The Venetian Betrayal

SIXTY-FOUR

CENTRAL ASIAN FEDERATION

8:50 A.M.

VINCENTI WAS HOLED UP IN THE LAB HE’D BUILT BENEATH HIS estate, only he and Grant Lyndsey inside. Lyndsey had come straight from China, his duties there done. Two years ago he’d taken Lyndsey into his confidence. He’d needed somebody out front to supervise all the testing on the viruses and antiagents. Also, somebody had to placate Zovastina.

“How’s the temperature?” he asked.

Lyndsey checked the digital readouts. “Stable.”

The lab was Vincenti’s domain. A passive, sterile space encased within cream-colored walls atop a black tile floor. Stainless-steel tables ran in two rows down the center. Flasks, beakers, and burettes towered on metal stands above an autoclave, distilling equipment, a centrifuge, analytical balances, and two computer terminals. Digital simulation played a key role in their experimentation, so different from his days with the Iraqis, when trial and error cost time, money, and mistakes. Today’s sophisticated programs were able to duplicate most any chemical or biological effect, so long as there were parameters. And, over the past year, Lyndsey had done an admirable job establishing parameters for the cyber-testing of ZH.

“The solution is at room temperature,” Lyndsey said. “And they’re swimming like crazy. Amazing.”

The pool where he’d found the archaea was thermal fed, its temperature pushing one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Producing the bacteria in the trillions that would be needed, then safely transporting them around the world at such high temperatures, could prove impossible. So they’d changed them. Slowly adapting the archaea to lower and lower thermal environments. Interestingly, at room temperature their activity only slowed, almost going dormant, but once inside a warm bloodstream at ninety-eight point six degrees, they quickly reactivated.

“The clinical trial I finished a few days ago,” Lyndsey said, “confirmed that they can be stored at room temperature for a prolonged time. I’d held those for over four months. It’s incredible, their adaptability.”

“Which is how they’ve survived billions of years, waiting for us to find them.”

He huddled close to one of the tables, fleshy hands inserted through rubber gloves into a hermetically sealed container. Air purred overhead, forced through laminar microfilters, cleansed of impurities, the constant rumble nearly hypnotic. He stared through a plexiglass portal and deftly manipulated the evaporating dish. He dabbed a sample of active HIV culture onto a slide, swirling the drop with another already there. He then clipped the slide onto the built-in microscope’s stage. He freed his hands of the sweaty rubber and focused the objective.

Two adjustments and he found the right power.

One look was all he required.

“The virus is gone. Almost on contact. It’s like they’ve been waiting to devour it.”

He knew their biological modifications were the key to success. A few years ago a New York law firm he’d engaged advised him that a new mineral discovered in the earth, or a new plant found in the wild, was not something that could be patented. Einstein could not patent his celebrated E=mc2, nor could Newton have patented the law of gravity. Those were manifestations of nature, free to all. But genetically engineered plants, man-made multicellular animals, and archaea-bacteria altered from their natural state, these were patentable.

He’d make a call to the same law firm later and start the patent process. FDA approval would also be needed. Twelve years was the average time for an experimental solution to travel from lab to medicine chest-the American system of drug approvals the most rigorous in the world. And he knew the odds. Only five in four thousand compounds screened in FDA preclinical testing made it to human testing. Only one of those five ultimately gained approval. Seven years ago a new fast-track testing procedure for compounds that targeted life-threatening diseases had been okayed-AIDS treatments specifically in that category. Still, quick by FDA standards was six to nine months. European approval processes were stringent, but nothing like the FDA. African and Asian nations, where the major problem existed, didn’t require government approvals.

So that’s where he’d start selling.

Let the world see them being cured while American and European AIDS patients died. Approval would come then, without him even asking.

“I’ve never asked,” Lyndsey said, “and you’ve never said. But where did you find these bacteria?”

The time for silence was over. He needed Lyndsey on board-completely. But answering his question about where also meant discussing when.

“Have you ever considered the value of a company that manufactured condoms prior to HIV? Sure, there was a market. What? Several million a year? But after the resurgence of AIDS, billions were manufactured and sold worldwide. And what about the symptomatic drugs? Treating AIDS is the perfect money machine. A triple drug cocktail treatment is twelve to eighteen thousand U.S. dollars a year. Multiply that by the millions infected and you’re talking billions spent on drugs that cure nothing.

“Think about the supply benefits-things like latex gloves, gowns, sterile needles. You have any idea how many millions of sterile needles are bought and distributed in trying to stop the HIV spread among drug users? And, like condoms, the price has gone through the roof. The range here is endless. For a medical supply and manufacturing house, like Philogen, HIV has been a huge cash bonanza.

“Over the past eighteen years, our business has soared, our condom manufacturing plant has tripled in size. Sales went through the roof for all of our products. We even developed a couple of symptomatic drugs that sold well. Ten years ago I took the company public, raised capital, and used the expanding medical supply and drug divisions to fund more expansion. I bought a cosmetics firm, a soap company, a department store chain, and a frozen food business, knowing one day Philogen could easily pay all the debt back.”

“How did you know?”

“I found the bacteria almost thirty years ago. I realized their potential twenty years ago. Then I held the cure for HIV, knowing I could release it at any time.”

He watched the realization take hold.

“And you told no one?”

“Not a soul.” He needed to know if Lyndsey was as amoral as he believed him to be. “Is that a problem? I simply let the market build.”

“Knowing that you didn’t have a partial fix, something the virus would eventually work around. Knowing you had the cure. The one way to totally destroy HIV. Even if somebody eventually found a drug to quell the virus, yours worked better, faster, safer, and costs pe

“That was the idea.”

“It didn’t matter to you that people were dying by the millions?”

“And you think the world cares about AIDS? Get real, Grant. Lots of talk, little action. It’s a unique disease. The perception is that it mainly kills blacks, gays, and drug users. The whole epidemic has rolled back a big rotting log and revealed all the squirming life underneath-the main themes of our existence-sex, death, power, money, love, hate, panic. In nearly every way that AIDS has been conceptualized, imagined, researched, and financed, it’s become the most political of diseases.”

And what Karyn Walde said earlier came to mind. It’s just not killing the right people yet.

“What about the other pharmaceutical companies?” Lyndsey said. “Weren’t you afraid they’d find a cure?”

“A risk, but I’ve kept a close eye on our competition. Let’s just say that their research bought little more than mistakes.” He was feeling good. After all this time, he liked talking about it. “Would you like to see where the bacteria live?”