Procreation

PART ONE

CONVERGING COMETS

"Only by the good influence of our conduct may we bring salvation in human affairs; or like a fatal comet we may bring destruction in our train."

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536)

CHAPTER 1

They had insisted that he move from his comfortable apartment in Moscow so that he could be closer to the laboratory. Now Dr. Anatoly Krensky was living in this shithole in Akciabrski, and it felt like it was beyond the edge of the civilized world. The heat had been off for the past two weeks, and he had to keep the propane stove lit to prevent the pipes from freezing. He’d had to cut the fingers off his wool gloves in order to work on his computer.

There was a knock on the door. Who is it?

Maintenance.

He shook his head and snorted as he walked to the door. He left the heavy chain in place and squinted through the narrow opening. A stocky bearded man in coveralls stood in the hall, carrying a toolbox.

Papers?

The man produced a workman’s license with his photo ID, and he let him in.

Ruslan Akhmadov looked around the apartment. They said this one was a noted scientist, but he was living like a muzhik . The only furnishings were a table lamp and the computer on the desk, and an unmade bed was in the corner.

You do not have good heat, yes? he asked.

No heat at all, no. None.

Okay , I fix. Maybe take twenty minutes.

The scientist sighed, sat back down and went to work on his computer. He could hear the workman rummaging around behind him as he sorted through his tools. But the instrument that Akhmadov removed from his toolbox was not a wrench. It was a cosh - a rubber-padded blackjack with a heavy lead core.

The violent but compact blow to the back of the head thrust Krensky forward in his chair, his head slumping unconscious onto the desk next to the laptop computer. Akhmadov pulled the head back and held it to the side, exposing the external jugular vein. He deftly inserted a thin needle, and then blocked the flow of blood with his index finger as he reached into his side pocket and produced two syringes, which he secured between the fingers of his free hand. The scientist groaned and started to move one of his legs as his assailant injected the contents of the first syringe, and then the movement abruptly stopped. Then he injected the second syringe, and watched as the breathing stopped. He withdrew the needle and remained in a motionless pose for several minutes, until he could feel the cessation of the pulse in the underlying carotid artery.

Scientists are so trusting—not at all like politicians. Scientists are far too trusting.

He dragged the corpse and placed it face up on the concrete floor, the limbs akimbo. Then he took the scientist’s wallet and sorted through the identification and credit cards. He found what he was looking for. It was a business card in English. It said, LisaKentonDaveBrown, investigative reporters and then some contact numbers. He carefully put the card in his breast pocket. Then he took out the cash, throwing the empty wallet and two of the small bills on the floor. He continued staging a robbery; emptying out drawers, knocking the table lamp to the floor, and leaving the mattress and chair cushions turned over.

He sat down and he took his time as he downloaded the information he’d been instructed to retrieve from the computer onto a flash drive. Then he inserted a disc and erased the hard drive. He went out, leaving the door partially open as he took off his rubber gloves. Akhmadov smiled as he looked down at his coveralls. Not a spot of blood. Perfect.

#

Lisa Kenton and Dave Brown were the odd couple of investigative journalism. Lisa had landed a plum job as staff writer for the New York Daily News in her first year out of college, and she reported on everything from murders to dog shows. She first earned recognition from her interview with a celebrity transplant surgeon, and that led to assignments in other science subjects. Within two years she had become a science writer at the New York Times Magazine.

She left the Times to start a career as a freelancer, investigating new developments and scandals in the scientific arena. She rapidly gained a reputation for good writing, scrupulous fact-checking, and a sure nose for a story. She made enemies and stepped on toes with hard-hitting pieces, but she guarded her sources tenaciously. That earned her a significant network of connections. She had a great nose for mendacity and was seldom misled. Dave liked to joke that Lisa’s bullshit antenna is so big she has to stoop over to get through doors. Her fierce intensity and focus were effectively camouflaged by her diminutive frame, plain looks, and short, straight, salt-and-pepper hair.

