THE ALCATRAZ OPTION

by Jay Begler

  A director asked, “This is an interesting device, but how do we know what this company is working on will be successful?”

  Morales responded: “We need to assume that the technology will work, and will replace the endorphins produced by our drugs. This technology will ultimately eliminate the risks and problems associated with illegal drugs. For all intents and purposes, we’ll be like the dinosaurs, extinct.”

  The same director asked, “How long do you think we have?”

  Isabella responded: “Our sources in China confirmed that the rumors about governments developing the product to combat illegal drugs are true. China is deeply involved in this project, as are some other countries. Using the technology to have the brain produce endorphins is, in our IT team’s view, very challenging, but because technology moves so quickly, we think it will happen within eighteen months, maybe sooner.”

  Morales rose and said. “So, we are in the race of our lives. We think the only solution is to find a new super drug, one that would be used widely and more addictive than anything we have on the market. The drug needs to be so well entrenched in society when this AR technology arrives, few will be interested in using it. Ideally, the highs created by the new drug, the feelings created by this drug, would not be replicated by this new technology. The challenge is that we are not even remotely close to finding this drug. I don’t even know if it exists or we can make it, but we have excellent scientists working for us and will hire some more to develop an antidote to our problem. If, within a year, maybe 18 months at the outside, we don’t find a solution, we will have to cut staff. Once we do that, our security erodes, which would be the beginning of the end for us.”

  A director asked, “What about the three men that want us to invest in their company?”

  Morales answered casually. “After they disclosed all of their technology, we entered their offices and wiped out all of their computers so the technology is no longer available to anyone else. Miraculously, though it cost us about ten million dollars in bribes, the patent applications have disappeared. The three men died in a plane crash, the cause of which remains unknown, except to us. The patent lawyer who prepared the applications, fortunately a sole practitioner, drowned. We also wiped out his computer files.”

  Isabella unexpectedly exclaimed, “Shit! We need to deal with Cutting Edge Investments”

  Morales responded, “An explosion in the building housing their offices. The local Cambridge news reported that a gas leak caused the explosion, but we know otherwise. Sorry Isabella, I know you liked them.”

  The solemn-faced attendees took lunch in the garden. As Morales and Isabella were walking, Shapiro, Rebecca’s father, who attended the given his deep knowledge about how illegal drugs produced different responses approached Morales.

  “I never thought I’d live to see this day, Hector. It’s a hell of a problem.”

  Morales recalled the first time he met Shapiro. Then, Shapiro was a large and robust man and had an imperious air. Now, in his late eighties, Shapiro seemed to have shrunk. His skin was pale, almost grey, and he walked slowly with the help of a cane. His breathing was labored and someone who functioned as a nurse accompanied him. All of this gave credibility to the rumors that Shapiro had an unsalvageable heart condition and did not have very long to live.

  “So, Meyer, what do you think?”

  “I think you have a problem which may not have a solution.

  “You may be right. The wonder drug we need may not exist.”

  “Unfortunately, I think you’re right. I’ve been hunting for the wonder drug for thirty years. Everything we developed either failed or sometimes killed the users. The best hope we had was a modification of the Ecstasy molecule. That was good, but not the ultimate super drug. And I don’t know if your team has enough knowledge to pull it off. Ironically, the real expert on Ecstasy is Rebecca. She has been working on using small and modified dosages of the drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease. The most recent version of the drug seems to clear away some cobwebs in dementia patients, yet be non-addictive.”

  “But your daughter does not know about your relationship to the organization?”

  “That is correct. As far as she knows, I’m still coming here for veterinary medicine. But she’s the expert on this drug.”

  “So, if you had no objection, we could place an industrial spy in her company.”

