"Well?" Dean said.
"You want to tell me what that is, sir?"
"An accounting scenario."
"That's why you gave me false data for Lentidra," Dolan said. "Not because it was flawed. But because it wasn't."
"Neither vector is one hundred percent."
"I don't see the same fail rate for Lentidra."
Dean's aggravation reached critical mass. "You don't see the same healthy profit margin either."
"Xedral is less effective. But you want it anyway."
"Why do you think that is?"
Dolan's eyes pulled to the framed poster behind Dean. XEDRAL. THE FUTURE HAS ARRIVED. THIRTY DAYS AT A TIME. "The boosters. You buried Lentidra because it was too effective. It achieves permanent transgene integration. There's no need for a maintenance shot every month, like Xedral requires. You don't want to cure AAT deficiency. You'd rather maintain a pipeline of sick monthly consumers."
"I don't expect you to comprehend the intricacies." And then, resigned to his disappointment: "You're not your brother."
"No. And I don't share his ethics either. We could have had Lentidra to market months ago. Saved who knows how many lives?"
"There's nothing illegal about what we've decided to do here. We own our research."
"Our research started with a grant from NIH. Taxpayer money."
Dean chuckled. "Do you know what your lab has spent since it opened?"
"A hundred and twelve million."
"Right. Of which your NIH grant was what?"
"Five hundred thousand."
"Correct. Your grant was a drop in the bucket. And you don't care where the rest comes from, do you? You don't bother to keep tabs. It could be from other people's gold teeth, melted down at Auschwitz and stockpiled in Paraguay, right? Ethics! Where do you think your operating capital comes from?"
"Investors."
"Right. Are the money managers bad people? No. Are their investors? No. They're just spoiled rotten. They've come of age in a time when a three percent dividend and four percent appreciation doesn't cut it. When stockholders see any equity that doesn't grow fifteen percent every year as a turd not even worth flushing. For better or worse, you are married to them. Those beady-eyed fund managers. Those rapacious investors. Their money, not mine, is what will turn Vector into a success. So don't you question my ethics until you can truthfully say you give a fuck how I've gotten my hands on that money for you."
"This isn't about money, or funding, or business. It's about putting people at unnecessary risk."
"Don't be such a pessimist, Dolan. These people--terminal patients facing certain death--are being offered an eighty-six percent chance at having their lives saved. If I was sitting in their chair at the roulette table, I'd take that bet. Say our worst-case estimate is right. Fourteen percent of patients have a problem. So what? They were going to die anyway. Of liver failure--a slow, horrible way to go. Until you developed Xedral. It's a godsend."
"Not when there's an alternative that provides a cure. With significantly less risk."
"An alternative that offers little incentive to this company to continue marketing and developing this and other lifesaving products. Grow up, son. This is part of doing business. We provide a service, and there are costs to providing that service. You want to...what? Bring one drug to market and not be able to fund the infrastructure to maintain it? Not to mention future R&D? How do you think that'll get funded? You want to cure cystic fibrosis, Dolan? How are we going to do that without resources?"
"How are you going to explain why you knowingly withheld a superior vector?"
"Come on, Dolan. For every product we run dozens of models and sims like this. And thousands more showing potential problems and risks with all of our products."
"This report from your beloved accounting department is a bigger threat than you're letting on."
"Would it be a threat if it leaked? Yes. Would that threat be inconvenient? Yes. Would it be unmanageable? No. We've provided for that."
Dolan leaned over the desk, jabbing a finger into the report. "We're launching Xedral on Monday and going wide three months after that. To three hundred thousand humans. A nine percent effectiveness difference is what? Twenty-seven thousand dead? A year. Have you really got that accounted for?"
Dean, a portrait of calm in the face of Dolan's emotionality, studied him with something like enmity.
Dolan examined his stone facade and said, "We have a responsibility to release Lentidra."
"And we will when the time is right."
"No way. I can't let you sit on it."