Dave Brown, on the other hand, had an easygoing, gregarious personality that filled the room. A New Jersey boy, he had been an all-American quarterback at The University of Georgia. The freewheeling, gunslinging style that won him fame in college did not travel well to the National Football League. He played for two teams in four years, but two knee surgeries and too many interceptions led to his release. His jock credentials, though, paved the way to an on-air reporting job with ESPN . He had all the natural talents to be a great interviewer. Young women wanted to bed him, old women wanted to adopt him, and men wanted to be his best friend.

And he could squeeze information out of a stone. Sports celebrities who fell under his spell were often infuriated when they later saw themselves divulging embarrassing secrets on nationwide television. After five years on air with his weekly late-night program, he wrote and produced a hard-hitting, three-part exposé connecting gambling and drug use in big-time college sports. The network dropped the series after the initial episode, and Dave attributed that directly to interference by the billion-dollar college sports industry. He confronted his boss in a rage, went off on a tirade, and resigned.

He made the rounds, but found he was persona non grata in the sports entertainment field. He was thirty-one years old, out of shape, forty pounds over his playing weight, and hobbled on two bad knees when Lisa Kenton gave him a call.

They had been successfully collaborating for the past eight years, and several of their reports received broadcasting and journalism awards. They developed a warm and productive collegial relationship, most likely because they were careful about keeping their private lives separate. Lisa quietly shared a Manhattan apartment with Sheila Fitch, her administrative aide and lover. Dave was twice divorced and single; with a penchant for strip clubs, high-stakes poker, and good cigars.

The work went well. Soon they enjoyed a certain measure of national celebrity and it was time for their own web site. They decided it would be catchy if the name were one word: LisaKentonDaveBrown, with investigative reporters in small script below. They had been conducting business out of a post office box and coffee shops, but Sheila thought they really should have their own office space. They rented a small office in a bank building in Midtown, which gave them an address and answering service. Still, they continued out of habit to meet at Le Pain Quotidien on 57th Street when they needed a sit-down conference.

#

That was an interesting meeting with Faye Connery from the Population Council, said Dave, but I’m not sure what she was trying to get us to do. I presume she wanted us to do something, since she paid for the coffee.

You know, funding for contraception is going down and I think family planning organizations are feeling the heat from the competition—the other organizations that put political pressure on funding agencies to stop supporting birth control programs and research, Lisa said. She gave us a list of those groups and she dropped a lot of hints so I guess she wouldn’t mind us directing some of that heat back on them. It’s just that this is all tangled up with the pro-choice versus right-to-life argument, and both sides have had their minds made up for a long time. I think we should take a pass.

Maybe so, Dave replied. But you know this is the second time in a month that the subject of birth control has come up. Do you remember our trip to Ukraine back in August?

Right—when we did the follow-up piece on Chernobyl. So what does that have to do with birth control?

I’m getting to it. I got this call about a month ago. It was someone from the former Soviet Union—Belarus, I think. He was a little hard to understand and he was reluctant to identify himself, but he said he was a scientist—his name is Karensky—and he’d gotten my business card from a colleague in Chernobyl. He was very disturbed about a project that he was working on. He said it was a plan for human sterilization on a massive scale, and that they were building a big, top-secret laboratory. Dave paused with a quizzical look. "At least that’s what I think he said.

He also said the government there didn’t ‘officially’ know anything about it, and he thought that I’d be interested because he suspected the funding was coming from the U.S. He sounded very spooked, and he said he couldn’t communicate by mail or by e-mail, since he was being watched closely. There was a meeting coming up in Warsaw that he planned to attend, and he said maybe he could meet me there and give me all the data on the project. He told me he couldn’t say more, but that he’d call me back in a day or two. You know how suspicious people are in that part of the world. He wouldn’t give me any more contact information. Dave shrugged. That was the last I heard from him. I tried to track him down on the web and I made a bunch of calls, but no luck.

