McKean 01 The Jihad Virus

by Thomas Hopp

  “More like two.”

  “And the company is now worth several hundred million dollars?”

  “More like a billion.”

  “Promotions all around, huh?”

  He leaned back against the elevator wall, frozen like some inner spring mechanism had just locked up. He was a smart one, but he couldn’t hide some hint of the negative I sensed in our conversation.

  “All you founders,” I needled onward, “must have made a killing.”

  “Technically,” McKean said, “I’m not a founder.”

  The elevator reached the third floor and the door opened. This landing lacked the opulence of the executive suites. There was no polish and no frills, just a narrow hall of speckled linoleum tile and plain off-white sheetrock walls.

  As we stepped off the elevator, I turned toward the waterfront side of the building and nearly collided with McKean, who turned toward the city side. I stepped aside and then fell in behind him, hustling down a long hall with office doorways on one side and laboratory doors and interior windows on the other.

  I continued fishing for a question that would open McKean up. “You must feel honored,” I said to his back, “to be allowed to work on something as impressive as the Congo River virus project.”

  “Allowed to work on it?” he chuckled without turning. “I proposed it.”

  I had struck pay dirt. “Sorry,” I said sincerely. “Dr. Holloman didn’t mention that fact.”

  “No,” McKean said, turning to eye me briefly then continuing on with a cocky toss of his head. “Not likely.”

  “Tell me a little about the project,” I asked, trailing him like a hungry pup begging for a handout.

  “To make the Congo River virus vaccine,” he said, stopping and turning so quickly that I nearly ran into him, “we dissected the virus, so to speak, and learned which of its many parts were the targets of the body’s immune response.” His attitude seemed to shift now that science was the subject, and he continued enthusiastically. “Because the whole virus is dangerous to work with, we fragmented the viral DNA and isolated the portions that encode certain proteins - the viral surface molecules that are crucial attack points for the human immune system. We mass-produced those surface proteins in harmless bacteria, purified them, used them to make the vaccine that we injected into patients, and the rest is history.”

  “A biosynthetic vaccine,” I remarked.

  “Essentially,” McKean agreed, seemingly amused by my interest in that detail. “You grow bacteria in the same way beer or wine is fermented, and then you extract the viral protein from the broth.”

  “Impressive,” I said. “A tour de force of modern vaccine technology. Isn’t the Congo River Virus all but extinct in the wild, now?”

  He gave me a wan smile. “So ImCo’s public relations people would like you to believe. I was content to save some lives.”

  “But that’s not enough for Holloman?”

  “He says there’s not enough money to be made curing Congo River disease. He’s got a corporate mind set. Saving penniless Africans doesn’t pay well enough. Only when you cure a disease of wealthy nations does your company move into the multi-billion dollar league.”

  “Still,” I resisted, “the success of the vaccine made investors want to gamble on ImCo. The stock price moved up quite a bit.”

  “Unjustifiably high.”

  “You seem pretty unenthusiastic about events that must have made you and the founders rich.”

  McKean chuckled. “You are wrong if you include me with that bunch. My research may have made their company a success, but I’m still just a worker bee. I’ve got about as many stock options as a Congo River villager.” He turned and led on, and I glanced through the wire-reinforced interior windows of the laboratory we were passing.

  “Your lab?” I asked. Something in the massed ranks of reagent bottles on shelves, the glitter of clean benches and floors, and the sterile glare of fluorescent lighting seemed to suit my new acquaintance’s pale looks. Several people in white lab coats like McKean’s manned the benches and machinery.

  “No,” said McKean. “They’re on my neighbor’s turf, the domain of Dr. David Curman, a colleague and competitor.”

  “An interesting choice of words,” I said. “Competitor, within the same company?”

  “Science is a contentious endeavor,” McKean responded. “Theories and experimental proposals sometimes clash.”

  I made a mental note to pursue those thoughts if time allowed. We passed another lab window where my first impression was of sound. From inside came the thump of music, and I spotted stereo speakers on one of the shelves. I couldn’t make out the words, but the beat was strong and rhythmic - a blues song.

