Free A Knife Edge by David Rollins Page B

eaten by a shark.” I neglected to add that this was one of the rare instances where the sashimi actually got even.
    “Just as the preliminary from the Tokyo Police had it figured.” Schaeffer nodded. “So you're done with the case?”
    “Pretty much, Captain. Got a few procedural aspects to clear up.” This was me, playing for time. It would hardly do for the department supposedly overseeing matters of procedure to be seen bucking it. What I wanted was time to check up on Professor Boyle and his employer, Moreton Genetics, before being redeployed in the war on grammar. Something about the guy troubled me, besides the odd Tupperware haircut.
    As expected, Schaeffer said, “Better get on with it then. Dismissed.”
    I went back to my office. I shut down all the internal software on my PC and opened a Web browser. A window came up reminding me of the U.S. government's policy about downloading files with viruses, cookies, and pornography. The advice: Don't. I brought up Google and behaved like a normal, everyday nosy citizen. I tapped “Sean Boyle, Ph.D.” into the search bar and pressed return. There were plenty of hits, approximately 78,000 of them. There were only five for a Professor Sean Boyle. One was a professor of English, the other a Ph.D. in automotive technology. I found references for the guy I was after on page two. He had three entries: two related to academic papers he'd written, the other an invitation to download the PDF file of a speech he'd given to the science faculty of Berkeley. I took up the invitation and double-clicked.
    While I waited for it to download, I Googled the late Dr. Tanaka. There were nearly a thousand hits on the name, but I found my Dr. Tanaka on the first page. There was already a link to an obituary on him in the British newspaper
The Observer.
According to the article, Tanaka had headed numerous deep-sea diving expeditions on hydrothermal vents from the Arctic to the Azores. A marine biologist, he was apparently the leading authority on the unusual life forms found in these hazardous environments. The article included a picture of the guy with his head attached to his body. I barely recognized him.
    I went back to the PDF of Boyle's speech. On the first page were the words “Playing God.” Interesting title. I hit the print button, sat back, and considered my next move. Moreton Genetics employed these two guys, and they were both working together on a top-secret project for the U.S. Department of Defense. One was a geneticist, the other a marine biologist. I was intrigued.
    I tapped moretongenetics.com into the search bar to see where it took me. Almost immediately an animated double helix appeared, the
M
and
G
that I remembered seeing on Boyle'sbusiness card, revolving slowly, while the rest of the site loaded. The main image on the home page was of the Moreton Genetics offices and research complex, an architectural representation of the double helix constructed of steel and glass, nestled among ponds of reeds and birds, and set, the accompanying text told me, within five acres of land on the edge of Silicon Valley, California. The place radiated high technology. And money. I surfed the site. Apparently, Moreton Genetics had been one of the links in the chain that had helped unravel the human genome. The company had also isolated a gene responsible for switching off the production of insulin, resulting in new therapies worth millions. Most recently it had produced a sterile strain of the varroa mite, the creature that had single-handedly almost wiped out California's entire population of honeybees and, with it, virtually all flowering plants and crops in the state. Something like that—saving California's agriculture—would have earned Moreton Genetics a lot of money, not to mention kudos.
    I checked the price of the stock, information also available on the site. MG was looking good. Their stock had increased its capital value by eighteen percent in the last year alone. If I