Seizure

six

2:35 P.M., Friday, February 22, 2002

By the time Stephanie had awakened early that morning, she was caught up in the details of the Butler project. Her negative intuition about treating the senator’s Parkinson’s disease had not changed, but there was too much to do to obsess about such feelings. Even before she had showered, she used her laptop to fire off a series of emails to the senator about the handling of his biopsy.

First, she wanted the biopsy as soon as possible that morning. Second, she wanted to be absolutely certain it was a full-thickness skin, because she would need cells from deep in the dermis. And third, she wanted the sample merely to be placed in a flask of tissue culture fluid and not frozen or even iced. She was confident the tissue would be fine at room temperature until she got back to the laboratory in Cambridge, where she would deal with it appropriately. Her goal was to create a culture of the senator’s fibroblasts, the nuclei of which she would ultimately be using to create the cells to treat him. She had always had better luck with fresh rather than frozen cells when she was doing HTSR followed by nuclear transfer, or therapeutic cloning, as some people insisted on calling the process.

To Stephanie’s surprise and despite the early hour, the senator emailed her back almost immediately, indicating that not only was he an early riser but that he was as committed to the project as he had suggested the previous evening. In his message, he assured her he had already put in a call to his doctor and that when the doctor called back he would communicate her requests and insist they be followed.

Daniel was ebullient from the moment he’d thrown back the covers. He too was at his laptop, emailing before doing anything else. Dressed only in a hotel terry-cloth robe, he typed out a message to the West Coast venture capital group that had expressed interest in investing in CURE but had been reluctant to release any funds until there’d been a resolution of Senator Butler’s bill. Daniel wanted to let them know that the bill was destined to languish permanently in the subcommittee and was no longer a threat. Daniel would have liked to explain how he knew this bit of news, but he knew he couldn’t. Daniel had not expected a message back from the prospective investors for several hours, since it was only four in the morning on the West Coast when his message went out on the World Wide Web. Nonetheless, he was confident in their response.

As a splurge, they had ordered breakfast in the room. At Daniel’s insistence, it included mimosas. Jokingly, he told Stephanie that she’d better get accustomed to such living, because it would become the order of the day once CURE went public. “I’ve had enough of academic poverty,” he’d declared. “We are going to be on the A list, and we are going to act the part!”

At nine-fifteen, both had been surprised by a call from the concierge’s desk saying that a courier had dropped off a package from a Dr. Claire Schneider labeled URGENT. They were asked if they wanted it sent directly to the room, and they had responded in the affirmative. As they assumed, the package contained Butler’s skin biopsy, and they were duly impressed with Butler’s efficiency. Its arrival was several hours earlier than they had hoped to see it.

With the biopsy in hand, they had been able to catch the ten-thirty shuttle flight to Boston, getting them into Logan Airport just after noon. Following an even more hair-raising taxi experience than those in Washington, as far as Daniel was concerned, with a driver from Pakistan in a rattletrap vehicle, they were dumped off at Daniel’s condominium apartment on Appleton Street. A change of clothes and a quick lunch followed by a short ride in Daniel’s Ford Focus brought them to CURE’s current digs in East Cambridge on Athenaeum Street. They entered through the front door. The company occupied the ground-floor suite immediately to the right of the entrance.

When Daniel had first founded CURE, it had occupied most of the first floor of the renovated, nineteenth-century brick office building. But as the money crunch deepened, space was first to go. Currently, it was one-tenth of its original size, with only a single laboratory, two small offices, and a reception area. Second to go were the nonessential personnel. The employees included Daniel and Stephanie, who’d not drawn salaries for four months, another senior scientist by the name of Peter Conway, operator-cum-receptionist/secretary Vicky McGowan, and three laboratory technicians soon to be reduced to two or maybe even one. Daniel had not yet decided. What Daniel had not changed was the board of directors, the scientific advisory board, and the ethics board, all of whom Daniel intended to leave in the dark about the Butler affair.

“It’s only two-thirty-five,” Stephanie announced, after closing the door behind them. “I’d say that’s good timing, considering we woke up in Washington, D.C.”

Daniel merely grunted. His attention was directed at Vicky, who was handing him a bundle of telephone messages, a few of which needed explanation. In particular, the venture capital people from the West Coast had called instead of returning Daniel’s email. According to Vicky, they were hardly satisfied with the information they’d gotten and were demanding more.

