The R.E.M. Project: A Thriller (The Ocula Series, Book 2)

by J. M. Lanham

It was a modest advantage, but Paul would take it. He held tight to the white line and started to run to the south, pacing himself for what he imagined might be a long journey home. He worked to soften each step on the asphalt, trying to ignore the sound of his own feet while listening for cars.

  Cars. He was certainly going to cross a few, and when he did, what the hell was he supposed to do? The plan had been for Dawa to patrol if they didn’t make it back to the pickup location by five. Paul’s watch was busted (that damned EMP) but judging by the late-afternoon sun it must have been going on six, maybe six-thirty. If Paul jumped into the woods at the mere sound of any oncoming cars, he would likely miss Dawa if he drove by. On the other hand, if the CIA was running patrols, he would be, in a word, screwed.

  But he didn’t want to think about any of that now. He was tired of asking questions; tired of worrying about what might happen; and most of all, he was tired of running. Not in the actual physical sense—that was something he actually found refreshing. Mind-numbing (especially when those endorphins kicked in), but in a good way. A way to escape the worries and keep the mind busy on simple things like breaths and heart rate and doing whatever it took to keep the body moving forward. A primitive exercise, away from the sophisticated frontal cortex, and into the lower parts of the brain stem, where everything was much, much simpler.

  He settled into an eight-minute-mile stride, deciding not to worry too much about who might or might not be in the next car to come wheeling in from around the corner. If it was Dawa, great. He’d make it out in one piece. If it was someone else, well, he’d cross that bridge when he got there.

  Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait too long to find out if his brazen approach to road travel near a CIA black site was a mistake or not. As a car rounded the corner ahead and closed in, his heart jumped up into his throat, only to settle in its rightful place again.

  It was Dawa’s vehicle.

  Only, Dawa wasn’t driving. The car slowed, and Paul could see Claire in the driver’s seat with the window down. She came to an abrupt stop alongside him.

  “Get in,” she said.

  “Where’s Dawa?”

  “There’s no time. I’ll explain later. Just get in.”

  Paul nodded, ran around the front of the car, and jumped inside. Claire cut the wheel sharply to the left before performing a three-point turn that would face them south again, and in a flash they were off, back to the motel where Donny and Fenton were waiting.

  With any luck, Paul thought, Dawa would be waiting there, too.

  Chapter 37:

  Voodoo

  “Would you look at this?” Kerry said, passing the Savannah Herald to Arlo as the two sat in the kitchen eating breakfast on Sunday morning. Arlo held the paper out across the table and adjusted his eyes. On the front page, above the fold, Arlo began to read:

  Mystery Woman Saves Talmadge Bridge Jumper

  River Street—An attempted suicide was halted Friday afternoon when an unidentified man was rescued near the top of the Talmadge Bridge crossing over the Savannah River. Witnesses say a woman in her late twenties or early thirties pulled a middle-aged man away from the edge just as he was about to leap into the river, which flows almost two-hundred feet below. Both parties have yet to be identified.

  “Ain’t that something,” Arlo said, setting the paper back in the middle of the table as he sipped his coffee.

  “Mmm-hmm. Sure is sad though,” Kerry said. “People getting caught up thinking that’s their only way out.” She shook her head, then said, “Thank God for that woman, whoever she is. Good to know there’s still people doing good in this world.”

  Arlo agreed as he forked his eggs.

  Kerry asked, “Did you see the picture?”

  “Nuh-uh,” Arlo said, focused more on breakfast than small talk. Kerry playfully slapped his arm. “Well, take another look, you old goat! Who knows, you may have seen them outside the restaurant last week.”

  Arlo looked up from his plate and over to his wife, his warm smile signaling he’d play along. “All right, then,” he picked the paper back up, “let’s see what we’ve got here.” He brought the paper closer in, sharpening his eyes to analyze the grainy cellphone picture that had made the front page.

  A closer look, and Arlo’s eggs nearly fell out of his mouth. That’s the guy. The man who ran into me on River Street. Made me drop the plates. Gave me the finger . . .

