The Journal of Senator Robert Fitzgerald
Excerpt # 1
To Dylan,
I had intended this journal to be a gift. I had visions of drafting a series of letters in this journal that, collectively, might guide you as you grew older. They would compensate, to whatever extent possible, for all the time our family was apart. Or, perhaps more accurately, for all the time I was apart from our family.
And yet, what you are holding is no gift. It is a confession, written by a scared, broken man. I do not seek absolution: such a luxury is well beyond my grasp.
I seek only to explain—to the extent that I can do so.
And to ask your forgiveness.
Love,
Your Father
Chapter 8
Tiber City
Aug. 27, 2015
Noon
Gripping one end of the red rubber tourniquet between his teeth, Campbell twisted his neck, tightening the other end’s grip on his upper forearm, just below the elbow. Instantly, several veins rose to the surface of his skin; hungry, expectant. He ran his finger along the fat purple vein, the thickest of the group, slapping it until it strained against his flesh, the valve easily recognizable.
With his free hand, he picked a syringe out of the leather carrying case Jael had procured, which was now unrolled and stretched across the cot where Campbell was sitting. Including the syringe in his hand, Campbell counted three dozen doses, enough to last him six months, give or take a few weeks. But that was just an approximation: His battle against his own DNA was growing increasingly fierce and unpredictable.
Holding the syringe upright, the smell of wet leather heavy in the air, Campbell pressed down on the plunger, forcing himself to watch as the needle punctured the skin and pricked the vein. The effect was immediate: a huge mushroom cloud of warmth rising up through his chest before blowing out into his legs, arms, brain, white heat devouring his nervous system.
His jaw seized up and the rubber tubing tumbled from his arm. Campbell dropped the syringe as blood began to trickle out of the hole in his arm: This was the point at which most junkies would nod off, collapsing back onto some pile of filth in whatever abandoned building-turned-shooting gallery they scored in. Campbell, however, was not like most junkies; he was a special kind of junkie. Not exactly like the William Burroughs-Johnny Thunders brand of addict, but not exactly unlike them either. The tools of the trade were the same: rubber dinosaur tied tight around the crevice where forearm met elbow and a syringe full of shit churned out in a laboratory. Yet when he pushed down the plunger, Campbell had shot his body full of a different kind of junk, a chemical cocktail Project Exodus had dubbed “the Treatment”: a series of designer enzymes created to keep the ends of certain specific chromosomes from degenerating, which, in turn, slowed man’s aging process to an imperceptible crawl.
Campbell’s head was pounding now as the chemicals he injected assailed his system, his brain an overloaded power grid flickering in and out of consciousness as it tried to keep up with his body’s demand. He sank backward onto the cot, gritting his teeth, his eyes struggling to focus on his surroundings, on something—anything—other than the pain. When Campbell first left Exodus, he could go years without an injection. Now, he could go a month, tops. And he didn’t even have the real thing; just a synthetic approximation that simply warded off total physical collapse. Jael and the Order helped him come up with the chemicals he needed to make an approximation of the Treatment and while it wasn’t as good as the original, it beat the black market garbage he used to score in the first few years after he left Project Exodus.
Project Exodus. The words echoed through Campbell’s brain, reverberating from synapse to synapse as he squeezed his eyes shut, his mind flashing back to the desert as he felt the Treatment bearing down on his body.
Project Exodus was originally a product of the Cold War. In the years leading up to Exodus, America had grown obsessed with gaps: The space gap, the first-strike missile gap, the education gap, the bomber gap; the concept of a gap between the United States and the USSR was the new national nightmare, complete with the specter of Khrushchev slamming his shoe on the table, promising to bury all the Orange County kids in their subdivided backyards. The government was spooked and began taking action to address these “gaps.” One such emerging gap was the “leader gap.” Although information on Soviet party leadership was shadowy at best during much of the Cold War, by the time Watergate rolled around, there were some very powerful men in the government growing tired of defending the health of the republic from human frailty.
This was where Campbell entered the picture. By the mid-’70s, Jonathan Campbell had already established himself as the preeminent geneticist of his generation. The youngest faculty member ever granted tenure by Harvard, Campbell had talent that was matched only by his desire to use genetics to end the suffering of mankind: to not only eradicate genetic diseases but to actually learn how to reprogram human DNA to resist various viruses and influenzas. Campbell’s focus wasn’t just on the West, but the entire world—India, Africa, all the third world hellholes where the flu was still a death sentence.
Believing the Cold War would last indefinitely, the government approached Campbell about the possibilities of using genetics to close this “leader gap.” As far as Campbell had been concerned, the proposal was ludicrous. But still, he accepted the government’s challenge: How could he not? As human beings, America’s leaders had failings that had been naturally hardwired into their DNA. If the alleged gap was to be corrected, Campbell would need to somehow reprogram the DNA of future presidents; that kind of program would grant him access not only to technology and resources the private sector couldn’t match, but the freedom to pursue his true goals outside the established legal framework regulating the biotechnology industry. For those kinds of perks, he could deal with the occasional hysterical lecture from a cold warrior. So Campbell compromised; the first of many concessions that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
The operation, which began in 1976, was code-named Project Exodus: a reflection of the idea that the American people had been abandoned by their leaders, left to wander in the Cold War desert. The goal of the Project was simple yet audacious: Stem any potential for a “leader gap” by isolating the genes responsible for certain human failings that undermined American executives’ ability to lead effectively. Eventually, the goal was to expand the Project to include the military and intelligence agencies—Wall Street was mentioned as well—but the executive branch was the primary concern.
