The Gene of Life Read online

  THE GENE OF LIFE

  This is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products

  of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2011 Tetsuo Ted Takashima

  English translation copyright © 2021 Museyon Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, except brief extracts for the purpose of review, and no part of this publication may be sold or hired without the express permission of the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Takashima, Tetsuo, author. | Di Martino, Giuseppe, translator.

  Title: The gene of life / Ted Takashima ; translated by Giuseppe di Martino.

  Other titles: Inochi no idenshi. English

  Description: First edition. | New York : Museyon, 2021. | Identifiers: LCCN 2021008605 |

  ISBN 9781940842516 (paperback) | ISBN 9781940842523 (ebook)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PL862.A424144 I5613 2021 | DDC 895.63/6--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021008605

  First edition 2021

  First published in the United States of America in 2021 by:

  Museyon Inc.

  333 East 45th Street

  New York, NY 10017

  Museyon is a registered trademark.

  Visit us online at www.museyon.com

  Printed in USA

  This book is dedicated to those who have died from COVID-19, to those who are suffering because of the pandemic, and to those brave heroes and scientists who are fighting every day to vanquish the virus. May 2021 be the year the vaccine reaches every corner of the world.

  CONTENTS

  * * *

  PROLOGUE

  I. BERLIN

  II. LADY OF MYSTERY

  III. THE JUNGLE

  IV. THE SECRET

  V. THE LABORATORY

  VI. THE VATICAN

  VII. TELOMERE

  VIII. THE GENE OF LIFE

  EPILOGUE

  gene

  a distinct sequence of DNA forming part of a chromosome, by which offspring inherit characteristics from a parent.

  DNA

  deoxyribonucleic acid, a self-replicating material present in nearly all living organisms as the main constituent of chromosomes. It is the carrier of genetic information.

  chromosome

  a threadlike structure of nucleic acids and protein found in the nucleus of most living cells, carrying genetic information in the form of genes.

  telomere

  a compound structure at the end of a chromosome.

  telomerase

  an enzyme that adds nucleotides to telomeres, especially in cancer cells.

  —New Oxford American Dictionary, Third Edition

  He held his breath.

  Through the binoculars in his right hand, he watched the plaza fill with people. In his left, he gripped a detonator. Over twenty pounds of a new plastic explosive, Semtex Alpha, were ready to blow—enough to take down a building. The accomplice beside him wiped his sweaty palms on his pants, and raised a Galil sniper rifle.

  A man in a khaki military uniform appeared on the plaza’s stage. The crowd grew quiet.

  The assassin’s heart skipped a beat. Failure was not an option.

  “Alles klar, fangen wir an,” he said. “Okay, let’s get started.”

  He pushed his left thumb down. There was a deafening roar.

  In July 2008, the public square in the western German city of Dörrenwald was packed with thousands of young men and women.

  “We will regain our former glory and create a new world under a new order! We will tear this corrupt world down! We will restore der Führer!” The voice boomed through the speakers and reverberated through the plaza. “Heil Hitler!”

  Crowds of young fascists clicked their heels and performed the Nazi salute, the same salute that changed German culture more than seventy years ago—and was now illegal.

  Thousands of onlookers surrounded the square, some began shouting.

  “Organizers estimate around 4,200 people are in attendance,” a reporter, a young woman in her mid-thirties, yelled into her mic. TV cameras weren’t allowed, so it was an audio-only broadcast. “Members of the Schwarzes Kreuz Party have gathered here from all corners of the world!”

  Seats on either side of the stage were occupied by elderly people, with the exception of one middle-aged couple. The man watched the crowd and smiled, reliving a distant past.

  “Heil Hitler!” The words became a chorus, a chant.

  A cool breeze blew through the trees around the plaza.

  Suddenly there was a deafening roar, then whirls of smoke and dust. For a split second, all sound was muffled and the crowd was silent. A gaping hole appeared in the center of the stage. Shrieks. Cries, both tearful and angry, rose above the scene. Thousands of people began running in different directions.

  A thick cloud of dust covered the stage. Mangled bodies and severed limbs jutted out from the debris.

  TV cameras that had been snuck in were turned on, and the clicks of camera shutters began recording the scene.

  “Explosion—explosives went off near the stage!” shouted the reporter, her voice cracking and her face filled with fear. A cameraman staggered after her. “Over ten top Schwarzes Kreuz executives are lying on the ground! And Chairman Friedrich Heiper is nowhere to be seen.”

  “Wait!” She halted, almost screaming her words now. “All that blood is from people’s limbs! They’re dismembered body parts!”

  The cameraman turned his camera on the carnage.

  “There are many—there are innumerable wounded. The ground is covered with bodies! The number of lives lost . . . it’s considerably high. This rally—” Her words were cut short. She covered her head with her hands and collapsed. Blood gushed between her fingers.

  Gunfire, then more explosions were heard in the surrounding forest.

