by James Barney
At 8:00 A.M., six of the distinguished guests were assembled in the mansion’s oval dining room, whose curved wall of plate-glass windows framed a view of the sparkling turquoise sea below. They sat in high-back chairs surrounding an ornate, eighteenth-century mahogany table from the British colonial period, a time of sugar plantations, rum wars, and pirates.
Outside, the twin limestone formations for which the house was named stretched out into the sea for several hundred yards, hooking toward each other at the end to form a tiny, secluded harbor where pirates once moored their sailing ships and buried their loot onshore. They called these black rocks Los Brazos del Diablo—“the Devil’s Arms”—mainly as a ploy to keep others away.
“Gentlemen,” said a tall, elegant, white-haired man who had just entered the room. “Welcome to Casa de Las Rocas.” He was Guillermo de Juan Ignacio Gomez, a Mexican billionaire, and one of the richest men in the world. His snowy hair contrasted strikingly with his smooth, bronzed skin. He wore a beautifully embroidered white silk shirt, white pants, and handmade Italian sandals.
Gomez had amassed his original fortune in the early 1970s, when he’d built one of the most sophisticated drug-smuggling operations in the western hemisphere, trafficking marijuana and cocaine from Mexico into the United States. For the past five years, however, Gomez had been strictly legit, investing his sizable fortune in a string of successful resort properties on both coasts of Mexico, off Florida, in the Caribbean, and more recently in Central America. He was now a well-respected real-estate tycoon.
“Señor Wu,” Gomez said warmly to the man seated nearest to him. He shook the Chinese man’s hand and patted his shoulder familiarly. “I am honored by your presence.”
Jin Shan Wu bowed his head slightly without smiling. He was a shipping magnate from Shanghai—one of China’s new billionaires and, like Gomez, one of the richest men in the world.
Gomez worked his way around the table in similar fashion, greeting each guest warmly and with the utmost respect.
“Señor Haryadi,” he said to Eswara Haryadi, owner of the largest steel company in India and also one of the richest men in the world. “Welcome, my friend.” Haryadi nodded and smiled.
“Señor Nazarov,” he said to Aleksei Nazarov, an oil baron from Russia, “I hope your long flight was not too uncomfortable.”
Nazarov shook Gomez’s hand enthusiastically and smiled. “It was very comfortable, thank you.”
“Señor Glick,” Gomez said, putting his arm around the shoulders of Roger Glick, CEO of WestPharma Corporation, “a pleasure to meet you.” Glick nodded and flashed a courteous business smile. Glick was the only person at the table who was not a billionaire, although his personal fortune did measure in the neighborhood of 150 million dollars, depending on the daily price of WestPharma’s stock. The buying power of his company, however, a 50-billion-dollar publicly traded concern, put him on par with the likes of Wu, Haryadi, and Nazarov.
Gomez continued around the table. “Señor Diakos,” he said warmly to Leonidas Diakos, an old-world billionaire from Cyprus. “Your yacht is beautiful, señor. I would very much like a tour of it if that could be arranged.” Diakos smiled and nodded that yes, that could be arranged. Diakos was a thin, frail man in his late seventies. His skin was tan and leathery, his thinning hair bright silver. The Diakos family had been wealthy for so many generations that no one in Greece could really recall where all that money had come from originally. Today, the Diakos family had its fingers in dozens of concerns, including banking, shipping, beverage distribution, and real estate. Leonidas Diakos, as head of the family, controlled billions of dollars in assets.
Gomez shook hands with the last man at the table, Wilhelm Van der Giesen of Capetown, South Africa. “Señor Van der Giesen,” he said warmly, “welcome, my friend.” Van der Giesen nodded without smiling. At age forty-nine, he was the youngest man at the table by at least fifteen years. But he, too, was a billionaire, his wealth having been acquired by his father a generation ago, largely on the backs of impoverished and abused diamond miners in Tanzania and Zaire.
