The Immortality Factor (28 page)

“A pipeline?”

“Or more likely into corporate headquarters. They know what we're doing, I think. And I think that's why they're prepared to buy the lab from Johnston.”

Even in the darkness I could see her eyes widen. “Do you think that Johnston has been telling the Japs what you're doing?”

“I don't know,” I replied honestly. Then I added, “But I'm afraid that somebody has been. I think there's a leak in corporate headquarters and the Japanese are benefiting from it.”

Once I said it, I realized that it might even be true. I smiled in the darkness of the bedroom. Let's see how that goes over downtown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T
here've been times when I've had to wonder whether Arby has a heart inside him. Here I phone him, practically the instant we get to London, to tell him that I'm going to be a father and all he wants to talk about is his goddamned organ regeneration work.

I put the phone down and turned to Julia, standing on the other side of the bed, unpacking. We had come in late the previous night and spent the morning in an obstetrician's office getting Julia checked out.

We had splurged and taken a suite, very nice in a kind of stuffy, old-fashioned way. Cost an arm and a leg, but Julia got a pretty good discount through British Airways, so we could afford it, just about. What the hell, I thought, we were back in civilization after all those weeks in purgatory and London was Julia's town, after all, and she was going to have a baby and why shouldn't we celebrate a little? The hell with the cost!

It's true that most of my income was from the royalties on the patents that Arthur filed while he was at Columbia. He put my name on them alongside his because we worked on the ideas together. I deserved to be there; we were
partners back in those days. My salary from the medical center was nominal, of course, and my income from the hospital was negative, when you figured out all the hours I put in. I wasn't hurting, financially, but then I didn't have all the corporate perks that Arthur did, like limousines and private jets and swanky condos in midtown. Of course, once he went to work for Omnitech, they got the patents, not us.

Anyway, I hung up the phone and said to Julia, “Arby says congratulations.”

She looked up from her unpacking. “Is that all? You were on the phone for quite a while.”

“He said I should phone Ma and tell her about the baby.”

“Of course you should.”

I tugged the biggest of my own suitcases up on the bed and opened it up. “Naw, telephoning Ma is sheer torture. We can go see her when we get back.”

“But—”

“Arby can tell her about the baby.”

Julia looked as if she wanted to say something, then thought better of it.

“He's offered me a consulting position with his lab,” I told her. “Says we could use the money.”

“Ah, that's what you were talking about when you said you wouldn't have the time.”

“Yep.” I started taking the slacks and jackets out of the suitcase. They all looked frayed, dusty, caked with the dirt and sweat of Eritrea. All of a sudden I had an urge to throw them all away and go out and buy a whole new wardrobe. In London, yet. That'd be terrific.

“Could you actually find the time to work with Arthur?” Julia was asking, very seriously.

“I don't see how.”

“Perhaps instead of the time you put in at the medical center,” she suggested.

“They couldn't get along without me,” I said. It sounded arrogant, I guess, but it was true.

Julia pursed her lips for a moment, thinking. Then, “Why not arrange a consulting agreement between the medical center itself and Arthur's laboratory?”

“Between La Guardia and Grenford?”

“Yes, that way you could use the facilities at the center for whatever work you'll be doing for Arthur. It would save you going up to Connecticut every week, wouldn't it?”

I had to admit that she had something there. “If I could get Arthur to take on the center as a kind of subcontractor, have all the medical work concentrated there—it'd pump a lot of bucks into the center, that's for sure.”

“It would help La Guardia and it would give Arthur a firm medical team to work with his researchers.”

I dropped the clothes on the floor and went around the bed to grab Julia. “Forget about unpacking,” I said. “Let's go out and see this town of yours.”

She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me. “Yes, let me show you London.” Then she added, “After we've finished the unpacking.”

That was Julia. Always fun, but always practical. Me, I was wondering if we had enough left on our credit cards to buy a new wardrobe on Savile Row.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

J
ohnston arrived at the lab two days later. Just happened to be driving through, on his way to Boston, he claimed. As if he drove to Boston instead of flying in the corporate jet.

I kept a straight face and walked him straight down to Zack O'Neill's lab. I watched Johnston closely as I introduced him to Zack. The earring and semiwild haircut didn't bother the CEO at all; he didn't even blink. Good.

Zack's lab was neat as a pin. He ran a pretty tidy operation, normally, but I had given orders to make certain his lab was especially gleaming on this day. Visitors seldom realize that a clean, shipshape lab is one in which little creative work is being done. A
working
lab looks frantic, haphazard, busy. So Zack's lab was sparkling. It was crammed with equipment, of course, so much so that there was barely room to walk between the benches. But everything was in its place, all the equipment shining as if it had never been used. One entire wall of the room was covered with cages for several dozen purebred laboratory rats.

Johnston's face twitched unhappily at the rats, who twitched their whiskers
back at the CEO and stared at him with beady eyes through the wire doors of their cages.

“Don't like rats,” Johnston said. “Saw plenty of 'em when I was a kid.”

“These are purebred laboratory strains, made to order, genetically,” I told him. “They won't hurt you.”

“I still don't like 'em.”

“Then you should have gone into biology,” I said jovially. “You get to slaughter them by the thousands.”

Zack O'Neill did not laugh at my little joke. He was smart enough to sense that something was going on between the CEO and me, though. I could see a cagey look in his eyes. He showed Johnston through his laboratory setup like a square-shouldered lieutenant briefing a visiting general. Zack seemed to enjoy the CEO's obvious aversion to the lab rats.

“This little fella here,” O'Neill said, opening a cage labeled 3c278 and taking a trembling white ball of fur into his hands, “is going to have the honor of growing a second heart pretty soon.”

