Side Effects

by Michael Palmer

  Tom whistled. "Kids with no arms because their mothers took a sleeping pill called thalidomide. Kids with irreparably yellow teeth because tetracycline was rushed into the marketplace before all its side effects were known. The list goes on and on."

  "You sound a little angry, " Tom said, taking her hand and guiding her to the couch across the room. "They paid off my chemist, Tom, " she said. "They've made me look like a fool, or worse, a liar. You're damn right I'm angry."

  She sighed and leaned back, still holding his hand. "Forgive me for popping off like that, but I guess I needed to."

  Tom slipped his free arm around her shoulders and drew her close.

  Together they sat, watching fat, wind-whipped flakes of snow tumble about over the harbor and melt against the huge picture window. "Thank you, " she whispered. "Thank you for understanding."

  Again and again they kissed. First her blouse, then her bra, then Tom's shirt dropped to the carpet, as he bore her gently down on the couch.

  His lips, brushing across the hollow of her neck and over the rise of her breasts, felt wonderful. His hand, caressing the smooth inside of her thigh was warm and knowing and patient. She felt as excited, as frightened, as she had during her earliest teenage encounters. But even as she sensed her body respond to his hunger, even as her nipples grew hard against his darting tongue, she sensed her mind begin to pull back.

  "Kate. Oh, Kate, " Tom whispered, the words vibrating gently against the skin of her breast. "Tom? " The word was a soft plea, almost a whimper.

  "Hold me, Kate. Please don't stop."

  She took his face in her hands. "Tom, " she said huskily. "I… just can't."

  Her emotions swirling like the snow on the interstate, Kate took most of an hour and a half to make the drive from Boston to Essex. Tom had been hurt and frustrated by her sudden change in attitude, but in the end he had done his best to understand and accept. "I only hope Jared knows how goddamn lucky he is, " he had snapped as she was dressing. Later, he had insisted on driving her back to Metro and her car, where they had shared a quasi-platonic good-bye kiss. The phone was ringing as she opened the door from the garage to her house. Roscoe, who had spent most of the past two days at a sleepover with neighbors and their golden retriever, bounded down the hall, accepted a quick greeting, and then followed her to the den. It was Jared. "Hi, " he said. "I called the house at three A. M. and no one was home. Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine, Jared. I spent the night at your father's. Didn't he tell you he had invited me?"

  "No." There was no mistaking the curiosity in Jared's voice. "Did you get my letter?"

  Kate thumbed through the pile of bills and throwaway journals she had carried in with her. Jared's letter was sandwiched between the magazines Aches and Pains and Pathologist on the Go. "I just brought it in, " she said. "If you want to wait, I'll read it right now."

  "No need, Kate. I've got it memorized." Kate opened the letter and read along as he said the words. "It says I love you, I miss you, and I don't want to not live with you anymore. Jared."

  Kate's heart was pounding so much she could barely respond. "I love you too, Jared. Very, very much. When are you coming home? "

  "Day after tomorrow, unless you want me to hitch home now."

  "Thursday's fine, honey. Just fine. I'll pick you up at the airport."

  "Seven P. M. United."

  "Perfect. I have a lot to tell you about. Maybe we'll take a ride in the country. There's someone you should visit."

  "Who?"

  "You'll see. Let me leave it at that until Thursday. Okay?"

  "Okay, but…"

  "I love you."

  "I love you, Boots. Sometimes I don't know who the heck you are or where Jared Samuels is on your list of priorities, but I love you and I want to ride it all out with you as long as I can hang on."

  "We'll do just fine, honey. Everything is going to be all right." As she hung up, Kate realized that for the first time in weeks she believed that.

  Wednesday 19 December

  Arlen Paqueiie, stiff and sore from lack of sleep, cruised along the tree-lined drive toward Redding Pharmaceuticals. Paralleling the icy roadway were the vestiges of the first December snow in Darlington in eleven years. His homecoming the evening before had been a fiasco, marked by several fights with the children, too much to drink before, during and after dinner, and finally, impotence and discord in bed-problems he and his wife had never encountered before. He adjusted the rearview mirror to examine his face and plucked off the half dozen tissue-paper patches on the shaving nicks caused by his unsteady hand. Even without the patches he looked like hell. It was the job, the job he couldn't quit. Bribery, payoffs, deceptions, threats, ruined lives. Suddenly he was no longer a chemist.

