Lou slapped the top of his head in utter amazement. “How do you remember stuff like that? I can’t remember where I had lunch last Tuesday.”
Laurie shrugged. “I read a lot of novels,” she said. “Writers interest me.”
“This doesn’t make any sense whatsoever,” Jack complained. “This is an undeveloped part of Africa. This country must be covered with nothing but jungle. In fact, this whole part of Africa is nothing but jungle. Franconi couldn’t have gotten a liver transplant there.”
“That was my reaction, too,” Lou said. “But the other information makes a little more sense. I tracked Alpha Aviation through its Nevada management corporation to its real owner. It’s GenSys Corp in Cambridge, Massachusetts.”
“I’ve heard of GenSys,” Laurie said. “It’s a biotech firm that’s big in vaccines and lymphokines. I remember because a girlfriend of mine who’s a broker in Chicago recommended the stock. She’s forever giving me tips, thinking I’ve got tons of money to invest.”
“A biotech company!” Jack mused. “Hmmm. That’s a new twist. It must be significant, although I don’t quite know how. Nor do I know what a biotech firm would be doing in Equatorial Guinea.”
“What’s the meaning of this indirect corporate trail in Nevada?” Laurie asked. “Is GenSys trying to hide the fact that they own an aircraft?”
“I doubt it,” Lou said. “I was able to learn the connection too easily. If GenSys was trying to conceal ownership, the lawyers in Nevada would have continued to be the directors and officers of record for Alpha Aviation. Instead, at the first board meeting the chief financial officer of GenSys assumed the duties of president and secretary.”
“Then why Nevada for an airplane owned by a Massachusetts-based company?” Laurie asked.
“I’m no lawyer,” Lou admitted. “But I’m sure it has something to do with taxes and limitation of liability. Massachusetts is a terrible state to get sued in. I imagine GenSys leases its plane out for the percentage of the time it doesn’t use it, and insurance for a Nevada-based company would be a lot less.”
“How well do you know this broker friend of yours?” Jack asked Laurie.
“Really well,” Laurie said. “We went to Wesleyan University together.”
“How about giving her a call and asking her if she knows of any connection between GenSys and Equatorial Guinea,” Jack said. “If she recommended the stock, she’d probably thoroughly researched the company.”
“Without a doubt,” Laurie said. “Jean Corwin was one of the most compulsive students I knew. She made us premeds seem casual by comparison.”
“Is it all right if Laurie uses your phone?” Jack asked Lou.
“No problem,” Lou said.
“You want me to call this minute?” Laurie asked with surprise.
“Catch her while she’s still at work,” Jack said. “Chances are if she has any file, it would be there.”
“You’re probably right,” Laurie admitted. She sat down at Lou’s desk and called Chicago information.
While Laurie was on the phone, Jack quizzed Lou in detail about how he was able to find out what he had. He was particularly interested and impressed with the way Lou had come up with Equatorial Guinea. Together, they looked more closely at the map, noticing the country’s proximity to the equator. They even noticed that its major city, presumably its capital, wasn’t on the mainland but rather on an island called Bioko.
“I just can’t imagine what it’s like in a place like that,” Lou said.
“I can,” Jack said. “It’s hot, buggy, rainy, and wet.”
“Sounds delightful,” Lou quipped.
“Not the place someone would choose to vacation,” Jack said. “On the other hand, it’s off the beaten track.”
Laurie hung up the phone and twisted around in Lou’s desk chair to face the others. “Jean was as organized as I expected,” she said. “She was able to put her finger on her GenSys material in a flash. Of course, she had to ask me how much of the stock I’d bought and was crushed when I admitted I hadn’t bought any. Apparently, the stock tripled and then split.”
“Is that good?” Lou asked facetiously.
“So good I might have missed my opportunity to retire,” Laurie said. “She said this is the second successful biotech company started by its CEO, Taylor Cabot.”
“Did she have anything to say about Equatorial Guinea?” Jack asked.
“For sure,” Laurie said. “She said that one of the main reasons the company has been doing so well is that it established a huge primate farm. Initially, the farm was to do in-house research for GenSys. Then someone hit on the idea of creating an opportunity for other biotech companies and pharmaceutical firms to out-source their primate research to GenSys. Apparently, the demand for this service has trampled even the most optimistic forecasts.”
“And this primate farm is in Equatorial Guinea?” Jack asked.
“That’s right,” Laurie said.
“Did she suggest any reason why?” Jack asked.
“A memorandum she had from an analyst said that GenSys chose Equatorial Guinea because of the favorable reception they received from the government, which even passed laws to aid their operation. Apparently, GenSys has become the government’s major source of much-needed foreign currency.”
“Can you imagine the amount of graft that must be involved in that kind of scenario?” Jack asked Lou.
Lou merely whistled.
“The memorandum also pointed out that most of the primates they use are indigenous to Equatorial Guinea,” Laurie added. “It allows them to circumvent all the international restrictions in exportation and importation of endangered species like chimpanzees.”
“A primate farm,” Jack repeated while shaking his head. “This is raising even more bizarre possibilities. Could we be dealing with a xenograft?”
“Don’t start that doctor jargon on me,” Lou complained. “What in God’s name is a xenograft?”
“Impossible,” Laurie said. “Xenografts cause hyper-acute rejections. There was no evidence of inflammation in the liver section you showed me, neither humoral nor cell-mediated.”
“True,” Jack said. “And he wasn’t even on any immunosuppressant drugs.”
“Come on, you guys,” Lou pleaded. “Don’t make me beg. What the hell is a xenograft?”
“It’s when a transplant organ is taken from an animal of a different species,” Laurie said.
“You mean like that Baby Fae baboon heart fiasco ten or twelve years ago?” Lou asked.
“Exactly,” Laurie said.
“The new immunosuppressant drugs have brought xenografts back into the picture,” Jack explained. “And with considerable more success than with Baby Fae.”
“Especially with pig heart valves,” Laurie said.
“Of course, it poses a lot of ethical questions,” Jack said. “And it drives animal-rights people berserk.”
“Especially now that they are experimenting with inserting human genes into the pigs to ameliorate some of the rejection reaction,” Laurie added.
“Could Franconi have gotten a primate liver while he was in Africa?” Lou asked.
“I can’t imagine,” Jack said. “Laurie’s point is well taken. There was no evidence of any rejection. That’s unheard of even with a good human match short of identical twins.”
“But Franconi was apparently in Africa,” Lou said.
“True, and his mother said he came home a new man,” Jack said. He threw up his hands and stood up. “I don’t know what to make of it. It’s the damnest mystery. Especially with this organized crime aspect thrown in.”
Laurie stood up as well.
“Are you guys leaving?” Lou asked.
Jack nodded. “I’m confused and exhausted,” he said. “I didn’t sleep much last night. After we made the identification of Franconi’s remains, I was on the phone for hours. I called every European organ allocation organization whose phone number I could get.”