“Very. Don’t understand half the stuff she was saying, but she was knowledgeable. I’m transcribing the tape myself word for word. I don’t want any transcription service looking at this stuff.”

“Of course, very prudent. So give me the headlines.”

“Okay, the two names you mentioned to me are the guys for sure....”

“Rothman and Yamamoto,” Trotter said, talking over Brubaker.

“Shit, what’s the point of the code words and all the cloak-and-dagger you insist on if you don’t follow it yourself? Yes, those are the guys. The first one is the big cheese.”

“Sorry,” Trotter said, inwardly cursing himself.

“Okay, so she tells me all this stuff that they’re doing, and I’m supposed to be a science reporter and able to follow it. So I asked her at the end for the Cliff Notes version that I can use for the readers.”

“What paper does she think this is going in?”

“No paper. I told her I was doing the research to see if there was a story and if there was, I’d sell it and call her again.”

“What if she calls you?”

“She doesn’t have my number. I told her this was very hush-hush on my end, and I asked her not to tell anyone we’d spoken because this is such a big story that other reporters are going to be on it soon, and I want to get a jump on it. I’m actually thinking of writing it up for real—I wasn’t lying to her, this is going to be way big.”

Jerry’s joy at playing Dick Tracy evaporated.

“What do you mean, ‘big’?”

“Well, according to her, these guys are close commercially to growing organs outside the body, organs that will be perfect matches for the person who needs them. The trials have worked with animal subjects, and they want to move on to using human stem cells.”

“When?”

“She did get a little cagey there. Not because she wouldn’t tell me—I think she didn’t know and didn’t want to let on that she didn’t know. But it’s months that they will be moving to human cells, maybe even weeks and certainly not years.”

“Weeks or months? The difference is important.”

“Well, I guess I need to make a few more calls. But it’s happening. And soon. He’s working on something else too. Something about growing salmonella strains that cause typhoid fever on the space shuttle. Can you imagine? To think where our tax dollars go. It makes me sick.”

“Tell me about it,” Jerry said. “Okay, thanks, B. Keep me posted.”

“Got it, boss.”

After hearing from Brubaker, Trotter was impatient to know what kind of progress, if any, Hooper was making. Although it was technically against protocol, Trotter called Hooper’s new cell.