Elizabeth had materialized beside him, and now stood with her hands on the railing and her arm just barely touching his. Following the surgery, their relationship had more or less settled back to what it always had been — a deep friendship built on mutual respect, and constantly on the verge of burgeoning into a romance. It was a comfortable, secure place to be, and with Anson's critical research so close to clinical acceptance, neither of them seemed anxious to cross the line.
Anson reminded her about his belief surrounding the white noise of the jungle, and then pointed to his watch. For a time, the two of them stood there without speaking.
'Listen, now,' he said finally. 'Listen to how the sound begins to build. There, there, did you hear that? DeBrazza's monkeys. They haven't made a peep for half an hour, now here they go again. It's like they are renewed from a brief siesta.'
'I believe you, Joseph. You should document your observations and we will submit them to a zoological journal. Of course, there is the small matter of the research you must complete before you can do that.'
He laughed.
'I understand.'
'The British and French drug agencies are poised to approve extensive clinical trials of Sarah-nine.'
'Yes, that's wonderful.'
'The FDA in America is not far behind. You are on the verge of changing the world, Joseph.'
'I don't often allow myself the luxury of thinking of our work that way,' he said, 'but I am pleased with what is happening here and at the Whitestone facility in Europe. Of that you can be certain.'
'Have you been sleeping at all?'
'No need. My energy is boundless. You and your surgeons, and of course, my magnificent donor, have given me a new life. Every breath had become such an effort. Now it is as if I am running without weights on my ankles.'
'Well, please be careful, Joseph. Just because you have a new lung doesn't mean you are immune to the ill- effects of exhaustion.'
'Just think of it, though. We have documented cures from forms of cancer that were thought to be incurable.'
'I think of it all the time,' St. Pierre said.
'And heart disease.'
His ebullience was childlike.
'As I said, my dear friend, your work is about to change the world. Pardon me for asking, but how much investigation do you think you have left to do before you turn your notes over to Whitestone?'
Anson stared off into the darkness, a smile in his eyes, though not yet on his lips. Over the last two or three weeks he had been battling his eccentricities — possessiveness, perfectionism, and mistrust. It was time, he kept thinking — time to thank Whitestone and Elizabeth for setting him up with everything he needed to complete his work? time to thank them for the hospital and the many whose lives had been saved there? time to sit down with their scientists and turn over all the remaining secrets of Sarah-9, time to decide upon a new direction for his life.
'You and your organization have been very patient with me,' he said, somewhat wistfully.
'Then we can arrange a meeting with our scientists?'
Anson did not answer right away. Instead, he looked up past the panoply at the sky, which had, in just a few minutes, gone from black to a rosy gray. Dawn was so beautiful in the jungle. It was time to cooperate with Whitestone, he acknowledged to himself. But he had another agenda that he wanted attended to first — an agenda that had everything to do with his being able to appreciate sunrise in the jungle.
'Actually,' he said, 'there is something I need from you first.'
'Something we haven't already provided for you?'
'I know that may be hard to believe, but yes, there is one thing. I want to meet the family of the man who gave me back my life, and to help them financially in any way that I can.'
St. Pierre did not respond right away. When she did, she spoke firmly.
'Joseph, I hope you really do know and appreciate how tolerant and patient Whitestone has been with you.'
'I do.'
'We own world rights to Sarah-nine and anything else that comes out of this laboratory, yet we have allowed you to keep to yourself the methods and cell lines that you use. We know that most of the vats of yeast in your lab are not used in the production of the drug.'
'And I am grateful for th — '
'Joseph, please. Listen to me. The patience of the development people and board of directors at Whitestone is running very thin. Our protocols have been limited by the fact that all of the Saral-nine we get for our research here and in Europe comes from you. You can say that you are supplying the drug fast enough, but that is simply not so. Every day of delay in getting this wonderful treatment onto the world market translates into millions of dollars lost. I know that you don't care a bit about money, but think of the lives that are lost as well. We need to complete the circle, Joseph. We need the microbes and the source of the recombitant DNA, and we need your notes so that we can finish our clinical testing and begin mass production. We promise that you will get full credit for having created Sarah-nine.'
'You know that doesn't matter to me.'
'Joseph, I don't really know what matters to you anymore. If what matters to you is getting the drug onto the market where it can help the many, many people who need it, then you need to take some action. It boils down to this. You want something more from Whitestone, and we wish something more from you.'
'Be specific, please.'
'Okay. Provided the widow of the donor of your lung approves, we will arrange for you to fly to Amritsar to visit her, and possibly her two children as well.'
'And me?'
'Upon our return from India, we shall fly a research team down here from England along with the equipment to bring your cell line back to our facility there. While they are here, you must go through your notebooks with them — not the dummy ones I know you have so meticulously created, just the real ones. We have paid and paid handsomely for this research, and it is time that we became the proprietors of it.'
'You may disagree, Elizabeth, but I believe strongly that the secrecy I have maintained around my work is both justified and in everyone's best interest. Since I have been solely in charge, things have been done my way, without the confusion of multiple captains, and also without the danger of espionage from the pharmaceutical industry. But I agree with you that it is time for the secrecy to end.'
'So we have a deal, then?'
'We have a deal.'
'Thank you, dear Joseph. On behalf of the world, thank you.'
St. Pierre embraced him, then brought his lips to hers and kissed him briefly but tenderly.
'We have been through a lot together,' he said.
'The end to this phase of our work is near. You should be very proud of what you have accomplished. I know that I am. Now it's time for me to get a little rest. I am on the schedule at the clinic today. And so, as a matter of fact, are you.'
'I'll be ready,' Anson said, taking a deep, delicious breath.
St. Pierre returned to her quarters, a single room and shower down the covered corridor from Anson's suite. She was tiring of the small space and the mold that continually reappeared on the bathroom tile, and she stayed there as little as possible, preferring her elegant house, high on a verdant hill overlooking Yaounde. Whether she stayed in Cameroon or not after the Guardiansuse for Anson was done was still uncertain. Either way, she was due a bonus that would make her a wealthy woman, and stock options in the new Whitestone pharmaceutical company that would make her positively rich. Not bad for a few years work baby-sitting an eccentric, mistrusting genius.
Using a private line, she called a number in London.
'The deal's been made,' she told an answering machine. 'We bring him to India to visit the family, and he sits down with our people for the final transfer of his notebooks and cell cultures. I believe him. He's always kept to his word, and there's nothing in it for him financially that would cause him to hold back on us. Not that he cares about
