Page 141 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

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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