"You can't? What do you have? A contingency scenario? A few pieces of paper obtained through questionable legal means? You don't have any hard data, do you? Do you? You don't have a scrap of leverage, so don't you dare threaten me."
"What about Tess Jameson?"
"What about her?"
"She found this."
"Yes. And she came to me, of course, to blackmail me with it."
"To give her Lentidra."
"As if we could just circumvent trials and FDA approval and stick the thing in her son's arm. Even if we were willing to trust her, to float our product out into the world where any general practitioner in Antelope Valley could raise an eyebrow at the miracle cure of this one kid."
"So you...?" Dolan wanted to know and was afraid to know at the same time.
"So I told her I have a number of relationships in the medical community. Including the executive director of the United Network for Organ Sharing. If Tess were willing to walk away after signing a full non-disclosure regarding any and all knowledge she might have acquired as related to her involvement with Beacon-Kagan and Vector, perhaps expedited treatment could be arranged for her son."
Dolan could hear the rush of blood in his ears. "That's why she dropped Sam from the Xedral trial. To make him available for transplant. You offered her a liver."
"I tried to bring her into the fold--again. I tried to help her--again. And again she proved untrustworthy. She had a fit of conscience, backed out of our agreement, and was preparing to go public."
A fit of conscience. Tess had been placed in an impossible moral position. An illegal liver, attained for her son, at a cost of contributing to a corporate cover-up that would cost twenty-seven thousand children their lives every year. From what he knew of Tess, even her love for her son wouldn't make her participate in a scheme that would mean hundreds of thousands of children dying unnessarily. She'd thought she could go through with it, yet in the eleventh hour she couldn't. But in preparation for the liver, she'd had to sign away Sam's place in the Xedral study. She was stuck. So she'd tried to take another route--a legal route. Whistle-blow. And hope Sam could hang on until Vector was forced to release Lentidra.
Dolan's voice came weak, throaty. "So you ordered her killed."
"And what if I did?" Dean rose, speaking with pent-up force. "And what if I did? With what's at stake--the future of Vector, of Beacon-Kagan, the lives we save every day and will continue to save. You'd let one woman bring down the whole enterprise?"
"If she was right. Yes."
"Then why didn't you? You were in a position to know, Dolan. But you didn't want to. Instead you slurped at the teat all these years."
"Not anymore."
"Please. You may be naive, but you're not a fool. You're not going to walk away from Vector, from your work. You're emotional right now, sure. But you'll calm down, see the road ahead. We'll work this out."
Dolan summoned a reserve of strength he never knew he had. "No, sir, we won't. I'm leaving. Now."
"You'll be killed." Dean's eyes pulled to the guard who had reappeared at the door, and Dolan felt a coldness run through his veins. His father might have been talking about Walker Jameson, but then again he might not have. Keeping his eyes on Dean, Dolan backed up into the hall. Immediately another guard appeared, flanking him. He tried to turn toward the foyer but was blocked, the men filling the breadth of the hall.
But they remained, maddeningly mute, eyes downturned in a meretricious display of deference. Dolan moved back toward his room, and they permitted him, matching him when he jogged, safeguarding wrong turns, guiding him, a rat through a rigged labyrinth. He burst into the game room and slammed the door behind him, locking it.
He doubled over, hands on his knees, breathing deeply to stave off a panic attack. Finally he straightened. He picked up the telephone, pressed the receiver to his ear until the dial tone started bleating. What would he say? He had no proof, no hard data.
Setting the phone down, he pushed open the door to Chase's room. On the desk the termini of numerous computer cables shaped the blank space where the laptop had been. Dean must have had it removed in the past hour while Dolan was with the deputies. Under the circumstances the computer's absence struck Dolan as vaguely grotesque, an organ ripped free of its connective tissue. Dean had been at this game too long; he could think five moves ahead. Dolan didn't stand a chance.
He stared at the faint indentation in Chase's pillow, a remnant of his brother's final night of sleep. He tried to personalize his sense of loss, but it had little to do with Chaisson. It was more a diffuse sadness that his life and their brotherhood had amounted to nothing more than this.
