Read Online Transhuman by Ben Bova - Free Book Online Page A

of hours.”
    â€œIf it doesn’t snow again,” Tamara growled.

 
    Washington, D.C.
    R AMÓN JIMENEZ HAD never met an FBI agent before. As head of the National Cancer Institute’s legal department, his working associates were lawyers and accountants, his “customers” were the institute’s biologists and other scientists. His friends were mostly fellow Hispanics.
    Jimenez was known to them all as a tight-ass: a stickler for details who aimed for perfection in everything he did. His face was lean, although there were significant pouches beneath his deeply brown eyes. His dark hair was luxuriant, but his mustache was nothing more than a pencil trace over his upper lip. His body frame was small and slight, yet his stomach stretched the fabric of his shirt.
    He was self-consciously buttoning his gray suit jacket across that ample stomach as Agent Hightower explained why he was asking about Luke Abramson. Jimenez was somewhat in awe of the man. A special agent of the FBI, he thought. And such a large man. He could be a professional wrestler, with that build. He looks like a Native American.
    Hightower was saying, “… so since your institute has been Abramson’s main source of funding for many years, I thought you could tell me who his associates are, who he might go to for help.”
    Jimenez said, “You should talk to the scientists about that.”
    Hightower nodded. “I suppose so. I’ll need some guidance about who to contact. Maybe an introduction.”
    â€œI can do that.” Jimenez tapped on his computer keyboard. “Ah. Dr. Petrone. She was overseeing Abramson’s work.”
    â€œHe reports to her.”
    â€œNot exactly,” said Jimenez. “The institute provides funding for outside scientists. They send us grant requests, we review them. Those that are approved and given funding are monitored by one of our scientific staff. Dr. Petrone was monitoring Abramson’s work.”
    â€œWas?”
    Jimenez peered at his computer screen, double-checking to make certain he was right. Then he said, “Apparently Abramson’s grant was not approved this year. We haven’t funded his work since…” He glanced again at the screen. “Since April first.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    Jimenez made an elaborate shrug. “You’ll have to ask Dr. Petrone about that.”
    *   *   *
    L UKE WAS SITTING in the office of Dr. Yolanda Petrone. She was a comely woman in her early sixties, with light gray eyes and hay yellow hair. When Luke had first met her, some twenty years earlier, he’d been surprised to learn her ancestry was Italian.
    â€œMy people come from north of Venice, near the Austrian border,” she explained. “Plenty of Germanic blood in my family.”
    Now, as he sat beside her on the sofa in her office, he realized that there was plenty of gray in the blond hair, and her skin was spiderwebbed. Telomerase injections could help her, he thought. But he kept the idea to himself.
    â€œSo what brings you to Washington, Luke? It’s not like you to just pop in, unannounced.”
    He tried to grin and failed. Instead, he confessed, “I’m in trouble, Yolanda. I need your help.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong? Is the Fisk Foundation cutting off your funding?”
    â€œNo, that’s not it.”
    â€œYou know,” Petrone said, “I thought it was a mistake when we refused your grant request last spring. Orders from on high, you know. Something about budget cuts. I couldn’t do anything about it.”
    â€œIt’s not that, Yolanda,” Luke repeated. “It’s my granddaughter. She’s dying.”
    Petrone sat in shocked silence as Luke explained the situation to her.
    â€œSo where is the child?”
    â€œAt the moment she’s in a motel out by the Beltway. I was hoping you could find her a bed. I need to run some diagnostics on