“Yes. I understand. Go ahead.”
“I was asked a few weeks ago to look into a biochemist known as Edvard Csáky. And. . . .”
“And . . . what?”
“I myself have had certain suspicions about this man from the very first time that I came across his name a couple of years ago. But the Deputy Director General would not listen to me. Nor was anyone else at any Directorate interested in this interesting man. . . . But I do what I’m told and now your people told me to find anything and everything that involves this man in any manner.”
“That’s correct. . . . What do you know about this man?”
“Doctor Edvard Csáky testified as an expert at hearings that we held . . . a year ago . . . on whether to authorize . . . for human use throughout the European Union . . . two drug patents that were filed . . . by Ultra Laboratories. The company filed for the patents in Bulgaria four years ago. . . . They got approved in Bulgaria for human consumption a year later after clinical trials.”
“Excuse me. But did Csáky testify as an owner or shareholder or interested party in the company?”
“No. Only as a scientific expert. . . . But I’ve always thought that he owned a secret percentage or interest in the company.”
“Ultra Laboratories . . . where’s it from? . . . Who owns them?”
“Ultra Laboratories is a Dutch B.V. or limited liability private company . . . a Besloten Vennootschap . . . and that Dutch company is owned by two entities . . . Windsor Charitable Trust . . . registered in Switzerland with offices in Monaco . . . and Ultra International Holdings A.G. which is a Swiss corporation that is in turn owned by a Luxembourg joint stock company . . . a Société Anonyme type of corporation . . . Ultra Worldwide Holdings S.A.”
Sohlberg nodded. He could almost smell the laundered money pouring out of shell companies in the corporate labyrinths of Switzerland. “Very good. How did you find all this information?”
“They have to report ownership information under E.U. regulations.”
“Of course. Please continue.”
“Now . . . as you might know . . . we at the European Commission have to decide whether to allow the medical products of one country to be exported and used in all other twenty-six member nations of the E.U.”
“What type of drugs were involved?”
“The first one is Olera . . . a powerful synthetic narcotic pain-killer with anti-depressant properties. Think of it as a mixture of three drugs . . . the world’s most popular prescription narcotic . . . oxycodone . . . and two of the world’s most popular prescription anxiolytic anti-depressants . . . prozac and xanax.”
“A triple home run.”
“Oh yes. I’ve always wondered if the chemist genius behind the Olera patent wasn’t the rogue scientist who reverse-engineered oxycodone a few years ago.”
“But isn’t that illegal?”
“Yes . . . but only if the person can be sued in court. Then and only then could the owner of the worldwide patent rights for oxycodone have any recourse.”
“Who are the owners of the oxycodone patents?”
“Purdue Pharma in the U.S.A. They also own the trademark name of oxycontin for the drug.”
“Public company?”
“No. Private.”
“Private? . . . Are you kidding me?”
“No. Purdue Pharma is owned by the Sackler families . . . the heirs of three brothers . . . Arthur . . . Raymond and Mortimer.”
“They must be billionaires.”
“Many many times over. Interesting thing is that Purdue Pharma knows that it makes billions in profits from the prescription abuse and fraud that goes on with oxycodone . . . it’s stolen from pharmacies . . . it’s over-prescribed and then resold for giant markups.”
“What else do you know about this Purdue Pharma?”
“Purdue Pharma sure wasn’t happy when they started losing ten billion U.S. dollars a year in profits to the generic street version that the rogue chemist reverse-engineered. But what could they do? . . . Purdue Pharma couldn’t sue an illegal drug lab for infringing their patents for oxycodone.”
“Where did the counterfeit drug come from?”
“I wouldn’t call it counterfeit . . . it’s an exact copy with the same pharmacological properties and components. . . it’s almost impossible to distinguish from Purdue’s oxycodone. I’d call it a generic imitation. We think it was made somewhere in East Europe. Maybe Russia. Maybe Romania.”
“You said that Ultra Laboratories also wanted approval to sell another drug in Europe. What’s the drug?”
“Kyra . . . for post-traumatic stress disorder. It would be a very profitable blockbuster drug if we approve it. The same goes for Olera.”
“Does the E.U. plan on approving the two drugs from Ultra Labs?”
“We approved them five weeks ago.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” said Sohlberg.
“I agree. But the higher-ups have made up their minds. There are rumors floating around . . . whispering that the higher-ups received substantial bribes . . . but that’s none of my business. I’m just an underling.”
“I understand.”
Uffe Qvistgaard pulled a pill dispenser out of his coat pocket. He popped a pill into his mouth. “I have a heart condition. Anyway. . . . Everything about Ultra was strange. . . . At first we heard an earful from a multinational army of lobbyists . . . they howled about how Olera would infringe on Purdue Pharma’s patents for oxycodone and dozens of Big Pharma patents for anxiolytics and anti-depressants.”
