by Dan A. Baker
“I don’t feel sick now, but I was really sick last night,” Roy said.
“Well, I think you’re going to be much better today,” Jasmine said.
“Jasmine, what happened to you?” Jonelle said, as they walked into the small living room.
“We’ve just had a couple of really rough days. I’ll talk to you later. I have to get back to Will and do some more interviews today,” she said.
“What did they do to Roy? I know he’s sick because of that man! Please, tell me,” Jonelle said in a tense, dignified tone.
“Roy’s treatment was altered. It was altered with a gene, or a group of genes that we didn’t know about. There are some extremely powerful people who want to control this technology, and they are ruthless,” Jasmine said slowly.
“What will this gene do?” Jonelle asked.
“It will kill him if it’s not turned off,” Jasmine said.
“Oh no,” she said.
“They want control. They want me to do certain things, and they want Will to do certain things,” Jasmine said wearily.
“What kind of things?”
“They want us to keep quiet about the treatment and they want some of Will’s work,” Jasmine said.
“How are they going to do that? What about Darla and Easton who have already been treated,” Jonelle said. Jasmine didn’t move to catch the tears running down her face. She just looked at Jonelle.
“No! Tell me they didn’t hurt them! Tell me they didn’t hurt anyone!” she screamed, “and what about Marjorie and Nielsen?”
Jasmine croaked, “They killed them too. They put a gene in the treatment we couldn’t see, and it killed them.”
Jonelle stood up with her hand over her mouth, closing her eyes so tightly her face turned red. “They’re all dead?” she squealed.
“Yes. It was just…” Jasmine voice cracked then went hoarse. “I’m trapped. Will and I are trapped, and I want out. I want out so badly… but Roy will die if I do, and I can’t …”
She held Jasmine for a long time, rocking her gently. “Just tell me what to do.”
The short trip from home from Vallemar passed in slow motion. She bumped into a dark green minivan at the Rockaway beach traffic light because she couldn’t see through the tears. The man in the van just waved her on. When she turned up the hill to her house she saw the white van in the driveway, and floored the Jeep all the way up the hill.
Herbert was sitting in his wheelchair on the front porch beaming from ear to ear. “I just had to see you! I just had to see my girl,” he said.
Jasmine rushed to him and hugged him, sobbing loudly.
“What’s wrong Princess?” the old man said, pushing her back.
“Lot’s of stress, Father.” Jasmine said.
“Bullshit! You look like you’ve been scared to death! You tell me what the hell’s going on, right now!” he said, holding her with his bony hands.
“I don’t know, Father. I don’t know what’s going on,” she tried desperately to hold back the tears, but they streamed down her face.
“Did they take your Nobel?” he asked.
“No! I’m, I mean, that’s not it.”
“Is someone giving you a bad time?” Herbert asked, snapping her back.
“No father. We’ve just gotten into a situation where a lot of people want the work we’ve been doing, and they don’t want other people to have it.”
“I’ll just call the cops then!” Herbert bellowed.
“No! Father, you can’t!” Jasmine stood up and backed away from him.
“The hell I can’t! We’ll just call the cops and have these bastards locked up! It’s as simple as that.”
“We have some people working on it now, Father. It’s just been a little tough. Please just let me handle this!”
“Did these guys hurt you? If they hurt my girl, I’ll tear their God damn spines out, he roared.
Jasmine buried her head in her father’s chest and wiped the tears away. The uphill neighbor walked over with some Mylar balloons. “Jasmine you’re back! Maybe this parade up the hill will stop now! We’re going to have a special block party just for you! Jasmine…?” Lou Ellen stopped and looked at Jasmine’s battered face, “Jasmine, are you okay?”
“We just came from a long camping trip in Arizona.”
“Did you get lost?” she leaned in.
“Our Jeep broke down in the desert and we had a pretty tough day or so,” Jasmine said, looking at Will.
“You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards! Do you want me to see if I can get you in to see Paul?”
Jasmine looked at Will. “I’d like that. I haven’t had my hair cut for quite awhile,” Jasmine said, “and I have a press conference tomorrow.”
“What’s this about breaking down in the desert out there?” Herbert asked.
“I’ll tell you inside, Father,” Jasmine said.
“I gotta get back to the bone yard for my hip therapy, I just wanted to see you and tell you that I don’t want to go to Sweden, but I’ll sure as hell be watching. Now you go in there and get you a damn good lawyer to tear up these bastards, and introduce me to this fellow up here,” Herbert said, out of breath.
Will stepped down and shook the old man’s hand, “Will Behlen.”
“I want you to do a damn sight better job of taking care of my daughter here than you have been! What in the hell is wrong with you, letting her get into a state like this? Are you going to help her with this problem?” Herbert tried to stand up, but couldn’t.
“We’re getting things cleared up,” Will said lamely.
“Cleared up? Forget cleared up! You get these guys off her back and give her a decent life right now! I’ve never seen her like this before. She looks like she’s been on some damn survival show!”
As the attendants started rolling Herbert down the porch, Will said, “I’ll take care of her.”
