mice. Most of the researchers have concluded that aging is a natural
process with a genetic basis regulated by neuroendocrine, immune, and
humoral factors."
"You've lost me already," Shirley admitted, lifting her hands in mock
surrender.
"How about a drink, then?" Jason suggested, getting to his feet.
"What are you having?"
"A beer. But I have wine, hard stuff, you name it."
"A beer might be nice."
Jason went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took out two
cold Coors.
"You doctors are all the same," Shirley complained, taking a sip. "You
make everything sound complicated."
"It is complicated," Jason said, sitting back down. "Molecular genetics
concerns the fundamental basis of life. Research in this area is scary,
not just because scientists might accidentally create a new and deadly
bacterium or virus. It is just as scary if it goes right, because we are
playing with life itself. Hayes's tragedy was not that he failed; the
problem was that he succeeded."
"What did he discover?"
"In a moment," Jason said, taking a long drink of beer and wiping his
mouth with the back of his hand. "Let me put the story another way. We
all reach puberty at about the same time, and if disease or accident
doesn't intervene, we all age and die in about the same life-span."
Shirley nodded.
"Okay," Jason said, leaning toward her. "This happens because our bodies
are genetically programmed to follow an internal timetable. As we
develop, different genes are turned on while others are turned off. This
is what fascinated Hayes. He had been studying the ways. humoral signals
from the brain control growth and sexual maturation. By isolating one
after another of these humoral proteins, he discovered what they did to
peripheral tissues. He was hoping to find out what caused cells to
either start dividing or stop dividing."
"That much I do understand," Shirley said. "It's one of the reasons we
hired him. We hoped he'd make a breakthrough in cancer treatment."
"Now let me digress a moment," Jason said. "There was another researcher
by the name of Denckla, who was experimenting on ways to retard the
aging process. He took out the pituitary glands of rats, and after
replacing the necessary hormones, found that the rats had an increased
life-span."
Jason stopped and looked expectantly at Shirley.
"Am I supposed to say something?" she asked.
"Doesn't Denckla's experiment suggest something to you? "
"Why don't you just tell me."
"Denckla deduced that not only does the pituitary secrete the hormones
for growth and puberty, but it also secretes the hormone for aging.
Denckla called it the death hormone."
Shirley laughed nervously. "That sounds cheerf "Well, I believe that
while Hayes was researching growth factors, he stumbled onto Denckla's
postulated death hormone," Jason said. "That was what he meant by an
"nic discovery. While looking for growth stimulators, he finds a hormone
that causes rapid aging and death."
"What would happen if this hormone were given to someone?" Shirley
asked.
"If it were given in isolation, probably not much. The subject might
experience some symptoms of aging, but the hormone would probably be
metabolized and its effect limited. But Hayes wasn't studying the
hormone in isolation. He realized that in the same way the secretion of
the sex and Frowth hormone is triggered, there had to be a releasing
factor for the death hormone. He was immediately drawn to the life cycle
of salmon, which die within hours of spawning. I believe he collected
salmon heads and isolated the death hormone's releasing factor from the
brains. This was the free-lance work I think he did at Gene, Inc. Once
he had isolated the releasing factor, he had Helene reproduce it in
quantity by recombinant DNA techniques at his GHP lab."
"Why would Hayes want to produce it?"
"I believe he hoped to develop a monoclonal antibody that would prevent
the secretion of the death hormone and halt the aging process." All at
once Jason realized what Hayes meant about his discovery becoming a
beauty aid.
It would preserve youthful good looks, like Carol's.
"What would happen if the releasing factor were given to someone?"
"It would turn on the death gene, releasing the aging hormone just the
way it is in salmon-with pretty much the same results. The subject would
age and die in three or four weeks. And nobody would know why. And this
brings me to the worst thing of all. I believe someone obtained the
artificially created hormone Helene was producing at our lab and started
giving it to our patients. Whoever it is must be insane-but that's what
I think has been happening. Hayes caught on-probably when he visited his
son-and was given the aging factor himself. if he hadn't died that
night, I think he'd have been killed some other way." Jason shuddered.
"How did you find out?" Shirley whispered.
"I followed Hayes's experimental trail. When Helene was murdered I
guessed that Hayes had been telling the truth both about his discovery
and the fact that someone wanted him dead."
