Bleeding in the Eye of a Brainstorm

by George C. Chesbro

  "Yeah, yeah, I'm a regular Mother Teresa."

  "And now you're making this totally absurd request, trying to drop this particular little job in my lap because it has to be done, and you can't think of anybody else who can do it."

  "Yep."

  "Give me the capsule," Kramer said, picking up the printout with one hand and holding out the other. "I'll see what I can do. I should know within a day or two if I have any chance of success, and I'll let you know if the answer is negative. I won't keep you in suspense."

  I handed him the capsule, resisting the strong impulse to throw my arms around his shoulders and kiss him. "People who accede to my totally absurd requests are granted permission to call me Mongo."

  "I'll think on it, Frederickson."

  "I haven't told you about the potential payoff—assuming, that is, you don't end up in prison."

  "You said you couldn't pay me."

  "I said I couldn't pay you a fraction of what the work is worth. If you're successful, I think the work could be worth millions. In addition to being very wealthy, you just might get back your career and reputation."

  He stared at me for some time, then said quietly, "Explain how I might get back my career and reputation."

  I smiled. "You mean as opposed to the millions I mentioned? You don't need that kind of spare change?"

  "Obviously, Frederickson, you've never been totally humiliated and virtually destroyed because of your own stupidity. I don't need millions of dollars; I need a chance to take off the dunce's cap I put on myself. I need not to be a fool."

  "I've been humiliated, Bailey, and I've been a fool on more than a few occasions. I hear what you're saying."

  "Tell me."

  "There are probably generic equivalents to all of the prescription drugs in this compound, so patents aren't a problem. But the unidentified drug is the engine that really drives this witch's brew. The people who designed, manufactured, and tested it weren't interested in helping schizophrenics to function normally; their only interest was in some bizarre side effects caused by the medication. Right now, your only concern is replicating the drug exactly as it is within the next two and a half weeks to allow the patients to live long enough for some researcher to come up with a safe substitute. That's in the future, and I could be looking at that researcher. The point is that, even with its toxicity and deadly side effects, to call the medication inside that capsule a wonder drug would be a gross understatement. I've seen how quickly and powerfully it works, and I think it's nothing short of downright stone miraculous. People who were hopelessly mad become sane and able to function normally. It's far and away more effective than anything on the market, and for all we know it may be useful in treating other kinds of psychoses. But it will have to be reformulated to make it safer before it can be submitted for FDA approval and human testing. Get me a batch of the original replicated, and then you can work on that reformulation at your leisure. Believe me, the people who designed that drug have never been in any patent office, and they're not going to follow you into one. They won't be looking to take any credit, and if I have my way they'll be spending the rest of their lives in prison."

  "Interesting," Kramer said in a mild tone.

  "I'm glad I've piqued your curiosity."

  "This drug sounds like something the CIA would dream up."

  He'd surprised me. "Why do you say that?"

  "The CIA is always nosing around academia. They like to keep up with the latest research in chemistry, pharmacology, psychology—all sorts of areas. You'd be amazed at how much academic research is totally funded by the CIA, although they're almost never up front about it."

  "I wouldn't be amazed at all."

  "You're in danger, aren't you?"

  There didn't seem to be much sense in denying it. "Ah, well, you know how it goes, Bailey. Mongo's the name, danger's my game."

  "I'm serious. I've had dealings with these people, probably turned down close to two dozen research grants for odd jobs they wanted me to do. They're very strange."

  "Tell me about it. My safety isn't your concern, Bailey. And you should be safe as long as you lie low while you're working on this, and don't talk to anybody else about what you're doing."

  "You don't have to worry about that." He paused, lowered his gaze, then added softly, "Thanks."

  "For what? Giving you the chance to get sent to prison?"

  He looked back into my face, said, "For having the chutzpah to come to me with this totally absurd request."

  "You can do it, Bailey."

  "I don't need a pep talk, Frederickson," he said with a wry smile as he put the capsule in his pocket, picked up the computer printout, and rose to his feet.

  "When will I hear from you?"

  "When I have something to say. I told you I'd let you know in a day or two if I won't be able to do it."

  "Call or fax me with a list of everything you need—amount of lab space, equipment, materials, general expenses, whatever. The phone and fax numbers are on the printout."

  "Sure. I'm not doing this for the potential payoff, Frederickson— not the potential profits from marketing a safe version of the drug, and not even for the chance to get my old life back. At least, those aren't the major reasons."

  "I don't care why you're doing it, Bailey. I'm grateful to you."

  "Maybe your reasons are good enough for me; I'd like to save these people's lives."

  "It wouldn't surprise me at all."

  "I'll be in touch," he said, then turned and walked away.

  Chapter 10

  Step Six.

  With MacWhorter on Punch and Judy's case, Veil and his students safeguarding my charges, and Bailey Kramer at work trying to replicate the drug, I had breathing room to go off on another tack. As a result of our recent work on an industrial espionage case in the prescription drug business, Garth and I had made a lot of contacts in the pharmaceuticals industry. I figured it couldn't hurt to do a little poking around in a few executive suites to see if I might not be able to get a lead on what company had been playing Igor to the CIA's Dr. Frankenstein.

