David was on track for department chairman or director of the virology laboratory when one day, three weeks after his meeting with Kendall, he announced to a stunned faculty, “I’m sorry gentlemen, but I’ve accepted a job in a biotech firm in California. At least they recognize talent when they see it.”
On a personal basis, few were sad to see him go, but academically, it was a major loss for the university.
On her first day of work at PAT, Lisa Gomez drove to the security gate and introduced herself to Harry, the guard, a man in his 70s.
“Put this on your dashboard. Mrs. Wincott is waiting for you.”
He handed her the security pass and directed her to Amanda Wincott who insisted on showing her around.
Lisa met Evan Klack, a brilliant MIT graduate in bioengineering and molecular biology. His short stature, large head, normal trunk, and short arms and legs said that he suffered from achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism.
Evan was born in Ames, Iowa to average stature parents. Roland Klack, Rolly to his pals, ran the meat department at a local supermarket, while Sarah was a stay-at-home mom.
Following Evan’s delivery, the G.P. said, “He’s a dwarf.”
“What in hell are you talking about,” Rolly said. “We ain’t got no dwarfs in this family.”
Thus was Evan’s inauspicious beginning. Next came several orthopedic procedures and a delay in going to school.
Rolly ignored his son, while Sarah doted on the boy to compensate for her feeling that his problem was somehow her fault.
Evan read well by age three and looked forward to going to elementary school.
He’d seen the stares before, but most people, most adults at least, turned away quickly knowing it was rude. The kids at school had no such sensibility and made fun of him constantly.
When two sixth-grade boys beat him and hung him up on a hook in the boy’s room, Evan refused to go back.
“What the hell’s wrong with the boy?” Rolly asked. “He’s got to go to school.”
After Sarah told him what happened, Rolly collared the boys the next day, pulled down their pants and spanked them in the school yard in front of the other children. The threats from their parents to press charges were just that, threats.
To the surprise of all, the teachers found Evan gifted in reading and math. From the third grade on, he’d learned all they could teach and functioned as the teacher’s assistant. Helping others, more than anything, gave Evan a sense of his own value.
“Hey, look at the midget,” said a boy one day in the hallway.
Evan smiled and walked up to him, extending his hand.
The boy ignored it, and turned to his friends and said, “What’s with him—creepy, ain’t he?”
“I prefer the term ‘little person’,” Evan said. “Most of us find the word midget to be offensive. I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way.”
“Tough shit, shorty,” said the boy who pushed Evan into the metal lockers.
Several boys whom Evan tutored, grabbed the boy and threw him into the school’s dumpster, saying, “Next time, it’ll be worse.”
Staring continued, especially at any new venue, but physical abuse was rare.
By the time he entered high school, the full range of his talents became apparent, and he graduated at fifteen to enter MIT.
“Watch out for Evan,” Amanda said. “He’s a genius and a good guy, but he can be a little testy.”
“Testy?”
“You’ll find out.”
Lisa knew about dwarfism, at least from the perspective of its physiology and biochemistry, but hadn’t known anyone with the disorder.
She spent the first few days watching him, surreptitiously, she hoped. The first time she saw him teeter, trying to get in his elevated lab chair, she grabbed him to help. He pulled away, growled, and tried to bite her hand.
He smiled. “Next time, I won’t miss.”
After a week on the job, she saw only the man, not the disability.
Three weeks later, Evan said, “Kendall Pharmaceuticals in Chicago is sending us a new subtype of the bacterium BCG for work with our tissue cultured melanoma cells.”
“That’s the same BCG we use to vaccinate people against tuberculosis, isn’t it.”
“Yes, it’s a weakened strain, and an entirely new variation called type five.”
“Imagine, a vaccine that can cure widespread melanoma. That’s incredible.”
“It’s not a new idea. Clinical trials with direct injection of BCG into the melanomas looked promising, but further studies were disappointing.”
“So, it’s back to basic science?”
“We don’t have the slightest idea if and how these bacteria affect malignant cells. Even if we discover that they attack melanoma cells, we still have years of work before we can think of human trials.”
“If this approach proves useful,” said Lisa, “perhaps we can apply it to other malignancies.”
“Now you’re talking, schweetheart,” Evan said with his best Bogart imitation.
Chapter Five
The Chicago offices of Kendall Pharmaceuticals sat one block from the Magnificent Mile area. Its executive suites occupied the thirty-seventh floor with windows facing Lake Michigan.
Richard Kendall, the corporation’s CEO, was the second Kendall to serve in this position. He stared out at the thunder heads approaching from the northwest and the whitecaps forming on the lake.
He’d recently celebrated his fiftieth birthday at a gala affair on a 110-foot megayacht on Lake Michigan. It was the board’s way of saying “thank you”, but he knew their insatiable appetite for profits and could predict their response: what can you do for us next?
Richard sat on one black Italian leather sofa next to the window while across, Lionel Kendall, his father and chairman of the board, sat on the other. They were a study in contrast. Lionel was tall and patrician. Richard was a throwback to his ancestors, English farmers from Westmoreland, and had a stocky build and thick hands.