"But Helene was raped by an unknown intruder."
"Sure. But only to mislead the police as to the motive for her murder. I
always felt she knew more than she was telling about Hayes's work. When
I
learned that she'd been having an affair with him, I was sure.
"But who would want to kill our patients?" Shirley asked desperately.
"A sociopath. The same kind of nut who puts cyanide in Tylenol. Tonight
at the clinic I had the computer print out survival curves and death
curves.
The results were incredible. There's been a significant increase in the
death rate at GHP for patients over fifty who are chronically ill or who
have high-risk lifestyles." Suddenly Jason stopped. "Damn!"
"What's the matter?" Shirley asked, looking about nervously, as if the
danger were just around the comer.
"I forgot something. I printed the curves month by month-I didn't look
at them doctor by doctor."
"You think a physician's behind this?" Shirley asked incredulously.
"Must be. A doctor-or maybe a nurse. The releasing factor would be a
polypeptide protein. It would have to be injected. If it was
administered orally, the gastric juices would degrade it."
"Oh, my God." Shirley dropped her head into her hands. "And I thought we
had troubles before." She took a breath and looked up. "Isn't there a
chance you could be wrong, Jason? Maybe the computer made a mistake. God
knows, data processing breaks down often enough ..."
Jason put his hand on her shoulder. He knew that her hard-won empire was
about to come crashing down. "I'm not wrong," he said -gently. "I also
did something else tonight. I saw Hayes's son at Hart ford."
"And ... 11 "It's a horror. All the kids on his ward must have been
given the releasing factor. Apparently it acts more slowly on
prepubescent subjects, so the boys are still alive. Th
ere must be some
kind of hormonal competition with growth hormone. But they all look one
hundred years old."
Shirley shuddered.
"That's why I wanted to know the name of the current medical director."
"You think Peterson's responsible?"
"He'd have to be a prime suspect."
"Maybe we should go to the clinic and doublecheck the computer. We could
even rerun your survival curves by doctor."
Before Jason could answer, the door buzzer shattered the silence and
made them both jump. Jason got to his feet, his heart pounding.
Shirley dropped her drink on the table. "Who could that be?"
"I don't know." Jason had told Carol not to leave her apartment, and
Curran would have called before coming over.
-"What should we do?" Shirley asked urgently.
"I'm going downstairs and have a look."
"Is that such a good idea?"
"Got a better one?"
Shirley shook her head. "Just don't open the door."
"What do you think I am-crazy? Oh-and one thing I didn't tell you.
Someone tried to kill me."
"No! Where?"
"In a remote country inn east of Seattle."
He unlocked his apartment door.
"Maybe you'd better not go down," Shirley said hurriedly.
"I've got to find out who it is." Jason went out to the railed landing
and looked down at the front door. He could see a figure through one of
the glass panels.
"Be careful," Shirley said.
Jason silently started down the stairs. The closer he got, the bigger
the shadow of the individual in the foyer became. He was facing the
nameplates and angrily hitting the buzzer. Suddenly he whirled around
and pressed his face to the glass. For a moment, Jason's and the
stranger's faces were only inches apart. There was no mistaking the
massive face and tiny, closely set eyes. Their visitor was Bruno, the
body-builder. Jason turned and fled back upstairs as the door rattled
furiously behind him.
"Who is it?"
"A muscle-bound thug I know," Jason told her, double-locking his door,
"and the only person who knew I went to Seattle." That point had just
occurred to him with tertifying force. He ran into the den and snatched
up the phone. "Damn!" he said after a minute. He dropped the receiver
and tried the one in the bedroom. Again, there was no dial tone. "The
phones are dead," he said with disbelief to Shirley, who had followed
him, sensing his panic.
"What are we going to do?"
"We're leaving. I'm not getting trapped here." Rummaging in the hall
closet, he found the key to the gate separating his building from the
narrow alley that ran out to West Cedar Street. He opened the bedroom
window, climbed onto the fire escape, and helped Shirley out after him.
Single file, they descended to the small garden where the leafless white
birches stood out like ghosts in the dark. Once in the alley, they ran
to the gate, where Jason fi-antically fumbled to insert the key. When
they emerged onto the narrow street, it was quiet and empty, the gloom
pierced at intervals by the soft Beacon Hill gas lamps. Not a soul was
stirring.
