The Hidden Genes of Professor K

by Gabriel Farago

  Dr Gaal paused and looked out the window. ‘We are almost there,’ he said, giving Kobo directions. Suddenly the ground dropped away, opening up a splendid view of the ocean and the rugged coastline stretching as far as the eye could see. It was difficult to imagine the horrors described by Dr Gaal, lurking below the calm waters glistening below.

  ‘Local fisherman saw their livelihood being systematically destroyed by foreign fishing trawlers plundering their fishing grounds,’ continued Dr Gaal. ‘Whole communities began to starve. And then came the sickness and disease … Then one day, the people had had enough and decided to fight back. And they did that the only way they knew how. They banded together and took to the sea. They became pirates, and you are about to meet one of them.’ Dr Gaal pointed ahead. ‘That’s him over there.’

  59

  Jack looked down into the picturesque cove below. Apart from a small skiff with a powerful looking outboard motor and a man sitting on a rock nearby, smoking, the cove looked deserted. Jack didn’t see the two men armed with machine guns guarding the beach until he came closer.

  Dr Gaal waved to the man sitting on the rock. The man waved back, threw his cigarette into the water and stood up. ‘That’s Sharif,’ said Dr Gaal. ‘Come, let’s meet him.’

  Sharif, a young Somali of about thirty with a long scar running down his right cheek spoke briefly to Dr Gaal and pointed to the skiff.

  ‘It isn’t far. He will take us there in the boat,’ said Dr Gaal.

  Ten minutes later, they pulled into another small cove. Surrounded by tall cliffs on all sides, it was only accessible from the sea.

  ‘Make sure you don’t touch anything,’ said Dr Gaal. ‘Everything here is contaminated. Toxic waste.’

  The two armed men jumped into the shallow water and pulled the skiff up onto the beach. Jack helped Dr Rosen climb out of the boat and followed the men on shore.

  ‘In 2004, these rocks were battered by huge seas caused by the Indian Ocean tsunami,’ said Sharif. ‘The powerful waves scooped up heavy containers and drums filled with toxic and nuclear waste from the ocean floor and dumped them on the beaches all along the Somali coast.’ Sharif pointed to the southern end of the small beach. ‘Over there are four of the worst,’ he said.

  Jack and Dr Rosen walked over to the rusting containers partially buried in the sand. Keeping their distance, they looked at the cigar-shaped objects. ‘Weird shape,’ said Jack. ‘They look like torpedoes, don’t you think?’

  Dr Rosen pulled her camera out of her bag and began to take pictures.

  ‘These came from somewhere in Europe via Italy and were used for the disposal of toxic hospital waste,’ said Dr Gaal. ‘The Italian Mafia was very active in this wretched business at the time. There were many other containers, mainly drums scattered along the coast, which contained radioactive material. However, most of them were quickly collected and disposed of – buried somewhere inland, which only made things worse – no doubt by parties with vested interests trying to hide the damning evidence. By the time investigators arrived, the findings were inconclusive, and no doubt, bribes did the rest. No action was taken.’

  Dr Gaal paused and looked pensively at the lethal containers, contemplating the misery they had caused. ‘So nothing happened, except for this,’ he said. ‘People began to get sick up and down the coast here. Toxic material entered the water table and the food chain, poisoning the population and marine life. Horrible, previously unknown diseases began to appear. Babies were born with shocking birth defects and the incidence of cancer soared. Doctors were beginning to see more cases of cancer in one year than during their entire professional life.’

  Dr Gaal turned to Sharif. For a while, they spoke animatedly in Somali. ‘Sadly, this has continued to this very day,’ continued Dr Gaal. ‘You have seen some of the poor wretches in the camp we just came from. However, I’m afraid there’s a lot more, and what we are about to show you is perhaps more shocking and despicable than anything you’ve seen so far.’

  ‘What is he talking about?’ asked Jack, turning to Dr Rosen.

  ‘What I really came here to see. You’ll be shocked all right, believe me.’

  Ten minutes later they took off again, hugging the coast and travelling north at high speed. ‘Where are we going?’ shouted Jack, trying to make himself heard over the roar of the powerful outboard motor.

