by Layton Green
“I’m Al-Miri,” he said, then motioned to two chairs. “Forgive my lack of hospitality, but this matter is of the utmost importance. I’ll pay twenty thousand dollars upon acceptance, and one hundred thousand upon completion, not inclusive of costs. Before we begin our discussion, you must know that I require two things: your undivided attention for the duration of the matter, and absolute secrecy. Both of these requirements begin immediately.”
“Nice to meet you also,” Grey muttered to himself. He couldn’t quite place the man’s accent and coppery skin tone. Middle Eastern? North African? “Confidentiality isn’t a problem. Viktor has another case going on, so I can’t make any promises on undivided attention.”
“Viktor assured me your involvement is sufficient. You agree, then, to my terms?”
Grey felt a prickle of satisfaction that Viktor had entrusted the decision to him. He agreed and took out a small notebook. The man crossed his legs and folded his hands into his lap.
“I am the principal of a small private company, New Cellular Technologies. We engage in biological research and development. What has been stolen involves an innovative technology. The science is extremely complex.”
“Where was it stolen from?”
“Someone inside the company was responsible for the theft. The product has not been brought to market, it has not been reported in journals, it has not been outside the laboratory. It was stolen and, most likely, sold.”
“Where’s your company located?”
He hesitated, for the briefest of moments. “Cairo.”
“The inside man?”
“Our priority and concern. If we discover anything of use, we’ll forward the information.”
“I’ll need to interview your employees by phone.”
“We prefer to conduct the internal investigation ourselves.”
Grey pursed his lips as he regarded Al-Miri, but let it go. “Tell me about this technology.”
Al-Miri unfolded his hands and drummed his long fingers against his thighs. “Every word of this conversation, every element of our association, is under the strictest code of silence.”
“I already gave my word.”
Al-Miri inclined his head. “My company is involved in biomedical gerontology, the science of aging. Are you familiar with it?”
“No.”
“We’ve been working on a project that could have a revolutionary effect on research in our field.”
Al-Miri hesitated again, and Grey held his gaze and waited for him to continue.
“A test tube of liquid was stolen, the result of many years of research. The composition is nothing you’d be familiar with—it’s nothing someone outside of this field would comprehend.”
“Does it have a name?”
“Once we’re finished with analysis and refinement of the product we shall give it a proper name.”
Grey chuckled and rubbed at his three-day stubble. “Look. You need to break it down for me. Asking random questions about an unnamed test tube might get difficult.”
“Are you knowledgeable about senescence at the cellular level?”
“I’ve never heard that word before.”
Al-Miri reached into his robe and took out a gold medallion hanging from a silver chain. He rubbed his thumb back and forth over the medallion, and seemed to be making a decision about something. Finally he turned the medallion over and held it up for Grey to see. The medallion was engraved, quite beautifully, with an image Grey stored in his memory.
“The logo of our company. You’ll find this image engraved into the test tube.”
“What if someone moves the liquid into another container?”
“A proper scientist would not take the chance.”
Grey took another look at the smooth gold face of the medallion. It was half an inch thick; if that was real gold, it was worth a fortune. Grey had the feeling that it was. “What if the test tube was used up?”
“It will have been sampled, tested and then guarded. Whoever has taken possession of the test tube—it will remain in their possession, and it will, except for test drops, remain intact.”
“You’ve reported the theft to the Egyptian authorities?”
“We’re quite certain our product has left the country. There are no other companies inside Egypt with the expertise and personnel necessary to comprehend the technology.”
“So we’re talking corporate espionage. I have to ask—why contact us?”
“There are certain… groups… who concern themselves with the possibilities of human life extension. Some of them are quite radical. Some of them fear the prospect of death to such an extent that they would go to any length to acquire a technology that seeks to combat its approach.”
“Why wouldn’t they just let your company develop it?”
“They believe there are limits on that which an ethical corporation can accomplish.”
Grey ran a hand through his hair and left his hand cupping the back of his neck. He had expected Viktor’s cases to be bizarre, not the clients themselves.
Al-Miri continued, “The product will have to be tested by a company that performs research similar to ours. Such an endeavor will take knowledge, resources, and time. Days, if not weeks, to gain a basic understanding. It was stolen less than a week ago.”
Al-Miri kept a cool expression, but Grey sensed an underlying urgency. “So regardless of who stole it,” Grey said, “what we’re looking for now is a laboratory, and unscrupulous scientists in your field.”
Al-Miri gave a slight bow in approval.
“Who are your competitors?”
He took a piece of paper from his robes and handed it to Grey. It contained a list of seven companies. “While a multitude of governments and companies conduct biomedical research, biomedical gerontology is much more rare. Even fewer possess the knowledge and resources to conduct the proper tests on our product.”
“If we find who has your product, how do you want to proceed?”
“My company will handle it from there.”
Grey raised his eyebrows. “You’ll handle it?”
“We’ll report the theft to the authorities in the proper jurisdiction. We must be careful not to prematurely disclose our intent, or the product might be spirited to another location. We have attorneys ready to orchestrate a legal seizure of the property.”
