Mount Dragon (26 page)

“I can't open it myself,” Levine said. “GeneDyne has sued my foundation for two hundred million dollars in an effort to silence me. Someone else must do it.”

The envelope sat on the table, cameras focused upon it. Sanchez swiveled in his chair, gazing back and forth between the panelists.

Court reached over and snatched it up. “If no one else has the courage to open it, I will.”

Good old Theresa
, thought Levine; he knew she could not resist the opportunity to play a role in the drama.

Inside the envelope was a single sheet of white paper, containing a message in a simple, sober-looking typeface.

Court read the document aloud, stopping several times to look incredulously at Levine. As she finished, Sanchez swiveled his chair toward Finley Squires.

“Any comment?” he asked.

“Why would I comment?” Squires said irritably. “I have nothing whatsoever to do with GeneDyne.”

“Shall we open the first envelope?” Sanchez said, a faint but wicked smile appearing on his cadaverous face.

“Be my guest,” said Squires. “Whatever's inside will undoubtedly be a forgery.”

Sanchez picked up the envelope. “Theresa, you seem to be the one with the guts around here,” he said, handing it to her.

She ripped it open. Inside was a computer printout indicating that the sum of $265,000 had been wired from GeneDyne Hong Kong to a numbered account at the Rigel Bancorp, Netherlands Antilles.

“There's no name on this account,” said Sanchez, looking closer.

“Hold the second page up to the cameras,” said Levine.

The second page was fuzzy but readable. It was a screen print, covertly seized from a live image on a computer terminal by an expensive and prohibited device. The screen contained wiring instructions from Finley Squires regarding an account at the Rigel Bancorp, Netherland Antilles. The account had the same number.

There was a chill silence, and Sanchez wrapped the segment, thanking the participants and asking the audience at home to stay tuned for Barrold Leighton.

The moment the cameras shut off, Squires stood up. “This charade will be met with massive legal reply,” he said tersely, and strode off the set.

Sanchez swiveled toward Levine, his lips pursed appraisingly. “Cute act,” he said. “I hope for your sake you can back it up.”

Levine merely smiled.

Returning to his lab after retrieving some test results from Pathology, Carson moved awkwardly through the narrow crawl spaces of the Fever Tank. It was after six, and the facility was almost empty. De Vaca had left hours earlier to run some enzyme tests in the computer lab; it was time to close up shop and make the long slow trek toward the surface. But much as he hated the tight spaces of the Fever Tank, Carson found himself in no hurry to leave. He'd lost his dinner partners: Vanderwagon was gone, of course, and Harper would be in the infirmary for another day.

At the lab hatchway, he stopped short. A strange bluesuit was in his lab, poking around his worktable, turning over objects. Carson punched the intercom button on the sleeve of his suit. “Looking for something?” he asked.

The suit straightened up and swiveled toward him, and the painfully sunburnt face of Gilbert Teece came into view through the faceplate.

“Dr. Carson! How nice to make your acquaintance. I wonder if I could have a few words with you.” The figure extended its hand.

“Why not,” Carson said, feeling foolish as he shook the inspector's hand through several layers of rubber. “Have a seat.”

The figure looked around. “I still haven't figured out how to do that while wearing this bloody suit.”

“I guess you'll have to stand, then,” said Carson, moving forward and taking a seat at the worktable.

“Just so,” said Teece. “It's quite an honor, you know, speaking to the descendant of Kit Carson.”

“Nobody else seems to think so,” Carson said.

“You have your own modesty to thank for that,” Teece said. “I don't think many people around here know. It's in your personnel file, of course. Mr. Scopes seemed very taken with the historical irony of it.” Teece paused. “Quite a fascinating character, your Mr. Scopes.”

“He's brilliant.” Carson looked appraisingly at the investigator. “Why did you ask that question about Brandon-Smith's autopsy back in the conference room?”

There was a brief silence. Then Carson heard Teece's laughter crackling over the speaker in his headset. “You practically grew up among the Apache Indians, right? Then you may know one of their ancient sayings: ‘Some questions are longer than others.' That question I asked in the conference room was very long.” He smiled. “But you're a relatively recent arrival, and it was not aimed at you. I'd rather we talked about Mr. Vanderwagon for a moment.” He caught Carson's grimace. “Yes, I know. Terrible doings. Did you know him well?”

“After I arrived here, we became fairly good friends.”

“What was he like?”

“He was from Connecticut. Very preppie, but I liked him. Underneath that serious exterior he had a wicked sense of humor.”

“Did you notice anything unusual prior to the incident in the dining room? Any strange behavior? Personality changes?”

Carson shrugged. “This last week, he seemed preoccupied, withdrawn. You'd speak to him and he wouldn't answer. I didn't think much about it, really, because we were all in shock after what happened. Besides, people often act a little strange around this place. The level of tension is unbelievable. Everyone calls it Mount Dragon fever. Like cabin fever, only worse.”

Teece chuckled. “I'm feeling a bit of that myself.”

“After what happened, Andrew was publicly reprimanded by Brent. I think he took it pretty hard.”

