by Thomas Locke
“I don’t know anything about that,” Deborah replied. “But now that you mention it, I imagine there is a connection somewhere.”
“I knew it,” the sheriff told the bay. “Sure as I’m standing here, I knew that one was coming. Saw it a mile off.”
“What about the attempted kidnapping up in Norfolk,” Deborah demanded. “Are you going to shrug that one off too?”
“Yeah, I’m aiming to give those folks up in Norfolk a call just as soon as I get back to the office. ‘Fore I do, though, lemme make sure I got it all straight. This alleged kidnapping was of an old geezer from a veterans hospital, who claims he was on the take for handing information over to a foreign spy, now, is that right?”
“I know it seems far-fetched, Officer, but I assure—”
“Wait, now, it gets better. The only other witness to this alleged kidnapping was a big Injun feller on your payroll, who just happened to be strolling by.”
“He wasn’t strolling by,” Deborah snapped. “I called for him.”
“Right, ‘scuse me, I got that part down wrong. Now what did you say his name was again?”
“John Windover,” Deborah replied grimly.
“No ma’am, I’m referring to the name that everybody knows him by, according to you.”
“Cochise.”
The sheriff broke out a leathery grin. “I been raised on fish-camp tales, but man, if this story don’t take the cake, I don’t know what does.”
Deborah asked in a soft voice, “So who is it that’s got you on their payroll, Sheriff?”
The face snapped down tight. “I’ll forget I ever heard that, ma’am. On account of if I don’t I’d be tempted to break one of my own rules, which is to never strike a lady, which all of a sudden I’m not so sure you are.” He stared at her hard. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, ma’am, there’s a world of other items out there just waitin’ for my attention. And if this phantom of yours happens to come rowing by again, why, don’t you hesitate to call on your friendly neighborhood sheriff’s office.”
Deborah watched him stomp back to his car, then said to the pines and the wind and the surrounding day, “I just goofed up big time.”
Reuben hummed a two-tone agreement. “Don’ believe I’d have said what you said like you said it. Not in a million years.”
“My temper got ahead of me.”
“Tha’s the time I find it best to haul back on them reins and shut my mouth up real tight.”
“Sounds like good advice to me,” Cliff said, speaking for the first time since the sheriff’s arrival.
“Yeah, it’s seen me through a lotta trials and a lotta years,” Reuben replied. “’Course, them reins do start to chafe sometime. Yes ma’am, they surely do.”
“I guess I can’t count on him to come back anytime soon,” Deborah said to the empty road.
“Well, now,” Reuben said, “I’d say if you was to call him tonight, that sheriff, he might get here ‘long about Christmas time. Give or take a month.”
* * *
Cliff looked across the road at the ever-growing collection of tents. “From this distance it looks like the world gypsy congress.”
Deborah stripped off the rest of her protective gear and followed his gaze. Aging flower children strolled through the golden fields of rapeweed. Younger people clustered and danced and raced through the dying rays of another day. Groups of musicians played a variety of instruments, their sounds drifting over the distance like some cacophonous alien tongue. The atmosphere was surreal, timeless, unnatural.
“Four more days,” she said.
“Do you think the effect might spread before they shut it all down?”
Deborah kept looking out over the fields. “I don’t think so. I hope that’s my head talking, and not just my heart. But no, I don’t think so. The viroid cannot replicate, as I said.”
“You think that’s what happened? The wind carried the fertilizer and the viroid into the rapeweed fields?”
“It’s the only thing that makes any sense. The altered genetic sequences were taken into the rapeweed root system and had an effect on the pollen.”
“But what happens if the pollen spreads its effect into the next generation of plants?” Cliff pressed.
“Then we’re lost,” Deborah said simply. “But I don’t think, no, that’s not strong enough. I am ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent certain that it is impossible. The basic tenet of using nonreplicating genetic instructions means that we are affecting only one generation at a time.” She swung open her door. “Come on, Junior. You’ve scared me enough for one night.”
“Where to?” he asked, climbing aboard. “Norfolk?”
“Not tonight. I’ll drive up tomorrow when I’m fresh. Do you mind if I stop by the lab on the way home and just check for messages? I haven’t been by since Thursday.”
“Go ahead,” he replied, not yet ready to let the matter drop. “So exactly how do you make up this new genetic sequence anyway? The other day you said something about it, what did you call it, tack technology?”
“T-A-Q,” she corrected, spelling it out. She rewarded him with her lopsided grin. “That’s what I like about you, Junior. Never afraid to face up to the vast reaches of your own ignorance.”
“You don’t have to sound so pleased.”
“Okay.” She put the car in gear. “We’ve got to go back to the farthest reaches of time for this one. All the way back to 1985, when the world of microbiology was completely turned on its axis. The dust still hasn’t settled. That year, they discovered something called PCR, or preliminary chain reaction. This change made it possible to manipulate DNA and grow new chains. Not in months or years, but in hours.”
She stopped at the intersection and used two hands to form a coil in the air. “DNA is a double-helix, spiraling up sort of like a twisted ladder. Anybody who has taken high-school biology knows this. But what isn’t so well known is that DNA is not stable. Under certain conditions, like high heat, it falls apart, sort of like a zipper being opened.”
