The Common Lawyer

EIGHT

Tony Falco believed in God. But he also believed in science. He did not hold to the view that those beliefs were mutually exclusive, that to believe in God meant one must deny science or to believe in science one must deny God.

He was a faithful scientist. He had always followed the science wherever it led him, without moral, ethical, religious, or political restraints, because those restraints, he believed, were man-made, not God-made. But he had grown weary of American politics that restrained science. Too many Americans believed faith trumped science, as if God had given us our inquiring minds but demanded that we ignore the world around us-the very world God had created, directly or indirectly. He had tired of people who used politics to enforce their moral and religious restraints on science.

Stem cell treatment might well be the medical breakthrough of the century, but the religious right possessed the political power to take stem cells out of play in America-simply because scientists termed the process "embryonic stem cells." The anti-abortionists latched onto the word "embryo" like a Doberman Pincher's teeth into a T-bone steak and dragged an entire field of scientific research into the abortion debate-notwithstanding the fact that no human life is aborted.

Scientists create embryonic stem cells by taking the sick patient's skin cells and extracting the nucleus. They then insert the nucleus into an unfertilized human egg. The egg-or embryo-grows and divides until a blastocyst-a single layer of cells shaped like a sphere-forms, at which time they remove the stem cells. Those stem cells are injected into the sick patient, and by some-miraculous? — process, they morph into other kinds of cells-blood, brain, heart, nerve-and repair the patient's sick body. They save the patient's life.

So wherein lies the political issue? Without the stem cells, the egg dies. Not a distinct human life, but cloned cells of a human patient. But those two words-embryo and cloning-were red meat in politics today. And when it was discovered that most of the existing stem cell lines in the U.S. had been contaminated and were useless for medical treatment, replacement was all but impossible. And so embryonic stem cell research in the U.S. ground to a halt.

But Tony Falco had devoted his life to saving lives; and allowing the cloned cells-call it an egg, an embryo, whatever-to die in a Petri dish in order to save a child dying from cancer was an easy moral decision for him to make. It was a no-brainer, for him and the child's parents. And Tony Falco did not want to die of old age conducting trials on rats while waiting for the U.S. government to approve treatment for dying patients; he wanted to save patients now. He wanted to give them longer lives through science.

So he had moved to China.

There were no such political constraints in China. Embryonic stem cell research was encouraged, promoted, and funded. The facilities were world-class and the researchers Western-educated, and stem cell research and treatment flourished without government control. Chinese stem cell research now led the world. Science, not faith, ruled in China. Americans could bring their faith to China with them, but Tony Falco would treat them with science.

And Americans desperately wanted the science. They flocked to Chinese institutes for experimental stem cell treatment that was illegal back home. They paid up to $50,000 per treatment. Yes, they were guinea pigs, but when you're looking death in the eye, money and risk mean nothing, because you have nothing to lose. Human beings, Falco had learned, want to live.

His colleagues back in the U.S. publicly mocked his treatments in Western medical journals as unethical and exploitive-they called it "stem cell tourism"-but privately wished they enjoyed his freedom to follow the science without political interference. And they knew that if stem cells were effective in treating blood cancers like leukemia, they might well be effective in treating a wide range of diseases. They, however, were willing to wait twenty years to find out.

Tony Falco was not.

So he had injected embryonic stem cells into the spinal cords of patients with Lou Gehrig's disease, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord and brain injuries, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, Ataxia, Batten disease, sickle cell anemia, optic nerve hypoplasia, and many other debilitating afflictions. He had conducted experimental trials in the U.S. before the contamination of the stem cell lines was discovered, but he could not have performed such treatments outside of trials because the Food and Drug Administration had not approved the procedures for human medical treatment. Results had ranged from disappointing to remarkable. The latter had lured more Americans to China every day.

Falco had assumed the American sitting across from him had come to Beijing for stem cell treatment. He had assumed wrong.

"Mr. Smith, you want to donate fifty million dollars to my research lab?"

"Yes."

"No strings attached?"

"Only one."

"And what is that string, Mr. Smith?"

"A name."

"Whose name?"

"Patient X."

Falco leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.

"Patient X is a myth."

Mr. Smith reached down and opened his briefcase; he retrieved several documents and tossed them onto the desk. Falco recognized the top article: "Patient X: The Savior?"

"Mr. Smith, I've read the journal articles."

"You wrote the journal articles."

"The author was anonymous."

"The author was you, Dr. Falco. We traced these articles to you through the printing company. Alvin Adams."

Falco had emailed Alvin several times on each article.

"We just need the woman's name," Mr. Smith said.

"The woman's name?"

"Yes, the woman's name." Mr. Smith read from the introduction to the article: " 'Patient X is a white female, age twenty-five to thirty-five…' "

"Ah, yes, the woman. And why do you want her name?"

"She has something we want."

"Yes, I suppose she does. Something everyone wants. Something I wanted. But she did not want to share her gift with the world."

Patient X had been Tony Falco's greatest professional disappointment. Three years later, he was still not over it.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Smith, I can't help you."

"A hundred million."

"Are you the donor?"

"My client is."

"You're a lawyer?"

"Yes."

"And who is your client?"

"Confidential. I've been sworn to secrecy. The attorney-client privilege."

"So was I."

"An attorney?"

"Sworn to secrecy."

"The law doesn't recognize a doctor-patient privilege."

"I do."

"Two hundred million. Just give me the woman's name."

"Mr. Smith, I take it you work for the pharmaceuticals?"

Smith said nothing.

"Patient X wouldn't be good for business, would she? Well, neither am I. Sorry, Mr. Smith, but I'm trying to put your clients out of business. Goodbye."

Harmon Payne sat across the desk from Tony Falco. The doctor was gaunt, probably a runner, and middle-aged. His hair was gray and thinning, and he wore wire-rimmed glasses. He looked smart. Harmon wasn't in China to kill Dr. Falco, just to bribe him or threaten him into revealing a name. Which, in his experience, seldom worked. Killing was a much more effective tool. But he was just a hired hand, so he had to keep his employer happy. Those corporate suits were so conservative.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Payne?" Falco said.

"It's what I can do for you, Doctor."

"And what's that?"

"Money."

The doctor smiled. "Two Americans in two days offering me money. Just a coincidence, Mr. Payne?"

"What did you tell Mr. Smith?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but nothing. I don't help the pharmaceuticals."

"Smith was working for the drug companies?"

"I assumed he was."

"Which one?"

"He didn't say."

"What did he want?"

"Again, Mr. Payne, that's none of your business."

"Patient X?"

"Mr. Payne, I told Mr. Smith nothing and I'm telling you nothing."

"You don't want money?"

"Not your money."

"I have other methods."

Dr. Falco clicked a button on the intercom. "Ling Su, please call security." He turned back to Harmon. "Mr. Payne, security will be here in under two minutes. You can leave now or be arrested and spend the rest of your life in a Chinese prison. They do things differently here."

Harmon stood.

"We'll meet again, Dr. Falco, when you come home."