“Something other than healthy food and sufficient rest?”
Perceptive question, Grigori thought. “Picture your metabolism like a funnel, with raw materials such as food and rest going in the top, cognitive power coming out the bottom, and dozens of complex metabolic processes in between.”
“Okay,” Korovin said, eager to engage in a battle of wits.
“Rather than following in the footsteps of others by attempting to modify one of the many metabolic processes, the doctors in Kazan took an entirely different approach, a brilliant approach. They figured out how to widen the narrow end of the funnel.”
“So, bottom line, the brain gets more fuel?”
“Generally speaking, yes.”
“With what result? Will every day be like my best day?”
“No,” Grigori said, relishing the moment. “Every day will be better than your best day.”
Korovin cocked his head. “How much better?”
Who’s the rabbit now? “Twenty IQ points.”
“Twenty points?”
“Tests show that’s the average gain, and that it applies across the scale, regardless of base IQ. But it’s most interesting at the high end.”
Another few millimeters of smile. “Why is the high end the most interesting?”
“Take a person with an IQ of 140. Give him Brillyanc — that’s the drug’s name — and he’ll score 160. May not sound like a big deal, but roughly speaking, those 20 points take his IQ from 1 in 200, to 1 in 20,000. Suddenly, instead of being the smartest guy in the room, he’s the smartest guy in his discipline.”
Korovin leaned forward and locked on Grigori’s eyes. “Every ambitious scientist, executive, lawyer ... and politician would give his left nut for that competitive advantage. Hell, his left and right.”
Grigori nodded.
“And it really works?”
“It really works.”
Korovin reached out and leveled the buttons, stopping both timers and pausing to think, his left hand still resting on the clock. “So your plan is to give Russians an intelligence edge over foreign competition? Kind of analogous to what you and I used to do, all those years ago.”
Grigori shook his head. “No, that’s not my plan.”
The edges of the cornflower eyes contracted ever so slightly. “Why not?”
“Let’s just say, widening the funnel does more than raise IQ.”
Korovin frowned and leaned back, taking a moment to digest this twist. “Why have you brought this to me, Grigori?”
“As I said, Mister President, I have a plan I think you’re going to like.”
Links to Tim Tigner’s other thrillers
The Kyle Achilles Series
Standalone Thrillers
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tim Tigner began his career in Soviet Counterintelligence with the US Army Special Forces, the Green Berets. That was back in the Cold War days when, “We learned Russian so you didn't have to,” something he did at the Presidio of Monterey alongside Recon Marines and Navy SEALs.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tim switched from espionage to arbitrage. Armed with a Wharton MBA rather than a Colt M16, he moved to Moscow in the midst of Perestroika. There, he led prominent multinational medical companies, worked with cosmonauts on the MIR Space Station (from Earth, alas), chaired the Association of International Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, and helped write Russia’s first law on healthcare.
Moving to Brussels during the formation of the EU, Tim ran Europe, Middle East and Africa for a Johnson & Johnson company and traveled like a character in a Robert Ludlum novel. He eventually landed in Silicon Valley, where he launched new medical technologies as a startup CEO.
In his free time, Tim has climbed the peaks of Mount Olympus, hang glided from the cliffs of Rio de Janeiro, and ballooned over Belgium. He earned scuba certification in Turkey, learned to ski in Slovenia, and ran the Serengeti with a Maasai warrior. He acted on stage in Portugal, taught negotiations in Germany, and chaired a healthcare conference in Holland. Tim studied psychology in France, radiology in England, and philosophy in Greece. He has enjoyed ballet at the Bolshoi, the opera on Lake Como, and the symphony in Vienna. He’s been a marathoner, paratrooper, triathlete, and yogi.
Intent on combining his creativity with his experience, Tim began writing thrillers in 1996 from an apartment overlooking Moscow’s Gorky Park. Decades later, his passion for creative writing continues to grow every day. His home office now overlooks a vineyard in Northern California, where he lives with his wife Elena and their two daughters.
Tim grew up in the Midwest, and graduated from Hanover College in 1990 with a BA in Philosophy and Mathematics. After military service and work as a financial analyst and foreign-exchange trader, he earned an MBA in Finance and an MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton and Lauder Schools on a full-ride scholarship.
The Price of Time
Tim Tigner
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing novels full of twists and turns is relatively easy. Doing so logically and coherently while maintaining a rapid pace is much tougher. Surprising readers without confusing them is the real art.
I draw on generous fans for guidance in achieving those goals, and for assistance in fighting my natural inclination toward typos. These are my friends, and I’m grateful to them all.
Errol Adler, Martin Baggs, Suzanne S. Barnhill, Dave Berkowitz, Doug Branscombe, Kay Brooks, Anna Bruns, Diane Bryant, Pat Carella, Ian Cockerill, Doug Corneil, Lars de Kock, Robert Enzenauer, Hugo Ernst, Rae Fellenberg, Geof Ferrell, Andrew Gelsey, Emily Hagman, Cliff Jordan, Andrea Kerr, Margaret Lovett, Debbie Malina, Peter Mathon, Joe McKinley, Jim Niles, Rosemary Paton, Michael Picco, Connie Poleson, Lee Proost, Sharon Ring, Robert Rubinstayn, Gwen Tigner, Robert Tigner, Wendy Trommer, Alan Vickery and Sandy Wallace.