Chromosome 6
Contents ( 27)
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
EPILOGUE
GLOSSARY
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
CHROMOSOME 6
A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1997 by Robin Cook
This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.
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ISBN: 978-1-1011-9054-8
A Berkley BOOK®
Berkley Books first published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
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Berkley and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.
First edition (electronic): September 2001
For Audrey and Barbara
Thanks for being wonderful mothers
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Matthew J. Bankowski, Ph.D., Director of Clinical
Virology, Molecular Medicine, and Research-Development,
DSI Laboratories
Joe Cox, J.D., L.L.M., tax and corporate law
John Gilatto, V.M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of
Veterinary Pathology, Tufts University School
of Veterinary Medicine
Jacki Lee, M.D., Chief Medical Examiner, Queens,
New York
Matts Linden, Captain Pilot, American Airlines
Martine Pignede, Director of NIWA Private Game
Reserve, Cameroon
Jean Reeds, School Psychologist, reader, and critic
Charles Wetli, M.D., Chief Medical Examiner, Suffolk
County, New York
PROLOGUE
March 3, 1997
3:30 P.M.
Cogo, Equatorial Guinea
Given a Ph.D. in molecular biology from MIT that had been earned in close cooperation with the Massachusetts General Hospital, Kevin Marshall found his squeamishness regarding medical procedures a distinct embarrassment. Although he’d never admitted it to anyone, just having a blood test or a vaccination was an ordeal for him. Needles were his specific bête noire. The sight of them caused his legs to go rubbery and a cold sweat to break out on his broad forehead. Once he’d even fainted in college after getting a measles shot.
At age thirty-four, after many years of postgraduate biomedical research, some of it involving live animals, he’d expected to outgrow his phobia, but it hadn’t happened. And it was for that reason he was not in operating room 1A or 1B at the moment. Instead he’d chosen to remain in the intervening scrub room, where he was leaning against the scrub sink, a vantage that allowed him to look through angled windows into both ORs—until he felt the need to avert his eyes.
The two patients had been in their respective rooms for about a quarter hour in preparation for their respective procedures. The two surgical teams were quietly conversing while standing off to the side. They were gowned and gloved and ready to commence.