Omega Dog - 01

by Tim Stevens

  Venn thought that Beth looked in a bad way. It wasn’t just the red-rimmed eyes and sallow skin from lack of sleep. The fight seemed to be draining out of her.

  He couldn’t afford to let her give in to despair. Not now.

  ‘So let’s get this straight,’ he said. ‘Because soon we need to get moving.’

  She nodded, rubbing her eyes with her fingertips.

  ‘Okay.’ She cleared her throat, as if about to present a patient’s clinical findings to her superior. ‘There were twelve of us in the C-77 trial. This was ten years ago. I was nineteen, a premed student. Most of us were students, but not all.’

  ‘Professor Lomax was conducting the study?’

  ‘Yes. That’s how I first got to know him. I signed up for the trial after seeing an advertisement in the local student paper. Afterward, I kept in touch with the Prof all through med school. We started doing research together a couple of years ago, while I was an intern.’

  ‘And the twelve of you, the twelve volunteers... you all took this C-77?’

  ‘Yes. There was no placebo arm yet. It really was a preliminary study. If we’d had no side effects, there’d have been a bigger study with a control group, taking a placebo. A dummy pill. But it never got to that stage. We all came down with serious vomiting after just a couple of doses. The study was aborted after four weeks.’

  ‘And you met the other volunteers?’ Venn prompted. Beth had already given him a jumbled version of the story but he wanted to get it clear. To get her thought patterns back on the straight and narrow, as much as anything.

  ‘Yes. I can’t remember all of them. But there was a kid around my age. Alvin, Aaron, something like that. A student friend of mine named Luisa Perez. A guy a few years older than us, Larry. Lawrence B. Siddon.

  ‘Yesterday I read in the New York Times that Larry Siddon had been killed after apparently falling onto a subway line in Queens. I knew he sounded familiar but I couldn’t quite place him. A short while earlier I’d learned that Luisa, my friend, had died suddenly. She was on the oncology ward. She had cancer, but it wasn’t a life-threatening kind. There was no reason an otherwise healthy woman in her twenties should die suddenly like that.

  ‘Two deaths, of young or youngish people, in a short space of time. Both of them connected through this clinical trial they took part in a decade ago. And now somebody’s trying to kill me. And I took part in the trial as well. That’s got to be the link.’

  Venn thought about it. ‘These papers, these journal articles. They all suggest a connection between this C-77 agent and cancer?’

  ‘Yes. The ones I can read, anyhow.’ Her voice faltered a little. Venn understood why.

  ‘Then it’s a coverup,’ he said. ‘Somebody’s trying to hide evidence of the cancer link. By killing all the subjects who took the drug a decade ago, and who either have cancer now or might develop it.’

  Beth ran a hand through her hair. ‘There’s just no way of warning the others, if they’re still alive,’ she said, her tone shot through with despair. ‘I can’t remember their names. Many of them probably aren’t even in New York any more.’

  Venn said, as gently as he could: ‘What do these medical papers say? How strong’s the link with cancer? And what kind of cancer is it?’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ said Beth. ‘All of the ones I’ve skimmed through point to an association between the agent and carcinogenic – that’s cancer-causing – effects, which is greater than would be expected by chance alone. It doesn’t prove anything. To do that, you’d need much bigger numbers and a properly designed study. These are all small data sets, from different countries where C-77 has been trialed. As far as I know, nobody’s made the connection between all of these studies yet. The scientific world lost interest in C-77 when it didn’t get out of the starting blocks, and it’s only come back into vogue now with the development of Zylurin.

  ‘As to what type of cancer... it looks like mainly hematological varieties. Leukemias, lymphomas. That’s what my friend Luisa had. Leukemia. A potentially manageable one. But some of the research subjects in these reports have developed nastier, more aggressive kinds.’

  She fell silent, avoiding Venn’s gaze.

  Quietly, he said: ‘Like you pointed out, the connection’s not proven. There’s no certainty that you’ve... that you’re going to get...’

