by Matt Lynn
The Chairman stood in the doorway, beckoning him forward. There was a light tap on his shoulder as he got within range, a feline stroke that made Jack feel like a house pet. 'Congratulations.'
'Thank you, sir,' said Jack. For what? he wondered.
A long, shimmering wooden table stretched through the length of the room, polished until it gleamed, and thick black leather swivel chairs were lined up alongside it. Portraits were hung along the walls. There were two of the Chairman. To the artist, at least, he had hardly aged at all during his long reign at Kizog, although here in real life he looked much older than his depiction on canvas.
The Chairman sat down. 'Miss Ling has joined us,' he continued. 'Temporarily at least. But it'll do. If she doesn't stay, we'll have squeezed her dry in a few months. She can leave then if she wants to. I'm putting her down in the files as someone you brought into the company. Scott will be annoyed, but never mind. You deserve the credit.'
Jack was unsure he had played any role, but decided that credit, no matter how little merited it might be, was always worth storing away. 'I need to talk to you about the counterfeiting issue, sir.'
'Quite so,' said the Chairman.
Jack started to explain, running through his meeting with Fuller. 'I told them I needed to check with my superiors,' he said firmly. 'I'm not convinced it is something Kizog should involve itself in.'
'Really, why?'
'If it backfires in any way, the company could be left in a very embarrassing position.'
The Chairman frowned, and Jack could feel his annoyance filtering across the table. It was uncomfortable. Not working, he thought to himself. 'Breathe a word of this to no one, but there is a major strategic initiative coming up in the next few days,' he said.
'It's vital we keep this counterfeiting business under control for the next couple of months. After that, we can drop it. But for the moment I need you to string the Forum along. Do what they ask.'
'I think I would need protection, sir.'
The Chairman nodded, a look of concern wandering across his face. 'But of course you shall have it, my dear boy. All the protection you need. The company stands right behind you. You know that.'
The Chairman sat back, folding his arms across his lap. His expression was the picture of serenity. 'Comfortable surroundings, don't you think.'
Jack nodded. He sensed that he was losing control of the conversation. 'You'd like me to proceed.'
'It's a very good life.'
His point was clearly made, and Jack already knew what was coming next. Buttons were being pressed in all the right places. The Chairman leant forward across the boardroom table, and patted Jack on the wrist. 'It's all waiting for you. I'd hate for you to disappoint me.'
A pale half-light shone down on the Kizog research library that evening, two tubes of neon casting their dim glow on the strips of grey metal shelving, the black metal desks, and the stack upon stack of thick files and dossiers. Beneath it, only half illuminated, Tara sat alone, surrounded by her files and preoccupied by her thoughts.
It was only a few days now since her meeting with Dr Scott, and three days since her first morning with her new company. Everything has been so rushed, she thought to herself. Too rushed to be sure if I have done the right thing.
He had impressed her, she knew that much. Not personally. He was not an impressive man; he had little presence and no bearing. And his academic record was not overwhelming; very respectable, but not in the very first division. More of a technician than a scientist. And yet ... the amount that he knew was astonishing.
Tara was still trying to get a handle on how much information the company had already uncovered about Ator. She had suspected the laboratories here were on to something. But she had not expected to see her suspicions confirmed so dramatically or so quickly. The company would, of course, have some research underway. In the five years since the new disease had first been isolated and identified it had attracted enormous world-wide publicity; in some of the more hysterical articles it rivalled Aids as the new plague looming over the world. But nobody knew very much about it yet, or so Tara had thought.
The first day at the lab had been spent being shown around and introduced. It was a first impression, she knew, but it had not been good. The buildings were divided up into row after row of small laboratories, each with the same standardised computers and testing equipment. The scientists worked in teams of two or three, mapping out enzymes, or laboriously testing different compounds for their possible medicinal value. The structure was much the same as her old base at the National Institutes, but the spirit was different. There was none of the excitement or the camaraderie; nothing of the shared sense of a mission.
