“And then we were ambushed. So tell me what I want to know—or I can take this discussion with your father in private. He won’t like that.”
She stared with raw-eyed concern and love toward Bukolov. Then with a shake of her head, she touched her father’s forearm, moving her hand down to his hand. She gripped it tightly, possessively.
Bukolov finally placed his hand over hers. “It’s okay. Tell him.”
Anya looked up at him, her eyes glassy with tears. “I’m not his daughter.”
Tucker had to force the shock not to show on his face. That wasn’t the answer he had been expecting.
“My name is Anya Malinov, but I’m not Doctor Bukolov’s daughter.”
“But why lie about it?” Tucker asked.
Anya glanced away, looking ashamed. “I suggested this ruse to Abram. I thought, if he told you that I was his daughter, you would be more inclined to take me with you.”
“You must understand,” Bukolov stressed. “Anya is critical to my work. I could not risk your refusing to bring her along.”
No wonder this part of the plan was kept from Harper.
“But I meant what I said before,” Bukolov pressed. “Anya is critical to my work.”
“And what is that work? I’m done with these lies. I want answers.”
Bukolov finally caved. “I suppose you have earned an explanation. But this is very complicated. You may not understand.”
“Try me.”
“Very well. What do you know about earth’s primordial history? Specifically about plant life that would have existed, say, seven hundred million years ago?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Understandable. For many decades, a hypothesis has been circulating in scientific communities about something called LUCA—Last Universal Common Ancestor. Essentially we’re talking about the earth’s first multicellular plant. In other words, the seed or genesis for each and every plant that has ever existed on the earth. If LUCA is real—and I believe it is—it is the progenitor of every plant form on this planet, from tomatoes and orchids, to dandelions and Venus flytraps.”
“You used the word hypothesis, not theory,” said Tucker. “No one has ever encountered LUCA before?”
“Yes and no. I’ll get to that shortly. But first consider stem cells. They are cells that hold the potential to become any other cell in the human body if coaxed just right. A blank genetic slate, so to speak. By manipulating stem cells, scientists have been able to grow an ear on a mouse’s back. They’ve grown an entire liver in a laboratory, as if from thin air. I think you can appreciate the significance of such a line of research. Stem cell research is already a multibillion-dollar industry. And will only escalate. It is the future of medicine.”
“Go on.”
“To simplify it to the basics, I believe LUCA is to plant life what stem cells are to animal life. But why is that important? I’ll give you an example. Say someone discovers a new form of flower in Brazil that treats prostate cancer. But the rain forests are almost gone. Or the flower is almost extinct. Or maybe the drug is prohibitively expensive to synthesize. With LUCA, those problems vanish. With LUCA, you simply carbon-copy the plant in question.”
Bukolov grew more animated and grandiose. “Or, better yet, you use LUCA to replenish the rain forest itself. Or use LUCA in combination with, say, soybeans, to turn barren wastelands into arable land. Do you see the potential now?”
Tucker leaned back. “Let me make sure I understand. If you’re right, LUCA can replicate any plant life because in the beginning, it was all plant life. It’s as much of a genetic blank slate as stem cells.”
“Yes, yes. I also believe it can accelerate growth. LUCA is not just a replicator species, but a booster as well.”
Anya nodded, chiming in. “We can make flora hardier. Imagine potatoes or rice that could thrive where only cacti could before.”
“All this sounds great, but didn’t you say this was all an unproven hypothesis?”
“It is,” Bukolov said, his eyes glinting. “But not for much longer. I’m about to change the world.”
20
March 15, 9:50 P.M.
The Volga River, Russia
Tucker turned the conversation from world-changing scientific discoveries to more practical questions. Like why someone was trying to kill them?
“Back to this General Kharzin,” Tucker said.
“Since we are done with the lies,” Bukolov said, “I do know him. Not personally, just by reputation. I’m sorry. I do not trust people easily. It took me many months before I even told Anya about LUCA.”
“What do you know about him? What’s his reputation?”
“In a word. He’s a monster. Back in the eighties, Kharzin was in charge of Arzamas-16, outside of Kazan. After that military weapons research facility was shut down, its archives were transferred to the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics in Kazan.”
“And then, years later they were moved into storage vaults at the Kazan Kremlin,” Anya added.
“All along, Kharzin was a true believer in LUCA—though his scientists called it something different back then. But he only saw its destructive potential.”
“Which is?”
“What you must understand, the primordial world was once a much harsher place. In its original habitat, such a life-form would have been highly aggressive. It would have to be to survive. If let loose today, with no defenses against it, I believe—as did Kharzin—that it would be unstoppable.”
Tucker was beginning to see the danger.
Bukolov continued. “LUCA’s primary purpose is to hijack nearby plant cells and modify them to match its own, so it can reproduce—rapidly, much like a virus. It has the potential to be the world’s most deadly and relentless invasive species.”
Tucker understood how this could easily become a weapon. If released upon an enemy, it could wipe out the country’s entire agricultural industry, devastating the land without a single shot being fired.
“So how far along are you with this research?” he asked. “You and Kharzin?”
“In the past, we’ve been running parallel lines of research, trying to reverse-engineer plant life to create LUCA or a LUCA-like organism in the lab. My goal was to better the world. His was to turn LUCA into a weapon. But we both ran into two problems.”
“Which were what?”
“First, neither of us could create a viable specimen that was stable. Second, neither of us could figure out how to control such a life-form if we succeeded.”