“We’re in trouble,” Richard said.
“Listen, Ricky,” Lionel said, chewing on a long black cigar, “we made a little over eight hundred million dollars last year. That ain’t peanuts.”
Richard hated when Lionel called him Ricky. He knew it wasn’t thoughtlessness, an oversight, or even a habit from his childhood. It was, as both men recognized, a strategy of power.
Lionel Kendall was a pharmacist more interested in business than dispensing medications, and had parlayed his Rockford, Illinois, pharmacy into a consortium. Ten years later, he purchased a failing local pharmaceuticals company. Through sheer audacity, hard work, considerable good fortune, and what his competitors would say, ruthlessness, the company prospered and evolved into Kendall Pharmaceuticals. After he obtained patents on two blockbuster medications, the company expanded and absorbed a dozen more companies to become an international conglomerate. His competition could do nothing but decry his means for obtaining the patents, ruing the fact that he’d thought of it first.
Lionel ascended to the board of directors five years ago, putting his only child, Richard, in his place as CEO.
If I stay on his case, thought Lionel, maybe he can finally make something of himself.
“That’s great for now,” Richard said, “but Palmir and Ketol are coming off patent. They’re our best sellers and are responsible for 70 percent of our profits. We have nothing in the pipeline to replace them.”
“Don’t we have approval for Palmax and Ketane?”
“Sure. We made slight changes in their molecular structure. That didn’t change anything except our ability to justify two new patents. Times are changing, Father. Americans are spending billions a year on prescription drugs with an incredible growth rate each year.”
“You don’t hear me crying.”
“We can’t afford to be short-sighted,” Richard said. “Drugs are the fastest growing part of the health care bill. Each year brings increasing congressional
pressure to control it. The pharmaceutical industry is in their sights.”
“You’re getting too skittish in your old age, Ricky. We’re going to spend a small fortune on advertizing and promoting these “me-too” drugs to the public and to doctors and hospitals. We’ll be fine. Remember how, with a wave of their magic wand and minor molecular changes, AstraZeneca morphed Prilosec, whose patent was due to expire, into Nexium, The Purple Pill. They made billions.”
“Look Father, this isn’t going to be business as usual. The board is paying me a lot of money. If they want to ignore my advice, it’s their funeral. I’m going on the record with my concerns.”
“Don’t play games with me, Ricky,” Lionel said as he brushed his straggling gray hair back over his scalp with age-speckled hands. “I don’t think you want to do that.”
Richard paused, swallowed, and took a deep breath. “Both you and the board better wake up. The federal government, the insurance companies, and the HMOs aren’t going to put these “me-too” drugs on their formularies when they know there’s not a whit of difference in their effectiveness and they cost many times more. Young politicians are building their careers as watch dogs of monies spent on medications like these.”
“Okay, so what are you going to do, Ricky?”
“I’m going to ignite a fire under the rear ends of our fat lobbyists to protect our patents, remind our well-paid legislators of their obligations, and make sure they burn all these conflict-of-interest regulations that stop university researchers from working for us.”
“I’ll do what I can with the board,” Lionel said. “Anything new on the horizon?”
“Nothing for sure, but just like professional sports teams, we have our scouts out at every major university research lab. We keep an eye on the competition. I’m tracking several new areas of research, but it’s getting difficult out there. We may need to play rough.”
“I don’t care what you do, Ricky,” said Lionel, crushing his cigar in the ash tray, “just don’t get caught.”
“David Birch at PAT helped us obtain some very promising material for research.”
“I don’t want to hear about it, Ricky. Just don’t screw it up. I’ve staked a lot by supporting you for CEO over the objections of many on the board. Compromising Kendall Pharmaceuticals could be catastrophic for all of us, you in particular. Remember, Kendall is addicted to big profits and will get their fix by one means or another.”
Back at the Genentech Hall, Jerry Calder, Lisa Gomez’s Ph.D. advisor asked, “How’s it going at PAT?”
“It’s like studying Rembrandt’s strokes and missing his paintings.”
“You’re too young to be that cynical.”
Lisa smiled. “Science at the university is almost ethereal...pure, research for its own sake while Ph.D.s at PAT practice bottom-line science, count their patents, and study spreadsheets rather than experimental data.”
“When I began thirty years ago,” Jerry said, “we held scientists who worked for industry in contempt, not good enough to make it in the rarified atmosphere of academia. Today, with dramatic cuts in pure research, industry is the only game in town for many talented scientists.”
“I’m not naive and it doesn’t offend me when hard-working researchers make a few bucks. What does offend me is when they screw around with their results and get away with it.”
Jerry rose and put on his lab coat. “Is there anything I ought to know, Lisa?”
“Nothing you don’t already understand.”
The fog over Genentech Hall began to lift as Mandy Cohen approached. She was the daughter of a Beverly Hills physician. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara then moved to UC Berkeley where she completed her Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology. In contrast to most women in the Ph.D. program, she looked like a fashion model and blended an active social life with the rigors of her education.
