Page 10 (1/2)
CHapter 026
We&039;re talkingsubnificant sub They were in a McDonald&039;s outside town Everyone else in the place was under seventeen No chance that word of their et back to the company
The attorney said, "You had me search for patents or patent applications related to your so-calledback to 1990"
"Uh-huh"
"Two are subue patents that are applied for with the intention of letting them lie dormant until somebody else COX- 2 - "
"Got it," Josh said "Old news"
TheCOX-2 inhibitor patent fight was faranted a patent for a gene calledCOX-2 , which produced an enzyme that caused pain The university proiant Searle, which , Celebrex, that blocked theCOX-2 enzyene patent, even though their patent only claiht pain The university had not clai
And that hat the judge pointed out, four years later, when Rochester lost The court ruled that Rochester&039;s patent was "little ainst Searle was invalid
But such rulings did not alter the long-standing behavior of the patent office They continued to grant gene patents that included lists of vague claiene to control heart disease or pain, or to fight infection Even though the courts ruled that these clairanted therants accelerated Your tax dollars at work
"Get to the point," Josh said
The attorney consulted a notepad "Your best candidate is a patent application froenase, orACMMDThe patent claiyrus"
"That&039;s the ene"
"Exactly So if you ownedACMMD , you would effectively control the ene because you would control its expression Nice, huh?"
Josh said, "Who owns theACMMD patent?"
The attorney flipped pages "Patent filed by a company called Gen-CoCom, based in Newton, Mass Filed for Chapter 11 in 1995 As part of the settlement, all patent apps went to the principal investor, Carl Weigand, who died in 2000 Patents passed to hisShe is ill with terive all the patents to Boston Me about that?"
"Just say the word," he said
"Do it," Josh said, rubbing his hands
CHapter 027
Rick Diehlapproached the whole thing like a research project He read a book on the feasm Two books, actually One with pictures And he watched a video He ran it three times, and even took notes Because, one way or another, he had sworn he would get a reaction fros, hard at work for the last half hour, his fingers stiff, tongue aching, knees sore - but Lisa&039;s body remained co the books predicted had occurred No labial tuee in breathing, abdo
He was exhausting hi, zoned out like she was at the dentist&039;s Like a person waiting for souely unpleasant to be over
And thenwait a htly at first, but then distinctly Sighing And her stoan to squeeze her breasts and
Rick redoubled his efforts She responded strongly It certainly orkingworkingshe was grunting nowgasping, writhing, building stronglyher back archedAnd suddenly she heaved and screamed,"Yes! Yes! Brad! Yessss!"
Rick rocked back on his heels as if he had been hit Lisa threw her hand over her mouth and twisted away from him on the bed She shuddered briefly, then sat up, pushed the hair out of her eyes, looked down at him Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes dark with arousal "Gee," she said "I&039;m really sorry"
At this aard ed for it on the bedside table and handed it to hiry
"Mr Diehl? It&039;s Barry Sindler here"
"Oh Hi, Barry"
"So dressed, her back to hiood news for you"
"What&039;s that?"
"As you know, last week your wife refused to undergo genetic testing So we got a court order Cah yesterday"
"Yes"
"And confronted with the order, your wife fled rather than sub"
"What do you one Left town No one knohere"
"What about the kids?"
"She abandoned the care of them?"
"The housekeeper Don&039;t you call your kids every day?"
"Yeah, usually I do, but it&039;s been busy at work - "
"When was the last tio"
"You better get your ass over to your house right now," Sindler said "You wanted custody of your kids, and you got it You&039;d better show the court so up He&039;d sounded pissed
Rick Diehl leaned back on his knees and looked at Lisa "I gotta go," he said
"Okay," she said "I&039;m sorry See you"
CHapter 028
Bail was setat half a million dollars Brad Gordon&039;s attorney paid it Brad kneas his uncle&039;sthe courtrooers jacket sidled up to him and said, "We need to talk"
"About what?"
"You were set up I know exactly what happened"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah We need to talk"
The kid had booked an interview room in another part of the courthouse It was just Brad and him The kid shut the door, flipped open his laptop, and waved Brad into a chair He turned the laptop so Brad could see it
"Someone accessed your phone records"
"How do you know?"
"We have contacts with the carrier"
"And?"
"They accessed your cell-phone records when you wereoff work"
"Why?"
"As you probably know, your phone contains GPS technology That means your location is recorded whenever youyour locations over a thirty-day period, we find this" The map showed red dots all over town, but a cluster of dots in one part of Westview The kid zoomed in "That&039;s the soccer field"
"You mean they kneent there?"
"Yeah Tuesdays and Thursdays Soo"
"So thiswas a setup," Brad said
"That&039;s what I have been telling you, yes"
"What about the girl?"
