by Steve Hadden
“I … I don’t know what to say.”
Brayton laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes. I’ve taken the liberty of setting up your new office in Laboratory C. You’re to report there for your first briefing in fifteen minutes.” Brayton stood and extended his hand across the desk.
With her head still spinning, Tori shook his hand. “Thank you,” she heard herself say.
“Congratulations, Tori. I know you’ll be a terrific asset to the team.”
He dropped back into his seat and picked up a memo and began to read, making it clear the meeting was over. She headed to the door, but as she grabbed the brass knob, she turned back to Brayton. He was still ignoring her presence.
“Mr. Brayton?”
Brayton raised his head, looking a little aggravated.
“What?”
“What’s going to happen with my findings on CGT?”
“Don’t worry about that. We already have a team charged with confirming your results. Your job is Proteus 40. Focus on that.”
“Thank you,” she repeated, then left.
In a daze, she weaved her way through the people who were nervously shuffling through documents in the outer office of the suite. She didn’t remember the elevator ride, the trek across the parking lot to the lab, or the strange walk to her new office. She tried to figure out what just happened. Brayton just gave her a great promotion. He never mentioned anything about Reese’s death though: no sadness, no remorse, and no sympathy. On Friday, he seemed ready to fire her, then he had praised her, and now she was leading the next blockbuster cancer treatment team.
She entered her office and dropped her bag. All of her personal items had been moved over the weekend, including her desk. She headed to the conference room for her first briefing. No time for sorting things out right now. Her distrust for Brayton and his motives behind her promotion were secondary. She had more important things to do.
Things like finding the cure for her little brother’s killer.
CHAPTER 17
It was Monday morning and Prescott Rexsen was finally at the top the Rexsen Empire. He sat on the edge of his brown leather executive chair, faced the huge oak desk and, for the tenth time, adjusted the phone, leather blotter, and thirty-inch flat screen, which boldly displayed the Rexsen Lab’s screen saver. He gazed at the view once reserved for his father. The sailboats bobbed in the blue Pacific just beyond Newport Beach Harbor.
Rocking him from his daydream, Priscilla stormed into the office and slammed her purse on his desk. Prescott spun from the window to face her.
“Christ, Pris! What the hell is your problem?” Prescott protested.
She hadn’t planned on starting this conversation red-faced and flustered, but the sight of her idiot brother, seated in her father’s chair and playing king for a day, boiled her blood.
“My problem is David Wellington.”
“What else is new? He’s been chapping your surgically-enhanced behind for years.” Prescott snorted as he chuckled at Priscilla’s expense.
“Keep laughing, you slime ball. We’ll see how you’ll like dealing with him as a member of our trust!” Priscilla wouldn’t take any guff from her older brother. He’d been favored by her father just because he was the only male successor. The human genome had randomly given him the Y chromosome, instead of her. She was smarter and more cunning and he knew it. Now her problem would become his problem, Y chromosome or not.
The smirk left Prescott’s face. “What?”
“You heard me. David asked me for a divorce, from his hospital bed. He’ll get half of everything I have, including my share of the Trust.”
Prescott put his elbows on his desk and cradled his greasy head. More calmly, Priscilla dropped into the side chair.
“So, my dear brother, what do you have to say about that?” The smirk had now passed to Priscilla’s face.
Prescott paused and rubbed his slicked scalp with both hands. In disgust, Priscilla watched the white flakes that fell on the blotter.
“He’s not out of the woods yet. Still in intensive care, isn’t he?”
“He was Saturday night, but I wouldn’t bet against him making it. He’s just survived a jet crash from 26,000 feet.”
She kept the pressure on Prescott. She’d always been able to get him to do what she wanted. Her plan was simple: since divorce would give David half her fortune and the possibility to build his shares to a controlling interest in Rexsen, she need to get him out of the way for good, and Prescott represented means to that end. Priscilla knew all the right buttons to push. While he exuded an air of superiority, she knew the soft underbelly of his armor. He couldn’t stand the reality of his own limitations, especially those reflected in his father’s reluctance to hand him the reigns of the company.
