by John Shaw
Jordan shrugged. "I've seen it on TV a million times," she said. She stepped closer to Ryan, her lips almost touching his. "Neither of us deserves to be punished for eliminating this animal."
Ryan motioned to the door. "Let's get out of here while we still can."
Chapter 47
As they approached the parking garage exit at FSW headquarters, Ryan tried not to look guilty. He slowed to a stop at the gatehouse and handed his parking ticket to the middle-aged guard, who, unlike Stedman's security guard inside, looked like he'd let himself go years ago.
The guard took his time validating the ticket. "That'll be eight-fifty," he said.
Ryan resisted the urge to complain about the steep price for a two-hour visitor's pass and paid in cash. He eased his foot off the brake.
"Hold on a minute!" the guard ordered as the phone in the booth rang. He picked it up after the first ring, eyeing Ryan and Jordan as he listened to the caller.
Why would someone be calling the gatehouse? Had they already discovered Stedman's body? Ryan weighed his options, none of which were good. He did not want an overzealous security guard trying to detain them. And if he made a run for it, the local police would surely be called and the manhunt would be underway.
"Will do," the guard said and hung up. He returned his attention to Ryan but said nothing as he punched a few buttons on his cash register. Finally the machine spit out a receipt. "Here you go," he said, handing it to Ryan.
Once there were a few blocks between them and FSW, Ryan felt the tension in his muscles slowly recede. It was time to call Crawford.
"Where the hell are you?" Crawford barked as soon as the call went through.
"Newark. Had to pay a visit to Jacob Sted-man."
"You don't know when to quit, do you? Ryan, I've bent over backwards to protect you so far, but if you—"
"He's dead."
"Don't tell me . . ."
"He pulled a gun on us after we showed him the evidence Mendel gave us." "Mendel?"
"Dr. Alex Mendel, former commissioner of the FDA."
"The same Dr. Mendel who was murdered outside a bank in Chevy Chase Village this morning?"
"That's him. We met with him yesterday evening at his home. Turns out he signed off on the rigged Tricopatin results, although, in his defense, he wasn't fully aware of the implications. He got his orders from higher up. Once we filled him in on everything, he did the right thing and took us to the bank, where he had the test results plus a couple incriminating recordings stashed away in a safety-deposit box. We were leaving the bank when he was assassinated. The shooter tried to take me and Jordan out, too, but we got lucky. We then went straight to Stedman's office. I was trying to get him on tape confessing to everything and then planned on calling in you and your team to put this to rest. But he didn't take the bait and went for a gun in his desk drawer instead. I guess he didn't want to spend the rest of his life behind bars."
"Unbelievable. You guys are leaving a trail of dead bodies everywhere you go," Crawford said. "Listen, I want you and Jordan to find a safe place to hole up there in Newark before your luck runs out. We can be there in less than an hour by helicopter."
Ryan slowly exhaled. He wasn't quite ready to turn everything over to Crawford.
"Ryan," Crawford said, "you're through, okay? Time to let me do my job."
"I can't. Not yet. I've got one thing left to do before this is over."
"No! You're going to stay put and not do anything stupid, understand?"
"Don't worry, Jim," Ryan said, ignoring Crawford's pleas. "I'll call you as soon as it's finished and hand over the biggest fish in the bunch."
He hung up before Crawford could get in another word.
Ryan looked over at Jordan, who was tapping her foot and biting her lip. "It's all right," he said. "We're on the home stretch."
Ryan's next call was to 411. After following the computer-prompted instructions, he was connected to the D.C. office of Senator Edward McNally. "I need to speak to the senator," he said as soon as a woman from McNally's staff answered.
"I'm sorry, sir," the woman said, "the senator's very busy. But if you have a comment or a question for the senator, you're welcome to use our online form—"
"Tell the senator that Dr. Ryan Matthews is calling and that I have in my possession several tapes given to me by the former commissioner of the FDA, Dr. Mendel. I'm sure he will be very interested in hearing these tapes."