  Since there were upwards of a hundred drug companies that had corporate headquarters or major branch offices in New York, and since my time was severely limited, to say the least, I decided to start at the top with Lorminix, the biggest drug and chemical company of them all, a giant cartel with corporate headquarters in Berne and its largest distribution outlet and branch office in New York. In addition to the logic of starting with the largest researcher, designer, and manufacturer of pharmaceuticals in the world, with sensitive, up-to-date information on just about everything that was going on in the business, I had another reason for going first to Lorminix; I had a personal relationship with the vice president for North American Operations, Peter Southworth. Not only had I worked with Southworth on the industrial espionage investigation, but we had served together on the board of directors of the Bronx Zoo, which housed a certain animal in which I had an intense personal interest.

  I considered Peter an interesting man—not exceptionally bright, but good-hearted, and with the strength of character to fend off the bitterness that I was certain he must feel, and which could have twisted his life if he had allowed it. His grandfather had founded Lorminix, and his family had run it up until the time of his father's death, when control had passed to Peter. Peter had simply lacked the vision, marketing skills, toughness, or whatever it was that was needed to run such a gigantic enterprise. Whatever the reason, in a relatively short time he had just about run the company into the ground before it had been acquired by a team of European businessmen in a leveraged buyout that had brought Peter millions of dollars and a lifetime sinecure, but on the payroll of a company that was no longer his. He had immediately been shunted off to New York, and it was widely known in the industry that he was nothing more than a figurehead, even in his own office. The fact that he had so much money, a great deal of which he gave away through various philanthropic foundations he had set up, coul
d not erase the fact that he had lost the family business, and been branded an incompetent. Unless there was something about his personal situation or contract I didn't know about, I frankly couldn't understand why he remained where he was. A very wealthy man like Peter Southworth can find a lot of better things to do with his time and money than sit around a plush office on sufferance. Like start another business, or, through investment capital, buy his way to an executive position of real power with another company. Maybe he was just gun-shy, or possibly gutted. The long knives of big-time capitalism will do that to a man. In any case, it was none of my business. I liked the guy, and felt sorry for him. I hoped he could be useful.

  I'd made an appointment, and I was immediately ushered into his palatial office by his secretary the moment I arrived. The secretary left, but reappeared with coffee and croissants before I'd barely had time to shake Peter's hand and settle down on the plush, butter-soft brown leather sofa he'd motioned me onto, and which stretched along the entire length of one of the walls in his office.

  "Mongo the Magnificent!" the lanky executive exclaimed, slapping me on the back as he sat down next to me on the sofa. He was wearing a thousand-dollar Armani suit and three-hundred-dollar wing-tip shoes, a wardrobe that clashed somewhat with the gold hoop earring he wore in his left earlobe and his long, graying brown hair which he wore in a ponytail, probably some kind of statement he was trying to make that had nothing to do with fashion. "It's good to see you, my friend. How the hell are you?"

  "It's good to see you, Peter, and I'm doing fine. You look well."

  "I am. We miss you at the zoo's board meetings. They just aren't the same without you. Too damn stuffy; not zooey enough, in a manner of speaking. Why did you resign?"

  "I just didn't have the time to spare any longer."

  I also didn't have the time to sit around all afternoon chatting with Peter Southworth, something I was quite certain he would be happy to do, since there was very little real work or decision making his bosses in Berne let him handle. In order to expedite the point of my visit, I took the last of the black-and-yellow capsules I had appropriated from Margaret's supply, one I would at least be able to return, and set it down in the center of the glass-topped coffee table in front of us. "Peter," I continued, "I was hoping you might be able to help me on a very important matter I'm working on. Have you ever seen a capsule that looks like this? It looks larger than average to me, and I don't recall ever seeing a medication that was packaged in black-and-yellow. I thought a pharmaceuticals man might have. Is there anything you can tell me about this? I'm looking for the manufacturer."

  He stared at the capsule on the glass for what seemed to me an inordinate length of time, almost as if he couldn't quite manage to focus on it. It seemed an odd reaction; the capsule was unusual enough so that it seemed to me he would recognize what it was immediately, or not. Finally he looked back at me, said quietly, "I don't think I can help you, Mongo."

  And that seemed an odd choice of words. I couldn't help but notice two things: he hadn't really answered my question, and a furrow had appeared on his brow. Peter Southworth was a naturally cheerful and open man whose emotions were transparent, and at the moment he definitely looked worried. "Well, I guess you'd certainly know if it had been manufactured by Lorminix, wouldn't you?" I said carefully, watching his face. "I was just hoping you could steer me to the company that did make it. This is very important, Peter. Otherwise, I wouldn't be taking up your time."

  He abruptly rose from the sofa, went across the room, and sat down behind his enormous desk, turning his back to me. I could hear his fingers nervously drumming on the oak desktop. "How important is very important?" he asked in a tone that had suddenly become curt and distant.