"Let's-go!" Jason said, and started down West Cedar to Charles.
"My car is back on Louisburg Square," Shirley panted, struggling to
match Jason's pace.
"So is mine. But obviously we can't go back. I have a friend whose car I
can take."
On Charles Street there were a few pedestrians outside the 7-Eleven.
Jason thought about calling the police from the store, but now that he
was out of his apartment he felt less trapped. Besides, he wanted to
check the GHP computer again before he spoke with Curran.
They walked down Chestnut Street, lined with its old Federal buildings.
There were several people walking dogs, which made Jason feel safer.
Just before Brimmer Street, Jason turned into a parking garage where he
gave the attendant ten dollars and asked for the car that belonged to a
friend.
Luckily, the man recognized Jason and brought out a blue BMW.
"I think it would be a good idea to go to my place," Shirley said,
sliding into the front seat. "We can call Curran from there and let him
know where you are.
"First I want to go back to the clinic."
With almost no traffic, they reached the hospital in less than ten
minutes.
"I'll only be a minute," Jason said, pulling up to the entrance. "Do you
want to come in or wait here?"
"Don't be silly," Shirley said, opening her side of the car. "I want to
see these graphs myself."
They waved ID cards at the security guard and took the elevator, even
though they were going up only one floor.
The cleaning service had left the clinic in pristine condition-magazines
in racks, wastepaper baskets empty, and the floor glistening with fresh
wax.
Jason went directly into his office, sat down at his desk, and booted up
his computer terminal.
"I'll call Curran," Shirley said, going out to the secretaries' station.
Jason gave a wave to indicate he'd heard her. He was already engrossed
in data on the computer. First he called up the various clinic
physicians' identification numbers. He was particularly interested in
Peterson's. When he had all the numbers, he instructed the computer to
separate the GHP patient population by doctor and then start drawing
death curves on each group for the past two months, months that had
shown the greatest changes when all the patients had been listed. He
expected Peterson's patients to show either a higher or lower death
rate, believing that a psychopath would experiment either significantly
more or less with his own patients.
Shirley came back into the office and stood watching him enter the data.
"Your friend Curran's not back yet," she said. "He called in to the
station and said he might be tied up a couple more hours."
Jason nodded. He was more interested in the emerging curves. It took
about fifteen minutes to produce all the graphs. Jason separated the
continuous sheets and lined them up.
"They all look the same," Shirley said, leaning on his shoulder.
"just about," Jason admitted. "Even Peterson's. It doesn't rule out his
involvement, but it doesn't help us either." Jason eyed the computer,
trying to think of any other data that might be useful. He drew a blank.
"Well, that's all the bright ideas for the moment.
The police will have to take over from here."
"Let's go, then," Shirley said. "You look exhausted."
"I am," Jason admitted. Pushing himself out of the chair was an effort.
"Are these the graphs you produced earlier?" Shirley asked, pointing to
the stack of printouts by the terminal.
Jason nodded.
"How about bringing them along? I'd like you to explain them to me."
Jason stuffed the papers into a large manila envelope.
"I gave Curran's office my phone number," Shirley said. "I think that's
the best place to wait. Have you had a chance to eat anything?"
"Some dreadful airplane food, but that seems like days ago."
"I h
ave a little leftover cold chicken."
"Sounds great."
When they got to the car, Jason asked Shirley if she'd mind driving so
he could relax and think a little.
"Not at all," she said, taking his keys.
Jason climbed into the passenger side, tossing the envelope into the
back seat. He fastened his seat belt, leaned back, and closed his eyes.
He let his mind play over the various ways the clinic patients might
have been given the releasing factor. Since it couldn't be administered
orally, he wondered how the criminal could have injected the patients
undergoing executive physicals. Blood was drawn for lab workups, but
vacuum tubes provided no way to inject a substance. For inpatients it
was a different story-they were always getting injections and
intravenous fluids.
He had reached no plausible conclusion when Shirley drew up before her
house. Jason staggered and almost fell as he got out of the car. The
short rest had exaggerated his fatigue. He reached into the back seat
Cook,Robin - Mortal Fear.txt Page 28