Produced by Al Haines ============================================================== This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, http://creativecommons.org/ ============================================================== LIFE BLOOD It lies hidden deep in the mist-shrouded rain forest of Central America. A place where a brilliant doctor fulfills dreams for some--and creates chilling nightmares for others. Now, filmmaker Morgan James is about to journey straight into the heart of a dark conspiracy. Where a bizarre human experiment comes at a terrible price, and where she may be the next to pay with her . . . Life Blood BOOKS BY THOMAS HOOVER Nonfiction Zen Culture The Zen Experience Fiction The Moghul Caribbee Wall Street _Samurai_ (The _Samurai_ Strategy) Project Daedalus Project Cyclops Life Blood Syndrome All free as e-books at www.thomashoover.info PINNACLE BOOKS are published by Kensington Publishing Corp. 850 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022 Copyright (C) 2000 by Thomas Hoover All rights reserved. First Printing: December, 2000 10 987654321 Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 0-7860-1313-3 Key words: THOMAS HOOVER (Author) LIFE BLOOD (Novel: Medical Thriller) In Vitro, Independent Film, Adoption, Fertility, Human Eggs, Guatemala, Peten, Maya, Mayan Pyramid, Vision Serpent, Jaguar, Baalum, Mayan Mothers, Movie Making, Copal LIFE BLOOD Chapter One New York, New York. A blissful spring morning beckoned, cloudless and blue and pure. I was driving my high-mileage Toyota down Seventh Avenue, headed for the location shoot that was supposed to wind up principal photography for my first feature film, _Baby Love_. It was about the pain and joy of adoption. I guess directing your first feature is something like giving birth to your first child, but that gets us way, way ahead of the story. My name, by the way, is Morgan Smyth James, after two grandmothers, and I'm thirty-eight and single and strive to be eternally optimistic. That morning, however, in spite of everything else, I was missing Steve terribly and feeling like I'd screwed up essential components of my life. To try for some perspective, let me say I'd always planned to have a normal, loving family. Really. Find an emotionally present soul mate who cared about things I care about--okay, slim and smart and spectacular in bed wouldn't be a minus--get married on a lawn with lots of white roses some sunny June afternoon, work one or even two perfect kids into our fulfilling, giving lives. But somehow I'd managed to have none of that. I'd messed up at every turn.