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. Apparently, 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 hyper-acute 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 damnest 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.”