The Moreau Factor by Jack L. Chalker

Author:Jack L. Chalker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Journalists, High Tech, Medical, Genetic engineering, General, Science Fiction, Fiction, Conspiracies
ISBN: 9780345402967
Publisher: Ballantine Publishing Group
Published: 2000-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

“Oh, take him and welcome!” she snapped. The county cops looked a bit too smug, and the state trooper never even got out of his car. Instead, I was cuffed, thrown in the back of the county squad car, and both cops got in the front. Rawls put the car in gear. The state trooper followed.

Both cars pulled over about a mile down the road and Patrick got out. Rawls sprung the lock and Officer Patrick slid in beside me. “Turn around and I’ll get them cuffs off.”

I was even more delighted about that. I’d been handcuffed before in demos and such but this was the first time I’d had the slap-and-lock type they used on crooks, and these hurt.

As I rubbed my wrists, I asked, “What about my partner? Any word on her?”

“Nope. They said there might be a young woman dressed up like you, but there was no sign of her. Think she’s still back there?”

I nodded. “But they don’t know she’s there, I’m sure of that. Thing is, she snuck on board that ship.”

The trooper came over. “Any problems, Jimmy?”

“No, no, well in hand. We may still have a girl in there, though. If so, she better swim for it. I doubt if we can get her out as easy as we got Mr. Vallone here, and if she can’t get off that ship then she’s toast.”

I didn’t like that. “What do you mean?”

“Well, that federal woman, she’s up to no good there, that was for sure, but she was right about one thing: That trailer, ship, and dock are leased and are diplomatic hands-off. If she’s on that ship, only that embassy and State could get her off.”

“You mean there is a country called Ratatouille or whatever?” I was appalled. How big could it be if I’d never even heard the name myself?

“Ratoranga. Yeah, it exists. Has a kind of mini-embassy in with a bunch of them other South Pacific little places over in D.C., but, hell, boy, we got some No Fishin’ zones bigger’n the Vatican and it has an embassy, and so do they.”

“Ratoranga,” I repeated. “Where in hell is that?”

“Somebody told us it was near the Marshall Islands,” Rawls said from the front. “Somewhere down where I’d like to be right now, in the South Pacific.”

The Marshalls again. “Figures.”

“We got to take you in like we said,” Jimmy Patrick told me, sounding almost apologetic. “But we got a magistrate who’ll set bond real quick. Your paper called and squared it already. We’ll hold you a little so them Feds won’t stalk the courthouse and wait for bail and snatch you on the way out. Your office is sendin’ somebody in from Washington for you.”

“Okay, thanks. Any news on the helicopter that crashed? It was part of this.”

“They down that?”

“I think they might have had a hand in it, but I’m not sure,” I told them honestly.

“Got word on it, but haven’t updated. Let’s go up to the courthouse now. We might be able to get some information on them from there, and maybe on your missing partner, too.

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