he said, “was a violent allergic reaction to the substance in question.” He gave Yoshihara a smug smile. “When the ambulance arrived, his mother was trying to get him out of his car, which was running in the garage with the door closed.”
Yoshihara nodded. “And so they gave him oxygen.”
“And he died,” Jameson said.
“And the weather in Los Angeles that day?” Yoshihara asked.
Jameson smiled thinly. “Close to perfect. A Santa Ana condition had developed; the weather reports spoke of a crystalline day such as Los Angeles hardly ever experiences anymore.”
“But not good for our subject,” Yoshihara observed. “What would the result have been if they hadn’t applied pure oxygen?”
“It’s hard to say,” Jameson replied. “But it appears that our latest subjects are doing better. So far, four of the five seem to be doing fine. Of course, the air in Mexico City has been particularly bad the last few days, but in Chicago it’s been pretty good.”
“And how long have they been in place?”
“Only two days,” Jameson told him.
“Interesting,” Yoshihara mused. “What about the local boy who died? What was his name?”
“Kioki Santoya,” Jameson replied. “He wasn’t given oxygen, of course—he was already dead when his mother found him. But our lab work shows that his lungs are in very much the same condition as this subject’s.” He nodded toward the cadaver on the table.
Takeo Yoshihara was silent for a moment, thinking. “The other two locals,” he finally said. “I would like to see them. Not on the monitors. I wish to look at them directly.”
Stephen Jameson’s eyes clouded. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he began. “If either of them recognizes you—”
“It won’t matter if they do,” Takeo Yoshihara cut in. His expression was grim. “After all, it’s unlikely they’ll be leaving here, isn’t it?”
Stephen Jameson tilted his head noncommittally. It would not do to expose his feelings to his employer. “As you wish,” he said, leading Takeo Yoshihara through a door. They passed through a chamber filled with tanks of compressed gas and a large pump, and then into yet another room.
This room was empty, except for a large Plexiglas box.
The box was filled with a brownish fog.
Barely visible through the haze were the figures of two young men. Naked, they lay sleeping on the floor, their heads resting on their arms. But as Takeo Yoshihara stared at them, the eyes of one—the larger of them, and as Yoshihara could now see, a Polynesian by ancestry—suddenly snapped open. In an instant he was crouched low to the floor, as if ready to spring.
Like an animal, Takeo Yoshihara thought. Like a wild animal sensing danger. Yoshihara stepped closer, exactly as he might have to get a closer look at an ape in a cage at the zoo.
The figure sprang at him, his hands extended as if to seize Yoshihara’s neck, until, crashing against the Plexiglas wall, he dropped back to the floor of the cage with a howl of pain.
Now the other, smaller specimen was awake, too, staring through the transparent wall, his eyes burning with fury.
“We still have no idea how they became involved in our experiments?” Yoshihara asked, turning away from the box to gaze once more at Jameson.
“Since I’m sure they don’t know themselves—” he began, but once more Yoshihara cut him off.
“I’m not interested in what they know,” he said. “I wish to understand how they became exposed to our compound. Find out. I want an answer by the end of the day. Is that clear?”
Stephen Jameson swallowed nervously, but nodded his assent, knowing no other response would be acceptable.
“Good,” Yoshihara said softly. Then, without so much as a backward glance at the two boys imprisoned in the Plexiglas box, he made his way back through the series of rooms, rode the elevator up to the main floor, and left the building to stroll for a while in the gardens.
He had an hour before it would be time to leave. Except for the small hitch involving the local boys, things seemed to be progressing nicely. And even the problem with the locals was being contained.
“Contained,” he repeated silently to himself. It would have been better if all the research subjects could have been kept far from Maui, as originally planned, but since the error had occurred—and he would find out precisely how that error had occurred—there was no point in not turning the mistake to his own advantage.
For as long as they lived, the two young males down in the laboratory would make valuable