Lisa frowned. "So we have a sudden drop in funding for birth control here in the U.S., while somebody just may or may not be sinking a lot of money into birth control in Eastern Europe. The Eastern Europe story sounds a little sketchy, but we should definitely keep it in mind.

If you look at the numbers Faye Connery gave us, it looks like financial support for international family planning programs took a noticeable dip about a year and a half ago. What really catches your attention is the part about funding for scientific contraception research. At that same time, research money just collapsed—dropped off the chart. I think you’re right. I’ll bet there’s a story there.

#

Lisa and Dave met with Sheila Fitch at their office two weeks later. Sheila was an attractive, studious-looking young woman who looked up through her large horn-rimmed glasses from a sheaf of papers she’d been reading.

Oh Dave, I’m still checking out that Belarus lead. There have been nine scientific meetings scheduled in Warsaw over the past six weeks. No Karensky, or any name that sounds like that, registered at any of them. I couldn’t find anybody by that name on the staff of any of the research institutions in Belarus either. Sorry.

Thanks, Sheils. I’m not finding anything myself. I guess we’ll just have to leave that one on the back burner.

Anyhow, I talked with some pharmaceutical scientists here in the States, she continued, "and it seems contraception research is pretty small potatoes compared to drugs for blood pressure, cholesterol and cancer. The only blockbuster drug in that field was the pill, and that was over fifty years ago. It’s such a small market that the usual sources like the NIH and the big foundations are pretty much absent in the contraception area. So the source of almost seventy percent of funds for contraception research has been an outfit called the Westlake Foundation. Funding from Westlake suddenly stopped a year and a half ago, so it seems anybody who wants to do contraception research now is out of luck.

I have to tell you I’m getting that stumped feeling, Sheila said, looking up from the files. The Westlake Foundation started up seven years ago, and put a lot of money into contraception research and family planning programs. They’d been averaging over one hundred fifty million dollars a year in grants, so you do the math. That’s over a billion for contraception, so they have definitely been the big dog in the birth control pack. Losing that kind of support has to hurt.

The reason I’m feeling stumped is that Westlake happens to be the most secretive, buttoned-up organization on the planet. It’s chartered in the Bahamas. No home office building, no trustees, no board of directors on record. I even tried to hack into their systems, but they’ve got some pretty impressive firewalls. I only found one name on the books—a wealthy Venezuelan named Hector Montana who used to be in the shipping business. I had no luck at all in tracking him down. It’s like he doesn’t exist. Then I contacted most of the recent Westlake grant recipients. Every one of them seems to have sworn some kind of code of silence when they accepted the grant, and believe me, they’re sticking to it.

Lisa raised her hand. Jason Talbot, she said. Does that name ring any bells?

Dave and Sheila looked at each other.

Wait a minute, Dave said. Talbot . . . Talbot. . . . Oh yeah, right. He’s ‘the vanishing billionaire,’ isn’t he? Wasn’t he the guy who made a fortune while he was a college student, and then he was rumored to have started up the biggest shipping company in the world? He created a big stir, and then seemed to disappear without a trace. So you’re saying you think Talbot is connected?

Lisa shrugged.

I don’t know—this is just a hunch. For some time, someone had been giving a lot of money anonymously to various humanitarian projects all over the globe, then it all shifted to contraception research, and then it just stopped. Talbot was probably in the shipping business at the same time as Montana; and he’s one of the few who would be rich enough, philanthropic enough, and reclusive enough to qualify as our anonymous benefactor. Then just when the mysterious anonymous benefactor dropped out, the Westlake Foundation steps up out of nowhere to fill the gap. Seems more than coincidental, doesn’t it?