To assist him in overseeing Project Exodus, Campbell recruited the only other scientist able to rival his talent and ego, a Harvard graduate student named Michael Morrison. Campbell had been Morrison’s mentor at Harvard. While ostensibly working toward what he considered the government’s rather delusional goals, Campbell dreamed of locating and isolating those poisonous genes transmitting conditions such as Tay-Sachs and Alzheimer’s: God’s mistakes would now be corrected by Campbell and Morrison. At the time, Campbell believed he and Morrison shared the same ideals, the same belief in science’s ability to liberate, to heal, to transcend. If that meant playing ball with paranoid cold warriors, so be it. Were he not consumed with his own crusade perhaps Campbell would have detected the subtle signs of treason earlier.
In order to placate their government sponsors, the pair sought to correct the genetic components of traits deemed “undesirable” in future leaders of the free world. The idea was to be able to cure certain genetic conditions that might hobble an otherwise effective leader: manic-depression, alcoholism, sex-addiction, Alzheimer’s.
Almost all of these afflictions were the result of mutations that would cause the protein encoded by a specific gene to malfunction. When a protein malfunctions, cells that rely on that protein’s function can’t behave normally, which in turn causes so many of the conditions Exodus sought to eradicate. While medical treatment was available for some of these mutations, others remained untreat
able. So, rather than merely wrapping a very expensive bandage around these problems, Campbell and Morrison committed themselves to pushing Exodus to the next level, to correct the source of the mutations, replacing faulty genes with healthy, fully functioning ones through a then-revolutionary technique known as somatic gene therapy.
After manufacturing a healthy copy of the mutated gene in the laboratory, the Exodus team placed the new, therapeutic gene into a transmissions device known as a vector. This vector was delivered to the patient through a series of injections into a specific tissue, and the new gene was carried into a subject’s defective cells.
Determined to expand these somatic gene experiments beyond the government’s desired scope, Campbell and Morrison soon began introducing genes into the blood cells of the patients with hemophilia and the brain tissue of Alzheimer’s patients. There was some success: On a few occasions, Project Exodus research reversed the effects of some of mankind’s most feared afflictions. There were also, however, some stunning failures: More than one “volunteer” from Attica’s death row spent his final moments hemorrhaging to death in the Exodus laboratories. Campbell’s resolve wavered after each death, but each time Morrison convinced him to stay with the Project.
Think of man’s greatest achievements, Campbell recalled Morrison urging him around that time. The Great Pyramids, the Hoover Dam, and the atomic bomb: None could have been accomplished without some loss of life. It was the lives improved by these great works that justified such loss. So a few kiddie-rapists and serial killers died, so what? Morrison had asked. Campbell agreed.
Despite some early breakthroughs employing gene therapy techniques, both men realized their few early victories owed more to luck than skill. Two massive hurdles to genuinely effective gene therapy remained: complete understanding of gene function and the development of a reliable vector. Without a complete understanding of gene function, the two-man Exodus team was shooting in the dark, never certain if the gene they repaired was the exact gene that caused the genetic defect. Furthermore, the delivery vectors were unstable at best.
Despite these potential setbacks, the Exodus team pushed forward, spending the next five years attempting to complete the human genome sequence. The final secrets held by the human genome yielded to Campbell and Morrison in the dead of winter, 1981. While the rest of the world was just beginning to investigate the possibilities of mapping the human genome, Morrison and Campbell had already done it. They did not, however, go public with their discoveries. Campbell had wanted to share the data with the world, offering an open-source template that would fast-forward all genetic research by 20 years. Morrison persuaded him not to. There was, after all, still work to be done. The Cold War was again heating up, and when the few individuals in the government hip to Exodus learned of the breakthroughs being made out in the desert, money rained down onto the Project.
Although the Human Genome Project was a stunning scientific achievement, it was but a single piece in the Exodus puzzle. In fact, as Campbell and Morrison had repeatedly explained to their government contacts, the Human Genome Project was only the first step in understanding humans at the molecular level. While the sequencing phase of the HGP was complete, many questions remained unanswered: most important, the function of almost all of the estimated 30,000 to 35,000 human genes. The Exodus researchers did not know the role of SNPs—single amino acid changes within the genome—or the role of noncoding regions and repeats in the genome: two processes critical to the Project’s final goal of creating a new man to lead the American people into the new century. But before that could happen, Project Exodus needed to understand not only the identity of every single gene, but the function of each gene and how that function affected human illness and suffering—both mental and physical.