  She looked up. He could see the struggle in her face, the battle not to break down in tears. ‘It’s crazy, though, isn’t it? Worrying that I might get cancer when there’s a very real chance I’ll be killed by a bullet in the next few hours.’

  ‘No.’ Venn put a big hand over one of hers. It felt strong but smooth, supple. The hand of a worker, but not a laborer. ‘That’s not going to happen.’

  I won’t let it happen, he thought.

  ‘This all raises the question,’ he said, ‘of who exactly is trying to cover up the evidence.’

  Beth nodded slowly, the realization dawning on her.

  ‘Which firm manufactures Zylurin?’ Venn asked.

  ‘Walton & Critchkoff Pharmaceuticals,’ said Beth. Venn nodded. He’d heard of them, though he couldn’t name any of their products off the top of his head.

  As if reading his thoughts, Beth said: ‘They make all kinds of household stuff like diaper creams, baby food, vitamins, as well as their pharma products. They’re a middle-range company, without any really big products. But Zylurin looks set to make a name for them. It’s going to be their Viagra, their Prozac.’

  ‘So any ten-year-old evidence that one of the ingredients of their new wonder drug might be carcinogenic, would be highly embarrassing to them.’

  ‘More than that,’ said Beth. ‘The clinical trials of Zylurin would have to be immediately halted. The FDA would demand exhaustive investigations. Even if the product turned out to be safe, it would cost Walton & Critchkoff millions, if not billions, of dollars in lost revenue.’

  Venn sat back in his chair. ‘I guess this means Professor Lomax is dead,’ he said. ‘He clearly knows about the suspected cancer link from the papers this Papakostas guy sent him. Maybe he was going to blow the whistle, and they silenced him.

  And with him goes my get-out-of-jail card, Venn thought.

  Beth said, ‘So what do we do now? Go to the press? The police?’

  ‘This is still all speculation,’ said Venn. ‘We can’t prove anything. And we’re not safe even with the police. You just saw that, back in Brooklyn.’

  ‘Then – what?’

  Venn pushed back his chair, stood up.

  ‘We pay this Papakostas a visit.’

  Beth remained seated, as if the enormity of all that was happening was preventing her from rising.

  ‘We don’t know where he lives.’

  ‘Yes, we do.’ Venn took out Lomax’s Filofax. ‘His address is in here. He’s up in Maine.’

  Chapter 42

  They found a car rental company a few blocks from the Port Authority Terminal.

  ‘We’re actually renting a car?’ said Beth. ‘I thought stealing them was your thing.’

  Venn gave her a look.

  The office was quiet at that time in the morning. A beaming, overweight man rocked forward in his chair when they came in.

  Venn chose a black Chevrolet Impala, and made sure it had a working satellite navigation system in it. He paid cash for a week’s rental. The man at the desk raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He took a photocopy of Venn’s license. Beth thought that Venn would rather not have handed across any ID, but he had little choice.

  They pulled out into the thickening traffic. Venn looked across at Beth.

  ‘Get some sleep,’ he said. ‘It’s a six-hour drive.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can,’ said Beth. But she closed her eyes anyway.

  Professor Lomax’s Filofax had listed Papakostas’s initials – DSP – along with the cell phone number they’d seen at the top of the letter, and an address which turned out to be near Augusta, Maine. From the loo
k of it on Google Maps, the location was pretty remote. A cabin, maybe, out in the woods.

  They’d also searched for Papakostas but had found nothing about him at all. Beth had certainly never heard of him.

  ‘What do you think we’ll gain from paying him a visit?’ she’d asked Venn. He’d shrugged.

  ‘Maybe not much. But it’s possible he knows something about what’s happened to Professor Lomax. Or, more likely, he’ll be able to provide more evidence for the C-77 cancer link. If anybody’s going to be able to provide a solid case that there’s a coverup taking place, it’s him.’

