When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [86]
I looked at him, stared hard into those deceptive blue eyes. “Nantucket was where your wife and children were going when the plane crashed?”
He nodded. His face was flushed. His eyes were red-rimmed. “Frannie, I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry about your husband, David. I’m not usually a liar. Actually, I never lie. I didn’t have a choice. I’m obsessed with this case, I’ll admit that. I’ve been tracking it for the past couple of years.”
“Are you sure about David?” I whispered.
“Yes, I’m sure. I talked to another doctor at MIT. She knew about the outlaw group. She gave me your husband’s name, and she swore that David was murdered. David’s name came up in association with Dr. Kim in San Francisco. I’m sorry to have to tell you.”
I stared up at the dark, brooding sky. A false bottom had dropped out of my stomach. I needed to change the subject. “What do you think happened to the men who were chasing us?”
Kit, or whoever he was, shook his head. “Maybe the fire and the explosion at the School distracted them. They know they’ll catch us before we get down the mountain with five children in tow.”
“Maybe one of us should go ahead,” I said.
He shook his head. His eyes were so intense now. “Frannie, tell me your thoughts about the labs at the School. Your bottom line, best guess, whatever you think is going on there. What struck you back there? I think it’s important.”
I tried to think straight, to concentrate, but it wasn’t very easy. “Honestly—shock at first. Then, sorrow. A sense that my soul had been invaded. Obviously, they were experimenting on humans, among other terrible things.”
“What other things?”
An idea had hit me very hard at the School. It was so horrifying I had wanted it to disappear. I still couldn’t shake it off.
“No matter how these so-called scientists manipulated and combined genes, the children must have come from human stock. They weren’t cooked up in lab beakers. A little of this, a dash of that. They got their hair, eyes, skin color, some of their intellectual capacity from their parents. Max, Oz, Peter, Wendy, Ic, they all have human mothers and fathers. I’m sure of it.”
His eyes were incredibly intense, probing, holding on to mine. “Please go on, Frannie. I have to hear this, anything you suspect at this point. I’m trying to put together a lot of pieces.”
“There is no such thing as a test-tube baby. Not yet, anyway. There’s simply no way to grow a child in anything other than the real thing. Even biologically engineered mouse embryos have to be implanted into living female mice until they’re developed. Max and the other children were nurtured in the wombs of women. They have human mothers.”
My eyes were finally closing. I couldn’t keep them open a minute longer. Unfortunately, the nightmarish thoughts kept coming in waves. Who were the women who had cooperated with the experiments? How had the genetically manipulated embryos been obtained? Where were the birth mothers?
“What’s your real name?” I finally whispered. I had to know.
“My name is Tom,” I heard. “I’m Tom Brennan, Frannie. I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about David.”
I nodded my head. I was close to tears, but I stubbornly held them off. An image of David flashed before my eyes.
“Me too,” I said.
Chapter 91
IT WAS HALF PAST NINE and Kit/Tom was thoughtful and brooding as he walked lookout on the perimeter of the hideaway. At least he was operating decently as an agent. So far, he’d been able to protect everyone—but for how much longer?
He was worried about so many things right now, but he felt particularly bad about what happened earlier with Frannie. He hated that he’d let her down.
Pop. Something hit him on the head and he jumped back. He looked up, expecting trouble.
He found it, too. Max was bouncing on a sturdy tree limb above. She had dropped a pine cone on him.
“Funny girl. What’s up? Besides you?” he called to her.
She smiled down.
“I want to show you something.” She pointed toward a distant hill that was