A Treasure Deep by Alton Gansky Read Free Book Online Page A

made the right choice. Look, he
even brought us more money than we agreed to. Who does that these
days? No one, that’s who. Let him alone.”
    Perry could see that Rose was not satisfied,
but there was nothing he could do about that. Secrecy was part of
the deal. They had a right to be curious and he regretted that he
couldn’t bring them into the picture, but sometimes situations
dictated actions.
    “Well,” Perry said, rising from the chair.
“I’ve taken enough of your time. I do thank you for your
trust.”
    “And I thank you for the check,” Hector
said.
    “I can see myself out,” Perry offered. “When
we pack up everything, I’ll come to say good-bye.”
    “Gracias,” Hector said, slipping back into
Spanish.
    Perry looked at the man in the chair who had
given them the go-ahead to search and dig on his property and
wondered if he would live to see the end of the project. “Via con
Dios, amigo.”
     
    THE ROOM WAS dark, made so by thick plastic blinds
that hung like vault doors against the window wall of the
nineteenth floor of the Straight Building, home and headquarters of
RS BioDynamics. The brilliant late-afternoon sunlight pressed
against the glass and blinds, attempting to fulfill its purpose of
dissolving all darkness. It failed. The room was a sepulcher, and
its lone inhabitant preferred it that way. The darkness’s only
enemy was the soft glow of four computer monitors that did little
more than tint the gloom with muted illumination.
    The room was large, a man-made cavern of
extreme expense. The floor was hand-laid teak; the walls were
dressed in thick purple drapes. No pictures hung anywhere. Despite
enough room to hold a houseful of furniture, only a single
glass-topped desk broke the monotonous expanse. There were no
chairs, no sofas, no place for anyone to sit. Such things just
encouraged people to stay longer than the owner cared to entertain
them. It was from this large desk that the computer monitors
trickled forth their anemic light.
    Dr. Rutherford Straight was behind the desk
in the only chair he’d sat in for more than six years. His body
leaned forward, swayed from side to side, then bobbed up and down.
His eyes were closed, completing the darkness he craved, but he was
not asleep. His mind was awash with thoughts, ideas flying through
the gray matter like angry hornets around a threatened nest. Music
as dark and thick as the shadowed room bounced from the hard floor
and ceiling. Baritones, sopranos, deep brass tones from horns,
sharp notes from violins and violas filled the space like smoke
from a fire. Mozart’s classical compositions fit the room and its
lone inhabitant as if they’d been hand-tailored by the maestro for
this purpose.
    A bell, gentle as a kitten’s mew, added three
notes to the concert. Other men would have missed the addition, but
not Rutherford Straight. Nothing got by him. Fifteen years ago,
just three years out of university with his doctorate, Newsweek
magazine had declared him the “most brilliant scientist since
Pasteur and more significant to the realm of biogenetics than
Gregor Mendel.” Others had joined in the chorus of praise:
Technology Review, Scientific American, the Journal of the American
Medical Association, and twenty other periodicals, scientific and
popular, had shown his face on their covers or in their pages.
    His mind made him conspicuous, his research
made him famous, and his forty-eight patents on biological material
and genetically enhanced animals had made him a billionaire. “No
man knows more about the processes of life than Dr. Rutherford
Straight, nor does anyone know how better to make millions from
that knowledge.” The words had been inked in the Wall Street
Journal.
    The bell chimed again, but Rutherford ignored
it.
    How ironic life had become. How viciously,
bitterly ironic, that a man who knew more than anyone about the
processes of life would have so much of his own existence stripped
away. In college, through graduate