Cook,Robin - Mortal Fear.txt

by Mortal Fear (lit)

  up the phone number of Gene, Inc. He noted the company was located on

  Pioneer Street in east Cambridge next to the MIT campus.

  Impulsively, he sat down and dialed the number. The line was answered by

  a woman receptionist with an English accent. Jason asked for the head of

  the company.

  "You mean Dr. Leonard Dawen, the president?"

  "Dr. Dawen will be fine," Jason said. He heard the extension ring. It

  was picked up by a secretary.

  "Dr. Dawen's office."

  "I'd like to speak to Dr. Dawen."

  "Who may I say is calling?"

  "Dr. Jason Howard."

  "May I tell him what this is in reference to?"

  "It's about a lab book I have. Tell Dr. Dawen I'm from the Good Health

  Plan and was a friend of the late Alvin Hayes."

  "Just a moment, please," the secretary said in a voice that sounded like

  a recording.

  Jason opened the center drawer to his desk and toyed with his collection

  of pencils. There was a click on the phone, then a powerful voice came

  over the line, "This is Leonard Dawen!"

  Jason explained who he was and then described the lab book.

  "May I ask how it came into your possession, sir?"

  "I don't think that's important. The fact is I have it." He was not

  about to implicate Carol.

  "That book is our property," Dr. Dawen said. His voice was calm but with

  a commanding and threatening undercurrent.

  "I'll be happy to turn the book over in exchange for some information

  about Dr. Hayes. Do you think we might meet?"

  "When?"

  "As soon as possible," Jason said. "I could get over just before lunch."

  "Will you have the book with you?"

  "I will indeed."

  For the rest of the morning Jason had trouble concentrating on the

  steady stream of patients. He was pleased Sally hadn't scheduled him

  through lunch. The minute he finished his last exam, he hurtied out to

  his car.

  Reaching Cambridge, Jason threaded his way past MIT and among the new

  East Cambridge corporate skyscrapers, some with dramatically modem

  architecture that contrasted sharply with the older and more traditional

  New England brick structures. Making a final turn on Pioneer Street,

  Jason found Gene, Inc., housed in a startlingly modem building of

  polished black granite.

  Unlike its neighbors, the structure was only six floors high. Its

  windows were nartow slits alternating with circles of bronze mirrored

  glass. It had a solid, powerful look, like a castle in a science fiction

  movie.

  Jason got out of his car with his briefcase and gazed up at the striking

  facade. After reading so much about recombinant DNA and seeing Hayes's

  grossly deformed zoo, Jason was afraid he was about to enter a house of

  horrors. The front entrance was circular, defined by radiating spikes of

  granite, giving the illusion of a giant eye, the black doors being the

  pupil. The lobby was also black granite: walls, floor, even ceiling. In

  the center of the reception area was a dramatically illuminated modern

  sculpture of the double helix DNA molecule opening like a zipper.

  Jason approached an attractive Korean woman sitting behind a glass wall

  and in front of a control panel that looked like something out of the

  Starship Enterprise. She wore a tiny earpiece along with a small

  microphone that snaked around from behind her neck. She greeted Jason by

  name and told him he was expected in the fourth-floor conference room.

  Her voice had a metallic sound as she spoke into the microphone.

  The minute the receptionist stopped speaking, one of the granite panels

  opened, revealing an elevator. As he thanked her, Jason suddenly fancied

  that she was a lifelike robot. Smiling, he boarded the elevator and

  looked for the floor buttons. The door closed behind him. There was no

  floor-selector panel, but the elevator started upward.

  When the doors reopened, Jason found himself in a doorless black foyer.

  He assumed the entire building was controlled from a central location,

  perhaps by the receptionist downstairs. To his left a granite panel slid

  open.

  Within the doorway stood a man with coarse features, impeccably dressed

  in a dark pinstripe suit, white shirt, and red paisley tie.

  "Dr. Howard, I'm Leonard Dawen," the man said, motioning Jason into the

  room. He didn't offer to shake hands. His voice had the same commanding

  quality Jason remembered from the phone conversation. Compared to the

  tomblike austerity of the rest of the building, the conference room

  looked more like a wood-paneled library and seemed positively cozy until

  you looked at the fourth wall, which was glass. It looked out on what

  appeared to be a large ultramodern lab. There was another man in the

  room, an Oriental, wearing a white zippered jumpsuit. Dawen introduced

  the man as Mr. Hong, a Gene, Inc., engineer. After they were all seated

  around a small conference table, Dawen said, "I assume you have the lab

  book ... Jason opened his briefcase and handed the ledger to Dawen, who

  handed it to Hong. The engineer began studying it page by page. A heavy

  silence ensued.

