by Fritz Galt
“But people are dying from the new disease right now.”
Rajiv rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “I suppose I have some time to create a cure. From what I know of the disease, it lies dormant, then suddenly explodes like a time bomb.”
That was the very word Mick had used when thinking about Mariah. “But can you create a cure?”
Rajiv looked around the lab as if redesigning the space in his mind. “My only hope is that I do have some time. Remember that it takes a while for the disease to spread. Malaria spreads quickly from person to person, but not that quickly. One instance of malaria will eventually spread to one hundred new cases, but mosquitoes have to bite the host human many times over until they pick up a diseased blood cell. Then the parasite has to develop in the mosquito. And finally they have to bite other humans. That takes time. I suspect that it will take a while for the mosquito population to expand and for humans to transport the Hanuman type malaria around the country.”
“Or, for your brother to spread the disease around the country.”
“He wouldn’t do that intentionally.”
“One final question,” Mick said. “My daughter took her mefloquine dose faithfully. It was a ritual every Sunday evening just before going to bed. Why didn’t that prevent her from contracting the new form of malaria?”
Rajiv recoiled, horrified. “Your daughter got the new form?”
Mick nodded grimly.
“The prophylaxes we have synthesized to date only affect human forms of the disease,” Rajiv said slowly, as if breaking more bad news. “I have introduced an entirely different strain into humans, one that has existed in primates for eons.”
“And why hasn’t this primate form of malaria affected humans in the past?”
“Because I altered it into a new biotype, call it a new species if you will. Before I could use the primate malaria, albeit in weakened form, as a vaccine in humans, I had to teach the primate malaria to live in the human host. In preparing the primate malaria parasite to live in humans, through crossbreeding with forms that attack humans I artificially fortified its immune system against the standard human defenses. It took me two years to create what I call the Hanuman biotype, but I was successful, and as a result I gave this little malaria parasite the keys to unlock the human body. At that point, it was open season on humans. Had my funding not stopped, I could have continued on to the next phase, weakening or killing the parasite to create a vaccine.”
Mick pointed to the lab. “You got your funding at last.”
“Thank God I can proceed. However, your information has given me a new mission, and puts me under considerable time pressure.”
Mick nodded. Images of Dr. Simon Yates working feverishly under his Banyan tree entered his mind. “I know one other scientist who is researching your malaria.”
“Who else is working on the Hanuman type?”
“His name is Dr. Simon Yates.”
“I know him,” Rajiv exclaimed. “From Tulane University in New Orleans.”
“Now he lives in the Maldives. He has been experimenting with malaria samples from my daughter’s blood.”
“But he doesn’t know the origin of the species. He doesn’t know what specific toxins will kill it.”
“That’s right. He told me so, and that’s precisely what’s hampering his research. He was hoping I could find what he called the ‘parents of the disease.’”
“So, Yates took samples before your daughter died?”
“She hasn’t died. She’s on life support. He takes samples from every stage of the life cycle from her body.”
“That’s exactly what I need.”
“My daughter?”
“Right,” Rajiv said jumping to his feet. “I assumed the disease was fatal. And without any living victims with advanced stages of the disease, I wouldn’t be able to isolate the antigens.”
“Then she’s your answer.”
Rajiv mused aloud. “Yates doesn’t know the genetic makeup of the Hanuman type, so he doesn’t know how to kill it. He must be taking advantage of your daughter’s accessibility, and is working on targeting the disease at every stage of its life cycle.”
“He says he’s looking for a silver bullet that will mark the parasite wherever it is in the body.”
“That’s great. Don’t you see, I’ve got the toxins, and he’s got the antigen.”
Mick reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper with Dr. Yates’ phone number on it. “Call him up.”
“Not so fast,” came a voice from the back of the laboratory.
They spun around.
The young Indian that Lena had been groping the night before walked forward, a crafty grin on his face.
Rajiv smiled at Mick with relief. “I’d like you to meet my brother, Abu Khan, who’s financing this whole operation.”
“Call Dr. Yates,” Abu Khan told his brother with a worldly air. “But I think you should be cautious with your information. You never know into whose hands it will fall.”
Rajiv was visibly disturbed. “How could this information possibly do anything but good?”
“Do you want the American government to get hold of it and reengineer the disease to render your vaccine useless? Go ahead and get the information from Dr. Yates, but don’t fill him in on your own findings.”
“Abu, I can’t test it here. I need a subject in the advanced stages of the disease. The only subject I know is Mick’s daughter in the Maldives.”
Mick considered agreeing with this, but Abu answered first.
“I’ll find you all the human subjects you need.”
Rajiv grabbed his desk phone and dialed the long distance number. “Do you need this phone number back?” he asked Mick, waving the slip of paper in the air.
“No. Believe me, I have it memorized.”
“Now I think you can leave this laboratory,” Abu told Mick, and shepherded him toward the door.
“Your name tells me you’re Muslim,” Mick told Abu.