  ‘Over there,’ said Sharif, pointing to another beach a short distance away. Jack could just make out a small cluster of huts partially hidden by dense vegetation, scattered along the shore.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Jack.

  ‘A camp for the dying,’ said Dr Gaal, the sadness in his voice obvious.

  They were met by a young woman in a nurse’s uniform. She seemed to know Dr Gaal and Sharif well and Jack noticed that Sharif handed her something that looked like a wad of money.

  Dr Rosen had brought some medical supplies with her in a plastic bag. Morphine mainly, which according to Dr Gaal, was desperately needed in the camp. This would explain Dr Rosen’s surprise visit without, Dr Gaal hoped, arousing suspicion. MSF was well-known and highly regarded in Somalia for donating much needed medical supplies.

  ‘Sharif’s father was in here just recently,’ said Dr Gaal. ‘I’ve known Sharif for years. He brought me here to look after his dying father during his last days. That’s when I discovered what’s going on here …’

  Dr Rosen shot Jack a meaningful look, but said nothing.

  ‘This is a dangerous place,’ said Dr Gaal, lowering his voice. ‘Often, there are armed men here … If they show up, we must leave immediately. Don’t talk to anyone. Just follow me. I’ve asked the nurse to show us around. For MSF to be interested in the camp is perfectly natural, and the much needed morphine should do the trick.’

  Sharif’s two armed men stayed with the skiff. Everyone else followed the nurse up the little hill to the huts in the bush above.

  The nurse had two young assistants, two girls who giggled as they approached. Sharif seemed to know them and engaged them in conversation with Kobo in front of the huts.

  ‘Most of our patients here are terminally ill; cancer mainly,’ said the nurse, opening the door to the first hut. ‘That’s why we are always short of morphine. We had a huge increase in terminal cancer during the last few years in this area.’

  Inside the crowded hut it was quite dark, and the smell was overpowering: urine; sweat; unwashed bodies; heat. Jack had to try hard not to choke. Once his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he looked around. A dozen patients, men and women of all ages, were lying on narrow wooden beds lined up in a row along the wall with very little space between them. The smell reminded Jack of a leper colony he had once visited in South America: rotting flesh; decay; approaching death.

  As they walked slowly past the pitiful row of beds, Dr Rosen noticed that each bed had a small wooden frame attached to one of the bedposts. The frames appeared to contain what looked like charts with neat columns of small, handwritten entries. How curious, thought Dr Rosen. A chart for each patient … in this place! She made a mental note to have a closer look. And a sophisticated medicine cupboard near the door. Possibly refrigerated! How odd!

  The nurse turned to Dr Rosen walking behind her. ‘Most of the patients here are close to death,’ she said quietly. ‘We try to make their last days as comfortable as we can.’

  The two other huts were almost identical.

  Dr Rosen waited until they had stepped outside and the nurse was talking to Dr Gaal, before turning to Jack. ‘Distract the nurse, please. I have to get back inside to look at something,’ she whispered. ‘Do it – now!’

  Jack walked over to the nurse. ‘Amazing place,’ he said. ‘How long has this facility been here?’

  Dr Gaal looked at Dr Rosen and nodded. Dr Rosen turned around and slipped back into the hut. Jack and Dr Gaal took turns to ask questions, and kept a close eye on the door to the hut. It seemed like ages before Dr Rosen came back out. Thankfully, the nurse didn�
��t appear to have noticed her absence.

  ‘This is remarkable work you’re doing here,’ said Dr Rosen casually. ‘We’ll make sure you get some morphine on a regular basis.’

  ‘That would be marvellous,’ said the nurse.

  ‘We better get going,’ said Dr Gaal. He waved to Sharif, who was still talking to the giggling girls with Kobo, and then pointed to the skiff on the beach. They thanked the nurse for showing them around and walked down to the water.

  They had almost reached the skiff when they heard excited shouting coming from the huts behind them. Two men, both Africans, were shouting at the nurse and the two girls, and kept pointing to the skiff. One of the men hit the nurse hard. The nurse fell to the ground and the shouting became louder.

  ‘Ignore it!’ shouted Dr Gaal, beginning to run. ‘Let’s get out of here. Hurry!’

  Sharif ran towards his men who were pushing the skiff into the water. That’s when gunfire erupted.

