The Oslo Conspiracy

by Asle Skredderberget

  “I don’t mean to be rude…” said Milo.

  “It only appears that way.”

  For the second time the Forum head interrupted him, and slightly nervous laughter spread in the hall. Several of the students turned around to look at this suit-clad, bandaged man who was making a fool of himself in front of the head of one of the world’s biggest companies.

  It was time for Milo to tighten his hold.

  “If that’s so I’m sorry, but a company like Forum doesn’t have unlimited resources?”

  Milo stopped and waited for a response.

  “Of course not,” was the answer from the podium.

  “And therefore you can’t produce all the medicines you want to. You have to prioritize, right?”

  Once again, Milo stopped.

  D’Marco replied reluctantly, clearly dissatisfied that Milo was controlling the exchange.

  “That’s correct. We have to prioritize.”

  “Exactly. And this is my question: What does Forum Healthcare consider important when the company is going to prioritize which medicines you will produce and which you won’t produce? Is it the individual product’s contribution to profit margin? Or the individual product’s contribution to society?”

  There was silence. The laughter was gone, and those who were looking at Milo quickly turned their heads toward the podium and Kenneth D’Marco.

  And the top executive at Forum waited just a few seconds too long to reply for the answer to sound sufficiently self-confident.

  “It would be a combination of both viewpoints. A holistic assessment,” he answered.

  “Ah, I understand. That sounds reasonable. So when there is a shortage of certain types of child vaccines while at the same time the market is overflowing with potency pills for men, for example, that has nothing to do with the fact that child vaccines are low-margin products, while potency pills on the other hand are among the most lucrative you can produce? You have simply made, what was it you called it, a holistic assessment?”

  D’Marco put his hands behind his back and was rocking impatiently on his toes.

  “That’s a contrived problem. We don’t manufacture potency pills,” he said.

  “But you do produce vaccines?” Milo asked mildly.

  The man at the podium sighed in resignation.

  “No.”

  Milo could hear murmuring in the hall, and he saw D’Marco whisper something to the professor, who then raised the microphone to his mouth.

  “Now we’re not going to have a general debate on pharmaceuticals here, and it’s not really right to ask Mr. D’Marco to defend an entire industry. He is here to answer questions about Forum Healthcare and not other companies. So if there is anyone who has a question about—”

  “I have a question that is directly about Forum Healthcare. Only one. I promise,” Milo said loudly.

  They looked at him as if he was the meeting participant from hell, and D’Marco threw his hands out in a gesture of resignation.

  “Thanks. I wonder why you stopped Verbacom?”

  In the first row he saw the communications director and the Norwegian managing director turn around. And he saw that they recognized him.

  “We don’t have a product by that name,” D’Marco answered.

  “No, I know that. I’m not talking about a product by that name. I’m talking about the Verbacom project that was discontinued two months ago.”

  The Forum head looked at his colleagues in the first row and then at Milo.

  “Tell me, who are you really?”

  “Oh, sorry, did I forget to introduce myself? I’m Milo Cavalli. From the Norwegian police. I am investigating the murder of one of your employees, Ingrid Tollefsen, who was killed in a hotel room in Rome just over two weeks ago. In the past week I’ve tried to get information from Forum Healthcare, but your colleagues have effectively refused me that, and they also failed to report that Tollefsen had sounded an internal warning about manipulation of research results.”

  D’Marco went over and talked with the professor and then turned to Milo.

  “It is not appropriate for me to comment on this in public, and I suggest that we discuss this—”

  “Let him ask his questions!”

  A young girl a few rows ahead of him was standing halfway up in her seat. Her call was followed up by others in the hall, who also wanted to hear more.

  “Yes, let’s hear what he has to say!”

  In the first row the plainclothes policemen got up and went over to the exit doors.

  “Those who are now guarding the door are plainclothes police. You will be taken in for questioning immediately after this. But I would like to return to the Verbacom project. And I want to remind you that this entire session is being sent on webcast. In other words, you’re live on the air, D’Marco,” said Milo.

  He turned toward the rest of the hall and smiled innocently.

  “You obviously aren’t familiar with the project I’m talking about, but I can say in brief that this was a project in Forum Healthcare’s Oslo division, where research was being done on how to repair so-called insulin resistance.”

  Milo explained briefly that lack of insulin leads to diabetes, but that there was also a group of diabetes patients who were insulin-resistant. At the research department in Oslo a method had been developed that appeared to reverse this.

  “You could potentially have a product that cured diabetes for a large group of patients,” he said, turning toward the podium again. “The test results from Oslo were extremely positive, and a prototype was developed that would be tested in the U.S. What happened there, D’Marco?”

  The top executive threw his arms out again.

  “I am not involved in every research project in our company. Hundreds of projects are going on.”

  “We’re talking about a product that potentially can cure those who suffer from insulin resistance! That is groundbreaking! There is Nobel potential in it! Do you really mean you haven’t heard about it?”

  But D’Marco did not answer.

