Chapter 63: Blackmail

The following day, Tamara had arranged a “chemistry” day. She planned to meet with her biochemistry postdoc collaborator, Joyce Darner, two medical school endocrinologists with whom she was also collaborating, and her first medical school radiologist consultant, Dr Jose Marcos. About two weeks prior to this meeting, Tamara, together with Darner, had worked out how to synthesize small amounts of her “pheromone” and separate the stereoisomers formed. She recalled the day when she had proposed to Darner the method that she had theorized.

One month earlier

Tamara entered Darner’s lab and greeted her. “Joyce, tell me if this wild-assed idea is feasible, okay?”

Darner grinned at her. “What did you come up with? This should be good.”

“Damn, you must have been speaking with Emma. She tells me that all the time. Anyway, here’s what I thought. I had the idea of looking into the quantum-mechanical properties of steroids, particularly those of the sex-hormone class. I came across the Franck-Condon principle, you know, the one that describes the electronic and vibrational energy levels of a molecule when it absorbs energy. I found that under quantum-mechanical rules, the molecules’ vibrational wave-functions behave like harmonic oscillators. It turns out that the coil-force circuits that I’ve been working with appear to affect the harmonic oscillations of molecules and I’ve calculated that the effect should be slightly different based on the symmetry of the molecules.

“The Franck-Condon principle is based on the molecule’s absorbing photons. Optical activity is based on the molecule’s ability to polarize light, that is, filter out only the wave forms of the incident photons that match the molecule’s polarity. This effect should work really well in aromatic compounds like the steroids because of the presence of the delocalized electrons from the rings’ π-bonds. The wave functions from the Born-Oppenheimer approximation appear to support that idea. I wrote out most of a paper that discusses that idea; here’s a copy; look at it and see what you think. So it appears that by using the coil-force circuits I’ve developed, you could use the effect their forces causes on the π electrons to assist in the synthesis of the pheromone molecules. I also think that the coil device can help separate the different optical isomers of the compounds in the gas chromatograph. Do you want to try to do that first? If it works, I’ll submit the paper to a journal.”

“That’s a really way-out idea, Tamara, but the way your gadgets seem to work, it might be worth a shot. I see you have a box with you. Is this a device based on your coil things?”

Tamara nodded. “Yep. I had Saul, my engineering tech, cobble up a device that can be connected to your gas chromatograph.” She opened the box and took out a Rube-Goldberg-looking contraption. “It’s not pretty, is it. Okay, inject the volatilized sample in the side port here, connect the carrier gas line here, and this end goes to the GC column. If you take samples at the detector as the sample exits the column, you’ll probably get the separated stereoisomers. The battery here powers the coil assembly—all you need to do is switch it on right over here,” Tamara pointed. “It’ll probably take you a bunch of runs to get the bugs out, but let me know if it works.”

“Okay, I’ll give it a go. How’d you get to know so much about chemistry, anyway? This is really advanced stuff.”

“Um, it’s just physics as applied to molecules and molecules are linked by their constituent atoms’ electron interactions. I understand how electrons perform very, very well, I guess,” Tamara told her. “Many of my devices depend on electron flow, storage, and properties.”

Darner grinned at her. “My prof told me that you’ve got a rep as an engineering physicist. What you’re doing here is actually chemical physics; it’s a combination of atomic and molecular physics and condensed matter physics. I can’t wait to see how this works.”

“Those are just labels; they only serve to pigeonhole people into artificial specialties. I’m more of a generalist and use whatever principles I need to solve problems. And about solving problems—solving the one about the inactive stereoisomers. The coil assembly should also work in your steroid compound synthesis,” Tamara said, handing her another folder. “Here’s the procedure to try with that. Part of the reaction needs to be done inside the energized coil assembly.”

She took another little device out of her box.

“Works the same way; uses the same power supply. Turn it on when you’re running the ring closure reaction sequences through your doing the Diels-Alder reaction. Those are the parts where the stereospecific synthesis should be corrected.”

