Expelled Read Free

box and handing it to her. Guiding her off, escorting her toward the corner of the building.
    â€œMy father is waiting for me,” she said. She knew it was foolish to go with strange men, but they had Carolann.
    â€œIt won’t take long, I promise. He wants to talk to you about your research.”
    â€œMy research?”
    A sleek, black SUV pulled up to them, right on the grass.
    â€œPlease, get in,” Mr. Phillips said, opening the door for her. Li Jing couldn’t help it. She was intrigued. She set the box down on the carpeted floor of the SUV and climbed in. It was a relief to sit down. She slowly eased her backpack off her shoulders and set it on the floor.
    Li Jing saw that Carolann was sitting up front, slumped against the window, next to Rob, who she realized was the driver. There was tinted privacy glass up, dividing them from her.
    Mr. Phillips closed her door, went around the back of the car, and climbed in on the other side. The massive SUV had a custom interior with two rows of black leather seats facing each other, like a limo. He slid into the seat catty-corner to her and opened up a laptop.
    He pressed a few buttons and a face appeared on the screen in a smaller window. “I have her here,” he said to the screen. Then he turned the laptop toward Li Jing.
    The man on the screen was old. He had bright blue eyes, picked up by an aqua-colored tie. His eyes were the color of the sea on a brochure for a trip to the Caribbean.
    â€œMs. Wu! What a pleasure to meet you. My scouts tell me you’ve had a hard morning!”
    Li Jing nodded.
    â€œWell, look, I know you must be wondering what the hay’s goin’ on here. Let me come out with it. I got contacts, people I pay, in all the best undergrad and graduate biotech labs in, well, heck, not only in the States, but all over the globe. I’d heard, a few weeks ago, about your work with some kinds of fruit extracts. Make you lose weight?”
    â€œBut I kept it a secret,” she said.
    â€œWell … there’s secrets and there’s secrets, aren’t there?”
    â€œI don’t understand,” Li Jing said.
    â€œSo listen up, then, and you will! I’d like you to come work for me. And when I say me, I mean the Pipop Corporation.”
    Now, she realized who he was—Timothy Almstead, the President of the Pipop Corporation. He’d been in the news because there had been an assassination attempt on his life. Some deranged man blamed his obese wife’s death on Pipop soda. Now, it all made more sense. Of course he would be interested in a new diet sweetener. Li Jing sat back against the black leather seat.
    â€œWe’d like you to come and work for us. I can offer you two hundred and fifty thousand a year. How does that sound?”
    Li Jing coughed at that sum of money. She had no idea what to say to a quarter of a million dollars.
    â€œYou’re wondering what’s the catch?” Almstead said. “Clever girl.”
    He’d mistaken her boggling as some kind of negotiating tactic.
    â€œThe catch is … the work really has to be a secret this time,” he said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œWell, we’d prefer to, hmmm, how can I say this? How do I say it, Phillips?”
    â€œMr. Almstead is proposing that you become a part of our top-secret research initiative,” Mr. Phillips explained. “The scientists we recruit agree to limit contact with friends and family. In some cases, we even create new identities for members of our team. Some of them, you understand, come from situations that require them to start anew. Countries that don’t want their top scientists recruited. That kind of thing. They live in our dormitories on our research campus.”
    Li Jing was thinking now.
    â€œWe could make up a whole new identity for you. You could be Kim Sum or Jang Lang, I don’t know,” said Mr. Almstead. Li Jing didn’t bat an eye at