Double Blind (37 page)

“Does Burt know that the bones were found?” Morgan asked.

“Yes.”

Morgan pushed his hair back from his face. “He tried to kill me.”

“Burt?”

“Yes. When he saw what I had done, he panicked.”

Martha stepped out on the porch and handed Morgan a bag bulging with ham and bread and a chunk of cheese.

“Thank you, Martha.”

“Please stay,” she said. “Let us help you.”

“I can’t be helped. And I have to go. I don’t have much time.” He looked at Edgar. “Protect those journals. They are the only record of the truth. If anything happens to me, don’t let the guilty ones get away.”

“You’re going after Burt, aren’t you? To kill him?”

“Only if I have to.”

Edgar shook his head. “You can’t just kill him. I won’t let that happen.”

“Trust me. I want him alive more than anyone does. Read the journals. It’s all there.” He stood and walked into the trees.

It was nearly midnight when the phone rang and ten after when Sam and Billy entered Edgar Locke’s den. Sam had insisted Billy stay in bed, but he would have none of that. Martha brought them cups of warm tea and sat next to her husband, who rested in his reading chair. Sam and Billy sat on a sofa facing them.

Edgar appeared tired. More than that, he looked like a man bent over by the weight of the world. His stroke-frozen left hand seemed to clutch his blue terry cloth bathrobe to his chest as if he were chilled. The good side of his face drooped as much as the stroke damaged side.

“Morgan was here,” Edgar began.

“Did you see him?” Billy asked.

“Yes.” He sighed heavily.

“We have, too,” Billy said, glancing at Sam.

“He left these,” Edgar said, indicating three thick, bound books on the coffee table between them.

“The missing journals?” Sam said.

Edgar nodded. “After my stroke, the lab was closed. According to these journals, for only six months. Then, Burt learned of what Morgan was doing at Johns Hopkins, brought him here, and retooled the lab to do animal experiments. Genetic and hormonal research. Quite illegal. As I suspected, the rabbit and mouse skeletons we saw were part of that work.”

“And Morgan?” Sam said.

Edgar picked up one of the journals, opened it to a page he had marked with a folded piece of paper, and passed it to Sam. She held it as she and Billy read.

Saturday, February 2

The animal experiments have gone well. In fact, all were successful. No unexplained deaths, no complications. Both species exhibited the expected response. Muscle and bone strength, agility, reaction time, and stamina improved dramatically. Muscle to fat ratio declined and maze transit time fell by 23%.

The supporting data are in the Protocol Journal.

Now, it is time to take the project to another level. I am so confident in the technique and results that I feel the time for a human subject test has arrived.

Today, I will inject 4 CCs of the material into myself. I believe this will be safe and effective. In the event this endeavor proves lethal, you have my permission to perform a post-mortem exam or to dispose of my remains as you see fit.

Morgan Russell

It was exactly as he had told Billy, but somehow seeing it in Morgan’s own hand struck Sam with an overwhelming sense of sadness. “So it’s true. He did it to himself.”

Edgar nodded.

“He told me he was dying,” Billy said.

“He is,” Edgar said.

“Why?” Sam asked.

“Do either of you know anything about gene therapy? How it works?”

Sam looked at Billy who shrugged. “No.”

“Don’t feel bad. Neither do most doctors and scientists. They will, since it offers exciting promise, but few understand it at present. I’ll keep this as basic as I can.”

“That’ll help,” Sam said.

“Theologians aside, life is merely a series of chemical reactions. No more, no less. Elegant, complex, for sure, but still a series of reactions. Within the nuclei of our cells lie long strands of DNA, which make up our genes. These genes are basically inert. By themselves they can do little. They are, in fact, a series of instructions, which direct the cell to produce certain enzymes and proteins. These enzymes and proteins in turn cause or enhance the chemical reactions on which all aspects of life are based. They digest our food and convert it into usable nutrients. They make our muscles move, our hearts beat, our brains think, and our eyes and ears function as they do. If one alters the gene...the DNA...then one alters the instructions and thus the character of the resulting proteins and enzymes, which will then alter the chemical reactions. Do you follow me so far?”

