Fatal Care (15 page)

“Let’s go talk to him.”

Walking over, Joanna could hear Mirren complaining about the technician’s sloppiness which had caused an experiment to fail. It was her fault that the cell line hadn’t continued to grow and replicate.

“I followed your instructions exactly, Dr. Mirren,” the technician said defensively.

“Then why the hell did the cells die?” Mirren snapped.

“I do not know.”

“Because you screwed up,” Mirren grumbled. “That’s why.”

Brennerman cleared his throat loudly. “Alex, have you got a moment?”

“Not really.”

“This is Dr. Joanna Blalock,” Brennerman went on. “She’s here to look over the animal studies we did on the lipolytic enzyme.”

“Well, she’ll have to wait,” Mirren said curtly, and then turned back to the technician. “Now you’ve cost us a week of valuable time because you couldn’t set up a simple cell line. It seems you’re not even competent enough to do that.”

The technician’s lower lip quivered. “But I—”

“Don’t interrupt me,” Mirren barked. “Just listen, and maybe you’ll do the damn experiment right.”

The technician bowed her head in shame. She brought a hand up and involuntarily covered her name tag that read NANCY TANAKA.

“I’m going to look over your shoulder and watch you do every step of the experiment,” Mirren continued on. “We’re going to find out where you screwed up. And I don’t give a damn if it takes all day and all night to do it.”

“Yes, sir,” Nancy Tanaka said weakly.

Mirren turned abruptly to Joanna. “Now, what do you want?”

“I want to see all the data on the lipolytic enzyme,” Joanna replied.

“You mean the animal studies. Right?”

“For starters.”

Mirren motioned with his head to a nearby workbench. “The microscopic slides are over there.”

Joanna glanced over at the workbench. Dozens of slide boxes were stacked up haphazardly. Some had typed labels. Others were marked with Roman numerals printed in ink. “What do the Roman numerals stand for?”

Mirren stared at Joanna as if she were a simpleton. “What do you think they stand for?”

“I don’t know,” Joanna said patiently. “That’s why I’m asking.”

“Christ!” Mirren growled under his breath. “The numbers indicate the chronological sequence in which the experiments were done and the slides made.”

“Good,” Joanna said. “That will make things easier. Now, I’ll also need all the experimental data books that go along with those slides.”

“Those books stay here,” Mirren said quickly. “They go nowhere.”

“I need those books to guide me,” Joanna told him.

“Too bad.”

Joanna took a deep breath, trying to control her irritation; then she looked over to Brennerman for help.

Brennerman shrugged. “Those books really do have to stay here, Joanna. They are the originals, the only copies we have.”

“And the slides should stay, too,” Mirren added. “We don’t have copies of those, either.”

“Fine,” Joanna said evenly, but inwardly she was fuming. “Everything should stay here. It’ll make things easier for the FDA when they move in to investigate.”

Brennerman’s face suddenly lost color. “What do you mean? The FDA is not involved with this.”

“But they soon will be,” Joanna informed him. “Because as soon as I get back to Memorial, I’m going straight to Simon Murdock’s office, and together we’ll compose a letter to the FDA, telling them about your lipolytic enzyme study and how two of the patients have developed malignancies which may be related to their treatment. We’ll also send a copy of the letter to the NIH. They’ll swoop down on this place faster than you can blink. And, of course, they’ll shut it down while they investigate. But that won’t bother you, will it? Because while the investigators are tearing this place apart, you’ll have the warm and wonderful feeling which comes with knowing that your data books and slides never left this facility.” Joanna turned to leave. “I can find my way out.”

“Whoa!” Brennerman said at once. “Let’s not be hasty. Let’s think this matter through.”

“I’ve already done that,” Joanna said tersely. “And I’ve already told you what I need. The books and the slides. Now, all I want from you is an answer. Yes or no?”

Mirren’s lips started to form a word, but he reconsidered.

Joanna glared at him. “You had something you wanted to say?”

“No.”

“Good,” Joanna said. “Because now is not the time to be shy.” She continued to stare at him, disliking everything about him, down to his appearance. He was a stocky man with a round face, thick lips, and thinning black hair. His aftershave lotion smelled as if he had bought it at a dime store.

