Chapter 4 - THE MONEY BEHIND NORTHSTAR
By noon, my children had nine days and twenty-one hours left according to the estimate that had shattered my life that morning.
By twelve fifteen, I learned my own corporation may have helped create the thing killing them.
I locked myself inside my private office with Marcus, Mara, Dr. Yates, and our chief corporate attorney, Daniel Cross.
Daniel had been with Mercer Holdings for twenty-three years.
He had served my father before serving me.
When I showed him the Northstar documents, his face went blank.
Too blank.
“You know something,” I said.
“No.”
“Daniel.”
“I know the name.”
“How?”
He loosened his tie.
“Mercer Capital invested in several biotechnology funds during your father’s tenure.”
“My father died seven years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Northstar shut down eight years ago.”
Daniel nodded slowly.
“Then the timeline is possible.”
“Possible?”
I wanted to throw him through the window.
“How much did we invest?”
“I would need records.”
Marcus placed a folder on the desk.
“You don’t.”
Daniel looked at him.
Marcus had spent forty minutes with our forensic accounting team.
The answer sat in front of us.
Forty-eight million dollars.
Transferred through three shell investment companies.
Daniel read the figure twice.
“That cannot be right.”
“Why?”
“Because investments over ten million required board approval.”
“Find the approval.”
He opened his laptop.
Five minutes became fifteen.
Finally he stopped typing.
“There isn’t one.”
“So somebody stole forty-eight million dollars?”
“No.”
He looked disturbed.
“The transfers were coded as executive discretionary research acquisitions.”
“Whose executive authority?”
Daniel swallowed.
“Your father’s.”
My father, Harrison Mercer, had built our company from two warehouses into a national empire.
He had also been ruthless enough to make enemies on three continents.
But experimenting on unborn grandchildren?
I refused to believe it.
“He loved Genevieve.”
“He did,” Daniel said.
“He loved the twins before they existed.”
“I know.”
“So why?”
Mara opened one of her mother’s files.
“Maybe he didn’t know.”
She showed me a list of Northstar investors.
Most were numbered companies.
One name appeared repeatedly.
VENTURE DIRECTOR: ELIAS VOSS.
Yates looked up.
“Voss.”
“You know him?”
“He founded Northstar.”
“What happened to him?”
“He disappeared after the shutdown.”
“Dead?”
“No one knows.”
Daniel spoke quietly.
“I do.”
Everyone turned.
My patience vanished.
“You said you barely knew Northstar.”
“I didn’t know the full connection.”
“But you know Voss.”
Daniel leaned back.
“He worked for your father.”
My skin prickled.
“Doing what?”
“Special acquisitions. Medical investments. Technology patents.”
“Where is he?”
“I haven’t seen him in years.”
“Find him.”
Marcus was already moving.
Mara continued studying the records.
“Mr. Mercer.”
“What?”
“Your father’s investment began in 2013.”
“So?”
“You and Genevieve weren’t trying IVF until 2016.”
I understood.
“This wasn’t built around our children.”
“No.”
Yates stepped closer.
“Northstar’s gene program existed before the Mercer embryos. The twins became part of it later.”
“Why them?”
Yates looked uncomfortable.
“Because Genevieve carried an extraordinarily rare mutation.”
“What did Voss call it?”
“Regenerative vascular instability.”
Mara shook her head.
“That sounds contradictory.”
“It was. The mutation damaged blood vessels, but it also caused unusual stem-cell regeneration. Voss believed modified versions could accelerate healing.”
“For what?”
“Cancer. Spinal injuries. Organ damage. Military trauma.”
Military.
Now I understood the money.
“Defense contracts.”
Yates nodded.
“Potentially billions.”
Mara stared at him.
“So they didn’t repair Genevieve’s mutation in the embryos.”
Yates said nothing.
“They modified it.”
Silence.
I crossed the room.
“What did they do to my children?”
“They attempted to preserve the regenerative component while removing the vascular risk.”
“Attempted?”
“At the cellular stage, it worked.”
“Until now.”
“Yes.”
“Why did it wait six years?”
“Puberty-related signaling was expected to trigger instability around age eleven or twelve.”
“They’re six.”
“Something accelerated it.”
Mara’s eyes moved toward the medication records.
“Or someone triggered it.”
Yates looked shaken.
“That’s impossible.”
“Is it?”
She opened another photocopy.
“My mother wrote that NXR compounds activate the modified cells before they suppress them.”
Yates snatched the page.
“Where did she get this?”
“Northstar.”
He read rapidly.
“This was abandoned research.”
“Why?”
“Because early compounds caused runaway replication.”
My heart hammered.
“Is NXR-41B one of those compounds?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
He stopped.
That pause gave me my answer.
Marcus returned.
“We found Voss.”
“Where?”
“Not where you’re going to like.”
“Try me.”
“He’s listed as a strategic adviser to Sable Biomedical.”
Daniel stood so suddenly his chair rolled backward.
“No.”
I knew Sable Biomedical.
Everyone in my company did.
