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CH090

R
ick Diehl
was trying to keep it together, but everything seemed to be falling apart. The maturity gene was a disaster. And worse, BioGen was getting sued by a lawyer in New York who was smart and unscrupulous. Rick’s attorneys told him to settle, but if he did, it would bankrupt the company. Although that would probably happen anyway. BioGen had lost the Burnet line, they had failed to replace it with cells from Burnet’s kid, and now it looked like a new patent interfered with their product, rendering it worthless.

At Diehl’s request, his wife had come out of hiding and returned to town. The kids were at her parents’ house in Martha’s Vineyard for the summer. She was going to get custody. His attorney, Barry Sindler, was himself facing a divorce, and didn’t seem to have time for Rick these days. There was a big uproar over all the gene testing being done for custody cases. Sindler had been widely denounced for pioneering the practice, deemed unethical.

There was talk in Congress of passing laws to limit genetic testing. But observers doubted Congress would ever act, because the insurance companies wanted testing. Which was only logical, given that insurance companies were in the business of not paying claims.

Brad Gordon had left town while awaiting trial. It was rumored he was traveling around the West, getting himself into trouble.

Rodriguez’s law firm had presented BioGen with the first part of their bill, for more than a million dollars. They wanted another two
million on retainer, in light of all the pending litigation the company faced.

Rick’s assistant buzzed him on the intercom. “Mr. Diehl, the woman from BDG, the security company, is here to see you.”

He sat up in his chair. He remembered how electrifying Jacqueline Maurer was. She radiated sexuality and sophistication. He felt alive just being with her. And he hadn’t seen her in weeks.

“Send her in.” He stood up, hastily stuffed his shirt into his pants, and turned to the door.

A young woman of thirty, wearing a nondescript blue suit and carrying a briefcase, came into the room. She had a pleasant smile, a chubby face, and shoulder-length brown hair. “Mr. Diehl? I’m Andrea Woodman, of BDG. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to meet with you earlier but, gosh, we’ve been so busy with other clients the last few weeks, this was the first I could come. I’m so glad to make your acquaintance.” She held out her hand.

He just stared.

CH091

F
rank Burnet
walked into the starkly modern offices of venture capitalist Jack Watson shortly after noon. It was as he had seen it on previous visits. The Mies furniture, the modern art—a Warhol painting of Alexander the Great, a Koons balloon sculpture, a Tansey painting of mountain climbers that hung behind Watson’s desk. The muted phones, the beige carpets—and all the stunning women, moving quietly, efficiently. One woman stood beside Watson with her hand on his shoulder.

“Ah, Frank,” Watson said. He did not stand. “Have you met Jacqueline Maurer?”

“I don’t believe so.”

She shook his hand. Very cool, very direct. “Mr. Burnet.”

“And you know our resident tech genius, Jimmy Maxwell.” Watson nodded to a kid in his twenties, sitting at the back of the room. The kid had thick horn-rim glasses and wore a Dodgers jacket. He looked up from his laptop and waved to Burnet.

“How ya doing?”

“Hi, there,” Burnet said.

“I asked you to come in,” Watson said, shifting in his chair, “because we are very nearly finished with the entire business. Ms. Maurer has just negotiated the license agreement with Duke University. On extremely favorable terms.”

The woman smiled. A sphinx-like smile. “I get on with scientists,” she said.

“And Rick Diehl,” Watson continued, “has resigned as the head of BioGen. Winkler and the rest of the senior staff have gone with him. Most of them face legal troubles, and I am sad the company will not be able to assist them. If you break the law, the company’s insurance policy does not cover you. So they’re on their own.”

“Unfortunate,” Jacqueline Maurer said.

“So it goes,” Watson said. “But given the present crisis, the BioGen board of directors has asked me to take over, and put the company back on its feet. I have agreed to do so for an appropriate equity adjustment.”

Burnet nodded. “Then it all went according to plan.”

Watson gave him an odd look. “Uh, yes. In any case, Frank, nothing more prevents you from returning home to your family. I am sure your daughter and grandson will be happy to see you.”

“I hope so,” Burnet said. “She’s probably angry. But it’ll work out. It always does.”

“That’s right,” Watson said. Still seated, he extended his hand, wincing a little.

“Everything all right?” Frank said.

“It’s nothing. Too much golf yesterday, I pulled something.”

“But it’s good to take time off from work.”

“So true,” Watson said, flashing his famous smile. “So very true.”

CH092

B
rad Gordon
followed the crowds that swarmed toward Mighty Kong, the huge roller coaster at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. He’d been visiting amusement parks for weeks now; this one was the biggest and best in America. He was feeling better; his jaw was almost completely pain-free now.