But the library had intrigued her. Not the building, or the range of papers and books stored there. That was all to be expected. But the extent of the work done by Kizog over the years on the central nervous system was more impressive than she could have hoped for. It was an arcane area, explored only sparingly by most of the commercial drugs companies. But here spread out before her was some of the most detailed work she had seen on the complex biochemistry of the nervous system.
There was so much to learn. Some of it she had duplicated in her own research, but much was new to her, and threw fresh light on her understanding. It included some specific work on leprosy, mapping the series of chemical reactions by which it spread through the body. A yellow jotter at her side, Tara was working her way through the papers, her eyes burning into the mountains of papers, her hand scratching notes as she deciphered the implications of what she was looking at. She had been there for two hours already. Tiredness was starting to catch up with her after an exhausting day. She looked up for a moment, dragging her eyes from the pages, glancing around the pale room.
The Chairman was standing ten yards away, leaning against the bookshelves, his eyes cast in her direction. Tara was startled, taken aback, unsure of how to respond. She had been watched by men before, and it was not an experience she enjoyed. She glanced around, sensing that they were alone together, and then looked back towards him. 'You have been watching me,' she said.
The Chairman didn't answer. He lifted his shoulder away from the bookshelf, and sauntered towards her, a slow, sloping and deliberate walk, disfigured by his slight limp. A foot or so away from her he stopped, and rested his hand on her desk. 'I like to watch my researchers study from time to time,' he said. 'It tells you something about them, don't you think? Something about the quality of their minds, and the power of their concentration.'
Tara looked up. 'What can you tell about me?'
'Your concentration is of the highest calibre,' he replied. 'I was standing there for close on ten minutes, and you didn't notice me. Had your mind wandered from the page for even a fraction of a second you would have seen me. But no. An impressive achievement. And you are tired as well. I saw you yawn. Stressed, too, I would imagine. Concentration in those circumstances takes a mind like a laser.'
The Chairman bowed slightly, showing a degree of old-fashioned courtesy that Tara found faintly endearing. He offered her his hand, and Tara shook it. 'I'm glad that you are with us,' he said.
'I'm sure you would manage without me, Sir Kurt.'
The Chairman shook his head. 'Perhaps,' he replied distantly. 'What do you think of all this?'
Tara shrugged. 'Impressive,' she said. 'There is more here on the central nervous system than I would have imagined. And much of it is of a very high standard. There are many things here that aren't in the generally available literature.'
'Perhaps the quality of science here is higher than our reputation over at the National Institutes implies,' he said, his tone inflected with a trace of irony.
'There is much more here on leprosy than I would have expected,' Tara replied. 'More original work, I mean. We have been duplicating each other. There are things I don't understand, though.'
'Surely the chemistry is straightforward enough for somebody of your expertise.'
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p; 'The chemistry is fine,' said Tara. 'But why is work being done here on leprosy? I thought it wasn't a commercial disease, not something that would interest the company.'
'We cover the ballpark,' answered the Chairman softly. 'We look at lots of things that have no immediate applications to any products. As it turns out that work might end up being very useful because of the connections with Ator. Who knows?'
Something buried inside his whisper made her suspicious. 'But why leprosy?' Tara demanded. 'There are hundreds of different diseases to work on.'
The Chairman patted her on the shoulder; his touch was cold and remote, and Tara could feel her muscles twitch under his fingers. She found his presence intriguing, but also slightly threatening. His concern seemed to mask an air of menace. 'Some researcher had a particular interest, I suppose,' he said. 'Probably a sideline.'
Tara looked at him, scrutinising his reactions. 'You did some of this work yourself,' she said. 'At least your initials are on it.'
'My initials?' he asked, his voice betraying his surprise.
Tara lifted one of the pages and showed it to him. The Chairman took it from her and peered at the paper, squinting to read the fine print. The look of concern vanished, its place taken by an expression of avuncular amusement. 'I signed off on everything in that department,' he replied. 'It was a matter of routine. Most of the documents I hardly looked at.'