We were scheduled to acquire them in eleven days.
The transaction was worth $6.4 billion.
The deal would give Mercer Holdings ownership of fourteen research laboratories and hundreds of biotechnology patents.
I had personally approved it six months earlier.
“Who brought Sable to us?” I asked.
Daniel’s face had gone pale.
He already knew.
“Board chairman.”
“Victor?”
“Yes.”
Victor Mercer.
My father’s younger brother.
My uncle.
My children’s godfather.
The man who sat beside me at Genevieve’s funeral.
The man who had visited Jonah and Blythe every week since they got sick.
The man who had repeatedly insisted I spare no expense pursuing experimental treatment.
I felt sick.
“Call him.”
Daniel hesitated.
“Now.”
Victor answered on the second ring.
“Lawson. How are the children?”
I looked around the room.
Everyone listened.
“Dying.”
His breath caught.
“My God.”
“Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“Northstar.”
Silence.
Just half a second.
But enough.
“Lawson, where did you hear that name?”
Not what is Northstar.
Where did you hear it.
My hands became fists.
“Come to the estate.”
“I’m in New York.”
“Then get on the jet.”
“I have meetings.”
“Your godchildren have ten days to live.”
He exhaled.
“I’ll leave within the hour.”
“Victor.”
“Yes?”
“Did you know Genevieve was investigating Northstar?”
A longer silence.
“No.”
He was lying.
I had known Victor my entire life.
His lies always came gently.
He believed calmness made them invisible.
It did not.
He arrived at six thirty.
By then Marcus had uncovered something worse.
Genevieve’s phone records from the week before she died had been archived through our family security system.
One number appeared fourteen times.
Victor’s.
He entered the library looking older than his sixty-one years.
His hair was silver.
His overcoat carried melting snow.
He moved toward me.
“Lawson.”
I stepped back.
“What did Genevieve tell you before she died?”
Victor’s eyes flicked toward Mara.
Then Yates.
Then the papers.
“I see someone has opened graves.”
Mara stiffened.
“Answer me.”
Victor removed his coat.
“Genevieve discovered something dangerous.”
“Dangerous to whom?”
“Everyone.”
“My children are dying.”
“I know.”
“Did you finance Northstar?”
“No.”
“Did my father?”
“Indirectly.”
“Did he know?”
Victor looked toward the fireplace.
“At first.”
That answer hurt more than I expected.
“Explain.”
“Your father developed heart failure in 2012.”
“I know.”
“His doctors gave him three years.”
“He lived four.”
“Because Voss treated him.”
I frowned.
“With what?”
“Experimental stem-cell therapy.”
Yates whispered, “My God.”
Victor nodded.
“It worked. Temporarily. Harrison invested because he believed Voss could change medicine.”
“And when did he learn children were being used?”
“Too late.”
“What did he do?”
“He ordered the funding stopped.”
“Then why did the transfers continue?”
Victor looked at me.
“Because I continued them.”
The room became silent.
I stepped toward him.
“Why?”
“Because your father was wrong.”
Marcus shifted closer.
Victor raised a hand.
“Listen before you condemn me.”
“You experimented on my unborn children.”
“I saved them.”
“You stole their embryos.”
“Genevieve had already lost four pregnancies.”
“Three.”
His face changed.
I stared.
“We had three miscarriages.”
Victor said nothing.
“Why did you say four?”
Mara slowly stood.
Yates turned toward him.
Victor’s mistake hung in the room like smoke.
I walked closer.
“What fourth pregnancy?”
He closed his eyes.
“Lawson.”
“What fourth pregnancy?”
Finally, he said it.
“The first one.”
“There was no first one.”
“There was.”
My mouth went dry.
“Genevieve conceived naturally eight months before you began IVF.”
“No.”
“She lost the pregnancy before she told you.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell me?”
“Because she didn’t lose it naturally.”
I could barely hear myself.
“What happened?”
Victor’s voice dropped.
“Voss convinced her the pregnancy could reveal whether the mutation would pass to a child.”
Mara looked horrified.
“What did they do?”
“They conducted prenatal testing.”
“And?”
“There was a complication.”
“What complication?”
Victor stared at me.
“The baby died.”
I grabbed him by the collar.
Marcus pulled me back.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“You knew and sat in my house for years?”
“I was trying to fix what happened.”
“By experimenting on the twins?”
“By making sure it never happened again.”
“Then why are they dying?”
Victor looked toward Yates.
“Because someone changed the protocol.”
Yates stiffened.
“What?”
Victor reached into his coat.
Marcus immediately drew his weapon.
“Slowly.”
Victor removed a flash drive.
“Genevieve gave me this the night before she died.”
“You said you didn’t know she was investigating.”
“I lied.”
“Obviously.”
“She discovered Voss had hidden a second phase of the research.”
“What phase?”
Victor placed the drive on the table.
“One designed not to cure disease.”
Mara whispered, “Then what?”
May you like
Victor looked at the twins’ medical wing through the distant hallway.
“To manufacture it.”
