along. Two minutes earlier Jerry had been all but dead to the world.
Jerry had his arm around Alice’s shoulder as the group filed into the house. Edmund wondered what on earth was going on. Jerry had never shown the slightest interest in Alice, nor Edmund in Charlotte Trotter. They didn’t have that kind of relationship-it was all business.
“Russell here? Ah yes, there you are,” Jerry said, spying Russell emerging from the library.
“Can I get you gentlemen anything?” Alice asked, extricating herself from Jerry’s grip. Jerry moved to lean against a wall. From Edmund’s perspective it appeared as if Jerry was having trouble standing up.
“I’d love a coffee, thanks, Alice. You have one of those fancy machines, right? As strong as it comes, and in a large mug if you wouldn’t mind. Didn’t sleep so well last night.”
Alice moved toward the kitchen and the four men stood in Edmund’s expansive entryway.
“We don’t have all the paperwork from Statistical Solutions corroborating the concerns we have about the bell curves,” Edmund said, eager to get the ball rolling.
“I don’t care about that,” Jerry said. “It’s as bad as you thought. Actually, it’s probably worse than you feared. We have to preserve the capital we’ve invested, and the only way to do so is to act quickly and decisively. Like now.”
“Well, shall we go into the library and sit down and talk about it?” Edmund asked. “Or the living room?”
“No, Edmund,” Jerry said, suddenly sounding more focused. “You and I are going for a little walk outside.”
“A walk? It’s freezing out there! It’s going to snow later.”
“Don’t worry, Edmund, you’re not going to freeze to death. Go grab a coat.”
As Russell and Max moved into Edmund’s library, Edmund and Jerry stepped outside, Edmund fortified by a woolen overcoat, Jerry by the coffee Alice had made. It was five shots of espresso staining the inside of a Syracuse University mug.
“They’ve set up a company to control the patents for the organogenesis techniques,” Jerry said. “Rothman and Yamamoto. These are the guys, no doubt about it. They’re the problem.”
“I’m glad you’re taking the issue to heart,” Edmund said. They walked along an ornamental path in the front of the house, past rosebushes that had been severely pruned back for the winter. Patches of snow lay on the lawn in the shadow of the hedges. This was as barren as Edmund’s garden ever looked.
“We have to act at once. Those bell curves move at all to the right, it’s a disaster.”
“I’m pleased you see the same problem we do.”
Jerry stopped walking just short of the lawn.
“Unfortunately, we don’t see a simple financial solution, like selling ourselves short through an intermediary or securitizing our policy holdings immediately. With Gloria Croft shorting big-time, we probably couldn’t find any institutional buyer.”
“I agree,” Edmund said. “But the life settlement concept is still sound. It’s maybe the best business opportunity I’ve ever come across. It would be a shame to have to give up at this early stage.”
“I agree,” Jerry said.
There was a silence, then Jerry went on.
“It’s a little unorthodox, but it’s the best plan that serves all of our interests. Believe me, I’ve thought about nothing else over the last twenty-four hours. But it’s not for us to do-it’s for you to do. It
Edmund nodded. He didn’t expect anything different. Not from Jerry.
“There’s only one solution, and it’s the way it has to be because this guy Rothman has got himself out there so far ahead of the pack.”
Another silence ensued.
“I think Rothman’s momentum has to be stopped. If it is, I think we’ll have a good five years before the rest of the research community catches up to where Rothman is today.”
Neither man said anything. Jerry’s words hung heavily between them as if they were written in the air. Finally Edmund broke the excruciating silence.
“How do we stop Rothman’s momentum, Jerry?”
“Easy,” said Jerry. “You kill him.”
Edmund turned and walked away from Jerry, back toward the house. He took a path on the side of the building and Jerry set his empty coffee cup down and followed him to the rear garden, where Edmund sat on a bench with a view of Long Island Sound. Jerry sat down next to him.
“Murder, Jerry? Like having him shot?” Edmund was appalled. At the same time he didn’t think he had the luxury of dismissing any idea out of hand no matter how preposterous it sounded.
“No, not at all. The two of them should die in a way that doesn’t invite suspicion of homicide. It must look like an accident. There shouldn’t even be an investigation, although I suppose that would be inevitable. But there can be nothing that makes this look deliberate. Because it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility that any semi- competent murder investigation would lead right to LifeDeals. You sat there yourself at Statistical Solutions and talked about what this could do to the company’s bottom line.”
“Do you have any specific suggestions, Jerry?” Although the proposal was outlandish and terrifying, Edmund wanted to find out what Jerry was proposing. It wasn’t as if Edmund had any plan B waiting in the wings.
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
Edmund continued to stare out at the water.
“I’ll tell you,” said Jerry, “most of the medical people will know that Rothman’s first interest in research, before he became involved in regenerative medicine, was salmonella, which is the number-one cause of food-borne illness in general and typhoid fever in particular. He’s investigating the virulence of the bacteria-what causes it to be a tremendously deadly bacteria on the one hand, and a bothersome but nondeadly cause of gastrointestinal distress on the other. Why does one type give you the runs but another kills you? We did a little research. He’s found that growing salmonella in outer space produces a very lethal strain. He should be fed some of this particular strain.
“A lot of people don’t care for the man-they’re jealous of his Nobel Prize, and they think he’s got an attitude. If he dies from the bacteria he’s studying, a lot of people are going to say, ‘Oh, that’s terrible,’ and then smile at the irony of it later.”
Jerry made it sound so easy.
“I suppose that would be clever,” Edmund said. He felt he had to say something.
“That’s not the half of it. The typhoid fever he’d immediately develop might or might not kill him. There has to be something else that will kill him quickly and definitively, but it’s got to be something you can’t easily detect. There’s a substance called polonium-210-very radioactive and deadly if you ingest it but not harmful otherwise. We’d use it because it produces many of the same symptoms as typhoid and would be masked by it. It’s what killed Alexander Litvinenko in London a few years ago.”
“I remember that. That was just a theory, surely, the polonium.”
“I think it was more than that,” Jerry said.
“Why do we need it?”
“To make sure the guy dies. It’s very potent. The challenge is that Rothman and his sidekick work in one of the premier medical centers in the world. The salmonella, no matter how virulent it might be, cannot be counted on by itself. One or both of them could be saved. That’s a chance that cannot be taken. We need to be sure. One- hundred-percent sure, ergo the polonium, and a massive dose of it to boot.”
“So where the hell do you get this stuff? Who’s going to buy it? Russell?”
“You hire the right people. Professionals.”
“You’ve been watching too many movies,” Edmund said. “So tell me, Jerry, who is going to procure this deadly radioactive poison for us?”
“Albanians.”
“Albanians?” Edmund’s voice betrayed his skepticism.
