by Jack Bowie
“Sure. As long as you can pay my rates.”
“Right. This is strict GSA, Adam. And don’t give me any grief, I know you have a Schedule. I’ll get a draft contract over this afternoon. Give it a look and get back to me. As soon as you can. We’re under a bit of a tight schedule.”
“Uh, sure. I can review it tonight,” Braxton said.
Slattery abruptly rose and extended his hand. “Great. I really do appreciate this, Adam.”
They shook hands and Slattery headed for the door.
Then he stopped and turned back. “One more thing, Adam. The company’s in Boston. I thought that might pique your interest.”
As Slattery disappeared into the outer office, Braxton dropped back in his chair and let the spook’s final comment sink in. Images flashed through his mind. Some pleasant, others not so. Boston. Dinners with Megan at their favorite restaurant in the North End. Running circuits over the Charles River bridges. And the boarded-up window in his Cambridge apartment after Paul had been murdered.
Do I have the courage to go back?
“You okay?” Chu asked appearing at the door to his office. “What did Mr. Smith want this time?”
“Nothing nefarious so far as I can tell. He wants me to do a security audit of a company.”
Chu stood silently and crossed her arms over her slim body. “Are you sure you want to do that?” she finally asked.
“I think so. It’s just a job this time. How much trouble could a security audit be?”
Chapter 3
Over Boston, Massachusetts
Tuesday, 10:30 a.m.
Pellets of rain and sleet swept across the scarred plastic window as the airplane began its descent through forbidding clouds. The Delta shuttle from DC to Boston garnered neither the best airplanes nor the best officers, and the ineptitude of the current flight crew only added to the queasiness in Braxton’s stomach. As he leaned over his laptop to risk a view, images of his destination slowly materialized through the featureless gray cloud cover.
Whitecaps danced on the surface of Quincy Bay reminding Braxton that he had left D.C.’s mild fall weather for a cold, October premonition of Boston’s impending winter. They were tracking the coast of Boston’s South Shore, flying over the communities of Weymouth, Braintree and Quincy, in line for Logan’s runway oh-four.
The previous day had been a whirlwind of activity. Slattery had forwarded the contract just after noon. Braxton had decided to get it out of the way rather than waiting for the evening and had gone through the relatively short Scope of Work. It was all fairly standard for a government contract, but he had been surprised at the performance incentive. There was a significant bonus if the audit could be completed by the end of the week. Slattery hadn’t been kidding about the tight schedule.
He had checked with Chu and, despite her continued concern with working for the CIA, they had concluded the trip could be fit into his schedule. A few calls later, previous appointments had been rescheduled, reservations had been secured, and Braxton had been heads-down putting together the plan for the audit.
From the SOW, he had learned that his target was a high-flying biotech, Omega Genomics. This company was a far cry from his typical federal IT department client and he knew he’d better do some fast research to avoid embarrassing himself. So his evening had been spent catching up on the state of genomics.
It had been a long time since Introductory Biology at Boston College. He knew, of course, that DNA was the “chain of life.” It was a two meter long, double-stranded helical molecule packed so tightly in a cell that it only took up six-millionths of an inch. Chemically, it consisted of a long sugar-phosphate backbone to which was attached a sequence of millions of simpler molecules called nucleotides. Only four different nucleotides were found in DNA: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. So all life was encoded in a sentence using only four letters: A, C, G and T.
DNA was present in the nucleus of all cells, organized into twenty-three pairs of chromosomes. Specific areas on these chromosomes were called genes, each gene supposedly responsible for determining some characteristic of the individual: eye color, skin tone, perhaps even intelligence.
But if he was to deal with the technologists at Omega Genomics, he needed to know a lot more. So it had been off to the Internet.
The most familiar use of DNA was for identification: criminal investigations, mass causality identification and paternity testing. He had been surprised to discover that DNA identification actually had nothing to do with genes. In 1985, a scientist in England had discovered that “junk DNA”, the vestigial areas of the molecule between genes, contained repeating groups of nucleotides. And that different individuals’ DNA had different numbers of these groups. By determining the number of these repeats in a variety of locations on chromosomes, it was possible to match a suspect’s DNA to that of a known sample. The field of genetic analysis had thus begun.
The next step had been decoding DNA—determining the actual sequence of nucleotides that existed in a human’s DNA molecule. Leveraging advancements in computer technology and assisted by investments such as the Human Genome Project in the US, the first complete sequence was published in 2003.
Despite the fact that no one still understood how all those genes created life, money poured into possible commercial applications including genetically-modified crops, personalized medicine and even genealogy.
All of these applications relied, however, on a single premise: that it was possible to rapidly and efficiently determine the sequence of nucleotides in a sample of DNA. Early technology required tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of dollars and months of time to sequence a single sample. Real achievement of these goals would require something new. This was where Omega Genomics had staked its claim.
Omega was the brainchild of biotech wunderkind Dr. Devon McAllister. McAllister was a giant in the field. His Wikipedia page covered four full screens, not counting the unending roll of scientific citations.
