“What’s going on, Zartar? What’s Rx involved in? What are you involved in?”
“Nothing,” Zartar said, “unless you count flushing a treatment for Ghana necrosis down the john.”
“Ghana necrosis?”
“Shhh!” Zartar said, bangles jangling as she waved her hands for quiet. “No need to broadcast to the entire world, Anderson Cooper.”
“Rx discovered a cure for Ghana necrosis?” Maggie whisper-shouted.
Zartar stood and looked over the wall of her cubicle to ensure they were alone. “We didn’t cure it, but we sure as hell came close.”
Maggie’s forehead wrinkled. “But why—why would you hide that?”
Zartar sat back down and crossed her legs, then her arms. “It wasn’t my choice, Maggie. It came from the top. We didn’t even mean to find it. We were working on a gen-2 drug for Herpex, the company’s oh-so-successful herpes simplex drug, and I stumbled across it. Unlike, say, Buruli ulcer or some other God-awful neglected tropical disease that’s bacterial, Ghana necrosis is viral. My antiviral investigations led me to a key for unlocking a treatment for GN.” She shrugged. “Dumb luck more than anything.”
“That’s why the data looked familiar,” Maggie said more to herself than to Zartar. “Jon introduced me to the herpes studies before he put me on acne duty.”
“And I’m guessing Jon is the one who delivered the file to your desk.”
“Jon? Why would he do that?”
“Only a few of us knew about the Ghana necrosis breakthrough. Those in charge had ways of making us comply, but there was resistance. Maybe Jon saw you as an ally. A whistleblower they didn’t have any leverage over. At least not yet. Jon was always interested in doing the right thing. Maybe he knew you’d have the courage to do more than talk about it.”
Maggie shook her head and sat on a corner of the desk. “I don’t understand why Rx would want to hide the fact that the compound you were developing for a herpes drug also happened to treat a neglected tropical disease. Montgomery is a neglected tropical disease crusader.”
Zartar laughed bitterly. “Don’t be so naïve, Maggie Mae. The discovery would’ve let Montgomery enjoy some serious ego masturbation, but once management started crunching numbers, it was all over. The analysts started throwing around words like ‘financial viability.’ Pharmaceuticals love creating drugs that are small variations on the successes they already have. The new ones don’t even have to work better than the previous iterations, just better than a placebo.”
Zartar took a sip from her drink. “It’s a money game. Roselyn talks about how much it costs to bring a drug to market, but the truth is, our marketing budget is higher than the R&D budget. We’re not trying to save the world. We’re trying to make money. Rx knew they’d get way more for a herpes drug marketed to wealthy Americans than the cure for a tropical disease that would be donated to the poor. The herpes drug wasn’t even where the real money was. Another researcher, who shall remain nameless, discovered that the compound had skin-firming properties. That’s what was next in the Rx queue. Forget curing disease. What this world needs is Baby Boomers with taut skin.”
“That’s sick.”
“That’s ‘strategic resource development.’”
Maggie shook her head. “Even so, I don’t get why you would go along with it. Why would you agree to cover up a treatment of such a horrific disease? You saw the slides at Professor Sharma’s presentation. You know what Ghana necrosis does.”
“Yes I know,” Zartar snapped, her olive skin reddening. “You think I wanted to keep this a secret? They made me bury the report.”
Maggie felt the pinprick of adrenaline on her scalp. “Who’s ‘they’?” Ethan had the report. Was he a “they,” or was he part of the resistance?
“Who do you think?” Zartar said. “The king of all theys: the Montgomerys—especially junior.”
“He leaned on you?” Maggie asked.
Zartar dragged her fingers through her hair, yanking out artfully curled spirals. “He tried to. When that didn’t work, he leaned on my brother. He figured out which Narcotics Anonymous meetings Ari attended. Chatted him up over cold coffee in cheap Styrofoam cups, got him to trust him. Then Miles gave Ari a tiny white pill that knocked him off the wagon he’d worked so hard to get on. Miles cornered me in the parking lot. He told me what he’d done, that I needed to ‘get with the program’ or he’d expose Ari’s drug use to his new boss and get him fired.”
