Grave Secrets

Professor Jiménez’s address was in Edificio M2, a blue and white rectangular affair in the center of campus. We followed the signs to Ciencias Biológias, and located his office on the second floor.

The thing I remember about Jiménez is the goiter. It was the size of a walnut and the color of a plum. Otherwise, all I retain is the impression of a very old man with intense black eyes.

Jiménez didn’t rise when we appeared. He merely watched us troop through his door.

The office was approximately six by eight. The walls were covered with color photos of cells in various stages of mitosis. Or meiosis. I wasn’t sure.

Jiménez didn’t give Galiano a chance to speak.

“The man came asking about stem cells. I gave him a synopsis and answered his questions. That’s all I know.”

“Olaf Nordstern?”

“I don’t remember. He said he was researching a story.”

“What did he ask?”

“He wanted to know about the embryonic stem cell lines President George Bush approved for research.”

“And?”

“I told him.”

“ What did you tell him?”

“According to the NIH—”

“National Institutes of Health,” I translated.

“—seventy-eight lines exist.”

“Where?” I asked.

Jiménez dug a printout from a stack of papers and handed it to me. As I skimmed the names and numbers, Galiano got a crash course on stem cell research.

BresaGen Inc., Athens, Georgia, 4;

CyThera Inc., San Diego, California, 9;

ES Cell International/Melbourne, Australia, 6;

Geron Corporation, Menlo Park, California, 7;

Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden, 19;

Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, 6;

Maria Biotech Co. Ltd.—Maria Infertility Hospital Medical Institute, Seoul, Korea, 3;

MizMedi Hospital—Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, 1;

National Centre for Biological Sciences / Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore, India, 3;

Pochon CHA University, Seoul, Korea, 2;

Reliance Life Sciences, Mumbai, India, 7;

Technion University, Haifa, Israel, 4;

University of California, San Francisco, California, 2;

Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Madison, Wisconsin, 5.

My attention ricocheted back to the third listing. Quietly, I showed it to Ryan. His eyes met mine.

“Is seventy-eight enough?” Galiano asked, having listened to ES cells 101.

“Hell, no.”

Jiménez had an odd way of dropping his head to the left when he spoke. Perhaps the goiter pressed on his vocal cords. Perhaps he wanted to hide it.

“Some of those lines could get stale, or lose their pluripotency, or just plain crash. Four of the six colonies created by one U.S. biotech firm, won’t say which one, are turning out to be unstable.” Jiménez snorted. “There’s already a backlog of requests.”

He pointed a bony finger at the printout in my hand.

“And take a look at that list. Many of those lines are in private hands.”

“And private companies aren’t known for sharing.” Ryan.

“You’ve got that right, young man.”

“Is the American government doing anything to assure access?” Galiano asked.

“The NIH is creating a human embryonic stem cell registry. Still, NIH admits distribution of cell lines will be left to the discretion of those labs that birthed them.”

“ES cells could become a valuable commodity.” Ryan.

Jiménez’s laugh sounded like a cackle.

“Stem cell stocks soared following Bush’s announcement.”

A very troubling conjecture was coalescing in the back of my brain.

“Dr. Jiménez, how sophisticated is the methodology for growing cultures of human ES cells?”

“You’re not going to do it in your sophomore biochem class, if that’s what you’re asking. But it’s not that complicated for someone with training.”

“How does it work?”

“You get fresh or frozen embryos—”

“Where?”

“IVF labs.”

“Clinics for couples undergoing treatment for infertility,” I translated for my police buddies.

“You extract cells from the inner cell mass of the blastocyst. You put the cells in culture dishes with growth medium supplemented with fetal bovine serum—”

My heart rate shot to the stratosphere.

“—on feeder layers of mouse embryonic fibroblasts that have been gamma-irradiated to prevent their replication. You let the cells grow nine to fifteen days. When the inner cell masses have divided and formed clumps, you dissociate cells from the periphery, put them back in culture, and—”

I was no longer listening. I knew what Zuckerman was up to.

I caught Ryan’s eye and indicated that we should go.

Jiménez droned on about an alternative technique involving the injection of ES cells into the testes of immunocompromised mice.

“Thank you, Professor,” I cut in.

Ryan and Galiano looked at me like I was crazy.

“One last question. Did Nordstern ask about a woman named Maria Zuckerman?”

“Might have.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Same thing I’ll tell you, young lady. Never heard of her.”

“Zuckerman’s trying to develop a stem cell line.”

We were back in the Batmobile. My face felt hot, and strange creatures were running patterns in my belly.

“Why?” Ryan asked.

“How the hell should I know? Maybe she’s the one bucking for a prize. Or there’s a black market out there.”

I closed my eyes. The lunch fish played on the back of my lids. I opened them.