Genocide of One: A Thriller (35 page)

Twenty minutes had passed since their last communication when he heard men cheering.
The situation must have taken a decided turn for the better. Kento switched to the
other view, and a bearded man’s face loomed up at him. There was a large river behind
him.

“You did a good job, Kento,” Pierce said from the Congo jungle. “I’m going to cut
the connection for a while.” He turned to someone off camera. “Cut the connection
with Kento.”

For the first time Kento realized that a third person was monitoring their communication.
Most likely Poppy. The power to the small laptop turned off by itself, and the live
feed from the battlefront was gone.

“What
was
that?” Jeong-hoon asked. He’d been standing to the side of the desk so as not to
appear on camera.

“I don’t really know myself.”

“That satellite image was real,” Jeong-hoon said. He’d worked at a US military base
and knew. “I’m starting to think you’re telling the truth.”

“You still don’t believe me?”

“Well, nothing’s for sure until we make that drug.”

He was right. Kento shifted in his chair and struggled to refocus on the drug. This
Nigel Pierce, who claimed to be a friend of his father; a rescue operation to save
an evolved type of human; war in the Congo—the clues he’d been assembling were starting
to jell into a vague outline. There were four people involved in the plan. His father
and Pierce, the person who warned him by phone from abroad, and this Japanese, who
went by the name of Poppy. Somehow Poppy seemed to be running things, but Kento had
no clue to his identity.

One other thing was clear now that he understood the function of the small laptop:
what Yuri Sakai was after when she showed up that night on the university campus.
She wanted to grab it away so she could sever the line of communication between Japan
and the Congo.

“So what happened? How’d it turn out?” Urged on by Jeong-hoon, Kento pulled himself
together. It was a strange sensation, as if his soul had been called back from Africa
to his little apartment in Machida. He opened the white laptop and showed it to Jeong-hoon.
“Even with virtual screening, no druglike structure came out.”

Jeong-hoon stared at the laptop with GIFT installed, at the word
NONE
. “That’s weird.”

Kento knew what Jeong-hoon was thinking. GIFT must have investigated several million
known chemical compounds in the search for a substance that would bind with a mutated
receptor. If it did, it should have had a hit for at least one druglike structure.
“So is this software fake after all?”

“No. For us GIFT is like a self-evident truth. We simply have to believe it. If we
doubt it, then we have to give up on making the drug.” Jeong-hoon, glued to the laptop,
manipulated it as he’d done before. “This is strange. There are several candidates
that have a low activation structure.”

“If the agonist has some efficacy, it should at least bind, right?”

“Right. Though they’re all under two percent efficacy.”

“That’s only natural with virtual screening. The assumption is that you replace the
functional groups and enhance the efficacy.”

“Okay, but then why did GIFT show
NONE
?” Jeong-hoon called up the image of the receptor on the screen. “This is a docking
simulation. One of the candidate compounds is binding.”

On the screen was a transparent image of a long, thin mutant GPR769 piercing a cell
membrane. Another small compound had entered the translucent pocket. As Jeong-hoon
had the low-activation compounds bind one after another, the shape of the receptor
changed a little, twisting, getting thinner, the terminal part sticking into the cell
membrane, moving slightly.

“Ah!” Jeong-hoon called out, and turned to Kento. “I finally figured it out! It’s
not just the binding site that changes but the entire conformation.”

“What do you mean?”

Jeong-hoon, punctuating his words with gestures, explained. “When a ligand binds,
normal receptors shrink inward. This change moves the terminal part of the receptor
and activates a different protein. But replacing only one amino acid in this receptor
makes not just the binding part but the entire shape get distorted. So no matter what
compound binds to it, it doesn’t shrivel, as it normally would.”

Kento understood what Jeong-hoon was getting at. “So the question is what keeps this
receptor from moving?”

Jeong-hoon nodded. “That’s the reason why PAECS hasn’t been cured. That’s one of the
secrets of mutant GPR769. And we’re the only ones in the whole world who’ve uncovered
it!”

Despite Jeong-hoon’s excitement, Kento was worried. He glanced around the shabby little
lab his father had left him and felt hopeless. “If that’s true, then we’ll never be
able to make the drug, right?”