The woman paused. "Just one moment, please."
After leaving Ryan on hold for several minutes, the woman returned to the line. "I will patch you through to the senator now, Dr. Matthews."
"Ryan Matthews," McNally said with a chuckle once the call had been transferred. "You've been on quite a little adventure, haven't you? The problem is, you don't know when to quit."
"My days of quitting are over, Senator," Ryan said. "I wanted to let you know that before you had Dr. Mendel killed, he handed over to me several pieces of incriminating evidence—evidence that will bury you for good."
"I suppose it's time we meet," the senator replied calmly.
"Where are you?"
"I'm just leaving Manhattan."
"Good. I'm close by. Meet me at the entrance to the South Mountain Reservation in one hour."
The senator paused. "I'm afraid I don't know where that is."
"It's not far. Tell your driver to put it into the GPS."
"All right," the senator said. "I'll see you in one hour."
"A couple more things."
"Yes?"
"I need your cell phone number. And if I get the slightest suspicion that you're planning another ambush, you'll never even see me and one copy of the tapes will go to the FBI and the other, straight to the New York Times."
***
The landscape slowly morphed from urban to wild as Ryan and Jordan neared the nature preserve in the Watchung Mountains.
"What's our plan?" Jordan asked.
"Well," Ryan ventured, "I'm not sure what we heard on the tapes goes far enough." He stopped himself. "If we were dealing with a normal citizen, it would be plenty. But the senator is a powerful man. We're going to need more to put him away. So my plan is to show him what we have and try to get him to make a specific admission regarding the Tricopatin trials."
"I just hope this doesn't escalate. Like you said, the senator's a powerful man."
"Don't worry. I've got it covered. His driver will certainly be packing, but we'll disarm him immediately and then strand him while we drive away with the senator in our car. There won't be enough time for the senator to bring in backup, and we'll be deep into the park by the time anyone else can arrive. Once we get a confession on tape, I'll call in the cavalry."
Chapter 48
The sun was sinking low in the sky when Ryan spotted the senator's black limousine approaching the entrance to the park. Ryan dialed the senator's cell phone number. "Have your driver pull over inside the main gate at the first parking lot. As soon as you stop, I want your driver to exit the car, remove his weapons, and lay them on the ground. And Senator, I know he will be carrying more than one gun, so I better see them all on the ground."
The black limo pulled into the largely deserted parking lot and came to a stop only twenty or so yards from where Ryan and Jordan sat inside their car.
Ryan waited with bated breath. Would the driver do as he had been told?
A stocky man wearing a black suit and sunglasses emerged from the driver's side front door. He reached inside his jacket and, using only his thumb and middle finger, pulled out what appeared to be a .45 and laid it on the pavement. He then reached down, lifted up his pant leg and, using the same two fingers, pulled a small revolver from his ankle holster and set it on the ground next to his other weapon.
Ryan stepped out of the car. "Toss your keys next to the guns!" he shouted.
The driver complied.
"Now get back in the car and keep both hands on the wheel at all times!"
As
soon as the driver was inside, Ryan walked over to where the keys and guns lay and quickly scooped them up. He motioned for the senator to exit the limo.
The senator, whose tinted window was lowered halfway, calmly stepped out. He was a politician all right: cool, confident, and handsome. Ryan hated him already.
Ryan walked around to the back of the limo, tossed the keys to McNally and told him to open up the trunk. As the senator extended his hand to unlock the trunk, Ryan maneuvered around to the rear passenger side so he could keep one eye on the driver and another on the trunk. Ryan's gun was cocked. He was ready for any surprise the senator might have in store for him.
With the empty trunk opened up, Ryan called for the driver. As the driver circled around to the rear of the limo, Ryan used his gun to shoo the senator back several paces. Ryan frisked the man and then told him to get in the trunk. He complied without questions or hesitation. Ryan slammed the trunk lid closed and then led the senator to their car. He quickly frisked the senator before putting him in the front seat next to Jordan, who had taken over at the wheel. He then ducked into the backseat, directly behind the senator. "Go!" he said, and Jordan jumped on the gas.
