Rogue Science

Scientists have made wonderful progress in preventing disease in the past two decades. To take one example, the human growth hormone was scarce and beyond the financial reach of most families with a child that needed it. Scientists were able to insert the genes for making it into the milk producing system of cows. Now ten cows can produce enough human growth hormone to meet the world's annual need.Unfortunately, many scientific advances can be misused. This has happened in the area of gene manipulation. A scientist and a lab technician took the genes that tells the coca tree in Andes to make cocaine and inserted those genes into domestic plants in the US. This enabled those men to make cocaine here and avoid the risks of smuggling it in from South America.Several criminals in the US wanted the lab notebooks that showed the necessary steps for making cocaine here. That put Dr. Susan Goodwin, the lab chief where the two men in the cocaine project had been employed, at risk.When Susan came back from a ski trip, an intruder with a large knife came at her when she was doing her laundry. Fortunately, Susan's hobby was archery and her longbow was nearby. She grabbed her bow and put two arrows into the intruder's chest. He died soon afterward.Susan's lab technician, Tim Benet, and another scientist in the laboratory Carl Boyer were also killed. The violence and death were too much for Susan emotionally, and she felt a need to get away for a while. She chose a resort-hotel in Mexico's Baja California peninsula.To Susan's dismay, there was as much violence there as back in the US. A gangster and his assistant tried to take over the resort-hotel. The gangster's assistant tried to kill the animal livestock in a corral on a local rancho, but the animals killed him. Two kitchen employees, both tortilleras, killed the gangster. The shared danger made Susan and a woman assistant manager of the hotel become close friends. Although Susan was distressed by the additional violence in Baja, she decided it was everywhere and she might as well go back to the US.