Teece nodded. “If thy right eye offends thee,” he murmured. “According to the tapes I watched, Scopes quoted that to Vanderwagon during his dressing-down in the conference room. Still, poking one's eye out is a rather extreme reaction to stress, in my book. What did Cornwall say in
King Lear
: ‘Out, vile jelly. Where is thy lustre now?'”

Carson was silent.

“Do you know anything about Vanderwagon's past history at GeneDyne?” Teece asked.

“I know he was brilliant, very highly thought of. This was his second tour here. University of Chicago grad. But you must know all this.”

“Did he speak to you about any troubles? Any worries?”

“None. Except the usual complaints about the isolation. He was a great skier, and there obviously isn't any skiing around here, so he used to complain about that. He was pretty liberal, and he and Harper used to argue politics a lot.”

“Did he have a girlfriend?”

Carson thought a moment. “He did mention someone. Lucy, I think. She lives in Vermont.” He shifted in the chair. “Look, where have they taken him, anyway? Have you learned anything yet?”

“He's undergoing tests. So far, we know very little. It's very difficult here, with no open phones to the outside. But already there are some perplexing developments, which I'd ask you to keep to yourself for the time being.”

Carson nodded.

“Preliminary tests show Vanderwagon suffering from unusual medical problems: overly permeable capillaries and elevated levels of dopamine and serotonin in the brain.”

“Permeable capillaries?”

“Leaky blood vessels. Somehow, a small percentage of his blood cells have disintegrated, releasing hemoglobin. This hemoglobin has leaked out of his capillaries and into various parts of his body. Naked hemoglobin, as you may know, is poisonous to human tissues.”

“Did that contribute to his breakdown?”

“It's too early to say,” Teece replied. “The elevated levels of dopamine, however, are very significant. What do you know about dopamine? Serotonin?”

“Not much. They're neurotransmitters.”

“Correct. At normal levels, there's no problem. However, too much of either in the brain would dramatically affect human behavior. Paranoid schizophrenics have elevated levels of dopamine. LSD trips are caused by a temporary increase in the same neurotransmitter.”

“What are you saying?” Carson asked. “That Andrew has elevated levels of these neurotransmitters in his brain because he's crazy?”

“Perhaps,” Teece replied. “Or vice versa. But there really isn't any point in speculating until we know more. Let's move on to my original purpose here, and talk about this X-FLU strain you're working on. Perhaps you can tell me how, while you thought you were neutralizing the virus, you instead managed to make it more deadly.”

“God, if I could answer that question…” Carson paused. “We don't really understand yet how X-FLU does its dirty work. When you recombine genes, you never really know what will happen. Suites of genes work together in complicated ways, and removing one or putting a new one into the mix often causes unexpected effects. In some ways, it's like an incredibly complex computer program that nobody fully understands. You never know what might happen if you plug in strange data or change a line of code. Nothing might happen. Or it might work better. Or the whole program might crash.” He had the vague realization that he was being more frank with this OSHA investigator than Brent Scopes might like. But Teece was sharp; there was no point dissembling.

“Why not use a less dangerous virus as a vehicle for the X-FLU gene?” asked Teece.

“That's difficult to explain. You must know that the body is composed of two types of cells: somatic cells and germ cells. In order for X-FLU to be a permanent cure—one that would be passed on to descendants—we have to insert the DNA into germ-line cells. Somatic cells won't do. The X-FLU host virus is uniquely capable of infecting human germ cells.”

“What about the ethics of altering germ cells? Of introducing new genes into the human species? Has there been any discussion of that at Mount Dragon?”

Carson wondered why this subject kept coming up. “Look,” he said, “we're making the tiniest change imaginable: inserting a gene only a few hundred base pairs long. It will make human beings immune to the flu. There's nothing immoral in that.”

“But didn't you just say that making a small change in one gene can have unexpected results?”

Carson stood up impatiently. “Of course! But that's what phased testing is all about—looking for unexpected side effects. This gene therapy will have to go through a whole gamut of expensive tests, costing GeneDyne millions of dollars.”

“Testing on human beings?”

“Of course. You start with in vitro and animal tests. In the alpha phase you use a small group of human volunteers. The beta phase is larger. The tests will be done using an out-group monitored by GeneDyne. Everything is done with excruciating care. You know all this as well as I do.”

Teece nodded. “Forgive me for dwelling on the subject, Dr. Carson. But if there are ‘unexpected side effects,' wouldn't you be perpetuating these side effects in the human race if you introduce the X-FLU gene into the germ cells of even a few people? Creating, perhaps, a new genetic disease? Or a race of people different from the rest of humanity? Remember, it took just a single mutation in one person—
one person
—to introduce the hemophilia gene into the race. Now, there are countless thousands of hemophiliacs across the world.”

“GeneDyne would never have spent almost half a billion dollars without working out the details,” Carson snapped, uncertain why he was feeling so defensive. “You're not dealing with a start-up company here.” He walked around the side of his worktable to face the investigator. “My job is to neutralize the virus. And believe me, that's more than enough. What they do with it once it's neutralized is not my concern. There are suffocating government regulations covering every inch of this problem. You, of all people, should know that. You probably wrote half the damn regulations yourself.”

Three tones chimed in his headset. “We've got to leave,” Carson said. “They're doing an early decontamination sweep tonight.”