Paul Madriani: The Jury Part 11

"Really?"

"I don't know. h.e.l.l. They would talk and look over their shoulders. A couple of the lab techs. Probably laughing their a.s.ses off after I left. I had to pick my time carefully, when the guy Tash wasn't around."

"Were they afraid of him? These lab techs?"

"I don't know if afraid is the word. But he has a certain chilling affect on conversation," says Harry. "It's like all these people took a vow of silence. And when Tash is around, you can't even get 'em to do sign language."

"People I talked to were lab a.s.sistants. I got one of 'em to go on coffee break with me. Guy said he was speaking only in general terms. And if anybody asked, he wasn't speaking at all. All he would say about this nanorobotics was a reference to this movie."

"Tiny submarines?"

"That's the one. On a crash dive through some sorry guy's bowels. I don't wanna even know where they come out. I'm feeling like I've already been on that trip with Crone. When I pressed each of the lab techs, they all ended up singing the same old chorus. Trade secrets, in four-part harmony," says Harry.

"Well, at least he's telling us something that's true." I'm talking about Crone.

"Only if you want to take the time to pick through the lies," says Harry.

"What do you mean?"

"Remember I told you that I asked Crone whether Jordan and Epperson knew each other before Epperson came to the lab? He told me he didn't think so?"

I nod.

"I wouldn't take it to the bank," says Harry.

"This company, Cybergenomics. The one Epperson worked for before he joined the lab. I come to find out they're one of the companies underwriting Crone's work at the lab."

"Really?"

"Corporate grant," says Harry. "A big one. And there's more. This same company made a job offer to Jordan about a month before she was killed."

My eyebrows arch.

"Word around the lab was that it was a point of friction between her and Crone. The offer was for big bucks. I don't know the details. We're looking for doc.u.ments. I've got a subpoena out to the company to get what I can. According to one of the lab techs, Jordan was letting it be known that they'd offered her multiple six figures to jump from the lab and come on board with the company."

"Maybe they made overtures to Crone as well?"

"That was the problem. They didn't."

Pieces are starting to snap into place.

"If we know about this, you can be sure Tannery knows as well."

"You think he's plying this road, job jealousy?" asks Harry.

"You heard what he told us when we visited him at his office. They were checking out some other angle as to motive."

"You think that's it? The job offer to Jordan?"

"That, and perhaps she was taking some items of value with her."

"Like what?"

"Like the papers Crone says she stole, and the grant money that Cybergenomics was pouring into Crone's center."

"Holy s.h.i.t," says Harry. "You think so?"

"Think about it. She takes working papers from his office. He goes ballistic. She does everything to get him off her back. She doesn't need him anymore. She knows what he knows about the project. If she goes to work for Cybergenomics, why would they pay twice for the same research? His funds are going to dry up overnight."

"There's a motive for murder," says Harry.

I nod.

"You think Tannery knows what's in those papers?"

"I know one thing. We don't."

"Maybe it's just what Crone's been saying all along," says Harry. "Maybe they did have professional differences."

"Where does Epperson fit into all this?"

"I was getting to that," says Harry. "It's only surmise, and it only comes from one of the a.s.sistants, the guy I talked to over coffee. But according to him, Epperson may have joined Crone's group as part of a package along with the Cybergenomics grant. n.o.body seems to know for sure, but he came on board about the same time."

"A consultant?"

"Not that I can tell. He seems to have been a salaried employee of the university from the time he went to work there. More like a corporate mole, if the guy I talked to is right."

"Do we know Epperson's salary, at the U?"

Harry looks up from his papers, quickly getting to the same place I am. "If he took a big cut in pay to go to the university, you think there might be a reason?"

"Possibly. Maybe stock options. If Crone's team is developing something hot, and this company, Cybergenomics, has a vested interest, they might send Epperson over to mind the store. To make sure that the research takes the right direction."

"And make sure n.o.body else horns in," says Harry.

"If he was their man in Crone's shop, stock options would ease a cut in pay, and ensure his loyalty."

Harry mulls this over. "Interesting you should say that."

"Why?"

"Epperson has this pa.s.sion. The only thing anybody seems to know about him. He has an addiction."

"What's that?"

"Stays up nights researching. Comes to work bleary-eyed and takes frequent breaks to get to his laptop. Seems he lives to trade on-line."

Sat.u.r.day morning and its bright and sunny. I can think of a thousand places I would rather be. Instead, Harry and I are planted next to a musty set of code books in our library at the office. We are here to meet with Robert Tucci who has flown in from San Jose up in Silicon Valley for a conference.

For months Tucci has been just a voice on the phone. Today, for the first time, I have the benefit of seeing a face as we speak, judging what kind of a witness he might make if I have to use him at trial.

He is bald. A ragged fringe of black hair droops over his ears. Tucci has the look of some seventeenth-century notable, short and fat with chubby little fingers. There is a shadow of dark beard submerged just beneath the surface of his face that gives it the kind of bluish pallor you would expect to see on some ancient oil portrait hanging in a European gallery. This is appropriate, for some consider Tucci to be the Galileo of modern electronics.

He is seated in a chair across the library table from me with shelves of legal volumes behind him finishing off the backdrop so that I can imagine this painting come to life as he speaks.

I have hired him to lead us through the no-man's-land of science, the maze of molecular electronics, genetics and nanorobotics that Crone and Tash will not discuss.

Harry asks him if he's ever written about the specific fields we are dealing with.

"Not for publication," says Tucci. "I've prepared some memoranda for internal use by R and D units inside corporations. But that's another matter," he says.

