“But even without artificial assistance, some genes in genetically modified foods, such as soy and wheat, have been documented to actually ‘jump’ to another organism such as bacteria. One study observed it happening in human digestive bacteria, which is why I chose that one.”
They still appeared to be with her. Lawton went on.
“I wanted to see if Clay’s plant had a similar ability, to ‘jump.’ Therefore, I extracted the chromosomal DNA I told you about and injected it directly into one of the bacterial cells.” She motioned with her hand to the on-screen picture behind her. “See Exhibit A.”
“And?”
“And it worked.”
“Impressive,” Clay said.
She shrugged. “Not so much. There are much more efficient ways to do it than my brute force technique. But bacteria are a single cell organism, so it’s not horribly difficult to do. Besides, I don’t know if ‘impressive’ is the word you’ll want to use when I tell you the next part.” She turned and retrieved a small petri dish from the table behind her. “This,” she said, presenting it in her palm, “is what it looked like two hours ago.”
They all peered into the clear dish which didn’t appear much different than water.
“Okay,” Lawton nodded briefly. She turned and set the dish down, while picking up another. “And this is what it looks like now.”
The others behind her let out a collective gasp. The dish no longer resembled water. Now it looked like a thick pink soup.
“What happened?” asked Krogstad.
“It grew, sir. A lot. These are all new bacteria, all from the one I transferred the plant’s genes into.” She reached into the dish and gently lifted an edge of the pink material with a fingertip. She let it drop back down into the dish for effect, complete with a squishing sound.
“All that in two hours?”
“Yep. Of course, given the right growing medium, bacteria can grow quickly. But not like this.”
Clay was still watching the dish. “I take it this is a result of the telomere not allowing them to die?”
“Actually, no,” Lawton replied. “It’s because of the other attribute, the rapid regeneration. I don’t know what piece of DNA code is responsible for that, but it’s in there somewhere.”
“Okay. So, you’re saying we have an HGT transfer from the plant to a bacteria.”
“A human bacteria,” Lawton corrected. “And now for the next part, and our problem.” She folded her arms and turned back to the screen. “Fortunately, human bacteria don’t transfer their genes into regular human cells. At least they didn’t until a couple years ago. That’s when a team of scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine published a report showing evidence that it does happen. They demonstrated that their bacteria can, on occasion, transfer its genes into healthy human cells.”
“On occasion,” Clay repeated curiously.
“Yes, in a small percentage of cases.”
“I sense a surprise coming.”
Lawton nodded. “You’re right.” She reached down and picked up the same pink colored petri dish again. “This is the surprise!”
“Oh, wow,” Borger mumbled.
Clay wasn’t following. “Will?”
Borger looked at Lawton then back to Clay. “It’s a numbers game, John.”
“A numbers game?”
“I think what Commander Lawton is saying is that given the normal speed at which bacteria replicates, their numbers still aren’t enough to matter against our trillions of other cells.” Borger motioned at the pink petri dish still in her hand. “But with a much faster replication rate, it could be a problem.”
“Exactly,” Lawton said. “Over time, with a faster replication and the bacteria cells no longer dying a timely death, they could theoretically go on to grow indefinitely. Which means, given enough time, even a DNA jump that only occasionally happens could still eventually infect every single cell in our bodies. In fact, it wouldn’t even need to get to every cell. It would only need to change a large enough number for the body to physiologically react to it. Or to absorb it.”
Clay eyed her curiously. “And how long would that take?”
“I’m not sure,” she shrugged. “Without the cells dying and given the compounding effect of accelerated replication, probably less than a year. But the point is that getting that plant’s DNA into human cells may be a lot easier to do than we thought. Especially if you were to use a friendlier strain of bacteria, like Bacillus Coagulans.”
“Given enough time,” said Clay.
“Exactly.”
“Damn,” Caesare folded his arms. “A guy can miss a lot in twenty-four hours.”
Lawton winked at him and shrugged. “Just the biggest biological find in history.”
Clay looked at Krogstad. “This is huge.” He then remembered something and asked Lawton, “So this is the problem you were talking about?”
“Not entirely,” she said.
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that if we know what these ‘plants’ of theirs can really do, then the Chinese must know it too.”
Alison shook her head. “I’m confused. Are the Chinese the only ones who have this organism?”
“Yes.”
Krogstad looked grimly at Clay. “And I have a feeling they’re not in a sharing mood.”
47
DeeAnn stroked Dulce’s trembling hand through the cage bars. The small gorilla was beginning to whimper. Dexter was still cornered in his own cage, shaking. With fingers gripped around the thin metal bars, he was frantically looking back and forth between the helicopter’s windows out to the blue sky beyond.
Alves watched the primates with interest but little concern. Behind him, Blanco was watching them all.
“I hope this is worth it,” DeeAnn said, in a snide tone.
It took a moment for Alves to respond, as if deciding whether he felt like it. “I hope so too.”
“I knew you couldn’t be trusted.”
Alves grinned wryly. “And yet you did.”
