While Justice Sleeps(72)
Noah quipped, “Giving new meaning to ‘like father, like son.’?”
“Exactly.” She broke off, reading the screen intently. “Oh. This is interesting.”
Avery asked, “What is it?”
“I’m not sure. Gimme a second.” Ling continued to scroll through, then shook her head. “These haplogroups. The designations he cited. In India and Pakistan, there are specific groups that have these markers.”
“What parts?” Avery asked.
“The Burusho people of Pakistan. The Lodhas. The Indian states of Kashmir, Assam, and West Bengal.”
“That makes sense—for an Indian scientist to be studying groups in his geographic region, right?” Noah offered. “Maybe he was developing the newest version of 23andMe for the subcontinent.”
“Not if it’s related to why all his colleagues are dead,” Jared reminded the group. “But Pakistan and India were one country until the British partitioned it in 1947. Hindus in India and Muslims in the newly created Pakistan. Of course, nothing is that simple. Family ties, historical alliances, all of it meant that the clean division was anything but. Stands to reason that the ethnic groups would have something in common. Why would this be worth studying, Ling?”
Before Ling could answer, Avery interjected, “The partition was a geopolitical solution to a more complex issue. These groups that we’re looking at have one notable characteristic that links them outside genetics.”
Noah stared at the screen. “Which is?”
“Think about why the division happened—to separate ethnic and religious groups who once lived in the same nation.” Avery looked at her friends, her eyes troubled. “If I’m not mistaken, all these people are part of the Muslim minority that remained in India.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
A cold silence fell on the room.
“Hygeia experimented on Muslims?” Noah asked, incredulous.
Avery balked at her own discovery of the thread linking the groups. Justice Wynn could not have known about a potential for religious experimentation and said nothing. Holding up a hand, she reminded them, “Let’s slow down. We have screenshots of some research, a merger stalemate, and a missing scientist. A handful of facts. One, that TigrisLost was a scientist for Hygeia. Two, that Dr. Ani Ramji is likely TigrisLost. Three, that Hygeia engaged in gene therapy experimentation, which is why the president says he objected to the merger.”
“Four,” Jared added, “that their subjects were selected from regions of the world with a chromosomal connection. And five, that everyone who helped Dr. Ramji is now dead.”
Noah scrubbed at the back of his neck. “A biotech in the middle of India was studying genetic markers and Muslims. Sounds kind of sinister.”
Ling held up her hands. “Hold on. These regions also have Christian populations, and Jews and Hindus. We don’t know what the markers were used for. I warned you, I’m not a geneticist.”
“Like I said, we have data but no proof. So we need more information.” Avery shoved her chair free of the table and stood. “Jared and I will head to Georgia in the morning to see if Justice Wynn left more information that will help us explain this. Ling and Noah, can you keep looking into these companies? Anything you can find. I want to rebuild his notebook. And get those digital ads going. We need Dr. Ramji.”
“I’ll put the summers on it,” Noah offered. “I’ll also call our counterparts in India. See if we can track down Dr. Ramji any other way.”
“No!” Avery thought of the dead nurse who’d called her. The missing scientist, his dead compatriots, and her not-so-secret admirer. “For now, it’s just the four of us. No one else.” She met each person’s eyes in turn. “Agreed?”
The chorus was unanimous: “Agreed.”
* * *
—
At the White House, President Stokes turned on the evening news. A blandly handsome twentysomething read from a teleprompter, joined by his preternaturally lovely, ethnically indescribable cohost.
The co-anchor gave a knowing look to the camera. “Associate Justice Wynn has been an enigma during his entire tenure on the Supreme Court. Scott, what can you tell us?”
Scott Curlee, looking equal parts somber and excited, answered from the split screen: “Davis, Justice Wynn goes into his third evening in a coma with the question of who will decide his fate still unanswered. He is known among Court watchers as the swing vote on controversial issues, and he is notoriously hard to predict.”
The woman cohosting the broadcast asked, “Scott, are there cases pending where his vote might prove pivotal?”
“Well, Phoebe, Justice Wynn is widely expected to be the deciding vote in the international case of GenWorks v. U.S. As we have reported for months, GenWorks, an American biogenetics firm, seeks to merge with India-based Advar, a major biotech company poised for explosive growth in the next year. Advar holds a patent on a new gene therapy practice that some claim may cure deadly diseases immune to conventional treatments. But Justice Wynn’s sudden illness casts a shadow over the future of both companies. The merger was expected to be a swap of cash and stock, with a heavy footprint in both countries. If the presidential objection remains, this could be a heavy blow to future international mergers.”