Life Blood---XXIV---Page No 83

Where was he? I wanted to scream, but I was determined to keep a grip.

All right, try the Camino Real and hope you can get some-
body awake who speaks English. Maybe he went back. Please,
God.

I had the number memorized, so I plugged it in, and I

recognized the voice of the guy who picked up, the owner's son, who was trying his best to learn English.

"Hi, this is Morgan James. Remember me? I'm just calling to see if there's a Steve Abrams staying there now?"
        "Hey, que pasa, Senora James. Very early, yes? Momento."
There was a pause as he checked. Come on, Steve, be there. Please, please be somewhere.

Then the voice came back: "No, nobody by that name stays
here."

"Okay . . . gracias." Shit. It was like a pit had opened somewhere deep in my stomach.

I replaced the handset, feeling grateful that at least the phone
still worked, my last link to sanity. My next call was going to be to
the embassy, but I couldn't risk using up my opening shot with the
graveyard shift. Maybe by 6 A.M. somebody with authority to do
something would be there. Just a few more minutes.

Now what? I felt the aching soreness in my groin again, along with a wave of nausea. I had to do something, anything, just to keep going, to beat back an anxiety attack.

That was when I turned and stared at the computers, the little ducks drifting across the screens.

All right, you know what he's doing; now it's time to try and

find out why. The real why. There must be records of what he's up
to stored there. What else would he have them for?
        "Clang, clang, clang." A noise erupted from somewhere
outside the window. In spite of myself, I jumped.
        Then I realized it was just the odd call of some forest bird.
God, I wasn't cut out for this. Now my head was hurting, stabs of
pain, but I rubbed at my temples and sat down at the first terminal.
        I'm a Mac fan, hate Windows, so I had to start out by
experimenting. In the movies people always know how to do this,
but I had to go with trial and error, error compounding error.
        After endless false starts that elicited utility screens I couldn't
get rid of, I finally brought up an index of files, which included a
long list of names.

ALKALOIDS

CARDIAC GLYCOSIDES
PHENOLICS

SAPONINS

TERPENOIDS

Biology 103—which I hated—was coming back. Plant-extract categories. Looks like he actually is doing research on the flora here. But . . . still, what does he need my ova for?

I scrolled on. Scientific terms that meant nothing. Then,
toward the end of the alphabetical list, I came to the word
QUETZAL.

What was that? I clicked on it and—lo and behold—up came a short list of names. Six in all, organized by dates about a year apart, and each a woman.

My God. First I assumed they were patients from Quetzal
Manor who'd come here for fertility treatment, though each was
indicated "terminated" at the end, whatever that meant. But as I
scanned down, I didn't want to see what I was seeing. The name
next to the last was S. Crenshaw. She'd been "terminated" too.

The bottom was M. James. But I hadn't been "terminated."
Not yet.

I slumped back in the chair, trying to breathe. How much more of this horror could I handle? Finally I leaned forward again and with a trembling hand clicked on S. Crenshaw.

A lot of data popped up, including three important dates. The
first was exactly three weeks after the one in her passport, the
Guatemalan entry visa. The second was ten months ago, the third
eight months ago. After each was a number: 268, followed by
153, and finally 31.

The count of her extracted ova. Kill him. Just kill him.

A lot of medical terminology I couldn't interpret followed each
number, but the note at the end required no degree.
        "Blastocyst material from embryos after third extraction shows
84% decrease in cellular viability. No longer usable."
        My God, had he made her permanently sterile?
        While that obscenity was sinking in, I went back and clicked
 on my own name. The date was today, the number was 233. He'd
just taken 233 of my ova. I stared at the screen and felt faint.
        No medical analysis had yet been entered, but it didn't matter.
I stared at the screen, feeling numb, for a full minute before
clicking back to Sarah's page. Yes, I was right. The last date was