  ‘Pin them down!’ Sharif shouted in Somali. By now, Kobo had reached the boat and was holding it steady for the others to jump in. The two armed men trained their weapons on the huts and returned fire.

  Sharif pulled his gun out of his belt and began to fire as well.

  ‘Get in,’ shouted Kobo, ‘quickly!’

  Sharif jumped into the boat, started up the engine and kept firing. The engine roared into life, and with everyone safely on board, they pushed off.

  A group of armed men kept running towards a speedboat tied to a post on the far end of the beach, their intention obvious. Sharif assessed the situation and kept the skiff close to the shore. As they approached the speedboat, he turned to Dr Gaal sitting next to him. ‘Here, take this,’ said Sharif and handed the tiller to Dr Gaal. As they were about to pass the speedboat, he reached into the ammunitions box in the bottom of the boat and pulled out a grenade. A passionate cricketer since his early teens, Sharif stood up, steadied himself, took aim and then expertly bowled the live grenade towards the speedboat as they roared past. The grenade landed next to the fuel tank and exploded in a ball of fire, blowing the boat to smithereens. Before Sharif could sit down again, Dr Gaal was hit in the right arm.

  By the time the smoke from the explosion cleared, the skiff had rounded the point, leaving their frustrated pursuers standing helplessly on the beach.

  60

  Dr Gaal was bleeding profusely. Dr Rosen was doing her best to administer first aid, which wasn’t easy in the speeding boat. She had ripped off the sleeve of her friend’s tattered tee-shirt and was trying to stem the bleeding.

  ‘You’ve been lucky,’ she said, tightening the bandage she had pulled out of her bag. ‘The bullet only grazed your shoulder without causing any real damage. Flesh wound mainly; you’ll live.’ Unconcerned, Dr Gaal was grinning. He seemed almost proud of his injury.

  Sharif looked at Dr Rosen sitting in front of him. ‘As soon as we get to the camp, you must leave at once and get back to Dadaab,’ he said. ‘Cross the border as soon as you can. They’ll try to find you, I’m sure of it, and it won’t take them long to get here.’

  ‘Who are these people?’ asked Dr Rosen, her face and hair covered in sea spray.

  ‘Tell you later,’ shouted Dr Gaal from the back, ‘And you must tell me what you’ve found in the hut …’ Dr Rosen nodded and held on, her knuckles turning white.

  It took them less than fifteen minutes to get back to the other camp. Sharif pointed to a fishing trawler bobbing up and down in the swell close to shore. It was obvious he was keen to get away. The trawler, captured from Indian poachers fishing illegally in Somali waters, was the ‘mother ship’. The fast, manoeuvrable skiff with a powerful outboard motor was the ‘attack vessel’, which was used to intercept and board the target ships – classic Somali pirate tactics.

  Wincing a little from the pain in his shoulder, Dr Gaal embraced his friend. ‘We’ll get them, don’t worry. We owe it to your father and the others. Dr Rosen has a lot of influence … we can count on her.’

  ‘Be careful, my friend,’ said Sharif. ‘Ruthless people do ruthless things.’ Sharif waved to the others, climbed back into the skiff and, gunning the engine, raced towards the trawler.

  ‘Would someone please tell me what all this was about?’ asked Jack, after Sharif had left. ‘Why were these guys attacking us? What’s going on in that camp?’

  ‘You put your finger right on it; something is definitely going on in the camp,’ said Dr Rosen, ‘and it’s evil! Tell him, Gaal.’

  ‘I first noticed something wasn’t quite right during my visit to help Sharif’s father,’ said Dr Gaal. ‘Firstly, the camp is run by some obscure charity called Help Africa United – HAU. I’ve never heard of it. They have an office in Mogadishu and employ the nurses. As you’ve seen, the main purpose of the camp is to help terminally ill patients to die. It’s a palliative care camp of sorts. I’ve never seen one in Somalia before. With so many people dying and a country so much in need, it’s an almost pointless concept—’

  ‘Unless there’s another purpose to this altogether,’ interrupted Dr Rosen. ‘A different agenda.’