A series of chirps came from the closet, disrupting Dolan's thoughts. He crossed and opened the door but was greeted with silence. After about thirty seconds, the sound repeated. He sourced it to a cell phone weighing down the pocket of Chase's favored leather jacket along with a set of keys. Dolan listened to the waiting message, but it was from a woman (screechy, loquacious, inebriated) berating Chase for not calling her.
He sat on the bed, clicking through the saved numbers. A lot of initials, in case Chase's fiancee got ahold of it. He came upon an unnamed entry--22498352. A string of random digits, clearly not a phone number.
Vector's computer log-in security codes were eight digits long.
Dolan stared at the numbers, feeling his heartbeat grow louder until he sensed it pulsing at his eardrums. With renewed purpose he rose, sliding on Chase's jacket and stuffing the phone in his pocket. On his way out, he tapped the pillow, disintegrating the hollow where Chase's head last rested.
He jogged around the pool table, undid the various locks on the bulletproof window overlooking the backyard, and climbed out into the night. A guard stirred at his station near the rear gate and scanned the dark house. Dolan flattened against the second-story lattice until the guard turned back to the street. He'd require a more elaborate exit than the down-and-out he'd planned on. Honeysuckle scraping his face, he struggled his way to the next room.
The bathroom window was cracked. He clung to the lattice beside it, his body starting to shake from exertion. Supporting himself by two tenuous toeholds and one aching arm, he slid the pane open. He pulled himself through and slipped out into the hall. Timing his dodges through the halls so as to miss the patrolling security guards, he eased out one of the service entrances. Chase's G-Wagen was parked outside the garages where he'd last left it.
Dolan flew through the remote-operated rear gate, offering a middle finger to the surprised security guard.
Chapter 75
Freed fussed at a contraption that looked like something out of a science-fiction movie; finally it clanked and spit out a dribble of espresso.
"Okay," Tim said, "walk us through the rationale."
Freed worked the knobs of the machine. "To my thinking, Lentidra's a contingency plan. No, a Plan B. They didn't back-burner it--it's ready to go. It's a holdback, a hostage drug for when the whistle blows or the pressure comes or whatever. If no nosy parent or probing journalist sniffs out its true effectiveness, it languishes in the vault. But if the heat of inquiry rises or a competitor puts a model in the pipeline that competes with Xedral, Vector has Lentidra poised to roll out. They claim they fixed it and unveil it as the new and improved lifesaver. The report indicates as much--they'll release it when it's in their financial interest to do so. That way they maximize profits on both products."
"So this isn't about undisclosed risks," Bear said. "It's not Xedral that's the problem."
"Right. It's not like Xedral kills anyone. It just doesn't save them as well. They would've died anyway. It's about Xedral's numbers versus Lentidra's. Get a jury of American dipshits to understand that bookkeeping wrinkle."
"So why would Tess drop Sam from the Xedral trial?" Bear asked. "I mean, unless she had Lentidra in hand?"
"If it was your kid, would you want him to have an eighty-six percent chance of living--or ninety-five?"
"But it's not like she knew she could get him Lentidra in any kind of time frame," Tim said. "For all she knew, Xedral was her only bet. Her decision doesn't make sense."
Freed shrugged. "I don't have an answer for you." He filled four petite mugs, double shots all the way around. One he carried back to the bedroom, Bear almost falling over to see through the opened door.
When Freed returned, Tim gestured at the report pages, still spread across the table like a feast. "This was enough to get Tess killed?"
"This in combination with her testimony, Sam's face on the news, former company mascot, all that stuff. It would've been enough to put a major crimp in the Kagan boys' plans on the eve of an IPO."
Tim finally popped the million-dollar question: "Is there anything here we can take to the U.S. Attorney's?"
"If you want to get laughed at. To prosecute Big Pharma, you need not just a smoking gun but footage of the gun being fired."
"If we got that footage, would the prosecution go federal or state?"