“Yes, and Rajiv is Hindu. You see, our parents have a mixed marriage. He went with my mother’s religion, and I followed the Islamic beliefs of my father. I remember seeing you at the meditation last night.”
“I saw you, too. Only you weren’t meditating,” Mick said.
“Nor were you.”
In the filtered sunlight, Abu and Mick strolled back to the ashram compound.
“I’d like you to talk with Swamiji now,” Abu said.
“Do I have to?” Mick said, making a face.
Abu chuckled. “He’s not so bad.”
As he had come to expect, Mick found Swamiji in a loquacious mood.
“You’ve seen my little laboratory,” he said. “Now what do you think of it?”
“Very impressive,” Mick said.
“I have a very practical need for this laboratory. Abu initially funded our efforts through his father’s diamond fortune and I provided Rajiv with this structure to develop a prophylactic for malaria. However, we’re still short three million dollars to buy the equipment necessary to mass-produce a vaccine. After all, the West will never sponsor such research.”
“Is that why you kidnapped the congressman’s daughter?”
“Yes. It came down to political expediency. Congressman Butler is chairman of a powerful congressional committee that thinks about and funds foreign medical aid. They’re the ones who cut off Rajiv’s research in Atlanta. Now I want him to fund us directly.”
“Why not have him direct the CDC to reopen their laboratory where Rajiv can work?”
Anger reddened Swamiji’s normally joy-filled face. “What connection do the people of Atlanta have with the people of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu? None. They have no reason to fund such research. And besides, if a few million Indians die, that will relieve some overpopulation and food pressure. In the great scheme of things their death may be a good thing for America.”
“Yet, the wise agr
ee,” Mick countered, “poor health leads to increased population, not the reverse. People have more babies in anticipation of some of them dying. Look at the U.S. and Europe. There, people have good health and no overpopulation.”
“Go convince your congressman of that,” Swamiji said.
Meanwhile, Keri Butler had joined the group. “If I may add a thought here,” she said.
They were too shocked to respond.
“I agree with Swamiji,” Keri said. “The research is necessary. But if he wants to get Dad to open the coffers for Rajiv’s research, the budgetary process is long and can be derailed. He would have to introduce it through the next federal budget. The quickest way to get three million is to ask my Dad for the ransom directly. Dad can raid his PAC for the three mil and have it to us in days.”
Swamiji frowned. “But how would he get hold of three million dollars so quickly?”
“You haven’t been around American politics lately,” Mick said.
“Okay, I’m convinced,” Swamiji said. “I’ll call him at the Taj Hotel.” He reached under his dhoti and pulled out a cell phone, then walked a discreet distance away from the group.
Several minutes later, he had reached Congressman Butler directly and made the new ransom demand. He closed the phone with a chastised look and returned to the others.
“What did he say?” Abu asked on behalf of the group.
“He laughed at my request. He only has a million to spare.”
“So what did you tell him?” Abu persisted.
“I had to bargain.”
“And?”
“We finally settled on two million.”
Keri looked slightly hurt.
Chapter 30
After a night of feverish activity, Rajiv remained sequestered in his laboratory the next morning.
“It looks like Dr. Yates gave him enough information over the phone to get started,” Mick remarked to Abu.
“More than that. Rajiv thinks he may have a cure. Now he requests as many patients as we can find to test it.”
Mick could hardly dare to believe it. But Abu was unusually animated, and transformed the ashram into a makeshift hospital.
Abu spent the day ferrying sick individuals as well as corpses from the upstream tribal villages down to the ashram.
Mick watched as teams of dark-skinned tribal laborers came ashore. Brown and white checkered towel lungis were wrapped neatly around their waists. They carried shrouded cadavers bouncing on makeshift stretchers. Murmuring in their native dialect, the sick were too feverish or shivery to climb up from the water’s edge. They had to be transported on the men’s backs.
By the end of the day, Mick noticed some incredible signs. Some of the sick men and women had picked themselves off the dirt outside the laboratory and were sitting upright, some even stood and stumbled about.
Mick took a nap that hot afternoon. When he emerged from his hut, a fantasy met his eyes.
Profiled against the orange sunlight shimmering on the river, women patients in wet, red saris bathed each other. Men squatted on the shore laughing. He listened to the clear voices chattering away.
By any measure it was a miracle.
Lena approached him with a smile.
“How are you?” she asked.
His voice was choked with emotion. “I think we have a cure.”
Just before nightfall, Rajiv finally stepped out of his laboratory.
In his hand, he held a conical vial plugged on top by a black rubber stopper.
“It took some work, but Dr. Yates’ information provided the breakthrough I needed,” he said. “Not only do we have an oral vaccine. We have a possible cure.”
“Possible?” Mick said, standing behind Lena. “These people look like they never were sick.”
“I treated each one individually with a different formulation of toxins based on the state of the parasite’s reproductive cycle. What you see is a treatment at work. What I have yet to synthesize is a version of toxin that will kill all of the cells marked by Dr. Yate’s multiple antibodies, thus wiping out the disease completely from their bodies.”