  “None at all, but it won’t work. Her company has so many layers of security that it’s likely that the spy would never get hired. Alternatively, you could offer her subjects in Mexico to test her new molecule and get the data that way; perhaps get samples of the drug and reverse engineer it. I’ll look over my old journals to see if I have any ideas, but don’t be very optimistic.” Shapiro smiled and then joked, “Or you could always hire Rebecca. She’s probably the best person for this project”

  While Morales laughed, he thought, somewhat excitedly, “Why not? But how?”

  PART THREE

  —

  Rebecca

  Fifteen

  •

  The Event

  After her father’s second heart attack, many people told Rebecca that he was “lucky.” She never thought having a heart attack was lucky under any circumstances, but not wanting to be impolite or ungracious to those who use that word as an attempt to impart comfort, usually responded, “Yes, he was. Thank God that it happened as he was giving a lecture at Bellevue Medical Center. They got him into the ICU in about four minutes. I think that’s what saved his life.”

  His second heart attack was not a surprise. After Shapiro’s return from the hacienda, fatigue overwhelmed him, but he attempted to carry on as best he could. His next task was to give a lecture at Bellevue. Rebecca hadn’t seen him for two weeks. When Shapiro entered Bellevue’s large auditorium, she noticed new signs of his physical decline. As he climbed the six steps leading to the stage in front of the auditorium, he needed help, which prompted a quip from him to the audience, “People ask me how it is getting old. I always respond ‘I don’t recommend it.” Pockets of laughter emanated from the audience until, seconds later, he crumpled to the ground like a bath towel held up at one end and then released.

  As Rebecca ran alongside his gurney, he opened his eyes and said, “Tell Morales, I need to see him. It’s urgent.” Then, struggling to speak and breathe, he gasped, “Its hmorales@gmail.com.” The various sedatives that came from an array of hanging IV bags did their job and, not wishing to resist, Shapiro fell into a deep drug induced coma-like sleep. She thought,” Are those going to be his last words? An email address? From a man who did not believe in the Internet?”

  An intern dressed in blue scrubs, who looked too young to even date her teenage daughters, told her that once her father became stable and was awake, she could see him. She wanted to press the intern on what he meant by stable, but let the inquiry go. “Meantime,” he said, “there’s a small lounge at the end of the corridor or you can go to our cafeteria and get a decent cup of Peet’s coffee. It also has Wi-Fi down there.” He seemed proud of this, as if it was the latest thing in medical technology. “We have your cell phone number and we’ll text you.”

  She sat at a plain, wood-like laminated table with brown curved aluminum legs, a table identical to every other table in the sparsely populated cafeteria, and sipped her cup of Peet’s coffee. Rebecca made the usual phone calls to her husband, mother, aunts, and to her sister. She sent texts to her twin daughters, both sophomores in high school because they never answered their phones. She remembered how her mother used to chide her for always being on the phone and now how she would chide her continuously texting daughters that they never used the phone.

  Rebecca knew that her father and Morales had developed a mutual respect and affection for one another, and that Morales was quite generous to her father. What she didn’t understand was why it was so urgent that she contact Morales now. Perhaps it was her father’s realization that his life was ending and being the dutiful employe
e that he was, wanted to tie up some loose ends. That’s the way her father was; there were never loose ends in his life. The same thought occurred to her once again, months later, when the family surrounded a comatose Shapiro waiting for him to die. Hours passed and nothing happened. Boredom replaced grief. Some were surreptitiously looking at their smart phones. A distant cousin, with a voice filled with the same amount of indignation he would use when asking a maître de about his long overdue table said to an attending nurse, “How long will it be?” Before she could respond, Shapiro bolted up in his bed and held his hand out as if trying to stop someone and said, “wait, I…” and died. Rebecca wondered at the time if her father had seen Death and was trying to say, “Wait, not yet, too many loose ends.”

  She composed an email to Morales. She recalled their meeting at the Apple store and her niece, then four, now a PhD candidate, peeking out from behind her skirt. She thought, “How long had it been since the last time we saw each other? I was twenty-three, now I’m forty-four.”

