“Who knows?” Wei questioned with a conspiratorial smile. “Maybe we can change your mind. To that end, I would like to invite you to have a bite of an early lunch with me, unless it’s too early for you.”
“That’s very gracious,” Jack said. “It’s not too early for me and wouldbe my pleasure.” Once again, Jack was taken aback. He’d anticipated a short visit with the billionaire and had been wrestling with what to ask in the limited time he’d have. Now it seemed he’d have more than enough time over lunch.
“Well, in that case I think we should head on back to the hospital,” Stephen said.
“I agree,” Ted said.
Han merely smiled broadly in apparent enthusiastic agreement.
“If you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to call or stop in,” Ted said, handing one of his business cards over to Jack. Then the three doctors shook hands with Jack in turn, said goodbye, and trooped out of the gym behind Kang-Dae.
“Here’s my suggestion as your host,” Wei said. “I will send you up to the great room with Kang-Dae as soon as he returns, and he will provide whatever refreshment you would like. Or if you prefer, he could give you a tour of our grounds. It’s up to you. Meanwhile, I will take a quick shower. Does that sound like an acceptable plan?”
“Sounds like a perfect plan,” Jack said.
20
WEDNESDAY, 11:30 A.M.
Jack’s experience with luncheons was limited. He usually had no time, neither in his current life or in his past life, nor did he particularly like to sit around motionless in the middle of the day. Yet despite his lack of experience, he still thought this present lunch was strikingly unique. He was sitting with a Chinese billionaire catty-corner at a mahogany Chippendale table that sat sixteen, which was positioned in the center of a formal dining room with a huge chandelier. Large windows afforded a pleasant view out over the pond. Only Wei and himself were at the table. Earlier Jack had been introduced to Wei’s wife, Pakpao, but she did not join them. Kang-Dae was in the room but not at the table. He was sitting motionlessly on a side chair near the door.
Wei had been true to his word when he said he would be taking a quick shower. Jack had no sooner gotten a glass of ice water from Kang-Dae and briefly looked at the framed photographs adorning the wall above the fieldstone fireplace in the great room when Wei reappeared. In contrast to his workout clothes, he was dressed in a dark, well-fitting suit, a white shirt, and a dark tie and looked like the businessman he was reputed to be.
As soon as Wei had appeared, Jack had to ask about the photos, as they were all of the same individual, Arnold Schwarzenegger. All of them showed Arnold posing with his over-the-top musculature in the many bodybuilding competitions he had won back in the 1970s.
“He was my idol back when I was a teenager,” Wei had explained. “He’s the one who got me interested in bodybuilding and probably saved my life. It gave me something to live for during a dark time in the midst of the Communist Cultural Revolution, when my parents and I were forced out into the countryside to work the land.”
Although Jack hadn’t had much time while Wei was showering, it had been enough time for him to again change his modus operandi. Earlier, when he’d thought his interview with Ted and Stephen was about to abruptly end, he’d decided to throw caution to the wind and put all his cards on the table. But now he had decided to reverse course, convinced that the confrontational style of going for broke would rather quickly put him out on the street and thereby end his sanity-saving diversion of investigating the conundrum of Carol Stewart’s death. The fortuitous opportunity to meet the boss and establish a relationship put him in a good position to figure out what was going on from the top down, and his intuition was continuing to tell him loud and clear that something was definitely afoot beyond the possibility of a new pandemic. In Jack’s mind, GeneRx and Dover Valley Hospital were in cahoots about something, and he meant to find out what it was.
“This is one of my favorite dishes,” Wei said, as a young woman dressed in a traditional Chinese costume held a platter so Jack could help himself. “It’s called Kung Pao chicken. It is a little spicy, but not as spicy as the Sichuan version. We Shanghainese cannot take the heat.” He smiled at his own joke.
After both men had been served and the young woman departed, Jack was eager to start a conversation, but he held back, uncharacteristically unassertive. He was still a bit intimidated being in Wei Zhao’s presence. Wei had no such hesitation: “Dr. Friedlander and Dr. Markham bothmentioned that you were surprised to learn that we had ruled out virus contributing to Carol Stewart’s death.”
“That’s true,” Jack said. “A virologist at the Public Health Laboratory saw what she thought were virus-induced cytopathic effects on cultured human kidney cells.”
“It had to have been artifact,” Wei said. “It was one of our worries, too, until we saw there was no virus present with electron microscopy. What we are confident we’ll be finding are some abnormal proteins released by the heart that apparently turned on an immune-inflammatory cascade, ultimately resulting in a cytokine storm. That’s why we wanted a second autopsy, mostly to get samples of the donor heart and of the anastomoses with the large vessels. Something went terribly wrong, and we need to find out what it was. We’ve only been a certified heart transplant center for three months, and we will need to report this fatality, as we were responsible for the patient’s post-operative care.”
Jack nodded. There was no doubt Wei was clinically knowledgeable even though not trained as a medical doctor. The idea had entered Jack’s mind that Stephen and Ted could be doing something behind the boss’s back that the boss didn’t know about. But that seemed far-fetched with the medical understanding Wei was revealing. Jack was certain that whatever was going on between Dover Valley Hospital and GeneRx, Wei knew about it and was intimately involved.
“I have ordered an entire team of molecular biologists to look into this case twenty-four/seven until it is solved,” Wei continued. “It’s a challenge. Carol’s sudden death underlines our general ignorance about the complement system and the inflammasome.”
“It is an area of physiology that needs a lot of study,” Jack said, feeling pressure to respond.
“After your autopsy, what exactly did you think killed Carol Stewart?” Wei asked.
“I thought the mechanism of death was a cytokine storm,” Jack said.“We agree on that. But the cause, I’m not sure. Maybe an antigenic protein was involved, but there was no sign of inflammation in the heart. What worries me is the possible involvement of a new, lethal virus, whether associated with the transplant or not. The story of her getting on the subway in Brooklyn asymptomatic and then dying on reaching Manhattan is too much like a repeat nightmare of 1918.”
“A virus worried us, too,” Wei admitted. “We were relieved when we looked at the electron micrographs and saw no viruses whatsoever.”
For a few minutes the two men ate in silence while Jack’s mind was in a turmoil. He couldn’t decide what to ask next. He wanted to bring up the matching DNA CODIS profiles but was contemplating how to do it diplomatically. Almost as if reading his mind, Wei did it for him.
“Dr. Friedlander and Dr. Markham also said that your DNA lab reported that the patient and the donor heart matched. We have extensive DNA sequencing ability. Our preliminary results show them to be close but nowhere near to being identical, so we wouldn’t know what to make of your lab’s results besides recommending they be repeated. But even that is unnecessary. We can send you full genome sequences in the near future for your records, because we are doing both.”
Jack was about to argue that the tests had already been repeated when he decided to let the matter drop for the time being. He thought it best to talk to Dr. Lynch, head of the DNA laboratory, about the issue when he got back to the OCME. Jack was more interested in building bridges with Wei than in destroying them. He couldn’t help but believe the closeness of the match between the donor heart and the recipient was critical to whatever weird thing was in progress, but pushing the issue could potentially be explosive.
“How is it you ended up here in New Jersey?” Jack asked, to keep the conversation away from testy subjects. “It is a long way from Shanghai.”
“You mean here in New Jersey in particular or in the United States?”