'It looked as if you had worked on leprosy yourself,' Tara persisted.
The Chairman shook his head. 'The man who did that work has long since departed.'
Tara looked back down at her papers. 'It would have been interesting to hear your views on the disease,' she said thoughtfully.
'It is your views we want,' he replied. 'That is why you are here.'
The Chairman patted her on the shoulder once more, and turned abruptly, walking away from her desk. Tara glanced at her watch. It was just after nine. She tried to look at her papers, but found that her concentration had gone, shattered by the interruption. There was too much information coming towards her, and too little time to deal with it; she needed some space to sort through it. And some time to wonder if the Chairman had been telling her the truth; it was hard to believe he hardly looked at papers he signed. The Chairman did not strike her as a man who did anything casually. Carefully she put the papers in a neat pile, folded her notes into her attache case, pulled on her overcoat and headed out of the buildings. There would be plenty of time for more research in the morning, she decided. And plenty of questions to be answered.
FOUR
The words glimmered up in black lettering against a shimmering blue background from the terminal on Jack's desk. 'Personnel records' it read. 'Access denied.' Jack hammered a key number into the machine. It flickered, and then sprang to life. 'Name requested:...'
Jack glanced up over the screen, checking there was nobody in the vicinity. 'Tara Ling' he typed. 'Secured information – access denied...' responded the computer. Jack pulled out his wallet, and took out a yellow Post-it note with six digits written on it. He subtracted two from each number and keyed it in backwards; the personnel department's code was a useful thing to possess, he thought to himself, and he was grateful Layla had given it to him, even though he had no idea where she had obtained it. But not something you wanted to have found on you.
The numbers disappeared into the mainframe. Within seconds, the file had appeared on the screen.
Name: Tara Ling
Sex: Female
Age: 28
Marital Status: Single Place of birth: Vietnam Ethnic Background: Eurasian
Education: Daytona High School, Ohio, USA; Harvard
Medical School; National Institutes of Health
Publications: 'Leprosy – A Mechanism for Viral Transmission': Journal of Tropical Diseases, 1990;
'Leprosy – A Genetic Analysis': Journal of Genetic Disorders, 1992; 'Leprosy – A Plausible Cure?': Journal of Tropical Diseases, 1994.
Status: Senior researcher
Salary: £80,000
Benefits: Car, house, BUPA membership
Contract: One year, renewable, six months' notice on either side.
Tasks: Secured information – not available for personnel files.
Hired by: Jack Borrodin, special assistant to the Chairman.
Remarks: Memo from Dr Peter Scott to Personnel. 'Ms Ling has been hired by Mr Borrodin to work on a special project he is supervising, but since she is operating in my department she comes under my supervision on personnel matters. No attempt at integration into the corporate culture is to be made with this employee. She has been hired for a specific task and is unlikely to be with us for long. Any problems with her contract or any other matters arising should be referred directly and immediately to myself or the Chairman. Circulate her photograph to security, with the request that any movements by this employee around the plant after 6.00 p.m. be noted and reported to me within twenty-four hours.'
Heavy, thought Jack. Security was tight within the head office, he knew, and nowhere more so than in the laboratories; the company already knew of enough cases of industrial espionage to be aware of its competitors' attempts to penetrate its secrets. But any movements around the plant to be reported to Dr Scott? There was, he realised, much about Tara that still eluded him. Too much. Particularly as the records stated that she was working on a project he was described as supervising. What project? he wondered. Nobody told me.
Time, he decided, to discover more about Ator, and more, as well, about the researchers who had worked on the virus.
Her remark yesterday had taken him sideways. On little more than an impulse, Jack had decided to stop by the laboratories on his way out; he felt he should drop round to thank her for joining the company, and to wish her luck with her research. She had seemed pleased to see him, although surprised when he mentioned that he had been credited with bringing her into the company. 'So that is what special assistants do?' she asked.
