Flash Point

by Thomas Locke

  “I know what you mean.” The woman was not just slight but frail, with birdlike limbs and a voice that probably had not once shouted in her entire life. “They’re all the same.”

  Reese felt the cold rage surge through her once more. It was an aboriginal response, straight from gut to claws. “Look at me.” When the woman lifted her gaze, Reese said, “Nothing is the same around here. They just don’t know it yet.”

  31

  Lena had asked Chester to arrange a meeting with the disgraced inventor before they left the First American building. As the jet touched down at the Savannah/Hilton Head airport, Lena asked Robin to call the former surgeon and reconfirm their appointment. They had an hour and a half before he could see them, so Lena guided them to an airport Starbucks and paid for four coffees. The golfers traveling to and from Hilton Head were affluent and ruddy-faced and loud enough to keep Lena’s team from being overheard.

  Brett sat with his back to the terminal and the crowds. “Let’s review what we know and try to identify what we’re missing. Dr. Bernard Bishop, aged sixty-six. Tulane undergrad, University of Miami medical school. Specialized in orthopedic surgery at Chicago. Married to the same woman for twenty-one years, then lost her to cancer eleven years ago. Two grown children, one living in Chicago, the other in upstate New York. Three grandchildren. Until this all blew up, Dr. Bishop was considered one of the nation’s best spine doctors. His primary focus was the neck.”

  Robin added, “Specifically, the craniocervical junction, where the skull meets the spine. And the foramen magnum, where the brain and the spinal cord join.”

  Chester picked up with, “He was the on-call specialist for all the pro football teams in the southeast. Handled injuries to the cervical spine, vertebrae numbered C1 through C7. Did groundbreaking research and repair to the atlas, the first cervical bone. The atlas plays a crucial role in supporting the skull. It articulates with the occipital bone.”

  “Some say Bishop was the top neck guy in the world,” Brett went on. “He was a senior surgeon here in Savannah and maintained a connection to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. He kept residences in both cities, but his home has been here since he left Chicago. To be kept on by the Mayo for thirty-seven years tells us all we need to know about this guy’s abilities as a surgeon.”

  Lena liked how he talked without referring to notes. Brett’s hands rested lightly on the file’s cover. He spoke conversationally, reviewing the work of allies. She asked, “Do you have an eidetic memory?”

  He smiled and nodded, as though approving of her using the proper word, eidetic. “Not exactly. I read your combined reports three times. That’s enough.” He turned back to the duo and went on, “Like a lot of top guys, Bishop maintained a voracious hunger to grow and research and delve further. It’s the trait of many highly intelligent and successful medical specialists. They spend their entire lives pushing against the boundaries of their chosen fields. In Bishop’s case, he ventured into the area where brain surgery meets neuroscience.”

  “Brain waves,” Robin said. “Neural mapping. Emotional trigger points. Where memories are held.”

  “Seven years of study,” Chester said. “Numerous professional papers, plus more he coauthored on injuries to the brain stem.”

  Robin said, “I spoke with an editor at the journal where Bishop regularly published. She described Bishop’s disgrace as a loss to the entire field.”

  “Neural mapping took off about eight years ago,” Brett continued. “Bishop started delving into this about a year later. The key was applying new methods of brain scanning.”

  Lena asked, “This is your field?”

  “Not directly. But I have kept informed. Every neuroscientist does. They don’t have any choice.” Brett lifted one hand and gave a little wave. Putting that aside. “I’ll give you the breakdown later. Right now, what’s important is this. In the past seven years, more progress has been made on neural mapping than in all the rest of history combined. The breakthroughs in scanning technology have given us a Hubble telescope all our very own. Bishop was involved in this. He probably saw it as a natural fit, because the same improvements in scanning have helped spine surgeons immensely. Which brings us to the reason we’re here.”

  “Three years ago, Bishop took it one step further,” Robin said. “He became an inventor.”

