by Mark Davis
“I am going to do this, George,” she said. “And I want you there, to talk me down or hospitalize me if it should turn bad.”
“And you are not going to even tell Lars?”
“Possession of DMT is a criminal act in Norway and Lars is a policeman. I need to protect him from this.”
“Are we even sure what’s in this pill?”
“As you said, Freyja had to have concocted it herself to put DMT in pill form. She gave the same-looking pill to Max and to his roommate, and they both had classic DMT experiences. And besides, tripping people out with DMT is her MO.”
“It could be poison for all you know.”
“All the better reason to have a clinician like you at hand.”
___________
Sandra Armstrong wore a bespoke business suit from a venerable tailor on Nathan Road in Hong Kong, the same family-owned shop that had crafted suits for her male predecessor, a habit she was more than glad to expropriate from someone she had helped stampede into early retirement to clear the way for herself.
Sandra had her suit of merino wool tailored for a snug fit, accentuating her tennis-trained body. She had chosen the fabric for this very meeting, so much like the dark-blue, lapis lazuli rurikon, with accents of white-silk brocade. She hoped it would trigger an association in the mind of her host of a yukata kimono, either subliminally, or as an overt metaphor for cooperation, with just a hint of submissiveness.
The driver of her limo turned a corner and came to a smooth stop in front of a large, modern office building.
“K¯oro-sh¯o,” he said. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in Chiyoda City, the political heart of Tokyo near the Imperial Palace.
“Arigatou gozaimashita,” she said with a slight nod.
A polite young woman was waiting for Sandra at curbside, ready to take her past security and up the express elevator to the office of the Director General of the Health Policy Bureau, Takahito Watabe.
Sandra stepped into the elevator and felt pythons coil in her stomach. Out of a dozen years of research fueled by $2 billion of investment, Therapso’s lab in Switzerland had discovered a magic balance of platinum-based, antineoplastic molecules that had become the basis of the company signature pharmaceutical, a new pediatric that resulted in a 23-percent remission rate in children with certain common types of leukemia, while having the unexpected side effect of reducing the nausea brought on by chemotherapy.
Armed with a blockbuster drug, the Board had sent its best salesperson on the road, Therapso’s own CEO. With a little support from the two Delaware senators, Sandra Armstrong had won FDA approval in half the usual time and got the drug on the schedule in the U.S. The precedent allowed her to clean up in India, roll over the EU, and win over Brazil.
She had saved Japan for the last. Japan was always the toughest negotiator. Sandra hoped that by knocking down all the other bowling pins, Japan would go down easy.
Takahito’s office was as she remembered, with carpet the hue of dried seaweed and light, wood paneled walls. Only Takahito’s large, antique desk of teakwood stained to a blue-black, a mounted samurai sword and several gorgeous Ukiyo-e prints spoke of his taste and cultivation. Everything else in the room, the plaques, awards and honorifics, right down to a photo of Takahito receiving his commission from the prime minister, announced him to be a servant of the people.
As she entered, Takahito smiled warmly, rose from his desk and walked around to face her, his spine aligned exactly with the center of his desk behind him. Sandra bowed and he returned the bow. Takahito offered his hand to shake.
“Watashi o goran itadki arigatogozaimasu,” she said, and shook his hand.
“It is no trouble at all, Sandra,” Takahito said. “I am always delighted to see you.”
They were cordial friends, meeting often at health science conferences around the world. Takahito and his wife had once entertained Sandra with an elaborate dinner at his home.
“How are your children, Watabe-san?”
“They are doing well. My son is thriving in New York and my daughter is engaged to be married. And please, let us not be too Japanese. I am always Taki to you.”
“Thank you, Taki, it is a pleasure to be back.”
There was a moment of awkward silence. Takahito was trying to think of a reciprocal question to ask, but Sandra had no children.
“I hope your many travels have been pleasurable,” he finally said.
“They have, but none so interesting as Japan,” she said. “In fact, after our meeting, I intend to take a ten-day vacation and see the archipelago from stem to stern, so to speak.”
Takahito’s face softened for a moment. He was flattered and a little touched that Sandra’s interest in his country was more than business. He motioned for her to sit in one of the two chairs before his immense desk. An American would have taken the seat next to her. Takahito walked around to sit behind his desk, yanking down on the bottom seam of his jacket to prevent it from bunching.
“So, let us get down to brass attacks,” he said.
Sandra stifled a giggle and replied with a soft smile, “let’s.”
“Our evaluation team has had several months to review the raw data you have provided,” he said. “The randomized tests from FDA conform to the independent findings of the PFSB.”
That was expected, but it was a relief to hear that Japan’s Pharmaceutical and Food Safety Bureau agreed with FDA. A hitch here and negotiations would be near impossible.
Takahito smiled.
“And it further pleases me to say that the process of registration is all but complete. There is no reason why the Health Policy Bureau cannot include your new drug when we announce our new schedule in two weeks … of course, this after we come to terms on the listed price.”
The price list was everything. Every one-percentile deviation from the world price would deny Therapso roughly $30 million in revenue, pure gravy on top of all the other sign-ups.