Jeong-hoon remained silent for a long while, his eyes unfocused as he meditated.

In Kento’s mind he saw the usually flexible receptor turning into a rigid counterfeit.
“It’s impossible to cure that disease. No matter what drug we synthesize, the receptor
itself won’t move. So it’s impossible to create a drug specifically targeting it.”

Jeong-hoon raised his head, and after some seeming hesitation went ahead and spoke.
“Kento, can I say one thing?”

“What?”

“The people who created the history of science weren’t those who said something was
impossible.”

These words of reproof from mild-mannered Jeong-hoon managed to make their way past
the barriers Kento had erected and strike something deep inside him.

“We’re the only ones who can save those sick children,” Jeong-hoon said. “Maybe it’s
impossible, but I can’t simply abandon them.”

Kento had been on the verge of giving up completely, but when he thought of the names
of two of these children, Maika Kobayashi and Justin Yeager, he stopped short. “Okay,”
he said finally. “Let’s do it.”

Jeong-hoon smiled.

By chance the two of them happened to incline their heads at the same moment and stare
up at the wood grain of the ceiling. They sat there, side by side, as if staring up
at the stars, racking their brains. To an outsider these two young men would just
seem to be letting their minds wander. But this is precisely what scientists do.

After a half hour Jeong-hoon stood up and began pacing in the narrow space between
the lab table and the wall. He muttered technical terms, half in Korean, half in Japanese.
Kento was at the lab table, head in hands, facing down, legs fidgeting, getting up
at one point to splash some cold water on his face at the sink. How could they get
this microscopic receptor—one ten-thousandth of a millimeter in size—to do what they
wanted?

“We must be overlooking something,” Jeong-hoon said. He was standing at the closet,
staring at the cages filled with mice on the upper shelf. “I don’t get it. But something
is off.”

“Off? What, exactly?”

“I don’t know. I feel sort of imprisoned. Like I’m inside a wall or something.”

He must mean he’s hit a mental roadblock, Kento thought.

“Instead of creating a drug, how about gene therapy?”

“I think that’s even less possible. And there’s no time.”

Jeong-hoon let out a pained groan. “Can’t we get rid of our preconceptions and think
outside the box?”

His words awakened an image in Kento’s mind. Of eyes watching them from the outside.
The eyes of the person who created GIFT, the one with an intelligence that went beyond
anything human. “We have to create the drug. There has to be a way to make an agonist.”

“How can you be so sure?” Jeong-hoon asked.

“Everything that’s happened since my father died has been perfectly planned. And being
given GIFT was part of this, so we should be able to use it to create the drug.”

“GIFT?” Jeong-hoon exclaimed, as if finally realizing the existence of this almighty
software program. “That’s right. The key to solving this has to be GIFT. We just have
to do what only GIFT can. What existing software can’t. Hold on a second.”

Jeong-hoon put a hand to his forehead, frowning, and didn’t move. The apartment—in
fact, the whole building—was suddenly deathly quiet, as if deserted.

Jeong-hoon’s eyes now focused on something far away, his trancelike stare seeing something
not of this world. Scientists must all look like this, Kento thought, when they’ve
finally found the answer to a difficult problem.

“An allosteric site,” Jeong-hoon exclaimed, gooseflesh rising on his cheeks. “A new
method no one else has tried. We can cure the disease that way.”

Kento knew the term
allosteric site
. It meant a place on an enzyme, other than the chemically active one, where a drug
may bind. Drugs bind with receptors not just in the central depression. Even on the
outside of receptors, when molecules with the right chemical and physical properties
are exposed, if one synthesizes the appropriate chemical compound one can make it
bind to this variant site. As Kento considered this he finally began to understand.
“In other words, you bind the compound to the outside of the receptor and change the
entire shape?”

Jeong-hoon nodded. “And even then, if the receptor isn’t activated, there is a final
step. We input the desired result into GIFT, and it will design another agonist to
correspond to a second site important to activating the receptor. We designate not
just the ligand binding site but also a distinct and separate site, the allosteric
site, which controls receptor conformation and plays a role in receptor activation.
Thus we have an allosteric site that binds one agonist—an allosteric effector—and
partially fixes the distortion in the mutant receptor and another agonist that binds
the mutant ligand binding site.”