The only thing that bothered him was he had had one conversation with his lawyer, Johnson. Johnson seemed smart, but Brad was uneasy. Why hadn’t his uncle paid for a first-rate attorney? He always had before. Brad had the vague feeling that his life was on some sort of knife-edge.

But he pushed all those thoughts aside as he looked at the track far above him, and the people shrieking as their cars went by. This roller coaster! Mighty Kong! With more than four hundred feet of drop, it gave plenty of cause for people to scream. The line of eager ticket-holders buzzed with anticipation. Brad waited, as was his custom, until two very cute young girls got on line. They were local kids, raised in a milk bottle, healthy and pink-skinned, with little budding breasts and sweet faces. One girl had braces, which was just adorable. He stayed behind them, happily listening to their high-pitched, inane chatter. Then he screamed with the rest of them, as he took the fantastic drop.

The ride left him shivering with adrenaline and pent-up excitement. He felt a bit weak as he climbed out of the car and watched the girls’ round little buns as they walked away from the coaster, toward the exit.
Wait! They were going again! Perfect! He followed them, getting on line a second time.

He was feeling dreamy, catching his breath, letting his eyes drift over the soft curls of their hair, the freckles on their shoulders, revealed by their halter tops. He was starting to fantasize about what it would be like with one of them—hell, with both of them—when a man stepped forward and said, “Come with me, please.”

Brad blinked, guilty from his reverie. “I’m sorry?”

“Would you come with me, sir?” It was a handsome, confident face, one encouraging him, smiling. Brad was instantly suspicious. Often cops acted friendly and polite. He hadn’t done anything with these girls, he was sure of it. He hadn’t touched them, hadn’t said anything—

“Sir? Please? It’s important if you would step over here…Just over here…”

Brad looked and saw, to one side, some people wearing what appeared to be uniforms, maybe security uniforms, and a couple of men in white coats, like people from a sanitarium. And there was a television crew, or a camera crew of some kind, filming. And he suddenly felt paranoid.

“Sir,” the handsome man said, “please, we very much need you—”

“Why do you need me?”

“Sir, please…” The man was plucking at Brad’s elbow, then grabbed it more forcefully. “Sir, we get so few adult repeaters—”

Adult repeaters.
Brad shivered.
They knew.
And now this guy, this handsome, charming smooth-talker was leading him toward the people in the white coats. They were obviously onto him, and he tugged free, but the handsome man held on.

Brad’s heart was pounding and he felt panic flood through him. He bent over and pulled his gun from its holster. “No! Let go of me!”

The handsome man looked shocked. Some people screamed. The man held up his hands. “Now take it easy,” he said, “it’s going to be—”

The gun in Brad’s hand fired. He didn’t realize it had happened until he saw the man stumble and start to fall. He clutched at Brad, hanging on him, and Brad shot again. The man fell back. Everybody
was screaming all over the place. Somebody shouted, “He shot Dr. Bellarmino! He shot Bellarmino!”

But by then he was very confused; the crowd was running away, those cute little buns were running; everything was ruined; and when more men in uniform yelled to him to drop his gun, he fired at them, too. And the world went black.

CH093

A
t the fall meeting
of the Organization of University Technology Transfer officers (OUTT), a group dedicated to licensing the work of university scientists, philanthropist Jack B. Watson gave the stirring keynote address. He struck his familiar themes: the spectacular growth of biotechnology, the importance of gene patents, keeping Bayh-Dole in place, and the necessity of preserving the status quo for business prosperity and university wealth. “The health and wealth of our universities depends on strong biotech partners. This is the key to knowledge, and the key to the future!”

He told them what they wanted to hear, and left the stage to the usual thunderous applause. Only a few noticed that he walked with a slight limp and that his right arm did not swing as freely as the left.

Backstage, he took the arm of a beautiful woman. “Where the hell is Dr. Robbins?”

“He’s waiting for you in his clinic,” she said.

Watson swore, then leaned on the woman as he walked outside to the waiting limousine. The night was cold, with a faint mist. “Fucking doctors,” he said. “I’m not doing any more damn tests.”

“Dr. Robbins didn’t mention anything about tests.”

The driver opened the door. Watson climbed in awkwardly, his leg dragging. The woman helped him in. He slumped in the back, wincing. The woman got in on the other side. “Is the pain bad?”

“It’s worse at night.”

“Do you want a pill?”

“I already took one.” He inhaled deeply. “Does Robbins know what the hell this is?”

“I think so.”

