Chapter 29

With the tanks full of water and the engine warmed up we left just before noon on Wednesday the third of July 1951.

We drove through many of the small towns. Many times we had to make right hand turns with the very long vehicle. The designers had thought of this and its second part actually went straight after the front turned, before it turned, itself. This was not a computerized invention, just a mechanical way of driving a long vehicle. It was possible to even have more sections follow us and they, too, would make close to the same turn.

This time we crossed at Fort Erie and into Buffalo. We could have gone over at Windsor to Detroit but the American highways were better than ours in this area.

The bus was very new to everybody, so of course we were pulled over for the secondary inspection. We had to get out and anybody and everybody went through the vehicle looking at how it was built and what the machine was capable of doing.

They weren't looking for anything in particular but some stayed to question us. Laura was asked a few times if she was a Communist. The ones doing the asking were prepared to take the beautiful woman into custody at any excuse. This was harassment, though and I was about to take the matter higher up when we were allowed to leave.

It was now seven o'clock and I decided it was better to get a bit further along. We pulled into a truck stop just over the Pennsylvania border and filled our fuel tanks. We parked as far back as we could and lowered the jacks and levelled the motor home.

The beds had been made for hours and Aron had already gone to sleep. I found it was my job to relieve all the tensions of the girls that had driven. Their copilot Linda claimed to be in need, too.

We stopped in Cleveland and the girls did a bit of shopping. The city was a great manufacturing centre but had withered a bit after the war with the loss of work. We pulled in to Woodridge, which was a ways outside Chicago, about seven that night.

There was a gate that was manned but since I had phoned ahead we got in. I had not wanted to keep the people from their families so I said I would talk to them in the morning.

We had a fairly quiet night. We listened to radio and some even read books. Contrary to popular belief I didn't make love all the time. Even the girls would get tired of it but not for long. The suspension on the motor home was great and I had spent most of my time writing up things that needed to be done, including procedures to do many things associated with the vaccine.

As a break I worked on the solid-state equipment and drew a few circuits that had not been made yet. There were actually very few, for tube circuits did many things that a transistor could do and sometimes better but the cost was in reliability and power consumption.

The next morning I was in my suit and the girls were all dressed nicely in casual clothes. There was a staff cafeteria and we went in. Our first problem was that we didn't have identity cards so we could get billed.

I told the women at the cash, "Just add up all the totals and give it to me. I will pay it in cash or you can wait till I get my card and then you can put it on my bill. Everybody here will be on my bill in the future."

"I can't do that. There are rules."

"Madam, just trust me for a few hours. I won't run off."

We sat at two tables pulled together, which seemed to be another no-no. In half an hour the head of this complex, Mr Cohen, came in and shook my hand. I introduced the family as my assistants. Mr Cohen gave me a sharp look but kept his mouth closed when he saw Aron. Before we left the room the cashier had me on the list, which seemed to be a relief to her.

We were led to large and very empty rooms. The walls had even been recently painted. This was good, because it would be well photographed. I was shown the machines that I wanted for agitating the flasks. Using a piece of chalk I laid out where the machines should go.

This went on for an hour and I said, "I need a large company car, or we will need to rent one. Do you have any suggestions?"

There were some company cars assigned to our area and even a station wagon. Laura left with an assistant and the rest of my family to go shopping or whatever they wanted.

More people came in and I gave them jobs to do to get this project started. We were well into the work when Joseph and Silva showed up. The three of us went into an office and Joseph said, "It didn't take you long to get started."

"I am usually quick if I know how to proceed. There were some papers that we were all to sign. The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can do the next part."

Silva opened a briefcase and took out a lot of forms. After looking at them I found them to be what I had said but put into American legalese. They must have gone over them well for everything was perfect. They didn't try to wiggle out of anything but made sure that my contribution was well documented. Mr Cohen came in and we signed the papers and they were witnessed.

The papers said that my drug company was now leasing this facility. More papers showed that Joseph and Silva would split four percent total now. They would also get the production methods of four new anaesthetics. If they didn't get approval, then their percentage would climb to ten for the vaccine.

The Kevlar was a separate deal and it was basically easy to produce this commodity. Turning it into fibre and then into material was a different matter. I knew it would make its way into tires and power transmission belts very soon after it came out.

The final papers were for the girls to become employees of this new company. That would mean that they had to get work permits. We would all have to sign papers to attest that we were never members of a Communist Party or to try to take over this country. The administration was using the Communist paranoia to get what they wanted. As in any witch-hunt, many innocent people were hurt. I imagine some genuine Communists fled the country too but I knew for a fact that the Russian spies were not going to be found.

My part was also the gold that was still waiting at the trucking firm. Joseph wasn't worried, because everything he spent money on stayed on his property.

Joseph invited us to his house. His wife had died six years ago and the house was mostly empty. "Thank you, Joseph. This time I want to stay in the motor home. It is close and I am here if anything happens. The girls will be shopping and sightseeing for the most part. This way I am not seen at your house too much and you have less to talk to nosey neighbours about."

"That is true, Alex. Perhaps after this is done?"

"I would enjoy that. The motor home is nice but only for temporary quarters."

