THE ALCATRAZ OPTION

by Jay Begler

  Two frustrating months passed. There were some promising leads, but every variant they tried failed. At the conclusion of an all hands meeting in the amphitheater as people were filtering out, an elderly man, Max Swan, approached her.

  “Hi Rebecca; I’m Max Swan. Got a couple of minutes?”

  Sure, I noticed you with, and please don’t take offense, three other elderly gentlemen.”

  “None taken. We’re called the ‘geezers.’ The youngsters, meaning everyone but us, rarely take us seriously, but the fact is that our academic backgrounds, skill sets and above all experience make us as valuable or more valuable than everyone on Johnson’s team. But here’s where we differ. All four of us geezers started off in the United States Patent Office as patent examiners and had long careers as patent lawyers. So, we really know how to read and find relevant patents. So, when this assignment came in, we all started doing patent searches on all issued patents relating to molecules implicated in the treatment of Alzheimer’s. We’ve been working on this since we knew you were being kidnapped.”

  “Thanks for not making it sound like a hotel visit.”

  “It’s not. And none of us geezers can blame you if you are thoroughly pissed-off. Can you spend about a half an hour with us? I think we have a serious potential lead.”

  He signaled his three comrades, and they made their way down to the first row. Swan said, “I’d like you to hear what Shelley Katz has to say. For three decades he was chief patent counsel for Glaxo. He’s the greatest skeptic you’ll ever meet.”

  Katz appeared to be the oldest of the group. “Forgive me for not standing. Bad knees, bad back, occasional vertigo. Listen, once you finish this project, develop a drug to make us younger. We’ve been thinking about this problem and talking about it amongst ourselves for the past couple of months. The one thing that just makes no sense was why Actalmar with all its talent and money could not find a solution to your problem. Two days ago, I began thinking about this. As they say, I’m a skeptic. The company invests a couple billion and then even after their obligation to invest is over, and they’ve faced total failure, they invest another billion.”

  “Yes, and they failed.”

  “Or did they? Given your experience with them and its reputation, we all assumed it failed and thought that there was no reason to hack its records.”

  She realized where he was going with this and said, involuntarily and quietly, “My God.”

  “So, we began just to look for new Actalmar patents and patent applications. The patents are public and nothing relevant came up. Then I thought, we should check out whether there is anything interesting in their pending patent applications. Your deal with them would give you billions and a hefty percent of worldwide patent rights on all improvements and modifications if the drug worked across the board. After the deal was over, the company could lie and say it found a way to make Clarity work on a large segment of our population. Those billions would go into its bank account, not yours. Right now, what we need to do is hack virtually every patent office in the world for applications dealing with Alzheimer’s. We can’t limit this to Actalmar because they may have a shell company file the applications and we also need to hack into their patent lawyers’ emails and files.”

  She interrupted Katz. “Can you gentlemen stick around for a while? I want to bring Hector and the head of intelligence here right now.”

  When Morales and his head of intelligence, Jay Harrison, arrived and Katz repeated his idea, Morales said to Harrison, “This is our highest priority. Stop everything your department is doing. I want everyone on this now. Our geezer team can tell you what to do.” Then he hugged each of them and said, “Great work! If this works, you all will get a special reward”

  Katz replied sarcastically, “Get us some sexy 70-year-olds. I like younger women.”

  Two weeks later, the intelligence group found an email from Actalmar’s in house general counsel to its CEO and marked “Privileged & Confidential.” The author never thinking that someone would hack his email. foolishly believed that those words magically protected the contents of his email from discovery. The email stated, “Re: Levy Contract (Our file Actalmar 2.00476): I’ve reviewed your contract with the Rebecca and Daniel Levy and believe that under the scenario we discussed, they cannot successfully claim that they are entitled to the benefits of their contract but it’s not a sure thing. Timing will be important. I suggest that for now we limit the filing of a patent application on Clarity to a single out of the way country such as Malta. We need to set up a Maltese company to apply for the patent. We’ll do it so it can’t be traced to our company, but which we will control. We’ve taken steps to set that up. Malta is a member of the Patent Cooperation Treaty, so at the right time we will file patent applications from Malta throughout the world. “

