The Methuselah Gene

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I felt my stomach growl.
 
The early June sun hadn't visibly appeared, but was already spreading orange marmalade and butter onto the crusty horizon.
 
Then, three miles from downtown Alexandria, in the middle of a field where a dairy farm had once been, the
Tactar
Pharmaceuticals plant suddenly loomed above the hill beyond the city.
 
The three story glass and steel structure appeared dark, except for a few lights on the second floor.
 
Its silhouette was haloed by a streak of distant clouds that caught the doomed colors of morning.

I parked in my usual spot, and surveyed the other cars already there.
 
Half a dozen in the half light, not counting two plant security vehicles.
 
Ominously, there were three police cruisers, flashers off since this was a private lot off a private road.
 
Getting out, I looked up to tally the office lights in the administration section of the building . . .

My own office, Jeffers' office, and two others.
 
So
Winsdon
had not been summoned—yet.
 
Jeffers was keeping this low key, whatever it was.

I took the elevator, utilizing my security badge.
 
After emitting a ping, the elevator's stainless steel doors whispered open on the second floor.
 
Treading along the hallway like a burglar might, I felt my heartbeat quicken in my temples.
 
Then, with unusual trepidation, I approached the open door of my own office, and stuck my head inside to see Jeffers waiting for me just outside the entrance to the lab.
 
The V.P. wore a blue pullover sports shirt, and sneakers, as though late for an early round of golf at his country club.
 
Two uniformed officers stood at the shattered window behind him, where a plainclothes detective took a fingerprint sample.

“Sir?” I said.

Jeffers whirled.
 
Staring directly at me, as if at a recalcitrant son returning to the scene of some embarrassing indiscretion, he addressed the officers behind him.
 
“He's here,” was all Jeffers said.

This time it was clearly different.
 
The conference table had a towel laid across part of its mahogany surface, on top of which had been placed a tray of Danish pastries, a couple basic
Krispy
Kremes
, and a coffee urn.
 
It was 7:45 a.m. now, and other employees had already begun shuffling past the slightly open door on the way to their own offices.
 
Only I, Jeffers, a detective named
Schimmer
, and a sullen Kevin Connolly remained in the room.
 
We served ourselves with the aid of paper napkins.
 
Were we waiting for
Winsdon
?
 
I dreaded asking, and so remained silent until Jeffers answered my question by shutting the door on the hallway.

We all sat.
 
Jeffers took
Winsdon's
usual seat at the head of the table.
 
Schimmer
took out his note pad, and clicked his pen to the ready.
 
Connolly cocked his head as though detecting the high pitched sound of a dog whistle.
 
Then Jeffers frowned and looked at me steadily, a peculiar light in his eyes.
 
“Who knew about this on the outside, Alan?”

I found that a perplexed agitation had gripped me.
 
I glanced from side to side, then down at my Danish in disbelief.
 
I picked it up, wondering whether to eat it or throw it at some hidden target.
 
“Well . . . no one, sir,” I muttered.
 
“I did write an article, as you know, but it was short on specifics, and only hinted at what we might be doing.
 
In the future, I mean.”
 
I took an experimental bite of the roll, then followed it with a sip of strong, acidic coffee.

I met Jeffers' frozen gaze, and
Schimmer's
.
 
The detective's pen hovered over his pad.
 
Glances were exchanged between Connolly and
Schimmer
.
 
Finally Jeffers lifted and then lowered his own cup.
 
“Industrial espionage from a spy in our ranks, is that what you're saying?”

I chewed and swallowed, ignorant of taste but thankful for the cover of food as an interrogation aid.
 
I tried to remain calm.
 
“I'm not . . . saying anything, sir.
 
But it is possible, isn't it?”

The others stared at me.
 
They looked dubious.

Then Jeffers nodded with thoughtful deliberation.
 
“Point of entry was made with a glass cutter.
 
Alarm bypassed, because we're talking the second floor.
 
No prints, though.
 
And the guard somehow missed it all, too.
 
So you think it didn't happen that way?”

I shrugged and swallowed nervously.
 
“Unless someone talked.
 
Doesn't seem likely to me someone would bring a ladder here in the middle of the night.
 
Did you check to see if the glass was cut from the inside or not?”

Schimmer
straightened.
 
“It was made from the outside,” the detective declared.
 
“But the other window could have been opened to do it.”

Jeffers confirmed his assent with a nod.
 
“So it's possible someone was planning to change jobs, Alan.
 
Someone covering himself by stealing the data files on your gene research, and destroying all the computer backup.
 
We know it's not Jim Baxter, now.”
 
He paused, and leaned forward.
 
His eyes narrowed painfully, as if he were undergoing a prostate exam.
 
“Who else would do that, do you think?”

I grinned in shocked reflex.
 
“Not me, if that's what you mean.”
 
I tilted up my coffee cup slightly, my sip sounding like a slurp in the silence that followed.

After a moment, Jeffers finally leaned back, and picked up his own cup.
 
“Help us to understand why you're not involved in this, would you, Alan?”

“Well, it's crazy, that's why,” I told him.
 
“What would I gain?”

“How about an
up front
bonus?” Connolly suggested.
 
“Preliminary patent process hadn't even begun.”

I set down my cup a little too hard, letting out what must have seemed to them like a cackle.
 
“I can't believe this.
 
You're accusing me?
 
I couldn't get away with something like this.”

Connolly was unfazed.
 
“Maybe you just sold the process to the highest bidder,” he postulated.
 
“Eli Lilly or Warner-Lambert?”

I couldn't help laughing.
 
“What?
 
I thought the project was a failure.”

“We're not accusing you of anything, Alan,” Jeffers conceded, then examined his manicured nails.
 
“It's all rather academic at this point, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

Slowly, the three men exchanged glances, as if trying to decide who should break the news to me.
 
The thing I'd obviously missed.
 
Jeffers, as boss, was unanimously nominated by default.
 
“There's been an . . . accident.”

I stared at them each in turn, in dumbfounded incomprehension.
 
I felt as if I'd never known these men.
 
Any of them.
 
Like I'd just been ushered into an airport conference room, where these FBI agents and FAA investigators suspected I am the one who had checked six pounds of C4 shaped like a Grecian urn onto a plane that would carry their children across the ocean.
 
“Accident?”

At lunchtime I drove Darryl out of the plant parking lot toward a restaurant downtown, so we could talk.
 
On the way I was expecting Darryl to complain about having to ask his wife to drive him to work that morning.
 
But he didn't.
 
Instead, he wanted to know why all the secrecy about the cops leaving the plant when he arrived.
 
I didn't reply at first, taking the turn roughly onto the public road fronting the
Tactar
plant.
 
Then, when he persisted in asking me what was wrong, and what I knew, I finally said, “It's all for nothing.
 
A year's work, down the tubes.
 
And what do I get for it?
 
A reassignment to
Hepker's
division.
 
But hell—maybe the world needs a better headache remedy.
 
I know I do.”

Darryl stared at me dumbly.
 
“How's that?”

“They call it pain management.
 
Should be a blast.
 
Hepker's
division is researching a less expensive non-opiate to ease the suffering of cancer patients, who might not be dying at all if the FDA wasn't twiddling its thumbs and diddling its—”

“You're serious?” Darryl interjected.
 
“You've been reassigned?”

“That's a big ten-four, good buddy.”

“But why, for God's sake?”
 
He paused, then his eyes widened with the terrible light of connection.
 
“The police . . . you.
 
. .”

“It wasn't me.
 
But whoever it was, they had great timing.”
 
I explained the theft, fumbling my way to the bitter end, although I left out the twisting climax.