“I’m quite certain you’ll be answering his questions for the rest of your life. I’m sure our father would have loved that. He seemed to favor David.”
Prescott turned a bright red. Priscilla had pressed another button.
“Wellington’s an ass! I’m the son. Not him. The Trust belongs to us and I will run it the way I see fit.” Prescott’s tone turned sarcastic. “Now that our loving father is gone, I’ll make us richer than ever.”
Priscilla continued to play her role well. Acting school was paying off.
“I just don’t know how you’ll do that with David having a quarter of the Trust under his control.”
“Don’t worry about that, little sister,” he said, trying to sound arrogant.
“So you think you’re tough enough do what it takes to get David out of the way? To beat him?”
The hook was baited and she waited for him to bite.
Prescott shot up from his chair and yelled, “You’re damn right I am—with my connections he’ll be done before he knows what hit him!”
Satisfied his warped ego was sufficiently inflamed, Priscilla grinned and waved him off.
“Whatever you say. I’m off to the divorce lawyer’s office anyway. I’ll believe you’ve handled things when I see it.”
Priscilla grabbed her purse and pranced out of the office. She smiled when she cleared the doorway. She had no intention of seeing a divorce lawyer—she wouldn’t need one. After all, she was always the smartest one in the family.
CHAPTER 18
David Wellington dug into Monday’s afternoon meal. The boiled carrots, mashed potatoes, and brown mystery meat covered in gravy were the first solid food he’d had in four days. He was so hungry, finally, that it might as well have been a filet mignon served at 21 Oceanfront in Newport Beach.
For the third time that day, he called his private line at the office. Carolyn always picked up on the second ring, but not today. And why hadn’t she come to visit him? Or anyone from Rexsen, for that matter? Searching for news about his company, he picked up the remote and surfed the business news channels.
Nothing.
He wasn’t sure if his stomach was unsettled by the meal, or by Carolyn’s mysterious absence from her post.
The bang on the door startled David, and Prescott Rexsen slithered in with Patrick O’Reiley, his corporate secretary, in tow. O’Reily avoided eye contact and Prescott stopped at the foot of the bed and stared at David. Prescott smiled, showing his yellow teeth. David knew from the look on Prescott’s face the news was bad, and he braced himself.
Ignoring the pain, David crossed his arms and asked, “Well, what’s up guys?”
“Mr. Wellington, as the head of the board’s executive committee, I regret to inform you that you’ve been voted out of the CEO’s job for Rexsen Labs. Our legal staff will negotiate your severance with the law firm of your choosing.”
“What?” David screamed, and he felt searing heat rush to his face. “What the hell did you just say?”
Prescott kept grinning.
“Look, Rexy boy,” David scoffed, using a nickname he knew Prescott despised. “I was playing this game when you were still having your mommy wipe your ass. I’m still run
ning things here.”
Prescott turned red.
Prescott continued. “You’re fired, you bastard! You and that sorry old man I had for a father can’t freakin’ tell me what to do anymore!”
The asshole is enjoying this. He wanted to deliver the news.
David grabbed the plastic tray and fired it at Prescott. He followed the tray out of the bed and throttled Prescott by his throat.
“I’ll kill you, you little greasy bastard.”
Wellington, well over six foot, hammered the stringy man into the linoleum floor. The nurse stormed in just as O’Reily began to pull David off Prescott, who screamed like a little girl. The two finally got David up and onto the bed, while Prescott sat on the floor and straightened his ruffled clothes. He looked ready to cry.
“What’s going on in here,” the nurse demanded.
A security guard entered the room and helped Prescott to his feet. David glared at Prescott and huffed and puffed to catch his breath, while the nurse straightened the covers.
“Nothing,” he said, with his eyes locked on Prescott. “This asshole was just leaving.”
“You’re lucky I don’t sue you!” Prescott whined.
“Please escort these gentlemen out of here Frank,” the nurse ordered and nodded to the security guard.