#

After a month spent chasing down leads, it became very clear that they were dealing with a high-security, secret operation. The Westlake Foundation was just as impregnable as Sheila had first described it. Hector Montana had been quite visible when he had been in the shipping business, but now he was unreachable. Jason Talbot was the most mysterious of all. His last photograph was twenty-five years old—the one on his M.I.T. student ID. One of the big business magazines had at one time planned to feature him in their Ten Wealthiest issue, but it seemed that there was an intervention and his name was scratched from the list.

Sheila came up with a list of Westlake grant recipients and another list of suspected Westlake grant recipients. She traced down people who worked with Interglobal Shipping and Interglobal customers. She identified Talbot’s college professors and classmates. They made visits and phone calls. Dave went to California to visit Interglobal’s headquarters in Oakland, and Lisa interviewed several of Talbot’s professors at M.I.T. It seemed that nobody had seen or heard of Talbot in years.

The collapse of funding for contraception research and the possible role of the mysterious Jason Talbot was intriguing, but it felt like they had run into a dead end. They had a number of other projects in the queue to keep them busy, and so Lisa Kenton filed the names Westlake, Montana, and Talbot in her memory bank . . . and also made a mental note to keep in mind any developments having to do with contraception research funding in Eastern Europe.

CHAPTER 2

Dr. Altman has been on a conference call and she’s running a bit late. Karen Mitchell smiled at the visitor, but her smile wasn’t returned. Can I get you something to drink? Tea or coffee?

Hector Montana was not a man accustomed to waiting. No thank you, he said as he cast a baleful look at his Rolex.

Montana had done his homework. Dr. Daniela Altman was quite young—only thirty-four years old—and she was obviously brilliant. She was born in London and graduated with a First in mathematics from Cambridge at age nineteen. Her PhD from Columbia was in Molecular Biology and Genetics, and she had done post-doctoral work on viral genetics at the Rockefeller–Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Manhattan. In her three years here at Stanford, she had published a number of studies on viral vectors that soon became the gold standard for use in gene therapy. Jason had stressed to him that her recent work on the transmissible vector was his highest priority.

The inner office door opened. Montana had been told that this woman was stylish, even glamorous. She certainly was that, he thought; but in a studied, flashy way.

Dr. Montana? Daniela Altman. So pleased to meet you, she said as she motioned him toward a chair.

Hector Montana was also an imposing figure, tall and broad shouldered. He looked like a bear. It’s Mister Montana, he said, his voice a low rumble with a Latin accent. The pleasure is mine.

So I understand you are the CEO of the Westlake Foundation. I like to be prepared for these meetings and my secretary did a web search for your foundation, but we came up empty.

He smiled. The Westlake Foundation is the largest single funder of research in your field, but it is a privately held concern and we do value privacy. So, I am not surprised that you and your secretary are unaware of us.

Daniela’s eyes narrowed. I see.

But we are very much aware of you, Dr. Altman. I am told that, in a very short time, you have become the recognized leader in viral genetics. You are quite accomplished for such a young lady. Now we see that you have published preliminary studies on the development of a transmissible vector.

"Yes, I think you’re referring to our studies on immune damping and to my editorial in last month’s Viral Genetics and Genomics."

Exactly. Gene therapy is a concept that has been around far too long for the puny advances that have been made in the practical sphere. It seems that the process of introducing a new gene into a subject can be extremely difficult and extremely costly. I understand that your current research may offer a way to get around that problem by spreading genetic change by contagion.

Yes, that may be true, but I’d have to admit that our efforts are only just a bit beyond the hypothetical stage at this point. Well, Mr. Montana, what can I do for you?

He sat back, crossed his legs and clasped his hands over his knee. He had big hands and thick black hair on his knuckles. "I think it is a question of what I can do for you. We are in a position to offer you a significant grant to advance our project."

And what might that project be?

He shrugged and raised his eyebrows. That is something that I am not at liberty to disclose at this time. I can only tell you that under the stipulations of the grant, you would be required to develop a transmissible vector that would be used with a gene that we are developing.

