that, but it is only found in Old World primates, meaning primates found
in Africa and Southeast Asia. It’s never been seen in the New World and
never in humans.’
‘Never?’ Jack questioned.
‘Put it this way,’ Dr. Malovar said. ‘I’ve never seen it, and I’ve seen
a lot of liver parasites. More important, Dr. Osgood has never seen it,
and he has seen more liver parasites than I. With that kind of combined
experience, I’d have to say it does not exist in humans. Of course, in
the endemic areas, it might be a different story, but even there it
would have to be rare. Otherwise we’d have seen a case or two.’
‘I appreciate your help,’ Jack said distractedly. He was already
wrestling with the implications of this surprising bit of information.
It was a much stronger suggestion that Franconi had had a xenotransplant
than the mere fact that he’d gone to Africa.
‘This would be an interesting case to present at our grand rounds,’ Dr.
Malovar said. ‘If you are interested, let me know.’
‘Of course,’ Jack said noncommittally. His mind was in a whirl.
Jack left the professor, took the hospital elevator down to the ground
floor, and started toward the medical examiner’s office. Finding an Old
World primate parasite in a liver sample was very telling evidence. But
then there were the confusing results that Ted Lynch had gotten on the
DNA analysis to contend with. And on top of that was the fact there was
no inflammation in the liver with no immunosuppressant drugs. The only
thing that was certain was that it all didn’t make sense.
Arriving back at the morgue, Jack went directly up to the DNA lab with
the intention of grilling Ted in the hope that he could come up with
some hypothesis to explain what was going on. The problem as Jack saw it
was that Jack didn’t know enough about current DNA science to come up
with an idea on his own. The field was changing too rapidly.
‘Jesus, Stapleton, where the hell have you been!’ Ted snapped the moment
he saw Jack. ‘I’ve been calling all over creation and nobody’s seen
you.’
‘I’ve been out,’ Jack said defensively. He thought for a second about
explaining what was going on then changed his mind. Too much had
happened in the previous twelve hours.
‘Sit down!’ Ted commanded.
Jack sat.
Ted searched around on his desktop until he located a particular sheet
of developed film covered with hundreds of minute dark bands. He handed
it to Jack.
‘Ted, why do you do this to me?’ Jack complained. ‘You know perfectly
well I have no idea what I’m looking at with these things.’
Ted ignored Jack, while he searched for another similar piece of
celluloid. He found it under a laboratory budget he was working on. He
handed the second one to Jack.
‘Hold them up to the light,’ Ted said.
Jack did as he was told. He looked at the two sheets. Even he could tell
they were different.
Ted pointed to the first sheet of celluloid. ‘This is a study of the
region of the DNA that codes for ribosomal protein of a human being. I
just picked a case at random to show you what it looks like.’
‘It’s gorgeous,’ Jack said.
‘Let’s not be sarcastic,’ Ted said.
‘I’ll try,’ Jack said.
‘Now, this other one is a study of Franconi’s liver sample,’ Ted said.
‘It’s the same region using the same enzymes as the first study. Can you
see how different it is?’
‘That’s the only thing I can see,’ Jack said.
Ted snatched away the human study and tossed it aside. Then he pointed
at the film Jack was still holding. ‘As I told you yesterday this
information is on CD-ROM so I was able to let the computer make a match
of the pattern. It came back that it was most consistent with a
chimpanzee.’
‘Not definitely a chimpanzee?’ Jack asked. Nothing seemed to be definite
about this case.
‘No, but close,’ Ted said. ‘Kind of like a cousin of a chimpanzee.
Something like that.’
‘Do chimps have cousins?’ Jack asked.
‘You got me,’ Ted said with a shrug. ‘But I’ve been dying to give you