Leaving Daniel to deal with business matters, Stephanie went into the laboratory. She called hello to Peter, who was seated before one of the dissecting microscopes. While Stephanie and Daniel had gone to Washington, he’d stayed behind to keep all the company’s experiments going.

Stephanie unloaded her laptop onto the soapstone surface of the particular lab bench she used as her desk; her private office had been sacrificed in the initial downsizing. With Butler’s skin biopsy in hand, she walked over to an operative area of the laboratory. She removed the piece of skin aseptically, minced it, and then placed the minced material in a fresh batch of culture medium, along with antibiotics. When it had been safely stored in an incubator in a T-flask, she returned to the area she used as her desk.

“How did things go in Washington?” Peter called out. He was a slightly built fellow who looked like a teenager, despite being older than Stephanie. His most distinguishing characteristics were ratty clothes and a shock of blond hair that he wore in a ponytail. Stephanie had always thought he could be a poster boy for the hippie-dominated sixties.

“Washington was okay,” Stephanie answered vaguely. She and Daniel had decided not to tell the others about Senator Butler until after the fact.

“So, we’re still in business?” Peter asked.

“It looks that way,” Stephanie replied. She plugged in her laptop and turned it on. A short time later, she was connected to the Internet.

“Is the money coming from San Fran?” Peter persisted.

“You’ll have to ask Daniel,” Stephanie said. “I try to stay clear of the business side of things.”

Peter got the implied message and went back to his work.

Stephanie had been eager to look into the issue of the Shroud of Turin from the moment Daniel had suggested she take it on as her initial contribution to the Butler project. She’d thought about beginning that morning after her shower and before Butler’s skin biopsy had arrived but had decided against it because connecting to the Internet with a modem was agonizingly slow now that she was spoiled with CURE’s broadband connection. Besides, she thought she’d no sooner get herself involved and have to break off. Now she had the rest of the afternoon.

Calling up the Google search engine, she entered SHROUD OF TURIN and clicked on the SEARCH button. She had no idea what to expect. Although she remembered sketchy references to the shroud when she was a child and still a practicing Catholic as well as something about its being declared a fake after carbon dating when she was in her first year of graduate school, she’d not thought of the relic in years and assumed other people felt similarly. After all, how excited could one get about a thirteenth-century forgery? But a blink of the eye later, when the Google search was completed, she knew she was wrong. Amazed, she found herself staring at the number of results: more than 28,300!

Stephanie clicked on the first result, called the Shroud of Turin website, and for the next hour found herself totally absorbed by the extent of information available. On the very first introductory page, she read that the shroud was “the single most studied artifact in human history”! With her relative lack of familiarity with the shroud, she found that a surprising statement, especially considering her general interest in history; her undergraduate major had been chemistry, but she’d had a minor in history. She also read that a number of experts felt strongly that the question of the shroud’s authenticity as a first-century artifact had not been settled by the carbon dating results. As a woman of science, and knowing the precision of carbon dating, she could not understand how anyone could hold such an opinion and was eager to find out. But before she did, she used the website to examine photographs of the shroud that were presented in both positive and negative format.

Stephanie learned that the first person to photograph the shroud in 1898 had been startled by the images being significantly more obvious in the negative, and it was the same for her. In the positive the image was faint, and looking at it and trying to see the figure reminded her of one of her youthful summer pastimes: attempting to see faces, people, or animals in the infinite variations of cumulus clouds. But in the negative, the image was striking! It was clearly that of a man who had been beaten, tortured, and crucified, which begged the question of how a medieval forger could have anticipated the development of photography. What had appeared on the positive as mere blotches were now agonizingly real rivulets of blood. Glancing back at the positive image, she was surprised that the blood had even retained its red color.

On the main menu of the Shroud of Turin website, Stephanie clicked on a button labeled FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS. One of the questions was whether DNA testing had ever been performed on the shroud. With excitement, Stephanie clicked on the question. In the answer provided, she learned that Texas researchers had found DNA in the bloodstains, although there were some questions about the provenance of the sample tested. There were also questions raised about how much DNA contamination could have been left by all the people who had touched the shroud over the centuries.

