Chasing the Dime (2002)

by Michael Connelly

  By 9 A.M. he was back in the lab. Larraby and Grooms were there and the other techs were trickling in. There was an electricity in the lab. Everyone was catching the vibe and was excited about the presentation.

  Brandon Larraby was a tall and thin researcher who liked the convention of wearing a white lab coat. He was the only one at Amedeo who did. Pierce thought it was a confidence thing: look like a real scientist and you shall do real science. It didn't matter to Pierce what Larraby or anyone else wore as long as they performed. And with Larraby there was no doubt that the immunologist had done so. Larraby was a few years older than Pierce and had come over from the pharmaceutical industry eighteen months before.

  Sterling Grooms had been with Pierce and Amedeo Technologies the longest of any fulltime employee. He had been Pierce's lab manager through three separate moves, starting at the old warehouse near the airport where Amedeo was born and Pierce had built the first lab completely by himself. Some nights after a long shift in the lab the two men would talk about those "old days" with a nostalgic reverence. It didn't matter that the old days were less than ten years before. Grooms was just a couple years younger than Pierce. He had signed on after completing his post-doc at UCLA. Twice Grooms was wooed by competitors but Pierce had kept him by giving him points in the company, a seat on the company's board of directors and a piece of the patents.

  At 9:20 the word came from Charlie Condon's assistant: Maurice Goddard had arrived.

  The dog and pony show was about to begin. Pierce hung up the lab phone and looked at Grooms and Larraby.

  "Elvis is in the building," he said. "Are we ready?"

  Both men nodded to him and he nodded back.

  "Then let's smash that fly."

  It was a line from a movie that Pierce had liked. He smiled. Cody Zeller would have gotten it but it drew blanks from Grooms and Larraby.

  "Never mind. I'll go get them."

  Pierce went through the mantrap and took the elevator up to the administration level.

  They were in the boardroom. Condon, Goddard and Goddard's second, a woman named Justine Bechy, whom Charlie privately referred to as Just Bitchy. She was a lawyer who ran interference for Goddard and protected the gates to his investment riches with a lumbering zeal not unlike a 350-pound football lineman protecting his quarterback. Jacob Kaz, the patent attorney, was also seated at the large, long table. Clyde Vernon stood off to the side, an apparent show of security at the ready if needed.

  Goddard was saying something about the patent applications when Pierce walked in, announcing his presence with a loud hello which ended conversation and drew their eyes and then their reactions to his damaged face.

  "Oh, my gosh," exclaimed Bechy. "Oh, Henry!"

  Goddard said nothing. He just stared and had what Pierce thought was a small, bemused smile on his face.

  "Henry Pierce," Condon said. "The man knows how to make an entrance."

  Pierce shook hands with Bechy, Goddard and Kaz and pulled out a chair across the wide, polished table from the visitors. He touched Charlie on the expensively suited arm and looked over at Vernon and nodded. Vernon nodded back but it seemed to cost him something to do so. Pierce just didn't get the guy.

  "Thank you so much for seeing us today, Henry," Bechy said in a tone that suggested he had volunteered to keep the meeting set as scheduled. "We had no idea your injuries were so serious."

  "Well, it's no problem. And it looks worse than it is. I've been back in the lab and working since yesterday. Though I'm not sure this face and the lab go together too well."

  No one seemed to get his awkward Frankenstein reference. Another swing and a miss for Pierce.

  "Good," Bechy said.

  "It was a car accident, we were told," Goddard said, his first words since Pierce's arrival.

  Goddard was in his early fifties with all of his hair and the sharp eyes of a bird that had amassed a quarter billion worms in his day. He wore a crème-colored suit, white shirt and yellow tie and Pierce saw the matching hat on the table next to him. It had been remarked in the office after his first visit that Goddard had adopted the visual persona of the writer Tom Wolfe. The only thing missing was the cane.

  "Yes," Pierce said. "I hit a wall."

  "When did this happen? Where?"

  "Sunday afternoon. Here in Santa Monica."

  Pierce needed to change the subject. He was uncomfortable skirting the truth and he knew Goddard's questioning wasn't casual or concerned conversation. The bird was thinking about ponying up 18 million worms. His questions were part of the due diligence process. He was finding out what he was possibly getting into.

  "Had you been drinking?" Goddard asked bluntly.

  Pierce smiled and shook his head.

  "No. I wasn't even driving. But I don't drink and drive anyway, Maurice, if that's what you mean."

  "Well, I am glad you are okay. If you get a chance, could you get me a copy of the accident report? For our records, you understand."

  There was a short silence.

  "I'm not sure I do. It had nothing to do with Amedeo and what we do here."

  "I understand that. But let's be frank here, Henry. You are Amedeo Technologies. It is your creative genius that drives this company. I've met a lot of creative geniuses in my time. Some I would put my last dollar behind. Some I wouldn't give a buck to if I had a hundred."