  ‘Quite. The next odd thing I noticed was that all the patients in the camp were suffering from cancer. Now this was really strange, I thought. People are dying here every day of all kinds of illnesses, so why only cancer patients? I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s the key to it all. Whoever is behind this is only interested in cancer.

  ‘Then, during one of my subsequent visits, I came across a European doctor at the camp. He had come all the way from Mogadishu and was examining every patient. He had an assistant with him who took blood samples from each one. Everything was recorded. There were also some armed men with him, which I found quite strange. After they left, I questioned the nurse about all this. She didn’t appear to know too much and assumed it was all part of the treatment provided by HAU. You’ve seen her. She isn’t very bright, nor has she much experience.’

  ‘So, what are you telling me, guys?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Someone is conducting clinical trials on these poor wretches,’ said Dr Rosen. ‘I’ve seen the medication. I don’t know if you noticed, but each hut has a refrigerated medicine cabinet, and each bed has a chart with lots of detailed entries. It may not look like it, but this is a sophisticated laboratory for drug trials. With one big difference; instead of using mice, these people are using human beings!’

  ‘Jesus! Are you serious?’ said Jack.

  ‘Absolutely! And here’s the proof. Well, some of it anyway.’ Dr Rosen opened her bag and pulled out a small bottle containing a yellowish liquid. The bottle had a label stuck to it with a few letters and numbers written in black ink. ‘And I took photos of some of the charts,’ said Dr Rosen. ‘I think each patient had his own bottle of labelled medication in the cupboard, and a chart tied to his bed recording the relevant data. Simple and effective, if you know what you’re doing and what you’re looking for. And I think these people know exactly what they are doing. As we’ve just heard, they take blood samples from each patient, which are no doubt carefully analysed in some lab.’

  ‘I agree,’ interjected Dr Gaal. ‘I’m sure when you find out what’s in that bottle, you’ll find the answer: a new cancer drug in the early stages of development being trialled on human beings. This would be unthinkable in just about any other part of the world,’ said Dr Gaal sadly. ‘But here, life is cheap. Almost anything goes if you have the money.’

  ‘I still don’t understand. Why would someone go to so much trouble to do this?’ asked Jack.

  ‘That’s simple,’ said Dr Rosen. ‘It’s all in the data. Clinical trials at this early stage can provide a tremendous shortcut … years. You find out what works, and what doesn’t, first hand. Not on mice, but on human beings! What would take years of painstaking research in a controlled laboratory environment using traditional methods, can most likely be achieved here in a fraction of the time using human beings suffering real illnesses. Armed with new, successful data s
upporting the findings, the pharmaceutical company that owns the drug can then submit it to the appropriate authorities say, in the US, and begin the necessary trials in the safe, traditional, accepted way. However, the outcome is already known. The drug company knows it works, and most importantly, it knows all the side effects. Why? Because it has already been tried on countless hapless patients, and modified accordingly!’

  ‘So, what’s in it for the drug company?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Patents and lots of money,’ said Dr Rosen. ‘These human trials are a tremendous head start that gives the drug company the edge over its competitors. There are billions involved in this game, and whoever comes up with the next important drug that works, gets the prize. And there can be no greater prize than a cancer drug that works.’

  ‘Unbelievable!’ said Jack. ‘And what about—’ Jack was interrupted by shouting.

  A breathless Kobo came running towards them with his hands in the air. ‘Two jeeps full of armed men,’ shouted Kobo.

  ‘Where?’ said Jack.

  Kobo pointed to a cloud of dust hovering above the road a few kilometres away. ‘Over there.’

  ‘Leave now! Quickly!’ shouted Dr Gaal. ‘That way!’

  ‘What about you?’ said Dr Rosen. ‘Come with us!’

  ‘I can’t … I know this place well. I’ll hide. Go! Now!’ said Dr Gaal, holding his injured arm.

  Dr Rosen quickly embraced her friend. ‘Take care,’ she said, ‘and thank you for showing us all this. It was the right thing to do. I won’t let you down!’

  Kobo ran back to the Land Rover and started the engine. ‘Get in! Here, take my gun.’ Kobo handed Jack a high-powered hunting rifle that could have killed an elephant a hundred yards away. ‘You know how to use it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If they come near us, aim for the tyres. The scope will give you the edge.’

  ‘Right. Makes sense.’