Prizes

by Erich Segal

  “Are you sure?” he asked with a slight grin.

  “You don’t seem like a hara-kiri type to me. And what university would want you after Isabel’s essay blows you out of the water?”

  “I think I’ll survive, Ray,” Pracht allowed quietly, with a look of disdain.

  “You mean MIT would still want you?” Ray asked bluntly.

  Fed up with this pussyfooting around, the professor lost his temper, rose quickly, reached into his middle drawer, pulled out a letter and slapped it onto the table.

  “Read this, you sick bastard. It’s my appointment at MIT as of July first, 1988—no strings attached. That means if I forget how much two and two are between now and then, I’ll still be the Winthrop Professor of Physics.”

  “A pretty empty title when Isabel’s paper comes out, don’t you think?”

  Pracht did not comment. Ray was sure he had him cornered. He played his trump card. “Listen, Karl, I’m willing to make a deal.”

  “A ‘deal’?” Pracht’s tone was more curious than offended. “Who gets what?”

  “You get six months’ grace …” Ray began.

  “And you?”

  “We get rid of your cub when you take him to Boston.”

  “No way. Besides, why should I disturb his life? Jerry’s his own man, and seems to be finding his way out here. He’s got a good job and a good coaching relationship with Paco. I feel bad enough that I messed up his childhood with my academic bullying. I’m not about to make the same mistake again.” Pracht then added, with a tone of contempt, “Anyway, I’d never do anything like that for you.”

  “But you might do it for yourself,” Ray responded sarcastically. “My deal is still on the table. He goes to Boston with you, and you get another six months on the top rung of the profession. Now, what do you think?”

  Pracht studied Ray’s expression like an ornithologist looking at an odd bird.

  “Mister, what I think is that you belong in a loony bin. I only hope some day Isabel discovers what a creep you are.”

  “You’re ducking the question,” Raymond continued aggressively. “Do we have a deal or not?”

  For a split second there was silence, during which Pracht’s gaze burned into Raymond’s brain. “No, sir, we do not.”

  “Did I hear you right?” Ray demanded with astonishment.

  “I think so. And since that winds up all we have to say to one another, I’d be grateful if you’d get the hell out of my office.”

  Ray regathered his forces and repeated his menace. “Okay, buster. I’m going to personally fax Isabel’s data to every major scientific publication in the world. You can’t possibly have a lock on everyone. Some editor somewhere will realize that it’s solid gold and print it immediately.”

  By now Pracht had grown sick and tired of this fencing. “Don’t waste your money, da Costa. It’ll only make you more of a laughingstock than you already are. For your information, the minute I saw her calculations I called up Dudley Evans, the editor of The Physical Review. He accepted Isabel’s paper on my word alone.”

  Raymond was speechless.

  “You see,” the professor explained, “the first concern of a real physicist is to learn more about the universe. It’s great if he can be a pioneer in discovering new knowledge, but that’s secondary. The point is, we’re all richer for what Isabel has done,” Karl Pracht stated passionately, “even you—you selfish, bungling bastard.”

  39

  ADAM

  Fortunately, there was one financial resource that Adam had not reckoned on. Anya’s modest salary as a lab employee suddenly gained significance. Moreover, thanks to Dmitri’s perverse “generosity,” they had a roof over their heads. Leaky, but a roof nonetheless.

  Still, for Adam the emotional compensation more than justified his financial loss. Now he could be with Anya openly, walk over to her station in the lab at any time and give her a hug.

  He had always known that she was intelligent, but now he could appreciate her scientific acumen to the fullest. And whatever she had not absorbed from her omnivorous reading, he could fill in.

  Heather was their house guest the next weekend. For some inexplicable reason, she adored their rickety apartment and enjoyed sleeping on the new convertible sofa they had purchased to replace the sagging couch.

  She had liked Anya instantly. Among other things, Anya had an unerring instinct for talking to younger people. Far from making Heather feel like a child, she soon had her feeling like a friend and equal.