No one said a word, and after they had covered several miles, with Jordan white-knuckling it the whole way, Ryan instructed her to pull off the main drag onto a narrow dirt road. They followed the dusty, deserted road a quarter of a mile or so before it ended at the mouth of a small grass meadow. Jordan stopped the car, and Ryan ordered the senator out first.
"How did you know about this place?" Jordan asked as they got out.
"When I worked for FSW, I often had time to kill after visiting the main office," he explained. "I'd come here while I was waiting for my flight." Ryan stepped toward the senator, who was waiting beside the car. "I used to work for Jacob Stedman," he said, addressing McNally, "but I suppose you already know all about me. I poured my life into a cure for ovarian cancer, and just as I thought I had a chance to save my wife, she and my children were taken from me. I blamed myself for years for their deaths, but over the past few days, I've found out the truth. And now I know that you, with the help of Stedman and the FDA, are responsible for killing Tricopatin."
Ryan carefully removed one of the minicassette players from his jacket, while the other one remained concealed, recording the conversation that was to follow. He began playing back McNally's incriminating conversations with Mendel. The tape played for ten minutes, with Ryan fast-forwarding through some insignificant dialogue, highlighting the exchanges between the senator and Dr. Mendel that involved incriminating evidence. By the time Ryan had stopped the recorder, it was clear that McNally was caught, on tape, instructing Commissioner Mendel to bury FDA submissions, delay various drugs, and generally do whatever he could to slow progress on the drug-research front.
"You're going to jail for a long, long time, Senator."
McNally didn't blink. "Do you know why FSW was willing to pay such a huge sum for Immugene when your fledgling company only had one promising drug in the pipeline, a drug that hadn't even made it into human trials yet?"
"Of course," Ryan said. "So FSW could gain control and make sure Tricopatin never received FDA approval."
The senator chuckled. "There are literally thousands of drugs that show success in animal studies but go on to fail miserably in human trials. If FSW and the other major pharmaceutical companies paid one hundred and fifty million dollars to acquire every little start-up biotech company that developed a potentially promising drug, they would be out of business in no time. You know better than I do that only one out of one thousand drugs that enter human trials earns FDA approval. Now I admit it could be a lot more, but twenty or thirty out of a thousand would be the best-case scenario, even if certain forces didn't exist to make sure they were rejected. No, FSW and the others only offer to buy the ones they know are going to actually pan out."
Ryan narrowed his eyes at the senator. "How in the hell would FSW—or anyone else for that matter—know if a drug works unless it has been tested on humans?"
"That's why companies like FSW have espionage departments that rival the CIA. Do you think the billions they spend on research and development each year are actually spent on scientists wearing white lab coats and running around with test tubes in laboratories? That may be a small piece of the puzzle, but the big bucks go into espionage and human testing, typically conducted in Third World countries."
Ryan thought he had heard it all from Craven, but McNally's revelation was one that he was not yet ready to fully comprehend. "What are you saying?"
The senator offered the same smile he used to woo voters and media. "Whenever one of these little start-up companies has a promising breakthrough, the boys in cloaks break in, steal the formula, and ship it off to some developing country. From there, another team finds a crop of volunteers who either have the disease or who are unknowingly given the disease. Then they test the drug on the infected, and if it works, they make the small start-up company an offer they can't refuse. If it doesn't—and most don't—they bury the dead and move on to the next drug and unsuspecting crop of guinea pigs."
Ryan was barely able to choke out a response. "Why in the world would you ever allow something like this to go on? Taking campaign contributions and doing illegal favors for big companies is one thing. But you're talking about endorsing mass murder. You're talking about turning a blind eye to the kind of ethics-free science practiced by the Nazis and the Communists. That's sick. That's . . ." He searched for a word that might have currency with the senator. ". . . un-American."
