Nakamura started to answer and stopped. Two men in slick suits walked by their table. One of them glanced alternately at Nakamura and Johnny. The men seated themselves at a table closer to the stage. Johnny spied bulges under their jackets. He was reminded of what his teachers had told him during his first day as an exchange student. The further from the center of Tokyo, the greater the influence of the Yakuza, the Japanese organized crime syndicates.
“That was a very American question,” Nakamura said.
“What do you mean, American question?”
“Blunt, direct, inappropriate. I could ask you the same. What do you know about the treasure? But that would be rude, and a waste of time. Because you would merely deflect the question and we would engage in a battle of wits until our drinks arrived.”
“You’ve got the wrong man, friend. I don’t deflect questions. Ask anything you want. You might not like the answer, but I won’t waste your time.” Johnny kept his voice down and maintained a calm expression on his face. He wanted his demeanor to contrast with his words to lend them even more power. “That’s me being very American, as opposed to the Japanese, who’ll wait twenty years to publicly own up to a mistake and then commit suicide. Is that your idea of appropriate behavior?”
Nakamura appeared stunned.
“Oh, have I got your attention? Are we done bullshitting each other here?”
Nakamura stared at him.
Johnny said, “In the e-mail, Genesis II used the phrase, ‘Fate of the free world depends on us.’ What did he mean by that?”
“You know what the treasure is, so you know what he meant by that.” Nakamura smiled. “See? The battle of wits begins despite your assurances to the contrary. Who will reveal himself first?”
“I’m not the one wearing the kimono. You can see right through me and I wouldn’t have it any other way. What made him choose those exact words?”
“Genesis II said those words would have meaning to Nadia and Adam Tesla. And that given you were their representative, they would have meaning to you. Was he right?”
Johnny shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Says the man without the kimono.”
Johnny smiled.
The waitress arrived with their drinks and two bowls of salty Japanese crackers and nuts.
“I have to ask you another question,” Johnny said. “It’s going to sound blunt, direct, and inappropriate.”
“No kidding,” Nakamura said.
“Who is Genesis II?” Johnny didn’t expect Nakamura to answer the question or unintentionally reveal a clue, but he knew Nadia would be disappointed if he didn’t ask.
Nakamura looked away. “I expected more from you. But you are such an American, aren’t you?”
“Yes, and proud of it. Does Genesis II know Adam?”
Johnny studied Nakamura’s reaction for a tell of some kind. He got nothing. Instead, Nakamura continued looking stone-faced at the stage.
“How did you and Genesis II meet?”
Nakamura sipped his whiskey. “I’ve given you enough information for you to answer that question yourself.”
Johnny remembered their earlier conversation. “You’re a doctor. You’re working in Fukushima. You must have met Genesis II in Fukushima. Genesis II is a survivor of the earthquake, tsunami, or the nuclear disaster.”
Nakamura’s eyebrows furrowed a smidge. It was just enough of a physical reaction to tell Johnny he was wrong.
“No,” Johnny said. “He’s not a victim. He’s a volunteer.”
Nakamura lifted his chin.
“Hot dog. Score one for the boy from Jersey.”
They sipped their drinks some more. A moment of silence passed between them. Johnny’s victory proved momentary. He still needed proof the locket existed and contained a formula, and he was no closer to that than when he arrived.
“So you know who I am,” Johnny said. “I know who you are. I travelled here to meet you. You’re calling the shots, but I may or may not play along. What do you suggest we do now?”
Nakamura slid a flash drive memory stick across the table to Johnny.
“What’s this?” Johnny said.
“A token of good faith. When you see it on a computer monitor, you’ll understand.”
“Understand what?”
“That the second half of the formula exists.”
Johnny’s heart thumped. “After I take a look at it, I’d like to meet with Genesis II.”
Nakamura straightened the lapels of his jacket. “I’m sure you would. But that’s not going to happen. He will only meet with the boy. He will only meet with Adam. Adam must come to Fukushima. He must come immediately. And he must bring the locket.”
Nakamura stood up, knocked back the rest of his whiskey, and left.
Johnny went to the business center to use one of the computers. He slipped the flash drive into the USB port. It contained a single file. The file was called “Genesis II.”
The file consisted of two strings of chemical symbols. Each string contained four hexagons and a chemical formula. It could have been gibberish or proof the second half of the formula existed. There was only one way to find out.
Johnny rushed to his room to call Nadia.
CHAPTER 6
Nadia sat opposite Dr. Eric Sandstrom in his office at Columbia University on Monday afternoon. He was a professor emeritus, a respected radiobiologist who taught one class a week to keep his mind active at age eighty-five.
“This is interesting,” he said, after studying the symbols Johnny had e-mailed from Tokyo.
“What is?” Nadia said.
“It’s a modified version of Five-Androstenediol, just like the one you showed me three weeks ago. Except it contains an additional enhancement. The formula you showed me before had a partial description of two new proteins. This one further describes those two proteins but doesn’t fully define them.”
“Meaning some symbols are still missing.”
“Yes.”
“Can you draw any conclusions from what you do see, Professor?”
He removed his glasses, sprayed a lens cleaner on them, and began wiping them with a soft tissue. “Five-Androstenediol is a direct metabolite of a steroid produced by the human adrenal cortex. That steroid is called DHEA. The Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute discovered Five-AED, as it’s called, in 2007. They performed clinical trials using primates with the pharmaceutical company Hollis-Eden. Their initial results were excellent. Close to 70 percent more monkeys treated with Five-AED survived acute radiation syndrome than those that were not treated.”
“I remember being told about that,” Nadia said. Karel, the zoologist in Chornobyl, had explained Five-AED to her. “I never quite understood why the research project was dropped a short time later when the trials were so successful.”
“No formal explanation was given,” Sandstrom said. “But it’s a major leap to treating humans from treating monkeys. The scuttlebutt in the scientific community was that the production of white blood cells and platelets was insufficient. White blood cells are essential to life. Platelets promote blood clotting. To increase production of platelets and white blood cells, an additional protein or proteins needed to be introduced to the formula.”
“Thus creating a modified version of Five-AED.”
“Precisely.”
“And could the symbols you’re looking at be part of these missing proteins? Could they be part of the solution?”
Sandstrom put his glasses on and studied the paper again. “They might be. On the other hand, they might not be. Regardless of how promising the formula looks — and it does look interesting to me — you would simply never know until clinical trials were conducted. No one could answer that question for you by simply looking at chemical data.”