  “Your father’s a great teacher,” Anya enthused to Heather.

  “No,” he told his daughter, “Anya’s a great pupil.”

  Heather laughed. “Well, at least you both agree that the other’s ‘great.’ ”

  There was something satisfying—even reassuring—to Heather in the way her father and Anya so obviously cared for one another.

  “I was just thinking,” Heather offered. “Wouldn’t it be amazing if I could move in with you guys? Can you imagine how I’d do in my science homework?”

  Adam smiled warmly. “Well, honey, you know how Anya feels. And how hard I’ve tried.”

  “Yeah,” Heather acknowledged, unable to mask her disappointment. “Do you think maybe the court would reconsider if you were married?”

  Anya turned to Adam, her eyes sparkling. “Did you put her up to saying that?”

  “Not at all, darling. You know Heather well enough to realize that nobody puts words into her mouth.”

  “Absolutely,” his daughter concurred. “And speaking as a Boston bluestocking, I want to express my official disapproval of your unofficial shacking up. In fact, I was going to ask you for a CD player for my birthday. But I’ll drop that request and settle for a quiet wedding.”

  At this point Adam addressed Anya melodramatically. “Darling, for the sake of my daughter’s sensitive psyche, would you consider marrying me?”

  She smiled happily. “Yes, my love, I’ll think about it.”

  “When will you make up your mind?” Heather asked enthusiastically.

  “Now. I’ve thought about it. And I will.”

  But the honeymoon would have to wait, for professionally they were making progress at a feverish pace. Other medical centers throughout the world had been helping them by running identical trials on similarly afflicted women. Results were now beginning to come in from the larger scale studies in Minnesota, Bonn, and at the University of Nice. These statistics were so astonishingly alike that, in his wildest dreams, Adam would never have dared to imagine them.

  Oh Christ, Max, he thought, I wish you could have lived to see these printouts. The trials selected women who had had five or more unexplained miscarriages in the first trimester of pregnancy and divided them into groups. In subsequent pregnancies, one-third were treated with cortisone. Another third were given large doses of natural progesterone in vaginal suppositories, with the rest merely used as controls.

  To the elation of Adam and his team, more than seventy-five percent of groups A and B carried their babies successfully to term. This meant that, if he could convince the medical community, doctors would be able to replace steroid treatment with natural progesterone and risk far fewer side effects.

  Now the scouts for the pharmaceutical companies caught wind of the profit potential in Adam’s work and approached him. Clarke-Albertson, the most enthusiastic of them, was anxious to buy into his research.

  After wining and dining the two Coopersmiths at the Colonnade, their vice-president for public relations, Prescott Mason, a patricianly tweeded Boston Brahmin with an upper-class accent, was somewhat nonplused to find Anya the reluctant party.

  “With due respect, Mr. Mason,” she argued, “I personally can’t see a reason for making a pharmaceutical commitment now. Adam’s pretty well fixed to do his work. We not only have research money from the Harvard endowment, but NIH has responded generously to our proposals.”

  “All the more reason to let us on board—I mean, for your own pro
tection,” Prescott Mason countered. “It’s pretty certain they’re backing a winning horse. And my company has always seen to it that the jockeys get their share of the purse.”

  He turned deliberately to Adam and remarked, “A little extra pocket money never hurt anybody, did it, Dr. Coopersmith?”

  Adam wondered whether this was mere salesman’s banter or if Mason had done his research and was making a thinly veiled allusion to his punishing monthly matrimonial debt.

  Clarke-Albertson’s man was a trained scientist and could discourse on every potential use that might arise from Adam’s research.

  “Our people are not only interested in the cure you’re searching for, but the exact identity of the villain. Imagine what benefits could accrue if we ever reproduced the antibody you’re trying to tame. I mean, right now, the women you’re treating object to the negative effects it has on their pregnancies.