He named his price and the pythons in Sandra’s gut twisted in agony.
“Takahito … well, that’s … that’s 20 percent off the world price.”
“The Ministry will pay that full amount,” he said, smiling again, as if he were doing her a favor. “And we do not mind paying up front.”
Sandra drew in a breath and steeled herself for combat.
“First, Watabe-san, I am honored that the Ministry has taken our offer so seriously as to conduct your own tests. I was unaware of this and when I inform the Board, they will be immensely pleased.”
Takahito’s formal smile broadened. This gaijin had modulated her tone perfectly.
“They will also be disappointed,” Sandra said.
Takahito nodded thoughtfully. Of course, she had to express this thought.
“In order for us to continue to pursue innovations, we must have a robust return on investment,” Sandra added. “Therefore, as a representative of the Board, I must tell you Watabe-san … with great respect for you and reverence for the Ministry … that Therapso declines this gracious offer and requests that you withdraw our drug from consideration on your schedule.”
A blush rose in Takahito’s cheeks. A corner of his mouth trembled. He brought a fist down on his desk with a bang that resonated off the wood panels around the room. Sandra was prepared for this. She did not flinch.
“Goddammit, Sandra,” he yelled, spittle flying over the middle of his desk, “children will die.” Over the corner of his shoulder, the gleam on his mounted sword seemed to brighten. Sandra guessed that many a bureaucrat had quailed in the face of Takahito Watabe’s strategic outbursts.
“With great respect, Taki, if we degrade the innovation cycle, more children in the future will ultimately die.”
Takahito leaned back in his executive chair, eyelids narrowing.
“This is a big market in a rich country,” he said. “Our price, even at a discount, is worth several Brazils.”
“We a
ppreciate the importance of Nippon to our market. We respect your role as the guardian of the nation’s patrimony. But I am afraid that my response is final.”
“Very well, then,” he said. “You are excused, Armstrong-san.”
Sandra stood up, bowed, and set a newly printed business card down on the broad expanse of Takahito’s magnificent desk.
“What is this?”
Their mutual exchange of cards had taken place years ago. This seemed inappropriate.
“As I mentioned, I will be enjoying your lovely country as a tourist,” Sandra said. “My local cellphone number is on this card. If you have a desire to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to call me, Watabe-san.”
She bowed again and walked out.
___________
“I wanted,” Sandra said, eyes locked onto the computer’s camera, “to make my mark on the world … My own unique success. I achieved it. And the gods made me pay for it.”
Elizabeth froze Sandra Armstrong and regarded her for a moment. The CEO was sitting at a desk, dressed casually, probably in her home study.
As Elizabeth had remembered her from that years-ago conference, she was an impressive-looking woman with a firm jaw line, dark-blonde hair done in a casual style, and large blue eyes that projected intelligence. Sandra had a calm expression, but when her file had been playing, Elizabeth had seen micro-tics around the eyes and slight downturn twists at the corners of her mouth, signatures of disappointment, perhaps self-loathing.
Elizabeth shuddered to imagine what could do such a thing to this utterly self-possessed executive. And to think that this magnificent woman had spent her last night on earth in the hotel bed in Stavanger that Elizabeth had slept in.
Elizabeth put the computer in sleep mode.
Earlier in the day, Elizabeth had reviewed the last statement of Sophia Goddard, the 24-year-old executive assistant. Her message had been brief, something about a search for something greater than this life had to offer. What came through Sophia’s testimony, despite the young woman’s nose rings and colored streaks in her hair and somewhat pretentious manner, was a perfectly ordinary girl who had been crushed by a breakup and humiliated by being pigeon-holed as a mediocrity in school and at work.
Elizabeth had also watched the statement of Mike Drummond, the former PR executive turned outdoor enthusiast. Drummond gave a short, agitated speech about finding God in rocks, water and all living things. The burn in his eyes and pace of his speech were the signatures of someone in desperate need of admittance to care and medication. Elizabeth would tell PIG that of all the victims, Drummond was the only one who displayed signs of chronic mental illness.
The others were reacting to events, not disease. Each had a unique trauma that had made them existentially disappointed with life and with themselves. Ken Woods had been fatally disappointed over how his marriage and career had turned out. For Daryl Parnell, it was the worst of all traumas, the loss of his wife and two sons, and then the alienation from his daughter, Stacie.
Freyja cultivated people of stature who had been brought low. She had a talent for finding and exploiting them.
So far, only Lionel Jacobson stood out as a case that didn’t add up. At least, not yet. Maybe Sandra Armstrong would remain a mystery as well. Elizabeth decided to complete the Armstrong testimony in the morning. She had something else to do tonight.
Before leaving for the day, Elizabeth performed one last analytical task. She scanned Sandra Armstrong’s FBI file on her desk, a copy that Agent Norris had allowed Elizabeth to take with her on the promise that she would shred it.
