She laughs, but her hands are too busy for chatter as she palpates the soft tissue inside the chimp’s skull. It’s stomach turning and fascinating and miraculous, all at the same time. How the hell could people like Reverend Carl and Morgan LeBron want to take this woman and throw her away? How could anyone think that makes sense?

“Okay. Here we go.” Lorenzo draws two full syringes of clear liquid from a vial on the surgical table. It looks as harmless as water. He sets one down on the table between the gurneys and holds out the other to Lin.

I watch her calm hands as she inserts the fine point of the needle a few millimeters into the chimp’s cortical tissue and squeezes the plunger, glancing at the readouts. She nods, apparently satisfied she hasn’t killed her patient, and injects the remaining serum before replacing the round piece of skull—plug, Jean, it’s only a plug—and stitching up her work. The entire process has taken five minutes.

A good thing, really, since both the chimpanzee and Morgan have begun to stir.

Chapter Seventy-two

SEVENTY-TWO

One close-up and personal encounter with an angry primate was enough for me. I don’t care to relive the experience.

“We need to get her out of here, Enzo. Now,” I say, watching with horror as the chimp’s chest begins to rise and fall more deeply. “Lin? How much time do we have before she comes out?”

Lin shakes her head back and forth, holds up four fingers, then two.

There’s no need for Lorenzo to translate.

“Six minutes?” I say hopefully.

She shakes her head again, holding up two fingers, thrusting them toward me.

I look around for something—anything—we can use as restraints, and find only suturing thread on the surgical table. Not good. “Okay. Okay.” No time to spare. “Lin—you make sure the cage is open. Enzo, you and I wheel this baby back where she belongs.” My own heartbeat marks every passing second as Lin races out of the makeshift operating room and follows the noise of the remaining hooting chimps toward the front of the lab.

Chimpanzee Number 413, eyes filled with puzzlement, reaches a long and hairy arm up to her head. Then she turns her face toward mine.

“Enzo? Push!” I yell. The gurney slams into a pair of lab stools, knocking them across the floor. Lorenzo catches one before it careers into two more, barely preventing a domino effect of rolling furniture that might block our path. Jackie and Isabel stand in the center of the lab, horrified and helpless.

“Don’t say anything, Jacko,” I plead. “Don’t say anything. Take Isabel somewhere else. Lock yourselves into a closet if you have to.” Every mental image I have is of the mauled woman, Charla Nash, missing everything on her face save the skin on her forehead.