All right then, but in order to proceed further, I’ll really have to know just which gene is to be employed. And then, of course, just what you expect to accomplish. She leaned forward, steepled her fingers, and stared intently at him.

Ay, he thought, ¡los ojos de una bruja! She has the eyes of a witch!

That is something that you don’t need to know, he said. Your only task would be to develop the transmissible vector so that we can use it in aerosol form in a project of massive scale. Then the rest will be up to us.

Daniela looked down and smiled to herself as she tapped her fingernails on the desk.

Massive scale? Now I think you are teasing me, Mr. Montana. If you are getting into the type of project you are suggesting, it would inevitably require the participation of large governmental agencies. Wouldn’t our project come under a great deal of public scrutiny if it is to be coordinated with all those agencies? You are really starting to get into the public arena here.

No, there is to be absolutely no governmental involvement. Montana vigorously shook his head. Bureaucratic meddling would kill this project.

Let’s stop right there, she said, now with an edge to her voice. You are telling me you want to give me a great deal of money to finance something classified that involves developing a transmissible virus that could spread a mystery gene in a project that is top secret. Let me be honest. That is not at all appealing to me. I now have a well financed laboratory and I am doing exactly what I like. My department has an impeccable reputation. Why should I even consider this bizarre offer?

Montana leaned forward. His bushy black eyebrows dropped and his look was cold. He spoke very slowly and emphatically. "Then let me make it quite simple so that you can understand it. We will give you ten million dollars. That financial support will make it possible for you to leap ahead with your project to develop the transmissible vector within a reasonable period of time—say, four years. Only one thing will be required on your part. When you have developed the vector into such a form that we can employ in our own project, our contract is complete and your responsibility will be over. Claro?"

My God, this man is insufferable, Daniela thought. I need to get him out of my office before my head explodes.

Hmmm. . . . Let me see. . . . I hope you are a gambling man, Mr. Montana, because the odds of ever developing a usable transmissible vector are very long. To undertake such a project would require a major structural addition to my laboratory facility. The equipment we have now is dated and inappropriate for this type of work, so we would have to purchase a great deal of new technology. That is not cheap. And my staff is stretched as it is, so I would need to bring on several new PhDs and a number of technicians. My offhand calculation is that you would need to invest twenty million dollars if the project you imagine is to have a chance. Perhaps more.

Twenty million dollars? He snorted. I suppose I could bring it up to my board, but I wouldn’t disagree with them if they thought your proposal was insane. Then he stood up and said, We are in touch with a number of people with exciting research opportunities in this field, and I suspect a number of them would welcome an investment of ten million dollars.

I’m sure they would, she said with a forced smile as she walked him to the door. Well, Mr. Montana, it has been a pleasure to meet you.

Dr. Altman, thank you for your time. It has been a pleasure to meet you also.

Montana strode from the room and muttered to himself as he walked out the door. I’m accustomed to talking with reputable scientists, he thought, but now I have been flown all the way to California to be dismissed by this jumped-up chorus girl. Jason and I will have a serious talk about this.

#

Daniela was leaning over a microscope reviewing a fluorescent antibody slide when her phone buzzed inside the pocket of her starched white lab coat. She looked at the caller ID. It was her secretary.

Hi, Karen. What’s up?

I’m afraid I’m going to have to change your schedule this afternoon, Dr. Altman. There’s a gentleman who I’ve squeezed in to see you at three. They wouldn’t tell me his name, just that he’s the chairman of the Westlake Foundation. I’ve blocked out the rest of your schedule.

No, Karen, that’s not going to work, Daniela said flatly. I’ve already got a full schedule of bioassays to run with Dr. Frank, and I’ll be lucky to get out before seven. She paused. The Westwood Foundation? Oh shit! she exclaimed. If he’s anything like that alpha male jerk who was here last month, I’m leaving. Just do me a favor and cancel it, please.