The Shroud of Turin website also included an extensive bibliography, and Stephanie turned to it eagerly. Once again, she was amazed at its extent. With her curiosity now piqued and as a lover of books, she went over a number of the titles. Leaving the shroud’s website, she called up a bookseller’s, which produced a hundred titles, many of which were the same as those in the shroud’s website. After reading some of the reviews, she selected a few of the books that she wanted to have immediately. She was particularly drawn to those by Ian Wilson, an Oxford-educated scholar, who was cited as presenting both sides of the controversy concerning the shroud’s authenticity even though he was convinced it was real, meaning not only was it a first-century artifact-it was the burial cloth of Jesus Christ!

Picking up the phone, Stephanie called the local bookstore. She was rewarded by learning that the store had one of the titles she was interested in. It was The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence by Ian Wilson and Barrie Schwortz, a professional photographer who had been part of an American team that had extensively studied the shroud in 1978. Stephanie asked for the book to be put aside with her name on it.

Returning to the bookseller’s website, she ordered a few more of the shroud books to be delivered overnight. With that accomplished, she stood up and took her coat off the back of her chair. “I’m heading out to the bookstore,” she called over to Peter. “I’m going to pick up a book on the Shroud of Turin. Out of curiosity, what do you know about it?”

“Hmmm,” Peter voiced, as he screwed up his face as if in deep thought. “I know the name of the city where it’s kept.”

“I’m serious,” Stephanie complained.

“Well, let’s put it this way,” Peter said. “I’ve heard of it, but it’s not that it comes up in conversation too often with me and my buddies. If I were pressed, I’d say it’s one of those objects the medieval church used to fan the religious fires to keep the collection boxes full, like pieces of the true cross and saints’ fingernails.”

“Do you think it’s real?”

“You mean Jesus’ burial cloth?”

“Yeah.”

“Hell, no! It was proved to be a fake ten years ago.”

“What if I told you it was the most investigated artifact in human history?”

“I’d ask you what you’d been smoking lately.”

Stephanie laughed. “Thank you, Peter.”

“What are you thanking me for?” he asked, obviously confused.

“I was worried my lack of familiarity with the Shroud of Turin was somehow unique. It’s reassuring to know it’s not.” Stephanie pulled on her coat and headed for the door.

“How come the sudden interest in the Shroud of Turin?” Peter called after her.

“You’ll know soon enough,” Stephanie yelled over her shoulder. She crossed the reception area diagonally and poked her head into Daniel’s office. She was surprised to see him slouched over his desk with his head in his hands.

“Hey,” Stephanie called. “Are you okay?”

Daniel looked up and blinked. His eyes were red, as if he’d been rubbing them, and his face was paler than usual. “Yeah, I’m okay,” he said, as if exhausted. His earlier ebullience had fled.

“What’s going on?”

Daniel shook his head as his eyes wandered around his littered desk. He sighed. “Running this organization is like keeping a leaky boat afloat with a thimble for bailing. The venture capital people are refusing to release the second round financing until I tell them why I’m so sure Butler’s bill won’t come out of the subcommittee. But I can’t tell them, because if I do, it will invariably be leaked, and Butler would most likely renege about keeping his bill under wraps. Then all bets are off.”

“What kind of money do we have left?”

“Almost nothing,” Daniel moaned. “This time next month, we’ll be dipping into our line of credit just to meet payroll.”

“That gives us the month we need to treat Butler,” Stephanie said.

“What a lucky break that is,” Daniel snapped sarcastically. “It irritates me to death that we have to stop our research and deal with the likes of Butler and possibly those infertility clowns down in Nassau. It’s a goddamn crime that medical research has become politicized in this country. Our founding fathers who insisted on separation of church and state are probably turning over in their graves with these relatively few politicians using their supposed religious beliefs to hold up what will undoubtedly be the biggest advance in medical treatment.”

“Well, we all know what’s really behind this current Luddite bioscience movement,” Stephanie said.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s really abortion politics in disguise,” Stephanie said. “The real issue is that these demagogues want a zygote to be declared a human being with full constitutional rights no matter how the zygote was formed and no matter what the zygote’s future holds. It’s a ridiculous stance, but nonetheless if it happened, Roe versus Wade would have to be thrown out.”

“You’re probably right,” Daniel admitted. He exhaled like the sound of air coming out of a tire. “What an absurd situation. History is going to wonder what kind of people we were that allowed a personal issue like abortion to handicap a society for years on end. We took a lot of our ideas about individual rights, government, and certainly our common law from England. Why couldn’t we have followed England’s lead in how best to deal with the ethics of reproductive bioscience?”

