The Last Enemy - A history of the present future - 1934-2084

by Luca Luchesini

  He was going through the frantic search for a modification of Telomerax to avoid a catastrophic interference with pregnancy while also monitoring how Aurora was growing up. It had been about six months since Mr. Lee asked him to do the analysis of the Telomerax imitations that were starting to appear in the drug trade underworld.

  Even with superintelligence, it required long hours of work, extensive globetrotting, and neglect of personal relationships. Dora had started to complain because there was too much silence and inexpressive nods. He feared it could end up with a divorce, as it had happened between Helena and George shortly after the birth of Aurora.

  The first slide appeared on the screen, showing two pills with the carved T on top, placed next to each other. He cleared his mind of all side thoughts and focused on his audience, which was made up of Mr. Lee and three top members of the Central Committee of China’s Communist Party.

  Louis had not been told their names. All he knew from Mr. Lee is that they were very close to the Secretary General, Mr. Xi Jinping, who for obvious reasons would not attend the meeting.

  Louis had insisted to know at least what they did, otherwise he would not show up in Beijing in person to update them. After much negotiation, Mr. Lee eventually revealed that one was Mr. Xi Jinping’s most trusted personal counselor, another one was the head of the secret service, and the last one was a top-ranking officer of the Bank of China.

  “Based on the evidence collected by Mr. Lee, we know that the counterfeited version of Telomerax started spreading in South Africa and was later detected in India, Egypt, and Thailand. We have been able to collect some samples, which I have analyzed in the last few months. As always, there are things we are sure about, things that are very likely or at least possible, and things which we do not have even the slightest idea about an answer.”

  Louis paused, not a sign of life came from his audience until Mr. Lee invited him to proceed with a long nod.

  “We know for sure that the counterfeiters have had extensive access to Telomerax samples, so that they could study its molecular structure and how the drug is used in the body. This explains the similarities in the structure of their molecule. Let me call it Pseudo-Telomerax from now on.”

  “Second, they have access to top level biochemistry research facilities. Pseudo-Telomerax is engineered in a very sophisticated way, with tools available only to the most advanced countries or big multinationals.”

  “Third, they focused on copying the dopamine interference effects. Pseudo-Telomerax is still very ineffective in replicating the core active principle action. In other words, they understood that the cocaine effect lied on the outer molecules and focused on that.”

  Louis was moving to the next slide when one of the attendees interrupted him abruptly,

  “Professor Picard, let me call you by your real name, this is all fine but we need to know who is responsible.”

  “Easy to understand why,” thought Louis. They had a competitor for a multibillion dollar market. And Mr. Lee and the Communist Party of China could not accept the idea that they would have had to share their huge profits with someone else.

  “As I said, any idea about who has done this is pure conjecture. From what I know, drug cartels do not have this type of scientific knowledge, even though they run large operations....”.

  Louis stopped and he thought about the lab tests run by Mr. Lee at the beginning of their cooperation. How long before his legal pharmaceutical company would start commercializing its own counterfeit version of Telomerax? He immediately restarted, fearing his pause might give hints to Mr. Lee about his reflections. Fortunately for him, his mind now processed ideas three times as fast as the one of ordinary people, and his audience barely noticed the pause in his speech.

  “....the other thing we are quite sure about, looking at the new molecular structure, is that the imitators have come up with other serious side effects, such as a noticeable growth of the hormones that regulate aggressiveness.”

  This time, another member of the audience was polite enough to raise his hand before asking his question. “Maybe he is the trusted advisor of Xi Jinping,” thought Louis. He stopped talking and invited him to speak.

  “Do you mean, Dr. Picard, that people using Pseudo-Telomerax would experience the excitement of cocaine and have the metabolites of cocaine disappear, but over time develop a more aggressive attitude?”

  “That is correct, but most importantly they will also become far more aggressive while under the effect of cocaine and Pseudo-Telomerax. They would attack things and people around them and would not stop until physically exhausted because they would feel the positive effects of dopamine.”

  Mr. Lee looked at the others and chuckled,

  “Our imitators have invented the zombie drug then!”

  He was immediately interrupted by the impolite member, whom Louis now suspected to be the head of the secret service.

  “With the difference that it is easier to kill them, and the effects are not permanent. When do you think the effects will start to appear, Professor Picard?”

  “It depends on the individual. However, looking at how Pseudo-Telomerax functions, I think it would take anywhere between two to three years. If I am correct, we should see the first cases on the news in one or two years from now, assuming this stuff has been around for at least one year.”

  Mr. Impolite did not bother to comment directly and instead turned his head towards Mr. Lee.

  “Still, we do not know how our imitators have managed to get enough material to copy the pill. Are you having problems in your supply chain, Mr. Lee?”

  Mr. Lee was not used to answer difficult questions, but he was expecting this one.

  “Anyone of our customers can give it to a competitor, and we have more than five thousands users of Telomerax on the five continents by now. You can no longer count on the loyalty of everybody. We are, however, reviewing our distribution chain to see if there are major inconsistencies.”