“That’s horrible. What happened?”
Zartar took one last sip, then threw the can into a small recycling bin under her desk. “What happened was I told Miles to go screw himself and went and told his daddy. The old man was the main architect of the cover-up, but he wanted to keep everything strictly PG because of the upcoming IPO. His plan was to bribe me or give me shitty assignments until I complied. He had no idea Miles went maverick and decided to do things his way. Senior was suitably horrified when I told him. I made some threats and he promised to rein Miles in, but it just made things worse.”
“Worse?”
Zartar’s voice broke. She took a shuddering breath, and the façade of confidence, the persona of the office badass, cracked. Zartar burst into tears. “Miles hired some muscle to rough Ari up. They broke his jaw and two of his fingers by the time they got around to calling me at the gala.”
Suddenly Maggie remembered. The phone call at the gala. Zartar throwing her phone to the floor where it splintered into tiny plastic shrapnel. Maggie felt the color drain from her face.
Zartar wiped her eyes on the shoulder of her lab coat. “The guy on the phone said they’d keep hurting him unless I did what they wanted. Ari was in the background, screaming, begging them to stop. Even when I said I’d do whatever they wanted, they kept hurting him. Ari kept screaming.”
“So you did what they wanted,” Maggie said. She reached toward Zartar to put a hand on her shoulder. Then put it back down to her side.
“You bet your sweet ass I did,” she said, sniffing loudly. She grabbed a tissue from a box decorated with purple butterflies and dabbed her nose and eyes. “Once I realized Miles was a sadist, I had to go along. Problem was, that power trip was just a preview of coming attractions. They started turning up the pressure, making me do other things.”
“What things?” She thought about Zartar leaving—or almost leaving—with Ethan and the report in his bag. “Who else is involved? Who else knows about the treatment?”
Zartar shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, the shoe’s on the other foot now. That little scene you saw with me and Miles marked the end of an era. That’s the last time I’m going to bow to that bastard.” She wadded the tissue and chucked it into the trash.
“You’re going to blow the whistle?” Maggie asked.
“Whistles aren’t what I like to blow, Maggie Mae.” She stood and fluffed her hair. “Rx is cooking up something new, and I’m going to start stirring shit into it.” Her eyes blazed with anger and resolve. “I can’t tell you what I have up my sleeve until I have a few more things in place, but you’ll find out soon, I promise.”
“But what—who—?” Maggie’s stammered questions rushed together, but Zartar was already on her feet. She watched as her friend strode out of her cubicle and down the hall, leaving Maggie shell-shocked and confused.
A lump grew in Maggie’s throat, then traveled down to her stomach where it sat like a poisoned seed ready to germinate. Questions pushed their way to the front of Maggie’s brain, unearthing the fears and possibilities that had been interred beneath ignorance and denial.
Was Ethan involved? What did he know? Who else was wrapped in the secret’s tentacles? What lengths would they go to keep the secrets secret—and the secret keepers silent?
Maggie swallowed the growing disquiet that seemed to infect every cell of her body and wandered back to her desk. She put her
head on the cool brown laminate.
Maggie’s computer pinged. An incoming email.
She lifted her head, dread drumming steadily through her now. Oh, God. What now?
She looked at the Subject line. Empty. She looked at the From line. Empty as well. There was nothing threatening or frightening about the email. It was just…odd.
Curious, Maggie opened the email. Inside was a folder. Maggie double-clicked.
The folder opened matryoshka-like to reveal document after document of confidential data. Proprietary formulae. Classified analytics. Internal emails between James Montgomery and Roy. Everything that made her look like the mole who had leaked Rx’s latest creation to a competitor.
Maggie gaped in horror and clicked frantically to close the document. A clock icon appeared. It was replaced by a bomb that looked like it had come straight out of Wile E. Coyote’s most recent Acme purchase.
“No.” Maggie said aloud. “No.” She pressed control-alt-delete. Nothing. She repeated, hitting the keys harder this time. Her machine was locked up. “Dammit,” she said. “Damn, damn, damn.”