Sandra had been raised on a farm in Nebraska, accustomed to discipline and chores from an early age, rising to sanitize the milk system, milk the cows and clean the milk parlor hours before dawn. Sandra had disdained the local beauty pageant for 4-H. At age 16, she had won a ribbon for her raising of a prize cow, then another for developing a program that involved residents of a senior citizen home to teach elementary school children how to care for animals in the local petting zoo. The local paper was wowed by her high school valedictory speech.
Sandra went on to earn undergraduate and Master’s degrees in biochemistry at Stanford, then an MBA at Harvard Business School, marketing track. There had been a brief marriage to a British investment banker while working in Hong Kong. The divorce records were spare, no mention of adulteries or abuses, just an apparent lack of passion. Perhaps her husband had realized that Sandra Armstrong was already married to her career.
Elizabeth put the file to the side; there was more to read about legal action against Therapso. She looked at the envelope on her desk, the one that contained the pill.
It was almost time.
She folded the envelope into her pocket, bid Ingrid goodnight—moving fast to avoid an unwanted invitation—and went to a pub for a hamburger. Elizabeth ordered a diet soda instead of a beer. It wouldn’t do to have any alcohol in her bloodstream tonight. But having protein in her stomach was necessary.
It was seven in the evening by the time she finished dinner and walked outside. The sun was still high, but noticeably lower at seven than it been when Elizabeth had arrived in Norway—had it been a month already? She walked for twenty minutes past shops and bars until she came to the entrance of Frogner Park, that vast expanse of green lawns and straight avenues lined with maple trees.
The declining sun inflamed the maple leaves and cast buttery light on the gravel walkways. Elizabeth walked to the Vigeland installation centered around a large rectangle of grass and stone walkways edged by granite walls topped with the artist’s bronze and granite nudes … that truculent toddler, children running, playing, teasing bears and wolves … one man chasing another, beating him on the back of the head … elderly men with hollow chests, sunken cheeks, toothless mouths … elderly women with thin arms and breasts like spent balloons … muscular mothers and fathers rolling babies around their arms and swinging them in the air … a young woman running and playfully pulling her braids in opposite directions …
Ahead was the monumental fountain surrounded by twenty statue-trees of bronze, their narrow, almost tentacle-like trunks capped by bushy leaves with green streaks of verdigris. Human infants grew inside the cavity of dying trees, a woman dove downward from a growing tree, lovers intertwined with determination in mature trees. The larger trees contained more of the elderly and infirm, with the fullest tree of all holding a skeleton.
Elizabeth took a seat on a stone bench.
Her phone vibrated. A message from Freyja.
>I am so glad you are ready to take the next step on your journey<
Elizabeth responded.
>What next?<
>Please download the app I made just for you and play it while you are on your dream journey<
A moment later, George appeared out of the low light, loping between the trees. He sat next to her.
“Circle of life,” he said, “the oldest and most persistent theme. And then there’s that.”
Elizabeth turned to the direction George was looking. Stone steps beyond the fountain rose to a platform that supported the monolith that she had walked around before with Nasrin, a granite totem pole. She took a harder look at it. It was, she had read somewhere, composed of 121 human figures of both genders and every age from infants to withered elderly. Their limbs and torsos writhed and intertwined around the cylinder.
“I’ve been thinking this through. I can’t let you do this.”
“You can’t stop me,” Elizabeth said.
“Why here of all places? Some of these images are disturbing. And if you act out, people will see you.”
“I might feel claustrophobic in my room. I think I will need the air. Besides, I like being outdoors for something like this. I want it to feel expansive.”
“What do you hope to achieve, Miss Expansive?”
“To understand Freyja’s brain hacking, for one.”
“So you’re going to ri
sk your life for a paper?”
“I am going to risk my life to prevent her from killing future victims. I will learn something that will help us catch her. I know it.”
“Maybe she will catch you.”
Elizabeth went to the attachment Freyja had sent her, an app represented by the image of a human head with a third eye, large and blue. She downloaded it. A minute later, she played the app for George with the speakers on.
Her phone emitted oscillating electronic beats at a very high pitch.
George listened closely with interest and then asked her to stop.
“That’s a binaural beat,” George said. “Two sine waves, pure tones oscillating regularly. I bet when you put on your earphones, you will hear a third beat. That’s pure illusion the brain fills in when the two beats are almost in sync, one beat just a few hertz lower than the other.”
“So tell me again, how does this work?” Elizabeth asked.
“It stimulates the pituitary gland. Shamans the world over use metal tambourines, throat singing choruses, chanting and the like to create such a binaural rhythm. The sound produces alpha and theta waves in the brain that can sometimes induce a non-ordinary state of consciousness, one in which experiencers believe they have conversed with various spiritual and demonic entities.”
“What is the result?”
“Sometimes insight. Sometimes terror. Usually just a headache.”
“I’m banking on insight. Into Freyja.”
“What about the Edge?”
“What about it?”
“Aren’t you afraid this experience will trigger it?”
Elizabeth looked away from him and nodded gently.
She reached into her purse and pulled out a short bottle of water and the envelope. She removed the pill and held it up against the twilight sky.
“Doesn’t look like much.”
For a moment she contemplated biting it in half.
“Elizabeth, you don’t have to do this.”