  McKean stopped by the door. “These are my labs,” he said, a smile flickering on his thin lips. The previous laboratory had been much more spacious and a lot quieter. This one was noisy and crammed with laboratory goods and equipment. Every surface was either occupied by some piece of apparatus or cluttered with a chaotic jumble of reagent bottles, racks of test tubes, unruly stacks of computer printout paper, glassware, laboratory notebooks, and other odds and ends defying description. There were as many people present here as in the other lab - three people dressed in white lab coats. They were busy at their benchtop labors, each engrossed in some scientific task. I took a mixed impression from the intensity on their faces, the clutter, and the insistent beat of the music. Either I was witnessing the pulse of fast-paced discovery, or the workings of maniacal obsession. Maybe both.

  McKean didn’t enter the lab, but instead led me beyond it and turned into his office through an open doorway across the hall. It was a surprisingly tiny space. Smaller than my own office, it was no more than ten feet on a side. Like my garret, it possessed a single window, and its view contrasted with Holloman’s like night contrasts with day. There was no grand waterfront vista here. Instead, McKean’s window looked across the street at an old warehouse with a crumbling brick facade and bleak, dark, and dust-hazed windows.

  The office itself was a bit more modern than mine. The retrofitted aluminum framed window was set into a tan-painted wall of wood-grained concrete. The taupe Berber carpet and off-white wallboard interior walls struck me as a rather poor hangout for the architect of the experiments on which ImCo based its fortunes.

  “Cozy,” I remarked.

  “Very.” He smiled in his peculiar, tight-lipped way, motioning me into one of two guest chairs. These were cheap, compared to the ones in Holloman’s office, but comfortable enough, with cushioned backs of dark-green fabric and plain wooden arms.

  I scanned the office and found it reminiscent of the over-full spaces of the lab. There were four tall black metal file cabinets and two tall oak bookshelves, which were crammed with scientific volumes with interesting entitles: Natural History of Congo River Virus, Practical Immunochemistry, and Stedman’s Medical Dictionary. A few titles didn’t fit my expectations: Northwest Native Shamanism, The Holy Qur’an, Dinosaur Eggs and Babies. McKean’s small gray metal desk was covered with papers, several inches deep, mainly photocopies of scientific journal articles. I glanced quickly at a few titles: “Synthetic chemistry of the peptide bond,” “DNA, RNA, and the polymerase chain-reaction,” and “Viral mutation mechanisms.” These seemed consistent with the interests of a medical researcher but again there were odd ones. “Astrophysics and the cosmological constant,” “Songbirds of the Solomon Islands,” and “A Neanderthal flute.” Every paper had been worked over with a yellow highlighter marking-pen.

  A large potted avocado plant thrived by pressing itself against the small window. Its pendulous green leaves had spread toward the fluorescent lighting overhead, taking up much of the office space not already occupied by furniture. On the wall nearest me, a large whiteboard was densely scrawled with four colors of marking pens in long strings of A, T, G, and C DNA code letters. These, I had no doubt, were the genetic sequences of whatever microbe McKean had been discussing most recentl
y. On another wall were large nature photos in oak picture frames. One was of an evergreen forest where huge tree trunks rose from a ferny grotto. The other was of Mount Rainier’s icy top bathed in sunrise pink. I smiled, looking at that last one. So McKean had a view after all.

  He settled into his desk chair, a swivel on five casters, made of the same green cloth as mine. He turned it to face me almost knee to knee, and then leaned back with his angular elbows on the black plastic armrests and his hands knit, with his long index fingers steepled in an Ichabodian, schoolmasterly way.

  “So,” he began. “We have a short time before the virus sample arrives. What questions can I answer for you?”

  “It’s funny,” I remarked. “I’ve never heard your name mentioned in reference to Congo River vaccine. You would think Dr. Holloman would be justifiably proud of his scientists’ inventiveness.”