Mirren stared back at her, his fists involuntarily clenching.

They continued to exchange hard looks, neither person blinking or budging an inch.

Nancy Tanaka watched out of the corner of her eye. A faint smile came to her face. She quickly raised a hand to cover it.

“Ah, perhaps there is a middle ground,” Brennerman suggested, breaking the tense silence. “You can, of course, take the slides with you, Joanna. And we’ll make Xerox copies of the experimental data books. How does that sound?”

“Fine,” Joanna agreed. “As long as I take the original books with me.”

Brennerman hesitated for a brief moment and then nodded. “That sounds like a plan to me.”

As he gave instructions to Nancy Tanaka about which data books to have copied, Joanna glanced around the immense laboratory. She wondered why the two scientists had so strongly resisted giving up the experimental data books. One possibility was that they really had only one copy and were afraid it would get lost. On the other hand, Joanna thought, maybe there was something in those lab books they didn’t want her to see. She planned to study those books very carefully. And have a scientist-physician like Wallace Hoddings double-check them.

Her gaze went to the metal door at the far end of the laboratory beyond the glass cubicles. A sign on the door read:

“What’s in there?” Joanna asked, pointing at the rear door.

“That’s where we do our stem cell work,” Brennerman answered.

Joanna looked at him quizzically. “Why would you need a restricted area to work with stem cells?”

“Because every time we got a good stem cell line growing, it ended up infected with some damn virus. So we had to set up a lab that looks like a hot zone area.” Brennerman took her arm. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

“Do you do a lot of stem cell work?” Joanna asked.

“Everybody does,” Brennerman told her. “Stem cells represent the answer to the greatest mystery of all.”

“Which is?”

“How do human beings form and develop from a single cell?”

Joanna wondered if that question would ever be answered, with or without stem cells. Like most people, it was beyond Joanna’s imagination to conceptualize the end result after one sperm and one ovum combined to form a single cell with a total of forty-six chromosomes. Within the forty-six chromosomes of that cell were one hundred thousand genes that would dictate every feature of the person-to-be. The earliest dividing cells were called stem cells because they were undifferentiated and were not yet committed to become one tissue type or another. But then some factor within the stem cell activated the appropriate genes and that cell’s destiny was determined. It would become liver or heart or lung or whatever the genes directed the cell to become.

Scientists now knew how to harvest human stem cells from adult subjects. If they could learn how to make those cells differentiate into one organ-cell type or another, medicine would be changed forever. It would then be entirely conceivable to grow human hearts and livers and kidneys in a laboratory and transplant them into people.

“Where do you get your stem cells from?” she asked.

“Mainly from peripheral blood, but sometimes from bone marrow,” Brennerman said. “Marrow is the best source, but we have to pay our marrow donors a thousand dollars for each specimen.”

Not enough, Joanna was thinking. Bone-marrow aspirations hurt like hell, and the site of the aspiration could be sore for weeks afterward.

“Here we are,” Brennerman said, and punched numbers into the wall panel. The door clicked open.

They entered a small viewing area with a large Plexiglas window that looked into the laboratory. It did look like a lab in a hot zone, Joanna thought. The technician inside had on a bulky space suit with hood and dark visor. A tube ran from the ceiling to the technician’s hood, supplying oxygen.

“Every cell line we established got infected with some adenovirus,” Brennerman told her. “So we had to set up this laboratory at a cost of over a million dollars. Before our technician gets into that space suit, she walks through a room flooded with ultraviolet light. That kills every virus hanging onto her clothes or skin. Then she puts on double-thick gloves. It’s not foolproof, of course, but so far all of our stem cell lines have stayed clean.”

Joanna watched the technician carefully pipetting liquid into small vials. Her latex gloves were taped tightly around the sleeves of her space suit. “Have you had any luck turning out stem cells? You know, making them turn into one specific cell type or another?”

“I wish,” Brennerman said. “One infected batch of stem cells formed small pockets that looked like premature lung tissue. But we couldn’t be sure and we couldn’t get it to grow in long-term cultures.”

