Nico and Sam were waiting for them in the car and for once Callen had to take the back seat.
"Take a look at the information Eric and Nell have uncovered," Sam advised as he pulled out into the traffic. "Looks like we're nearly there. If that's not the most perfect paper-trail, I don't know what is."
It was all there: the final pieces of the puzzle were slipping into place. The small village in Scotland, that was home to the man who created the first cloned mammal, the famous Dolly the Sheep, who had lived her short life just a few miles away and was, for a time, the most famous animal in the world. The sheep who brought the ethics of cloning to international attention and ushered in a whole new awareness of what science could do. The current debates in the US on stem-cell therapy could be traced back over the years to Dolly the sheep.
"Dolly? Why would they call a sheep Dolly?" Deeks asked. He could only think of one Dolly, and any links between Tennessee, country music and a cloned sheep seemed tenuous at best.
"Says here she was cloned from a pair of mammary glands. Scottish humour, I suppose." Callen returned to his reading. Threats against the scientist had been investigated during that September and the United Kingdom's Counter Terrorism branch had been interested enough in Trevor Matthews to compile a dossier ("You've got to love the British formality!" Eric had commented) on his activities, which included several meetings with a scientist working in xenotransplantation. Here Eric had kindly provided a link from the FDA:
"Xenotransplantation is any procedure that involves the transplantation, implantation or infusion into a human recipient of either (a) live cells, tissues, or organs from a nonhuman animal source, or (b) human body fluids, cells, tissues or organs that have had ex vivo contact with live nonhuman animal cells, tissues or organs. The development of xenotransplantation is, in part, driven by the fact that the demand for human organs for clinical transplantation far exceeds the supply."
"I can see where all this is going. Lots of potential for people to take violently opposing views on that topic. I'm presuming our Trevor was networking and recruiting other similarly-minded people?"
"He's certainly on a number of UK watch-lists as having suspected associations with animal liberation organisations. They couldn't prove anything, but he was cautioned for driving "without due care and attention" near a scientific institute, that just happened to fire-bombed ten days afterwards. Special Branch flagged him up as a possible sympathiser to the group claiming responsibility. Their file on Trevor Matthews remains open. And he has known associates working in gene therapy in San Diego."
Nico turned around to look at them. "But that doesn't make sense. If they work with animals, surely they're in favour of the treatment?"
Callen shook his head. "Never presume anything. I guess the field of scientific research has as many disaffected people in it as anywhere else. People who suddenly "see the light" and then start to reassess their life and work in an entirely different manner. Or who have deliberately concealed their real intentions all along, or maybe who have been recruited to the cause at some point."
"We'll probably never know what motivated Matthews, but you were the golden goose who popped into his life and when your support for that Cancer Charity threatened his principles, he just couldn't resist trying to warn you off." Deeks shook his head sadly. "And when that didn't work, he used his contacts to start amping the pressure on you."
"Ah yes, the splendidly seedy legal counsel. Nice list of clients. A great cross-section of the filthy underbelly of American life. I see several names on here with form for using knives." Callen leaned his head back on the seat rest and sighed. "Christ, what a tangled mess this all is."
"Do you think Matthews will talk?" Sam asked, neatly switching lanes at high speed.
"I could make him talk," Nico commented darkly.
In the safety of the back seat, Callen allowed himself the luxury of a small smile. He knew exactly how persuasive she could be. Watching him in the rear view mirror Sam could see the look in his partner's eyes and made a mental note to have a little chat later on about discretion. His gaze slipped sideways to where Deeks sat in the opposite corner of the rear seat. There was something going on with the younger man. Not only was he uncharacteristically quiet, all Sam's instincts were screaming danger signs. They were all too close to this case, there were too many undercurrents swirling around and if they weren't careful, they could get dragged down into the whirlpool