“So we make two kinds of drugs?”

“Exactly. I guess you’d call it an allosteric drug. It’s a new approach that no pharmaceuticals
company has ever tried. But with GIFT we can do it.”

With the limited time they had, though, could they really synthesize two new drugs?
Kento was worried, but decided to follow Jeong-hoon’s example and swallow back any
doubts about doing the impossible. And change his bad habit of giving up before he
even did anything.

Jeong-hoon sat down and began working with GIFT. He entered the conditions that would
call up the mutant receptor again, pressed
ENTER
, and the screen said
REMAINING TIME: 42:15:34
. The answer would come in two days.

“I wasn’t sure where to put the allosteric site, so I just indicated a general area.
If it doesn’t work out then we’ll have to do it all over again.”

Kento’s impatience finally emerged, and he weakly complained. “But if we have to do
the calculations over and over we’ll run out of time to synthesize it.”

“That’s the gamble we’re taking,” Jeong-hoon said, a stern look on his face.

A thought came to Kento. The tightrope that he’d barely been able to cross lay before
him once more. Another risk, like all the ones he’d taken ever since he leaped off
the balcony of his apartment and barely escaped with his life.

After Ellen saw
her husband off to work, as always, at the front door, she stood there, feeling a
vague apprehension. It was something Mel had said as he left.

“I might have to disappear for a while,” her husband of almost forty years had told
her. “But don’t worry. I’ll be back in a few days.”

Ellen had frowned, uncomprehending, and he’d kissed her and headed for the garage.
Recently Mel had started blurting out jokes, and she wondered if this was another
one. During the last six months his working hours had become irregular, and every
time she questioned him about this he made her laugh with a line straight out of a
spy movie: “It’s government work.” Of course she knew he was working for the government.
His family was proud of the official title he held. But he never explained why he
had to be this swamped with work.

What in the world was Mel doing? And where was he doing it?

The Ford sedan slowly pulled into the road as a light snow fell, and Mel gave her
a farewell smile and drove off. As she stood at the front door Ellen thought about
that strange machine, a small laptop computer that had been delivered to their house
at the end of the summer last year. Her husband’s sole hobby was playing around with
machines, and she figured he must have bought it through the mail. But Mel had stared
at the computer as though he had no idea where it had come from. Then he took it to
his study.

Mel’s personality had changed since then. He’d become less talkative, and though he
was often lost in thought, after he acquired that computer he went around with a happy
smile, as if all life’s worries were a thing of the past. She’d questioned him about
the computer, but he’d put her off, saying, “You wouldn’t understand even if I explained
it to you.” Her husband had a brilliant mind, and she was used to this stock explanation.
Ellen didn’t care so much what was in the computer; rather, she was concerned that
there was some secret that lay behind her husband’s expression. But his carefree smile
made her realize this was a groundless fear. She gave up trying to find out more.

He kept the laptop in a strange place—in a kitchen drawer. Now, anxious about what
was going on, Ellen thought about taking out the laptop and switching it on. Unlike
her husband, though, Ellen was all thumbs when it came to digital technology. And
she knew it would probably be difficult to sneak a look at what was on the computer
without leaving a trace behind.

Mel flipped on his turn signal and made a left at the intersection down the road.
As Ellen was going back into her warm house she saw a large van start to move. The
black vehicle had been parked on their road, and it was moving off, not following
her husband’s car but heading in her direction. She remembered one other enigmatic
thing her husband had said, jokingly, to her.

“If some men come here and try to push their way in,” he’d said as he put the laptop
back in the kitchen drawer, “cook this computer.”

“Cook the computer?” she’d asked.

“Toss it in the microwave and turn it on,” Mel had explained.

The black van glided toward her, coming to a halt just past their front yard. Ellen’s
unease turned to fear. Men she’d never seen before emerged from the van, and she felt
weak in the knees. The scene she’d often seen in thriller movies was, she realized,
pretty realistic. The four men, striding toward her through the front yard, all had
on sunglasses and dark suits.

“Good morning.”

The low greeting from the man in the lead wasn’t friendly in the least. Ellen stepped
back and was able to get back inside the house.

“Do you mind?” The group ignored the frightened Ellen and rushed up to the front door.
“You’re Mrs. Gardner?”