  Two days later, the Cartel’s hackers uncovered a letter from a paralegal at a large New York patent firm advising Actalmar’s chief patent counsel of the pendency of a patent application on “Molecule X” filed in the name of Hargar Lim Farm Limited. Since Malta’s Patent Office was digitized, it took the Cartel’s hackers team less than five minutes to find the patent application. As soon as the geezers read the thirty-page patent application, everyone knew immediately that Katz’ theory was correct. The patent application disclosed a modified version of Rebecca’s molecule, with a complex ingredient called, ‘Xofent.”

  Katz spoke to Johnson and said, “The application stated that initial tests revealed that, and I quote, ‘The molecule disclosed in this patent is useful for the treatment of psychotic disorders including schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and substance induced psychotic disorder; cognitive disorders and dementias including age-associated learning and memory impairments or losses, post stroke dementia, deficits in concentration, mild cognitive impairment, the cognitive dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease, and the cognitive dysfunction of schizophrenia.’ Most importantly, the patent application stated that in very limited tests the drug appears to have utility in about seventy five percent of patients.”

  When Johnson reported this to Morales, he said, “Get the patent data down to Pantheon and have them make several kilos of the drug on an urgent basis.”

  “Already done. We’ll have our version of Clarity within seventy-two hours.”

  The drug arrived a day early and tested immediately via the Cartel’s limited protocol. Chemists put compounds of the drug into raw meat fed to the dogs and the wait to see if they would live or die began. Rebecca and her team estimated that it would take several hours for the drug to assimilate into the dogs’ blood streams. She addressed the entire team in the amphitheater and said, “Well, at this point there is not much for us to do but wait. Let’s get back together in about forty-eight hours. Continue to dose them up with Clarity.”

  She was on her daily morning run, when a man she recognized as one of the dog trainers pulled up next to her on a golf cart, and said, “Rebecca, please hop on. You’ve got to see this. It’s unbelievable!”

  “What is?” Rebecca asked

  “Just come with me and see for yourself. The dogs. It’s crazy. They are behaving.”

  The entire Clarity team surrounded the dog pound and watched in stunned silence. Morales stood next to Rebecca and whispered, “Unbelievable.” All the vicious dogs were sitting calmly next to each other. A fully padded worker with protective gear to avoid being bitten walked gingerly to the dogs and petted them. One of them rolled over to have his stomach scratched. To the shock of everyone, the other noticed what the first dog did and followed suit. Stannie murmured, “It’s astonishing.”

  Morales, flanked by Rebecca and Isabella, said, “Let’s go right into human testing.” Ordinarily, Rebecca would have objected vehemently to such a suggestion, but she said nothing. She was as anxious as everyone else to see the impact of Clarity on humans. Speaking to one of his men, Morales said, “Bring me Filthy John.”

  Ten minutes later, one of Morales’ men appeared with Filth
y John. He was dirty beyond description. He reeked to the point where those near him moved away. His expression was blank, as if he didn’t comprehend where he was or what he was doing. His hair was matted and unkempt and he sported a beard that looked as dirty as the rest of him. One of Hector’s men said to Filthy John, “Here John, take this.” John looked down at the small pill, half the size of a baby aspirin, swallowed it without hesitation. It was the first time that Morales had seen the pill.

  He said to Isabella, “Look how small it is,” but she was ahead of him. “I did the math in my head and it looks like the pill is about 40 milligrams. I think we can get about 18,500 in a kilo. We just need to make sure the narcotic element doesn’t add too much bulk.” She squeezed his arm, not out of affection, but out of excitement at the economic prospects for the drug.

  The man handed a small bag to John and said, “Bring these back to the Roach Motel. You need to take two of these a day. John, this is important. Take no other drugs for the next five days. If you can do that, we will give you a big reward. I will be around to check on you in five days.”