Karen Mitchell was protective of her boss’s schedule and she didn’t like to cross her. You know I don’t usually do things like this, Dr. Altman, but this appointment was made by the office of the President. It seemed very important.

If it’s that important, I’d have to assume you’re talking about the President of the United States, aren’t you?

No, of course not, Karen said, reassured by the good-natured jab. It’s our president, of the university, Dr. Milhon.

Oh, all right. If Barry Milhon is behind this, I’ll give in. But you can be sure he’ll be reminded that he owes me a favor. Would you please call Jean Claude St. Cyr and ask if he would please go over and fill in for me with Dr. Frank? Tell him I’d really appreciate it.

Daniela arrived at her office at eight minutes after three. The man sitting in her side chair rose and turned to greet her with an open smile. She noted that he was wearing an elegantly tailored suit.

Dr. Altman, I’ve heard wonderful things about your research and I’m so pleased to meet you. I’m Jason Talbot, he said.

Yes, I . . . I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Talbot. Daniela Altman.

She wore a slightly puzzled look as she extended her hand. Daniela had arrived determined to be indignant, but this Mr. Talbot had already put her off balance. Perhaps it was his kind, soft voice; or the look in his twinkling brown eyes.

I believe you spoke with my associate, Mr. Montana, last month.

Yes, the gentleman from the Westwood Foundation, I believe.

Westlake, he gently corrected. Mr. Montana is my CEO. Hector is a very talented and capable man, but he can be a bit gruff sometimes. I hope we haven’t got off on the wrong foot.

No—not really. It’s just that whatever he was proposing was never entirely clear, and I have more than enough on my schedule to occupy me at the moment.

Couldn’t we just start from scratch, then? Clean slate?

Certainly. It seems you have my undivided attention for the remainder of the afternoon, she said pointedly, looking at her watch.

Thank you. I very much appreciate that, because what we need to discuss will take a great deal of explaining on both our parts. I have a science background, but it’s more in the engineering physics area. I really don’t know much about the world of gene therapy. My research assistants picked up on your work on the transmissible vector, and I have to say that it has the greatest potential of any concept I’ve seen. Would you please tell me about it? I want to know everything.

The transmissible vector? Yes, I’ve been kicking the idea around for some time. So you really want the details?

Talbot nodded and made an encouraging gesture. Hector had described Daniela Altman as an insolent tart, but he had been wrong. This woman is incredibly appealing—and absolutely beautiful.

All right then, she said. "You first have to understand that gene therapy is extremely difficult, extremely costly, and extremely risky. First, the gene must be correctly identified and then literally millions of copies must be made by the process of polymerase chain reaction. Then those genes have to be incorporated into a like number of genetically engineered viruses that are called vectors. Once you’ve done that, the host is exposed to the viral vector. Then the virus inserts itself into the animal—or human—and grafts that new gene onto each cell’s chromosome. If all works out, the new gene then becomes a permanent part of the host’s genetic makeup.

"Lots can go wrong. The virus may not sufficiently penetrate all the cells, and it may completely miss the cells of the target organ you’re aiming for. Some functions depend on the interaction of many genes, not just one; so the gene you’ve introduced may not cause the desired effect.

"And then these transductions, as we call them, have a way of coming undone. There are enzymes and catalysts in each cell that constantly sweep the chromosomes looking for new mutations. If one of those enzymes finds our gene, it can be eliminated. The life span of a genetic change can be reduced by months or years.

By far the biggest threat is the immune system. No living thing likes to be infected by viruses, so our vector may be killed off or neutralized by immune defenses before it gets a chance to introduce the gene. We try to reduce that risk by deleting specific segments of the virus’s DNA by various tricks of genetic engineering. The transduction may fail if the vector is rejected by the immune response, but a much bigger problem is that powerful immune reactions can kill the host. She paused and smiled apologetically. I’m sorry if I’m going on and on, but you did say there would be a lot of explaining.

No, please continue. I need to hear this.