A Yale graduate, McAllister had held appointments at the biogenetics laboratories of NIH, and at the Whitehead and Broad Institutes at MIT. Feeling constrained by the limitations of academia, he had then taken his entrepreneurial plunge and founded Omega Genomics to commercialize his vision of genome analysis.
The company had produced a series of ground-breaking instruments for genomic analysis, bringing the cost of sequencing to tens of dollars and the time to hours. This, in turn, had driven advances in criminal forensics, victim identification, and DNA-based drug therapies. McAllister had become a billionaire and garnered an incomparable list of awards culminating with an X-Prize for the first $1000 genome.
Culminating, that is, until last week, when he had been named winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
Braxton broke from his thoughts and glanced out the window. Sliding beneath him he caught a glimpse of the famous Rainbow Swash on the Dorchester oil tank—now missing that purported profile of Ho Chi Minh—then, farther ahead, the familiar outlines of the John Hancock and the Prudential towers. He hadn’t been back to Boston since the incident that had set him on his current path. The memories that event raised were not pleasant ones. He had lost his best friend in that misguided attempt to “do the right thing”; a lesson he hoped he had taken well to heart.
The steward called for all portable electronic devices to be stowed, so Braxton focused on packing up his papers, temporarily pushing the thoughts that had been nagging him to a convenient, but out of sight, corner of his mind.
He returned to the task at hand.
Further research on McAllister and Omega had been hampered by what Braxton called “the professional smoke screen”: the set of names and acronyms behind which every profession hid its activities. These code words promoted a sense of mystery and magic and differentiated the profession’s practitioners from the uninitiated. Braxton’s own field had its APIs, BLOBs, LANs, WANs, MACs, and VPNs, to say nothing of bots, worms, rogues and clouds, the latter
terms having even migrated into the vernacular, albeit with decidedly less precision of definition.
Genomics technology had an equally bewildering set: PCR, RFLP, SLP, SNP, STR, VNTR, and Braxton’s favorite, CRISPR, standing for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.” Whatever the hell that meant.
Struggling to break through this fog, he had deduced that McAllister’s latest advancement had been to “hack” DNA polymerase; he had modified the enzyme that duplicates DNA so it would “log” its results. This logging, or reporting, was via pulses of light: a red pulse every time an adenine was copied, green every time a cytosine, etc. By capturing the light pulses, the sequence could be read. He assumed there was a lot more to the process than this simple explanation, but he hoped this would be enough to not get him thrown out of the company.
Braxton felt a real sense of anticipation at this assignment. While there was no guarantee he would get to meet Dr. McAllister, Braxton had never met a Nobelist in person before. He hoped he would get the chance.
In addition to Omega Genomics, Braxton had read that McAllister also founded a non-profit organization, ChildSafe, that collected DNA samples of children for identification in the case of abduction or emergencies. All at no cost to the families.
Compared to these achievements, Braxton’s involvement was singularly mundane. A standard part of any investor’s due diligence on a target company was a thorough audit of the company’s policies and procedures for data security and integrity. While Omega Genomics was arguably Braxton’s primary focus, the CIA’s brief had mentioned that ChildSafe’s operation was to be included in the audit. They were co-resident in Boston, so the charge made sense. Considering that ChildSafe’s assets were nothing less than the genetic makeup of millions of children, the CIA’s concern was understandable.
The plane hit the tarmac with a harsh jolt and Braxton grabbed for his armrests. It then jerked its way to the gate.
No applause for the pilot on this flight.
As they drew up to the jetway, Braxton couldn’t help but wonder about the reason for the CIA’s interest. It could simply be an investment in a hot technology that promised significant financial returns. But could Omega Genomics have more subtle importance to the intelligence community?
* * *
In his days as a Cambridge resident, Braxton would have taken the T from Logan, but this was on the CIA’s dime, so he hailed a cab and sat, right hand clenched onto the safety handle, as the taxi driver navigated the maze that was Boston’s highway system. After only three near-miss accidents, they jerked to a stop in front of the gleaming steel and glass Boston Biotechnology Center. Situated on the Boston end of the Western Avenue Bridge, it had a striking view of Cambridge and the Charles River.
Braxton introduced himself at the reception desk, gave the name of his contact, and was asked to wait for an escort. A few minutes later, a dapper, elderly man approached him. The tailored gray suit, starched white shirt and polished leather broughams suggested someone more than an executive assistant. He was about six feet tall with deep blue eyes and silver hair precisely combed over his head. He nodded to the receptionist and offered his hand.
“Mr. Braxton. I’m Michael Kennedy, Chief Operating Officer of Omega Genomics. Dr. McAllister had planned to show you around, but with the Nobel announcement, his schedule has been completely disrupted. Let’s go upstairs and hopefully we can grab a few minutes for you.”
They took the elevator to the third floor and walked into an opulent, mahogany-encased reception area. A gold stylized “Omega Genomics” covered the wall on the right behind a small seating area. A young, casually-dressed receptionist sat smiling on his left. Kennedy spoke briefly with the receptionist and the door to the inner sanctum was buzzed open.
They walked down a long hall whose walls were covered with framed examples of Omega Genomics’ promotional material. The images proclaimed “Fastest Gun in Town” and “We Always Get Our Man, or Woman.” The campaign, playing off Wild West themes, proclaimed rapid, accurate and cost-effective DNA identification.