  Mr. Lee did not mention that he had evidence that in Africa, India and the Middle East also real Telomerax was being sold along with the fake one, out of the control of his channels.

  “Mr. Picard, at the beginning you said the fake drug was not able to replicate the effects of Telomerax. Are there any side effects besides the one of cleaning up cocaine in the body?”

  The question came from the last member of the group who had not asked any questions so far. Louis looked at Mr. Lee, who remained impassible. Had Mr. Lee never shared the anti-aging news with his team? Or was it only unknown to this group? Were they seeking a further confirmation from him directly? Then, why were they using his real name? His fake identity was a British one.

  “I thank you for the great attention you paid to my presentation. The fact is, I started in cosmetics, and Telomerax was supposed to be a skin care treatment, delaying the aging of cells and preserving the youthful appearance of my patients. It had a certain success, but then I found out the side effects on cocaine and my partnership with Mr. Lee began. It seems that the organization that is now copying my drug has no insight into aesthetics and looks only to reap immediate profits, at the expense of long term losses.”

  The man acknowledged Louis' answer with a smile. Louis thought he was probably the one representing the Bank of China.

  After the meeting, when Louis finally returned back to Zurich, he was still so lost in his thoughts about the Beijing meeting that he almost ran over Frau Hannelore Glockner, their neighbor. He screeched to a halt before the pedestrian crossing, where Frau Glockner was walking. After a short moment of sheer terror, Frau Glockner quickly regained control. She ran to the left side of the car and knocked on the driver window.

  As the childless widow of a bank executive, she was living in the house opposite to the one of the Picards and she used to rent out rooms to students and foreign young workers to continue living in the expensive neighborhood. Louis rolled down the car window. Frau Glockner was overwhelmed with disbelief: how could a
n orderly, polite and respectful person like Louis - whom she knew as Richard Pearlman - behave like her previous Italian neighbors?

  “Frau Hannelore, I am terribly sorry! I was lost in thought and I think the car has a problem, because it did not react immediately…you look terrible, if you want I can take you to see a doctor…just to make sure the scare did not have any other effect….”

  “Herr Pearlman, I was not expecting this from you,” Frau Glockner replied coldly, moving back to the last name, after almost two years of addressing him on a first name basis. “Since your arrival five years ago, I was hoping that your young yet rule-abiding family would help me in restore some much needed discipline to our neighborhood, but I was wrong. I will have to watch over you as well. Good evening, Herr Pearlman.”

  She walked past the car to her door, without waiting for a reply. Louis parked the car in the garage and entered his house. From the living room couch, Dora groaned to welcome him home. The television was airing one of the old episodes of Dr. House. He hesitated, then groaned back, and headed to his basement lab.

  Chapter 22

  Louis had been back from China for more than a week, but the only sign of life he gave from his lab was a request for a sandwich.

  Dora used to give psychotherapy advice to her patients, but over the last months she noticed she had given up advising couples in trouble. She knew why.

  As Christmas was approaching, she used to spend the whole afternoon shopping in the gleaming streets of Central Zurich, accumulating gifts for no one in particular.

  She decided it was time to face the problem. She went down to the basement and stood in front of the retina scanner. The door opened and she entered the room. At least Louis had not reprogrammed the security system. She walked down the corridor and there she found him, sifting through images and numbers on three different screens glowing in front of him. He did not realize her presence until she touched his shoulder. He turned towards her, forcing a faint smile, but realized that all his face could show was a mixture of tiredness and sadness. Dora stared back and whispered,

  “What is bothering you, Louis? Is it the new version? Is it our team? Or is it me?”

  “The new version might not work, I am not sure. I do not even know how to test it. I have not heard from George in weeks. At least I can take comfort in knowing Helena is focused on Aurora. She and the baby are doing well and are safe in Brazil while I have the feeling that Tarek and Valerio are not as safe as they pretend to be.

  I am tired, Dora. And I fear it might all fall apart in the worst possible way. All of the sudden, I feel all my eighty-one years of life hitting me. Sometimes I think all of this should have never started….as if something inside me is telling me it’s time to give up.”

  Dora did not answer. She hugged him. She started kissing him and when he hesitated, she drew all the more closer.

  “Forget it all. It’s just you and me. We are going to make it, one way or another. And forget your tests for today.”

  A few hours later they were in bed, exchanging meaningless small talk and laughing at each other’s inside jokes.

  “Louis, have you noticed that Frau Glockner no longer greets us by name? And I have found her staring at our house from her living room window, quite a few times. Imagine if she looked into our windows now..,”

  She chuckled.

  “Oh, Frau Hannelore..I should have told you. I almost ran her over the other day, when I arrived home after my long flight. Do not worry. I think we are back to the ‘neighbor probation process’, like when we arrived back in 2011. In a few months she will be back to normal and greet us on a first name basis.”

  “Oh yeah sure, in a few months,” Dora echoed. “So many things can change in a few months.”

  Louis suddenly changed his tone. He looked at her with tenderness and fear.

  “Dora, you know what Helena went through to have a baby. She made it. It is not guaranteed at all that you can make it too. Why did you want to take the risk?”