  Jason looked back and forth between the two men. He'd expected things to

  be a bit more cordial. After all, he was doing them a favor.

  He turned and peered through the glass wall. The floor of the room

  beyond was a story below. Much of the area was filled with stainless

  steel vats, reminding Jason of a visit he'd once made to a brewery. He

  guessed they were the incubators for the culture of the recombinant

  bacteria. There was a lot of other equipment and complicated piping.

  People in white jumpsuits with white hoods were moving about checking

  gauges, making adjustments.

  Hong closed the lab book with a snap. "It seems complete," he said.

  "That's a nice surprise," Dr. Dawen said. Turning to Jason he said, "I

  hope you realize everything in this book is confidential."

  "Don't worr-y," Jason said, forcing a smile. "I didn't understand much

  of it. What I'm interested in is Dr. Hayes. Just before he died he said

  he'd made a major discover-y. I'm curious to know if what is described

  in those pages would be considered as such."

  Dawen and Hong exchanged glances. "It's more of a commercial

  breakthrough," Hong said. "There's no new technology here."

  "That's what I suspected. Hayes was so distraught I couldn't tell if he

  was entirely rational. But, if he made a major breakthrough, I'd hate to

  have it lost to humanity."

  Dawen's blunt features softened for the first time since Jason had

  arrived.

  Jason continued, dir-ecting his attention to the engineer. "Any idea

  what Hayes could have been talking about?"

  "Unfortunately, no. Hayes was always rather secr, etive." Dawen folded

  his hands on the table and looked directly at Jason. "We were aft-aid

  you were going to extort us with this material-make us pay to get it

  back," he said, touching the cover of the lab book. "You have to

  understand that Dr. Hayes had been giving us a rather difficult time."

  "What was Dr. Hayes's role here?" Jason asked.

 
"We hired him to produce a recombinant strain of bacteria," Dawen

  explained. "We wanted to produce a certain growth factor in commercial

  quantities."

  Jason guessed that was the Somatomedin.

  "We agreed to pay him a flat fee for the project, as well as letting him

  use the Gene, Inc., facilities for his own research. We have some very

  unique equipment."

  "Any idea what his own research involved?" Jason asked.

  Hong spoke up. "He spent most of his time isolating growth-factor

  proteins.

  Some of them exist in such minute quantities that the most sophisticated

  equipment is required to isolate them."

  "Would the isolation of one of these growth factors be considered a

  major scientific discovery?" Jason asked.

  "I can't see how," Hong replied. "Even if they've never been isolated,

  we know their effects."

  Another dead end, Jason thought wearily.

  "There's just one thing I remember that might be significant," Hong

  said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "About three months ago Hayes got

  very excited about some side effect. He said it was ironic."

  Jason straightened. There was that word again. "Any idea what caused his

  excitement?" he asked.

  Hong shook his head. "No," he said, "but after that we didn't see him

  for a time. When we did see him, he said he'd been to the Coast. Then he

  set up an elaborate extraction process on some material he'd brought

  back with him. I don't know if it worked, but then he abruptly switched

  to monoclonal antibody technology. At that point his excitement seemed

  to die."

  The words "monoclonal antibody" reminded Jason of the second lab book,

  and he wondered if he shouldn't have brought it after all. Maybe Mr.

  Hong could have made more out of it than he had.

  "Did Dr. Hayes leave any other research material here?" Jason asked.

  "Nothing significant," Leonard Dawen answered. "And we checked

  carefully, because he'd walked off with our lab book and the cultures.

  In fact, we were suing Dr. Hayes. We never anticipated he would try and

  contend he owned the strains that we'd hired him to produce."

  "Did you get your cultures back?" Jason asked.

  "We did."

  "Where did you find them?"

  "Let's say we looked in the right place," Dawen said evasively. "But

  even though we have the strain, we still appreciate getting the

  protocol book back. On behalf of the company, I'd like to thank you. I

  hope we have helped you in some small way."

  "Perhaps," Jason said vaguely. He had an idea he'd inadvertently found

  out who had searched Hayes's lab and apartment. But why would the scientists from Gene, Inc., want to kill the animals? He wondered if the

  huge animals had been treated with Gene, Inc.'s, Somatomedin. "I

  appreciate your time," he said to Dawen. "You have an impressive setup

  here."

  "Thank you. Things are going well. We plan to have recombinant strains

  of farm animals soon."

  "You mean like pigs and cows?"

  "That's right. Genetically we can produce leaner pigs, cows that produce

  more milk, and chickens that have more protein, just to give you a few

  examples."