“That’s a good question, but it’s not going to do us any good to worry over the answer at the moment. What happened to your enthusiasm about treating Butler? Let’s get it done! Once he’s treated, he’s not going to renege on our deal even if there is a leak to the media, because we’ll have his release. I mean, once he’s been cured he can deal with the media by just denying any accusations as being politically motivated. What he wouldn’t be able to deny is a signed release.”

“You have a point,” Daniel admitted.

“What about Butler’s money?” Stephanie asked. “It seems to me that’s the key question at the moment. Has there been any communication about that?”

“I haven’t even thought to check.” Daniel turned to his computer and, after a few strokes, looked at his special email inbox. “Here’s a message that must be from Butler. It has an encrypted attachment, which is encouraging.”

Daniel opened the attachment. Stephanie stepped around the desk to look over his shoulder.

“I’d say it looks very encouraging,” Stephanie said. “He’s given us an account number for a Bahamian bank, and it appears as if we both can draw from it.”

“It’s got a link to the bank’s website,” Daniel said. “Let’s see if we can find out the balance in the account. That will tell us how serious Butler is about all this.”

A few clicks later, Daniel tilted back in his chair. He looked up at Stephanie, and she returned his stare. Both were taken aback.

“I’d say he’s very serious!” Stephanie remarked. “And eager!”

“I’m flabbergasted!” Daniel said. “I expected ten or twenty thousand, tops. I never expected a hundred. Where could he have gotten that kind of money so quickly?”

“I told you, he has a string of political action committees that are fund-raising workhorses. What I wonder is if any of the people who contributed this money could have ever imagined how the money was going to be spent. There’s a hell of a lot of irony here if they are as conservative as I imagine they are.”

“That’s not our concern,” Daniel said. “Besides, we’ll never spend a hundred thousand dollars. At the same time, it’s good to know it’s there just in case. Let’s get busy!”

“I already started the fibroblast culture with the skin biopsy.”

“Excellent,” Daniel said, as his exuberance of that morning began to return. Even his skin color improved. “I’ll get cracking and find out what I can about the Wingate Clinic.”

“Sounds good!” Stephanie said. She started for the door. “I’ll be back in about an hour.”

“Where are you going?”

“The bookstore downtown,” Stephanie called over her shoulder. She hesitated at the threshold. “They are holding a book for me. After I got the tissue culture started, I began looking into the Shroud of Turin issue. I have to say, I lucked out in our division of labor. The shroud is turning out to be much more interesting than I imagined.”

“What did you find out?”

“Just enough to hook me, but I’ll give you a full report in about twenty-four hours.”

Daniel smiled, flashed Stephanie a thumbs-up, and turned back to his computer screen. He used a search engine to bring up a list of infertility clinics and found the Wingate Clinic’s website. A few clicks later, he was connected.

He scrolled through the first few pages. As expected, it was composed of laudatory material to entice would-be clients. Under a section labeled MEET OUR STAFF, he made a brief side trip to read the professional resumes of the principals, which included the founder and CEO, Dr. Spencer Wingate; the head of Research and Laboratory Services, Dr. Paul Saunders; and the head of Clinical Services, Dr. Sheila Donaldson. The resumes were as glowing as the descriptions of the clinic itself, although in Daniel’s opinion, all three individuals had attended second-tier or even third-tier schools and training programs.

At the bottom of the page, he found what he wanted: a phone number. There was also an email address, but Daniel wanted to talk directly with one of the principals, either Wingate or Saunders. Picking up the phone, Daniel dialed the number. The call was answered quickly by a pleasant-sounding operator who launched into a short, rote eulogy of the clinic before asking with whom Daniel wished to be connected.

“Dr. Wingate,” Daniel said. He decided he might as well start at the top.

There was another short pause before Daniel was connected to an equally pleasant-sounding woman. She politely asked for Daniel’s name before committing whether Dr. Wingate was available. When Daniel mentioned his name, the response was immediate.

“Is this Dr. Daniel Lowell of Harvard University?”

Daniel paused momentarily, as he tried to decide how to respond. “I have been at Harvard, although at the moment I am with my own firm.”

“I’ll get Dr. Wingate for you,” the secretary said. “I know he’s been waiting to talk with you.”