  . . . The guy I dreamed would take a leap off that bridge.

  Shocked, he laid the paper back on the table, and fell back in his chair. Kerry raised an eyebrow as she watched her husband’s solemn reaction. “Honey? You okay?” she said, head cocked. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.” She looked down at the paper, then back up to Arlo. “You recognize one of them? Both of them?”

  On the outside, Arlo was silent, wide eyes lost in the collector-plate-covered wall on the far side of the kitchen. On the inside, however, Arlo’s mind was working overtime, retracing his every thought, every action from the moment that rude son of a bitch gave him the finger, to the next day when he was still recovering from the Ocula he’d taken the night before.

  The Ocula. The dreams.

  Slowly, he began to piece everything together. How he’d never dreamed much before Kerry insisted he start taking a sleeping pill; how when the pills did help, he didn’t dream at all; and how the nights they made him sick, he’d walk straight into the most lucid dreams of his life.

  For Arlo, it was as clear as day. The night before his meeting with the loan officer, he’d dreamed he’d get the loan. In fact, he’d dreamed he’d get twice the amount he’d originally asked for. He had.

  Then there was the asshole on River Street. Following that encounter, Arlo had taken a pill to help him sleep. Then he got sick. Sick as a dog, up most the night, running back and forth from the bathroom. Finally, he’d fallen asleep. And when he had, he had had another dream, vivid as anything he’d ever seen or experienced in his waking life: that the man in the tacky Hawaiian shirt would try and kill himself. Drowning, specifically. Take a long walk to the top of the Talmadge Bridge and fly off its edge and into the river. And according to the Savannah Herald, it looked like he’d come mighty damn close to making that dream a reality.

  Sick as a dog . . .

  And what about that dog, the one he’d almost turned into roadkill a few days before. It had looked just like his old dog, Samson! Could it be, or was it just a sheer coincidence?

  Kerry tapped his shoulder, hard this time as she tried to break the trance. “Arlo, honey. You’re starting to worry me now.” He didn’t reply. He couldn’t—not until he worked everything out in his head.

  What have I done? He couldn’t help but bear some of the responsibility for what had happened—regardless of how little sense it made. He tried to tell himself that people couldn’t help what they dreamed; all those crazy stories and thoughts just sort of popped up on their own. So he’d dreamt about some asshole meeting his Maker by flying off the Talmadge Bridge . . . so what! Dreams couldn’t possibly have an effect on reality, could they? The whole thing sounded like a bunch of nonsense. But that didn’t alleviate the guilt and worry that was burrowing deep into Arlo’s chest. He had done something horrible, he just knew it. Now, he had to make it right.

  Kerry smacked the table in front of her husband. “Arlo Vaughan! You stop this right now and listen to me!”

  Startled, Arlo finally got out of his head and settled back into his chair at the kitchen table. He hemmed and hawed around, pretending like nothing had happened. “Yeah, um—I mean, no, Kerry. No, I don’t know ’em.”

  “Really?” Kerry was incredulous. “Because from this side of the table it looks like that picture stirred up quite a reaction. Sure you don’t recognize them?”

  “No, Kerry. I said I don’t know who they are.” That wasn’t exactly a lie—he’d never seen the woman before, and never caught the man’s name down on River Street. Still, there was no denying the photo had struc
k a chord in Arlo, and he couldn’t hide it. He quickly thought of a reason to excuse himself.

  “It’s just—” he desperately looked down at the paper. There, in the right-hand column. A preview of the stocks report:

  The One Biotech Stock to Watch This Week

  “—it’s just the financials here. Reminds me I’ve got to call

  Webber first thing tomorrow morning, make sure we’re all lined up for our second draw.”

  “You sure that’s all?”

  “Of course that’s all. You worry too much, sweetheart.” Arlo stood from the table. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go get cleaned up.”

  He couldn’t get to the bathroom fast enough. He rushed in and shut the door behind him, careful to not make too much noise clicking the lock. Kerry was already suspicious enough, and he didn’t want her ear to the door. He turned to the mirror and braced himself on the sink.