  Morales went to Rebecca and said, “I have a feeling that this could work.” She shared his optimism, suppressing the thought her drug would be used for a potent illegal.

  “Tomorrow is Saturday, let’s go riding and up to Casa Rebecca”, the name they had given to the house on the Mesa.

  Over the months they had been together, Rebecca and Morales had become more than lovers, they had become companions. Their intimacy had extended beyond the intertwining of their naked bodies. Morales would open up to her in ways he’s never spoken to anyone, even his confidant and best friend, Isabella. While his alter ego, El Fantasma, was tenth on Forbes’ list of the 100 most powerful people in the world, and reputed to be fearless, Morales was a worrier. Would someone betray him? Would he be discovered? Killed? Poisoned? He never felt comfortable around Tweedledee and Tweedledum. He feared getting ALS, Lou Gehrig’s paralyzing disease, which ultimately took both his parents and caused him to worry each time he seemed to have difficulty swallowing or had a strange tingling in his legs. And now there was Rebecca. Would she return to the United States? Would he lose her?

  It was difficult for Morales to reconcile these fears with his view of himself as the leader of the Aztec Cartel. He often spoke about this to Rebecca who he found, beneath her patina of humor, self-confidence and assertiveness, a wise and sympathetic listener. She once said, “Hector, there is a direct relationship between growing older, and developing fears. That you are a man of immense power does not insulate you from these or other types of fears. You should read a biography of Adolph Hitler. He was a total hypochondriac.”

  “More than anything, I’m afraid of losing you.”

  She smiled in a curious way and replied, “As well you should.” He knew that there would come a time when she would have to make a life changing decision; either stay with him or return home. “You know Rebecca; you’ll be free to go if the drug works.”

  “I thought of that.”

  “So, you’ve been thinking about it.”

  She became serious, “Now and then. It’s going to be the hardest decision I’ve ever made. How can I leave you? How can I not leave you?”

  “What can I do to persuade you to stay?”

  “Nothing Hector. I’ve really got to decide on this on my own.”

  For a moment she had an image of Daniel and her daughters and had a transitory twinge of guilt, but given her geographic distance and time away, it was an emotion she could handle with ease and set aside. Still, she wondered, how he and their daughters were fairing. By this time, she thought, they all probably assumed that she was in fact dead and slowly picked up the pieces of their lives and moved on. She wondered if Daniel might have begun a relationship with another woman. That would solve her dilemma.

  On a warm Sunday morning, they were having breakfast after taking a swim in the pool by the guesthouse. Hector said, “I’ll be right back,” rose and left the room. He returned holding a medium-sized thin silk hinged box and handed it to Rebecca. He kissed her on the head and said as she opened it to see a multi-diamond necklace, “It was once owned by Wallace Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor.”

  She had seen the necklace before when it was auctioned at Christie’s for about $700,000.

  “It’s lovely. No, it’s beyond lovely. You’re making my decision quite difficult, you know.”

  “That’s my goal.”

  Twenty-Five

  •

  Filthy John

  Filthy John’s real name was John DuPont. Though not related to the aristocratic DuPonts, he bragged occasionally that he was part of the DuPont family to impress young women whom he dated. To look at him now, a sub-human, disheveled, figure, it would be hard to imagine that less than a decade early, DuPont, a graduate of the University of Chicago with a PHD in economics from Stanford, was a bright light at JP Morgan Chase and married to an elegant and beautiful woman. In other words, he had a life. He made only one mistake, one which extinguished the life he held.

  DuPont and two of his friends, on a bachelor’s weekend at Pebble Beach, were watching re-runs of Breaking Bad, which now had the aura of a period piece. They began discussing addiction. On a dare, and on the false egotistical assumption that he could overcome the addictive pull of any drug, he made a bet that he could take any drug once and never take it again. If he went two months without taking the drug again, he would win the bet. Two days after their outing, one of his friends introduced him to a man who looked more like a banker than a drug dealer. The man explained how to take the drug, heroin. Before John took it, the man gave him a business card which bore no other information except a telephone number. John’s somewhat puzzled looked evoked a “Just in case you’d like some more.”