  “First he retired from Mayo, freeing up three days each week,” Chester corrected. “Then he started his very own garage company.”

  “Actually, he bought a defunct lab across the street from Savannah General,” Robin said.

  “And Bishop knew from that very first moment he was on to something big,” Brett said.

  Robin nodded in time to Brett’s finger taps on the analysis cover. “He hired two research postgrads, an electronic engineer, two lab assistants, and a business manager. He invested virtually all his savings. He remortgaged his home. He promised his employees a cut of any profits. But he kept hold of all the company shares. He wouldn’t take such a risk unless he was confident of a big payout.”

  “Sixteen months later, he comes out with the neural net,” Chester said. “A cross between a helmet and a flexible webbing. With electrodes fitted in the same pattern as used to measure EKGs. But with a difference.”

  “He wasn’t after measurement,” Robin said. “Bishop intended to stimulate the brain.”

  “Specific areas of the brain,” Chester said.

  “Directing small electromagnetic impulses at problem areas,” Robin said.

  “And the neural net can be programmed to aim these impulses at different areas,” Chester added. “Depending upon what health issue they are addressing.”

  “Because the net is imbedded with microchips that both monitor and stimulate,” Robin said. “This was the breakthrough. This was what took Bishop’s invention to a totally new level.”

  Brett leaned back and crossed his arms. He glanced over at Lena and smiled. The professor was clearly pleased with his students.

  Robin and Chester both noticed the change. It freed them up, allowed them to accelerate. They were on a roll. More than that. They were taking aim.

  “The initial results were totally off the charts,” Robin said.

  “Bishop’s device showed amazing abilities to stimulate a whole host of neurochemicals,” Chester said. “Serotonin, beta-endorphin, amino acids linked to logic and analytical thought processes and memories.”

  “Totally noninvasive. Seen as a low-risk treatment option. It could work on multiple symptoms at the same time.”

  “Insomnia, anxiety, mental disorders, motor-neuron ailments, epilepsy, even migraines.”

  “He ran initial tests with volunteers at Savannah General. This was what—two and a half years prior to his formal trials in Mexico and Italy? He worked exclusively with near-death patients who had given up all hope, with the permission of the hospital’s directors and the patients and their families. He focused on illnesses where there was no known cure. He even had some preliminary indications that the device could stimulate the healing of injured nerves.”

  There was a silence. Lena could see the same thought reflected on both faces.

  Finally Robin said, “Five deaths.”

  Chester said, “The hospital had no choice. Bishop was sacked.”

  “The FDA determined that such a noninvasive device was not strictly required to have been licensed. They did not pursue charges. The medical board followed the FDA’s guidelines. Still, no hospital would ever give him another chance. He was bankrupt, disgraced, and reduced to working as a GP in an urgent-care clinic.”

  Chester frowned at his coffee. Sipped. Frowned some more. “I just don’t get it.”

  Brett’s smile grew broader.

  Robin asked, “Don’t get what?”

  “This guy is the best. He doesn’t make mistakes. That’s what rules a surgeon’s life, right? One false move, one slip of the knife, and his patient never stands up again or feeds themselves. He has to be right the fir
st time, every time. Bishop has made a lifetime of right moves.” Chester shook his head. “This doesn’t add up.”

  Brett took a long breath. Stood up. Said to the table, “Exactly.”

  32

  They walked around to the main passenger terminal and took a taxi because Lena did not want them arriving in a limo. She assumed they would need two vehicles, because there was no way for the four of them to be comfortable in one standard cab. But the first taxi in line was a battered minivan, and the wizened driver grinned at their approach and declared, “Y’all best know it’s your lucky day, now.”

  “I sure hope you’re right,” Lena said.