“You had better! I’ll be calling her every day, and if she’s still upset in a day or two, I’ll be back up here. I’ll call the cops and my lawyer, and we’ll take care of this bullshit pronto!”
Jasmine stood next to Will as they loaded Herbert in the van. “I’ll call you if I can get you in to Paul’s,” the neighbor said, walking away. She stopped and turned. “Should I call someone?” she asked.
“We’re fine, Lou Ellen. Really,” Jasmine said softly.
“And don’t let them take your Nobel away!” Herbert yelled weakly from the driveway.
A sharp jolt of fear and pain shot through Jasmine as she thought about the shock her father would feel when everything was exposed.
Will and Jasmine slowly walked into the house as a light rain began to fall. Jasmine stopped for a moment and looked at Will. The gentle rain seemed to wash away the punishment of the desert with every tiny drop.
“Forces,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, and looked out the kitchen window. “I hope these guys don’t get excited, and do something unexpected.”
The interludes of quiet were becoming so short now Jasmine could almost time them. She sat out on the deck in the rain. The rain was friendly. Will stood in the kitchen, looking out the window at the sheets of rain blowing through the valley. A deep yearning began in Jasmine. It was yearning for normalness, for propriety, and for peace. It wasn’t a revelation exactly, just a deep desire. ‘You can’t live in both worlds at the same time,’ she thought.
As the steps began to take shape in her mind, she felt better. It meant taking a chance with Roy’s life, but she was confident they could find the pheromone trigger. Will was right, though. It was impossible to trust the Government. Earl told her repeatedly how years ago it had become a vast vending machine. The American press had also degenerated into a corporate news factory that gleefully twisted stories whichever way the media moguls wanted it.
Jasmine was trying to remember where the Hummingbird food was when she thought of the solution. “Well, there it is,” Jasmine said aloud. I’ll ju
st post everything, the whole story on the internet,” Jasmine said.
The Hummingbirds zoomed around the bottle of red sugar water as Jasmine filled the feeder. The progression fell together much the same way the decision to treat Roy had. It appeared as a complete solution in her subconscious. The relief was immediate. She smiled for the first time in a long time.
Will stepped out of the kitchen with a letter in his hand. “Just when you thought it couldn’t get any stranger,” he said, handing her the creamy four-page letter. “This was delivered while you were at Jonelle’s.”
“I’m Victor’s sole heir?” Jasmine gasped, looking at Will.
“He didn’t have any family and he didn’t’ have any kids, and the guys who ran his favorite charity are in jail. Who are you going to call?” Will said. The raindrops tapped the letter backwards in Jasmine’s hand.
“That’s incredible! Victor was worth six-hundred million dollars?” Jasmine asked.
“That’s his book worth, plus what’s here,” Will said. “They’re going to come after the big money though.”
“Let’s just give it back to them,” Jasmine said.
They went for a long walk in the park at the end of the street. Jasmine held Will’s hand while she told him that she belonged in the world of propriety and she needed to go back there, no matter what the cost.
“I’m going to post a videotape on the Internet, detailing everything that happened to us,” she said softly. “And I’m going to walk back into the daylight.”
“Everything,” he said.
“Not your work, just my work, Earl’s work, Roy’s treatment, Darla, Easton, Victor, the murders in Lake Havasu, and the extortion attempt.”
“You can’t,” Will said.
“I have to, Will! I can’t live like this any longer. I don’t have a choice,” Jasmine said, trying to choke the tears welling up in her chest.
“Think about it! They will arrest you! You are publicly admitting to breaking Federal laws, treating people with illegal treatments, and revealing the deaths of people who died under mysterious circumstances. That’s why they killed them the way they did. It doesn’t look too good for you and me right now, and my guess is those bodies were pulled out of that lake. Jasmine, you can’t do this. We need to leave the country now and let things settle down,” Will said, holding her tightly, brushing the little drops of rain off her hair.
“Are you going to stop me?” she asked.
“No, but if you proceed, I’ll have to leave. They want me, and you are the key to me, while Roy is the key to you. If that changes, they will go directly to me, and see that I’m charged with murder in Arizona. They’ll see to it that I’m placed in a small room with a table and one door. I don’t want to be in that room, and I’ll want to walk out of that door. These people are rough, Jasmine. You heard Victor say that.”
“I’m going to make the tape,” Jasmine said. “And I’m going to call Edward Maynard at UCSF. I want to schedule a press conference there.”
“Are you sure they want you there? They might have some questions,” he said, the nervous exhaustion causing his voice to crack.
“I just can’t go on like this any longer,” Jasmine said, starting to cry.
“I know how you feel, believe me, I know how you feel, but it’s a mistake, and a dangerous one! It will almost certainly kill Roy.”
“I think UCSF will help me find the trigger,” Jasmine said.
“They might,” he said, holding her to him, “and they might not. You’re about to find out just how adverse institutions are to controversy.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Edward Maynard was probably the only University Regent in the world who had a framed picture of Frederick Royce in his office. Jasmine thought, as she watched the old silver Rolls Royce chug up the steep hill. Edward drove it everywhere and worked on it himself.
