Sean as soon as he saw the 4 ? 4 in the parking lot so early in the day. When he saw that Sean was feverishly working in his lab, Hiroshi returned to his office.
Hiroshi was doubly upset now that Tanaka Yamaguchi was in town. Hiroshi had met him at the airport two days earlier and had driven him to the Doral Country Club where he planned to stay and play golf until the final word came from Sushita.
The final word had come late Friday night. After reviewing Tanaka’s memorandum, the Sushita board had decided that Sean Murphy was a risk to the Forbes investment. Sushita wanted him in Tokyo forthwith where they would “reason” with him.
Hiroshi was not at all comfortable around Tanaka. Knowing of the man’s associations with the Yakusa made Hiroshi extremely wary. And Tanaka gave subtle hints that he did not respect Hiroshi. He’d bowed when they met, but he hadn’t bowed very low, and not for very long. Their conversation on the way to the hotel had been inconsequential. Tanaka did not mention Sean Murphy. And once they arrived at the hotel, Tanaka had ignored Hiroshi. Worst of all he did not invite Hiroshi to play golf.
All these slights were painfully obvious to Hiroshi; the implications were clear.
Hiroshi dialed the Doral Country Club Hotel and asked to speak with Mr. Yamaguchi. He was transferred to the clubhouse since Mr. Yamaguchi had scheduled a tee time in twenty minutes.
Tanaka came on the line. He was particularly curt when he heard Hiroshi’s voice. Speaking in rapid Japanese, Hiroshi got directly to the point.
“Mr. Sean Murphy is here at the research center,” Hiroshi said.
“Thank you,” Tanaka said. “The plane is on its way. All is in order. We will be at Forbes this afternoon.”
SEAN HAD started the morning off in high spirits. After the initial ease of identifying the immunoglobulin and the three cytokines, Sean had expected just as rapid progress in determining exactly what kind of antigen the immunoglobulin reacted to. Since it reacted so strongly with the tumor cell suspension, he reasoned that the antigen had to be membrane-based. In other words, the antigen had to be on the surface of the cancer cells.
To assure himself of this assumption as well as confirm that the antigen was at least partially a peptide, Sean had treated intact cells from Helen’s tumor with trypsin. When he tried to see if these digested cells reacted with the immunoglobulin, he quickly learned they did not.
But from that moment on, Sean had run into trouble. He could not characterize this membrane-based antigen. His idea was to try innumerable known antigens and see if they reacted with the antigen binding portion of the unknown immunoglobulin. None reacted. Using literally hundreds of cell lines grown in tissue culture, he spent hours filling the little wells, but he got no reaction. He was particularly interested in cell lines whose origins were from neural tissues. He tried normal cells and transformed or neoplastic cells. He tried digesting all the cells with detergents in increasing concentration, first to open the cell membranes and expose cytoplasmic antigens, then to open nuclear membranes to expose nuclear antigens. Still nothing reacted. There wasn’t a single episode of immunofluorescence in any of hundreds of tiny wells.
Sean couldn’t believe how difficult it was turning out to be to find an antigen to react with the mysterious immunoglobulin. So far he hadn’t even gotten a partial reaction. Just when he was losing patience, the phone rang. He walked to a wall extension to answer it. It was Janet.
“How’s it going, Einstein?” she asked brightly.
“Terrible,” Sean said. “I’m not getting anywhere.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Janet said. “But I’ve got something that might brighten your day.”
“What?” Sean asked. At the moment he couldn’t imagine anything except the antigen he was seeking. But Janet certainly wouldn’t be able to supply that.
“I got a sample of Louis Martin’s large vial medicine,” Janet said. “I used your idea.”
“Great,” Sean said without much enthusiasm.
“What’s the matter?” Janet questioned. “I thought you’d be pleased.”
“I am pleased,” he said. “But I’m also frustrated with the stuff I have; I’m at a loss.”
“Let’s meet so I can give you this syringe,” Janet said. “Maybe you need a break.”
They met as usual in the cafeteria. Sean took advantage of the time to get something to eat. As before, Janet passed Sean the syringe under the table. He slipped it into his pocket.
“I brought my overnight bag, as requested,” she said, hoping to lighten Sean’s mood.
Sean merely nodded as he ate his sandwich.
“You seem a lot less excited about our trip than you did this morning,” Janet commented.
“I’m just preoccupied,” Sean said. “I never would have guessed I’d not find some antigen that would react with the mysterious immunoglobulin.”
“My day hasn’t been so great either,” Janet said. “Gloria is no better. If anything, she’s a little worse. Seeing her makes me depressed. I don’t know about you, but I’m really looking forward to getting away. I think it will do us both some good. Maybe a little time away from the lab will give you some ideas.”
“That would be nice,” Sean said dully.
“I’ll be off sometime around three-thirty,” Janet said. “Where shall we meet?”
“Come over to the research building,” Sean said. “I’ll meet you downstairs in the foyer. If we leave from that side, we’ll miss the shift-change crowd in the hospital.”
“I’ll be there with bells on,” Janet said brightly.
STERLING REACHED over the seat and nudged Wayne. Wayne, who’d been sleeping in the back, sat up quickly.
“This looks promising,” Sterling said. He pointed through the windshield at a black stretch Lincoln Town Car that was parking at the curb midway between the hospital building and the research building. Once the car stopped, a Japanese man got out of the rear and gazed up at the two buildings.
“That’s Tanaka Yamaguchi,” Sterling said. “Can you tell how many people are in the limousine with your glasses?”
“It’s difficult to see through the tinted windows,” Wayne said, using a small pair of binoculars. “There’s a second man sitting in the back seat. Wait a sec. The front door is opening as well. I can see two more. That’s four people total.”
“That’s what I’d expect,” Sterling said. “I trust that they’re all Japanese.”
“You got it, man,” Wayne said.
“I’m surprised they’re here at Forbes,” Sterling said. “Tanaka’s preferred technique is to abduct people in an isolated location so there will be no witnesses.”
“They’ll probably follow him,” Wayne suggested. “Then just wait for the right spot.”
“I imagine you are right,” Sterling said. He saw a second man get out of the limousine. He was tall compared to Tanaka. “Let me have a look with those binoculars,” Sterling said. Wayne passed them over the seat. Sterling adjusted the focus of the glasses and studied the two Orientals. He didn’t recognize the second one.
“Why don’t we go over there and introduce ourselves?” Wayne suggested. “Let them know this is a risky operation. Maybe they’d give up the whole plan.”
“That would only serve to alert them,” Sterling said. “It’s better this way. If we announce ourselves too soon they’ll merely operate more clandestinely. We have to catch them in the act so we have something we can use to bargain with them.”
“It seems like such a cat-and-mouse game,” Wayne said.
“You are absolutely correct,” Sterling said.
ROBERT HARRIS had been sitting in his car a few doors down from Tom Widdicomb’s home on Palmetto Lane in Hialeah since early that morning. Although he’d been there for over four hours, Harris had seen no sign of life except that the lights had all gone out. Once he thought he saw the curtains move the way they had the night before, but he couldn’t be certain. He thought maybe in his boredom his eyes were playing tricks on him.
Several times Harris had been on the verge of giving up. He was wasting too much valuable time on one individual who was suspicious only because of a career switch, the fact that he kept all his lights on, and because he wouldn’t answer his doorbell. Yet the idea that the attack on the two nurses could be related to the cancer