“So Yates created multiple antibodies, and you created multiple toxins?” Mick asked.
“That’s right. Specifically, Dr. Yates has identified each antigen required to stimulate the body to create a specific antibody that marks the parasite at a different stage in its life. I already had all sorts of antigens stocked in my lab. I just didn’t know which ones to use. Each toxin I provide kills the cells marked by Dr. Yates’ antibodies. Once I synthesize a toxin that attacks all the different kinds of cells that Dr. Yates marks, we’ve got a chemotherapy, a cure.”
“How soon would that be possible?” Abu asked.
Rajiv looked at the glass laboratory behind him. “With this equipment, never.”
Abu jabbed a finger at the vial in Rajiv’s hand. Humidity was already condensing on the cold surface. “And what’s this?”
“It’s not a cure. It’s an oral pan-vaccine for malaria. It’s beautiful. It is a weakened primate malaria protozoan microorganism that, when introduced into the body, stimulates immunity and provides protection against a challenge by not only the Hanuman-type malaria, but all strains of the disease.”
Mick’s jaw nearly fell open.
“When can we distribute the vaccine?” Swamiji asked excitedly.
“As soon as I receive the congressman’s money, I can set up a larger laboratory to replicate the vaccine many times over and distribute it in liquid form to all the people in affected areas of the world. Sadly, I have only developed a vaccine. God knows how many people already have the disease.”
“I know of at least one person,” Mick said, suddenly filled with gloom.
Abu was still interested in the vial. “Can you develop the general cure from what you have in your hand?”
“Yes. This is the starting point for a cure. I derived this vaccine from the basic malarial model common to all one hundred known forms of malaria, including the four, now five, forms that attack humans. Since all malaria parasites that invade humans evolved from the primate form, this could be the Mother of all Malaria Vaccines. This vial contains not only Dr. Yate’s antigens to mark the initial forms of malaria, but my toxins to kill the targeted cells. The beauty of this mixture is that I have successfully fortified the antigen so that it can coexist with the toxin. With this formulation, eventually I will be able to derive a mixture to cure all forms of malaria known to man.”
“Think of the widespread implications,” Swamiji said. “I’m sure you’ll win the Nobel Prize.”
“Is that the only vial you have?” Abu asked.
Rajiv looked proudly at the clear mixture. “It could be the only formulation that ever works. It’s still a mystery to me. I will need a laboratory to analyze its characteristics before I can mass-produce it.”
“So what you’re telling me is this is it?” Abu persisted. “This is the only vaccine?”
“It’s a vaccine you can simply swallow. The only one of its kind, and likely to lead to the only cure. If you’ll excuse me, I need to keep it refrigerated.”
Abu reached for the vial. “I’ll take that now,” he said.
“But I need it to generate the vaccine.” Rajiv reluctantly released the short-necked container.
“You won’t generate any vaccine,” Abu said. “This will be for my use only.”
Swamiji stepped forward, exerting his full moral presence. “You’re denying everyone the right to life.”
“Whose life is most important here? Who has the vision to bring Islam to the entire subcontinent, if not Asia proper?”
Mick was too far away to leap around Lena and grab Abu.
“This is how I will triumph when all of India is falling to its knees,” Abu continued. “Do you think I’m going to resist malaria through bed nets, window screens, jungle juice and fly swatters? I want this.”
He held up the vial.
“Men!” he ordered.
/> Four men from the ashram simultaneously produced automatic pistols from under their dhotis. Then Abu brandished one of his own.
Rajiv and Swamiji let out audible gasps of astonishment.
“I want everybody down on the ground,” Abu said.
Mick tried to slip from behind Lena to escape into the jungle.
He had barely moved when a pistol shot cracked in the air.
Lena gasped and slumped back into Mick’s arms. A tiny hole punctured the center of her naked chest. Blood spurted through the opening with every throb of her heart.
Abu whirled and fired a shot into the man who shot Lena. “I didn’t say shoot her,” he cried.
The assailant fell to his knees and then flat on his face.
“Get down everybody. Including you, old man.” Abu pointed his gun at Swamiji, who only hesitated a moment and then prostrated himself in the dust.
From his prone position, Mick watched Abu’s men round up others from the ashram until a group of some thirty cult members lay face down on the ground.
Abu circled the group aiming his pistol at the backs of their necks, then a laugh escaped his lips. The last person he pointed his weapon at was Keri Butler.
“Get up and follow me,” he told her.
He uncorked the vial and took a swig of the vaccine. With his other hand, he fired a sequence of shots into the laboratory. Mick watched large panels of the glass building shatter, and he heard breeding tanks break inside. A cloud of mosquitoes dispersed into the trees. Abu had ensured that the vaccine could never be duplicated.
He pocketed the vial and commanded his troops to bring Keri. Then he set about launching one of the two available boats. Abu, Keri and the three remaining men pushed the long, thin boat off the muddy shore, hopped in and paddled downriver into the swift current.