  "Fascinating," Jason said without enthusiasm. How far away could they be

  from genetically engineering people? He shivered again, seeing Hayes's

  outsized rats and mice, especially those with supernumerary eyes.

  Back in the car, Jason glanced at his watch. He still had an hour before

  the staff meeting being held to go over recent patient deaths, so he

  decided to visit Samuel Schwartz, Hayes's attorney.

  Starting the car, Jason backed out of the Gene, Inc., parking lot and

  worked his way over to Memorial Drive. He crossed the Charles River,

  stopping at Philip's Drug Store on Charles Circle. Double-parking with

  his emergency light blinking, he ran into the store and looked up

  Schwartz's address. Ten minutes later he was in the lawyer's waiting

  room, flipping the pages of an outdated Newsweek.

  Samuel Schwartz was an enormously obese man with a glistening bald head.

  He motioned Jason into his office as if he were. directing traffic.

  Settling himself into his chair and adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses,

  he studied Jason, who had seated himself in front of the massive

  mahogany partner's desk.

  "So you are a friend of the late Alvin Hayes ..."We were more

  colleagues than friends."

  "Whatever," Schwartz said with another wave of his chubby hand. "So what

  can I do for you?"

  Jason retold Hayes's story of a purported breakthrough. He explained

  that he was trying to figure out what Hayes had been working on and had

  come across cortespondence from Samuel Schwartz.

  "He was a client. So what?"

  "No need to be defensive."

  "I'm not defensive. I'm just bitter. I did a lot of work for that bum

  and I'm going to have to write it all off."

  "He never paid?"

  "Never. He conned me into working for stock in his new company."

  "Stock?"

  Samuel Schwartz laughed without humor. "Unfortunately, now that Hayes is

  dead, the stock is worthless. It might have been worthless even if he

  had lived. I should have my head examined."

  "Was Hayes's corporation going. to sell a service or a product?" Jason

  asked.

  "A product. Hayes told me he was on the verge of developing the most

  valuable health product ever known. And I believed him. I figured a guy

  who'd been on the cover of Time had to have something on the ball."

  "Any idea what this product was?" Jason asked, trying to keep the

  excitement out of his voice.

  "Not the foggiest. Hayes wouldn't tell me."

  III[)o you know if it involved monoclonal antibodies?" Jason asked,

  unwilling to give up.

  Schwartz laughed again. "I wouldn't know a monoclonal antibody if I

  walked into it."

  "Malignancies?" Jason was only fishing, but he hoped he could jog the

  lawyer's memory."Could the product have involved a cancer treatment?"

  The obese man shrugged- "I don't know. Possibly."

  ' 'Hayes told someone that his discovery would enhance their beauty.

  Does that mean anything to you?"

  "Listen, Dr. Howard. Hayes told me nothing about the product. I was just

  setting up the corporation."

  "You were also applying for a patent."

  "The patent had nothing to do with the corporation. That was to be in

  Hayes's name."

  Jason's beeper startled both men. He watched the tiny screen. The word

  "urgent" blinked twice, followed by a number at the GHP hospital. "Would

  it be possible to use your phone?" Jason asked.

  Schwartz pushed it across the desk. "Be my guest, doctor."

  The call was from Madaline Krammer's floor. She'd arrested and they were

  giving her CPR. Jason said he'd be right there. Thanking Samuel

  Schwartz, Jason ran from the lawyer's office and impatiently waited for

  the elevator.

  When he got to Madaline's room, he saw an all too familiar scene. The

  patient was unresponsive. Her heart refused to respond to anything,

  including external pacing. Jason insisted they continue life support
>
  while his mind went over various drugs and treatments, but after an hour

  off~antic activity, even he was forced to give up and he reluctantly

  called a halt to the proceedings.

  Jason remained at Madaline's bedside after everyone else had left. She'd

  been an old friend, one of the first patients he'd treated in his

  private practice. One of the nurses had covered her face with a sheet.

  Madaline's nose poked it up like a miniature snowcovered mountain.

  Gently, Jason turned it back. Even though she had been only in her early

  sixties, he couldn't get over how old she looked. Since she'd entered

  the hospital, her face had lost all its cheerful plumpness and taken on

  the skeletal cast of those nearing death.

  Needing some time by himself, Jason retreated to his office, avoiding

  both Claudia and Sally, who each had a hundred urgent questions about

  the up coming conference and the problems of rescheduling so many

  patients. Jason locked his door and settled himself at his desk. As such

  an old patient, Madaline's passing seemed like the severing of one more

  connection to Jason's former life. Jason felt poignantly alone, fearful,