Although their work thus far had revealed the order in which the 46 coiled strands of DNA found in every human cell are arranged on man’s chromosomes, the chemicals located on those DNA strands, the ones which contained the instructions for making the proteins that comprise the human body, remained beyond their grasp. Until Exodus was able to identify these letters, any attempts to neutralize undesirable traits, in either political leaders or infants, would remain a high-tech game of pin the tail on the donkey. Even if, by some stroke of luck, Exodus managed to nail down one or two genes that caused defects, until the entire molecular picture was complete, it was impossible to know whether removing that particular gene would affect how another gene worked.
Even as the Project’s successes grew, it became apparent that realizing the goals of Exodus was going to take a lifetime—most likely, longer. It would be a great injustice to the human race, Morrison argued, if the two men did not see Exodus through to its conclusion. Even if they lived long enough to solve all the mysteries of the human genetic code, Exodus would be devoured by young Turks clad for battle in white lab coats, and the two would be resigned to advisory councils and the lecture circuit, a.k.a. where old scientists went to die. There had to be a way, insisted Morrison, to use what Exodus had learned about human DNA to prevent this from happening. Morrison’s reasoning had seemed to make sense: The Treatment would allow them to stay strong and sharp, retaining the mental and physical abilities Exodus would demand. Why come so close, only to be pushed aside by younger, stronger men; men who might not share their same vision? It was in response to this need that the Treatment was born.
Campbell came to an hour or so later, staring up from his bed at the room’s only source of light: a single bulb hanging from a thin strand of wire, transforming raw electricity into the meager wattage that struggled to light the entire room. Any additional illumination spread out from a series of candles scattered around the room, pools of wax forming as Campbell’s sleepless nights mutated into cold gray dawns. A makeshift desk—an unfinished wood door laid across two paint-splattered sawhorses—and a musty old cot were the only pieces of furniture in the room. Both had been there when Campbell first arrived; he never got around to moving the desk and the ascetic nature of the cot had appealed to him.
There were no decorations, just brown accordion-style files stacked next to a beat-up laptop resting on top of the desk. The crumbling brick walls were adorned with a collage of newspaper clippings and printed articles. When he wasn’t working with the Order or drinking at the bar downstairs, this is how Campbell passed the time in Tiber City: scanning the Web or even occasionally rifling through newspapers—the ones that were still in print publication, anyways—looking for stories about Morrison Biotechnology, about bodies turning up in the New Mexican desert, about the sudden resurgence of ancient diseases, and about Jack Heffernan. Campbell had hung the most recent clipping the other night, the fresh black inkjet clashing with the yellowed headlines and curled paper from the past decade. “Jack Heffernan: Zeroing in on Presidential Primary Victory”—that was the headline staring out at the tiny room where Jonathan Campbell spent most of his time.
“Me personally?” came a voice from the doorway. “I’d say he’s a lock.”
Campbell shot up from the cot, the pain fading but still present, his head swimming as he turned in the direction of the voice that, no matter how much time passed, he could never forget.
In the narrow doorway loomed Michael Morrison, his 6-foot-4 frame complimented by a two-button Brooks Brothers suit, white French-cuff dress shirt, and onyx cuff links.
On his feet now, Campbell staggered sideways, away from the cot and toward the desk on the far side of the room, his chest tightening as he struggled to breathe.
“I don’t blame you for looking so surprised Jonathan. It’s been quite some time—almost two decades now? But I want you to understand our—let’s call it a separation—has been difficult for me as well. After all, you left New Mexico without even saying goodbye,” Morrison added with a wink as he walked through the doorway and into the room, strolling toward the series of articles stuck to the wall in front of the desk, a bemused grin spreading across his clean, hard visage.
“My God, he’s impressive,” Morrison said, studying the clips. “Must have some outstanding genes.”
The initial shock fading, Campbell’s world collapsed into a blur of fury, heat, and pain. He charged Morrison, his left arm arcing toward the man’s jaw. But Morrison sidestepped the punch, allowing Campbell to stumble forward before slamming into the wall, the impact sending several of the newspaper clippings floating toward the floor.
“That answers one of my questions,” Morrison said, picking the empty syringe off the desk, studying it as he spoke. “Whatever you’ve been using, well, let’s just say nothing beats the real thing.
“But don’t get me wrong, Jonathan,” Morrison continued, tossing the syringe back onto the desk. “You look good. Damn good. But you just missed me by a mile. I should have at least felt a little breeze.”
Campbell wheeled back around toward the cot, a flash of steel visible as he pulled a .357 Magnum from under his pillow before aiming it at Morrison’s chest.
“Still want to feel a little breeze, Michael?” Campbell snarled, stepping toward his former pupil, an audible click echoing across the room as he released the safety.
“I have no idea why after 20 years, you’ve decided to drop by,” he continued. “But things are different now.”
“So it would seem,” Morrison replied, adjusting his cuff link as he watched Campbell move toward him.
“Then why don’t you just turn around and head back through that door to whatever private jet is waiting to take you to Bretton Woods or Davos or wherever you’re scheduled to be lauded next and leave me the fuck alone.”
“Given your apparent interest in Jack Heffernan,” Morrison said, gesturing toward the clippings on Campbell’s wall, “you’re not even the least bit curious as to why I’m here?”
Kingdom Page 8