  Suddenly he was no. longer even an administrator. He was a lieutenant, a platoon leader in Cyrus Redding's army. It was an army of specialists, held together by coercion, blackmail, and enormous amounts of money-poised to strike at anything or anyone who threatened Cyrus Redding or the corporation he had built. The guard greeted him warmly and performed a perfunctory search of the Mercedes. Paquette had once asked the man exactly what it was he was checking for. His polite, but quite disconcerting, reply was, "Anything Mr. Redding doesn't want to be there."

  The executive offices, including Cyrus Redding's, were at the hub of the wagon wheel of six long, low structures that made up the manufacturing and packaging plants. Research and other laboratory facilities occupied an underground annex, joined to the main structure by tunnels, escalators, and moving walkways. Paquette parked in the space marked with his name, stopped at his office to leave his coat, and then headed directly for Redding's suite. He was ushered in immediately. "Arlen, Arlen, " Redding said warmly, "welcome home." He was in his wheelchair behind his desk and was dressed in the only outfit Paquette could remember him wearing at work, a lightweight blue-gray suit, white shirt, and string tie, fastened with a turquoise thunderbird ring. "So,"

  Redding said, when they had moved to the sitting area with coffee and a sugary pastry, "you look a bit drawn. This Boston business has not been so easy, has it?"

  "You told me it might not be, " Paquette said. "Do you remember when we decided to move the mailing address of the Ashburton Foundation?"

  "Of course. A few months after you started working here. Six, no, seven years ago, right? " Paquette nodded. "It was an excellent suggestion and the first time I fully appreciated what a winning decision it was to hire you." Paquette smiled a weak thank you. "Well, " he said, "it was my feeling at that time that with the foundation registered as a tax-exempt philanthropic organization and located in DC, there was no way Redding Pharmaceuticals could ever be connected to it."

  "And yet our tenacious friend Dr. Bennett has done so."

  "Yes, although as I told you last night, I'm not certain she has put it all together."

  "But she will, " the Warlock said with certainty. "She called twice yesterday trying to reach me-that is, trying to reach Dr. Thompson, the foundation director. I couldn't even call her back for fear of having her recognize my voice."

  "It was a wise decision not to."

  "She's got to hear from someone today."

  "She will, " Redding said. He glanced at his watch. "At this moment, our persuasive legislative liaison, Charlie Wilson, is on his way to the foundation office to become Dr. James Thompson."

  "Office?"

  "Of course. We wouldn't want Dr. Bennett to try and locate the Ashburton Foundation only to find a desk, phone and secretary, would we?"

  Paquette shook his head. The man was absolutely incredible, and efficient in a way that he found quite frightening. "By eleven o'clock this morning, the office, its staff, photographic essays describing its good works, testimonial letters, and a decade or so of documented service will be in place, along with Charlie Wilson, who is, I think you'll agree, as smooth and self-confident as they come."

  "Amazing, " Paquette said. "Are you feeling a bit more relaxed about things
now?"

  "Yes, Mr. Redding. Yes, I am."

  "Good. You'll be pleased to know that the company will be taking care of that mirror at the Ritz."

  Paquette froze. He had gone to great pains to pay for the damage himself and to insure that in no way would Redding find out about what had happened. Instability under fire was hardly the sort of trait the man rewarded in his platoon leaders. "I… I'm sorry about that, sir. I really am."

  Redding gestured to the coffee table before them. Sealed under thick glass was the emblem of Redding Pharmaceuticals, a sky-blue background with white hands opening to release a pure, white dove.

  Below the dove was the name of the company, above it, in a rainbow arc, the motto, The Greatest Good for the Most People at the Least Cost.