"We&039;re working on her She&039;s no ordinary teenager We think she&039;s a Philippine national She&039;s appeared on a webca for money Anyhat&039;s relevant now are the inconsistencies in her story If you look at the hotel security camera" - he tapped another key - "you see here that she turns her body away fro for the elevator, opens her purse, and touches her face We think she is putting drops, or s?oets in the elevator aBut notice: as a supposed rape victi in the elevator, apparently very upset, she doesn&039;t go right to the hotel desk to report that she has been raped You have to wonder why not"
"Uh-huh," Brad said, eyes narrowing
"Instead, she goes straight through the lobby to her car Security ca away at five-seventeen p on traffic, the drive from the hotel to the hospital is between eleven and seventeen minutes She doesn&039;t show up until six-oh-five p that ti herself?"
"No We&039;ve had several experts look at the pictures from the hospital, and the nurse who examined her was an experienced trauma nurse The pictures are very clear We think she met an accouy"
"Yes"
"Then he would have left his DNA, right?"
"He wore a condom"
"So at least two people were involved in this"
"Actually, we think a whole team was involved," the kid said "You were very professionally set up Who would do this to you?"
Brad had been thinking about that while he sat in his jail cell And he knew there was only one answer: "Rick The boss He&039;s wantedto boff his girl"
"Hey I wasn&039;t trying I was doing it"
"And now you&039;re suspended froo to trial, and you&039;re looking at ten to twenty if you lose in court Nice" The kid flipped his laptop shut, and stood
"So what happens now?"
"We&039;ll work on the girl If we can get a prior history, maybe some video of her on the Internet, we can press the DA to drop the charges But if this thing goes to trial, it&039;s not good"
"Fucking Rick"
"Yeah You owe him, buddy" He headed for the door "Just do yourself a favor, okay? Stay away froazine&039;s "News of the Week":
Neanderthal Man: Too Cautious to Survive?
Scientist Finds a "Species Death Gene"
An anthropologist has extracted a gene from Neanderthal skeletons that he says explains the disappearance of this sub species "People don&039;t realize that Neanderthals actually had larger brains than the her than Cro-Magnons, and they es before the Cro-Magnons came on the scene Why, then, did Neanderthals die out?"
The answer, according to Professor Sheldon Harmon of the University of Wisconsin, was that the Neanderthals carried a gene that led thee "Neanderthals were the first environmentalists They created a lifestyle in har, and they controlled tool use But this same ethos also e They disapproved of the newconons, who painted caves, made elaborately decorated tools, and who drove whole herds of ani species extinction Today we consider the cave paintings a wondrous developraffiti They saw it as prehistoric tagging And they viewed the elaborate Cro-Magnon tools as wasteful and destructive of the environment They disapproved of these innovations, and they stuck to the old ways Eventually, they died out as a species"
However, Harnons "They unquestionably did, because we have identified this saene is clearly a Neanderthal remnant, and it promotes cautious or reactionary behavior Many of the people who today wish to return to the glorious past, or at the very least to keep things as they are, are driven by this sa dopayrus and in the right frontal lobe "There&039;s no question about its mode of action," he said
Harmon&039;s claiues Not since E O Wilson published his sociobiology thesis two decades ago has such furious controversy erupted According to Colueneticist Vartan Gorvald, Har politics into what should be a purely scientific inquiry
"Not at all," Harene is present in both Neanderthals and modern humans Its action has been confirene and reactionary behavior is indisputable It&039;s not a ht It&039;s a question of basic attitude - whether you are open to the future, or fearful of it Whether you see the world as e known that some people favor innovation and look positively toward the future, while others are frightened of change and want to halt innovation The dividing line is genetic, and represents the presence or absence of the Neanderthal gene"
The story was picked up in theNew York Times the next day:
NEANDERTHAL GENE PROVES ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA
Fears of &039;Ray&039; Justified
STUTTGART, Gerist Sheldon Harene which promotes environmental preservation "proves the need for sound environmental policy," said Greenpeace spokesperson Marsha Madsden "The fact that Neanderthals lost the battle for the environ to us all Like the Neanderthals, ill not survive unless we take radical global action now"
And in theWall Street Journal :
CAUTION KILLED THE NEANDERTHALS
Is the &039;Precautionary Principle&039; Lethal?
Oppose Free Markets at Your Peril, Club for Growth Notes
BYSTEVEWEINBERG
An Aist has concluded that Neanderthals died froe In other words, "Neanderthals applied the Precautionary Principle so dear to illiberal, reactionary environmentalists" That was the view of Jack Sressive Washington think tank Smythe said, "The extinction of Neanderthals serves as a warning to those ould halt progress and take us back to a life that is nasty, brutish, and short"
CHapter 029
In thecorner of the office, the TV showed Sheldon Hary and self-proclai assaulted during a lecture with a bucket of water poured over his head
On-screen, the event was shown repeatedly in slow uy who looked oddly a," Rick Diehl said "This is all a publicity stunt to proene"
"Probably," Josh Winkler said "They had cameras there to catch it"