“What’s the problem?” As if by magic, Steve Poole appeared at her elbow.
A perpetual lurker who smelled like cheese and wore his hair in a pompadour, Steve loved his IT position with an almost unhealthy devotion. He seemed to have a sixth sense about computer problems and would often show up before a trouble ticket was issued. He claimed he could read the digital minds of computers, which Maggie thought was handy, if not a bit creepy.
Maggie spun around and met Steve’s questioning brown eyes. “Oh, nothing,” she laughed, trying to sound light-hearted. She blocked the computer monitor with her body. “Just doing too much too fast and made my computer cranky.”
“Let me take a look.” Steve pushed his pear-shaped form toward Maggie. Maggie remained seated. Steve ushered her from her seat with a gesture of impatience that looked an awful lot like jazz hands.
Feck.
Steve attacked the keyboard with vigor, the keys vibrating beneath his stumpy fingers. “Hmm,” he said. He tapped again, leaned back in Maggie’s chair. “I’m not sure what you’ve done here, but your computer is most unhappy. Most. Unhappy.”
“I’m such an idiot. I’ll just restart it.” Maggie reached for the power switch.
Steve grabbed her hand as if she were about to touch something hot. “Hang on there—” But Maggie was too fast. She flicked the switch and watched the digital image on the monitor collapse like a neutron star. Good.
“Not the best way to restart,” he said, “but it shouldn’t be a big whoop.” Steve played with his patchy, anemic goatee. “I’m guessing it’s some kind of virus. I guess you can relate to that, huh? Viruses, I mean.” He flashed a broad, self-congratulatory smile at the joke. Maggie smiled back, silently praying he would go back to his salty snack foods and leave her and her computer alone.
Steve stood and stretched, revealing a dimpled abdomen tufted with hair. He reached for the back of the computer. “I’ll take it down to IT for a peek-ola.”
Panic rose sharply and quickly. “A peek-ola?” Maggie squeaked.
There was no way in hell she wanted Steve taking a peek-ola at her machine with all that incriminating evidence on her desktop. “No,” Maggie said too loudly. “I mean, you don’t need to bother with that now. You’re so busy.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble. It’s helpful for us to know what we’re dealing with in case it goes system-wide. My guess? Your machine won’t be doing anything but collecting dust today.”
Maggie’s mouth hung open. Steve sidled closer. “Look, I can see that you’re worried about letting go of your computer,” he said confidentially. “I get it. Deadlines are deadlines. I’ll personally see to it that your computer is put at the head of the line. We’ll probably know something first thing in the morning.”
“But—”
Steve unplugged her machine and began winding cables. “No need to thank me. Just doing my job.” Steve hoisted the computer onto his paunch, which he used like a dolly.
Maggie opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Maggie watched as her future disappeared down the hall.
Chapter 25
“Oh, it can’t be that bad,” Constantine said into Maggie’s phone.
“Oh, it is.”
Maggie had gone outside for some fresh air. Instead she got stagnant, waterlogged air carrying fumes from a small fleet of Rx trucks idling near the loading ramp. She rubbed a hand over her face. “We’re talking about private email conversations and classified drug data—top top secret stuff—on my computer.”
“Tell them the truth: someone emailed it to you. Viruses happen.”
“You know what I think? I think a virus was deliberately sent to make me look bad, especially now that I know Rx is in the middle of a conspiracy.”
She brought Constantine up to speed on what Zartar told her about the Ghana necrosis treatment and cover-up.
“Wow. Nice company you work for, Mags. But didn’t you just talk with Zartar about this, like, minutes ago? I mean, even if this were some weird trap or something to get you into trouble, it would take time to develop and deploy. It couldn’t be a reaction from a conversation you just had.”
Maggie considered this. “Yeah, but I seem to have been making enemies here for a while.”
She thought about telling Constantine about Miles’s near-attack and the botched sexual harassment report to Roy. She couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead she said, “Besides, I don’t think Zartar would say anything about me, even if she did decide to take a stand against the Rx establishment. She’s like the big sister version of a mama bear. She’s not going to do anything that would get me into trouble. Besides, Miles knew I overheard his argument with her. For all I know, he’s already added two and two.”