The senator shook his head. "Absolutely not," he said. "My responsibility as a U.S. senator is to protect the greater good of our country and her citizens. While I'm sorry for the people whose lives are sacrificed, I can't let their suffering distract me from the big picture."
Ryan was tempted to throttle McNally, but since the man was spilling his guts, he decided to continue to egg him on and see what else the now-doomed senator might reveal. "You talk of the greater good, Senator, but you go to unheard-of lengths to suppress drugs that would be of tremendous benefit to the American people. And all in the name of corporate greed." He shook his head, disgusted. "You're full of shit. You can't say this is done to find cures and then arrange to have those same cures suppressed just to protect the bottom line of your corporate masters, who would rather keep the people hooked on maintenance drugs than simply cure them."
"Yes, the pharmaceutical companies are oftentimes the beneficiaries of my efforts. But they don't set policy, and they have no idea of the greater goal. As far as they know, I'm nothing more than a dirty politician who's willing to get things done for a price."
"You're going to fry for what you've done, Senator."
Ryan expected a defiant response, but McNally remained calm.
"Do you know what the average life expectancy for an American citizen was just twenty years ago?" he asked.
"Seventy-two," Ryan answered. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"And do you know what it is today?"
Ryan sighed impatiently. "Seventy-eight, eighty, I'm not really sure. I get that people are living longer, no doubt thanks to better medicine.
But they could live even longer and healthier lives if these cures weren't being suppressed."
"Indeed," the senator said. "You still don't get it, do you? Your wonder drug was not only a cure for ovarian cancer. Other researchers could have worked from your findings and developed cures for numerous other cancers. There was another drug we killed a few years back that promised to rejuvenate human organs. Hell, with just those two drugs on the market, it wouldn't be long before every disease known to man was cured and people were living one hundred and fifty years or longer."
Ryan was incredulous. The senator was beginning to wear him down. "And what would be so awful about that?"
"What do you think would happen to the American economy, and by extension the world economy, if people began living to one hund
red and fifty? The Social Security system is already bankrupt. It wouldn't be long before the entire world was bankrupt, and we'd return to the Middle Ages. There wouldn't be enough food to feed the people or housing to house them or jobs to employ them or caregivers to care for them. The entire world would slip into anarchy, and the world as we know it would cease to exist."
"Everyone has the right to life and the best medical treatment available. I understand that increasing life expectancy rates could cause economic issues, but the picture you're painting is the worst-case scenario."
"If you have a solution to the problem that would not lead us down that path, I would love to hear it. Of course, you have been thinking about this for all of a few minutes now while I have spent the past decade studying the problem."
"Enlighten me, Senator."
"We could see this coming after the mapping of the human genome back in the nineties. This was a revolutionary medical breakthrough, and the entire scientific community was abuzz with the possibilities for new cures and new treatments. I was put in charge of a special committee by our last president to find a solution to the problems that could result from rapidly increasing life expectancy rates. We spent several years in think tanks with some of the brightest minds in the world. But the project was disbanded by the new administration after we failed to come up with even one viable solution after all our work. The only solution we offered was to limit the right of women to conceive. A national lottery system was suggested, but of course that meant the luck of the draw would determine the gene pool—and that was not going to happen, never mind the political consequences of trying to regulate the propagation of our species."
Ryan took a few steps back from the senator. "You're signing off on the wholesale slaughter of who-knows-how-many innocent people, you're suppressing cures to cancer, you're risking your career as a senator, not to mention your life as a free man—and based on what? A bunch of crackpot theories. Even if we find cures for every cancer known to man or learn how to grow a human liver, there's still Alzheimer's and AIDS and flesh-eating bacteria and a million other ailments that will keep us mortal, not to mention war, natural disasters, resource depletion, overpopulation— you name it. But my, how you talk! You'd think people were suddenly going to start living to one hundred and fifty tomorrow."