“Yes,” Ellen replied.

“Special Agent Morrell of the FBI,” the man said, showing her his ID, and the other
three quickly identified themselves. “We’re sorry to trouble you, but could you let
us inside?”

This was exactly the kind of situation her husband had been talking about. “What is
this all about?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

“It’s about your husband.”

“My husband? You do know that he’s science adviser to the president of the United
States?”

“Yes. We’re well aware this is Dr. Melvin Gardner’s residence. That’s why we’re asking.”

At this point Ellen was less concerned with checking the purpose of their visit than
with following her husband’s instructions. Over nearly forty years of marriage her
husband had always done whatever she’d wanted. It was time to repay his kindness.

“We have a warrant. I can go over the details once we’re inside. May we come in?”

Instead of nodding Ellen slammed the door in their faces. She did it so quickly that
she didn’t see whether Morrell’s expression changed. She hurriedly locked the door
and ran back inside the house. There were loud knocks, unexpectedly, from the back
door, too. But there was no time to check whether she was hearing things, and she
raced to the kitchen. She tugged open the drawer next to the sink and pulled out the
small black laptop. Just as her husband had instructed her, she put it inside the
microwave and turned on the timer. Lightninglike sparks flew out around the little
computer. Afraid it and the entire microwave might explode, Ellen stepped away. But
right then a thick arm reached out and switched off the timer.

Startled, Ellen turned around to find eight men filling the kitchen. It was so crowded
she felt she might be crushed.

“Don’t interfere,” Special Agent Morrell said. “You’ll put your husband in an even
worse position.”

One of the men reached inside the microwave and extracted the half-cooked computer.

“What did Mel do?” Ellen asked. “Did he do something to offend the president?”

“He’s under suspicion of leaking classified information. We have proof.”

“Is he going to be arrested?”

Morrell waited one beat, then nodded. “Yes. He’s being taken into custody as we speak.”

“But even if he disappears for a while, he’ll be back in a few days.”

“Hmm?” The lawman’s interest was aroused. “Why do you say that?”

“He said so before he left the house. ‘I’ll be back in a few days.’ And my husband
is always right.” Ellen’s trust in her husband was unwavering. “He won the National
Medal of Science, you know. Don’t underestimate him.”

He chose the Map Room for their meeting as a final act of consideration for the adviser
he’d considered a friend. Unlike the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room, the Map Room
was a place where they could talk in a more relaxed atmosphere.

President Burns strode down the first-floor hallway of the White House and opened
the door to the room where his science and technology adviser was waiting. Dr. Gardner
was seated in one of a pair of Chippendale armchairs before the fireplace. His handcuffs
were off. Though he was in the middle of being transported to FBI headquarters, he
looked relaxed and unperturbed. In fact there was a dignity about him that fit in
well with the rococo interior of the room. Gardner’s brilliant career might be crashing
down around him, but Burns found it very odd that he could remain so calm.

Burns had his Secret Service detail wait outside, and when he and Gardner were alone
he sat down diagonally across from him. Burns crossed his legs, sighed, and slowly
began to speak.

“Professor, what is this all about?”

Gardner replied, his tone polite as always. “I have no idea, Mr. President. Good question—what
is
going on?”

“According to reports I received, you’re suspected of leaking secrets about Operation
Nemesis.”

“Am I going to be put on trial?”

“If things continue the way they’re going, yes,” Burns said, shooting him a concerned
look. He wanted Dr. Gardner to know that he was being treated exceptionally kindly
considering the circumstances. The president himself was giving him the opportunity
to offer an explanation.

“The only thing I can think of is that I was walking down Broadway in New York on
Saturday evening. But that doesn’t prove anything. In a trial I’d be found innocent.”

“The situation is more serious than you imagine.” Burns was unsure how much he should
explain. Another special access program he’d set in motion allowed the NSA, in collusion
with private communications providers, to tap all communications within the United
States without a warrant. Gardner’s treasonous actions had been caught up in that
wiretap network.

“You’re telling me you’ve found proof, using a method I can’t conceive of?”

Burns opened his mouth, about to affirm this without revealing the nitty-gritty of
their methods, when Gardner repeated, “You insist you have proof?”