“Because I was stupid.”
“Agreed.” Alves tilted his head. “By the way, I know about your romantic relationship with Luke Greenwood.” His tone was mocking. “A woman, still in love, coming to save her man. Very romantic.”
“Go to hell.”
He was still grinning but took a deep breath. “Hopefully not for a very long time.”
“So, I guess your plan is to just fly up into the jungle to find out what makes Dexter so old. Just like that.”
He stared at her. “Ms. Draper, do you know what the ultimate irony is?”
She didn’t respond.
“It’s being rich.”
She displayed a puzzled look but still didn’t reply.
“The greatest desire, as it turns out, is also the greatest irony of all: to be rich. To have more money than you will ever need. The irony is that shortly after becoming rich, you realize that what you really need, what everyone needs, is time. You see, a rich person doesn’t want to die, but plenty of poor people do. Sure, there are exceptions, but there is much more suffering on the bottom than on the top. After all, when you have the means to be king, who would ever want it to end? The answer is no one.”
“So you want to live forever.”
Alves laughed. “Oh, please! Don’t be trite. It doesn’t become you. You are still a woman of considerable intelligence, mostly.” He glanced out one of the side windows. “Even pragmatists can dream, no? We just dream, realistically. No, Ms. Draper. I don’t harbor any silly fantasies about living forever, but I most certainly do pursue those things that may extend my health. And health is time. Would you believe me if I told you I was eight-three years old?”
The surprise on her face was obvious.
“I didn’t think so. You see, there are many things we can do to extend our health. Some easy, some hard. And some more than a little strange. I’ve done them all, and still do many of them today. Do you know why?”
He leaned forward when she didn’t answer. “Because one must be ready. Ready for even the briefest of opportunities. A real opportunity.”
“You mean like Dexter.”
“Yes. Like Dexter.” He looked down at the frightened monkey. “Just as in business, you must be prepared for any opportunity that presents itself, no matter how short or unorthodox. Because death can come at any moment, from a thousand different directions. A sudden heart attack, a fall,” he said, spreading his hands, “even a helicopter accident. Life is unpredictable, but opportunity favors the prepared.”
“And the rich.”
Alves smiled. “Being prepared with means, no doubt improves one’s odds.”
“Maybe you should just think about living a life that’s worth living?”
“Ah, the ethical choice,” he mused. “The golden rule, live as you want to be remembered, leave the world a better place.” He laughed again. “All sage advice, from the belly of mediocrity. No doubt you have many friends living by such a noble ethos, yes?”
She glared at him. “Luke was one.”
The humor dropped from Alves’ face. “Yes, I suppose he was. Then again, maybe he wasn’t.”
DeeAnn’s eyes narrowed, questioningly.
“Did it ever occur to you, Ms. Draper, that your precious Luke was driven by motivations that were more…human?”
“No.”
Alves sighed. “I marvel at how one-dimensional your mind is. Luke Greenwood spent his life rescuing poor, abused animals from nasty people. People like me, perhaps. He was a hero. A man of the earth!” Alves shook his head. “Tell me. What do you think he enjoyed more, rescuing those poor animals or hurting the evil abusers?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Ah, there’s the single dimension again. What is the difference, indeed? Revenge, regardless of whom you deliver it upon, is still a human trait, is it not?”
DeeAnn answered reluctantly. “I suppose.”
“Of course it is. So then I ask you; if your dear Luke were getting more pleasure from hurting those who are evil, how virtuous would his fundamental motivation truly be?”
DeeAnn quietly brushed a dangling strand of hair back over her ear.
“I have news for you, Ms. Draper. Human beings are motivated by their own interests and nothing more. Of course, we can all paint a different agenda or insist we act under a more noble value system, but in the end, all of our actions are self-motivated. No matter how small or how slight.” He gestured to Dulce. “And it’s the same with your animals.”
“So then you’re saying, why fight it?’”
Alves smiled broadly. “Why indeed.”
“And your self-interest now is to find out how Dexter has lived so long and to find a way to copy it.”
“We can only hope.”
“So, all of this, all of this deception and deceit, was just so you could eventually go live like a monkey?” She scoffed. “Knock yourself out. I’m only doing this for Juan.”
This time Alves didn’t answer. He merely shrugged. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter to him why she was doing it or how she had to rationalize it to herself. The simple truth was that when it was over, neither Juan Diaz or DeeAnn Draper would ever be seen again.
When Caesare reached the Georgetown airport, the Grumman C-2 Greyhound transport plane was waiting for him on the tarmac. First built in 1966, the silver-colored, twin-engine C-2s were used by the Navy for various cargo missions and had flown millions of miles. And of the thousands of missions flown, the aircraft’s primary and most respected missions were delivering pieces of paper to aircraft carriers. Papers in the form of letters. Yet now with the digital age, the old C-2s flew far less often.
Caesare sprinted across the hot tarmac toward the plane. His large bag bobbed up and down as he ran, strapped tightly across his back. The various gear inside, particularly the rifle and ammunition, weighed him down considerably.
