Terminal

First he went over the readout from the peptide analyzer. The results were dramatic. The amino acid sequences of the antigen binding sites of Helen Cabot’s medicine and Louis Martin’s medicine were identical. The immunoglobulins were the same, meaning all the medulloblastoma patients were being treated, at least initially, with the same antibody. This information was consistent with Sean’s theory, so it fanned his excitement.

Next, Sean got out Helen’s brain and the syringe containing her cerebrospinal fluid from the refrigerator. He took another general sample of tumor from the brain, then returned the organ to the refrigerator. After cutting it into small pieces, Sean put the tumor sample in a flask with the appropriate enzymes to create a cell suspension of the cancer cells. He put the flask in the incubator.

While the enzymes worked on the tumor sample, Sean began loading some of the ninety-six wells of the first thermal cycler with aliquots of Helen’s cerebrospinal fluid. To each well of cerebrospinal fluid he added an enzyme called a reverse transcriptase to change any viral RNA to DNA. Then he put the paired primers for St. Louis encephalitis virus into the same well. Finally, he added the reagents to sustain the polymerase chain reaction. These reagents included a heat stable enzyme called Taq.

Turning back to the cell suspension of Helen’s cancer, Sean used a detergent designated NP-40 to open the cells and their nuclear membranes. Then, by painstaking separation techniques, he isolated the cellular nucleoproteins from the rest of the cellular debris. In a final step he separated the DNA from the RNA.

He loaded samples of the DNA into the remaining wells of the first thermal cycler. Into these same wells Sean carefully added the paired primers for oncogenes, a separate pair for each well. Finally he dosed each well with an appropriate amount of reagents for the polymerase chain reaction.

With the first thermal cycler fully loaded, Sean turned it on.

Turning to the second thermal cycler, Sean added samples of Helen’s tumor cell RNA to each well. In the second run he was planning to look for messenger RNA made from oncogenes. To do this he had to add aliquots of reverse transcriptions to each well, the same enzyme that he’d added to the samples of cerebrospinal fluid. While he was in the tedious process of adding the oncogene primer pairs, a pair in each well, the phone rang.

At first Sean ignored the phone, assuming that Dr. Mason would answer it. When Mason failed to do so, the continuous ringing began to grate on Sean’s nerves. Putting down the pipette he was using, Sean walked over to the glass-enclosed office. Mrs. Mason was sitting glumly in an office chair pushed into the corner. She’d apparently cried herself out and was just sniffling into a tissue. Dr. Mason was nervously watching the flask in the ice bath, concerned that the ringing phone might disturb it.

Sean pushed open the door. “Would you mind answering the phone?” Sean said irritably. “Whoever it is, be sure to tell them that the nitroglycerin is just on the verge of freezing.”

Sean gave the door a shove. As it clunked into its jamb, Sean could see Dr. Mason wince, but the doctor obediently picked up the receiver. Sean turned back to his lab bench and his pipetting. He’d only loaded a single well when his concentration was again broken.

“It’s a Lieutenant Hector Salazar from the Miami Police Department,” Dr. Mason called. “He’d like to talk with you.”

Sean looked over at the office. Dr. Mason had the door propped open with his foot. He was holding the phone in one hand, the receiver in the other. The cord snaked back into the office.

“Tell him that there will be no problems if they wait for a couple more hours,” Sean said.

Dr. Mason spoke into the phone for a few moments, then called out: “He insists on talking with you.”

Sean rolled his eyes. He put his pipette back down on the lab bench, stepped over to the wall extension, and pushed the blinking button.

“I’m very busy right now,” he said without preamble.

“Take it easy,” Hector said soothingly. “I know you’re upset, but everything is going to work out fine. There’s someone here who’d like to have a word with you. His name is Sergeant Hunt. We want to be reasonable about all this. I’m sure you do too.”

Sean tried to protest that he didn’t have time for conversation when Sergeant Hunt’s gruff voice came over the line.

“Now I want you to stay calm,” Sergeant Hunt said.

“That’s a little difficult,” Sean said. “I’ve got a lot to do in a short time.”

“No one will get hurt,” Sergeant Hunt said. “We’d like you to come down here so we can talk.”

“Sorry,” Sean said.

“I’ve heard that you’ve been angry about not being able to work on a particular project,” Sergeant Hunt said. “Let’s talk about it. I can understand how upsetting that might be. You may want to lash out at the people you think are responsible. But we should also talk about the fact that holding people against their will is a serious offense.”