While Justice Sleeps(69)
Jared tapped the screen on a particular message. “Ani thought someone had killed several of his colleagues.”
“Colleagues? From which company?” Avery asked as she reached for the sheaf of papers. “I can’t find an Ani at any one of the firms in the safe. Your father said to look to the river. The Tigris is in Turkey and Iraq, but Ani is an Indian name. The companies your father identified were Indian, Chinese, and American. No Turkish or Iraqi firms.”
“I tried to backtrace the ISP and use traffic analysis, but this TigrisLost guy knew his stuff. He ran his signal through countries that don’t even have electricity yet.” It had been a while since Jared had been stumped. “As best I can determine, he used a series of routers, relays, satellite feeds, and encryption protocols to hide his location. He definitely hid the archives from the game too and set up that test for you.”
Ling returned with drinks, and Noah reached for his legal pad. “Jared sent me notes he hacked from Nurse Lewis’s cloud. According to her, Justice Wynn was fading quickly—faster than anyone expected.”
“Did her notes explain what he and Ani might have been working on?”
“No. Mostly, she reports on his increasing paranoia and his obsession with President Stokes. Fairly virulent stuff, culminating, of course, with his diatribe at American University.”
“Any more good news?” she asked the room.
Ling disappeared for a moment and came back with a bulging folder. “I checked on the list of names you sent me, but I only focused on their patent research and articles.” Reaching forward, she flipped through the pages, hunting. Quickly, she plucked out articles she’d tabbed for Avery’s review. While Avery skimmed, Ling explained, “Mainly, I looked for any information in medical journals tying any of the companies to research into Boursin’s or similar diseases.”
Jared leaned forward, brows drawn together. “I didn’t realize Boursin’s had caught anyone’s attention.”
“By itself, the disease is not considered very important,” Ling explained in apology. “However, the genetic markers of Boursin’s syndrome have some singular properties. Like with Parkinson’s and Huntington’s, some biogeneticists believe that a cure exists in resequencing the DNA or in targeting the faulty chromosomes that trigger the syndromes.”
Noah entreated, “A translation for those of us who didn’t go to medical school?”
“Meaning,” Ling responded with a smile, “that there’s a theory in the field that if a gene therapy can target certain chromosomes, like Boursin’s with specific signatures, techniques can be developed to apply the process across other genetic markers.” She glanced at uniform expressions of confusion and expounded further: “For example, a company called Hygeia was doing some promising work.”
“Justice Wynn had several pages about Hygeia,” Avery recalled. “It got bought out by Advar a while ago.”
“I’m not surprised,” Ling responded. “They were developing cutting-edge technology in genetic research. Very controversial theories, though.” She shuffled through the pages for a thick binder clip. “What I found interesting was that Hygeia did a great deal of research on Y haplogroups.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Noah deadpanned.
Ling shot him a look before explaining, “Y haplogroups are genes characterized by specific geographical distributions. Basically, based on your DNA coding, there’s a good chance we can determine which region of the world your ancestors came from. Hygeia specialized in focusing on these genes, and their teams secured a number of patents.”
“What did they develop?” Avery asked.
“Nothing that’s made it to market, but gene patents are a new field. I cross-referenced the patent holders, and the same researcher names kept coming up. Then the patents stop.”
Avery skimmed the dates on the applications. “The patents stop shortly before Hygeia merged into Advar. Which takes us right back to Advar and GenWorks.”
“It’s not unusual for these tech firms to be acquired,” Jared offered. “Usually, the brains simply produce for their new masters.”
Nodding, Ling said, “Look at the most prolific inventor listed.”
“Dr. A. K. Ramji.” Avery flipped through the patents more slowly. “He’s listed on every one. Did he go to another company to continue his work?”
“I thought about that, but no new patents have followed up on their research. The more interesting issue is the subject of the patents. Over time, Dr. Ramji focused his work on manipulating specific Y haplogroups. Groups L and H. Then a journal article questioned his focus, and he simply stopped publishing. Fell off the map.”
“When?”
“About eighteen months ago, give or take.” She thumbed through her documents, plucking his last article from the stack. “He did this one on applications of adenovirus vectors that published last May, but that means he probably wrote it a year or so before. I didn’t have a chance to dig much deeper today.”
“A. K. Ramji. It could be the mysterious Ani.” Jared tapped commands onto the keyboard. “Now that we know where to look, let’s see what I can dig up. What are the other names of the inventors?”
Ling plucked a page from her stack. “I’ve listed all the patents secured by Hygeia or any other company with a similar focus. The Chinese firms have less patience with our patent process.”