With the papers signed I started to write the mixing instructions for Medium 199 that the Connaught labs had invented. Salk had got the recipe and used it when he originally made his vaccine. It was his main stumbling block. Nobody had found a way of breeding the virus outside of living tissue. The few living cells we used were nourished and lived in the mixture of nutrients and vitamins.

Soon we had the mixture made and large, flat bottles filled with it. I had specified that four bottles should fit on each machine. When I was sure that the family was absent, African Green monkeys were brought in. They were humanely euthanized and their kidneys harvested. The kidney was cut into tiny slivers and then one went into each bottle. After this was done the bottles were secured and the machine gently agitated them.

I didn't like killing innocent animals. They had to be used even to the twenty first century for many reasons. I just thought of the children who would not die or become cripples now. I stayed all afternoon doing this work, which I would rather have given to others. They, at least, could see that I was not above doing the nastiest jobs.

Labels were stuck to each flask and they were entered in a large book. Green monkeys had not been used in the other time but Rhesus monkeys were available. The Sabin vaccine had used a live virus and later, with aids killing many people, it was pointed out that the second kind of polio vaccine could have been the problem even if it wasn't. This time no chances would be taken, even if the second vaccine would be a year away.

This job was basically all done. The medium would let the kidney cells multiply. This could also be done with skin and other organs. I could have used other organs, too, including human but this was more in keeping with the time. This process could spread quickly to other types of growth. A burn victim might now live, if we could culture his or her skin and then grow enough to cover the body before scar tissue formed.

In another room we started again installing equipment but no mix was made or any monkeys killed. In two weeks, when the kidney cells had multiplied enough, the three viruses would be put in the flasks. Two additional weeks would be required for the virus to consume all of its host cells. By then, new cell cultures would have been established and grown for two weeks and some of the virus culture would be added into those to multiply the virus to even greater proportions.

Some at that time could be preserved with Thimerosal. A small amount of preservative goes in the vaccine: 2-phenoxyethanol (0.5%) and formaldehyde (0.02%). Calf serum also has to be used but now there is little worry of "Mad Cow Disease".

With the lab basically set up I had time to meet everybody I would be working with. This was the friendly chat time. Later, I was going to stress safety and get anybody doing something stupid moved elsewhere. Some of the people were chemists and I worked well with them to start making friends before we started on the anaesthetics.

Joseph, or perhaps Silva, had prepped them and they did not scoff too much. They would ask questions about their specialties and I was usually able to answer them. On occasion, my answer was wrong in their opinions. Processes did change when a new and better idea came along. My ideas were just ahead of what they were currently at. Most did not openly say that I was wrong. They just made up their minds that I was a fraud in many ways but not necessarily in all of them.

When one did call me to task, I said, "I suggest you make an experiment to see how wrong I am. I see that many others think the same as you. If I am correct in some of my views, then I may be right in others."

I went on the offensive now and asked them questions. They were pertinent to the other project. Most were phrased so I got their opinion rather than hard facts, for if they came up wrong in front of their colleagues then I would make an enemy.

As with my boys, I explained some details where chemistry and medicine met. With more paper I described receptors and how drugs or antigens seemed to be a key to match the body's lock. I also explained how foreign viruses attacked the body through this same method. Sometimes it was just a matter of having all the locks filled first, so the disease simply had no place to attach itself.

After my explanations I would ask how they thought some of the products in their lab would work in certain areas. I would refresh their memories at times and even asked for the little wooden blocks they had that represented atoms with wooden dowels for valence electrons.

Late in the afternoon I got into DNA and RNA and gave the structure of the first. As with everything else I coached my words by saying 'I believe it works this way'.

I got into research on how individual genes controlled certain features or how groups of them did the same thing. I went on to the fact that proteins perform most life functions and even make up the majority of cellular structures. When genes are altered so that the encoded proteins are unable to carry out their normal functions, genetic disorders can result. I left epigenesis out of this for the moment, because I had already stretched their credibility too much. I then tried to show the group how proteins were actually formed using the DNA model and the previous discussion on receptors.

The questions now were really in depth and I, in all honesty, could not answer them even if I wanted to.

I mentioned hemophilia A and B, muscular dystrophy, sickle-cell disease and cystic fibrosis. "All of these diseases I believe are caused by a defect at a single gene locus. The inheritance is recessive, so both the maternal and paternal copies of the gene must be defective. This is just my belief. My company is not very large and is seriously under funded. This is the first of the products our company wants to bring to market. With this money we can look much further into many areas."

I was asked again, "How do you know all this?"

"Research and insight, the same as you. I have the benefit of looking at things from a different perspective and without as much preconceived ideas as the rest of you have. An independent approach to things can sometimes find an easier approach to some goals."

They didn't seem to be completely believe this, so I considered doing something similar to what I did with the boys. "I also have equipment that you do not have here. I have various kinds of devices for seeing much smaller than you can. I have not patented them yet. Perhaps in the next few months I can build a few. We are currently working with coherent light. That is light that is propagated in step with the rest of the photons. It has the property of not spreading out like regular light. This is in its infancy but in a year or so, after more research is done, we can see about this facility getting a unit."