At the end of the corridor, Kennedy stopped and opened a door. A simple “Dr. Devon McAllister” was etched on the door’s glass.
Kennedy motioned to a chair next to a large teak desk. “Please have a seat, Mr. Braxton. Devon should be here in a moment.”
McAllister’s office was hardly the cluttered workspace of a disorganized scientist so familiar to Braxton. It was as spotless as an operating room. The odor of lemon furniture polish hung in the air. The furniture was modern and sparse, just a few chairs and a desk. McAllister’s desktop was nearly clear. On the side nearest to Braxton sat a slim Apple monitor and keyboard. On the far side stood a lone photograph frame.
Built-in teak shelves covered one wall, but the structure was devoid of books. Rather, it was filled with pictures and awards highlighting McAllister’s achievements. The centerpiece of the display was the soaring crystal X-Prize celebrating the scientist’s previously greatest achievement. Braxton wondered where McAllister would hang his Nobel medal.
A wall of glass looked out on the Charles. Braxton let his gaze follow Western Avenue all the way to Central Square, then left to Harvard. He felt a knot tighten in his stomach.
Braxton heard the door open behind him and saw the founder of Omega Genomics walk into the room. He rose to meet the scientist and businessman.
McAllister was Braxton’s height, a few inches shorter than Kennedy, and quite a few pounds heavier. He had wavy brown hair, penetrating brown eyes and a tanned, heavily-lined face. Braxton remembered reading that he was a competitive sailor in his “spare time.”
McAllister extended his hand as he approached. “Mr. Braxton. Devon McAllister. Welcome to Omega Genomics.” McAllister’s deep resonant voice cut through Braxton’s reverie. “I’m sorry I won’t be able to spend much time with you today. The phone has been ringing all morning and some of my staff,” he glanced over to Kennedy with a frown, “believe it would be of benefit to the company for me to honor the requested interviews. I personally find most of the questions quite distasteful, but ‘duty calls’ as they say.”
“I completely understand, Dr. McAllister,” Braxton replied. “I’m sure I can get all the information I need from your staff. And congratulations on the Nobel. It is quite an honor to meet you.”
McAllister’s face relaxed and he managed a weak smile. “Thank you. I left orders that my staff assists you with anything you need.” He moved behind the desk and sat down, motioning Braxton to do the same. Kennedy remained at attention in the corner of the room.
He furled his brow before continuing. “I must admit to doing some checking on you after Roger said you would be performing the security audit. I like to know as much as I can about those digging around in my company. I must say I was quite surprised. You have had a very interesting past few years.”
McAllister paused, perhaps expecting a response, but Braxton left the comment hanging in the air. The executive let the lapse pass. “I value hard-headed dedication to a goal. It has served me well over the years. I expect you will apply the same energy to this audit as you have to your other, ah, engagements. I will accept nothing less.”
“Yes, sir. I promise I will do my best.”
“Very good then.”
The phone rang and McAllister raised his hand. “One moment, please, Mr. Braxton.” He picked up the receiver and moved his attention to the voice on the other end of the line.
Braxton let his eyes wander down to the desk and then to the picture sitting so prominently. It was the only truly personal artifact in the entire office. It was of a hauntingly beautiful silver-haired woman. Braxton wondered who she was; he had read that McAllister had been a widower for many years.
Well, everyone is entitled to a second chance.
“Lovely isn’t she?” McAllister’s hand now covered the phone’s mouthpiece.
Braxton quickly turned back to his host. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry about staring.”
“No, no. Not at all. That’s my wife. She was killed in an automobile accident many years ago. The hotshots at ChildSafe have developed some very sophisticated photographic aging software for identifying lost children. Every year I ask them to create a new image for me.” McAllister’s eyes remained on his guest, but a deep sadness washed across his face. His focus drifted to a different time. “I keep it as a reminder of how easily we can lose the things we love. If I had only been with her, she might still be alive. It’s important that I remember why I do what I do. And what I lost. Time is precious, Mr. Braxton. See that you spend it wisely.”
Braxton momentarily lost his focus. He too had lost the love of his life. His ex-wife had been murdered while he struggled alone on the other side of the country. Would he end up like this man, living a life with nothing but a picture?
“I’m sorry but I must take this call.” The hard-nosed executive had returned. “You have the run of the company, Mr. Braxton. Anything you need just ask Michael or my daughter, Kerry. They can expedite anything you need. I look forward to reviewing your report. Now I must return to the media jackals.”
He nodded in Kennedy’s direction. The COO motioned to the door and Braxton followed his lead.
“We have the first three floors of the building,” Kennedy explained on the way back to the elevators. “The rent is cheaper than on the upper floors. Management is here on the third floor, the second floor is product design and development: all pumps, tubes and electronics. Software and computer operations are on the first floor. Those guys don’t seem to mind all the street noise. We don’t have a lot of spare space, but I found you a cubicle on the first floor. I trust that will be sufficient?”
“I’m sure I can make do, Mr. Kennedy.” They entered a waiting elevator car and Kennedy pressed the button for the first floor.
