Mount Dragon

Levine decided not to chance the coffee. He shifted on the sofa, glancing around again. Besides himself and Toni Wheeler, the foundation’s media consultant, there was only one other person in the room, a sallow-faced man in a glen plaid suit. Feeling Levine’s eyes on him, the man glanced up, then looked away, dabbing his sweaty forehead with a silk handkerchief. He was clutching a book: The Courage to Be Different, by Barrold Leighton.

Toni Wheeler was whispering into his ear, and Levine made an effort to listen.

“—a mistake,” she was saying. “We shouldn’t be here, and you know it. This isn’t the kind of forum you should be seen in.”

Levine sighed. “We’ve already been through this,” he whispered back. “Mr. Sanchez is interested in our cause.”

“Sanchez is only interested in one thing: controversy. Look, what’s the point of paying me if you never take my advice? We need to be shoring up your image, making you look dignified, patrician. A statesman in the crusade against dangerous science. This show is exactly what you don’t need.”

“What I need is more exposure,” Levine replied. “People know I speak the truth. And I’ve been making real progress in recent weeks. When they hear about this”—he patted his breast pocket—“they’ll learn what ‘dangerous science’ really is.”

Ms. Wheeler shook her head. “Our focus group research shows you’re beginning to be perceived as eccentric. The recent lawsuits, and especially this thing with GeneDyne, are throwing your credibility into question.”

“My credibility? Impossible.” The perspiring man caught his eye again. “I’ll bet that’s Barrold Leighton himself,” Levine whispered. “Here to promote his book, no doubt. Must be his first time on television. The Courage to Be Different, indeed. He’s a poor choice to be hawking courage to the world.”

“Don’t change the subject. Your credibility is compromised. The Harvard chair, your work with the Holocaust Fund, just isn’t enough anymore. We need to regroup, do damage control, alter your public perception. Charles, I’m asking you again. Don’t do this.”

A woman poked her head in the door. “Levine, please,” she said in a flat voice.

Levine stood up, smiled and waved at his publicist, then followed the woman through the door and into Makeup. Damage control, indeed, Levine thought as a cosmetician placed him in a barber chair and began working his jawline with a crayon. Toni Wheeler sounded more like a submarine captain than a media consultant. She was clever and savvy, but she was a spin doctor at heart. She still didn’t understand that it wasn’t his nature to back down in the face of a struggle. Besides, he’d decided he needed a vehicle like this. The press had barely touched his account of the Novo-Druzhina accident. They thought it was too long ago and far away. “Sammy Sanchez at Seven” was based in Boston, but its broadcast feed was picked up by a string of independent stations across the country. Not “Geraldo,” perhaps, but good enough. He felt inside his suit jacket for the two envelopes. He was confident, even buoyant. This was going to be very, very good.

Studio C was typical: a faux Victorian oasis of dark wallpaper and mahogany chairs surrounded by dangling lights, television cameras, and a hundred snaking cables. Levine knew the other two panelists well: Finley Squires, the pit-bull-in-a-suit of the pharmaceutical industry, and consumer activist Theresa Court. They’d already had the first segment of the show to themselves, but Levine relished the disadvantage. He stepped across the concrete floor, picking his way carefully over the cables. Sammy Sanchez himself sat in a swivel chair at the far side of the round table, his lean predatory face gazing at Levine. He motioned him to a seat as the countdown to the second segment began.

As the live feed started, Sanchez briefly introduced Levine to the other panelists and the estimated two million viewers, then turned the discussion over to Squires. From the monitor in the makeup room, Levine had seen Squires holding forth on the benefits of genetic engineering. Levine couldn’t wait: he felt like a boxer in top shape, advancing into the ring.

“Do you have a baby with Tay-Sachs disease?” Squires was saying, “Or sickle-cell anemia? Or hemophilia?”

He gazed into the camera, his face full of concern. Then he gestured at Levine without looking at him. “Dr. Levine here would deny you the legal right to cure your child. If he has his way, millions of sick people, who could be cured of these genetic diseases, will be forced to suffer.”

He paused, voice dropping.

“Dr. Levine calls his organization the Foundation for Genetic Policy. Don’t be fooled. This is no foundation. This is a lobbying organization, which is trying to keep the miraculous cures offered by genetic engineering from you. Denying your right to choose. Making your children suffer.”

Sammy Sanchez swiveled in his chair, raising one eyebrow in Levine’s direction. “Dr. Levine? Is it true? Would you deny my child the right to such a cure?”

“Absolutely not,” Levine said, smiling calmly. “I’m a geneticist by training. After all, as I recently made public, I was one of the developers of the X-RUST variety of corn, though I have refrained from profiting by it. Dr. Squires is grossly distorting my position.”

“A geneticist by training, perhaps, but not by practice,” Squires continued. “Genetic engineering offers hope. Dr. Levine offers despair. What he terms a ‘cautious, conservative approach’ is really nothing more than a suspicion of modern science so deep it’s practically medieval.”

Theresa Court began to say something, then stopped. Levine glanced at her without concern; he knew she’d side with the winner whichever way things shook out.

“I think that what Dr. Levine is advocating is greater responsibility on the part of the companies engaged in genetic research,” Sanchez said. “Am I right, Doctor?”

“That’s part of the solution,” Levine replied, content for the time being to press his usual message home. “But we also need greater governmental oversight. Currently, corporations are seemingly free to tinker with human genes, animal and plant genes, viral genes, with little or no supervision. Pathogens of unimaginable virulence are being created in labs today. All it takes is one accident to cause a catastrophe with potentially worldwide implications.”

At last, Squires turned his scornful gaze toward Levine. “More government oversight. More regulation. More bureaucracy. More stifling of free enterprise. That is precisely what this country does not need. Dr. Levine is a scientist. He should know better. Yet he persists in fostering these untruths, frightening people with lies about genetic engineering.”

It was time. “Dr. Squires is attempting to portray me as deceitful,” Levine said. He reached a hand inside his jacket, feeling for the inner pocket. “Let me show you something.”

He slipped out a bright red envelope, holding it up to the cameras. “As a professor of microbiology, Dr. Squires is beholden to no one. He’s only interested in the truth.”

Levine shook the sealed envelope slightly, hoping that Toni Wheeler was watching from the Green Room. The red color had been a stroke of genius. He knew the cameras had focused on the envelope, and that countless viewers were now waiting for it to be opened.

“And yet, what if I told you that, in this envelope, I have proof that Dr. Squires has been paid a quarter of a million dollars by the GeneDyne Corporation? One of the world’s leading genetic engineering firms? And that he has kept this employment secret, even from his own university? Would that, perhaps, call his motives into question?”

He laid the envelope in front of Squires.

“Open it, please,” he said, “and show the contents to the camera.”

Squires looked at the envelope, not quite comprehending the trap that was being set. “This is preposterous,” he said at last, brushing the envelope to the floor.

Levine could hardly believe his luck. He turned to the camera with a triumphant smile. “You see? He knows exactly what’s inside.”

“This is grossly unprofessional,” snapped Squires.

“Go ahead,” Levine goaded. “Open it.”

The envelope was now on the floor, and Squires would have to stoop to pick it up. In any case, Levine thought, it was too late for Finley Squires. If he had opened it immediately he might have maintained his