Hi-Tech Hijack (21 page)

The following morning the door to Reuben’s room opened, but the guard who entered was not carrying his breakfast.

“Professor Alfonso invites you to have breakfast in his private dining room,” he announced.

Wondering what the meaning of the formal declaration was, Reuben knew there was no room to resist and walked between the two guards along the now-familiar corridor to a door remote from his. One of the guards knocked. Alfonso opened it in a polite gesture, and a woman stood up. They entered a dining room that seemed to be part of a small apartment. The table was laden with all sorts of breakfast delicacies.

“Good morning.” Alfonso and Isabella greeted Reuben so warmly as if he were a dear old friend of theirs who had come to stay.

“I’d like to introduce my wife, Isabella,” said Alfonso. “I’m sure you remember meeting her the first day you came here. This is our private dining room, and we thought it would only be right to have you here in our little apartment so that we can talk about the future in a more relaxed atmosphere.”

“Come, Reuben, take a seat.” Isabella directed him to the chair, fondly stroking his shoulder.

“I apologize for all the unpleasant things I had to put you through yesterday, Reuben. But it was simply a stage we had to go through together before we could move forward. I hope everything has sunk in and that we can now erase all those things from our memories and think of the company future together.”

Reuben was embarrassed by the warm welcome. His head was still weighing him down with last night’s wine and marijuana.

Isabella poured him a glass of fresh orange juice from a frosty carafe. He drank slowly trying to buy some time and recuperate a bit. There were only the three of them in the room. In the adjacent kitchen someone was preparing what smelled like an omelet with lots of onions and mushrooms. There were no guards in sight. A leisurely atmosphere dominated the room, and Reuben wondered whether he was hallucinating or still under the influence or whether all this was really happening. He kept quiet busying himself with buttering a piece of whole wheat toast that was placed in front of him. His eyes scoured the room that had a thick large Persian rug covering most of the floor. Three of the walls were decorated with pictures of landscapes, and on the fourth, a large mirror was mounted. A conscious effort had clearly been made to eliminate the sense of claustrophobia anyone staying for days and weeks in an underground facility might experience. In the corner of the room were two sofas. A small table and soft light from a standing lamp completed the pleasant seating area. Reuben looked at the landscape images trying to think where they might have been taken. A broad river and lush, tropical vegetation appeared in them all. This was no European setting. It looked more like it might be in Africa or South America.
Did our kidnappers take us that far?
He wondered.

“Isabella is not just my wife. She is also a researcher in her own right,” Alfonso said, making no attempt to hide his pride and appreciation of his wife. “She has her PhD in biology from the University of Buenos Aires and has years of experience. Here she heads all the work done at the labs, and it’s thanks to her persistence that we were able to show you Ebocell-Tech’s complete equipment layout up and running in such a short time. “

“He’s exaggerating,” Isabella said, smiling modestly. “We have a whole team here hard at work. I mostly talk.”

“You think first, then you talk. That’s what distinguishes you from others here.”

“Not just that, but ok.” Isabella put a stop to her husband’s flattery.

Reuben, nervous about what to expect next, kept quiet nibbling at his toast. Despite the air-conditioning in the room, he could feel cold sweat dripping down his forehead and quickly wiped his face with a paper napkin.

A cook in a white hat and apron entered the room. He held a sizzling pan that emanated a mouthwatering aroma. The smell of onion and fried egg filled the room, and the cook placed a golden omelet on each one of their plates.

“Bon appétit, everyone,” said Isabella, and she and Alfonso tucked into their plates emitting little sighs of enjoyment at their food as if the whole scene was part of a normal, happy family routine. Reuben, unsure how to react or what to say, decided to keep quiet and join the dining. Having ruined his dinner, he was extremely hungry and began wolfing down his food. He was forced to admit to himself that if it weren’t for the stress he was in, he could have really enjoyed this breakfast. His headache was slowly fading, and he felt his brain was becoming more lucid. His heart rate started to slow back down to normal, and he was beginning to relax.

“Coffee or tea?” asked Isabella after a long silence.

“Coffee please.”

“Milk and sugar?”

“No milk, one sugar.”

“This is excellent Colombian coffee. It is the only kind we can drink, and we have it specially shipped every once in a while.”

Here, I’ve learned something about you
, thought Reuben to himself, and feeling encouraged by the openness shown by Isabella, he asked, “Do you live here all the time?”

“We have a lovely villa in the suburbs, but with the work load, we spend such long days here; it sometimes makes more sense not to bother going home. As you can see, we have quite a nice arrangement here.” She gave him a charming smile.

“Is the city far from here?”

“It’s far enough so that people we don’t want getting here are kept away,” said Alfonso, jumping in to set a clear boundary as to the information he was willing to allow Reuben access to. “Let’s move to the lounge for our coffees,” he suggested and moved to the sofa carrying his mug. Reuben followed him, and Isabella brought the coffee pot and joined them. The cook entered the room and placed a tray of warm South American
alfajores
filled with
dolce de leche
and smelling amazing.

“Reuben, I understand how difficult everything must have been for you yesterday, and I apologize again that we had to put you through that Via Dolorosa,” he said in his thick South American accent. “But please don’t judge us too harshly. We are only the messengers.”

“But I haven’t the slightest idea whose messengers you are.”

“That’s not that important. What’s important is that you make the most of the situation you’ve been caught in.” Alfonso took another sip of coffee then stood up and flipped a switch on the wall. The silent air-conditioning started working more powerfully. Then he returned to the table and opened an elegant wooden box. Cuban cigars, coronas, and half coronas gave out their distinctive aroma that Reuben was already familiar with.