  A faint smile crept across McKean’s thin face, as if he took a perverse pleasure in my needling. Only at this moment did I realize I was dealing with a much more worldly fellow than I at first judged him to be. My newsman’s experience has taught me to spot the faintest signs of guile or deceit. There were none in McKean’s dark, earnest eyes.

  “Perhaps Holloman is proud,” McKean admitted. “But I have my doubts he wants all the details of the discovery made known.” He watched me amusedly, as if anticipating the thoughts turning in my mind.

  “So,” - my mental wheels spun - “publicizing the details of the experiments would show the world how great science gets done, but the image of Holloman as the inventor of the Congo River vaccine would be gone.”

  “Very astute.” McKean replied. His smile widened. But the smile faded, and he appeared to be savoring a mixed taste in his mouth. “He warned you he would edit the text.”

  “Yes, he did,” I acknowledged. But I took the idea a little further. “The Congo River vaccine should be considered your invention - is that what you’re saying?”

  He shrugged, and then murmured in a level voice, “I’m not saying that.” Nevertheless I detected a contradiction of his words in the hard look of his eyes, and an angry-young-man jut of his chin. I wasn’t sure where to take the idea from here.

  “You see,” he volunteered after a moment, “I’m Holloman’s employee. Therefore, whatever I invent while on his payroll is his, not mine.”

  “I suppose so,” I agreed. “But you just now used the words ‘I invent.’ So the vaccine was your discovery?”

  His eyes widened. He sat straighter, as if he hadn’t expected to be cornered by the likes of me. “Sure,” he said after a moment. “It’s all a matter of record. I proposed the project in the first place and led the team that did the lab work.” He pointed to several tattered laboratory notebooks on a corner of his desk, half covered in photocopied sheets. He said nothing more.

  I gestured at our humble surroundings. “Forgive me for saying this, Dr. McKean, but you don’t seem to have gotten much recognition for creating the product that made the company’s stock skyrocket.”

  He turned and stared at the brick wall across the street. “Wall Street is the province of businessmen,” he said. “I’m a scientist.”

  I almost regretted having trodden over such a sensitive subject. He drew his thumb and fingers over his chin, staring outside thoughtfully for quite some time. Then his desk phone rang. He answered, and then covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “It’s Janet Emerson, my head technician. The virus courier is down at the loading dock.” He uncovered the receiver. “Yes, Janet, go down and sign the sample in. I’ll meet you in the containment facility.”

  He hung up the phone, seeming relieved at the change of subject. “Looks like we’ll have to chat another time. I’ve got to go to the lab in a few minutes.”

  “To handle the virus?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he replied lightheartedly. “You’re welcome to watch.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “How dangerous - “

  “Hah!” He cut me off. “Don’t worry. Janet and I handle pathological materials like this routinely.”

  “Viruses as lethal as smallpox?”

  “Congo River virus was no pipsqueak, and we handled it just fine. Janet and I worked on a hepatitis vaccine in my postdoc years in the Army’s chemical and biological warfare labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland. She joined me here shortly after I took this job.”

  “She’s that loyal? Following you across the continent?”

  “Answer: yes. We’re extremely close collaborators.”

  “I imagine you’re both under constant stress, working with viruses like Congo River or smallpox.”

  “Not really.” McKean rose and began buttoning his lab coat. “Whole viruses may be deadly, but the first thing we did with the Congo River virus was to fragment the viral DNA. After that, we worked with the pieces. Each fragment was unable to grow on its own. There was no need even to keep the pieces in the isolation facility once we separated them from the rest of the viral genome.”

  “And you don’t anticipate any greater risk with smallpox?”

  “Not after we break up the DNA, which is the first thing we’ll do today. Of course, that sort of preliminary work goes on in strict bio-containment.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Shall we go to the lab?” McKean asked. “You can have a peek inside our containment facility.”

  After a brief hesitation I said, “Okay. But I’m not sure how close I want to get to this thing.”

  “Where’s the newshound’s spirit of inquiry?” McKean mocked. “You won’t be anywhere near the real danger. We’ve got layer-upon-layer of precautions, following strict CDC guidelines. And this won’t be the first time we’ve had a killer in our bio-containment facility.”