“Cool, Tamara. Damn, if this works, it’ll be an incredible addition to organic chemical synthesis and analysis, I’ll let you know.”

About a week later, Darner called, excited. The devices worked and she had managed to synthesize and purify two of the compounds at a microgram quantity by coupling Tamara’s synthetic methods to a set of techniques popularly called “click chemistry.” Popular among chemists, that is, and that technique proved worthy of recent Nobel Prizes to its inventors. And Tamara’s device had allowed her not only to efficiently separate the different isomers; it had also worked to allow for synthesis of selected optical isomers. They both agreed that the device was unique enough to warrant submitting the scientific paper Tamara had written, after Tamara’s patent application had been filed.

Back to the present

Now it was time for her meeting with the clinical people. Tamara had designed a research protocol to test the pheromones that had been synthesized and purified. She wanted to test those two pheromone isolates on subjects while performing a MRI scan in an attempt to visualize the nerve signal pathway from the triggering of the olfactory nerve receptor to the signal’s destination in the cerebral cortex.

“Tamara, you do realize that you’re effectively looking for a needle in the haystack, don’t you?” one of the endocrinologists, Dr John Oglebie, asked. “We know that humans have only about 350 olfactory receptor subtypes in the olfactory epithelium and a total of only twelve million olfactory receptors, which are distributed among hundreds of different receptor types that respond to different odors. The result is that humans can sense only about 10,000 different odors and your putative pheromone is just one molecule. Catching single receptor binding events will be difficult, don’t you think?”

“Maybe, John,” Tamara responded. “But the MRI scan really lights up when there’s any chemical activity, so the depolarization of the receptor upon binding should be visible and so should the signals as nerve action potentials change during the relay of the signal into the brain. This experiment should show the parts of the limbic system that get activated by that particular molecule.”

“Wow, twelve million olfactory receptors in humans?” Darner asked. “That seems like a large number.”

“Not when you consider other animals,” Oglebie remarked. “For example, most dogs have about one billion receptors while dogs like bloodhounds have four times that number.”

“My department keeps a roster of potential volunteers for imaging studies,” Marcos commented. “Tamara, this new protocol of yours for the study can go as it is to our human subjects committee as a supplement to your first study. That should speed its review. John, what she said about visualizing receptor depolarization is correct; the resolutions we’re getting are amazing. It’s sensitive down to possibly thirty receptor activations and they would all come from a single olfactory receptor cell. This is a valid approach and we should pursue it. The evidence we get may finally settle the question about the existence of human pheromones, I’m sure.”

The group set to work to outline the details of the experimental procedure. When they finished, Tamara spent the rest of the day working on refining her dark matter/energy theory, and when she and Peter got home in the evening, she told him about getting her last major project underway.

“What do you mean, sweetie?” he asked. “Your work on the MRI and the coil force were your priorities, I thought.”

She chuckled. “I guess you’ve forgotten your excellent summary of my goals which you outlined the day before my folks moved into their new home here. I haven’t forgotten how you listed them. One was the MRI studies to learn how my ‘pushing’ emotions affects areas in the brain. The results of those scans show stuff that they’re still analyzing; there was so much data, but we’re getting lots of good information there. Another was to see if the chemicals I secrete are different for each emotion I ‘push.’ We found out that they are; there appear to be slight differences. Next was seeing if I generate a detectible EEG signal when I ‘push’ an emotion and it appears that I do; those tracings are still being analyzed. And I figured out how to do EEG studies in an active magnetic field and while accounting for RF pulses, in addition. Today we began on the last of those goals; seeing if my pheromones have an effect on a subject when I don’t ‘push’ that emotion.”

Peter grinned. “Well, that means you can retire now. You finished your bucket list.”