  “Yes, ma’am, I just saved you folks either some sweat or some cash, one or t’other. Ain’t another cab in the rank that’ll take four passengers without y’all showing up wrinkled and hot.” He cackled as he gimped around to the back and opened the door and lifted in their carry-ons. Three of them carried overnight cases they had learned to keep by their desks. The driver grinned at Brett’s hands, empty of all save the well-thumbed analysis. “Got caught out, did you?”

  “More than you’ll ever know,” Brett agreed.

  The driver laughed. “Hop on in.”

  The weather was Georgia springtime, humid and clear. Lena tasted a faint hint of salt through the driver’s open window and knew a sudden longing for home. Orlando was as far from the ocean as one could get on the Florida peninsula, but on days when the wind blew strong off the Atlantic, the air tasted just like this, a citified mixture overlaid by the sea.

  The driver left highway 16 at the 167A exit and entered old-town Savannah. Then he turned south, away from the tourist district, and drove down Montgomery. Ten blocks later he took a side street to Martin Luther King, then turned right again and continued south. The area was not bad, mostly mid-level commercial structures. But the side streets held the sort of shadows that would grow increasingly unwelcome the closer they moved to sunset. When Lena met the driver’s gaze in the rearview mirror, he asked, “You sure you want to go there?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’s two clinics uptown, they got everything you need. They’s set up to help the tourists.”

  “This one is fine.”

  He shrugged and did not speak again. Seven blocks later he turned into a low-rent commercial mall holding a payday loans, a dentist advertising in Spanish, a bagel shop, a bar, and a consignment store. The urgent-care clinic occupied most of the second floor.

  The elevator was scarred with graffiti and stank. They took the stairs. The upstairs walkway was open to the late afternoon. A half-dozen men lined the balcony, watching the traffic and talking softly. They went silent as Lena’s team passed and entered the clinic.

  She gave her name to the attendant and joined the others at the back of the waiting area. Somewhere beyond the entrance to the examination rooms, a baby wailed. The patients and families were mostly dark, the features weathered by hard lives. Lena and her team could not have been more out of place with their business suits and their cases. They waited in silence for fifteen minutes, then a nurse opened the door and invited them back.

  The examination chambers were curtained alcoves that faced a central hallway. Lena had seen similar systems in hospital emergency rooms. The nurse led them to a room at the end of the hall that was clearly shared by all the doctors. Four desks with computer terminals lined the walls. A young man with a clinician’s white coat and tired eyes sat at the room’s far end, eating from a plastic container of salad. He wore headphones and watched a reality show on his computer. He glanced over when they entered, then went back to his salad and the show. Clearly their business attire did not impress him.

  Ten minutes passed. Lena stared at a calendar ad for a drug she’d never heard of and mentally prepped. Then the door opened, and a stocky man with a salt-and-pepper crew cut hurried in. He gave them a cursory inspection, then walked over and poked the other doctor in the shoulder. When the younger man slipped off his headphones, the newcomer said, “Give us a minute, will you?”

  “No problem.”

  “Ask the others to stay out.” He waited until the door closed, then said, “You have cards?”

  Lena had one ready. Bernard Bishop was short and bullish and worn down. Bishop did not appear weary so much as defeated. As though he was propelled forward by a natural momentum, even when most of the man was long gone. His gaze was hollow, his voice toneless as he said, “What’s First American doing buying the debts of a bankrupt doctor?”

  “We’re not here about your debts.”

  “Whatever you want, you’ve come to the wrong place. My attorneys have laid it all out. I’ve walked away from the chapter eleven—”

  “Dr. Bishop, we need to talk with you about your invention.”

  He actually winced. Lena’s words carried the power to fold him up, like a boxer protecting a broken rib. “Not again.”

  “Sir, can we please sit down?” When he looked ready to argue, she added, “You really want to hear what we have to say.”

  “I can give you ten minutes. I only get half an hour for dinner and I haven’t eaten since this morning. Then I’m back on shift.”

  They pulled swivel chairs from various desks and seated themselves. Bernard Bishop remained isolated by choice, backed away from the four of them. Lena waited until she had as tight a lock on his attention as he could manage, then replied, “Sir, we are here to buy eighty percent of your company.”