“How soon?” Johnston asked, staying an arm's length away from O'Neill and the rat.

“About a month from now,” I said. “Isn't that right, Zack?”

O'Neill nodded. “If things keep going as well as they have been.”

Johnston made a toothy smile. “That's great. Just great.” Then he headed for the door.

I patted O'Neill on the shoulder before following the CEO out of the lab. Zack grinned at me and returned 3C278 to its cage.

“I just don't like rats,” Johnston mumbled as I caught up with him in the corridor. “Not even those tame ones.” The man was almost shuddering.

“If everything goes right with the rats, we'll be able to move into minihogs and then monkeys,” I told him.

“How soon?”

I waggled a hand. “That depends on a lot of factors.”

The CEO stayed silent until we returned to my office. I could hear the gears whirring in his head. Once the door to my inner office was firmly shut, I opened the miniature bar behind my desk.

“You look as if you could use a medicinal drink,” I said.

Johnston sat slumped in the leather chair in front of my desk. “Yeah. Bourbon, if you got it. Neat.”

I poured two fingers of bourbon into a heavy shot glass, then a bit of sherry into a similar glass for myself. I never drink during the working day, but this was a special occasion.

The CEO took his down in one gulp.

“This could be big, Arthur,” said Johnston, putting the empty glass on the edge of the desk. “It's almost scary.”

“Will it help you fight the takeover?”

“Hell, yes! If you can really regrow organs in people, we'll be untouchable.”

“I think we'll really be able to do it. The coming year should tell us whether it'll work or not.”

Johnston seemed to relax slightly. “A year, huh?”

“I think so.” I hesitated, then said, “I don't think we ought to be making any announcements until we're sure we're on the right track.”

“Yeah, yeah. It's too soon to make any public announcements.” Then he grinned a little. “But maybe we can juice up the rumor mill some.”

I raised my brows.

“Wouldn't hurt to have a few rumors circulate around. Raise the stock a few points. Make people wonder.”

“You know,” I said, “even when we succeed with the various animal trials, we'll have to deal with the FDA and god knows how many other government agencies.”

But Johnston's grin only widened. “You'll probably get flack from the right-to-lifers and the animal rights people, too, once they find out what you're doing.”

“That's not really funny,” I said. “They can be dangerous. They've dynamited laboratories, you know.”

“Pushes up the stock, publicity like that. Maybe we ought to try a little dynamite here and there.”

“The SEC would love to hear talk like that.”

Johnston laughed. “Wait'll the SEC hears the rumors about this work of yours. I know just the guy they'll send to visit me; little mousy mother who thinks he's Dick Tracy.”

“Why would the SEC get into the act?”

“Because once we start the rumors running and the stock goes up, they'll want to see if we're manipulating the stock price illegally.”

“Is it illegal to spread rumors?”

Johnston raised his hands, pink palms out. “Hey, we're not gonna spread any rumors. We're just gonna plant the seeds in the right places and watch 'em grow.”

“But will that cause trouble with the SEC?”

“Long as we can show that the rumors are based on fact, there's not a damned thing they can do about it.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Then we'd better make very certain that we've got the goods before we start any rumors circulating.”

Johnston nodded soberly. “Right on. That's what I'm depending on you for, Arthur. You've got to be absolutely straight with me on this. No hype. Just the straight poop, nothing else.”

Before I realized I was saying it, I replied, “Okay, but I want you to be absolutely straight with me, too.”

“About what?”

“About rumors I've heard that you're talking to the Japanese about selling the lab.”

His eyes went wide. “Where the hell you hear that?”

“Rumors,” I said. “Some friends of mine on Wall Street.”

“It's bullshit,” Johnston snapped.

“Is it?”

Johnston snorted angrily. “Look, even if somebody in the corporation did talk to the Japs, it was only very preliminary talk. Very preliminary. And nothing but talk. Just to keep all the bases covered, protect ourselves against this takeover bid as much as we can.”

“That's all it is?”

“That's all it is now. I guarantee you.”

I studied Johnston's face. He'd always kept his word with me. Our relationship had started with a handshake, a long time ago, that snowy night at Columbia. We'd had our ups and downs, but he'd always kept his word.

I felt tremendously relieved. I reached across the desk and extended my hand to Johnston. The CEO took it in his big paw, gripped it firmly.

“You can trust me, Arthur,” he said.

“Then tell me the truth. Were you negotiating to sell the lab?”

“No. I had mentioned the possibility to the Japs, but it was only one possibility among several. They said they'd consider it, but they haven't made a solid offer and I haven't pressed them on it.”

“All right,” I said.

“If your organ regeneration program goes as well as you say, the lab'll be much too valuable to sell off.”

“And the corporation will be much too strong for the Europeans to take over,” I added.

Johnston nodded. But then he said, “Unless . . .”

“Unless?”

His face went somber again. “You've got me thinking, Arthur. The goddamned government's gonna want to get their sticky fingers into this, one way or another.”

“You mean the FDA? I don't see—”

“If this gets as big as we both think it will, there'll be more than the FDA coming at you. You'll have congressional committees crawling all over you. They'll demand studies and evaluations and all kinds of crap, won't they?”

I realized he was right. “The National Academy of Sciences ought to be brought into the picture, I guess. Once we're ready for human trials.”

“Every politician in the country will get involved.”

“Maybe you're right.” I felt a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach.

“If we get strung up on red tape by the goddamned government,” Johnston said, “it could open the door for all kinds of takeover maneuvers from overseas.”

“I see.”

Strangely, Johnston did not seem at all depressed. “If that happens, maybe the best road to take is a merger with one of the big European pharmaceutical companies.”