Sam nodded. She remembered some of this from high school biology.

“Genetic defects can lead to diseases. Say someone has the defect that produces Sickle Cell Anemia. If we could insert a DNA strand that altered this instruction in a manner that would allow the cell to produce normal hemoglobin, rather than the sickle variety, the disease would be cured. See?”

“Like a typewriter key that stamped the wrong letter?” Sam asked.

“Exactly. Correcting the mistake would allow for the production of an un-garbled message rather than one with typos.”

“I see,” Sam said.

“The trick with gene therapy is creating the right DNA instruction.”

“Apparently Morgan miscalculated,” Sam said.

Edgar rubbed his eyes. “Yes, I’m afraid so. The genetic material Morgan produced and injected into the animals and ultimately into himself, altered all the cells of his body. It caused the pituitary and the other hormone-producing glands of the body to manufacture altered hormones in vast quantities. It also changed the way his cells responded to these new hormones. The result is what you saw.”

“What was Morgan’s research supposed to cure?” Billy asked.

“Aging,” Edgar said.

Sam gave him a quizzical look.

“Life is a degenerative process. Everything wears out. When you reach our age, you’ll understand that all too well.” He smiled and patted Martha’s hand. “The hypothesis that Morgan was chasing is that aging diminishes our ability to produce hormones and reduces the body’s response to those hormones. Sort of a double whammy. This leads to the muscle wasting, arthritis, bone loss, and weakness of the heart and lungs that eventually catches up with all of us. If he could reverse or slow this decline, he could, if not prolong life, improve its quality in our later years. A noble undertaking, to say the least.”

“But?” Sam said, anticipating his next word.

Edgar sighed. “But, Morgan jumped way ahead of himself. He didn’t take small steps to his ends. Steps that would have unmasked problems, flaws in the process, flaws in the hypothesis. Research must move slowly and methodically. It must be tested and counter tested. Reviewed and criticized. Improved and altered each step of the way. And, it must be double blinded to be reliable.”

“What does that mean?” Sam asked.

“In most research, you have a treatment, or experimental, group which you compare to a control, or placebo, group. The differences found between these groups at the end of the experiment should answer the question you asked in the first place. For example, you might ask if penicillin cures pneumonia. You give the treatment group penicillin, but not the control group. If the penicillin group does better, gets well faster, dies less often, then you have answered your original question. Penicillin works.”

“I see,” Billy said.

“Double blinded means that neither the subject nor the researcher know to which group any of the test subjects belong. This eliminates what we call ‘observer bias.’ Let’s say, I wanted to test the effect of alcohol on your ability to toss a coin in the air and catch it. You and Billy are test subjects. I would give each of you a bottle of liquid to drink. One would be spiked with alcohol, but both would be altered in some fashion to taste and smell the same. Neither I, nor you, would know which of you got the alcohol. You would simply toss the coins and I would record the number of times each of you missed catching it. That would eliminate bias in both the subjects and the observer. We would be doubly blind.” He turned his right palm up as would a magician who had just completed a trick.

“Clever,” Sam said.

“I didn’t invent it,” Edgar said. “All good research is conducted that way.”

“But, Morgan didn’t?”

“No. He didn’t even have a control group, much less a blinded protocol. He simply injected a handful of rabbits and mice and waited to see what would happen. What data he did obtain are useless.”

“What I don’t understand,” Billy said. “Is what’s in this for Burt?”

Edgar released a long sigh. “Any idea what a product like this...one that slows the ravages of aging...would be worth on the market?”

“Millions?” Sam said.

“Billions,” Edgar said.

Billy shook his head. “Greed has always been Burt’s God.”

Edgar nodded. “According to Morgan’s notes, the plan was to perfect this treatment, out here, away from the FDA and other regulatory groups, then take it back to their company in Houston and reproduce it.”

“Their company?” Sam asked. “I thought Burt and Hollis sold their business.”