“You wish. I still have that large-scale G-force experiment. And I want to do stuff with all the things I found now—develop my inventions. Help people, improve their lives. I’ve got that deal I made with Gerston, remember. And the project that we’ll do with Kevin and Denise, whatever that turns out to be.”

“Yeah—and that meeting you have on Monday with that stalker of yours.”

“Ugh. Right.”

Tamara got to the coffee shop early; she wanted to stake out a table in a very exposed part of the shop so that she would be easily visible and wouldn’t be cornered. It took her a lot of convincing, but she got Peter to agree to stay away. She was wearing a small recording device that Wilkins had provided and, in addition, the tiny G-force transmitter was hidden in a necklace pendant. Wilkins had the matched G-force receiver. The transmitter-receiver pair had been tested and it worked, although the sound quality was far from ideal.

Tamara was sitting at the table nursing an iced tea when two men arrived and looked around. Spotting her green blouse, which was the recognition signal that she had included in her email message, they walked to her table.

“Miss Alexandre?” one man asked.

“That’s me,” she replied.

“Ah, this table isn’t a satisfactory meeting site,” he commented.

“It is for me, sir. Now state your business or leave. I trust you’ve brought your business proposal?”

The man glanced at his companion who shrugged; then they pulled out chairs and sat.

“First thing now,” Tamara looked at the spokesman with a steely expression. She didn’t detect any overt evil intent but got the impression that the man felt that this contact was somehow extralegal. “You know my name but I don’t know yours. Nor do I know anything about the outfit you say you represent. Do you have a business card?”

The men looked at each other again and the spokesman replied, “Our names are immaterial. I see you have your phone out. Is it recording?”

“Correct. I want a record of our meeting.”

“We cannot allow that. Please turn it off and let me watch as you do that.”

The other man took out a little device from the briefcase he was carrying and turned it on.

“She’s got another device on her,” he told the first man.

“Okay, miss, this isn’t a hide-and-seek game. Let’s get that device out and turned off too.” He looked at his companion. “See any wireless signals or other any surveillance device on her?”

“No,” was the response.

“We intend that this meeting will be private. This table location is totally inappropriate for our discussion. Since you refuse to move to a less-exposed table...”

“I do,” Tamara interrupted. “I’ve already experienced one kidnapping attempt and I’m ensuring that my risk here is minimized. Just so you know, some of the people in here may be my college friends and my friends watch out for me.”

The spokesman looked at his companion again. “Detect any remote listening device?” he asked and got a negative head shake in reply.

“This table will have to do then but I’ll be speaking softly. You must not let anyone know about this discussion; you won’t like the consequences if you do. We are here representing an official agency. We would like to offer you a position continuing your work on the human brain, along the lines of your papers describing the use of MRI technology, but concentrating on training the brain the way you trained the subjects to improve their sense of smell. You will be compensated appropriately.”

Tamara replied, “I’m sure, since you appear to be familiar with my papers, that you know that I’m a physicist and not a neuroscientist. I must decline your offer; my work is mainly in quantum engineering and physics, not human physiology and neuroscience. I’m sorry to disappoint you and your agency, but there’s no way that I’d agree to change career paths.”

“I was anticipating that you would decline the offer,” he responded, “but I’m afraid that you will have no choice and will have to agree. Your professional services are required by us, you shall work for us exclusively, and you shall not tell anyone about this conversation. You would be most unhappy to suffer the consequences of outright refusal to cooperate.”

“One second there,” Tamara interrupted again. “What agency do you claim is making this demand? Federal? Foreign? What right do you have to dictate who I can work for? Are you aware that slavery was abolished by the thirteenth amendment in the middle of the nineteenth century?”

“It matters not, exactly who we work for. My associate has a memory card which contains digital copies of recordings of your telephone conversations with agents of several foreign countries. In the recordings, you agreed to cooperate with those agents to sell classified research materials. Each recording is labeled with the date and time that it was intercepted together with the locations of yourself and the agent you spoke with. There also is a video clip of you making a drop of the information as agreed in one of the recordings...”