The huge building looked like the set of a futuristic movie. Mandy entered the light-filled atrium and looked up at the skylight, the glass-railed stairs and the balconies that reminded her of the Hyatt Hotel in Embarcadero Square of San Francisco.
She rode the elevator to the seventh floor. The doors opened to the sign: Institute for Virology and Immunology. She passed under it and into the locker room where she stowed her handbag, umbrella, and overcoat, grabbed a fresh lab coat from the shelf, and walked to her cubbyhole of an office.
She checked her emails on the university computer and shook her head.
Where is it? It should have been here by now.
Jerry Calder stuck his head in. “Have you seen it?”
“No, Jerry. I just checked the computer. Maybe you’d better call Laval.”
He sat next to Mandy’s desk and pulled out his iPhone. He scrolled through his contacts database then pushed the send button.
Jerry worked his way through the Laval answering system and finally had his counterpart, Henri Charles, on the line.
“We’re still waiting for the BCG shipment, Henri. Did it get off on time?”
“I know it did. I handed the ice chest to the courier. You should have had it this morning. Let me call you back.”
An hour later, Henri called. “They found the body of Emile Gigot, the courier, in the marina.”
“What happened?”
“We don’t know, yet.”
“The chest?” asked Jerry.
“Missing.”
Chapter Six
Colonel G. Elwood Hawkins, Jr., Woody to his friends, and Eddie Macy, looked through their binoculars at the clearing 500 yards away. About 300 FARC guerrillas (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People's Army) milled about the jungle camp at the base of the Andes in Columbia. They were interrogating four of Woody’s men captured in a raid.
When Eddie raised his binoculars again approximately fifty soldiers were entering the jungle and heading in their direction.
“We’d better get the hell out of here, Colonel.”
“Let’s go.”
“What about our guys?” Eddie asked.
“There’s not a damned thing we can do. They knew what they were getting into. They’re not paying us enough for this shit.” He placed his pack and M-16 over his shoulder and moved down the trail.
After six hours, they’d managed to evade their pursuers.
Woody wiped the sweat from his shaved head as they sat in a clearing. “It’s time to go home.”
On the flight back to the states, Woody said, “I’m interviewing for a job as chief of security for Kendall Pharmaceuticals in Chicago.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
“No, it’s not what I want, it’s all there is,” Woody said slapping Eddie’s shoulder. “I’d like you beside me as usual.”
After the brass passed over Hawkins for promotion to full colonel, he and Eddie Macy, a master sergeant, left Special Forces. Hawkins’s record revealed three reprimands for excessive force. He had one court-marshal for manslaughter, dismissed when the witnesses against him mysteriously failed to appear in court.
With his thick moustache, Hawkins looked a bit like G. Gordon Liddy of Watergate fame.
Eddie had spent almost a year in the stockade for assault. He was short, but powerfully built and had thrived in the military by intimidation and violence. He’d earned a dishonorable discharge, but after so many years of service, the board yielded to powerful influences and granted him a general discharge.
Afterward, Woody and Eddie worked in several African countries, and most recently in Columbia.
Richard Kendall, the CEO of Kendall Pharmaceuticals thumbed through the thick folder. “I’m impressed with your record, Colonel. You may be just what we’re looking for.”
What a load of shit, Woody thought.
“And what exactly is that, Mr. Kendall?”
“Someone who understands loyalty and isn’t afraid to take harsh measures for a good cause.” He reached into his box of Graycliffs and caressed the expensive cigar. “Would you like one?”
“Sure, but they’re a waste on a guy used to Guinea stinkers.”
Richard laughed. “I loved them, too—mostly for women’s reactions; they hate the stench.”
“Getting back to your offer, sir...”
“We’re a multinational company with offices in five countries and manufacturing and distribution operations in eighteen.”
Kendall took a large drag on his cigar. “You have the skills and experience to run our worldwide security, the technical know-how, and the toughness we need. We’ll pay you $400,000 per year, but with performance bonuses and stock options, that could be chump change. You pay your associate, Mr. Macy. In addition, you call your own shots. We have no interest in micromanaging security. Performance will be everything.”
Hawkins scraped off the ash from his cigar and smiled. “My daddy said to watch out for offers too good to be true. You must know that you can find men for all of your special needs for a lot less money.”
“No. I don’t think so,” said Richard, shaking his head. “Once you and your buddy Eddie come on board, you can see the dossiers we have on you and your sergeant friend. This will give you an idea of what we’re about. We may know more about you than you do. We’re careful people. We don’t like mistakes...mistakes can be unhealthy and we’re of course in the health business. We’re too busy to deal with the details of security. I have but one reservation.”
Hawkins puffed on his cigar and waited.
Richard smiled. “Our scientists are among the brightest in the world. You understand that you cannot deal with them on a strict authoritarian basis as you did with soldiers. They won’t tolerate it.”
“Not to worry, Mr. Kendall. We’ve dealt with all kinds from peasants to princes. The principles are the same. Beyond technical and scientific expertise, they’re children. We won’t have any problems.”
“Please call me Richard,” he said standing and extending his hand to the colonel. “I have just the right thing to seal the deal. Do you like fine scotch whiskey?”
A Simple Cure Page 3