  “To look at it from the opposite perspective, it could be the perfect medium for birth control. I mean, there’s been such a fuss because the French RU-486 is, technically speaking, an early abortion pill. But since your ultimate product is a natural hormone, the fact that it can also prevent conception would pose no moral dilemma at all.”

  “That’s a good point, Mr. Mason,” Anya interposed, “I can imagine a range of possibilities in developing countries with population problems—India, for example.”

  “Quite,” Mason agreed, unable to evince much enthusiasm for the profit potential from a third-world country.

  But then, in a cadenza to his pitch, he added, “And, of course, there’s the ultimate side effect. If your research succeeds, you will inevitably attract the attention of the Swedish Academy.”

  Anya’s face was glowing as she turned to her husband. “Haven’t I always told you that, darling?”

  “Come on, it’s a real rat race,” Adam protested.

  “I agree,” the executive said, “but Clarke-Albertson not only has resources to subsidize and ultimately market your work, we’ve also got plenty of influence in the Nobel situation. Actually, we’ve already stage-managed two prizes—and one near-miss. The fellow died on me.

  “I’m surprised,” Anya commented, “I’d have thought that was the last morally unspoiled domain.”

  “Oh, let me assure you,” Mason responded. “They don’t give the award to undeserving people. They’ll pick you sooner or later. But wouldn’t it be nice if the recognition came sooner?”

  “Mr. Mason, there’s something I want you to understand,” Adam responded. “I am—quite literally—the heir to a wealth of research and insight that should have brought Max Rudolph the Nobel. Frankly, if recognition came ‘sooner,’ there’d be a better chance that his wife would be around to see it.”

  “I hope, if anything, that strengthens our appeal to you,” Mason commented.

  “Let me be absolutely candid with you, Mr. Mason. There’s only one appeal to me in any of this—time. This is one instance in which money can buy time, and that’s the one thing I can’t give my patients. They need answers as soon as possible, and if what you’re proposing brings them even a day closer, then I’m morally bound to accept the best offer possible.”

  “I appreciate that, Dr. Coopersmith,” Mason said with genuine admiration. He quickly added, “Only promise me that if any of our competitors get to you with something concrete, you’ll give us a chance to beat it.”

  They sat up for the rest of the night discussing the matter. They quickly realized that the opportunity was too attractive to let pass.

  “Adam, let me speak as a woman for a moment,” Anya said with emotion. “This cure couldn’t help me, but I know how others would feel. Right now they’re walking around thinking themselves inadequate, with their own personal rain clouds darkening their lives.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “A lot of my patients are in their early forties—which is adding to the agony. For their sake, we shouldn’t keep him waiting. I think we’d be derelict not to say yes right away.”

  Adam refrained from telling her how much he had been moved by her altruism. He still regretted that he could do nothing to help her own pain. Perhaps she would take some consolation from helping others.

  The next morning he phoned Prescott Mason. Who, in turn, phoned his legal department. Who, in turn, phoned Harvard’s legal department. And at the end of politely tenacious bargaining, each side came out thinking that its deal had bettered the other.

  Now, in a very literal sense, Adam and Anya were in business.

  40

  ADAM

  Adam and Anya Coopersmith had become relentless hunters in the dark jungle of the immune system, and slowly but surely they were nearing their prey. Somewhere, among the benign and benevolent cells that whirled through the body, lurked a secret predator whose sole savage purpose was the destruction of the human fetus growing peacefully inside the womb.

  It was the final act, and, in true Agatha Christie fashion, the killer was about to be exposed. Thus far it had left certain clues. But the evidence was merely circumstantial and not sufficient to make a definitive identification.

  Moreover, to further complicate the plot, the interferons—three clusters of proteins code-named somewhat unimaginatively alpha, beta, and gamma—were like an army that guarded against viruses. The alpha squad was produced by white blood cells; the beta, by cells of connective and other tissues; and the gamma, by T-lymphocytes, which are the natural killer cells in the normal immune response against disease-causing viruses.