Gomez positioned himself at the head of the table and remained standing. “Gentlemen, I am honored to have all of you here as my special guests. If you need anything at all during your stay, please let one of my staff know. Now, I’ll turn things over to the man who called this meeting, Señor Rubin.”
Elias Rubin had been waiting in the doorway just outside the dining room, and he entered the room when Gomez called his name. “Welcome, everyone,” he said with a showman’s flair. “And thank you for making this trip on such short notice. I believe you will find it was well worth it.” He paused and nodded to each guest individually. “When I started the Olam Foundation five years ago, this was the day I dreamed of. The day our aspirations would finally become reality. The day that fiction would become fact. Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Mr. Anthony Wills.”
Exactly on cue, Wills walked into the dining room, dressed in a light tan cotton suit and crisp white button-down shirt, open at the neck. Behind him, two hulking men in camouflage pants and tight black T-shirts also entered the room, each with a holstered sidearm strapped to his hip. They were members of Gomez’s private security team, the same men who’d picked up Wills in the St. Anne’s Cemetery the night before and flew him directly to Andros Island.
“Good morning,” said Wills, a bit nervously. He nodded to the six seated men and to Rubin, who remained standing. “And thank you, Mr. Gomez.” He gave Gomez an especially appreciative nod.
“Now,” said Rubin, seating himself at the head of the table, “let’s get down to business. As you know, Mr. Wills has brought with him an intact DNA sample that contains the INDY gene. That is why we’re all here, of course. But, before we begin, I would like to remind all of you of the terms of our agreement, just to make sure there is no confusion or misunderstanding.
“First,” Rubin said, “all transactions must be wired directly to the Cayman Island account of the Olam Foundation. One hundred million dollars in cash goes to Mr. Wills as a finder’s fee.” Rubin nodded appreciatively at Wills. “The rest of the payment will be distributed equally to the members of the Foundation.
“Second, no matter who purchases the INDY gene, all of us at this table—” Rubin made a sweeping gesture with his arm around the table, ending dramatically with himself. “All of us will be granted personal access to the gene therapy at no cost. Agreed?”
Everyone at the table nodded.
“Very well then. It is now time for the first round of sealed bids—”
“Wait,” said Van der Giesen, holding up his hand in protest. “We haven’t even seen this DNA sample. How can we bid on something we haven’t seen?”
“Of course,” Rubin replied calmly. “I have a biologist here with all the necessary test equipment to confirm the presence of the INDY gene in the sample. The final bid will, of course, be contingent upon a successful test.”
“Still,” said Roger Glick, “shouldn’t we at least see this sample before we bid?”
“Fair enough,” said Rubin with a slight nod of his head. He signaled to one of the armed security guards, who exited the room and returned a minute later with a young, bespectacled man in a white lab coat. “This is Dr. Jinjung Xing, from the University of Beijing. I have retained him to help us with our transaction today.”
Dr. Xing approached and spread out a light-blue surgical mat, about two feet square, in the center of the table.
“Mr. Wills,” said Rubin dramatically, “the sample please.”
Wills pulled the neoprene sample container from his breast pocket and handed it to Rubin, who placed it with great showmanship on the mat. The seated guests watched with acute interest.
“Open it, please, Dr. Xing,” said Rubin.
As the guests watched with great anticipation, Dr. Xing snapped on a pair of latex gloves and carefully cut the Teflon seal around the lid of the container with a small scalpel. Then, he carefully
unscrewed the cap, turning it slowly counterclockwise, one revolution at a time.
Everyone at the table—including Gomez and Wills—leaned in with rising anticipation. The room fell silent. After three complete turns, the lid was loose, and Dr. Xing lifted it off slowly . . . carefully . . .
“What the hell!” screamed Roger Glick—the first to react—as he fanned away the swarm of fruit flies that had just emerged from the sample container. The tiny black flies shot out like a puff of smoke and quickly dispersed all around the room.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Wu demanded angrily, fanning away the flies.
“You brought us all the way here to see . . . insects?” said Eswara Haryadi indignantly.
“This is bullshit!” shouted Van der Giesen.