  We got up and I followed him across the hall and into the lab. The music player thumped an old Chicago blues shuffle while two people in white lab coats, a man and a woman, worked at lab benches. McKean stopped to lean over each one’s shoulder, glancing briefly at their experiments in progress. Then he introduced me, first to Robert Johnson, his master’s-level biologist, who was making microbial growth medium by combining salts, nutrients, and sterile water in flasks, and then to Beryl Shum, his molecular biology assistant. He explained that she was setting up an analytical run on the lab’s polymerase chain reaction DNA synthesizing apparatus. The toaster-sized black gadget sat inside a microbiological sterility-control cabinet, taking up less space than the music player and seeming to have fewer features: a numeric keypad on the front, a small aluminum block on top with about eight dozen holes in it, and a black cable snaking to an electrical outlet. Some of the holes held small clear plastic test tubes into which Beryl, sitting on a tall lab stool and manipulating a micro syringe with blue-plastic-gloved hands, was transferring DNA test samples.

  “She’s analyzing some new Congo River virus isolates,” McKean explained to me. “The virus keeps mutating, but has yet to escape the protection our vaccine affords.” Then he spent several minutes discussing the details of the experiment with Beryl in scientific lingo that quickly left me behind. I stepped back to take a wider view and observe McKean in his element.

  I have already noted that Peyton McKean is a physically striking man. At well over six feet, he overtopped his coworkers and me, but there was nothing intimidating about him. He had an easy-going, graceful way about him that put his lab-mates at ease. Beryl and he chatted amiably while she transferred samples into the tubes on the PCR block. McKean was pleasantly animated as he gabbed in molecular biology jargon. He seemed to have forgotten the frustrations of corporate politics that we had been discussing. The long, angular features of his face bore a good-natured expression, and his thin-lipped mouth frequently arched up at the corners in a little smile. A constant twinkle lit his brown eyes. Obviously, the intricacies of research pleased him more than discussing money or status. And I saw, in the intensity of those eyes, in the habitual slight frown, and even in the length of the straight nose down which he viewed
the world, an uncanny depth of thought and a formidable mental capacity.

  His technical talk, full of terms like “nested oligonucleotide primers,” “annealing temperature,” and “template DNA,” was fully comprehensible to Beryl but left me feeling like I was trying to follow a chat in Sanskrit. After several minutes McKean left Beryl and Robert to their work, motioning me to follow him to the far side of the room. There, beyond a second wired-glass interior window, was yet another laboratory, with one person inside, gowned in white and blue from head to toe.

  “This,” he said with a good measure pride in his tone, “is our bio-containment facility.”

  It was a bright room with a clean linoleum-tile floor, bare walls and minimal equipment inside. It contained just the essentials for microbiology work: an oven-like microbiological incubator for growing bacteria, a tall freezer, a counter with a sink and gas fixtures, a benchtop centrifuge and other minor equipment. The lack of clutter contrasted to the outer lab where we were surrounded by shelves and benches covered with bottles, flasks, glassware, and dozens of electronic gadgets that evaded my powers of definition.

  “It’s very nice,” I remarked. “Shiny…clean…sterile looking…”

  “More than that,” he said. “It’s a BSL-3 facility.”

  “BSL-3…” I tried to puzzle out the meaning of the acronym. “Bio…Biosecurity…”

  “Bio-Safety Level Three,” McKean corrected me. “The national standard for work involving hazardous microbes. It has its own enclosed air supply, filtered so that not even a virus can escape. The entire room is under negative air pressure compared to this room, so any leakage around the sealed doors will go in, not out. We keep the room scrubbed with disinfectant soap, and the whole place is bathed in UV light at night to kill anything that might try to grow on the floors or equipment.”

  The person inside the facility was a young, smallish, and very pretty woman, wearing a white lab coat, blue scrub pants, blue latex gloves and blue paper booties. Her long hair was knotted up under a blue paper head-cover.