After a sustained blink of disbelief, Daniel pulled the phone from his ear and stared at it momentarily, as if it could explain the secretary’s unexpected response. How could Spencer Wingate be waiting to talk with him? Daniel shook his head.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Lowell!” a voice responded with a clipped New England accent a full octave higher than Daniel would have expected. “I’m Spencer Wingate, and I’m pleased to hear from you. We expected your call last week, but no matter. Would you mind waiting momentarily while I get Dr. Saunders on the line? It will take a minute, but we might as well make this a conference call, since I know Dr. Saunders is as eager to talk with you as I.”

“Fine,” Daniel said agreeably, although his bewilderment was deepening. He leaned back in his chair, lifted his feet onto his desk, and switched the phone to his left hand so he could use his right to drum a pencil on his desk. He’d been caught totally unawares by Spencer Wingate’s response to his call and felt a twinge of anxiety. He kept hearing Stephanie’s admonitions about getting involved with these infamous infertility mavericks.

A minute dragged on to five. Just when Daniel had recovered his equilibrium enough to question if he’d been inadvertently disconnected, Spencer popped back on the line. He was slightly out of breath. “Okay, I’m back! How about you, Paul? Are you on?”

“I’m here,” Paul said, apparently using an extension in another room. In contrast to Spencer’s voice, Paul’s was rather deep, with a distinct Midwestern nasal twang. “I’m pleased to talk with you, Daniel, if I may call you that.”

“If you wish,” Daniel said. “Whatever suits you.”

“Thank you. And please call me Paul. No need for formalities between friends and colleagues. Let me say right off how much I am looking forward to working with you.”

“That’s my sentiment as well,” Spencer declared. “Heck! The whole clinic is eager. How soon can we expect you?”

“Well, that’s one of the reasons I’m calling,” Daniel said vaguely, struggling to be diplomatic, but intensely curious. “But first I’d like to ask how it is that you expected me to call?”

“From your scout or whatever his job title might be,” Spencer answered. “What was his name again, Paul?”

“Marlowe,” Paul said.

“Right! Bob Marlowe,” Spencer said. “After he finished checking out our facility, he said you’d be contacting us the following week. Needless to say, we were disappointed when we didn’t hear from you. But that’s water under the bridge now that you have called.”

“We’re delighted you want to use our facility,” Paul said. “It will be an honor to work with you. Now I hope you don’t mind me speculating about what you have in mind, because Bob Marlowe was vague, but I’m assuming you want to try your ingenious HTSR on a patient. I mean, why else would you want to forsake your own lab and those great hospitals you have in Boston. Am I correct in this assumption?”

“How do you know about HTSR?” Daniel asked. He wasn’t sure he wanted to admit to his motivations so early in the conversation.

“We read your outstanding paper in Nature,” Paul said. “It was brilliant, simply brilliant. Its overall importance to bioscience reminded me of my own paper, “In Vitro Maturation of Human Oocytes.” Did you happen to read it?”

“Not yet,” Daniel responded, forcing himself to continue to be tactful. “What journal was it in?”

“The Journal of Twenty-first Century Reproductive Technology,” Spencer said.

“That’s a journal I’m not familiar with,” Daniel responded. “Who publishes it?”

“We do,” Paul said proudly. “Right here at the Wingate Clinic. We’re as committed to research as we are to clinical services.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. Lacking peer review, scientific self-publishing was an oxymoron, and he was impressed with the accuracy of Butler’s capsule description of these two men.

“HTSR has never been used on a human,” Daniel said, still avoiding answering Paul’s question.

“We understand that,” Spencer interjected. “And that’s one of many reasons why we would be thrilled to have it done here first. Being on the cutting edge is precisely the kind of reputation Wingate Clinic is striving to establish.”

“The FDA would frown on performing an experimental procedure outside of an approved protocol,” Daniel said. “They would never give approval.”

“Of course they wouldn’t approve,” Spencer agreed. “And we should know.” He laughed, and Paul chimed in as well. “But here in the Bahamas, there’s no need for the FDA to know, since they have no jurisdiction.”

“If I were to do HTSR on a human, it would have to be in absolute secrecy,” Daniel said, finally indirectly acknowledging his plans. “It cannot be divulged and obviously could not be used for your promotional purposes.”

“We are fully aware of that,” Paul said. “Spencer was not implying we would use it right away.”

“Heavens, no!” Spencer chirped. “I was thinking of using it only after it became mainstream.”

“I would have to retain the right to determine when that might be,” Daniel said. “I will not even be using the episode to promote HTSR.”

“No?” Paul questioned. “Then why do you want to do it?”