  “They’re firing,” shouted the cameraman. Suddenly the camera jerked violently, and the back of his head sprayed red.

  More screams. More enraged shouting.

  The square reeked of blood and gunpowder. Sirens of ambulances and police cars shrieked in the distance.

  * * *

  Limone sul Garda, Italy, July 2008.

  “Could it be?” whispered a man despite himself.

  He had read and re-read the research. He was sure he understood it. But, seeing it before his eyes, he just couldn’t believe what he was seeing. At long last, could this be what he’d been searching for?

  As he watched the screen, a red liquid was forcefully flowing against a beautiful blue background. It was intravascular blood, as shown via ultrasound diagnostic equipment.

  “Only forty people in the world share this privilege,” stated a physician in a white lab coat standing behind him.

  The man’s eyes were fixed on the screen. Suddenly, the display split in two. One half showed coursing blood, while the second section showed blood squeezing through veins that looked extremely narrow. “On the right are her veins. On the left are the veins of a person of the same age group.”

  The man turned to the smiling woman in her seventies lying on the bed. The blood vessels of a person of her age would normally contain accumulations of cholesterol, forcing her blood to pass through narrow gaps.

  “I understood this from all the research papers, but it’s beyond belief to see it with my own two eyes.” He turned back to the display.

  “Everyone says that when they see it for themselves,” the physician said, h
is voice tinged with pride.

  He placed two tubes on the desk. “These test tubes are both turbid with cholesterol.” With a grand flourish like a magician, he added white powder from a glass vial to one of them. The liquid turned transparent. The difference between the tubes was perfectly clear.

  “The powder is protein refined from the blood of the portatori, that is, carriers.”

  The man was speechless. He was moved more than surprised.

  “A single letter of genetic code, out of the three billion base pairs, was all it took to create this wonder protein capable of disintegrating cholesterol. Just that one, single-letter mutation has granted its carriers a perk ordinary people don’t have access to.” The physician smiled, embarrassed. For a moment he forgot he was talking to a world-renowned genetic scientist. Two books on his laboratory shelves were written by him.

  The geneticist shifted his gaze to the petite elderly woman again. She was a carrier of the apolipoprotein A-1 gene, which produced a cholesterol-killing protein that prevented arteriosclerosis. She and her fellow portatori lived in a picturesque village of less than a thousand on the edge of Lake Garda, at the foot of the Alps.

  “They are blessed by God,” said the physician with feeling.

  “It’s nothing more than God’s whim,” Max muttered, before he could stop himself.

  ● ● ●

  I

  * * *

  BERLIN

  CHAPTER 1

  Maximillian Knight gingerly descended the flight of stone stairs in front of Technische Universität Berlin’s grand lecture hall. He looked up at the great city’s cloudless summer sky. He had lived in Germany for a year now, but this was the first time he had noticed such a clear blue sky. A cool breeze was blowing. Groups of students filled the lawn, which stretched all the way to the park. Max took a deep breath, and the crisp air expanded his lungs.

  He had just finished giving his farewell lecture on the subject of “21st-Century Genetic Science and Humankind.” He could still feel the enthusiasm of the audience of seven hundred, and he sensed the students seated on the steps were looking up at him.

  He was in his mid-thirties, around five foot eight and 150 pounds, and hadn’t changed much since his twenties. He had finely chiseled features, thick eyebrows, and long black hair that covered his ears and fell over his dark eyes. He didn’t give off a friendly or cheery vibe, and he was aware of that. He had heard that his students called him “the gloomy professor.”

  He looked up at the church in front of him. The sun’s rays reflected off its steeple and blinded him. He squinted against the harsh glare. A dull pain began to throb in his head. He balled his hands into fists and tried to shake off the heavy feeling.

  In ten days he had to return to America. But before he left Germany, he needed to sort out his research materials and pass the baton, as well as say goodbye to people. He had a lot to do. As he turned to walk down the stairs, he stopped. A gently sloping lawn stretched from the base of the steps, and a gray Mercedes sedan with tinted windows was parked about a hundred feet away.

  A slender man in sunglasses was leaning against the car. Max could tell he was looking at him, but he was used to having eyes on him, so he ignored him and took a step forward.

  When he’d reached the bottom of the stairs, a voice from behind called, “Professor Knight!”

  He turned around, only to find a thick book thrust in his face. The title read Die Zukunft der Gene (The Future of Genes). It was his third book, released in February of that year. Written as a primer of genetic science, it was his first book aimed at lay readers. His first two had been more technical, and had been translated into five languages as textbooks for students.

  “Would you please sign my book?” asked the young woman.

  Max didn’t even look at her before retrieving his pen from his chest pocket and signing.

  The man in sunglasses paced briskly toward him. Max was seized by a fear he’d never felt before. He pushed the book back at the woman and practically ran across the lawn. He heard someone call to him, but didn’t look back. When he reached the road, a Volkswagen van came rushing toward him. It swerved in front of him and blocked his path.

