Life Blood---XXIV---Page No 81

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 of
Baalum, 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 to me?
        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