So then the desired result of this magnum opus is that one single lab rat or person is now transgenic. After a tremendous amount of work, a great deal of risk and not a little luck, it now carries a gene for something that we think is beneficial, but that nature never intended.

I see. Yes, of course, he nodded slowly. It really is quite a complicated process.

Daniela leaned forward with her elbows on the desk and she focused on him with her unusual, brilliant blue eyes. So the idea is . . . she paused and thought as she tapped a fingernail on the desk. It would be a great advantage to create a multiplier effect. Suppose that successful gene transduction could be spread to other animals while the live viruses that we’ve used as vectors are still rattling around the body? Instead of just one, you could produce any number of transgenic subjects. You’d be producing them with no additional work, risk, or expense. It would all depend on the contagious property of the vector.

Talbot raised his eyebrows. I can see your interest from a scientific point of view, but I’m looking at it as a businessman. Everyone tells me that we’re at the end of the antibiotic age, so this could be the next big breakthrough in fighting infectious disease. I believe they are now on the verge of identifying genes for AIDS resistance, and the discovery of genes for resistance to other infectious diseases couldn’t be far behind. Just think of the possibility of spreading genes for a particular characteristic to an entire populace.

Yes that’s true, but don’t get carried away. At this time I’m becoming doubtful that we’ll ever produce anything like these vectors I’ve been talking about. It seems like there’s always a tradeoff. The influenza virus that I’ve been working with only has eight genes. In order to convert it to a vector, we need to strip out almost all genetic material. That lets it contain the new gene that we wish to introduce, and in doing so we render it non-contagious. Each time we’ve added back a little of the genetic material to make it transmissible, we get a horrendous immune reaction. It has been more than a little frustrating.

I see. But tell me about this new idea. Tell me about immune damping.

"Yes, you’re speaking of the studies we recently published. We think we’ve come up with a way to keep some of that critical genetic material in the vector while reducing the chance of an immune reaction.

The influenza virus is covered with protein spikes so it looks like a tiny hedgehog under the electron microscope. Each strain of the virus is named for the configuration of those proteins, which are either hemagglutinin—the ‘H’—or neuraminidase—the ‘N.’ The strain we’ve been using is H3N5. Hemagglutinin helps the virus invade the cell, and the main property of neuraminidase is to help the virus replicate once it’s inside. Jean Claude St. Cyr, my associate, has found that he can reduce—or damp—the immune response by biochemically altering the hemagglutinin spike, which he did primarily through a series of methylation steps. The altered hemagglutinin does seem to allow the transmissible vector to enter the cell without significant immune reactions in the cell cultures we’ve tested in vitro, but we haven’t yet been successful in live subjects.

I see, Talbot said. This is really very intriguing. Daniela—may I call you Daniela?—just tell me what you need to succeed in this project of yours.

She went through an impressive list of new technology. Changes would have to be made. Her staff would have to be almost doubled for such a project, and that would mean they would outgrow her rather small laboratory facility. Jason studied her carefully for the next hour as she presented the technical requirements and the various procedures that would be involved. Her voice was extremely sexy—low and husky with an intriguing upper-class British accent. So beautiful and so smart. He smiled to himself—life just isn’t fair, he mused.

Then Jason sketched out the elements of the grant that he would propose. Twenty-five million dollars would be donated to Stanford University as a task-specific endowment, linked directly to the transmissible vector project. From that endowment, nine million would be used to update the facility and for staff development the first year. Up to twenty-five percent of the remaining endowment would be released each year for ongoing expenses. If any funds remained, they would be donated to the university at the end of four years—or at the termination of the project if they succeeded earlier. Daniela’s usually intense powers of focus and concentration seemed to waver. She felt a little stupid. She needed to interrupt Jason several times to ask him to clarify or repeat what he’d said. The size of the grant was impressive, but now her powers of analytical reasoning were being distracted as she began to find herself unable