“Only part of it. They still own the controlling interest.”

Sam shook her head. “And out here, in the middle of nowhere, they could cut all the corners they wanted.”

Edgar nodded. “This type of research could take decades if done under proper scrutiny. They could cut years off the process by discovering what works and what doesn’t without having to go through the paper work and approvals and surveillance of the FDA. According to Morgan, they had plans to quadruple the size of the lab. Expand the research.”

Billy shook his head. “That son of a bitch.” He looked at Sam. “This is what I told you the other day.  All this time, he wanted me to believe that he needed my land for the water. What he really wanted was privacy.”

“Privacy?” Martha said.

Billy nodded. “As you know, Burt and Hollis own the deepest two thirds of the valley. Except for my land. And they knew if they tried to expand their operations, I’d know and raise hell. But, if I sold out, or even better went to prison, no one would know. The operation would be miles from town, hidden deep in their private empire.”

“And Morgan? There’s no way to treat this?” Sam asked. “Take some medications or something?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” Edgar said. “You see, the insertion of the new DNA segment is usually accomplished using a virus that attaches itself to the cell and then injects the DNA material inside. Once the altered DNA is introduced into the cell’s nucleus, the changes are permanent.”

“So, Morgan’s changes are permanent?” Sam asked. “Nothing can be done?”

Edgar looked at Martha, who took his hand in hers. “A neurosurgeon might be able to remove the pituitary and halt the overproduction of hormones,” he said. “That’s how we treat patients who develop certain pituitary tumors in the real world. Whether that works in this situation or not is anyone’s guess.”

“But, it’s possible?” Sam asked. “At least theoretically?”

“Yes.”

“Would Morgan then return to normal?” Billy asked.

“No. What’s done, is done. He could only hope to prevent the process from worsening.”

The implications of that statement settled over them. No one spoke for several minutes, all eyes cast downward.

Edgar motioned to the journals. “Look at the third volume. Morgan’s last entry.”

Sam picked up the heavy book and opened it. As she thumbed through the pages she noticed that the writing deteriorated with each page. She looked up at Edgar.

“Yes,” he said. “As the changes in Morgan progressed, his fine motor skills, as manifested by his handwriting, seemed to decline. Week by week.”

Sam continued turning pages. The letters broadened, thickened, the words taking up two lines, then three. Where earlier the script had been smooth, even elegant, by the time she reached the final entry it appeared as if it had been written by a first grader. She felt tears press against the back of her eyes as she read the final page.

Sunday, June 17

Dr. Locke

By now, I am sure that you have reviewed all the logbooks and you have a firm grasp of my research to this point. You are also aware of my error in judgment and the effects of this error on me. Use these data as you see fit.

I must set the record straight.

This is my fault. I made the decision to inject myself on my own without any outside influence. It was not my finest moment. The blame falls completely at my feet.

I know you would ask me why I would take such a bold step. I could say it was intellectual curiosity or even a misguided devotion to knowledge. I could say it was an overzealous attempt to help mankind. But, none of these are true. The real reasons are crass and pedestrian.

Vanity and greed are my only excuses.

You know I have always been frail. Prone to injuries and illnesses and athletic endeavors were always beyond my capabilities. When I saw the dramatic increase in strength, agility, and intellect, indeed in every aspect of physical and mental well being, in the mice and rabbits, I was seduced by the idea that I too could become something I was not.

Instead, the genetic material that worked so well in the test animals, spun completely out of control in humans, in me, and created the monstrosity that I have become. Was it an error in the genetic segment I used? A flaw in the technique? Something in humans that exaggerates the response? I do not know the answers to these questions.

The greed was supplied by Burt. Our original timetable called for four years of study. Burt offered me $1,000,000 for each year I could shorten this timeline. As the first year drew to a close, the prospect of $3,000,000 proved increasingly more difficult to resist.

When Burton Eagan discovered what I had done, when he saw the dramatic changes that took place in my being, he tried to kill me out of fear that this project would be exposed. You know the legal ramifications of such discovery.