  The reflection staring back at him was worried and afraid. What had happened over the course of the last week? More importantly, how much had Ocula had to do with it? What had begun as a fortunate series of events following some incredibly influential dreams had turned into a living nightmare; some satanic ability where the worst scenarios to cross his subconscious mind after a night on sleeping pills were the ones that played out the day after. Sure, it all sounded like hocus pocus to Arlo—the kind of voodoo his grandmother used to warn him about, but nothing he ever took seriously. How could he? Witchcraft. Spells. Superstitions. None of it was based in science, in anything that made any kind of logical sense.

  But that didn’t change the fact that several strange events had happened over the last week; events with no rational explanation. Events that continued even into today—like the fact that Arlo knew the biotech stock to watch mentioned in the paper was Asteria Pharmaceuticals. He also knew it was a strong sell, and he didn’t even have to turn to page D2 to find out. All of the events seemed wildly impossible. However, they did seem to have one common denominator:

  Ocula. Arlo’s sleeping pills.

  It was a childish, silly, and superstitious idea that wasn’t lost on Arlo. He even caught himself blushing in the mirror, almost ashamed that he would entertain such a sacrilegious notion. Harboring the ability to play God with a bottle of pills and a propensity for strange dreams sounded more like comic-book fodder than facts.

  But, none of that mattered. Arlo thought about the bottle of pills in his medicine cabinet, and voodoo or not, he wasn’t going to take the chance. He reached for the bottle, poured the pills in his hand, and stepped over to the toilet. He looked at them one last time, about twenty or so chalky white circles lay in the palm of his hand. Never had done him any good anyway. Maybe a few restful nights, but nothing a few fingers of whiskey couldn’t cure.

  He lifted the seat and tossed them into the water, a blurry cascade of aspirin-sized pills breaking the surface with a whoosh and a splash. Then he flushed. The water swirled and shrank as it made its way to the bottom where the pills were finally washed away, through the plumbing and down into the sewers where the most retched of mankind’s messes seemed to wind up sooner or later.

  The bathroom ceremony was fitting. In a matter of seconds, the wicked pills were gone, the toilet was empty, the tinted-blue water indicating everything was gone, everything had been sanitized, everything could be forgotten.

  As he stood and listened to the hiss of the refilling toilet tank, he wondered if he could forget everything, too. Forget about a dream of good fortune and briefcases full of money. Forget about a nightmare centered on payback and petty vengeance toward an ill-mannered man with a horrible taste in attire.

  Yes. Dreams had a way of fading over time. It wouldn’t be long before this crazy week was far behind him. He was sure of it.

  The water stopped, and the bathroom was quiet again. Arlo opened the door to leave, satisfied he’d taken the first step toward moving on, toward getting back to his old self again.

  Back to a life without those little chalky sleeping pills.

  ***

  Mondays were always busy at Asteria’s Atlanta headquarters, but nothing could have prepared the board members for a morning like this. Sturgis stood at the head of a full table and leaned in, palms down on the polished mahogany, poised like a lion setting its front paws just before an attack. To his immediate right, Jillian Penn sat and filled him in on the current real-time situation unfolding at the FDA.

  They were halfway into what would turn out to be the longest meeting of the year (so far) when Sturgis asked, “Is there any word as to what’s driving Hoover on this? What about your source, Jillian? Can someone please tell me why in the hell this is even an issue right now?”

  They couldn’t. The entire board had worked every channel they could think of over the weekend to determine what was behind the sudden desire to have Ocula blacklisted—a desire that was coming directly from the top at the Food and Drug Administration. Hoover was little more than a professional acquaintance to Sturgis, although they had golfed in a few tournaments together over the years—not an uncommon dynamic between federal regulators and the Big Pharma players who desperately craved their influence. Still, Sturgis felt like Hoover’s actions were personal and unwarranted, especially since he had assured the Sturgis earlier in the week that Asteria had nothing to worry about.

  Sturgis wasn’t the only one baffled. The entire room was in a state of panic trying to figure out what had gotten into the feds. Jillian was glued to her phone, refreshing her inbox every thirty seconds, along with the rest of the board. Solemnly, “Still haven’t heard back from my source. They’re probably still in the meeting.”