  “Why did you accept to take the risk with me, Louis? You could have stayed in front of your screens.”

  “Because I knew if I didn’t, I would lose you. Maybe I was selfish, but I prefer to be with you until the end rather than regretting the end of our relationship while we are both still alive for eternity.”

  “You men always calculate. I simply felt it was the right thing to do. And now, run back to your lab, you have one more good reason to fix your drug!”

  She kicked him out of bed and went to take a shower.

  Chapter 23

  Skip Ross landed in San Francisco on the early afternoon flight from Washington, one rainy and foggy November day in 2015.

  He checked in at the Marriott Hotel, close to Union Square, and then waited in the lounge. He had been told he would receive instructions in due time for the evening dinner. While in the lounge, he went over the last points with the head of the surveillance squad. The squad was hired to discreetly watch his back and, more importantly, to record and find out all necessary information about the people he was about to meet.

  All he knew now, was that the dinner had been called by Charles Daniels, who had recently left Pfizer and set up his own company. Charles did mention that other important people would be present at the meeting, but he did not say anything more over the phone.

  At about 6:45 in the evening, the text message arrived. It contained the address of Danko’s, a restaurant close to Fisherman’s Wharf, on North Point Street. He had to be there in fifteen minutes, making a taxi the only option.

  As he hailed the first one down, he wondered how it was possible to organize such a meeting in a restaurant. Anyone could eavesdrop....or snap a picture with a smartphone. It all felt really unprofessional to Skip.

  The taxi pulled up in front of the restaurant, and Skip noticed that the parking spaces were tight. This meant the van of the surveillance squad would have to keep circling around the block. Maybe his hosts had not been completely all that careless in choosing the location. As soon as he walked in, Skip noticed that the restaurant was half empty and all the people at the tables were Asian. More precisely, they were all thirty-years-old Asian men dressed in dark suits. No one looked at him.

  The waiter promptly led him across the restaurant, to a curtain that hid the private reception rooms, where there were three people waiting for him. There was Charles Daniels at the end of the table, an Asian with the looks and manners of a wealthy man, and lastly, smiling and politely waving him to the place next to his, there was George McKilroy.

  They all shook hands. The Asian man introduced himself simply as Mr. Lee. Then Charles took the floor.

  “Skip, thanks for accepting the invitation. Before we start, can I ask you to send a text to your team outside that everything is fine and that they do not have to enter the restaurant?

  As you can see, we booked the place for the whole evening to keep unwelcome ears and eyes away. Once you send the text, the bodyguards of Mr. Lee, who are having dinner out there, will switch on their necessary means of protection to make sure our privacy is guaranteed. The dinner will last until nine in the evening. Mr. Lee is still suffering from jet lag and wishes to catch up on his sleep.”

  “Alright,” thought Skip, “you managed to create a secluded Chinese zone in Central San Francisco.” He waited for a moment and then sent the message. Mr. Lee acknowledged his action with a smile and gave a small nod towards a bodyguard by the curtain. As the intimidating man left, Skip glimpsed all the guards on the other side of the curtains reach for their phones. In a few seconds, his smartphone went black. Mr. Lee started to talk,

  “Let me also thank you for your availability, Mr. Ross. I fully understand that with a job like yours, it is not easy to make room in your agenda on such a short notice. However, the matters we have to discuss tonight are extremely urgent and relevant, for the security of our countries.”

  “As you may know, in the past we have introduced some changes - positive changes, I dare
say - in the drug market. I do not expect you to approve or even endorse this business, however in the past few months there have been some unwelcome intrusions which we must work together to stop.

  Our new competitors in the field, the Russians, made their way into the market by buying a distribution channel from our former partners in the Arab Emirates. They paid by giving the Emiratis unlimited access to weapons of mass destruction. All the evidence is stored here, for your experts to analyze.” He placed a memory card on the table. Then George jumped in.

  “Skip, I know you are biased towards our organization, but we realized that the Arabs and the Russians are going too far and we cannot simply take them out of the game with standard drug cartel rules. You know what I mean, the occasional street shoot out and what not. We need to show them that they have trespassed a line they should have respected.”

  “Hang on,” Skip interrupted. “I am getting lost in your unclear messages. What do you want me, or better, the United States to do? You want us to fix your drug cartel rivalries by bombing Russia or Dubai? Please tell me I got it wrong. Otherwise, give me a very good reason why I should do it.”

  Charles replied, for George.

  “Skip, the message is very simple. Mr. Lee and George are losing control of Telomerax production and distribution, to the benefit of the Russians and their Arab allies. Meanwhile, the Russians are feeding the Arabs with stockpiles of nerve gas and other biochemical weapons in exchange for the drug. This basically means that biological warfare arsenals are now growing virtually out of control, because we do not know to whom the Arabs may resell them.

  So here is the deal: Mr. Lee and George will re-engineer their manufacturing and distribution chain away from these unreliable partners, but they need your help to disrupt the existing one. In a way that nobody will ever try to organize something like this again, for fear of having the most powerful and resolute United States security agencies against them.”