  "Arlen, ever since the day I took over this company, I have tried to chart a course that would lead to exactly what this motto says. In this business-in any business-there are always choices to be made, always decisions that cannot be avoided. In the thirty-five years since I first came to Darlington, I've made more gut-wrenching decisions and smashed more glasses and more mirrors in anguish than I care to count. But always, when I needed direction, when I needed advice or council, it was right in front of me." He tapped the motto with his finger.

  "The legislators, state and federal, the competition, and especially the goddamn FDA are all doing their best to cloud the issue, but in the end it always boils down to this." Again, he tapped the glass. If the pep talk was meant to buoy Paquette's flagging morale, it failed miserably.

  The greatest good for the most people at the highest profit was all he could think of. The shortcuts and the human testing, the clinics in Denver and Boston, the bribery and extortion involving 1? DA officials-all had been tolerable for him because all were abstractions.

  Kate Bennett was flesh and blood, a voice, a face, a reality, and worse than that, a reality he was growing to admire. Paquette snapped out of his reverie, wondering how long it had lasted. A second?

  A minute? Then he realized that Redding's eyes were fixed on him. "I understand, sir, " he said, clearing away the phlegm in his throat, "and I assure you, you have nothing to worry about." How did the man know about the stinking mirror? Spies in Boston? A bug in the room?

  Damn him, Paquette thought viciously. Damn him to hell. "Fine, Arlen,"

  Redding said. "Now, you have a flight back to Boston this afternoon?"

  "Two o'clock."

  "I suspect that our meddlesome pathologist is on the ropes. However, her father-in-law assures me that she is far from out on her feet. Her discovery regarding the Ashburton Foundation suggests that he is quite correct."

  "I believe Norton Reese is arranging a surprise for her that may help,"

  Paquette said, vividly recalling the glee in Reese's voice as he announced that something was set to fall heavily on Kate Bennett.

  "Excellent, " Redding said. "Her father-in-law has promised to do what he can to help us as well. One final thing."

  "Yes?"

  "Has anything further surfaced on the cause of the ovary and blood problems in those three women? " Paquette shook his head. "Strange,"

  Redding said, more to himself than to the other man. "Very strange…"

  For several seconds, he remained lost in thought, his eyes closed, his head turning from side to side as if he were internally speedreading a page. "Well, Arlen, " he said suddenly, opening his eyes, "thank you for the excellent job you are doing. I know at times your duties are not easy for you, but continue to carry them out the way you have, and your rewards will be great."

  "Yes, sir, " Paquette said. He sat for nearly half a minute before realizing that the Warlock had said all he was going to. Sheepishly, he rose and hurried from the room. Cyrus Redding studied the man as he left. The Boston business seemed to be having some untoward effects on him, particularly in the area of his drinking. As he motored from the sitting area to his desk, Redding made a mental note to arrange a vacation of some sort for Paquette and his wife as soon as Boston was over. That done, he put the issue and the man out of his head. There was more important business needing attention. Stephen Stein, the enigmatic, remarkably resourceful investigator, had made a discovery that he suspected would unlock the mystery of John Ferguson. "Mr. Nunes,"

  Redding said through the intercom of his desk, "would you bring that package to me now."

  At the far end of the office, a perfectly camouflaged panel and one way mirror slid open. The man Nunes emerged from the small, soundproof room from which he kept vigil, revolver at hand, whenever Redding was not alone in his office. The package, containing a book, several typewritten pages, and an explanatory letter from Stein, had arrived by messenger only minutes before Arlen Paquette. "If you have errands to run, Mr.

  Nunes, this would be a good time. When you return in, say, an hour, we could well have a new slant on our friend, Dr. Ferguson." He smiled, nearly beside himself at the prospect. "I think this occasion might call for a pint of that mint chip ice cream I have forbidden you to let me talk you into buying."

  The taciturn bodyguard nodded. "I can't let you talk me into it, " he said, "but perhaps I could purchase some on my own."