Jack felt slightly bashful. 'Suppose I didn't have much to do with it,' he replied.
She shook her head firmly.
'I guess I owe you a favour, then,' Jack continued. 'If you ever want anything, just ask.'
Tara turned back to the lab bench, and started fiddling around with a microscope, pressing her eye firmly into the lens before replying. 'There is something you could do,' she said, without looking up.
'Of course,' said Jack.
'Some of the world's best researchers into Ator are now working in private industry,' she said. 'They are people I might be able to check ideas with, although they work at other companies so it might be delicate. You must have contacts around the industry. Perhaps you could check if they are still working on the virus, and see if you can find out anything about what they are up to.'
After saying good-night, Jack had thought little more about it. Yet reading through the file, he recalled the request. A promise, he decided, was a promise.
Jack made his way down to the library. The place was almost empty at this time of the afternoon; the scientists would be back in their labs by now, and the executives were all at lunch. Just as well, Jack decided. Some privacy could be useful. Who, he asked the librarian, are the top twenty Ator researchers in the world? She seemed briefly nonplussed by the question, and Jack showed his new ID card, a freshly minted strip of electronic plastic that described him as a special assistant to the Chairman. An important project, assigned by the big man personally, he explained. 'I only have a couple of hours.'
She returned a few minutes later, holding a print-out in her hand. 'Based on the number of articles published on the virus in the medical and scientific journals, these are the top people,' she said. 'Of course, this only tells you the quantity of their work, not the quality,' she added.
Jack took the list and thanked her. Back in his office, he scanned through the names, and wondered where to start. Begin at the beginning, he told himself; check whether they are still working at the same companies. Picking up the phone he p
ut a call through to the Bayer head offices in Germany. Speaking in English, he asked for Dr Mechal. In a meeting, his secretary explained. Could she take a message? No, Jack replied. He dialled the next number, this time calling Upjohn in America, and asking for John Talbot. He got through right away, and, on hearing the man's voice, Jack hung up.
After six more phone calls, Jack was starting to feel he was wasting his time. None of these people seemed to be going anywhere, and this was telling him nothing about their research. Try one more, he told himself. The sixth name on the list was David Sunningdale. He was forty-two, and worked as a researcher at Bristol Myers-Squibb in their New Jersey lab. As far as Jack could tell he still worked there. He called the company and asked to be put through. No longer with the company, explained a receptionist. Jack said he was an old acquaintance who was trying to get in touch, and asked if he could have a new number. Sorry, not possible, replied the receptionist. Mr Sunningdale died late last year. Jack asked what happened. It was a car accident, the lady explained. Everybody at the company was very sorry.
Jack hung up.
Five more calls produced fit, healthy and living researchers, none of whom appeared to have changed jobs. He put his next call through to Alicia Thomas at the Genentech research laboratory in California. Thirty-eight years old, unmarried, and a senior researcher at the biotechnology company. She was an expert in the genetic engineering of viruses, one of the best in her field. Kizog had approached her to join them about eighteen months ago, according to a note scribbled on the list. She had turned them down.
No, sorry, the receptionist explained, it would not be possible to put his call through to Ms Thomas. Could he leave a message? Ms Thomas no longer worked with the company. Did she know where she could be contacted? No. It was not possible to divulge that information. Have a nice day. Jack tried the local paper, available on one of the US electronic databases. He keyed in her name and found two stories. The first was about Ator. It described how some cases of the virus had now been detected in the US, and some of the work Genentech was doing in locating the origins of the virus. Thomas was quoted as saying the company was making good progress. The second article was dated from last November. It described her murder. Her body had been found in her eighth-floor apartment in a downtown block about five miles from the lab. The police described it as a burglary. There was extensive damage to the apartment, a few minor items – the TV, the Apple, the hi-fi and the video – had all been taken and there were signs of a struggle. Police officials were saying that there were no suspects so far, but they were still investigating.