“Did he tell you?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“He didn’t tell me, Jack.”

“Christ.”

The limousine sped through the night. Watson stared out the window, breathing hard.

The hospital clinic
was deserted at this hour. Fred Robbins, thirty-five and handsome as a movie star, was waiting for Watson with two younger physicians, in a large examining room. Robbins had set up light boxes with X-ray, electrophoresis and MRI results.

Watson dropped heavily into a chair. He waved to the younger men. “You can go.”

“But Jack—”

“Tell me alone,” Watson said to Robbins. “Nineteen fucking doctors have examined me in the last two months. I’ve done so many MRIs and CAT scans I glow in the dark. You tell me.” He waved to the woman. “You wait outside, too.”

They all left. Watson was alone with Robbins.

“They say you’re the smartest diagnostician in America, Fred. So tell me.”

“Well,” Robbins said, “it’s as much a biochemical process as anything. That’s why I wanted—”

“Three months ago,” Watson said, “I had a pain in my leg. A week later the leg was dragging. My shoe was worn on the edge. Pretty soon I had trouble walking up stairs. Now I have weakness in my right arm. Can’t squeeze toothpaste with my hand. It’s getting hard to breathe. In three months! So tell me.”

“It’s called Vogelman’s paresis,” Robbins said. “It’s not common, but
not rare. A few thousand cases every year, maybe fifty thousand worldwide. First described in the 1890s, by a French—”

“Can you treat it?”

“At this point,” Robbins said, “there are no satisfactory treatments.”

“Are there
any
treatments?”

“Palliative and supportive measures, massage and B vitamins—”

“But no treatments.”

“Not really, Jack, no.”

“What causes it?”

“That we know. Five years ago, Enders’s team at Scripps isolated a gene,
BRD7A
, that codes for a protein that repairs myelin around nerve cells. They’ve demonstrated that a point mutation in the gene produces Vogelman’s paresis in animals.”

“Well, hell,” Watson said, “you’re telling me I’ve got a genetic deficiency disease like any other.”

“Yes, but—”

“How long ago did they find the gene? Five years? Then it’s a natural for gene replacement, start the coded protein being made inside the body…”

“Replacement therapy is risky, of course.”

“Do I give a damn? Look at me, Fred. How much time do I have?”

“The time course is variable, but…”

“Spit it out.”

“Maybe four months.”

“Jesus.” Watson sucked in his breath. He ran his hand over his forehead, took another breath. “Okay, so that’s my situation. Let’s do the therapy. Five years later, they must have a protocol.”

“They don’t,” Robbins said.

“Somebody must.”

“They don’t. Scripps patented the gene and licensed it to Beinart Baghoff, the Swiss pharma giant. It was part of a package deal with Scripps, about twenty different collaborations.
BRD7A
wasn’t regarded as particularly important.”

“What’re you saying?”

“Beinart put a high license fee on the gene.”

“Why? It’s an orphan disease, it makes no sense to—”

Robbins shrugged. “They’re a big company. Who knows why they do things. Their licensing division sets fees for eight hundred genes that they control. There’s forty people in that division. It’s a bureaucracy. Anyway, they set the license high—”

“Christ.”

“And no laboratory, anywhere in the world, has worked on the disease in the last five years.”

“Christ.”

“Too expensive, Jack.”

“Then I’ll buy the damn gene.”

“Can’t. I already checked. It’s not for sale.”

“Everything’s for sale.”

“Any sale by Beinart has to be approved by Scripps, and the Scripps office of tech transfer won’t consider—”

“Never mind, I’ll license it myself.”

“You can do that. Yes.”

“And I’ll set up the gene transfer myself. We’ll get a team in this hospital to do it.”

“I really wish we could, Jack. But gene transfer’s extremely risky, and no lab will take the chance these days. Nobody’s gone to jail yet over a failed gene transfer, but there have been a lot of patient deaths, and—”

“Fred. Look at me.”

“You can get it done in Shanghai.”

“No, no. Here.”

Fred Robbins bit his lip. “Jack, you have to face reality. There’s less than a one percent success rate. I mean, if we had done five years of work, we would have the results of animal tests, vector tests, immunosuppressive protocols, all kinds of steps to increase your chance of success. But just shooting from the hip—”

“That’s all I have time for. Shooting from the hip.”

Fred Robbins was shaking his head.

“A hundred million dollars,” Watson said. “For whatever lab does it. Take over a private clinic out in Arcadia. Just me, nobody knows. Do the procedure there. It works or it doesn’t.”

Fred Robbins shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry, Jack. I really am.”