“You haven’t heard the last from me,” David shouted as Prescott and O’Reiley left the room. Prescott leaned back in and gave David the finger and shot a mock smile at him. The guard yanked Prescott out of the doorway.
“Now, there’ll be no more of that here, Mr. Wellington,” the nurse said.
David glared at the door, then shook his head. Prescott was a pompous ass. He wasn’t smart enough to get the board to abandon David in favor of Brayton. He must have had help. Now, five days before the planned approval of CGT and a week before Rexsen Labs would go public, Prescott Rexsen, the smelly slinky mouse of a man, whose own father had wanted him on the sidelines, had David’s life’s work in his hands.
But it wasn’t the power or the money that burned the fuse to the anger about to explode inside him. Ever since the plane crash, his reason for living had changed. Now his need to get out of the hospital bed and regain control of Rexsen Labs came from another place. An image of a bald ten-year-old in an Angel’s cap, with her body being ravaged by cancer, gave him his answer. He had a promise to keep.
CHAPTER 19
McGinty’s was the place to go for professionals in Newport Beach. Its low profile and dark glass exterior nestled among the banana palms, birds of paradise, and Torrey pines, gave an air of understated elegance. Its location, just on the outer rim of Newport Center Drive, placed it directly in the path of the high tech professionals and sophisticated financial types who worked in the corporate offices and campuses in the immediate area. Inside, a bevy of framed photographs of public figures hung on the richly-stained walls of the lobby. Deep crimson leather booths, trimmed with brass buttons, circled the long brass railed bar. On any given night, men and women, still wearing their power suits, mingled, dined and drank.
On Monday nights, Tori Clarke and her friend, Kelly, always took the stools at the end of the bar. Tori had sworn-off men since she was seventeen. A summer fling with a ranch hand at her father’s ranch ended in rape. She’d never told a soul. Tori couldn’t trust any man now, and it created a tortured loneliness she filled with work. Six months ago, Kelly’s husband of three years walked out to trade-up to an even younger model. Kelly had worked with Tori for the last three years at Rexsen as a research assistant. While she was a few years older than Tori, her bright eyes, short dark hair and smooth skin made her appear younger. The secluded corner allowed the privacy necessary to discuss anything and keep the suited wolves trolling the bar at bay.
“What’s happening in the CGT section? I’m sure gonna miss you guys,” Tori said.
“It won’t be the same without you,” Kelly replied. “With Reese gone, they shook up the whole team today. Said we needed to focus on the next treatment in the pipeline. CGT was sales’, marketing’s, and manufacturing’s focus now. A few of the team were assigned to do long-term testing, but the rest of us were moved to CGT II.”
Tori sipped her Pinot Grigio, leaned in close and squeezed Kelly’s shoulder.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
Tori couldn’t say much more. She couldn’t talk about her findings regarding CGT, so she bit her lower lip and then took a long gulp of her Pinot. Everything was covered by her confidentiality agreement she’d signed on employment. If she did, she’d be fired and blackballed in the industry.
“What happened to my work? Where did it go?”
Kelly slammed her drink on the dark wood bar and leaned closer to Tori. Her eyes grew wide in disbelief.
“You didn’t hear?” she whispered. “It was all gathered up. We thought you took it with you.”
Kelly nervously flicked her glass with her finger. She seemed worried she’d said something she shouldn’t have.
“Brayton didn’t tell me anything. Just promoted me and told me to get to work immediately on Proteus 40. I haven’t had time to even think about anything else with this new position as director for Proteus. He told me there was a team already assigned to confirm my work.”
“If it is, it must be subcontracted to another lab,” Kelly said, as she took another sip of her drink and eyeballed Tori over the rim of the glass.
“Watch my seat for a minute.” Tori jumped from the stool and marched to the lobby as she dug into her purse. She produced a BlackBerry and dialed Brayton’s number. It was 7 p.m. and she knew he’d still be in the office.
“Brayton,” he answered.
Tori turned her back to the bar and huddled against the wall, so no one could hear her words.
“Mr. Brayton, this is Tori Clarke, I’m sorry to bother you this late.”