“For purely personal reasons,” Daniel said. “I’m confident HTSR will work just as well with humans as it has with mice. But I need to prove it to myself with a patient to give me the fortitude to deal with the backlash I’m facing from the political right. I don’t know if you are aware, but I’m fighting a potential congressional ban on my procedure.”

There was an awkward pause in the conversation. By demanding secrecy and taking away any potential advertising windfalls in the near future, Daniel was certain he’d negated one of the Wingate Clinic’s reasons to be cooperative. Frantically, he tried to think of a way to cushion the disappointment, and just a moment before he spoke up and possibly made things worse, Spencer broke the silence: “I suppose we can respect your need for secrecy. But if we were to get no promotional value from your collaboration with us in the near term, what kind of compensation do you have in mind for using our facility and services?”

“We expect to pay,” Daniel said.

There was another silence. Daniel felt a twinge of panic that the negotiations were not going well, raising the specter of losing the opportunity of using the Wingate Clinic for Butler’s treatment. Considering the time constraints, such a loss could be the death knell for the project. Daniel sensed he had to offer more. Remembering Butler’s assessment of Spencer and Paul’s vanities, he gritted his teeth and said: “Then, down the road, after the FDA approves HTSR for general use, we could all coauthor a paper on the case.”

Daniel winced. The idea of coauthoring a paper with such bozos was a painful thought, even though he rationalized he could delay it indefinitely. But despite the offer, the silence persisted, and Daniel’s panic grew. Remembering his own response to Butler’s demand to use blood from the Shroud of Turin for the HTSR, he threw in that tidbit as well, explaining the patient had insisted on it. Daniel even proposed the same title he’d jokingly suggested to Stephanie.

“Now that sounds like one hell of a paper!” Paul responded suddenly. “I love it! Where would we publish it?”

“Wherever,” Daniel said vaguely. “Science or Nature. Wherever you’d like. I don’t imagine it would be difficult to place.”

“Would HTSR work with blood from the Shroud of Turin?” Spencer asked. “As I recall, that thing is about five hundred years old.”

“How about around two thousand years old,” Paul said.

“Wasn’t it proved to be a medieval forgery?” Spencer questioned.

“We’re not going to get involved in argument about its authenticity,” Daniel said. “For our purposes, it doesn’t matter. If the patient wants to believe it’s real, it’s fine with us.”

“But would it work, as a practical matter?” Spencer asked again.

“The DNA would be fragmented, whether it’s five hundred or two thousand years old,” Daniel said. “But that shouldn’t be a problem. We only need fragments, which our HTSR probes will seek out after PCR amplification. We’ll enzymatically patch together what we need for whole genes. It will work fine.”

“What about The New England Journal of Medicine?” Paul suggested. “That would be a coup for the clinic! I’d love to get something into that highfalutin publication.”

“Sure,” Daniel said, cringing at the idea. “Why not?”

“I’m beginning to like it too,” Spencer said. “That’s the kind of article that would get picked up by the media like it was pure gold! It would be all over the newspapers. Hell, I can even see all the network anchors talking about it on the evening news.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Daniel said. “But remember, until the article comes out, there’s got to be absolute secrecy about the whole affair.”

“We understand,” Spencer said.

“How are you going to get a sample from the Shroud of Turin?” Paul asked. “I understand the Catholic Church has it locked up in a kind of space-age vault over there in Italy.”

“We’re looking into that as we speak,” Daniel said. “We have been promised high-level clerical assistance.”

“I’d think you’d have to know the Pope!” Paul commented.

“Perhaps we should talk about costs,” Daniel said, eager to change the subject now that the crisis had been averted. “We don’t want any misunderstandings.”

“What kind of services are we talking about?” Paul asked.

“The patient we’ll be treating has Parkinson’s disease,” Daniel explained. “We will need a staffed OR and stereotaxic equipment for the implantation.”

“We have the OR,” Paul said. “But not stereotaxic equipment.”

“That’s not a problem,” Spencer said. “We can borrow it from Princess Margaret Hospital. The Bahamian government and the medical community on the island have been very supportive of our relocation. I’m sure they will be happy to help. We just won’t tell them what we’re going to do with it.”

“We’ll need the services of a neurosurgeon,” Daniel said. “One who is capable of being discreet.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem either,” Spencer said. “There are several on the island who are, in my opinion, un-derutilized. I’m sure we could make arrangements with one of them. I don’t know exactly how much he’d charge, but I can assure you, it will be a lot less than it would be in the States. My guess would be in the neighborhood of two or three hundred dollars.”

