The Leaves in Winter Read Free Page A

but dangerous development. The liberation was immediate, the danger only a potential. But in the moment, it was easier to accept the freedom of having Mass out of the Group than contemplate the full scope of the menace he might become.
    In time, the men of The Group settled down. Given the outburst, they agreed they needed to reaffirm their earlier decision. They decided to take a vote – without Mass. The choice was clear. Given what had happened, should they go ahead and implement the 1st Protocol or not?
    Labon voted not to implement.
    He was not in the majority.
     

Chapter 1
     
    Fourteen Years Later, December 7th
    Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm
     
    “So many people!” Riya Basu peered beyond the car’s tinted windows into the shifting chaos made even more surreal by the lingering jetlag from her flight out of Hyderabad . Riya was a slight Indian woman in her early forties with a calm and studied temperament. All of the attention and commotion were unsettling.
    NovoSenectus security agent Malcolm Stowe turned back from the front passenger seat to show Riya his phone. “Never mind that. They don’t compare to all the people waiting to hear you. Look at this; millions are expected to watch the streaming video.”
    Riya glanced at the social networking website and attempted a smile. “Thanks, that’s all I need to think about right now – millions of people watching me.”
    Nighttime was moments away. Riot police stood their ground buttressed by clear shields and black batons. The organized mob of demonstrators jostled back and forth, kicking snow and chanting slogans into a clear but frigid sky. A cadre of activists known only as New Class Order mingled and manipulated the crowd.
    Overhead, news and police helicopters hovered. Search beams shot down, casting fidgety blue-white spotlights. Sporadic clashes turned violent and the first arrests were made. Rumors circulated in the restless swarm; the honored guest was arriving. Peak time had come for agitation and invective.
    Swedish officials were determined to keep the road leading into the renowned medical university open for traffic. The world would be watching all Nobel Prize events but none more than the one taking place today.
    Dr. Riya Basu’s lecture on her breakthrough genetic life-extension therapy was eagerly awaited by the scientific community. Some naysayers claimed her prestigious prize had been awarded primarily because Nobel custom would require her to give a lecture to explain what she had done. Given the military-grade secrecy maintained around her project by corporate benefactor NovoSenectus, this one lecture might be the nearest anyone would ever come to hearing the revolutionary procedure explained in detail – or so they hoped.
    No one knew how much Riya would be allowed to say. The experimental life-extension procedure was not available commercially even though it had been demonstrated with lab animals and trademarked under the corporate label GenLET . What had started out a decade earlier as research into old age was now, depending on which side you took, either the fountain of youth or the harbinger of nightmare scenarios for humanity.
    Adding to the controversy was the reclusive billionaire behind it all. The announcement twelve years ago that Eugene Mass would build his brash but exceptionally private biotech company in India ’s Knowledge Park known as Genome Valley was analyzed suspiciously by some. Why the sudden, massively expensive plunge into pure research, especially biotech? Mass had never expressed any such interest before. It wasn’t where he made his billions. It wasn’t his expertise.
    Moreover, it had been rumored that nearly three-quarters of his net worth was committed to the venture. There were no investors other than Mass so he didn’t have to publicly answer the most basic business question – where was the payoff? To recoup his investment, pundit economists estimated that Mass would have to price whatever