  Milo exhaled dejectedly into the microphone to demonstrate how foolish he thought the man at the podium was.

  “Then I’ll have to explain what happened. Because isn’t it true that the provisional test results in the U.S. were also positive?”

  Still no answer.

  Milo turned around toward the rest of the assembly.

  “Actually, the results were so good that internally in Forum Healthcare an alarm was sounded. The problem was, namely, that the company also produces insulin. Forum has one of the leading insulin brands on the market, which contributes billions in profit every single year. A new product which the Verbacom project was in the process of working out would reduce sales of insulin significantly. And not only that, it would not produce repeat sales. People who are cured buy very little medicine.”

  He turned toward the podium again.

  “Because isn’t it so, D’Marco, that the most lucrative thing for a pharmaceutical company is to relieve, not cure?”

  Up on the podium the Forum executive had been joined by the communications director, and neither of them answered Milo’s rhetorical question.

  “Your second in command at Forum ordered those who tested this new product, a company called Medical Research, to come back with poor results. They did that by reducing the dosage for the test subjects, so that the positive effect was absent. Ingrid Tollefsen discovered this and warned the company’s ethics director. Two days later he was transferred to Vietnam so that he was unable to meet her. Instead one of the heads of Medical Research marched up to her hotel room in Rome, drugged her and strangled her.”

  D’Marco shook his head.

  “You cannot blame me or Forum for what an insane man has done!” he shouted.

  “That will be up to the prosecutors to decide. But what I can do here and now, is to blame you for your values,” Milo answered.

  “There is nothing wrong with my values.”

  “No?
Do you recall what your answer was when the Forum research director argued for increased financial support for the Verbacom project, while the vice managing director argued to abandon the project?”

  There was almost complete silence in the hall. For several seconds the humming of the ventilation system was all that could be heard.

  Milo ran his hand through his hair. That was the signal to the technician at the back of the hall. The one who’d had a thousand-kroner bill discreetly slipped into his hand that morning when only he and Milo were there.

  On the screen behind D’Marco the PowerPoint presentation was replaced by a screen image showing the e-mail that had been stored in Ingrid Tollefsen’s Dropbox. But the Forum head had his eyes fixed on Milo, and did not realize what was happening on the wall behind him.

  A few seconds passed, and you could hear a gasp through the assembly.

  From: D’Marco, Kenneth

  Subject: Project Verbacom

  To: Oliver Trimonti, Larry Mortensen

  Gentlemen,

  I’ve reviewed the notes from both of you.

  Let it be completely clear that we are in the business of relief—not healing. We will leave that to the Church and the healers.

  What the Oslo department has produced is impressive, but we must not forget that the patients’ pain is our own gain.

  Kenneth

  “‘The patients’ pain is our own gain,’ you wrote.”

  Milo spoke clearly and calmly.

  “That’s not what I wrote!”

  “No?”

  The murmur in the assembly increased in strength, and some were pointing at the wall. D’Marco quickly turned around and looked right at his own e-mail, blown up on the white screen.

  Milo cleared his throat gently into the microphone.

  “What is ironic about this case … what is almost grotesque … is that Ingrid Tollefsen had diabetes. She was dependent on exactly those tablets you produce, and she worked on the pioneering research project that could have cured her. And the last thing she did, before she was killed, do you know what that was? It was to throw a little bottle of diabetes medicine down into the courtyard at the hotel. That was her signal, her greeting or code, if you will.”

  He paused for the final question.

  “So my question was actually: What kind of holistic assessment—because that was what you called it, right?—was behind the decision not to develop a product that could have cured insulin resistance?”

  Not a single breath could be heard in the whole auditorium.

  “But something tells me you don’t want to answer that,” Milo concluded and sat down, knowing full well that the entire session would be on YouTube in less than an hour.

  41

  Milo had seen his father smoke on only two occasions. The first time was when they celebrated the eightieth birthday of Antonio Cavalli. The grandfather of Milo and father-in-law of Endre Thorkildsen.

  The two had sat on the veranda on Sardinia, each sucking on a cigar, each sipping a drink. Milo recalled that he had reacted to that. Not that his father was smoking a cigar, but rather the fellowship between his father and grandfather. He always thought his father was an odd duck in the family gatherings in Italy.

  The second time he saw his father smoke was when Milo arrived at the psychiatric clinic after they found his mother dead. His father was standing by the entry sucking doggedly on a cigarette, his face pale.

  So on two occasions he had seen his father smoke. One happy and one unhappy occasion. He assumed it was not because his father was in a good mood that he was now inhaling smoke out on the veranda.

  When he caught sight of Milo, he flipped the cigarette in an arc toward the bushes and came toward him.

  “Emil,” he said in a husky voice, pulling his son carefully to him so as not to press on the injured shoulder.

  Milo let himself be hugged.

  He could not remember the last time his father had held him that way. Two days of beard growth scratched against him.

  Slowly Endre Thorkildsen released his hold and pushed Milo away to be able to look at him.

  “I saw the video clip from BI. What a case! How’s your shoulder doing?”