Gardner’s unusually assertive tone raised doubts in Burns’s mind. This wasn’t like
a criminal suspect suddenly turning aggressive at the last minute. Burns grew cautious.
He gazed dubiously at this gentleman with his calm demeanor and went on. “You seem
to have serious doubts that we have evidence of your guilt.”

A smile rose to Gardner’s face. “I know you’re very busy, but I wonder if you’d indulge
me and hear about a little hobby of mine.”

Burns looked at his watch. He needed to get to his next meeting with the State Department
rep who’d written their forthcoming white paper on human rights. They had to consider
what written criticism the United States should direct at Chinese and North Korean
human rights violations. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that Gardner was delivering
an unspoken threat. “All right,” Burns finally said. “I’ll give you five minutes.”

“Ever since I was a child I’ve enjoyed fooling around with machines,” Gardner began.
“Even now what I enjoy most is buying parts and assembling my own computers. Last
weekend I went around to some electronics stores and bought a CPU and hard drive.
These were all brand-new parts, and I selected them at random.”

“At random.” Burns repeated the somewhat unsettling choice of words.

“Right. I got home and assembled the computer from these new parts, installed the
operating system, and bought the latest security patch, which I downloaded onto an
external storage device. I put in other security software as well. I ran a virus scan,
but of course found nothing, because the machine is brand new and has never been connected
to an outside line.” Gardner raised an index finger to get the president’s attention.
“Here’s the important part. I put a short message into that new computer, one that
I’d created on another computer. A message in Japanese I made using an off-the-shelf
translation program. A crude translation I made as a last resort if we had to urgently
get in touch with the Japanese. Later on I found out that that person can speak English,
so it was a waste of time.”

Burns expected Gardner to confess to his crime at this point, and he silently waited
for him to continue.

“As the final step to get the computer ready, I hooked it up to a router. I installed
an alert system so I could monitor all communications. Then I connected this brand-new
computer to the Internet. I didn’t access any site or send or receive any mail; I
just left it for a while and then cut the connection. But surprisingly, for some reason
it automatically sent the message I’d made in Japanese. I checked the alert system,
but there was no evidence of a zero-day attack.”

Gardner looked up to see how the president reacted. Burns knew next to nothing about
things digital, so he couldn’t fully follow Gardner’s explanation, yet there was one
thing in particular he couldn’t fathom: the fact that Gardner hadn’t sent or received
any e-mail. If that were true, then how did the NSA get hold of proof against him?

“The message in question, then, was saved in a brand-new machine, and though the computer
was connected to the Internet no sites were accessed and no communications were carried
out. And there was no cyberattack exploiting an unknown vulnerability. In spite of
all this, for proof to be found from my computer there can only be, technically speaking,
one possible explanation. There has to be a back door built into all the operating
systems made in America and used throughout the world—a back door that allows US intelligence
agencies to access them.”

An instinctive cautiousness made Burns freeze. He maintained a serious expression,
not raising a single eyebrow in response, erasing all clues to the inner workings
of his mind.

“If I were prosecuted, I think I would repeat the story I just told you in court.
While showing a video I made of the entire process.”

Burns couldn’t judge whether the technical description Gardner had offered was accurate
or not. His calm demeanor could be a bluff. Burns weighed the risks. Gardner could
be put on trial by a secret military tribunal, but locking him away forever wouldn’t
be easy. However, if he removed Gardner from Operation Nemesis and from the president’s
inner circle, that would swiftly remove the threat. Wouldn’t that be sufficient?

“There must have been some kind of mistake,” Burns said. “I don’t think there is sufficient
proof to have arrested you.”

“Can I believe you?”

“Of course. Let’s get the attorney general in here and draw up the papers dismissing
the indictment. We will not hold you responsible in this incident. You have my word.”

Gardner still looked unconvinced, so Burns stood up, looked out in the hallway, and
called over Acres, his chief of staff. Burns ordered him to write a memo dismissing
the indictment against Gardner, and Acres, and the FBI agent standing by, both looked
confused. Burns shut the door and went back to the fireplace. “This should get you
released from custody and back home soon.”

“I appreciate it,” the National Medal of Science winner replied. “I’m sure my wife
must be worried.”

“I’ll have to relieve you of your duties as adviser, however.”

“I understand.”