  He stopped there. And Bechy took over. She was twenty years younger than Goddard, had short dark hair, fair skin and a manner that exuded confidence and one-upsmanship.

  Even still, Pierce and Condon had agreed previously that she held the position because they believed she had a relationship with the married Goddard that went beyond business.

  "What Maurice is saying is that he is considering a sizeable investment in Amedeo Technologies," she said. "To be comfortable doing that, he needs to be comfortable with you. He has to know you. He doesn't want to invest in someone who might be a risk taker, who might be reckless with his investment."

  "I thought it was about the science. The project."

  "It is, Henry," she said. "But they go hand in hand. The science is no good without the scientist. We want you to be dedicated and obsessed with the science and your projects.

  But not reckless with your life outside the lab."

  Pierce held her eyes for a long moment. He suddenly wondered if she knew the truth about what happened and about his obsessive investigation of Lilly Quinlan's disappearance.

  Condon cleared his throat and cut in, trying to move the meeting forward.

  "Justine, Maurice, I am sure that Henry would be happy to cooperate with any kind of personal investigation you would like to conduct. I've known him for a long time and I've worked in the ET field for even longer. He is one of the most levelheaded and focused researchers I've ever come across. That is why I am here. I like the science, I like the project and I'm very comfortable with the man."

  Bechy broke away from Pierce to look at Condon and nod her approval.

  "We may take you up on that offer," she said through a tight smile.

  The exchange did little to erode the tension that had quickly enveloped the room. Pierce waited for somebody to say something but there was only silence.

  "Um, there's something I should probably tell you then," he finally said. "Because you'll find out anyway."

  "Then just tell us," Bechy said. "And save us all the time."

  Pierce could almost feel Charlie Condon's muscles seize up under his thousand-dollar suit as he waited for the revelation he knew nothing about.

  "Well, the thing is . . . I used to have a ponytail. Is that going to be a problem?"

  At first the silence prevailed again but then Goddard's stone face cracked into a smile and then laughter came from his mouth. It was followed by Bechy's smile and then everybody was laughing, including Pierce, even though it hurt to do so. The tension was broken. Charlie balled a fist and knocked on the table in an apparent attempt to accentuate the mirth. The response far exc
eeded the humor in the comment.

  "Okay, then," Condon said. "You people came to see a show. How about we go down to the lab and see the project that is going to win this comedian here a Nobel Prize?"

  He put his hands on the front and back of Pierce's neck and acted as though he were strangling him. Pierce lost his smile and felt his face getting red. Not because of Condon's mock strangulation, but because of the quip about the Nobel. Pierce thought it was uncool to trivialize so serious an honor. Besides, he knew it would never happen. It would never be awarded to the operator of a private lab. The politics were against it.

  "One thing before we go downstairs," Pierce said. "Jacob, did you bring the nondisclosure forms?"

  "Oh, yes, right here," the lawyer said. "I almost forgot."

  He pulled his briefcase up from the floor and opened it on the table.

  "Is this really necessary?" Condon asked.

  It was all part of the choreography. Pierce had insisted that Goddard and Bechy sign nondisclosure forms before entering the lab and viewing the presentation. Condon had disagreed, concerned that it might be insulting to an investor of Goddard's caliber. But Pierce didn't care and would not step back. His lab, his rules. So they settled on a plan in which it would appear to be an annoying routine.

  "It's lab policy," Pierce said. "I don't think we should deviate. Justine was just talking about how important it is to avoid risks. If we don't —"

  "I think it is a perfectly good idea," Goddard said, interrupting. "In fact, I would have been concerned if you had not taken such a step."

  Kaz slid two copies of the two-page document across the table to Goddard and Bechy. He took a pen out of his inside suit pocket, twisted it and placed it on the table in front of them.

  "It's a pretty standard form," he said. "Basically, any and all proprietary processes, procedures and formulas in the lab are protected. Anything you see and hear during your visit must be held in strict confidence."

  Goddard didn't bother reading the document. He left that to Bechy, who took a good five minutes to read it twice. They watched in silence and at the end of her review she silently picked up the pen and signed it. She then gave the pen to Goddard, who signed the form in front of him.

  Kaz collected the documents and put them in his briefcase. They all got up from the table then and headed toward the door. Pierce let the others go first. In the hallway as they approached the elevator, Jacob Kaz tapped him on the arm and they delayed for a moment behind the others.

  "Everything go okay with Janis?" Kaz whispered.

  "Who?"

  "Janis Langwiser. Did she call you?"

  "Oh. Yeah, she called. Everything's fine. Thank you, Jacob, for the introduction. She seems very capable."

  "Anything else I can do?"

  "No. Everything is fine. Thank you."

  The lab elevator opened and they moved toward it.