Grey gave a slow nod. “That’s probably the best way to go about it, depending on what country it’s been taken to.” He glanced at the piece of paper. “You might want to hope it’s not with the company in China.”
“Yes.”
“I have to tell you, there’s not much to go on.”
“I understand the difficulty of the assignment. Contact me as you need. I remind you that with a product such as this, with the promise of biomedical application that it offers, there are those who will go to great lengths to protect it.”
Grey wondered to what lengths Al-Miri would go.
“You agree, then, to accept this engagement?”
Grey had known his answer before he walked in the door. He agreed, and they both stood. Al-miri bowed again, his silk robe and sinuous figure reminding Grey of a pampered snake.
On his way out Grey passed the doorman again. The man stood with folded arms and didn’t acknowledge him.
• • •
The chaos of Manhattan enveloped Grey. The city was alive, possessed of an inexorable energy bubbling up from the bottomless wellspring of humanity in the surrounding boroughs and cascading like a waterfall into the maelstrom of Manhattan.
A grin crept to Grey’s face as he walked. New York is a Janus-like host: it can turn, with a change in circumstance, from a place of overwhelming loneliness to one of immeasurable promise. Grey was far from the point of promise, but he now had something to grasp onto, a task that was his to claim. He felt swollen with relief.
In the midst of darkness, he thought, life can be bright with change. A new die is cast, the past is pushed aside, the world reop
ens, and we become again, for a brief moment, as children.
– 2 –
Jax leaned a bronzed arm on the railing of the tiki hut. He watched the silver-tipped waves dance into shore as he inhaled the intoxicating cocktail of brine and fresh air. Tropical beaches never ceased to move him, especially after the urban grit of Cairo. He signaled to the waitress for another Cuba Libre, bobbed his head to the reggae, and released a sigh of pleasure.
The island was off the coast of Venezuela and, while blessed with the rugged beauty of its Caribbean neighbors, had none of their tame, ex-colonial feel. It was the bad boy of the Caribbean, a place belonging on paper to Venezuela but, because of the success of its mostly illegal economy, given free rein by its parent nation.
From the wild mountainous middle to the northern ports that sped Colombian exports along their way, from the pleasure havens of the east to the sketchy rum-soaked streets of the lone city in the south, the island had a little bit of everything. Everything, that is, except normality.
Just the way Jax liked it.
Jax’s waitress, whose oval face and black skin marked her as Colombian, approached him. She pressed her cartoonishly curvy body against his and reached for the back of his neck. He let her pull him down, and she brushed her lips against his ear. “Una mas Cuba Libre?” Another rum and coke?
“Si.”
“Y despues?” And later?
“Vamos a ver.” We’ll see.
She took his ear in her mouth and gave it a gentle tug before she walked off. Jax could only sigh. It was almost too easy here. Women loved his patrician nose and chin, his blue eyes and wheat-colored all-American hair. More important was his easy confidence, his natural loose charisma which made him approachable. Most important of all, he knew, was his money.
He realized the waitress doubled as a prostitute. The island was the most ambiguous place he’d ever visited when it came to that sort of thing, and for Jax, that was saying something.
A chair in the opposite corner of the beach bar slid back. A handsome Latino man in linen slacks and a fitted shirt snorted a line off the table and then rose. Two brutish men stood with him.
Jax waited three minutes, downed his fifth Cuba Libre and stood. He had an uncanny tolerance for alcohol. It served him well; no one sees a drunk playboy as a threat.
The waitress rushed over, sensing her favorite client of the week was about to slip out of her grasp. “A donde vas?” Where are you going?
“Lo siento mi amor, tengo que salir. Nos vemos mañana.” Sorry love, got to run. I’ll see you tomorrow.
That was a lie, but he didn’t have time for a scene. Before she walked away he slipped a hundred dollar bill into her apron. He imagined her finding it later that evening, and grinned. He’d love to arrive soon after and collect his very naughty reward. Alas, parting is such sweet sorrow, sayeth the Bard.
He walked to the road and jumped on the rented Jai-Ling motorcycle he’d left behind a cactus. He bore to the right, locked his wrist forward, and five miles down the road came to a police car stopped behind a black SUV. A group of tough-looking locals hovered around someone on the ground.
Jax parked his bike and surveyed the scene. The two bodyguards from the bar were on the ground, hands behind their heads, unmoving. Good. Jax walked up to a pear-shaped man in a tank top standing apart from the group, a sun-beaten local with a nasty scar running from nose to chin.
“Donde está?” Jax asked the man.
The man nudged his head toward the police car. A local policia was in the driver’s seat. The handsome man from the bar was in the rear, head lolling against one of the windows.
“Está viva, si?” He’s still alive?
“Si.”
“El policia?”
“Está con nosotros.” He’s with us.
Jax handed the man with the scar a manila envelope, and embraced him. “Bien hecho, amigo.”
The man flew into rapid-fire Venezuelan slang. Jax caught the gist of it, which was “get this piece of shit off our island, and come see me at La Concha when you come back. You should stay longer next time, gringo. It’s a good place for you. We like you.”
Jax jumped into the police car. The man from the bar started to stir, and Jax slammed his head into the window. The man slumped. Jax instructed the driver to take him to a small airstrip on the eastern shore, and then kept a careful eye on both prisoner and road.