“You don’t think the confidentiality issue will be problematic?” Daniel asked.

“I don’t,” Spencer said. “They are all looking for work. With fewer tourists renting mopeds, head trauma has dropped off precipitously. I know, because two surgeons have come out to the clinic to leave their business cards.”

“Sounds serendipitous,” Daniel said. “Other than that, all we need is space in your lab. I assume you have a lab to do your reproductive work.”

“You will be amazed at our lab,” Paul said proudly. “It is state-of-the-art and a lot more than just an infertility lab! And in addition to myself, we have several talented technicians at your disposal who are experienced at nuclear transfer and who are eager to learn HTSR.”

“We won’t need the assistance of any lab personnel,” Daniel said. “We’ll do our own cellular work. What we do need are human oocytes. Is it possible for you to supply them?”

“Of course!” Paul said. “Oocytes are our specialty and soon to be our bread and butter. We’re intending to supply them for all of North America in the future. What is your time frame?”

“As soon as possible,” Daniel said. “This might sound overly optimistic, but we’d like to be ready to implant in a month. We’re under a time constraint, with a short window of opportunity imposed by the patient volunteer.”

“No problem on this end,” Paul said. “We can supply you with oocytes tomorrow!”

“Really?” Daniel questioned. It seemed too good to be true.

“We can get you oocytes whenever you want,” Paul said. Then he added with a laugh, “Even on holidays!”

“I’m impressed,” Daniel said sincerely. “And relieved. I was worried that procuring oocytes might hold us up. But that brings us back to costs.”

“Except for the oocytes, we have no experience what to charge,” Spencer said. “To tell you the truth, we never anticipated someone using our clinic. Let’s make it simple: How about twenty thousand for using the operating room, including its staff, and twenty thousand for the lab flat rate.”

“Fine,” Daniel said. “What about the oocytes?”

“Five hundred a pop,” Paul said. “And we guarantee at least five divisions with each one or we replace it.”

“That sounds fair,” Daniel said. “But they have to be fresh!”

“They will be as fresh as a daisy,” Paul said. “When can we expect you?”

“I’ll get back to you either later today or tonight,” Daniel said. “Or, at the latest, by tomorrow. We really have to get moving on this.”

“We’ll be here,” Spencer said.

Daniel slowly replaced the telephone receiver. When it was safely in its cradle, he let out a whoop. He had a strong feeling, despite the recent setbacks, that CURE, HTSR, and his own destiny were back on track!

Dr. Spencer Wingate had left his tanned hand on the telephone receiver after hanging up while his mind mulled over the conversation he’d just had with Dr. Daniel Lowell. It had not gone as he’d imagined or hoped, and he was disappointed. When the issue of the famous researcher wanting to use the Wingate Clinic had unexpectedly surfaced two weeks previously, he’d thought it providential since they’d just opened their doors after eight months of construction and confusion. In his mind, a professional association with a man who Paul said might win a Nobel Prize would have been a superb way to announce to the world that the Wingate was back in business after the regrettable fracas in Massachusetts the previous May. But as things stood, there could be no announcement. Forty thousand dollars might be nice, but it was a mere pittance in comparison to the money they had just spent getting the clinic built and equipped.

Spencer’s office door, which had been slightly ajar from when Spencer had recently rushed back in from locating his second-in-command, was pushed open to its full extent. Filling the doorway was Dr. Paul Saunders’s short, square frame. A broad smile displayed his equally square, widely spaced teeth. He obviously did not share Spencer’s disappointment.

“Can you imagine?” Paul blurted. “We’re going to have a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine!” He threw himself into a chair facing Spencer’s desk and punched the air with upraised fists like he’d just won a stage of the Tour de France. “And what a paper: ‘The Wingate Clinic, the Shroud of Turin, and HTSR Combine for the First Cure of Parkinson’s Disease.’ It’s going to be fantastic! People will be beating a path to our door!”

Spencer leaned back and put his hands with fingers intertwined behind his head. He regarded the head of research, a title Paul had insisted upon, with a degree of condescension. Paul was a hard worker with vision, but he could be overly enthusiastic, and he lacked the practicality necessary to run a business properly. In the clinic’s previous incarnation in Massachusetts, he’d practically run it into the ground financially. Had Spencer not mortgaged the clinic to the hilt and socked away most of the clinic’s assets offshore, they wouldn’t have survived.

