“Of course, it also raises the specter of an organized crime connection to illicit liver transplantation,” Jack said. “This could be a frightening association.”
“Dangerous as well,” Lou said. “So I must insist on no more amateur sleuthing on your part. We take over from here. Do I have your word on that?”
“I’m happy to let you take over,” Laurie said. “But there is also the issue of a mole in the medical examiner’s office.”
“I think it’s best I deal with that, too,” Lou said. “With the involvement of organized crime, I’d expect some element of extortion or criminal coercion. But I’ll deal directly with Bingham. I shouldn’t have to warn you that these people are dangerous.”
“I learned that lesson all too well,” Laurie said.
“I’m too preoccupied with my end of the mystery to interfere,” Jack said. “What did you learn for me?”
“Plenty,” Lou said. He reached over to the corner of his desk and hefted a large book the size of a coffee-table art book. With a grunt, he handed it to Jack.
With a look of confusion, Jack cracked the book. “What the hell!” he commented. “What’s an atlas for?”
“Because you’re going to need it,” Lou said. “I can’t tell you how long it took me to scrounge one up here at police headquarters.”
“I don’t get it,” Jack said.
“My contact at the FAA was able to call someone who knew someone who works in a European organization that doles out landing and takeoff times all over Europe,” Lou explained. “They also get the flight plans and store them for over sixty days. Franconi’s G4 came to France from Equatorial Guinea.”
“Where?” Jack questioned as his eyebrows collided in an expression of total confusion. “I never even heard of Equatorial Guinea. Is it a country?”
“Check out page one hundred fifty-two!” Lou said.
“What’s this about a Franconi and a G4?” Laurie asked.
“A G4 is a private jet,” Lou explained. “I was able to find out for Jack that Franconi had been out of the country. We thought he’d been in France until I got this new information.”
Jack got to page 152 in the atlas. It was a map labeled “the Western Congo Basin,” covering a huge portion of western Africa.
“All right, give me a hint,” Jack said.
Lou pointed over Jack’s shoulder. “It’s this little tiny country between Cameroon and Gabon. The city that the plane flew out of is Bata, on the coast.” He pointed to the appropriate dot. The atlas depicted the country as mostly uninterrupted green.
Laurie got up from her chair and looked over Jack’s other shoulder. “I think I remember hearing about that country one time. I think that’s where the writer Frederick Forsyth went to write Dogs of War.”
Lou slapped the top of his head in utter amazement. “How do you remember stuff like that? I can’t remember where I had lunch last Tuesday.”
Laurie shrugged. “I read a lot of novels,” she said. “Writers interest me.”
“This doesn’t make any sense whatsoever,” Jack complained. “This is an undeveloped part of Africa. This country must be covered with nothing but jungle. In fact, this whole part of Africa is nothing but jungle. Franconi couldn’t have gotten a liver transplant there.”
“That was my reaction, too,” Lou said. “But the other information makes a little more sense. I tracked Alpha Aviation through its Nevada management corporation to its real owner. It’s GenSys Corp in Cambridge, Massachusetts.”
“I’ve heard of GenSys,” Laurie said. “It’s a biotech firm that’s big in vaccines and lymphokines. I remember because a girlfriend of mine who’s a broker in Chicago recommended the stock. She’s forever giving me tips, thinking I’ve got tons of money to invest.”
“A biotech company!” Jack mused. “Hmmm. That’s a new twist. It must be significant, although I don’t quite know how. Nor do I know what a biotech firm would be doing in Equatorial Guinea.”
“What’s the meaning of this indirect corporate trail in Nevada?” Laurie asked. “Is GenSys trying to hide the fact that they own an aircraft?”
“I doubt it,” Lou said. “I was able to learn the connection too easily. If GenSys was trying to conceal ownership, the lawyers in Nevada would have continued to be the directors and officers of record for Alpha Aviation. Instead, at the first board meeting the chief financial officer of GenSys assumed the duties of president and secretary.”