  “It aches, but it’s fine,” Milo replied.

  Endre Thorkildsen led his son into the living room, and they each sat down in an armchair.

  “Drink?” his father asked.

  Milo shook his head. He was worn out and needed to sleep. But first there were things he wanted to know. He met his father’s gaze.

  “You have something to tell me, right?”

  His father sighed heavily while he wrung his hands. As if he was washing them.

  “I promised myself never to talk with you about this,” he answered.

  Milo did not say anything and his father continued.

  “I understand that Sunniva was a surprise to you. Or a shock—”

  “It wasn’t a shock. Sunniva is great. I like her. But I don’t like the way you’ve behaved. But that’s not what I want to talk about. There’s this shipwreck that—”

  “I can understand your frustration…”

  “I see.”

  “… and I understand that you are still going to judge me harshly if you don’t know the whole story.”

  “The whole story? What do you mean? You betrayed Mother. Had a child out of wedlock. Behind her back. What more do I need to know?”

  His father struck his palms against his knees and got up.

  “I think I’ll have that drink anyway,” he said, going over to the liquor cabinet.

  He poured gin over ice cubes until the glass was almost half full and topped it with tonic. On his way back to the chair he drank half the glass in one gulp.

  “Whether you like it or not, the two of us are connected. I know you had a stronger bond with your mother…”

  Milo made no sign of protesting.

  “… but it’s the two of us who are left. The two of us, and Sunniva.”

  “Keep her out of this,” said Milo, feeling a flush of irritation rise above his shirt collar, toward the roots of his hair.

  “Fine. I’ll tell you. Because you’re the one who’s asking. Then we’ll see how it works out.”

  Milo looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  “And Emil, I simply want to underscore that every word is true. I have no reason to lie to you.”

  “But talk then, damn it!”

  His father emptied the rest of the drink, set aside the empty glass and resumed his hand-washing movement.

  “You’ve heard the story many times, about how your mother and I met, right?”

  Milo nodded.

  “You were studying in Rome, but you met in the summer in Sardinia,” he answered.

  “The summer of 1977. That’s right.”

  His father recounted briefly the story Milo knew so well. About the encounter through a common acquaintance. The first dinner at home with nonna and nonno, grandmother and grandfather. And about how he and Maria Cavalli had also met in Paris late that summer.

  “It happened so fast. A month and a half later she was pregnant, and three months later we were married,” his father said.

  Milo shrugged his shoulders.

  “I know all that,” he said.

  The room was quiet. They could almost hear the sound of the ice cubes melting in the glass. He could see his father breathing deeply in and out while he stared at a spot on the wall. Then he began to speak.

  “That whole summer your mother was grieving, Emil.

  “And the grief had started on May twenty-third of that year. It was just past three in the morning, and the Italian military vessel was en route to Sicily. The crew of one hundred seventeen persons, mostly young men, had been in Lebanon, Egypt and Libya in the course of four weeks at sea. Some of them were career military, others were enlisted youths who saw this as their springboard to a better life. Thirty nautical miles off the coast of Sicily the accident occurred. The explosion must have been powerfu
l and no doubt started somewhere in the engine room. Half the port side was blown open, and in a few minutes the meter-high waves must have torn the hull in two,” his father said.

  He picked up the empty glass, and the ice cubes clinked as he rotated it, and he stared silently down at them before he continued.

  “A single SOS signal had been sent out before the Italian young men went to their watery grave on the bed of the Mediterranean. While their families were peacefully asleep on the mainland. And among the hundred seventeen young men there was a young officer, twenty-six years old. The son of a former admiral, who was one of Italy’s most decorated. A young officer who actually dreamed of university studies, but who obeyed his father and tried to follow in his footsteps. A young officer by the name of Luigi Benvolesenza.”

  “Uncle Luigi?!”

  The name of his mother’s best friend almost revived him. Had Luigi been on board?

  Endre Thorkildsen stood up and made two more drinks. On his way back he handed one glass to Milo, who took it without hesitation.

  “Uncle Luigi, yes. He had just gone off watch and changed to civilian clothes. He went to the stern of the ship to have a cigarette before going to bed. What exactly happened could not be said with certainty. Other than that it happened quickly. That cigarette saved his life,” his father said thoughtfully, sipping his drink.

  The pressure wave from the explosion blew him right into the sea and knocked him out. And because Luigi Benvolesenza was a dutiful, orderly young man, he had his life vest on. And that kept his unconscious body floating.

  “While his hundred sixteen comrades disappeared to the seabed, Luigi floated in the waves as the only survivor,” his father continued.

  Milo thought about what Benedetti had said. That there was one survivor, who had been unable to help clarify what happened.

  “I remember hearing that Uncle Luigi had cheated death, but never knew the details,” said Milo, partly to his father and partly to himself.

  He took a solid gulp of the drink while he thought about his mother’s friend and the many visits to him in Rome. There was nothing in the apartment that signaled a military background.

  “What happened later? And what did this have to do with Mama?”