The six guests were already standing up, shaking their heads and conversing with each other in angry tones. Some were already on their cell phones, summoning their jets and helicopters to be powered up.
Gomez turned to Wills, his eyes burning with rage. “Explain this!” he demanded.
Wills shook head back and forth, mouth wide open, utterly dumbfounded.
“Get him out of here!” Gomez said angrily to the security guards.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Washington, D.C.
Peter Stonewell leaned forward on his elbows and studied the front page of the Washington Post with great interest. In the lower right-hand corner below the fold was a single-column article, which read as follows:
LIFE-EXTENSION GENE A HOAX, COMPANY ADMITS
By BRYCE WHITTAKER
Washington Post Staff Writer
ROCKVILLE, Md.—After a bizarre day that included an explosion at its headquarters in Rockville, Quantum Life Sciences, Inc. admitted late last night that the discovery of a human life-extension gene was a hoax, orchestrated by its president and CEO, Dr. Kathleen Sainsbury.
Carlos Guiterez, a spokesman for QLS, acknowledged that the hoax was carried out by Dr. Sainsbury in an apparent attempt to appease increasingly skeptical investors, some of whom had recently begun to question the validity of the flagging company. “There’s no truth to the story about mummified remains containing a human life-extending gene,” Guiterez said. “There never were any such remains, and QLS has not isolated the INDY gene in humans,” he said. The “INDY” gene is a gene that has been identified in fruit flies that appears to affect their life expectancy. Guiterez added that, for the foreseeable future, QLS’s research will remain focused solely on fruit-fly genetics, not human DNA.
In the days prior to Dr. Sainsbury’s apparent hoax, QLS had received cash calls—votes of no confidence—from two of its largest investors, Aurora Capital and Cresent Venture Capital, both of New York City. Aurora Capital could not be reached for comment. In a statement released late last night, however, Crescent Capital said it was “deeply disappointed by QLS’s apparent attempt to defraud its investors” and that it would investigate these reports promptly and “initiate appropriate civil action and possibly criminal proceedings.”
In an exclusive interview with the Washington Post late last night, Dr. Sainsbury acknowledged carrying out the hoax but said she never intended to defraud investors. “It just started out as a joke,” she said, “something I created in my own mind as an interesting theory. It just got out of hand. I never intended for it to go this far, and I deeply regret my actions.”
Dr. Sainsbury resigned as president and CEO of QLS last night and said that she stands ready to take full, personal responsibility for the hoax. “This was my doing entirely,” she said. “Nobody at QLS had any knowledge of what I was doing and should not be held accountable for my actions.”
Editor’s Note. The Washington Post reported a story on the so-called “longevity gene” yesterday, having been duped by this apparent hoax. The story is hereby retracted in its entirety. The staff of the Washington Post wishes to apologize to its readers for any confusion the erroneous story may have caused.
Stonewell finished reading the article and leaned back with a satisfied smile. He picked up the phone and dialed Bill McCreary’s number at DARPA.
“Hello,” answered McCreary.
“Have you read it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t know how you did it, Bill, and frankly I don’t care. All I can say is . . . good work.”
“Thank you, sir,” said McCreary blandly.
“Just out of curiosity, though, how much did this cost us?”
There was a brief pause before McCreary answered, his tone reflecting his own lingering disbelief. “One sailboat.”
Chapter Sixty-Four
One Year Later. Puerto Banús, Spain.
The forty-five-foot sloop Encantado sliced smoothly through the azure Mediterranean Sea, its beautiful white mainsail neatly trimmed, its jib bowed gracefully against the stiff breeze blowing over the port bow. The sleek, fiberglass hull of the boat was heeled over about ten degrees, with just a bit of whitewater splashing over its starboard gunwale. Directly off the starboard beam of the Encantado, two miles north, lay the picturesque hillside village of Puerto Banús, a popular sailing destination on Spain’s Costa del Sol.