  My heartbeat began to race, and I felt a tightening in my stomach and the muscles across my back that had nothing to do with the treatment Punch and Judy had recently entertained me with. "As important as anything ever gets, Peter. Life and death important. That is not an exaggeration. People are going to die if I can't get more of this stuff, soon, and its main component is known only to the people who make it. It's a very powerful psychotropic, an experimental drug that was being tested on schizophrenics. The researchers who were doing the work dropped the ball on the project. They abandoned their test subjects, and these people have only a very limited supply of the medication left. The drug changes blood chemistry. Once a person goes on it, he can't go off. To do so causes a severe allergic reaction that includes cellular collapse and imminent death. There is no known substitute. It's a complicated story, but the bottom line is that all records have been lost, and nobody seems to know who made the stuff. The patients whose lives depend on this medication don't have much time left, and I have to contact the manufacturer in order to get a fresh supply. That's how important it is. Now, can you help me?"

  The man whose back was turned to me drummed his fingers some more, then said, "The sons of bitches. Fuck them."

  Feeling a little light-headed, I rose from the sofa, walked around the coffee table and over to his desk. "Uh, Peter . . . just what sons of bitches would we be fucking here?"

  "Those pinstriped pricks in Switzerland!" he snapped as he abruptly swung around in his chair to look at me. There was a grim expression on his face. "There was a woman in here earlier talking about a capsule just like that one. Actually, there were two women, but one did all the talking."

  I stiffened and swallowed hard. My mouth had suddenly gone very dry. "Earlier today like when, Peter?"

  He glanced at his elegant and very expensive watch. "About three hours ago, just before lunch. They'd left just before you called."

  "What was the name of the woman who did all the talking?"

  "She said her name was Dr. Jane Knowlton, or Nolte, or something like that. She didn't show me a business card, so I can't remember exactly."

  "What did she look like?"

  "Very attractive—pretty short, great legs. Blond hair cut short, green eyes, great teeth. She'd called in the morning, told my secretary she was a psychiatrist involved in a research project studying psychotropic drugs. She wanted to know if I would agree to talk to her for a few minutes. I said I'd see her at eleven-thirty. But the minute she walked in here, I knew there was something not quite right about the situation."

  "Like what?"

  "For one thing, the woman she brought with her. She wasn't much more than a kid, maybe in her early twenties. She had long black hair and these really big brown eyes she kept staring at me with. The shrink introduced her as Roberta something, her research assistant. She was real skinny, downright anorexic. I don't think she was any research assistant."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "For openers, she didn't take any notes—didn't even have anything to write on. She just didn't have the air about her of a professional. She never said a word, just kept staring at me with those spooky eyes. She was real skittish, looked like she was ready to jump out of her skin at any moment. Every once in a while she'd squint and shake her head a little, like she might have some kind of nervous disorder. The blonde did all the talking, asked all the questions, and every now and then she'd glance over at the one with the big eyes, and the kid would nod. Then the blonde would start asking questions again. It was kind of bizarre, and to tell you the truth, I was sorry I'd let them into my office without having my secretary first make some calls to check on the shrink's credentials. You had to have been there. They both made me nervous right off the bat. I'm kind of an easygoing guy, but I think I'm going to have to start being more careful about salesmen, or anybody else, I let just walk in here. Sometimes I forget what I'm worth, and one day I'm liable to find a gun in my face."

  "What kinds of questions did the blonde ask?"

  "Well, she began by changing her story right off the bat. She showed me a capsule just like that one over on the table, and she asked me the same question you did—if I knew who'd made it. She said it came from a bad batch of drugs the manufacturer had supplied to so
me mental health clinic in the city. People were getting sick from the drug. Records had been misplaced, and nobody could identify the supplier, so she was working with one of the city's mental health agencies to track down the manufacturer. Well, the story was preposterous. The city keeps multiple records of all its pharmaceuticals suppliers, and if there really had been some kind of emergency involving a tainted drug, I would have been visited by somebody with a badge who wouldn't have had to lie his or her way into my office."

  "Did you tell her you didn't believe her story?"

  "Nope. I wasn't about to confront two strange women who might turn out to be drug addicts or loonies. Besides, I could see she was afraid—both of them looked scared. And I did believe her when she said it was very important, at least to her, that she find the manufacturer. She said it was a matter of life and death, just like you did. She also said she didn't have much time. By now she was almost pleading, and she actually had tears in her eyes. She said she'd already made inquiries at a couple of dozen other companies, and nobody had been able to help her. Anyway, I'd never seen a capsule like that one, with no markings whatsoever, and I was kind of curious myself. I told her Lorminix didn't make the drug, whatever it was, which was the truth; or at least I thought so at the time. Then she asked—virtually begged—for my help, asked if I would make inquiries for her. She said she couldn't give me the capsule itself, but she'd made enlarged color photographs of it, and she wanted to leave one with me. By that time all I wanted was to get the two of them out of my office, so I took the photograph and told her I'd look into it."

  "How were you supposed to contact her if you found out anything?"

  "I was supposed to call her. She wrote down a phone number on the back of the photograph."