Chapter 1
Suzanne Coughlin walked out of the lab door, turned right and marched down the hallway. She looked down at the white tiles, hoping no one would see her. Something hit her in the shoulder. She heard a pan crash, and saw glass and blood splatter on the floor.
"Oh Shit, I'm sorry!" She turned, looked down and then looked around to see if she had drawn a crowd.
It was Dan, a colleague, bringing blood samples back to the lab for analysis. He was on his knees, picking up the mess. He looked up.
"Suzanne, are you O.K.? You look pale, you're sweating."
She bent down. "Yeah, oh, here, let me help you."
"Don't worry about it. Let me call the cleaning crew." He reached for the cell phone in the top pocket of his lab coat. "Where you off to, Suz? We have our lab meeting in five minutes."
"I have to go down the hall to serology. Do me a favor Dan, tell them that I'll be a little late."
She stood, turned, and walked directly to the Cryogenics Storage Room.
She had to be in and out of the room quickly. The vials were stored in a box sunk deep in a large container of liquid nitrogen. She walked to the back corner, around the maze of other tanks, put on a pair of thick, insulated gloves, and pulled slowly on the handle of the holder that held the box of vials.
She thought she heard something, stood up and spun around. The box filled with the small vials flew out of her hands. She got down on her knees and shuffled the vials back into the box.
The Cell Bank that Suzanne had entered was formed several years before so that the Committee for Human Cloning (C.H.C.) could easily regulate use of human eggs. It was the only facility of its kind in the country. All harvested human eggs, by law, had to be sent there for storage. Thousands were being frozen each year in preparation for in vitro fertilization.
The Bank was located at the Center for Fertility at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, where an average of ten thousand infertile couples per year were treated. There were at least one hundred other fertility centers, on the East Coast alone, that sent cells to the Bank.
The storage and use of frozen human eggs were carefully regulated by the C.H.C. Those entering were videotaped, and each had to sign in and out.
Suzanne tried not to look at the camera. She wanted it to look like a routine visit. Sweat formed on her forehead. She took a deep breath, walked over to the log book, spent a few seconds staring at the pages, then looked down at the samples and recorded the identification numbers: MM151, MM152, MM153, MM154, MM155, MM156. Then, under the authorization column, she wrote, Doctor McGrath, G.B.M.C.
She walked out with the samples in hand, quickly put them into a small thermos full of liquid nitrogen, and stuffed the thermos into her large canvas purse.
Chapter 2
Sean Duncan saw the light come on. "Bingo! It's about time I got some action."
He had been planted in the room with the lights off each night for about a month. He ate, drank, smoked, listened to music and looked out the window, waiting for some sign of activity across the street
"O.K., let's see what we have here."
He pointed the wide angle lens of his camera toward the room across the street and looked through the eyepiece. There was just enough of a crack between the curtains for him to see inside the room.
He took his eye away, looked down at the table next to him, pushed away the crumbs, ashtray and remains of the evening paper, and pulled out a map of the building.
He looked back, focused the camera and watched for some action. Nothing. He sat patiently.
One of the windows of the lab was open. Some wind caught the blinds and pushed them aside. He tensed, focused again, pushed the button on the camera and snapped as many pictures as he could. Someone was sitting at the lab bench in front of a microscope. He zoomed in on the face, but she had her eyes buried in the scope.
Suddenly, a gust of wind blew the blinds away. She looked up.
"That's it, come to Papa." She was staring out the window. Her face was in clear view. He snapped as many pictures as he could.
He looked at his watch. Just past nine.
This could be another dead end. He had investigated more than half a dozen physicians over the past year. Many came in late and worked in the lab. But this case was beginning to feel a little different. When the woman was at the window, she had a worried expression on her face.
Sean continued to stare. He saw the woman carrying something small. He tried to zoom in, but couldn't recognize what it was. She went back and forth from the microscope to other parts of the room. He snapped more shots. The lights went out just before eleven.
It was a hunch, but Sean wanted to take this a little further. Two hours in the lab. No one else in sight. She looked worried, serious. Something was going on.
He picked up his phone, dialed and waited.
"Hello, is this security?" Sean fumbled with some papers in front of him. "This is, uh, Jim," He was reading. It was a list of nurses working in the clinic. "I can't believe it, but I just locked myself out of the lab. My car keys are in there. I'm over at the garage. I was hoping you could unlock the lab for me."
"Sure, who is this again?"
He looked at the list. "Jim Billingsley."
"Jim, I need your badge number. You know, just precautionary."
Sean shuffled the papers, hoping that the guy on the other end couldn't hear. "Yeah, no problem, uh, it's four-five-zero-nine-nine."
"What's the lab number?"
"Room three-oh-one."
"We'll be right up."
"Thanks. It'll take me a while to get there. Leave it open for me, will ya? I'll lock up."
"O.K., we'll check it again when we go on rounds. Have a good night."
Sean hung up, walked over to the other side of the room, grabbed his duffel bag, threw it on the bed and opened it up. He pushed aside the rumpled clothes on top and pulled out a clean, folded uniform. It took him about five minutes to change.
He walked across the street toward the Greater Baltimore Medical Center Building, thinking of what he would do and say if he was questioned by security.
He went in the side entrance, vacuum cleaner in hand, and tried to seem casual as he walked in front of the main security desk on his way to the elevators. The guard didn't even look up.
Sean took the elevator to the third floor, found the nearest bathroom and went into the first stall. He closed and locked the door, pulled a map out of his pocket and found the room he wanted.
Standing for a second outside of 301, he glanced from side to side, put on a pair of cleaning crew gloves and slowly turned the knob on the door. It was open. Relieved, he casually walked in and headed through the reception area toward the lab. He couldn't stay long. Security would be back in about half an hour.
The room was dark. He pulled out a pair of infrared glasses, put them on and looked around. He noticed a notebook laying on the lab bench next to the microscope.
Trying not to move the book, he opened the last few pages dated
August 10, 2011, and pulled out a scanner from his pocket. No
time to read it tonight. He'd dump it to his computer tomorrow.