  “I don’t think that will happen.”

  “Well, keep it just in case.”

  John, with his friends watching, took a significant dose of heroin. John knew nothing about the true addictive nature of the drug before he took it. He didn’t really appreciate, for example, that heroin was one of the most powerful illegal drugs when it came to producing psychological dependence. Nor did he realize that his first dose would stimulate the key pleasure centers in his brain and cause such heightened euphoria that nothing else in the world after that would matter. He was hooked immediately.

  While DuPont attempted to resist, he soon fell into a typical pattern, first purchasing small amounts of the drug while engaging in rationalization and self-deception, and then buying larger and larger amounts to satisfy his need for the drug. Within two months he had developed a $7000 a week habit. By this time, he had committed the drug dealer’s number to memory.

  On the lowest rung of his life, after losing his job, his wife and his few remaining friends, he sat in a crack house and said to a corpse like person next to him, “You know why I became addicted, because the feeling is so overwhelmingly wonderful, better than anything I’ve ever imagined,” which evoked a terse, “I can relate.” He never knew how he got to Mexico, nor how he became a tenant at the Roach Motel. He was just happy spending his life taking drugs at the behest of the Cartel. If it killed him at an early age, he didn’t particularly care.

  Du Pont downed the small Clarity pill on the first day per instructions given to him. And then, he sat on the porch looked out for a moment and took a sip of beer, but nothing happened, no high no low; nothing. “This drug sucks,” he thought. The results were the same as the second day and third day. He was going to complain to the house boss, but on the fourth day he noticed an intense and awful smell all around him. He couldn’t guess its source until he realized that it was his body odor. At that moment, he had his first clear thought in five years. “I guess I better take a shower.” He did more, however. He shaved, closely trimmed his beard, cut his straggled hair, burnt his old clothes and put-on clean clothes. Still, when he looked at himself before a floor to ceiling mirror, he hardly recognized the man staring back
at him. Once six-feet four and highly muscular, he appeared gaunt and hunched over, not unlike some prisoners released from concentration camps.

  On the fifth day of taking Clarity, John woke up feeling a wonderful sense of tranquility. For the first time in many years, he thought about his past life. As he did so, he realized that his thoughts were perfectly clear. It was as if a fog lifted or a blur came into sharp focus. His thoughts turned to the loss of his wife, the loss of the position he had held in society and his fall from grace. The normal sorrow that might attach itself to those thoughts were not present. Instead, he viewed his life dispassionately, with some regret but devoid of deep emotion. “What was I thinking?” he asked himself. And resolutely, “I’m done with drugs and this place.”

  The house boss had not seen DuPont for five days and when he first saw him said gruffly, “Who the fuck are you?”

  “John DuPont?”

  The boss looked again in disbelief and said, “Filthy John?”

  “No longer. That was yesterday. Please don’t call me that anymore. And please tell Mr. Morales that I’d like to leave.”

  “Stay right here.” The boss called Morales and said, “I think you and your team need to come down here immediately.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “All I can say is it’s a fucking miracle.”

  When Morales, Isabella, Rebecca and her team arrived at the Roach Motel, the house boss’ word “miracle” seemed appropriate. John, well-groomed and wearing the cleanest clothes he could muster, sat on house’s porch. He was drinking club soda. John told them he was giving up drugs and wished to return home.

  Morales said, “Of course, but we need you to answer some questions, that’s only fair. Come up to the hacienda.”

  A half hour later, DuPont sat at a long white-clothed table situated on the terrace behind the hacienda. Rebecca, Morales, Isabella and Louisa and all the members of Rebecca’s team sat on chairs several feet away. It was as if they were there to hear the opinion of an expert, which, in a way, was true of DuPont. They wanted to know about the sensations he was experiencing with Clarity and how those sensations compared to other drugs he had taken over the years.