The man beside him was the son of a Mexican drug lord. The son had decided to flee the iron discipline of his father’s compound, and live the good life. The father feared someone would kidnap his son for leverage, and he hired Jax to bring his son home.
Jax had arrived on the island five days ago, and quickly entered the local scene. He started with the beaches, and then moved to the rough bars, casinos, and bordellos of the port city. He soon met the type of man he was looking for, the leader of a local drug running gang named Eduardo. Jax spent the rest of the evening charming him with alcohol and drugs and whores.
Jax told him why he was on the island, and the man reacted as predicted. Venezuelan drug gangs do not like Mexican drug lords, or their sons, or their henchmen.
Eduardo agreed to help for five thousand dollars, a very large sum of money in Venezuela, even for the head of a local drug gang. The local gangs were middlemen for the Colombians; they were not players. And five thousand dollars was one-twentieth of the fee Jax had negotiated with the drug lord.
They arrived at the airstrip. Jax carried the son to the small Beechcraft, where the pilot and another man, both employed by the father, took over. One of them handed Jax a small package, and Jax shook hands and returned to the police car. He handed the policia a few bills, and the policia agreed to take him to the domestic airport on the other side of the island. Jax always left the country after a job, and he had an appointment with an Arab businessman in Manhattan.
As they drove along the island’s solitary, potholed roads, Jax enjoyed a final rush of fresh dry air and the sweet smell of decaying fruit. His last thought concerned a question the waitress had asked him earlier in the evening. She was sharp, and knew things about love-making that could warrant an amendment to the Kama Sutra.
Do you wander the earth to embrace life, she had asked, or to avoid it?
Ah, Jax thought, there are no absolutes in life. None at all. But his answer to this one was as close as it gets.
He thought of where he would have ended up had he not taken matters into his own hands: eking out an existence in the flat endless horizons of middle America, saving up to buy an extended-cab pickup and a double-wide, praying for a tornado that would make Dorothy’s look like a goddamn summer breeze.
He grinned. Who, he wanted to know, loved life more than he?
– 3 –
“He takes the eccentric businessman thing to a whole new level,” Grey said.
Grey could sense Viktor crossing his legs, bent over his emerald muse as he digested Grey’s summary of the meeting with Al-Miri. Grey had just finished a Chi Gung breathing routine, and was still sitting cross-legged on his frayed Japanese Tatami mat, sipping a cold sake.
“His retainer already posted,” Viktor said.
“That’s a good start.”
“See where the investigation leads. We can always reconsider. Have you verified his story?”
“Al-Miri’s full name is Zahur Al-Miri Haddara. He’s the registered CEO of New Cellular Technologies, a small biotech specializing in advanced cellular research. I found an address in Cairo, and verified a couple of grants and patents. I also made a call to an old acquaintance with government clearance. The government tracks these sorts of companies, but he’d never heard of this one. That probably just means they’re too small to be on the radar. I also did a criminal check. He’s clean.”
“Did you find any personal information?”
“Al-Miri’s father was a wealthy industrialist. He died in 1982 and left Al-Miri a small fortune. Al-Miri passed control of his father’s textile compan
y to the CFO, and used his inheritance to start Haddara Enterprises. Haddara was one of the first companies in Egypt to venture into aging research. Al-Miri was a fairly public figure until 1990, when his wife was diagnosed with brain cancer and hospitalized. When that happened he changed the name of the company to New Cellular Technologies. Al-Miri’s public appearances ceased, and his company has been, for the most part, a ghost.”
“Excellent,” Viktor murmured. “I’m familiar with the human life extension groups Al-Miri mentioned. As with most cults, they range from harmless to proactive to… quite radical.”
“Why call them cults? Doesn’t a cult inherently imply religion?”
“Religion is simply veneration of a person, ideal, or thing. A cult is a collection of individuals bound together by a similar veneration. Granted, most cults—and most of our cases—will involve religion in the more traditional sense, worship of the divine and an adherent set of beliefs and practices. But science can most certainly spawn cults, and human life extension is a province that has attracted devotees since the beginning of time. The fountain of youth, the Grail legend—the modern day science of human life extension is but a more sophisticated version of an ancient ideal.”
“Who would you start looking at?”
“Athanasia Incorporated, The Methuselah Group, Transhumanity Worldwide. Those are three of the larger, more radical groups. I’ll focus on that angle for now.”
“The list of companies Al-Miri gave me,” Grey said. “There’s one in New Jersey. BioGorden Laboratories. It’ll be a fishing expedition, but it’s a place to start.”
“Agreed. You mentioned a medallion. Can you describe it in more detail?”
Grey flipped through his small notebook. “Circular gold medallion maybe two inches in diameter, engraved on the back with a green male figure. Bearded face, holding a palm frond as a staff in one hand. The lower half of the figure was wrapped in white cloth.”
“Wrapped?”
“Like a mummy. Beneath the figure there were was a rectangular blue block. I think it was supposed to represent the figure hovering above a body of water. So what is it, some kind of ancient Egyptian symbol?”