“Then why Nevada for an airplane owned by a Massa-chusetts-based company?” Laurie asked.
“I’m no lawyer,” Lou admitted. “But I’m sure it has something to do with taxes and limitation of liability. Massachusetts is a terrible state to get sued in. I imagine GenSys leases its plane out for the percentage of the time it doesn’t use it, and insurance for a Nevada-based company would be a lot less.”
“How well do you know this broker friend of yours?” Jack asked Laurie.
“Really well,” Laurie said. “We went to Wesleyan University together.”
“How about giving her a call and asking her if she knows of any connection between GenSys and Equatorial Guinea,” Jack said. “If she recommended the stock, she’d probably thoroughly researched the company.”
“Without a doubt,” Laurie said. “Jean Corwin was one of the most compulsive students I knew. She made us premeds seem casual by comparison.”
“Is it all right if Laurie uses your phone?” Jack asked Lou.
“No problem,” Lou said.
“You want me to call this minute?” Laurie asked with surprise.
“Catch her while she’s still at work,” Jack said. “Chances are if she has any file, it would be there.”
“You’re probably right,” Laurie admitted. She sat down at Lou’s desk and called Chicago information.
While Laurie was on the phone, Jack quizzed Lou in detail about how he was able to find out what he had. He was particularly interested and impressed with the way Lou had come up with Equatorial Guinea. Together, they looked more closely at the map, noticing the country’s proximity to the equator. They even noticed that its major city, presumably its capital, wasn’t on the mainland but rather on an island called Bioko.
“I just can’t imagine what it’s like in a place like that,” Lou said.
“I can,” Jack said. “It’s hot, buggy, rainy, and wet.”
“Sounds delightful,” Lou quipped.
“Not the place someone would choose to vacation,” Jack said. “On the other hand, it’s off the beaten track.”
Laurie hung up the phone and twisted around in Lou’s desk chair to face the others. “Jean was as organized as I expected,” she said. “She was able to put her finger on her GenSys material in a flash. Of course, she had to ask me how much of the stock I’d bought and was crushed when I admitted I hadn’t bought any. Apparently, the stock tripled and then split.”
“Is that good?” Lou asked facetiously.
“So good I might have missed my opportunity to retire,” Laurie said. “She said this is the second successful biotech company started by its CEO, Taylor Cabot.”
“Did she have anything to say about Equatorial Guinea?” Jack asked.
“For sure,” Laurie said. “She said that one of the main reasons the company has been doing so well is that it established a huge primate farm. Initially, the farm was to do in-house research for GenSys. Then someone hit on the idea of creating an opportunity for other biotech companies and pharmaceutical firms to out-source their primate research to GenSys. Apparently, the demand for this service has trampled even the most optimistic forecasts.”
“And this primate farm is in Equatorial Guinea?” Jack asked.
“That’s right,” Laurie said.
“Did she suggest any reason why?” Jack asked.
“A memorandum she had from an analyst said that GenSys chose Equatorial Guinea because of the favorable reception they received from the government, which even passed laws to aid their operation. Apparen
tly, GenSys has become the government’s major source of much-needed foreign currency.”
“Can you imagine the amount of graft that must be involved in that kind of scenario?” Jack asked Lou.
Lou merely whistled.
“The memorandum also pointed out that most of the primates they use are indigenous to Equatorial Guinea,” Laurie added. “It allows them to circumvent all the international restrictions in exportation and importation of endangered species like chimpanzees.”
“A primate farm,” Jack repeated while shaking his head. “This is raising even more bizarre possibilities. Could we be dealing with a xenograft?”
“Don’t start that doctor jargon on me,” Lou complained. “What in God’s name is a xenograft?”
“Impossible,” Laurie said. “Xenografts cause hyperacute rejections. There was no evidence of inflammation in the liver section you showed me, neither humoral nor cell-mediated.”
