Washington, D. C., Friday & Saturday…

"She's not here."

Chris looked at Kalidas through the fog of the pain.

"We've got the right address?"

"Of course. The landlady says she went to Lexington Park. I think I heard Dolores in the background when I talked to her a few days ago."

"Yeah, you said something on the ride down that she was working on a theory. Did she tell you the theory?"

"She seemed to react strangely when I said that I came in through the back door to Wolfgang Richter's research."

"And what did you mean by that? Or did you already say?"

"You're badly in need of rest, Chris. Yeah, shit, I did say. I told her I had been working on transplant rejection."

"I don't know why that would cause a reaction."

"Damned if I know either. Unless…." She seemed lost in thought.

Chris' new friend at times seemed to live on another planet. He supposed all scientists were like that. Even old Ka Wah Fong, more of a practical type than a research type, often seemed to have his head in the clouds.

Chris' was starting to feel an emotional bond to Kalidas, though. In spite of cultural differences, she reminded him in many ways of his mother, a gentle, caring woman who had been trapped in a bad marriage. On the other hand, he could well imagine her thirty years ago as a stunning beauty, someone that turned quite a few eyes in the hallowed halls of science. Too bad I didn't know her then. "Come on, give," he finally said. "What are you thinking? I'm just a stupid cop. You're not going to suggest that they're using the clones to harvest transplants for the people cloned, are you?"