Tamara looked at him in disgust. “Your body language is shouting that these statements are outright lies, you know. This is a miserably poor attempt at blackmail. You’re also claiming that you wiretapped my communications; I’d like to see a copy of the search warrant that allowed this. What if I refuse and expose you for this felony?”

“You’d greatly regret that, miss. You see, under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Section 702, we don’t need a warrant. If a U.S. citizen communicates with anyone outside of the United States, a non-citizen, then their conversations can be monitored and recorded. And that act also set up the FISA court which approved this investigation, so we will have you arrested under the terrorism laws and those recordings will prove your guilt. We can have you tied up for years, probably in prison custody during that time. I’ll give you until next Monday to decide; if you don’t respond by Monday evening using the email address I contacted you with, we’ll begin the process to charge you with terrorism on Tuesday.”

The second man passed the SD card to him and he laid it on the table.

“Take this and listen to it; then I’m sure you’ll be contacting me.”

The two men walked out; they didn’t notice that when they did, they were followed out the door by a middle-aged couple. Another man came over to Tamara’s table as she sat, lost in thought.

I could probably make this problem go away, but that’s really a sticky situation and it might expose me to a greater risk...

“Miss Alexandre?” the man interrupted her thoughts. “Where did they touch? We need to get fingerprints.”

“Ah, yeah. That SD card, for one. They both handled it. And the backs of the chairs and possibly the table edges in front of them.”

A man came into the shop carrying a case and looked over at Tamara’s table, then hurried over. It was a tech, who began to check for prints. Then Tamara remembered her phone and turned it on; a text message appeared. It was from Wilkins: call me asap.

Tamara looked at the two FBI people working on the table. “You guys need me now?”

One looked up. “No, the boss’ll handle this now. She’ll call you.”

“Already happened. I’ll go somewhere quiet and call back.”

She took out a different phone, made the call, and heard, “Wilkins.”

“It’s Tamara. Yeah, this is a different burner phone. I have four and switch randomly. Were you able to hear that crap he spouted?”

“I sure did. We’ve got two tails on them now; also got some mug shots. They left the data card that he mentioned?”

“Yeah. The tech is getting prints from it.”

“Did you touch it?”

“Nope. He set it on the table and left. Then one of your guys came over and secured the area; chased away a bus person who wanted to clean the table.”

“Very good. Listen, can you come to my office now? I’m over at Windsor Mill, maybe eight miles away. I should get the chip with the recording soon and we’ll listen to what they have.”

“Um, sure, I can call for an ... oh, jeez, it’s Peter.”

“What? Your boyfriend?”

“Yeah. Told him to stay away. Guess he couldn’t.”

“He’s a good man, Tamara. He kept out of the way when he had to and now’s making sure you’re okay.”

“Right. I’ll see if I can get him to take me. Hey, can he be there when I talk to you?”

“Certainly. This affects him as well as you.”

About a half hour later, Tamara and Peter were shown into a little conference room at the FBI field office. Wilkins greeted them.

“Okay, we know who our targets are,” she opened with. “Neighbors of yours over in Laurel—the NSA at Fort Meade.”

“The National Security Agency? Why would they want to come after me like that? Hey, I assume they’re behind that ambush you helped me avoid.”

Wilkins nodded. “It looks like they were the ones that set it up. I kicked that one up to the agency chiefs; they broke a bunch of laws right there. But no way will I stick my neck out on that. Possibly someone high in the FBI might be involved too. Anyway, we got a match on the prints and our tails followed them to the NSA headquarters. Why you? You’ve attracted their attention somehow. From the recording of his conversation with you—by the way, that device is outstanding. Tiny, undetectable, untraceable, unhackable—I got dibs on one or more when you’re ready to produce them. Anyway, from what he said, maybe they want you to do some kind of brain research for them; but doing what is unclear. Not mind control or mind reading, I hope. But that’s really far-fetched.”