  "Down the rabbit hole, eh, Henry?" Goddard said.

  "You got that right," Pierce replied.

  Pierce looked back and saw that Vernon had also held back in the hallway and had apparently been standing right behind Pierce and Kaz as they had spoken privately. This annoyed Pierce but he said nothing about it. Vernon was the last one into the elevator. He put his scramble card into the slot on the control panel and pushed the B button.

  "B is for basement," Condon told the visitors once the door closed. "If we put L in there for lab, people might think it meant lobby."

  He laughed but no one joined him. It was a nice piece of worthless information he had imparted. But it told Pierce how nervous Condon was about the presentation. For some reason this made Henry smile ever so slightly, not enough to hurt. Condon might lack confidence in the presentation but Pierce certainly didn't. As the elevator descended he felt his energy diametrically rise. He felt his posture straighten and even his vision brighten. The lab was his domain. His stage. The outside world might be dark and in shambles. War and waste. A Hieronymus Bosch painting of chaos. Women selling their bodies to strangers who would take them and hide them, hurt and even kill them. But not in the lab. In the lab there was peace. There was order. And Pierce set that order. It was his world.

  He had no doubts about the science or himself in the lab. He knew that in the next hour he would change Maurice Goddard's view of the world. And he would make him a believer. He would believe that his money was not going to be invested so much as it was going to be used to change the world. And he would give it gladly. He would take out his pen and say, Where do I sign, please tell me where to sign.

  28

  They stood in the lab in a tight semicircle in front of Pierce and Larraby. It was close quarters with the five visitors plus the usual lab crew trying to work. Introductions had already been made and the quick tour of the individual labs given. Now it was time for the show and Pierce was ready. He felt at ease. He never considered himself much of a public speaker but it was a lot easier to talk about the project in the comfort of the lab in which it was born than in a theater at an emerging-technologies symposium or on a college campus.

  "I think you are familiar with what has been the main emphasis of the lab work here for the last several years," he said. "We talked about that on your first visit. Today we want to talk about a specific offshoot project. Proteus. It is something sort of new in the last year but it is certainly born of the other work. In this world all the research is interrelated, you could say. One idea leads to another. Sort of like dominoes banging into each other. It's a chain reaction. Proteus is part of that chain."

  He described his long-running fascination with the potential medical/biological applications of nanotechnology and his decision almost two years earlier to bring Brandon Larraby on board to be Amedeo's point man on the biological issues of this pursuit.

  "Every article you read in every magazine and science journal talks about the biological side of this. It's always the hot point topic. From the elimination of chemical imbalances to possible cures for blood-carried diseases. Well, Proteus does not actually do any of these things. Those things and that day are still a long way off. Not science fiction anymore but still in the distance. Instead, what Proteus is, is a delivery system. It is the battery pack that will allow those future designs and devices to work inside the body.

  What we have done here is create a formula that will allow cells in the bloodstream to produce the electric impulses that will drive those future inventions."

  "It's really a chicken-and-egg question," Larraby added. "What comes first? We decided that the energy source must come first. You build from the bottom up. You start with the engine and to it you add the devices, whatever they might be."

  He stopped and there was silence. This was always expected when a scientist attempted to build a word bridge to the non-scientist. Condon then jumped in, as he had been choreographed to do. He would be the bridge, the interpreter.

  "What you are saying is that this formula, this energy source, is the platform on which all of this other research and invention will rely upon. Correct?"

  "Correct," Pierce said. "Once this is established in the science journals and through symposiums and so forth, it will act to foster further research and invention. It will excite the research field. Scientists will now be more attracted to this field because this gateway problem has been solved. We are going to show the way. On Monday morning we will be seeking patent protection for this formula. We will publish our findings soon after. And we will then license it to those who are pursuing this branch of research."

  "To the people who invent and build these bloodstream devices."

  It was Goddard and he had said it as a statement, not a question. It was a good sign. He was joining in. He was getting excited himself.

  "Exactly," Pierce said. "If you can supply the power, you can do a lot of things. A car without an engine is going nowhere. Well, this is the engine. And it will take a researcher in this field anywhere he wants to go."

  "For example," Larraby said, "in this
country alone, more than one million people rely on self-administered insulin injections to control diabetes. In fact, I am one of them. It is conceivable in the not too distant future that a cellular device could be built, programmed and placed in the bloodstream and that this device would measure insulin levels and manufacture and release that amount which is needed."

  "Tell them about anthrax," Condon said.

  "Anthrax," Pierce said. "We all know from events of the last year how deadly a form of bacteria this is and how difficult it can be to detect when airborne. What this research field is heading toward is a day when, say, all postal employees or maybe members of our armed forces or maybe just all of us will have an implanted biochip that can detect and attack something like anthrax before it is allowed to cultivate and spread in the body."