  “What the hell . . .”

  “Don’t speak. We are not going to hurt you,” the man in sunglasses whispered. Max was dragged to the van.

  Max looked back at the stairs. The woman clutching his book was watching, puzzled. Max was about to shout, but he was already halfway in the van. It started moving before the door was even closed.

  It happened so fast he’d had no time to think. Clearly these guys were used to this sort of thing. Witnesses might have guessed the man was simply a friend of Max’s, taking him for a ride. The van’s tinted windows hid what happened inside. Max was sitting between two men. In the seat facing him sat a third, a broad-shouldered, silver-haired older man. The earthy smell of cigar smoke hung in the air—probably Cuban. Max tried to get a good look at him, but the man in sunglasses placed his hand over Max’s mouth. The older man mumbled something and grasped his arm.

  A foul-smelling cloth covered Max’s nose. He tried to pull off his captor’s hand, but he was overpowered from both sides. He could feel his strength waning and his consciousness fading.

  Pure darkness.

  It was vast, endless. His soul drifted within the soundless expanse. It yearned for light, for sound, for smells and flavors. It wandered in search of anything that could anchor the mind.

  His whole body was constricted by a powerful force. He felt like he was dissolving into the darkness. He was being sucked into a deeper, blacker void.

  Where am I? But he couldn’t speak.

  I know this place. I’ve seen this world countless times. It’s the plane of death. It is death itself. For death is nothingness. Boundless, never-ending nothingness.

  From a great distance, he heard the growling of a wild beast. The sound brought him back to consciousness. After a few minutes, he realized that what he heard was coming from an air conditioner.

  He opened his eyes. Everything was blurry, but he was looking at a face. It was the silver-haired man from the van. When he tried to get up, multiple arms reached out to hold him down.

  “Like we said, we are not going to hurt you.” The man had a British accent.

  Max stopped struggling. He focused on the shafts of light coming through the slats of the window blinds. He realized he was lying on a bed. The old man peered down at him. He had to be over six feet tall, and his wrinkled face was as deeply chiseled as a Michelangelo sculpture. He was expressionless, and Max could only imagine what color his eyes were behind his brown-tinged glasses. He seemed quite old, and he was dressed in a tailored double-breasted suit with a soft silk scarf around his neck. A handkerchief poked out of his chest pocket, and he wore blue cuff links. He had the look of a snobbish, rich British gentleman. He didn’t exactly seem threatening.

  Max remained motionless, only moving his eyes. He noticed an old-fashioned writing desk and chair against a gray wall. There were four other men in the room, two in their twenties and the others in their thirties or forties. They were all standing around the bed, staring at Max. He tried to speak, but couldn’t. His words stuck in his throat.

  “We used ether. This ought to wake you up a little,” said the old man, breaking a capsule under Max’s nose. The smelling salts made his head jerk up. Suddenly he was fully aware of his surroundings.

  “Professor Max Knight,” said the old man, reading a dossier. “Thirty-five years old. Researcher at the California Institute of Technology’s genetics lab. A year ago he was invited to TU Berlin as a guest professor, where he has continued his research. That was until this weekend, after which he plans to leave Germany and travel around Africa before returning to America. Max Knight quickly rose to global prominence seven years ago for his gene analysis research. He discovered the RN1 and 2 restriction enzymes, developed software for gene reading and analysis . . . and particularly impressive, he unrav
eled the molecular biological mechanism of the mouse anti-aging gene and the klotho gene, greatly influencing subsequent research regarding the genes of life. His method was widely employed for functional gene analysis, and gene research advanced rapidly because of it. Furthermore, it was applied to embryonic stem cell research, and contributed a great deal to the development of new drugs and medical treatments. Since then, he has continued to present revolutionary ideas revolving around genetic science, and he is known in the field of life science especially as the scientist who altered man’s notions of life itself. Though he is young, he is undoubtedly an icon.”

  The old man placed the file on the desk and took a deep breath. “You are Max Knight, correct?” he asked, staring.

  “I don’t know about . . . that last part.” His voice was even hoarser than he’d expected. “Who are you people?”

  “We have no intention of hurting you,” replied the old man unhurriedly.

  “You already have!”

  “Please forgive us. We had no time to explain, you see. And even if we did, you would certainly have declined. Not to mention that many in our group are aggressive sorts.” His tone was amicable, even sympathetic.

  Max glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was past six. He’d been out for an hour.

  “My name is Joseph Feldman, but please, call me Joe.”

  “Where . . . am I?”

  “You’re in the headquarters of Feldman Antique Dealers. More accurately, the guest bedroom. You’re not in danger here. We buy and sell antiques, that’s all.”

  “What you did to me is a crime you know!”

  “We know there is no excuse, but this is how these gentlemen do things.” Feldman looked to both sides. The other men stared at him, their expressions unchanging.