He reached the C-2 and, with a short leap, jumped through the lower positioned door. A crew member nodded then looked outside before pulling the heavy metal door shut. He gave the okay to the pilots. As the engines roared to life, he yelled over the noise to Caesare.
“Make yourself comfortable, sir!”
In his black fatigues, Caesare nodded and looked around. With no place to sit, he simply removed his bag and fell backward onto the dozens of oversized, stuffed mailbags.
48
Less than ten miles away, aboard the corvette, Lieutenant Wang Chao watched over the shoulder of Hoa Ling, his lead biologist. Like Chao, Ling had been handpicked by General Wei, as were the other four members of Ling’s team. They were the best in China, and probably in all of Asia. And if any of them were bothered by their extreme working conditions below deck, none showed it.
What the Americans didn’t know was that their ship wasn’t much of a corvette class at all, at least not anymore. Below deck, it had been completely gutted. Virtually all armaments and weaponry systems had been replaced with a science lab and even larger storage area. The only parts that had been kept were those that ensured the ship would float. Even the living quarters were reduced to the point of sheer necessity. With a minimal crew and science team, the gutting was the only thing that made it possible to store five weeks of extraction efforts in the cool, dark recesses of the boat’s bow. Chao’s ship was a corvette in appearance only.
Standing before both of them was a giant machine called a nanoscale magnetic torque transducer. Or as Ling’s team called it, the ‘nano-mag.’ It was required for the painstaking process in molecular biology referred to as transduction. In 1951, researchers in Wisconsin demonstrated the process of using a common virus to elicit an enzyme reaction, which then allowed for the DNA in one cell to be replicated or ‘cloned’ to another. And while the process had been honed over the years for better efficiency, the fundamental steps were surprisingly similar to those first steps documented over fifty years before.
Ling removed a small vial of clear liquid from the machine and screwed on the top. He then placed it into a thin, rectangular box next to him, which held two more vials. The inside lining of the box was ice cold, constructed specifically to house the vials at a near zero temperature during transit. Ling closed the lid and secured the clasp before presenting the box to Chao.
“They’re ready.”
Chao took the box and examined it, impressed. The exterior did not feel any noticeably cooler to the touch. What he held in his hands was the first complete extraction of the plant’s genome and biological material. The vials were filled with thousands of bacteria cells, all painstakingly injected with the plant’s chromosomal DNA through transduction. The cells were held dormant by the ice cold medium inside. Only above temperatures of thirty degrees Fahrenheit would they thaw and become active.
Chao went to a nearby station and wrapped a thick metal band around the box. Next to it, he wrapped another band of thick paper, with an intricate wax seal. If the box were opened, the recipient would know it. Of course, it was overkill in Chao’s opinion. After all, there would only be four people who touched the box, including Ling and Chao.
Chao immediately left the lab and carried the package up the metal ladder. He emerged from the ship and onto the deck. He then crossed the gangway where a soldier was waiting at attention. Another lieutenant, and one of impeccable reputation.
The man saluted to Chao, who returned it before handing the box to him. There were no misunderstandings. Either the man delivered the box personally, or he and his entire family had better already be dead.
Chao watched the man walk briskly to the truck and climb in. Would he make it? Chao wondered. Then another thought occurred to him. Did he even care?
Chao was also selected personally by General Wei but for a very different reason. Chao was ruthless. And ruthless in ways that literally redefined the word.
He’d served under the General before, and his reputation became well-known after one of their incursions. Aft
er a particularly nasty battle, Chao’s team had won the fight. But what he had done to enemy survivors left his entire platoon in disbelief.
But he was here now. Chao had been tapped again by Wei to get a job done, and to get it done without any emotional interference. What it really meant was to do it without any emotional baggage.
Oddly, Chao had always found the whole thing puzzling, if not entertaining. Being able to completely distance yourself from human emotion was an asset, not a liability. After all, how many commanding officers were willing to kill their own men?
Chao watched the small truck disappear to the east and turned to watch three of his Typhoons pull up. He climbed a small weeded slope to reach a dirt plateau where the trucks had stopped. He walked around to the back of the first truck while the driver eagerly got out and ran back to meet him. The driver inserted a key and opened the heavy door.
Inside, he could see them. Their dull green tanks were still barely visible within the truck’s darkened interior. Chao stepped inside and examined one. The harness was old and the straps frayed. Not surprising, given they hadn’t been used since the Vietnam War. Most countries had discontinued their use or even banned them outright. Of course, they were always a contingency, but Chao never expected to have to use them, and certainly not this soon. Yet, in the end, a plan that remained flexible was a plan that won.
Chao browsed the dozens of additional tanks stacked neatly behind each backpack. Each was filled with liquid propane. They were called ‘mechanical incendiary devices’ but they were known the world over by a more distinct name: flamethrowers.
The best and most ironic part was the original manufacturer: the United States military.
Twenty minutes later, Chao tossed a large bag onto the seat then climbed into the cab of the first truck. He gave the order to move out.
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