  It seemed impossible. What surprised her more than how quickly the time passed but the length of it. What she didn’t know was that after that last encounter, a melancholy Morales had dwelled on her for the rest of that day. By contrast, by the time she exited the Apple store, Rebecca was no longer thinking about him. She was focusing on other things, which underscored the fact that the feelings each had for the other were far from reciprocal. While Morales longed for Rebecca, to her he now was someone from her past, a sweet memory of her first romance, one which was growing fainter as time passed. She had moved on with her life, and by all measurable standards, had done so quite well.

  At twenty-four, Rebecca had a PHD in pharmacology from Harvard and her thesis on certain adverse reactions, entitled, “Contra-indications of Cholinesterase Inhibitors” was met with high praise. Shortly before she received her advanced degree, Pfizer offered her a six-figure position. She had a minuscule, but well-located apartment in Manhattan, a wide circle of friends and was living the affluent twenty-something New York City lifestyle. Separation from her parents, success and maturity had significantly diminished their influence. She had developed a greater sense of self and independence.

  As she crossed the midline of her twenties, which to her parents was of some symbolic significance, like crossing the International Date Line on a cruise, Rebecca felt increased familial pressure to “land” (her ancient great aunt’s word) a suitable mate. At the weddings of her endless supply of cousins, she was always asked the universally posed question, “So, Rebecca, have you met anyone nice?” The question was generally coupled with, “I have a very nice young man I’d like to introduce to you.” The “nice” descriptor was always the kiss of death. She once told a friend, “I wish someday they’d say, ‘I’d like to introduce you to a real dirtbag.’ Maybe I’d go out with him.”

  Rebecca met Daniel Levy, her future husband, at a 100 plus product launch meeting at Pfizer’s corporate headquarters in Manhattan. She was twenty-six. Her parents had become stoic about her single status, and rationalized to each other about her becoming an “old maid,” their words. Daniel was reasonably handsome and very well dressed. When she sat next to him at the meeting, he nodded and smiled, but said nothing. At the second hour of endless technical/financial talk he said to her with a hint of a soft southern accent, “Did you ever see the show La Grosse Valise?” Before she could reply he said, “When I was in college and thought of being a theatre critic, I wrote a short but incisive review of its revival. I said, ‘I fell asleep during the first act. Unfortunately, I woke up during the second act.’”

  Rebecca’s “Ha!” was just loud enough for a few people around her to turn their heads. There followed whispered sarcastic and funny banter between them, with one provoking a slight punch in his arm. With the meeting finally over and while collecting their reward of coffee and sugar glazed, miniature Danishes, she said, “So tell me, who are you?”

  “Daniel Levy. I’m the product manager for this wonderful new drug. What about you?

  “Rebecca Shapiro, I did a fair amount of research on the drug and worked on the clinical trials.”

  When the meeting ended, they stayed on and were the only ones left in the room. They spoke for over two hours. A year later, Rebecca, aged 27 and Daniel, aged 29, married and began their step by step, day by day, hour by hour, marital journey together down life’s path. A year later, Rebecca gave birth to fraternal twin girls, one that looked like Rebecca, but ultimately had Daniel’s temperament and personality and the other having a remarkable resemblance to Daniel, but having Rebecca’s temperament and personality. Daniel left Pfizer and established his company. Rebecca soon followed, became Director of Research and supervised a team of ten bright young and eager assistants. In year two of the business, Rebecca and her team developed a new molecule to fight sepsis. The molecule was so promising that after some initial but non-conclusive phase one clinical trials, Merck purchased the molecule and all patent rights to it for fifteen million dollars. They were on their way. Other, less spectacular, but lucrative molecules, followed.