He flew Spitfires in the Battle of Britain as an American volunteer and never forgot the magnificent Rolls Royce engines that put the Spitfires ever so slightly out of reach of the Luftwaffe’s guns. “It was the least I could do, buy one of Frederick’s cars,” Edward would say.
Edward was terribly old now, but he brought something to the UCSF board that proved invaluable. Edward had a special congeniality that made everyone relax and give up those silly emotional agendas. He also had invaluable vision, and reliable wisdom that had helped steer UCSF clear of many political minefields. Most importantly, Edward was a dignified gentleman.
When he got out of the car, Jasmine felt a wave of envy for his sterling character and gracious bearing. His smile was genuine, and he always made everyone, even the most tightly wound geniuses, feel comfortable.
“At last, at last I can get the Berkeley Lab people to shut up about this Nobel thing being a Boy’s Club! Congratulations, Jasmine!” Edward walked up the stairs, smiling broadly. He looked at her for a long moment, taking her hand in a smooth gracious gesture. “You’re a soldier of science, home from the front,” he said, and kissed her hand.
Jasmine tried to speak, but so many conflicting thoughts converged she just shook her head slowly, hoping she could somehow hold herself together. Edward smiled a knowing smile and kissed her on the cheek. She turned and led him out onto the deck. He sat in the teak chair next to the hummingbird feeder and watched the beautiful little birds feed.
The maelstrom of conflict in Jasmine’s mind was like the blizzards that roared through Boston when she was a little girl, she thought. The winds would drive so hard from one direction, and then suddenly drive from the other direction, just as hard.
Edward said nothing, but he hummed a little tune.
It must be war. Jasmine thought, realizing that both Edward and Nielsen had been through wars, and had the same unshakable bearing.
“It’s here,” she said finally.
“I know,” Edward said softly.
“I almost laughed when Fukuyama first used the term gene wars,” Jasmine said.
“I didn’t.” Edward said. “Once you’re a competitive, hierarchical species, you’re always a competitive, hierarchical species. I half expected the Oakland Raiders to hire Genetechna. Their defense was terrible in those years. They could have used a few six-hundred pound linebackers.”
Jasmine laughed softly. Edward was such a card. “Where did you get your sense of humor?” she asked.
“Well, once you’ve jumped out of a disintegrating airplane on fire and spent a night freezing in the English Channel with fish nipping at your burned flesh, you realize that the whole thing might just be a joke, and what if you didn’t laugh? Would they be angry?” He looked at her with a wonderful little smile on his face.
Jasmine paused, “Earl and I wanted to treat one of his Progeric children. We developed a gene-based therapy with Marjorie. It worked. We also treated two other people who were dying, Darla and James Easton.
“You treated James Easton?” Edward asked, arching his big eyebrows.
“Yes, we did. He was dying and very curious,” Jasmine said. “The treatment worked beautifully. Marjorie treated herself. Then some very bad things happened,” Jasmine said slowly and evenly.
“Where is Marjorie? I can’t seem to reach her,” Edward said, still humming softly.
Jasmine’s mistake was thinking that she was so numb that the shocks wouldn’t reach her any longer. A tornado of feelings leaped up from the pit of her stomach, and forced her to jump up and walk away. There was no use. It was impossible. There was no way to tell half the story, no way to avoid the consequences. She turned slowly.
“Marjorie is dead,” Jasmine said, so calmly it surprised her.
“Damn! Why is it that my favorite people are always dying?” Edward said.
“She didn’t die, she was murdered,” Jasmine said.
Edward turned to her, looking at her. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Victor Magnusson was murdered a few days ago, as well.”
“I want to come back. I want to return to academic medic
ine. I want…” She closed her eyes tightly against the torrent of pain and emotion. “I want to live again and be the person I was.”
“How did Marjorie die?” Edward asked softly.
The story erupted from Jasmine in a sustained confession that took over an hour. Edward listened intently.
“I’m preparing a videotape that I’m going to post on The New Scientist website tomorrow. I’ve decided to stand and fight. I’m not going to leave the country and I want a public forum to tell my story. Easton developed a plan to liberate American science, and he showed it to me before he was killed. We had planned to undertake this effort in a few years. I want to use my temporary status as a Nobel Laureate to lead this fight, and UCSF would be the ideal forum for me to begin. I’m an alumna, Marjorie was a professor, and I plan to dedicate this effort to her memory,” Jasmine said.
“Do you think they’ll take your Nobel?” Edward asked.
“Yes,” Jasmine said. “I haven’t counted how many Federal laws we broke, but I think it’s about ten.”
“That’s happened before in science,” Edward said slowly.
“Yes, but we …”
“Defied certain blanket American patent laws to treat a dying child?”
“Yes, and we treated people with an experimental gene therapy totally outside of any medical or governmental institution, which is a pretty serious crime,” Jasmine said.
“So is murder,” Maynard said leaning close to the bird feeder.
“I don’t know what will happen with that. Will thinks the Federal government will attack us, and use this as a pretext to shut down the small biotech companies and restrict research even further. They might charge me with murder,” Jasmine said, her voice cracking. “Will you help me?”