“What makes you so sure there will be a paper?” Spencer asked.

Paul’s face clouded over. “What are you talking about? We just discussed it on the phone, title and all, with Daniel. He’s the one who suggested it.”

“He suggested it, but how can we be sure it will happen? I agree, it would be great if it did, but he could just put it off indefinitely.”

“Why the hell would he do that?”

“I don’t know, but for some reason secrecy’s high on his list, and a paper would destroy that. He’s not going to want to write a paper, at least not soon enough for us, and if we went ahead and did it without him, he’d probably just deny any involvement in the case. If that happened, no one would publish it.”

“You’ve got a point,” Paul agreed.

The two men eyed each other across the expanse of Spencer’s desk. A jet on its final approach to Nassau International Airport thundered overhead. The clinic was sited just west of the airport, on dry, scrubby land. It was the only place they could reasonably buy adequate acreage and fence it in appropriately.

“Do you think he was being straight about using the Shroud of Turin?” Paul asked.

“I don’t know that either,” Spencer said. “It sounds a bit fishy to me, if you know what I mean.”

“On the contrary, the concept sounded intriguing to me.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Spencer said. “The idea is interesting and certainly would make a damn good scientific paper and international news story, but when you put it all together, including the secrecy issue, there’s something decidedly dubious involved. I mean, did you buy his explanation when you asked him why he was going to all this trouble?”

“You mean about his wanting to prove HTSR to himself?”

“Precisely.”

“Not completely, although it is true that the U.S. Congress is thinking of banning HTSR. And now that you’ve got me thinking, he did accept the fees you suggested a bit too quickly, as if the price didn’t matter.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Spencer said. “I had no idea how much to ask to use our facilities, and I just pulled some figures out of the air and expected him to come back with a counteroffer. Hell, I should have asked for twice as much, as quickly as he agreed.”

“So, what is your take?”

“I think the identity of the patient is the issue,” Spencer said. “That’s the only thing that comes to mind that makes sense.”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer said. “But if I were forced to guess, my first thought would be a family member. My second guess would be someone wealthy, someone very wealthy and possibly famous and wealthy, which is where I’d put my money!”

“Wealthy!” Paul repeated. A slight smile appeared on his face. “A cure could be worth millions.”

“Exactly, which is why I think we should proceed with the rich-and-famous hypothesis. After all, why should Daniel Lowell potentially get millions while we get a paltry forty thousand!”

“Which means we have to find out the identity of this patient volunteer.”

“I was hoping you’d see this affair from my perspective. I was afraid you might feel it was worth it just to work with this renowned researcher.”

“Hell, no!” Paul snapped. “Not when we can’t get the promotional benefits we expected. He’s even implied we’re not going to get hands-on instruction in HTSR when he said he’d be doing his own cellular work. Originally, I thought that was a given. I still want to learn the procedure, though, so when he calls back, mention that that has to be part of the package.”

“I’ll be happy to tell him,” Spencer said. “I’m also going to tell him we want half of the money up front.”

“Tell him we also want special consideration in the future on licensing HTSR.”

“That’s a good idea,” Spencer said. “I’ll see what I can do about essentially renegotiating our deal without upping the cash. I don’t want to scare him off. Meanwhile, how about you taking responsibility for trying to find the identity of the patient? That’s a kind of activity you are better at than I.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was meant as a compliment.”

Paul stood up. “I’ll get Kurt Hermann, our security chief, right on it. He loves this kind of assignment.”

“Tell the dishonorably discharged Green Beret, or whatever the hell he was, to kill as few people as possible. After all this investment and effort, let’s not wear out our welcome on the island.”

Paul laughed. “He’s really very careful and conservative.”

“That’s not my take,” Spencer said. He held up his hands to ward off an argument. “I don’t think the whores on Okinawa he knocked off would call him conservative, and he was a bit heavy-handed up in Massachusetts in our employ, but we’ve been over this. I admit he’s good at what he does, otherwise he wouldn’t still be on the staff. Just humor me and tell him to be discreet! That’s all I ask.”

“I’ll be happy to tell him.” Paul stood up. “But remember, since none of us, including Kurt, can go back to the States, he probably won’t be able to accomplish much until Daniel, his team, and the patient get here.”

“I don’t expect miracles,” Spencer said.