The Einstein Pursuit

42

After breakfast, they moved their conversation to the living room, where they would be more comfortable. Payne and Jones had learned a lot from Sahlberg, but the revelations about the scientist’s work and his connection to Payne Industries had yet to offer any suspects. They still needed to know more if they were to figure out who had come after Sahlberg, and why.

‘Does the list of victims tell us anything?’ Payne asked as he settled into his favorite chair, a leather recliner he had owned for years. ‘In other words, do their individual specialties add up to something specific?’

Sahlberg frowned. ‘I’m not sure I understand your question.’

Payne glanced at Jones. ‘DJ, help me out.’

He nodded. ‘You said one of the victims was a microbiologist, another was a chemist, and so on. Think about the group as a whole. Why bring these scientists together? What could they have been working on?’

Sahlberg didn’t need to review the list. He was well acquainted with their specialties. ‘Unfortunately, they could have been working on anything. Besides the two you mentioned, you’re looking at scientists from nearly a dozen other fields. Physics. Botany. Mathematics. They’re all represented. There’s even a geologist on the list. About the only concentration that isn’t accounted for is astronomy, which means their experiments had to do with earth.’

‘Great!’ Jones teased. ‘That means I can cancel my call to NASA.’

Payne ignored the joke. ‘Think back to your recent conversations with Berglund. Is there anything that became a theme? Maybe some topic that he always looped back to?’

Sahlberg nodded. ‘Tomas was obsessed with the human body — particularly its limitations. He often pondered ways to alter those limitations. For instance, what would we have to do to increase the body’s tolerances?’

‘Tolerances? Like heat, cold, pain — that sort of thing?’

‘I suppose so, yes, but only in the sense of how those types of stimuli are processed. He wasn’t concerned with external materials that could fend off these effects; he was interested in how the body could physically counter invading elements.’

‘Invading elements?’

‘Something foreign to the system.’

‘Such as?’ Jones asked.

Sahlberg thought of an example. ‘Let’s say a splinter of wood lodges itself in the palm of your hand. Pain receptors fire off a message to your brain, letting it know the skin has been pierced. Along the way, the message is interpreted by an area of your spinal column known as the dorsal horn. Before the brain even processes the signal, the dorsal horn has triggered a reflex that causes you to jerk your hand away from the source of the injury. Finally, the brain gets the message. It determines the severity of the event by comparing it to every impulse it has ever received and makes a decision as to how you should react. Does this injury warrant a howling scream or merely a simple wince? Does it call for tears? Should you start to sweat? What about your heartbeat? Should it be faster or slower? The introduction of a foreign body triggers all of this. And that’s just the biochemical response. There are physiological effects as well.’

Payne shook his head in confusion. ‘Doc, you lost me. What does any of that have to do with Berglund?’

Sahlberg explained. ‘What if instead of a reflexive grimace and stinging sensation, we could delay the transfer of information? What if we could examine the injury before the brain automatically determines its severity? It would allow us to study the splinter, realize that it poses a minimal threat to our overall health, and consciously decide that the sensation of pain would be pointless. We could simply remove the offending sliver and carry on with our business.’

Jones leaned forward in his chair. ‘Berglund was actually working on that? How’s that even possible? You’re talking about the suspension of a chemical transfer that takes mere milliseconds to complete.’

‘I don’t know if it is possible,’ Sahlberg said with a laugh. ‘We didn’t discuss things in terms of the possible. We discussed things in terms of the theoretical. Theoretically, if you could isolate the chemical reaction of the pain receptors and interrupt it before it was relayed to the rest of the nervous system, then you could spare yourself the sensation of pain. Again, theoretically. Actually being able to detect the chemical reaction, isolate it, and prevent its transfer is an entirely different conundrum.’

‘Isn’t that the type of thing Berglund relished?’

Sahlberg nodded. ‘Over the last year, we basically broke down every aspect of the immune system. He wanted to know why certain cells behave the way they do. Specifically, he wanted to know everything I knew about how white blood cells interact with the rest of the system.’

‘Why you? You’re not an immunologist.’

‘He believed there was a connection between the perpetual cell lines I was studying and the body’s immune system.’

‘What was the connection?’ Payne wondered.

‘I have no idea. Like I said, it was just another one of his theories. The only direct question he ever asked was whether or not I believed that a perpetual cell line could be synthesized.’

‘You mean created by man?’

‘Yes. A man-made cell.’

‘To what end?’ Jones asked.

‘It’s only a “for instance”, but if you could create a synthetic organ cell with perpetual characteristics, you could potentially manufacture replacement organs for everyone waiting on a donor list.’

‘Or create a synthetic virus and let it spread throughout the world,’ Jones countered.

‘I suppose that’s true, but it’s essentially a moot point.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I told Tomas that synthetic cells could never truly propagate on their own. Even if you could design a machine on such a minute scale, it would lack the ability to divide. Even if it existed for ever, it could never multiply.’

Payne processed the conversation. ‘You said it’s essentially a moot point. Why isn’t it definitely a moot point?’

‘Because Tomas never accepted my answer.’

Jones jumped back in. ‘If Berglund used you as a sounding board for the cellular aspects of his research — whatever that research might have been — do you think there were others he would have consulted on the rest of the variables?’

‘Yes, but I’m assuming they were all killed in Stockholm.’

‘What about you?’ Payne asked.

‘What about me?’ Sahlberg responded.

‘Why weren’t you asked to go to Stockholm?’

He shrugged. ‘I have no idea. But considering what happened, I’m glad I wasn’t.’

Payne pushed on. ‘For one reason or another, he kept you at arm’s length. Maybe he didn’t want you or your reputation getting hurt by your involvement. Maybe he didn’t want you to know what was really going on. Obviously we can’t say for sure. But if you weren’t there, isn’t there a chance there were others who weren’t invited as well? People who were consulted but who were never able to fully understand what Berglund was working on.’

‘Maybe,’ Sahlberg conceded.

‘Where would we find them?’

Sahlberg gave it some thought. ‘The only place I can think of is La Jolla. If that’s where his plan started to form, then maybe someone out there can help.’