“True,” Jack said. “And he wasn’t even on any immunosuppressant drugs.”
“Come on, you guys,” Lou pleaded. “Don’t make me beg. What the hell is a xenograft?”
“It’s when a transplant organ is taken from an animal of a different species,” Laurie said.
“You mean like that Baby Fae baboon heart fiasco ten or twelve years ago?” Lou asked.
“Exactly,” Laurie said.
“The new immunosuppressant drugs have brought xenografts back into the picture,” Jack explained. “And with considerable more success than with Baby Fae.”
“Especially with pig heart valves,” Laurie said.
“Of course, it poses a lot of ethical questions,” Jack said. “And it drives animal-rights people berserk.”
“Especially now that they are experimenting with inserting human genes into the pigs to ameliorate some of the rejection reaction,” Laurie added.
“Could Franconi have gotten a primate liver while he was in Africa?” Lou asked.
“I can’t imagine,” Jack said. “Laurie’s point is well taken. There was no evidence of any rejection. That’s unheard of even with a good human match short of identical twins.”
“But Franconi was apparently in Africa,” Lou said.
“True, and his mother said he came home a new man,” Jack said. He threw up his hands and stood up. “I don’t know what to make of it. It’s the damndest mystery. Especially with this organized crime aspect thrown in.”
Laurie stood up as well.
“Are you guys leaving?” Lou asked.
Jack nodded. “I’m confused and exhausted,” he said. “I didn’t sleep much last night. After we made the identification of Franconi’s remains, I was on the phone for hours. I called every European organ allocation organization whose phone number I could get.”
“How about we all head over to Little Italy for a quick dinner?” Lou suggested. “It’s right around the corner.”
“Not me,” Jack said. “I’ve got a bike ride ahead of me. At this point, a meal would do me in.”
“Nor I,” Laurie said. “I’m looking forward to getting home and taking a shower. It’s been two late nights for me in a row, and I’m frazzled.”
Lou admitted to having another half hour of work to do, so Laurie and Jack said goodbye and descended to the first floor. They returned their temporary-visitor badges and left police headquarters. In the shadow of City Hall, they caught a cab.
“Feel better?” Jack asked Laurie, as they headed north up the Bowery. A kaleidoscope of light played across their faces.
“Much,” Laurie admitted. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to dump it all in Lou’s capable lap. I’m sorry I got myself so worked up.”
“No need to apologize,” Jack said. “It’s unsettling, to say the least, there’s a potential spy in our midst and that organized crime has an interest in liver transplants.”
“And how are you bearing up?” Laurie asked. “You’re getting a lot of bizarre input on the Franconi case.”
“It’s bizarre, but it’s also intriguing,” Jack said. “Especially this association with a biotech giant like GenSys. The scary part about these corporations is that their research is all behind closed doors. Cold-war style secrecy is their modus operandi. No one knows what they are doing in their quest for return on investment. It’s a big difference from ten or twenty years ago when the NIH funded most biomedical research in a kind of open forum. In those days, there was oversight in the form of peer review, but not today.”
“Too bad there’s no one like Lou that you can turn the case over to,” Laurie said with a chuckle.
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Jack said.
“What’s your next step?” Laurie asked.
Jack sighed. “I’m running out of options. The only thing that’s scheduled is for a veterinary pathologist to review the liver section.”
“So, you already thought about a xenograft?” Laurie asked with surprise.
“No, I didn’t,” Jack admitted. “The suggestion to have a veterinary pathologist look at the slide wasn’t my idea. It came from a parasitologist over at the hospital who thought the granuloma was due to a parasite, but one he didn’t recognize.”
“Maybe you should mention the possibility of a xenograft to Ted Lynch,” Laurie suggested. “As a DNA expert he might have something in his bag of tricks that could say yes or no definitively.”