Tucci is one of the leading lights in the field of high tech, a writer and theorist who is reputed to have had a major hand in the development of the silicon chip. He's been published in every major professional journal in the country and holds dual doctorates in physics and biology. Best of all, he has written a number of articles in the general press for the unwashed ma.s.ses, in major national magazines and newspapers. He is possessed of that special gift for explaining things scientific to people like Harry and me, who are still grappling with the magic of fire.

"This memorandum you've written, research and development for the corporations," says Harry. "Would any of it be helpful for our purposes here?"

"It might. But I couldn't give it to you. It's proprietary information." What he means is another corporate stone wall, trade secrets. This seems to be an article of faith within the field, making me wonder if these guys sleep with computer disks between their knees at night protecting this stuff.

"Been there," says Harry.

Harry has spent two weeks scoping out the Internet and ravaging university libraries for anything, scholarly articles or news pieces, that might offer a clue as to what Crone and his compatriots are working on. He has found nothing.

Tucci tells us that we're not likely to. "The science is cutting edge. You won't hear about it in the popular press until there's a major breakthrough. By then, the company that controls the process will be throwing patent parties. They'll have it locked up."

"What exactly is the process?" I ask.

"A major scientific merger," he says. "A kind of synergy."

"Of what?" says Harry.

"On the scientific level you've got nanotechnology and molecular electronics, with genetics being the software used to program the whole thing.

"At the commercial level you're talking 'pick and shovel' companies, the genetic start-ups that sell devices for generating genetic data. Software companies that specialize in peddling vast amounts of data involving genetic information to the drug companies. And finally you have the giant pharmaceutical companies trying to cash in on new modalities of treating diseases. It's what some are calling the genetic gold rush. And there are, conservatively speaking," says Tucci, "hundreds of billions of dollars at stake."

This catches Harry's attention; I can see his eyes light up. He's wondering how he can invest.

"It all started with gene sequencing, mapping the human gene. The genome project?" He looks at us as if perhaps we haven't heard of this.

"They've mapped it. They're working out the fine wrinkles as we speak. The question now is how to use it. Which genes on which chromosomes cause breast cancer, or lupus."

"Or Huntington's ch.o.r.ea," I say.

"Precisely," says Tucci.

"The theory, and it's more than that now," says Tucci, "is that electronics can play a part in this. It has been proven that electronic circuitry can be taken down to the molecular level, submicroscopic electronic circuits that can be introduced into living organisms. A kind of cellular computer chip. It's believed that this is one way to code and carry genetic information."

"Molecular electronics," says Harry.

Tucci points at him with a finger as if to say he's got it.

"Nanorobotics is the other leg. Microscopic robots that can be constructed to carry the newly programmed circuitry inside the organism. This would be the delivery system," says Tucci. "Instead of injecting a drug and waiting for it to course its way through the bloodstream or to be absorbed into the tissue, you can insert programmed robotics on a microscopic level that will deliver the pre-programmed genetic information to a precise location, perhaps an organ system or an isolated tumor in the body, and deal with it at a genetic level. You can turn chemical switches on and off, enzymes that will allow the human immune system to combat disease. To treat conditions that today are terminal, and to reverse them."

"They think that's possible?"

Tucci looks at him and nods soberly. "It's only a theory, but the science to accomplish it exists."

"A magic bullet," I say.

"Right. It has all kinds of implications," he says, "for good and evil. There are the usual ethical concerns that follow all genetic research. You're dealing with the basic building blocks of life. There's the concern that perhaps we're tapping the fountain of youth."

Harry looks at him quizzically.

"Issues of overpopulation," says Tucci, "if in fact we cure major maladies and suddenly life expectancy doubles. What do we do with all the people? How do we feed them? Who gets the new treatments and who doesn't? Who is given the keys to extended life and who dies? Those are major issues.

"But here there's one more element of concern that may outweigh all of these. We are talking about the creation of an engineered life form, an organism unto itself. It could have the ability to propagate, to regenerate itself. A virus, for example, coded in a genetic string and carried by molecular electronics and nanotechnology, could reproduce itself inside the body. In fact, that would be part of the design, in order to enhance treatment. But what if its design were to be a weapon instead of a cure? It could be the ultimate doomsday device. Microscopic nanorobotics, engineered to carry a virus capable of replicating billions of times over a short span of time and invading life forms, or stripping the earth of vegetation to produce famine.

"They already have a name for it," says Tucci. "The GNR threat: genetics, nanotechnology and robotics. According to theorists, it has the capacity to replace the NBCs of the last century-nuclear, biological and chemical. In its own way the potential is much more insidious.

"There's always a downside," he says. "The other side of the coin of progress. Some people don't want to take the chance. You can see why. The question is, How do you stop it? How do you put the genie of knowledge back in the bottle?"

"And you think this is what Crone is working on?" I ask.

"It's a distinct possibility. Conventional wisdom is that we are five or six years away from a breakthrough. But who knows?" Tucci looks at us with wary little eyes like two olives floating on egg whites.

"One thing is certain. Whoever is first is going to make a fortune. The corporation that controls the process is likely to propel its major shareholders to the top of the Forbes list, overnight. They will become the wealthiest people in the world." He says this with no question or hint of doubt.

"People will be reciting their names, and the world will be wondering where they came from."

"And the scientist who develops it?" I ask.

"Is a shoo-in for a n.o.bel prize," says Tucci. "He or she will be able to write his or her own ticket. And the breakthrough's likely to come from some shop like Crone's."

"Why's that?" asks Harry.

"A small operation. Attached to a university for research and support, but sufficiently independent so that no one, except perhaps the director of operations, knows precisely how all the pieces fit. One day there will be a press release, and the floodgates will open-the ones controlling the fountain of youth."

chapter.

eight.