“No bother, Miss Clarke. What can I do for you?”
“I just hadn’t heard anything about my work on CGT and was curious how the team was doing.”
“Miss Clarke, that’s no longer your area, and you know we don’t share information unless there is a need to know,” Brayton responded.
“I know Mr. Brayton. Can you tell me anything?” Begging might work, she thought.
“I can tell you this. Your work is being reviewed. The outside lab found one flaw in your method already. Anything else?”
Tori swallowed hard. She couldn’t ask the next question. She knew her work was solid. She’d followed widely-accepted protocols, from the preparation of the DNA samples and isolating the mRNA, right down to the base pairing with the cDNA on the microarrays. There was nothing wrong with her work. Her assistant verified it, and Reese had signed off on it. She didn’t trust Brayton. If he was dismissing her data, he was planning on going forward with CGT. But now was not the time to confront him. She needed time to think.
“No, Mr. Brayton, sorry if my work caused any undue concern.”
Tori tried to remain calm and sound apologetic. She knew Brayton was lying. The phone shook in her trembling hand.
“Not to worry, Miss Clarke, you were just doing your job. Goodnight.”
Brayton hung up and Tori slid the BlackBerry into her purse. She understood the havoc CGT would cause within the human genome if it was not fixed. It would raise the hopes of patients and family members just long enough to make the deadly diagnosis that would follow the treatment by a few months that much more devastating to patients, mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters—and she knew that devastation all too well. She marched back to the bar and stopped behind her chair.
“I gotta go, Kelly.”
“What? We just got here.”
An explanation would require sharing all the facts, and there was no need to pull her friend into to this and risk both their jobs.
“I gotta go now. Sorry, I’ll call you.” Tori threw a twenty on the bar and left.
A man at the far corner of the bar, with a three-day growth, very short brown hair, and
a black T-shirt and leather jacket, chugged his scotch and followed.
CHAPTER 20
The glow from the flat screen monitors was the only light in the warehouse. The alert chirped at 6:32 p.m., indicating the recording device had been voice activated. The jagged pattern on one of the five screens visually displayed every inflection in the voices. The name in the frame on the lower left hand side was Clarke. A man, dressed in black, sat at attention in front of the monitor and slipped on the headphones and listened.
The listening post was buried within the shabby warehouses of Long Beach Harbor. Butch Donovan and his team had manned it twenty-four hours a day. They’d used it for every assignment. Surrounded by the huge cranes and weathered shipping containers stacked three high, its location was unknown to all, except Donovan and three of his men.
Derek Lane, Donovan’s deadliest mercenary who led the surveillance on Clarke, listened closely to the conversation between Tori and Kelly at McGinty’s, and then he clicked the play button on the second screen and listened to the phone call from Clarke to Brayton. He immediately pulled out his smartphone and called his superior.
“Go ahead.” Donovan said.
“Got something you need to hear, boss. Are you close to a secure computer? It’s about eighteen minutes of audio.” Lane reported.
“Yea, send it over.”
Lane clicked the send button.
“What’s up?” Donovan asked.
“Clarke met with a coworker from the old CGT team. Asked about follow-up on her work. Clarke called Brayton and I think he gave her the slip. She sounded like she believed she made a mistake in her data, ashamed and all that.”
“Awe, shit! She called Brayton? Uh, I’m opening the file now. Let me listen to it.”
“Affirmative. I’ll standby for your call back.” Lane ended the call and sat silently in the darkness.
Butch Donovan, a massive muscular man, who according to the records of the U.S. government died twelve years ago in Bogotá and no longer existed, was doing what he did best. He had been set up quite nicely by his client in a contemporary three-bedroom home overlooking the Pacific in Laguna Beach. His home office was equipped with state of the art surveillance equipment. His three computers were connected through a secure line. His client had spared no expense in ensuring he had the tools to track their targets and take whatever action was required to ensure their control of Rexsen Labs. He clicked the icon on his screen, and he turned his ear to the speaker and listened to Tori’s voice above the din of the bar crowd.