Deborah turned onto the main road and drove toward the sunset. “There are enzymes called DNA polymerazes, which attach themselves to certain DNA sequences. This has been known for a long time. It’s one of the body’s basic building processes, enzymes reacting to certain amino acids, forming proteins and disposing of others. But the problem was, the same high heat that opened up the DNA protein also destroyed the enzyme.”
Cliff turned his attention from the road, watching his friend, enjoying as ever the shared thrill of her scientific world. The longer she spoke, the more excited she grew. Her mind focused with diamond-fired intensity on frontiers a scarce molecule wide.
“In 1985, though, some researchers isolated what are called TAQ enzymes from thermofile bacteria. These are organisms able to live in superheated conditions, like around the undersea volcanoes at the ocean floor. These TAQ enzymes remained intact even at heats that unzipped the DNA. This was really important, Junior. Really important. You have to open up the DNA chain to get at any particular gene. But you have to have some chemical hand ready to reach down and pluck out the gene when it becomes freed. And presto, the TAQ enzymes could be chemically programed to do just that.”
Cliff watched and saw as her face lost its aged look, her eyes their weary cast. She lived for the challenge of this work, he knew. She lived for it.
“So the DNA was split up under the high heat, and the TAQ enzyme pulled out the specified gene,” she continued. “And now you have the really big surprise, the explosive payoff. When the solution was cooled down, what happened but this isolated gene joined with free-floating amino acids left in the solution and grew another helix. After that, it became almost a continual chain reaction. Heat it up, the helixes unzip. Cool it down, more amino acids are gathered and more helixes are formed. Over and over and over, each new helix a perfect copy of the gene you wanted to isolate and use. Doubling every few minutes. Very simple, very powerful.”
“Humulun,” Cli
ff said.
The sudden shift startled her. “What?”
“I was trying to remember where I had heard of that technology before. I didn’t handle the application, but I remember somebody telling me it was going to be the wave of the future.”
“Oh. Sure.” She glanced into her rearview mirror, signaled, turned. “DNA-engineered insulin. Humulun is the trade name, right?”
Cliff nodded. “Lilly makes it.”
“Right. I’ve read the literature.” She frowned at the rearview mirror, slowed, speeded up again. “What is that clown doing?”
“What’s the matter, Debs?”
“Nothing, probably just a little jumpy.”
The next turning came. She took it, her attention now split between what was behind her and the road in front. “Humulun is almost identical to what the healthy human pancreas produces. Before, they would buy hog and cattle pancreases from slaughterhouses and extract insulin. There were a lot of people with bad reactions to this alien substance. Almost all the contraindications have been eradicated with this new product. Genetically manipulated E coli bacteria were the growth medium. I personally think . . .” Deborah stopped, her attention caught by whatever it was she saw behind them.
Cliff swivelled around. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m not sure,” she said worriedly. “Those headlights have stayed glued to my bumper through the past three turnings.” She shot him a glance. “Is your seat belt on?”
“Yes.”
“Then hang on.”
17
They were rammed at the worst possible point on the highway—a sharp curve alongside the intersection of two deep-water canals.
Had they been in any other automobile, they would have skidded down the ravine and plunged into the canal. But the Cherokee was big and heavy and sat on massive broad-grip tires. It slewed hard at the slamming, threw sparks high into the night, but clung gamely to the road. Cliff had a brief glance into the dark depths, a fleeting vision of descending into a watery grave. But the jeep held, and Deborah fought the bucking wheel like a pro. As soon as the Cherokee rocked back onto all four tires, she floored the accelerator and raced for safety.
The big dark car roared along behind them, fighting for another chance. But Deborah did not offer one.
She took the Pharmacon parking lot entrance-ramp so hard all four tires left the road. The dark car behind them squealed and swerved, slamming brakes and blowing up a cloud of burning rubber, and then produced a second cloud as the engine roared and the tires slewed around before the car powered away.
Her first words, when she was able to speak again, were, “Did you get the license plate?”
“Are you kidding?” Cliff puffed, swallowed, struggled to get enough air into his lungs. “I still don’t know if it was a car or some kind of black killer bug.”
“It was a sedan. An Infiniti, I’m pretty sure.”
“You drove like that and still had a chance to see what kind of car was behind us?”
But she was already reaching for her door. “I think I’ve seen it before.”
Cliff followed her through the first set of bulletproof doors on rubbery legs. The guard was plastered to his outside window. He turned and hit the communications button. “What was that?”
“Call the police,” Deborah said, still gasping for breath. “Tell him a black Infiniti just tried to ram me off the road. I think I know who it was.”
“Have to be the sheriff’s office,” the guard replied, reaching for the phone. “We’re outside the city limits here.”
Deborah groaned softly.
“Dr. Givens?”
“What about the highway patrol?”
“We’ve got strict instructions to report everything directly to the sheriff,” the guard replied. “They can get awful sticky about jurisdiction.”
Deborah hesitated, then said, “I guess it couldn’t hurt.”
“Right.” The guard started dialing.