  Daniel and Rebecca did virtually everything together: spent at least two weeks a year in Paris, tried to learn French and mostly failed, learned to play bridge, learned to play better golf, experienced their particular lives’ small successes, the spikes in their happiness, for example, when they bought their beautiful Sands Point house on Long Island Sound and when they sailed on the sound for the very first time in Daniel’s Hunter 33 yacht. There were trips with their daughters, visits to summer camps, and applications for private schools, and the initial round of SAT’s. As in every life’s journey, there were bumps in the road: anxiety ridden waits for the results of biopsies, his from a prostate exam; hers from a breast exam, both which turned out to be benign. The important thing for them as a couple was that they faced their problems together.

  Like many couples, they had developed minor secret little rituals or sayings. On the last day of a vacation in Paris, they spent the day wandering in and out of the lovely little shops in the Marais district and picking out gifts for their daughters and friends. Exhausted from shopping, they sat on a small wooden bench shaded by some trees in the Place des Vosges while eating sandwiches that only the French know how to make. Rebecca turned to Daniel and said, “Whenever I’m blue, I’ll think of this setting in this wondrous city.” He replied with a terrible caricature like imitation of Humphrey Bogart, and said the iconic line from Casablanca, “We’ll always have Paris.” That line became one of their little rituals. When disappointed or upset they would comfort themselves and say, “We will always have Paris.”

  There were other little sayings that only they shared. When she made a mistake, or was upset, or when she had an inconsequential accident, he would call her “Francis,” the name of a young woman they knew who was exceptionally accident prone and once, while cooking, burnt off her eyebrows. When she sometimes ranted, he’d say “Now Francis,” or more often plaintively, “Francis please!” This seemed to always work to calm her. He knew her moods perfectly and how to calm her. He was so good at relieving her stress that she would sometimes refer to him as “My tranquilizer.”

  Daniel’s sweet disposition with family and friends belied his toughness and courage. When he was eighteen and graduated high school, he joined the Marines, stood up to the rigors of Parris Island better than most, and volunteered to become part of the Marine Raiders, a name resurrected from World War II, and used to identify a group trained for special operations which more often than not involved assassinations. A year later he saw combat and received a Purple Heart when an IED hit the armored personnel vehicle he was walking behind and a piece of metal from the explosion lodged in his arm and a small wire fragment lodged just outside and above his right eye. The fragment left a scar in the shape of a W. From then on, he had the nickname of “W.” He finished his mission before getting medical help.

  On the last day of his tour, his men held a party in Aleppo hours b
efore he was to fly home. They presented him with a special “kill knife” slightly larger than a Swiss army knife, not with a traditional blade, but with a long pin-rod used for piercing vital parts of a combatant’s body. This one, differed from the standard issue because it was gold plated and had a small inscription: “To W who never took shit from anyone. Semper Fi” That was an apt description. In his adult life he never backed down when he thought he was in the right, and to his family and friends, he was “always faithful.” He carried the knife with him almost every day of his life, not so much for protection, but as a keep-sake, never imagining that someday he’d use it to save his and Rebecca’s life.

  They had no incompatibilities in their marriage, but there was one important and wide disparity. Her libido and cravings for sex had not diminished with age; they intensified. Easily aroused, she often thought about sex, sometimes fantasizing about sexual encounters with men she knew or just saw on the street or the Long Island Rail Road. Daniel for all his charms, hard body and good looks was a significant disappointment in bed. He never satisfied her sexually. She once thought after a desultory round of sex, desultory for her at least, “He’s so flat!”

  Sometimes, when she was alone at conferences in distant cities, she went to bed with one of the men in attendance, who she knew had a wife and who she would never see again. In each instance, possibly because of its illicit nature, she had multiple orgasms. Rebecca once had sex with a bartender at an airport hotel after the rescheduling of her flight for the following morning. Rebecca felt no guilt after what she euphemistically called her “passing indiscretion.” Exercising her well-honed ability to compartmentalize, she rationalized that satisfying her sex drive was ultimately good for her marriage, her guilt held in check by a closed compartment. Daniel, by contrast, had no affairs; he never even experienced an innocent flirtation.