Freed wrinkled his mouth thoughtfully. "A big multinational corporation like this, I'd say the AUSA would probably team up with the SEC and hook it federal, like with Enron. Could be a career maker for someone. Plus, Vector was started with seed money Dolan acquired from NIH--not much, but if a nickel comes out of that pot, it carries with it a whole legal rubric of terms and conditions available for violation. If they buried a more effective drug that could've saved tens of thousands of lives, they're tangled up in all sorts of illegalities." He sipped his espresso. "But without hard data backing your case, all you have are contingency scenarios"--he gestured with his cup to the table--"and companies run those all the time. Dean Kagan's army of attorneys--and lobbyists--will have this respun before the AUSA returns our call."
"So where would the hard data be?"
"Well, you said Dean Kagan had a paper shredder working overtime at the house. Let's assume he followed similar protocol at the office and threw all key printed evidence in the circular file. What remains--for future corporate number crunching--are probably digital files hidden behind ten firewalls. But you know what a bitch it is getting warrants for corporate computers and getting to those computers before they've been processed in-house. Plus, our probable cause is wobbly. All we have are Tess's murder and a disquieting document, strung together by a lot of talk."
Tim's Nextel rang, clattering across the table. He caught it before it fell off the edge. "Rackley."
Thomas said, "I'm at the hospital switchboard, waiting to put through a call to Sam's room from a Dr. Norrath. None of the docs called for a referral from this guy."
Tim half smiled at the name, lifted from one of Sam's video games. "Put it through and patch us in."
Tim clicked the speakerphone button, set the Nextel on the table, and pressed a finger to his lips. Bear and Freed waited excitedly through two rings. A nurse picked up.
Walker's voice said, "Dr. Norrath for Sam Jameson."
A rustle as the phone was handed off.
Sam sounded hoarse and tired. "Yeah?"
"This is Dr. Norrath calling. Do you understand?"
A hesitation. "Yeah, I understand."
"How are you doing?"
Sam coughed a few times, then said, "If I'm a saint, doesn't that mean I get to go somewhere after this?"
"A saint?"
"Mo
m said I was a saint. She woke me up this one night. A few days before she died. She asked me, just for pretend like, if I could get a new liver but that meant that tons of other kids who are sick like me couldn't get better?" Sam took a few seconds to catch his breath. "Would I want it anyways? I told her I wouldn't feel so hot about that. So no. She said I was a saint. She cried and everything. Mom did. So I knew she meant it. She said she wouldn't be able to do it either and she hoped I'd know it wasn't because she didn't love me more than anything in the world." More labored breathing. "So what's that get me? Being a saint?"
"I wouldn't know about that," Walker said, "but don't worry. I'll make it right. I'll make it right for you."
In a quiet, hopeful voice, Sam said, "Promise?"
The pause stretched out to maybe ten seconds. Walker said, "Promise," and hung up.
Tim, Bear, and Freed remained silent, poleaxed by what they'd just heard, processing the implications.
Tess and Sam had walked away from a life guarantee, close at hand but questionably obtained, and they'd done it to bust Lentidra out of Big Pharma captivity. Dean's words returned as an echo in Tim's head: bear in mind, once a patient begins gene therapy, he is removed from the organ-donor list. Tess had to drop Sam from the trial to position him for the liver when she'd thought she could go through with it. But clearly, even with the Xedral trial no longer an option, the implications of saving her son's life had sat too heavy with her. Tim wondered if he'd be able to live with himself, choosing Ty's well-being, even if that meant tens of thousands of other children would die. Maybe more. He wondered if he could live with that knowledge. He wondered if he could live with Tyler's growing up under the weight of a secret that would crush him were it ever revealed.
Thomas came back on the line and told them to hold while he and Frisk sourced the call's origin. His voice jarred them back into the present.
"The kid's circling the drain," Freed said. "How's Walker think he's gonna make it right?"
"Just comforting him, maybe," Bear said.
"Not his style." Tim worked the inside of his cheek between molars.
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