“Excellent idea!” Jack said with admiration. “How can you come up with such a great suggestion when you’re so beat? You amaze me! My mind has already shut down for the night.”
“Compliments are always welcome,” Laurie teased. “Especially in the dark, so you can’t see me blush.”
“I’m starting to think that the only option that might be open to me if I really want to solve this case is a quick trip to Equatorial Guinea.”
Laurie twisted around in the seat so she could look directly into Jack’s broad face. In the half light, it was impossible to see his eyes. “You’re not serious. I mean you’re joking, right?”
“Well, there’s no way I could phone GenSys or even go up to Cambridge and walk into their home office and say: ‘Hi folks, what’s going on in Equatorial Guinea?’”
“But we’re talking about Africa,” Laurie said. “That’s crazy. It’s halfway around the world. Besides, if you don’t think you’d learn anything going up to Cambridge, what makes you think you’d learn anything going to Africa?”
“Maybe because they wouldn’t expect it,” Jack said. “I don’t suppose they get many visitors.”
“Oh, this is insane,” Laurie said, flapping her hands into the air and rolling her eyes.
“Hey, calm down,” Jack said. “I didn’t say I was going. I just said it was something I was beginning to think about.”
“Well, stop thinking about it,” Laurie said. “I’ve got enough to worry about.”
Jack smiled at her. “You really are concerned. I’m touched.”
“Oh, sure!” Laurie remarked cynically. “You’re never touched by my pleas not to ride your mountain bike around the city.”
The taxi pulled up in front of Laurie’s apartment building and came to a halt. Laurie started to get some money out. Jack put a hand on her arm. “My treat.”
“All right, I’ll get it next time,” Laurie said. She started to climb out of the cab, then stopped. “If you were to promise to take a cab home, I think we could rustle up something to eat in my apartment.”
“Thanks, but not tonight,” Jack said. “I’ve got to get the bike home. I’d probably fall asleep on a full stomach.”
“Worse things could happen,” Laurie said.
“Let me take a rain check,” Jack said.
Laurie climbed out of the cab and then leaned back in. “Just promise me one thing: you won’t leave for Africa tonight.”
Jack took a playful swipe at her, but she easily evaded his hand.
“Good night, Jack,” Laurie said with a warm smile.
“Good night, Laurie,” Jack said. “I’ll c
all you later after I talk with Warren.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Laurie said. “With everything that’s happened, I’d forgotten. I’ll be waiting for your call.”
Laurie closed the taxi door and watched the cab until it disappeared around the corner on First Avenue. She turned toward her door, musing that Jack was a charming but complicated man.
As she rode up in her elevator, Laurie began to anticipate her shower and the warmth of her terry-cloth robe. She vowed she’d turn in early.
Laurie treated Debra Engler to an acid smile before keying her multiple locks. She slammed her door behind her to give Mrs. Engler an extra message. Moving her mail from one hand to the other, she removed her coat. In the darkness of the closet, she groped for a hanger.
It wasn’t until Laurie entered the living room that she flipped the wall switch that turned on a floor lamp. She got two steps toward the kitchen when she let out a muffled scream and dropped her mail on the floor. There were two men in the living room. One was in her art-deco chair, the other sitting on the couch. The one on the couch was petting Tom, who was asleep on his lap.
The other thing Laurie noticed was a large handgun with an attached silencer on the arm of the art-deco chair.
“Welcome home, Dr. Montgomery,” Franco said. “Thank you for the wine and beer.”
Laurie’s eyes went to the coffee table. There was an empty beer bottle and wineglass.
“Please come over and sit down,” Franco said. He pointed to a side chair they’d put in the middle of the room.
Laurie didn’t move. She was incapable of it. She thought vaguely about running into the kitchen for the phone but immediately dismissed the idea as ridiculous. She even thought about fleeing back to her front door, but with all the locks, she knew it would be a futile gesture.
“Please!” Franco repeated with a false politeness that only augmented Laurie’s terror.