“It was necessary,” the frail man offered without a shred of remorse.
Luke summoned his recollections of Kaczynski. What he remembered most was the geneticist’s absorption with himself and his work.
“And the killings?” Luke said. “What’s so important that it justifies murder?”
An Asian appeared on the boat’s deck, the same man whom Luke had spotted following him in L.A. “Don’t tell them anything,” he said.
Kaczynski ignored the man. “I’m not sure you’d understand, Luke.”
“Try me.”
The geneticist seemed to take the measure of Luke before saying, “We’ve spent the last hundred years and countless fortunes unlocking the genetic code, and for what? Instead of using what we know to eliminate diseases, we’ve let them become a yoke around the world’s neck.”
Kaczynski’s eyes went to a pickup truck coming through the tunnel’s entrance, then back to Luke. “Medical resources aren’t limitless, and we’re squandering them on children who, in a better world, should never have been born. Children with brains so shrunken they can’t register a thought as simple as hunger, children with lungs so crippled that each breath is an agonizing test of their will to live. And we do everything possible to keep them alive, so that those who aren’t infertile can pass their disease on to the next generation. It’s insanity.”
Megan struggled against her rope ties. “You’re giving us a lecture on insanity?”
“Like I said, I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
Luke jumped in, hoping to keep Kaczynski talking. “So what’s the solution, Petri?”
“He’s playing you, Doc,” the Asian said. “Let’s go. I need to get you to the ship.”
Kaczynski waved off the grim-looking man. “The solution? These children should never have been born. They simply should not exist.”
Luke shot a glance at Megan.
“It’s not a difficult concept, once you understand it,” the geneticist said. “Others in my field have struggled to repair the damage caused by faulty genes, and most of those efforts have failed miserably. The rare success leads to therapies that cost a small fortune. They’re an unimaginable extravagance in most parts of the world.”
“So you took a different path,” Luke said, gently stoking the man’s ego to keep him talking.
“A simpler, more direct path. Eliminating nature’s blunders before they happen. We can program the human immune system to seek out and destroy a woman’s flawed eggs, a man’s damaged sperm, before they join to create a defective human.”
“And how’re you going to do that?”
The man started kneading his hands. “Substantial portions of the human genome exist for no other purpose than to protect the structural integrity of our chromosomes. In effect, we have genes protecting our genes. There are thousands of so-called repair genes that remove damaged segments of DNA, build new DNA, and, when repair efforts fail, signal the cell to destroy itself. But, of course, nature’s repairs are often imperfect, and that’s where my work comes into play.”
Kaczynski’s voice oozed with self-importance. “What I discovered is the common starting point for that process in the body’s reproductive cells. It’s a gene that’s present only in oocytes and sperm. I call it the Mayday gene — it sounds the alarm and initiates the repair-or-destroy response. And it’s the only gene that turns on in the presence of any chromosomal defect, no matter what the cause.”
“And what exactly are you planning to do with your discovery?”
“It’s not what I’m planning to do, Luke. It’s what I’ve already done. I’ve created a vaccine that harnesses the power of our immune system and destroys defective eggs and sperm.” The geneticist’s eyes brightened. “When activated, the Mayday gene produces a protein — that’s the distress signal that triggers the repair-or-destroy sequence. Like every protein, it has a unique structure, and once I had determined what that was, it became a relatively simple matter to develop my vaccine.”
Luke said, “You have a vaccine that goes on search-and-destroy missions in a person’s reproductive organs, and you think people are going to line up to get it?”
“They won’t have to,” the old man said. “The ubiquitous mosquito will administer it for me.”
“Oh my God,” Megan whispered.
Luke remembered Kaczynski convincing his father that they could genetically alter a mosquito’s saliva glands to produce a vaccine. The insect’s salivary glands already produced dozens of complex proteins, so why not a vaccine? Kaczynski had argued.
“If your goal was to create a mosquito-borne genetic vaccine, why interest my father in your concept? Why bother?”
“I’m a realist. The world never strays too far from the status quo, and purifying the human genome is an idea that most would not understand or accept. But malaria — that’s a problem that everyone understands. It kills over a million people every year. Governments around the world are clamoring for a vaccine. And I’m going to give it to them.”
“In a mosquito that also carries a stealth egg- and sperm-killing vaccine,” Megan said in a voice filled with venom.
Kaczynski shrugged.
“So you stole my father’s malaria vaccine,” Luke said.
“Steal?” he said. “Hardly. Your father’s mosquitoes are my Trojan horse. I want the world to recognize your father’s work for the stunning achievement that it is. In fact, I’m counting on it.”
The man seemed to recognize the quizzical look on Luke’s face, and explained. “It was never our plan to steal your father’s creation, and I doubt I could have replicated his mosquitoes even if I’d tried. The antigenic structure of his malaria vaccine is far too complex. I modified colonies of his mosquito — colonies he thought were going to China for field tests — making the necessary modifications to add my vaccine, which is much simpler. My challenge was to grow a stable self-sustaining colony that produces both vaccines, and just recently I finally accomplished that goal.”
“Where did Zenavax figure into all of this?”
“They’re what brought me here. I’m sure you know that the earliest versions of your father’s mosquito didn’t effectively protect against the falciparum species of malaria. We needed a mosquito that prevented both of the common forms of malaria — vivax and falciparum. When we heard of Zenavax’s falciparum project through our contact in the Guatemalan Health Ministry, we took a closer look at what they’d found—”
“And you decided to steal their work.”
Kaczynski laughed. “Only to the extent that Zenavax’s research allowed your father to improve his malaria vaccine.”
“What do you mean?”
“In a manner of speaking, it was your father who stole their work. Not knowingly, of course, but he was receptive to incorporating new ideas as they came along.”
“You have moles working in my father’s research group?” Luke said. “Who?”
The man shook his head. “That’s not important. And I prefer to call them my colleagues—committed coworkers who are looking out for the interests of our patrons.”
“Patrons?” Luke glanced at the man’s shirt patch. “CHEGAN.”
Kaczynski nodded.
“Who are they?”
“People who share my vision, and collectively have the resources to make it a reality. They live in the real world, Luke, a world beset by poverty and disease.” Kaczynski seemed to anticipate Luke’s question and added, “The name CHEGAN derives from the first letter of our benefactors’ countries, countries that are going to buy your father’s mosquitoes.”
“There are governments supporting this?” Megan said.