Kathleen Sainsbury tweaked Encantado’s helm a few degrees leeward, easing the sleek craft back into its close-haul groove. The boat responded by heeling over another degree, its starboard jib sheet creaking under the additional strain of the wind.
Kathleen loved early mornings on the open water—the sun climbing above the horizon, the smell of fresh salt air, and the unique feeling of accomplishment of having safely navigated a tiny speck of sailboat through the vast darkness of the nighttime sea. It had always been her dream to make this run from Palma Majorca to Puerto Banús. Now she was living it. She breathed deeply and relished the unique sounds and cadence of open-ocean sailing: the rush of water beneath the hull; the rhythmic sound of waves crashing against the bow; the soft snapping of the jib’s leech in the wind.
It had rained most of the night. As the sun rose, Kathleen observed the remnants of the night’s storm clouds still hovering low above the water, tall and puffy with ominous splotches of dark gray.
She heard someone coming up from the cabin below.
“Good morning,” said Carlos Guiterez as he poked his head out of the cabin hatchway and climbed clumsily into the boat’s cockpit. He was yawning and rubbing his eyes.
“How’d you sleep?” Kathleen asked.
“Are you kidding? It’s like a sawmill down there.”
Kathleen laughed knowingly. Indeed, loud snoring could still be heard periodically, wafting up from the cabin below. “Well, you can catch some sleep up here if you want. I’m good on the helm for at least another couple hours.”
“Nah, I’m okay.” Carlos pointed off the starboard side toward Puerto Banúz. “Almost there, huh? I can’t wait to see Ana and the girls. They got in yesterday afternoon.”
“Actually, we’ve been tacking back and forth since about four o’clock this morning. I was just waiting for everyone to wake up before we pulled in.”
“In that case, I’ll go put on a pot of coffee. That should wake ’em up.” Carlos disappeared below and reemerged several minutes later with two mugs of fresh coffee.
They sat in silence for a while, each sipping their coffee and enjoying the stunning view of Puerto Banúz. Whitewashed houses clung impossibly to steep hillsides that seemed to rise out of the sea. Narrow hillside streets were just visible from their vantage point, two miles away.
Before long, another head popped out of the hatchway from below.
“Oh, man, what time is it?” asked Jeremy Fisher, squinting at the brightening sky. He looked like a train wreck, his long hair tangled and matted, three days’ worth of black stubble on his pale face.
“Just after six,” said Kathleen. “We’re getting ready to pull in to Puerto Banúz. See it over there?”
“Whoa, awesome!” Jeremy exclaimed, gazing starboard at the seaside village. “Here, hold this.” He h
anded his coffee mug to Carlos and climbed painstakingly up the teakwood ladder into the cockpit, wincing with discomfort.
“How’s your back feeling?” asked Kathleen.
“Stiff as hell,” said Jeremy with a grunt. “But nothing a few mojitos won’t cure.” He nodded in the direction of Puerto Banúz.
Kathleen watched as Jeremy settled into the cockpit with obvious pain. She was glad he’d been able to make this trip. Seven weeks in the hospital and six months of physical therapy had taken a toll on him. At least he was walking again, which was more than the doctors had predicted just a few months ago. And to see him smiling! It made Kathleen smile, too.
“Well,” said Jeremy, nodding toward shore, “what’re we waiting for? Let’s pull in.”
“We’re waiting for Paul Bunyon to wake up,” said Carlos, pointing down into the cabin.
The three of them sat in silence for a few minutes as Encantado swooshed gracefully west along the Costa del Sol.
Finally, Jeremy spoke. “Hey, I’ve got a question for you, Dr. S.”
“Shoot.”
“I’ve heard bits and pieces of what happened, but I never actually heard the whole story about the DNA sample that you and Julie recovered from the thermocycler. What exactly happened to it?”
“I told you, it burned to a crisp in the fire, along with everything else.”
“But, then . . . how’d you recreate the INDY sequence?”
Kathleen nodded and smiled at Carlos. “Well, that was all thanks to Carlos, here.”
“How so?” Jeremy asked.