Deborah turned to Cliff. “Okay if I leave you here for a minute while I check my messages? I can’t let you come up without going through the whole rigmarole again.”
The guard broke in. “You’re Mr. Devon, aren’t you, sir?”
“That’s right.”
“I can’t let him come in anyway, Dr. Givens,” the guard said apologetically. “Strict instructions from Mr. Whitehurst. Sorry.”
Deborah gave Cliff an angry look. “Bean counters at work.”
“There’s been four or five messages for you, though.”
Deborah turned back to the guard. “For me?”
“No ma’am, at least, nothing since I came on.” He pointed at Cliff. “The messages were for him. All from a man called Summers, I think, wait, I’ve got them here. Yeah, that’s right. Ralph Summers. He wants you to call as soon as you can. I can pass you a mobile phone, if you like.”
* * *
“Cliff, good of you to call back. Sorry to disturb you over the weekend. Sandra said I’d probably find you there.”
“Ralph, I know you told me not to come down, but I can explain—”
“Too late for that, I’m afraid.” The man’s voice was unusually somber. “Cliff, did you pass on samples of a drug under review to an outside laboratory?”
“Not of the drug itself,” Cliff replied, his blood going cold. “Of the roots used for manufacturing the extract, and of some other plants. You see—”
“Close enough.” The director released a long sigh. “I hate to do this, especially over the weekend and on the phone, but there’s no choice, really. I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go.”
The chill of dread turned to ice. “What?”
“You know as well as I do how many policies you have flaunted with this action. Probably better than I do for that matter.”
“But, Ralph, there are serious dangers—”
“Just hear me out. I know your concerns, and believe me, if I had my druthers, I would let you pursue them. But things have moved beyond that point. Far beyond it, I’m afraid. Word has been leaked to Congressman Larson about your actions. He plans to use it as additional fuel in the news conference he has called for Monday. You can imagine what that’s going to sound like. An FDA employee breaches the trust of the pharmaceutical company, while at the same time we continue to drag our heels over accepting European clinical trial data and refusing to release this new wonder drug,” Ralph paused, then went on, “I shudder to think what the newspapers are going to make of this.”
Cliff let his legs go limp, and fell onto the leather bench. “I understand,” he said dully.
“Believe me, son, it pains me to have to do this. But I don’t have any choice in the matter. Our only hope at this point is to stay one step ahead of them and issue a press release of our own. First thing Monday morning we are going to do just that. How our own internal investigation turned up this matter, and how you were immediately released. I’ve been trying to reach you all day, wanting you to hear it from me first and not read it in the paper.”
“You’ve always treated me right, Ralph,” Cliff said, his heart thudding slow and heavy in his ears. “I’m really sorry about all this.”
“Not near as sorry as I am.” He sounded as though he truly meant the words. “I’ve always had the greatest respect for you, I really have.”
“Could I ask a favor?”
“Of course you can.”
Cliff did a swift run-through of the fears they had, of the kidnap attempt on Tom, of the stranger in the boat, and now of the ramming. “We still don’t know exactly what’s going on or who’s behind it, but all this makes us increasingly certain we’re onto something big.”
“If this had come from anybody but you,” Ralph said, “I’d have told them to roll over and go back to sleep.”
“This is real, Ralph. I can see the mangled fender on Deborah’s jeep from where I’m sitting. The local sheriff thinks she’s crazy. Could you maybe try to light a couple of fires up in Washington?”
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“Not immediately,” he replied. “I’m going to have my hands full for the next few days. Damage control. I’ve got to try and garner support for the FDA over on Capitol Hill. But I’ll have somebody spread the word now, and then work on it myself once things have settled down here.”
“Thanks, Ralph. I appreciate it.”
“Listen to this guy. Thanking me for giving him the ax. Where will you be in the meantime?”
“I guess I’ll hang around here. Deborah’s been given lab space up at UVA’s Norfolk campus. I’ll probably play gofer, save her the wear and tear.”
“Let me hear if you come up with anything definite, all right?”
“Sure, Ralph.”
There was another long sigh. “Take care of yourself, Cliff.”
“I’ll try.”
“And stay in touch.”
Cliff switched off the phone, raised his head to where Deborah stood in the doorway watching him. “I’ve been canned.”
“So I gather.” She walked over and sat down beside him. “I’m so very, very sorry, Cliff. It’s all my fault.”
“No it’s not.”
“If I hadn’t dragged you into this mess, none of it would have happened.”
“Well, it’s too late for all that. I’m here and I’m in it.” He dredged up a small smile. “Way up over my head, from the sounds of things.”
“We’ll figure something out.” She reached over and mussed his hair. “Cute hunk like you shouldn’t have any trouble finding work. I could always use another techie myself, but the way things are right now, that might be the quickest hire and fire of your life.”
“Thanks, Debs. I appreciate that.”
Deborah rose to her feet. “Come on, let’s go home. Things always look better in the light of a new day.”
When they were almost to the outer doors, the guard said, “Dr. Givens?”
“Yes?”
“The sheriff said to tell you that he would drop everything and rush right over. He asked for you to wait right here until he arrived.”