Page 141 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case
P. 141

Soaked to the Bone

        on the public databases he can access on the office computers. It is
        still before business hours when he uses his key to open the door to
        International  Indemnity,  Ltd.  He  quickly  logs  on  to  the  computer.
        ‘Won’t someone know you are doing this,’ she asks?  ‘We’ll be long
        gone before that happens—I hope,’ he replies.”
          “He searches for information about the hospital, not finding any
        doctor on staff resembling the one who had been his surgeon. Then
        he looks at the administrative structure: his eye is caught by a list of
        benefactors. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘that man, John A. Raleigh-Bolle, is also
        on  the  board  of  directors  of  this  insurance  company.’  Ellie  is  not
        impressed. ‘Isn’t that typical  of rich  people?’ But Orson is excited.
        He looks further. He finds the curriculum vitae of Benton Proffitt:
        the  administrator  had  previously  worked  for  Megalith  Industries—
        chairman  of  the  board  and  majority  stockholder,  John  A.  Raleigh-
        Bolle.  Megalith  was  a  holding  company  with  subsidiaries  in  health
        care, pharmaceuticals, banking, communications and agribusiness. Its
        chairman was a billionaire. But why, Orson wonders, would this man,
        who  lived  in  the  United  States  and  had  the  name  of  his  company
        emblazoned  on  every  one  of  its  properties,  be  involved  in  the
        financing of a small hospital and a minor insurance company in Costa
        Rica?”
          “Now they both feel he is on to something. Sunlight is beginning
        to  stream  in  the  windows;  time  is  running  short.  Then  they  come
        across a photograph of Raleigh-Bolle, a rarity, it seems, for the man
        does not like having his picture taken. Orson and Ellie are shocked:
        the man looks like an older version of Orson himself. ‘You could be
        brothers,’  she says, amazed. ‘But that photo was taken  quite a few
        years  ago.  According  to  what  you’ve  learned,  he  must  be  in  his
        seventies by now.’ She turns to Orson, who has a dazed expression.
        An awful possibility has occurred to him. He tells her, ‘Look, Ellie.
        Suppose this man, who is wealthy beyond our dreams and who has
        control of talented scientists and doctors, learns that his people have
        found the secret of human cloning. It is forbidden, as you know, in
        almost every country in the world—has been, for decades. But this
        man, whose great power may have corrupted his values and warped
        his soul, decides to use that discovery to make himself immortal. In
        some secret laboratory his people create a cloned fetus of Raleigh-
        Bolle in vitro. It survives and begins to develop as a human infant.’”

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