  Redding waited until his office door had clicked shut, then he locked it electronically and spread the contents of the package on his desk. "My apologies, " Stein wrote, "for missing this volume during the course of earlier efforts to tie our mysterious Dr. Ferguson's background in with the war. I borrowed it from the Holocaust Library at the university here with assurances of its return, along with some token of our gratitude.

  Its title, according to the German professor who did the enclosed translation for us, is Doctors of the Reich, The Story of Hitler's Monster Kings. The work is the product of painstaking research and countless interviews by a Jewish journalist named Sachs, himself a death camp survivor, and is believed by my source to be accurate within the limits of the author's prejudices. Only the chapters dealing with the experiments at the Ravensbruck concentration camp for women have been translated. The photographs on pages three sixty-seven and three sixty-eight will, I believe, be of special interest to you."

  For most of the next hour, Cyrus Redding sat transfixed, moving only to turn the pages of the translation or to refer to specific photographs in the worn, yellowed text. John Ferguson was a physician and scientist named Dr. Wilhelm Becker. The photographs, though slightly blurred and taken nearly forty years before, left no doubt whatsoever. "Amazing,"

  Redding murmured as he read and reread the biography of his associate.

  "Absolutely amazing."

  There were two snapshots of Wilhelm Becker, one a full-face identification photo and one a group shot with other physicians at the Ravensbruck Camp. There was also a shot of what remained of the laboratory in which Becker was purported to have died, with the bodies of the man and his staff sergeant still curled amidst the debris on the floor. Redding withdrew a large, ivory-handled magnifying glass from his desk and for several minutes studied the detail of the scene. The body identified as Willi Becker was little more than an ill-defined, charred lump. "Nicely done, my friend, " Redding said softly. "Nicely done."

  Familiar now with the man and with his spurious death, Redding turned to the page and a half dealing with Becker's research, specifically, with his research on a substance called Estronate 250. Much of the information presented was gleaned from transcripts of the war crimes trial of a physician named Muller and another named Rendl, both of whom were sentened to Nuremberg Prison in large measure because of their association with the supposedly late Wilhelm Becker. Redding found the men in the Ravensbruck group photo. Muller had served five years at hard labor before certain Ravensbruck survivors were able to document his acts of heroism on their behalf and get his sentence commuted. For Rendl, the revelations of his humanitarianism came too late. Three years after his incarceration, he hanged himself in his cell. Redding read the Estronate material word by word, taking careful notes. By the time he had fi
nished, he was absolutely certain that neither Wilhelm Becker nor the notebook containing his work on the hormone had perished in the Ravensbruck fire. A substance, harmless in every other way, that could render a woman sterile without her knowledge. Redding was staggered by the potential of such a drug. China, India, the African nations, the Arabs. What would governments be willing to pay for a secret that might selectively thin their populations and thereby solve so many of their economic and political woes? What would certain governments pay for a weapon which, if delivered properly, could decimate their enemies in a single generation without the violent loss of one life?

  Redding's thoughts were soaring through the possibilities of Estronate 250 when, with a soft knock, Nunes entered the office, set a package on the desk, and retired to his observation room. For another hour, Redding sat alone, savoring his mint chip ice cream and deciding how he might best break the news to Dr. John Ferguson that their fifteen-year-old collaboration was about to take on a new dimension. + "I love you, I miss you, and I don't want to not live with you anymore."

  Kate read Jared's note again and then again, drawing strength and confidence from it each time. She had returned to her office following two distressing and frightening visits. One was to Ellen, who was, for the first time, receiving a transfusion of packed red blood cells.

  The second was to Norton Reese. If the connection between Metropolitan Hospital of Boston, the Ashburton Foundation, and Redding Pharmaceuticals was as intimate as Reese's clumsy evasions were leading her to believe, she would need all the strength and confidence she could muster. Thank you, Jared, she thought. Thank you for pulling me out from under the biggest pressure of all. Her meeting with Reese had started off cordially enough. In fact, the man had seemed at times to be inappropriately jovial and at ease. Ever since their confrontation before the board of trustees over his diversion of budgeted pathology department funds to the cardiac surgical program, Reese had dealt with her with the gingerliness of an apprentice handling high explosives.