  Here the skills of chemist Giancarlo Pisani came into play. And together, in assay after assay, sometimes painstakingly changing the parameters by a mere .01 percent, they were seeking traces of the invisible. A hint of a shape. Anything distinctive that could be placed on a laboratory Wanted poster.

  After testing with various pore sizes, they established the molecular weight of the unidentified killer at between ten and thirty thousand kilodaltons.

  Coincidentally, the same as gamma interferon.

  They put the mystery substance through more elaborate tests, including an affinity column containing microscopic plastic beads coupled with antibodies to the suspected toxin. After passage through the column, toxic activity was removed from the solution and bound by the bead, again suggesting that gamma interferon was the culprit.

  A final series of multimedia investigations left no further doubt: gamma interferon was indeed a double agent—immensely useful against many diseases, but lethal for healthy pregnancies.

  The question now was how to destroy the would-be enemy while preserving the victim it tenaciously stalked.

  It was doubly appropriate that the breakthrough should occur on their anniversary. They were hard at work in the lab, testing Anya’s hypothesis that there might be a very subtle structural rearrangement of the specific atoms comprising the gamma molecule in the reproductive area.

  With the help of crystallographer Simon Hillman, they visualized the conventional molecule on a 3-D video screen and superimposed it on fetal tissue.

  Wearily pressing the enter key on her computer, Anya glanced perfunctorily at the screen, which she expected to show her bleary eyes yet another near-miss.

  What she saw, however, made her blink into focus, move closer to the screen and finally let out a squeal.

  Adam, who was just unpacking their millionth Chinese takeout, dropped the carton and ran over, thinking perhaps she had hurt herself.

  “Look, Adam. Look.”

  He just stared at the screen. His jaw dropped.

  “Jesus Christ,” he murmured. “You were right. I never thought I’d live to see this moment. The receptor molecules are different—subtly different—but enough to cause all the damage we’ve been trying to prevent.”

  She nodded mutely.

  He was dizzy. “After all this time, I’m suddenly at a loss for something to do.”

  Anya beamed. “We just wait for the ultimate scientific reaction—the telegram from Stockholm.”

  Th
e final step was almost anticlimactic. It would be a matter of pharmacological trial and error to develop a receptor uniquely designed to protect nature’s treasured prize.

  At this point the pair recruited every team in the lab, ordering that all other research be tabled so that the finish line could be reached at the greatest possible speed.

  By late fall they had created a drug—dubbed MR-Alpha to commemorate the still-vivid memory of the man who had started Adam on this quest so long ago.

  Clarke-Albertson put the drug on their fastest track for commercial development and FDA sanction, while Adam’s and Anya’s moods oscillated between ecstasy and frustration.

  “How long does it take to get government approval?” Anya asked.

  “That depends on the circumstances,” Adam replied, thinking briefly of a moment long ago when he had helped administer an unapproved drug to save the life of a man who was now his sworn enemy, and whose threatened vengeance still hung over him like the sword of Damocles.

  “Approval can take two months or two years,” Prescott Mason commented.

  “Well,” Adam warned, “if they don’t make it snappy, I’m gonna pull a John Rock.”

  “Who is this ‘Rock’ person?” Anya asked.

  “He’s a legend, and the story’s absolutely true,” Adam replied. “He was a central figure in the creation of the first oral contraceptive, which he duly submitted for FDA approval. But after a while he grew impatient with the bureaucratic road blocks. So one morning he simply showed up at the agency’s headquarters and announced to the receptionist that he had come to receive approval for his pill.

  “After she made a number of nervous phone calls, she politely explained to Rock that he would be hearing from the agency very soon. The good doctor chose to interpret this literally. So he sat down on a little chair, pulled out a sandwich and said, ‘In that case, I’ll just wait.’ I guess it was the first sit-in in the history of the FDA.”