  No, with her eyes closed against the low-hanging early morning sun, Beth let her thoughts drift back ten years.

  She’d been so young then, full of excitement and enthusiasm for life. The opportunity to take part in medical research had been too good to pass up, especially as she was premed herself and was already interested in neuroscience.

  The trial had been fun, and the people taking part had developed an easy camaraderie when they’d attended the lab at Yale for the day, to be given the drug and subsequently monitored for its effects on their blood pressure, pulse and numerous other parameters. In some ways Beth was sorry when the study was cut short so abruptly after just four weeks. Though the nausea and puking had been pretty unpleasant.

  Still, at the end of it she felt as if she’d made some contribution to scientific advancement, however small. And she’d forged a friendship with Professor Leonard Lomax which bore fruit later, when he invited her to collaborate in further research with him.

  And now he was missing, probably dead. Beth herself was on the run, with more than one killer trying to gun her down.

  And she might have cancer.

  Forcing her thoughts away from that particular avenue, Beth turned her head and cracked her eyes a fraction to look at Venn. He was staring straight ahead as he drove, his expression grim.

  Not a bad-looking man. In fact, quite handsome, in a rough-hewn way.

  But a frightening man.

  ‘Venn,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You said you used to be a cop.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Why aren’t you one any more?’

  He glanced at her. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Because I’m trying to take my mind off other things.’

  He nodded, as if he understood her point. ‘Long story.’

  ‘Long journey.’

  ‘I got canned,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I beat up a drug dealer in Chicago. Put him in ICU. He’ll never walk right again. The mistake I made was, I did it out on the street. Someone captured it all on camera, sold the footage to the local TV station. The department kind of had to let me go after that.’

  ‘Why did you beat this man up?’

  ‘He was pushing narcotics to schoolkids. Not just teenagers. Ten-year-olds. Ghetto kids whose lives were pretty crappy already.’

  ‘Wasn’t there enough evidence to convict him?’

  Venn looked across at her again. ‘Oh, there was evidence all right. My guys and I did a pretty good job. But he was low down in the food chain. The prosecutor was after the big fish. This guy cut a deal with the DA, ratted out the guys above him, and got off with a slap on the wrist. He didn’t deserve that. Nor did the families whose lives he ruined.’

  ‘Do you regret what you did?’ asked Beth.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Venn. ‘If I could turn the clock back, I’d kill him instead.’

  They drove in silence for a while, approaching Yonkers. It was a beautiful sunsoaked spring morning, the kind that normally made Beth feel glad to be alive. Carefree.

  Venn said, ‘So you got anyone to support you after all this is over? Family?’

  ‘My mom and dad are back home in Minnesota,’ said Beth. ‘I have a sister in Canada. Nobody here in the city.’

  ‘No boyfriend?’

  ‘Not much time, as a medical resident.’ But Beth knew that was an excuse. She’d seen so many doctors become so caught up in their work that they lost sight of life outside the job.

  ‘I’m surprised,’ said Venn.

  ‘That I don’t have much time, as a resident?’

  ‘No. That... you’re single.’

  Beth stared at the side of his face.

  He was actually blushing. This big, fierce guy.

  Despite herself, Beth couldn’t completely suppress a smile. If Venn noticed, he didn’t let on.

  Chapter 43

  Once again, Rosetti called the Anderson woman’s number, and once again she didn’t answer. Didn’t even have a voicemail facility.

  Fine. That was the last time Rosetti would use that bitch’s so-called services.

  She had to admit, though, it was a loss. Anderson was one of only a handful of connections Rosetti had within the NYPD, and they were extremely useful for the intelligence they could provide and the access they afforded Rosetti and her crew.

  Still. Anderson wasn’t answering her calls, and hadn’t called herself to say that the job was done and the Colby woman was dead. That meant she was incompetent.

  And Rosetti didn’t suffer fools.