“Did you actually see alveoli?”

Brennerman shrugged. “It had some features that resembled alveolar membranes. But, as I said, it appeared to be quite primitive.”

Joanna moved in closer to the Plexiglas window. The technician was now transferring a creamy red fluid into test tubes. “It’s hard for me to envision a human lung growing from stem cells in a petri dish.”

“Oh, it’ll happen,” Brennerman said confidently. “I just hope Bio-Med is the first to do it.”

I’ll bet you do
, Joanna was thinking. That discovery would be worth a Nobel Prize and untold billions in revenue.

The technician inside the laboratory stepped on a floor pedal and a side door opened. She disappeared through it. The door closed automatically after her.

“All traffic in this specialized lab is designed to go one way. You can only enter from here, and you can only leave through the sliding door.” Brennerman turned and pointed to the panel on the wall next to him. “And you have to know the code to get into the lab.”

“How many technicians work in there?”

“Just one. And she can enter only after either Mirren or I punch in the code.”

A small beeper attached to Brennerman’s laboratory coat buzzed softly. He reached up and silenced it. “They’ve finished photocopying the data books.”

They went back into the main laboratory. The dozens of slide boxes were now neatly stacked on a side table. And next to them were four thick data books. A uniformed armed guard stood nearby.

“Eddie will carry all of this material to your car,” Brennerman said. “If you need anything else, please let me know.”

“I will,” Joanna said, watching the guard pack the slides and books into a cardboard box. He hoisted the box onto his shoulder.

Joanna followed the guard across the laboratory. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alex Mirren hovering over the Asian American technician. He was still yelling. There was so much about the man to dislike, Joanna thought. She really felt for Nancy Tanaka, who had to work with the obnoxious boor on a daily basis.

They walked through the reception area and out into a dull day. The wind was blowing again, kicking up sand and clouding the air.

“Not another sandstorm,” Joanna complained.

“Yeah,” the guard muttered, obviously not wanting to make conversation. He quickly loaded the box into the car.

Joanna looked at her windshield. It was caked with dirt. “Could you please fetch me a damp rag so I can clean my windshield?”

“Use the windshield washer in your car,” the guard said gruffly.

“All that will do is make mud,” Joanna told him. “Now, either you get a rag or I will.”

The guard hesitated. Then he turned away and said, “You stay here.”

Joanna watched the guard walk rapidly to the side of the building and disappear. She eyed the deserted highway and the barren land beyond. Everything seemed so bleak and desolate with no sign of life. She wondered why anyone would choose to work here. The pay had to be fabulous, she decided.

Joanna felt like stretching her legs before the drive back to Los Angeles. She slowly strolled along the paved road to the large parking lot. All the cars were covered with dust. And some of their surfaces were badly pitted from sandstorms that could abrade the paint off a car. Another reason not to work out here, Joanna told herself.

Joanna turned back, looking down the side of the Bio-Med plant. A door was open at the rear of the building with an unmarked van backed up to it. At first Joanna thought it was a delivery van. But there was no ramp or loading dock. And there was no paved road leading up to it.

She saw the armed guard come from behind the van and hurry toward her. He seemed to be waving her away from something. Joanna looked around quickly and saw nothing but cars and black asphalt.

“This is a restricted area,” the guard called out.

Joanna looked at him oddly. “What? The parking lot?”

“Not so much the lot, ma’am,” the guard said, toning down his voice. “It’s the rattlesnakes that get in here. They like warm places, so they crawl under the cars and stay there.”

Joanna studied his face, not at all sure he was telling the truth. But she knew that rattlesnakes were cold-blooded creatures whose body temperature depended on the environment. After a night in the cold desert, snakes would seek out a warm place to increase their body temperature. “Were you able to find a rag?”

“Here you are,” the guard said, and handed her a piece of worn-out towel. “Turn left at the gate, and that’ll take you to the highway. Then go right.”

Joanna walked to her car, head down, watching every step.
Nasty damn snakes
, she thought,
to go along with everything else in this godforsaken place
. And again she wondered why anyone would put a high-tech plant way out in the middle of nowhere.