“But there’s no way he came up with four, then reacted that fast.”
Maggie sighed. “I guess you’re right. But I’d better get back to work. The last thing I need is someone thinking I’ve now gone AWOL.”
“Let me know what happens, ’kay, Mags? I’ll be sending good vibes your way.”
“Thanks, Gus. I will.”
Maggie spent the next two hours in the lab. After splashing her face with water in the ladies’ room and pouring herself a half-cup of bark-colored coffee, she headed to her cubicle.
Maggie’s desk phone was ringing when she arrived. She answered in the steadiest voice she could muster.
“Maggie? This is Roy.” His baritone boomed through the phone.
Maggie felt like someone was stepping on her throat. “Yes, Roy. How are you?”
Big pause. “Well, not too good, actually. I got a call from IT a few minutes ago. Seems they found something on your computer that sent up a whole mess of red flags.”
Maggie closed her eyes. “Really?” So much for her computer collecting dust before IT got to it.
“Yes, really. Classified files, emails, memos, notes, all found on your computer’s desktop. That’s very interesting, don’t you think?”
“Roy, I—”
“Montgomery’s ready to bust an artery over this. He’s in meetings for the rest of the day, but he wants to see you first thing in the morning. I hope all of this is some mistake. See you at seven fifteen tomorrow.”
Roy clanged his receiver into its cradle. She replaced her own quietly.
In her mind, she could see her father in his recliner, sipping Bushmills from a plastic soda glass swiped from the restaurant’s kitchen.
She felt his future ebbing away along with her own.
The alarm sounded at six o’clock the next morning, but Maggie had been awake since four thirty. She stared at the ceiling, her eyes following the fine cracks that formed at the corners of the room. Architectural smile lines, as she thought of them.
The anxiety that
had festered in her belly since the night before was gone, replaced by a feeling of leadenness that anchored her to the bed. After several minutes, and with every ounce of energy she had, Maggie sat up, swung her legs over the bed and moved toward the closet.
She selected a coral silk blouse and linen skirt, then studied her reflection in the mirror. The skin beneath her eyes was purple-blue and her auburn hair was lank as it clung to the back of her neck. But Maggie’s green eyes blazed with challenge. Hit me with your best shot, Rx.
They were waiting for her when she arrived. She knocked on Montgomery’s door and was commanded to enter. “Ms. O’Malley,” James Montgomery boomed from behind his obscenely large desk. “Please have a seat.”
Jon Baumgartner moved his crutch out of the way and gestured to the seat next to him. He moved slowly, almost painfully. It didn’t seem to be a shadow of the polio, which sometimes slowed his movements. This morning his face was marred by exhaustion and worry. Maggie cast a sidelong look at Jon, wondering if he’d indeed left the file on her desk as Zartar suggested, then slid beside him onto a hard-backed chair with a tufted fabric seat depicting a classic fox and hounds motif.
I know how you feel, she wanted to say to the fox.
Roy stood at Montgomery’s side, looking more henchmanly than fatherly. Miles, ever the cliché, flexed a rubber stress-relief ball.
Was he playing the devoted son? Assistant to the executioner? Both?
Ethan leaned against a bookcase. His mouth was turned down, his face waxy and pale. He looked as if he was going to be sick. Maggie could feel him staring at her, trying to catch her eye. She looked away. She couldn’t face him.
“I’d like to go ahead and get started,” Maggie said.
Montgomery burst into a thunderclap of hearty laughter. “That’s what I like about you, Maggie O’Malley. All business.” He leaned forward. “But what I don’t like, what I won’t tolerate, is disloyalty. I won’t ask you why you did it, Ms. O’Malley. I won’t ask why, through subterfuge and artifice and cunning, you got a hold of confidential information and downloaded it to your computer. I won’t ask you because I know. Money. Pure and simple.” His accusations came at Maggie like machine-gun fire. “You stole the research data and the private conversations for the sole purpose of selling them to the highest bidder,” he continued. “Not that I have a disdain for money, you understand.” At this, he leaned back in his chair and stroked his paunch.
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