  She caught a couple of hours’ sleep in her wheelchair around dawn, then called her lieutenants, Vincenzo the smart one and Infante the dumbass, into her office at around eight AM. This time she let them sit down. It was going to be a long meeting.

  Vincenzo reported back. Teams were scouring the city, checking hospitals, even morgues, for signs of Colby. Scouts were monitoring the exits from the city as best as they could, though it was only really some of the tunnels that could be watched. Employees at the airports – JFK, La Guardia, Newark – who were secretly on Rosetti’s payroll were monitoring departures. Every conceivable person Rosetti and her crew could think of had been sent a digital or paper picture of Dr Colby, and had been told to look out for her.

  So far, nothing.

  It’s too big a city, even for us, Rosetti thought glumly. We need a lead. And soon.

  ‘And no word from that asshole Royle, either?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ said Vincenzo.

  Infante’s phone began to ring.

  He sat staring at Rosetti.

  She stared back at him.

  Vincenzo stared at him.

  The phone rang three times. Four.

  Five.

  Rosetti exploded: ‘God dammit to hell, Infante! Answer your goddamn phone!’

  Infante cringed. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t know if I was allowed – sorry.’

  He fumbled the phone out of his pocket. Listened.

  A smile crept slowly across his features. He took a pen from his pocket and, trapping the phone between his ear and his shoulder, scribbled something down on the cuff of his shirtsleeve.

  He folded the phone away.

  ‘Lucky break, boss,’ he said.

  Rosetti waited impatiently.

  Infante went on: ‘Guy I know runs a car rental shop near Port Authority. He’s just looked at the picture we sent out, and he says he remembers the girl. She came in around an hour ago with some guy. They hired a black Chevy Impala.’

  He read out the registration number from his cuff.

  ‘Guy she was with handed over his license. His name’s Joseph Venn.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Rosetti. ‘Let’s get on it.’

  Chapter 44

  They were three hours into their trip when Venn almost got them killed.

  New York City was far behind them and the sun was heading toward the zenith, the sky still a cornflower blue. Beth was dozing lightly, but kept jerking awake every time her ears picked up a sudden noise like a car horn.

  They were headed along the interstate, somewhere in northern Massachusetts by Beth’s reckoning, when Beth felt the Impala veer over to one side.

  Instantly alert, she saw the truck in the lane alongside swerve, the driver’s mouth open wide, his hand rammed down on the horn.

  Tires
squealed and brakes howled. Beside her, Venn muttered, ‘Jesus,’ and swung the wheel so that the car straightened out.

  He dropped to a cruising speed. Both of them were breathing heavily.

  ‘You fell asleep,’ Beth said.

  ‘No I didn’t.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘Did not.’

  Just listen to us, she thought. We’re like a bickering old married couple.

  She said, ‘Let me drive.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s the matter? Don’t think a woman can handle a big sedan like this?’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Venn grunted. ‘You’re more exhausted than I am. You’d nod off for sure.’

  ‘Then maybe we should stop.’

  Venn shook his head.

  ‘Why not?’ said Beth. ‘Nobody knows where we’re headed. We can afford a little breathing room. And besides, we’re going to need our wits about us in the coming days. You know as well as I do how prolonged sleeplessness impairs concentration.’

  After a few moments he said, ‘All right. A couple of hours at most.’

  He took the next offramp and followed a winding road that passed through wheatfields. After about a mile, the unlit neon sign and buildings of a motel loomed into view.

  Venn pulled into the forecourt. There were three other cars there but otherwise it was deserted.

  He said, ‘Wait in the car.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there may be police reports out for us. It’s better if we don’t appear as a pair, wherever possible.’

  He went into the office, reappearing ten minutes later. He handed her a key.

  ‘Room seven, just along there,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you five minutes, then I’ll follow.’

  The room was no worse and no better than any motel room Beth had ever come across. The carpet was worn but clean-looking, the aircon was working, and somebody had even put a vase of fresh flowers in the window.

  Someone knocked on the door. ‘It’s me,’ said Venn.