“Alfonso, don’t you think it’s a bit too early for a cigar?” asked Isabella, chiding him.

“Just a half Corona,” he said apologetically like a misbehaved child.

“We really don’t need this stench filling the room first thing in the morning.”

“You know very well darling that the ventilation system will cleanse the room of all smells within half an hour.”

Alfonso lit his cigar ceremoniously and with great concentration ignoring Isabella’s remarks.

“Yes, but it won’t clean your lungs.” She gave up on the argument that seemed to be a daily ritual.

“Help yourself to one Reuben; it’ll change your whole day.” The cigar smell reminded Reuben of all the times he got high with Mickey on his yacht. He had a strong craving for the previous night’s sensation and for a joint.

“To change my day, all that’s needed is a little joint,” he said, attempting a smile and a composed demeanor.

“Don’t tell me you’ve finished them all last night?” said Alfonso. “Mickey sent you a large package, but I thought it would be best if I held on to it and gave you one or two at the end of each day.”

The hint was clear—behave properly and you’ll get your little reward every night, the one you can’t do without, especially under these stressful conditions.

“I have three left,” said Reuben, embarrassed, and he reached hesitatingly to the cigar box with an apologetic glance toward Isabella.

“It’s all right, Reuben.” She smiled at him calmly. “My grudge against the morning smoking I’ll settle with Alfonso another time.”

“Let’s talk a little bit about the international biotechnological industry,” suggested Alfonso while lighting a long cigar match and handing it to Reuben, who had the thick cigar between his lips. “You know the 2000 crisis that blew up the hi-tech bubble almost destroyed the biotechnological industry. In the software and data industries, where development ranges from a few months to several years, they succeeded in completing product life cycles, but not in the biotechnological industry. Its long development periods meant that with the bubble burst most of the venture capital funds never got to see their investments into biotechnology mature and make profits.”

“I’m familiar with the data,” said Reuben as Alfonso showed him a market analysis document laden with numbers and diagrams.

“I’m sure you are, Reuben. It’s no secret. The question is what conclusions can be drawn from it. This industry employs around two hundred thousand people around the world and is currently losing billions every year. The funds specializing in biotechnology have already collapsed and cannot raise any more money. Within three years most of these companies will be penniless. The outcome will be a huge collapse of a significant portion of the industry, which would result in tens of thousands of people losing their jobs.

“Organizations with lots of money outside the field are already taking advantage of the situation and gaining control of related companies at bargain prices in order to join forces and efforts and have a higher probability of success. That’s the case with our innovative company which has enlisted the help of investors from Vaduz to take over your company.”

“Take over means buy, not steal and kidnap!” protested Reuben.

“In this particular case there’s a very simple reason for the chosen course of action and that’s ego. We estimated that Eddie was not going to give up his independence and position leading the company, no matter what. We also estimated you were a more reasonable person and that we would be able to convince you of the logic behind our proposal, which is why we’re talking to you now while Eddie is still in his room waiting. We’re counting on you to help us persuade him.”

“But why kidnap us? Why didn’t you or Mickey try to convince me to sell the company to your investors? If it makes that much sense, you could have persuaded me back in Israel.”

“We urgently require some of your technology. Any traditional negotiations would have taken months which we cannot afford.”

“And you expect us to be willing to cooperate after such a move? You expect us to want to partner with the people you’re working for?”

“We’re not offering you a partnership. Clearly we cannot work together for long. We need you for a month or two during which you’ll hand over the information we need, and then we’ll part ways. We’ll bring you to the same location from which you were taken in Zurich. You’ll have three million dollars each waiting for you in bank accounts under your names, a total of six million for your share of the company. Think about this—three million dollars in your account two months from now! Normally you’d have to work hard for five years before you’d have a product that the market is interested in, and only then begin selling. In a more optimistic scenario, some mega company would be willing to buy you out in three years when it turns out your product can deliver. Then in three years’ time, you would be in the position to sell your share for three million when you can be there in less than three months!”

“If we succeed in developing the cancer-eliminating serum we get a lot more than three million each.”

“But what if you fail? Then five years of work will go down the drain. Think about your life over the next five years. How much five years of wealth and comfort are worth in comparison to the way you’re living now, abstaining and scrimping every day. What we’re interested in is what you already have—the in-depth knowledge you’ve accumulated about the genetic markers of the Ebola virus and the control over the DNA chains of its various strands. That is why we needed to get your entire lab here including all the genetic markers you already got. It’s really that bit of your work we’re willing to pay for. That means you could, if you wanted, take your six million, rebuild your company and continue working on the cancer-eliminating serum. We don’t care about that.”

“Who developed your project up until the part where you got stuck and needed our technology?”

“A significant portion was developed by us in a center not far from here.”

“So you and Isabella are the ones we would have to give our knowledge to?”

“Yes. Other than ourselves, you’ll work with two other young scientists, assistants of ours, and that’s all.”

“And if I sign the papers you need me to sign, what guarantees do I have that the money is put in my account two months from now?”

“Once you sign, the money will be transferred immediately. If you sign today, you’ll be able to see the deposit the day after tomorrow in an account opened by Mickey in your name in a Zurich bank. We’ll bring you the confirmation papers, and you’ll be able to hold on to them.”

“And what about this captivity I’m in?”

“You shouldn’t think of it that way. You should see it more as a mutual precaution for a specific time. After all, we’re giving you the money straight away. What guarantees do we have you don’t change your mind, fly off to Switzerland, and cash it immediately?”