"Is Canadian medicine and physics that advanced?" one asked.

"It is very good considering the small amount of funding we are getting. The United States is overall in the lead. Canada will make its contributions as time goes on but we have a less robust economy and a fraction of the people you have."

That night I phoned Tom and told him what was happening. "You can run the paperwork on the anaesthetics now. Do it the way I wanted. I can see a problem if it isn't."

I started my nightly ritual of phoning Fish 'n' Chips to see what was happening. Some of the stuff we were doing was from three to seven years more advanced than anybody else. Most was well beyond that. The Magnetron system was working now. They had even put a second unit in that could be started independently of the first. This would blow the fifteen amp fuses now used in the usual house circuits.

They were given some direction to build a new type of electron microscope. I doubted if they would get to it, for they were having a lot of fun making new solid-state parts from my handbook.

Coffee was being left out to cool so it could be heated. I could just see the boys doing this. They were grown up and had graduated from university but they were still boys at heart and in a way I thought of them like I did of Aron.

I suggested, "Try an egg but clean the oven after. Hot dogs are good. Baked potatoes can be good. Puncture them and the wrap them in foil after they come out to cook naturally in latent heat."

Derrick also got a call. Things were still hopping after the fair and would take a while to settle down. He did find some leads to a ball bearing machine. Mr Creighton was too busy with the cube and I asked if Derrick could send Mr Sotola down to see if the ball bearing machine was economically salvageable.

I even phoned the mine and got Mom on the line. She was a little worried till I said everything was all right. In a few minutes she said the call costs too much and I should go have some sleep.

"I will, Mom. I love you. Give my love to the family."

The next day I just gave the polio lab a look. The kidney cells were growing well in a sampling of the flasks. The girls did not like the lab because of the smell and the caged animals they knew would die to give us their kidneys. Aron wanted one of the monkeys and even though he was a farm boy I said no. Monkeys looked too human. I remembered my own hard time coming to terms with animals dying so we could live. Instead, they went shopping for things I wanted them to have. The motor home was always home, especially when hooked up to water sewers and hydro.

I went into the section of the plant reserved for making the anaesthetic, to see if everybody was following my instructions. Silva came in later and told me that the gold auction was ready. A simple phone call directed a small delivery truck to bring the heavy box to his father's estate.

That afternoon we made a long ramp to get the heavy box to the floor and the truck left. Laughing I gave the hammer to Joseph and told him to open it. The metal tank had special strips that, when pulled out, let the tank separate into two parts.

When the top came off, the men just stared at the contents. Wooden partitions with leather inserts protected the large nuggets. I had to pull their arms to help me get the gold out. The three of us wrestled the gold into position on a worktable and we quickly went back for more. The last were canvas sacks of nuggets.

A scale had been brought but it was not quite enough to measure Poppa Bear at around two hundred and thirty Troy pounds.

Momma Bear was a hundred and eighty three pounds and I just rounded it off at a hundred and eighty. Baby was a little under a hundred and twenty but got that figure anyway. Little Goldilocks was a pitiful ninety-one pounds and it got ninety for easy terms.

"Well, gentlemen, we have roughly six hundred and twenty pounds and a further hundred and eighty pounds of smaller nuggets. The only thing now to say is 'let the auction begin'."

Joseph was now party to the auction. He also didn't like the names that his son told him were to attend the gathering. It wasn't even going to be held at his estate but at the current home of the largest mafia chieftain in the area. Sonny Forte was into a lot of different moneymaking ventures and most of them were even legit. Some were not and apparently there were a few bodies attributed to him and a few more that were never found.

He had his hand in gambling, trucking, loan sharking and was very active during the war dealing in what some people just had to have. At the moment he was trying to appear to be just a successful businessman and this was what kept Silva alive and even let him keep his money.

I did not like the mob and in my previous life they had tried to part me from my property. Sometimes I was able to use simple exposure and at others I had to take the law into my own hands. The mob still owned police and the courts and the bodies just never got found. I did not usually hire people to do this but I did it myself. Again I had to do the lowest tasks, like ridding the body politic of vermin.

Silva went out with me to get a good suit at his tailor. We went to downtown Chicago and entered one of the newer buildings. There was lots of glass and I even remembered going there a few times in later years. It still had its charm but had looked a bit more subdued with its more gaudy neighbours. Now it was sparkling and new.

Gaston was a fairly young man now, perhaps thirty. I knew him years later while he still plied his trade to the elite of the city. I was introduced and he politely asked what I would like. I told him exactly what I wanted, from the type of material and weight, the cut, how I wanted it to fit, to the type and size of the lapels. I added a considerable amount more. "Make the seams so that as I grow I will not have to discard the suit simply because it will not fit me."

The man had at one time complained about some customers having no idea what they wanted in a suit. These took up a considerable amount of time. Now, all that was left was the measurements and the selection of the colour of the cloth.

When we were done I shook his hand and said, "Later this year, I think at the end of November, the play 'Gigi' will go on Broadway. Audrey Hepburn is a very promising young actress. You should see it, if possible. You may even get her autograph before she becomes famous."