  Sturgis looked over his shoulder to check the loudly ticking clock mounted on the wall behind him. 10:47 a.m. Almost two hours now . . .

  Firmly, “This has gone on long enough. We’re going on nothing here. No emails, no phone calls, no ransom notes or letters hinting at blackmail or extortion—”

  The angry CEO was about to launch into one of his infamous and vengeful rants when the boardroom door burst open. A man barged into the meeting unannounced, catching everyone by surprise. It was Frank Grimes, general counsel for Asteria. He was exasperated and breathless, sweat beading on his forehead, oval pit stains protruding from under his arms and soaking his shirt. Sturgis figured it was the first time the man had run anywhere since grad school.

  “Jesus, Frank. What’s going on?” Sturgis asked.

  “It’s—it’s Linklatter,” Grimes huffed out. “He’s flipped, too.”

  “Linklatter?” Sturgis thought on the name. “The DEA’s Linklatter?”

  “Yes, that one. He’s—he’s on board with the FDA—sources say he’s moving to blacklist Ocula as we speak . . .”

  Maybe the severity of the news hadn’t set in yet, or maybe he just didn’t care anymore. Either way, Sturgis stood there, listening to the devastating news, his reaction indifferent, almost stoic.

  Finally, he asked Grimes, “Is that all?”

  It wasn’t. Without a word, Grimes reached over the far end of the table for the remote. He pressed a button, and a seventeen-inch flat screen rose from the center of the table. He turned it to market coverage, and there it was, plain as day, the news that had almost given Frank Grimes a heart attack (and still might, if the market trend continued):

  MARKET ALERT: ASTERIA PHARMACEUTICALS SELL-OFF LEADS BIOTECH INTO THE RED (NYSE: ASTR, -9.84%)

  The board was speechless. A room full of wide eyes and slack jaws sat in their thousand-dollar leather chairs, stunned and glued to the television. For the anchors who covered markets like sports announcers called ballgames, the Asteria news was the headline of the day. The talking heads chimed in:

  “Only a month off a positive second-quarter earnings report, the unexplained sell-off of Asteria Pharmaceuticals this morning has market analysts baffled. Several sources tell us some of the biggest names in investing have dropped Asteria from client portfolios, setting off a chain reaction that has echoe
d through stock exchanges across the globe. As of this report, Asteria is down almost 10 percent …”

  Ten percent. Over a billion dollars in market value gone just moments after the opening bell. Even the analysts were puzzled, but the confusion didn’t change the fact that confidence in the company had fallen overnight. It didn’t take an army of naysayers to send a stock into the red, either. Just a few heavy hitters—money managers and investment firms—to send ripples through the market. Once smaller investors caught wind of a few big moves, it was all over.

  No one sitting around the table could believe it, because the news was simply unbelievable. If the trend continued, that was it. The company would be finished, joining the ranks of all those other brave pharmaceutical companies who had risked everything for antisense in the past, only to send their companies into Chapter Thirteen.

  Nothing special. Just another statistic.

  It was Sturgis’s life work, and it was crumbling away before his very eyes. His mind wandered to a sonnet he’d learned in college; one he had carried with him throughout his entire adult life: Ozymandias. The Egyptian pharaoh who had it all, only to lose his empire to the sands of time.

  Nothing lasts forever; Sturgis knew that. But losing his company, his baby, like this? The news sickened him. He fell back into his chair, utterly drained from the worst week he had ever faced. Worse than his battle with cancer. Worse than the death of his college sweetheart (and the three failed marriages that followed thereafter). For a man who hung his hat on his company, the news couldn’t get any worse.

  But the investors had spoken:

  Asteria Pharmaceuticals was finished.

  Chapter 38:

  Assets

  Director Lancaster rocked her pen in one hand while reading over the report she held in the other. Every other line of it irked her to the core. Unforeseen circumstances. Unavoidable consequences. Unaccounted-for agents. Nothing positive. All negative.