at his watch. “They want tape by noon.”

  “Unfortunately,” Hagar said, “we’re in the jungle. It happens when it happens. It’s the natural world.”

  “Not if it talks, it’s not natural,” the cameraman said. “And I haven’t got all fucking day.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Hagar said.

  “Find me the fucking monkey!” the guy yelled. His shout agitated the macaques in the trees, made them scamper and moan.

  Hagar looked at the others. The French cameraman said, “Perhaps quieter? For everybody.”

  “Bugger off, you miserable fuckwit,” the Brit said.

  “Easy, mate.” A huge man from the Australian crew stepped forward and put his hand on the Brit, who swung a roundhouse to his jaw. The Australian caught his hand, twisted it, and shoved him into his tripod. The tripod went down, the cameraman sprawling. The rest of the British crew jumped the Aussie, whose teammates rushed to his defense. So did the Germans. Soon three crews were swinging wildly. When the French tripod fell, and their camera was splattered with mud, other crews began to fight as well.

  Hagar just stared.

  No orang today, he thought.

  CH017

  Rick Diehlof BioGen was changing in the locker room of the Bel Air Country Club. He had gone there to play a foursome with some investors who might be interested in BioGen. One guy from Merrill Lynch, his boyfriend, and a guy from Citibank. Rick tried to play it casual, but he felt some urgency because ever since he watched his wife walk through the lobby with that asshole in white tennis togs, he had been in a panic. Without Karen’s financial backing, Rick was exposed to the untender mercies of his other major investor, Jack Watson. And that wasn’t comfortable. He needed fresh money.

  Out there on the golf course, with the sun shining and a soft breeze blowing, he fed them his little speeches about the emerging wonders of biotech, and the power of the cytokines manufactured by the Burnet cell line BioGen had acquired. It was a real opportunity to get in on a company that was about to grow fast.

  They didn’t see it that way. The Merrill Lynch guy said, “Aren’t lymphokines the same as cytokines? Haven’t there been some unexplained deaths from cytokines?”

  Rick explained that there had been a few deaths, some years back, because a handful of physicians had jumped the gun on therapy.

  The Merrill Lynch guy said, “I was in lymphokines five years ago. Never made a dime.”

  Then the Citibank guy said, “What about cytokine storms?”

  Cytokine storms.Christ, Rick thought. He blew his putt. “Well,” he said, “cytokine storms are really just a speculative concept. The idea is that in certain rare circumstances, the immune system overreacts and attacks the body, causing multiple organ systems to fail—”

  “Isn’t that what happened in the influenza epidemic of 1918?”

  “A few academics have said so, but they all work for drug companies that market competing products.”

  “You’re saying it might not be true?”

  “You have to be very careful about what universities tell you, nowadays.”

  “Even about 1918?”

  “Disinformation takes many forms,” Rick said, picking up his ball. “The truth is cytokines are the wave of the future, they are fast-tracked for clinical testing and product development, and they offer the fastest return on investment of all the product lines out there today. That’s why I made cytokines my first acquisition at BioGen. And we have just won the litigation that surrounded—”

  “They won’t appeal? I heard they were.”

  “The judge’s ruling took the fight out of them.”

  “But haven’t people died from gene transfers that provoked a cytokine storm? Haven’t alot of people died?”

  Rick sighed. “Not so many…”

  “What? Fifty, a hundred, something like that?”

  “I don’t know the exact number,” Rick said, now realizing that this was not going to be a good day. And that was an hour before one of them finally said that in his opinion only an idiot would invest in cytokines.

  Nice.

  And so he feltexhausted and defeated, sitting slumped in the locker room afterward, when Jack Watson, suntanned and resplendent in tennis whites, dropped onto the bench beside him and said, “So. Useful game?”

  He was the last person Diehl wanted to see. “Not bad.”

  “Any of those guys going to come in?”

  “Maybe. We’ll wait and see.”

  Watson said, “Those Merrill Lynch guys have no balls. Their idea of taking a risk is peeing in the shower. I wouldn’t hold my breath. What do you think about the Radial Genomics business?”

  “What Radial Genomics business?”

  “I guess word hasn’t gotten around. I figured you�
�d know about it.” He bent over, began to unlace his shoes. “I just thought you’d be concerned,” he said. “Didn’t you have a robbery recently?”

  “Yes. My car was stolen from the parking lot,” Diehl said. “But I’m going through a divorce, and it’s pretty bitter just now.”

  “So you assume your wife took your car?”