  33

  Bernard Bishop squinted at her, struggling to understand. Lena had the impression of watching a highly intelligent man trying to recall a language he had learned once but had now forgotten.

  He said, “Come again?”

  “Eighty percent of all remaining assets,” Lena said.

  He ran his left hand through the greying stubble. “Young lady . . .”

  Brett said, “Her name is Lena Fennan.”

  The doctor had grey eyes rimmed by the dark caverns of countless broken nights. “You don’t have a card?”

  “My name is Brett Riffkind. Neuroscientist.”

  The gaze sharpened. “On faculty?”

  “University of California. On secondment for the past three years.”

  “With the bank?” He did not actually sneer his opinion of that shift.

  “Only for the past two days. I’ve been working with an international team on a new concept.”

  “Brett serves as our scientific consultant,” Lena said.

  The grey gaze remained locked on Brett. “What concept is this?”

  “One that runs parallel to your own work, Dr. Bishop.”

  This time the wince was a mere flicker around the eyes. “You know there’s nothing left.”

  Brett did not respond.

  “It’s gone. Seven and a half years of work. Not to mention my reputation and my rights to perform surgery. Gone.” He turned back to Lena. He appeared angry now, resenting how she had brought the most unexpected news of all. A reason to hope. A false reason. It had to be. His gaze said it all. “There’s nothing left. Not even for you vultures.”

  “All your assets,” Lena repeated. “All your research. Everything.”

  He sat and smoldered.

  “Name your price,” Lena said.

  “Get out,” Bishop said. Too weary to even push hard.

  In reply, Lena lifted her phone from her purse. “The bank’s senior attorney is waiting for my call. The papers establishing our LLC have been prepared. Assuming one of these computers is yours, we will have the documents sent directly here. We will locate a notary and seal the deal. Tonight. But first we need to know your price. For your assets. Your research. And one hundred percent of your time.” Lena gave the room a cursory glance. “Because you’re leaving here and you’re never coming back.”

  Bishop swallowed. “Time to do what?”

  “That should be obvious,” Lena replied. “Complete your work on the neural net. Bring it to market.”

  His mouth worke
d, but no sound emerged.

  Lena took her cue from their conversation on the plane. She liked Brett’s calm way of fashioning the impossible into reality. Time was pressing on them, so she had to be direct. She did not know why her temporal self had insisted on speed. At this point, she did not need to know more than that the deal had to be done.

  Today.

  When it was clear Bishop could not actually frame the protest, she said it for him. “We need to address the issue of the five deaths.”

  Bishop might have nodded. Or it could have been a shudder.

  Lena forced herself to meet his gaze, though the pain in his eyes was hard to endure. “We are working on the . . .”

  “Evidence,” Brett supplied. “Incomplete, but strong.”

  She shot him a look of gratitude. She saw that Robin and Chester were both confused and unsettled by his choice of words. But that could not be helped. Lena went on, “Certain new evidence that has come to light. It has given us a strong indication that your device was not actually responsible for those deaths.”

  He touched the collar to his open shirt with fingers that trembled slightly. “How can this be?”

  Lena shifted a fraction closer. “Sir, I cannot go into detail just now because we are under considerable pressure. But you need to understand. We need to complete this process immediately.”

  “But . . . why?”

  Brett shifted forward. He moved a fraction to his left. Closing the distance between his chair and Lena’s. It was just the two of them now. “Dr. Bishop, we need to assume that from this point on, we are going to be tracked and monitored.”

  A trace of fear flickered through Lena’s gut, like lightning beyond the horizon. A faint rumble of thunder, easily missed. Unless she was listening for it.

  Brett went on, “If we are correct, your opponents have murdered five innocent trial subjects. They want this idea of yours buried. They may still be watching you. We need to know how much you would require to sell—”