Sohlberg sighed. “Of course. A lot of money is at stake.”
“The lobbyists put up a united front for Big Pharma . . . the Seven Sisters of America . . . Johnson and Johnson . . . Pfizer . . . Abbott . . . Merck . . . Wyeth . . . Bristol-Myers . . . Lilly. Then the Brits showed up with AstraZeneca and Glaxo. . . . The Swiss Twins too . . . Roche and Novartis. And . . . last but not least . . . the French giant Sanofi.”
“What was strange about their opposition? . . . Big Pharma stood to lose . . . over time . . . hundreds of billions of dollars and euros in profits.”
“True,” said Uffe Qvistgaard. He basked in the attention that he was getting from Sohlberg. “But the truly strange thing is that all of a sudden three of the Seven Sisters from America drop their opposition . . . so do the Swiss Twins.”
Sohlberg made a quick mental outline of a possible if not likely scenario: the five dropout companies had made a deal with the devil. He was sure that the five companies had ended their opposition to Ultra because they had struck a secret licensing deal with Edvard Csáky and the people who bankrolled him—the Russian mob and the 'Ndrangheta including Ishmael himself.
The EU bureaucrat sighed. “It’s a lot to think about . . . isn’t it?”
“Yes. By the way . . . how did Big Pharma know about Olera? . . . Did someone at Ultra Labs tip them off?”
“No need for that. You see . . . all of our proceedings are closely monitored by lobbyists for the big pharmaceutical companies . . . the lobbyists get paid big bucks. . . . They’re the ones who informed Big Pharma about what Ultra Labs was up to with Olera and Kyra in Europe.”
“What was Big Pharma’s opposition to Kyra . . . the drug for post-traumatic stress? . . . Did they claim patent infringement?”
“No. They took another tack with Kyra. . . . They claimed it’s a health hazard . . . a very powerful and dangerous psychotropic drug that induces severe mental breakdowns. They documented several cases of criminals on Kyra-type drugs who tried to eat their victims alive.”
“True . . . or a case of sour grapes?”
“Both. We sent Kyra to independent labs . . . they confirmed that Kyra’s active ingredient is a new but very close relative of a family of chemicals called synthetic cathinones . . . very powerful drugs with amphetamine-like properties . . . extremely addictive . . . users report experiencing the most explosive euphoria that they have ever felt in their entire lives. . . . These synthetic caths are c
alled ‘bath salts’ in some countries. Nature itself manufactures a natural version of caths in the plant or shrub called khat.”
“Yes,” said Sohlberg. “I know about them . . . khat and synthetic cathinones are usually illegal in the West. Khat’s mostly restricted and legal to where it’s grown in the Saudi Peninsula and Horn of Africa.”
“There’s one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“I was fascinated by the results that we got back from independent labs on Kyra. The lab tests showed that Kyra was made from a very unusual and very pure form of synthetic cathinone that no one had seen before. . . . But I was pretty sure that I had seen it before.”
“Really? . . .Where?”
“The Directorate has a database of all synthetic cathinones in the world . . . that was my idea. We include in the database all cathinones that the police seize from criminals who are cooking synthetic cath. You can imagine my surprise when I did my research and found out that the cath in Kyra is identical to a batch that was seized five years ago in Japan from a Bulgarian cargo ship. . . . No one was ever able to find out exactly where that batch had been manufactured. All I knew was that some unknown genius chemist had cooked up this monster cath.”
“Do you think that the genius chemist behind the cath in Kyra is the same genius behind the oxycodone in Olera?”
“Yes. Absolutely. After all . . . one company is presenting us the paperwork to legitimize two drugs that are the unique master creations of a genius chemist. The chances are slim to none that a little unknown company would hire two genius chemists that are about to turn the world of Big Pharma upside down.”
Sohlberg rubbed his forehead. A rush of thoughts flooded his mind. “Do you have any opinions about the possible identity of the genius chemist behind Olera and Kyra?”
“It’s Edvard Csáky.”
“You sure?”
“I was asked to investigate everything he’s done. I can tell you without any reservations that he’s one hundred percent pure unadulterated genius . . . and that means his techniques are unique . . . special to him . . . think of it as a signature that other scientists can recognize. Second . . . he’s got the scientific training and education. Third . . . he did post-graduate research on cath synthesis and the formation of twin molecules by self-assembly processes. Fourth . . . his old company in San Diego . . . Enigma Laboratories . . . had government grants and very lucrative Big Pharma contracts to develop powerful psychotropic drugs by using what are known as molecular factories.”
“What’s that?”
“Drugs that make themselves from different components. These drugs are very pure and very cheap to manufacture because they self-assemble. . . in other words . . . complicated chemical processes aren’t needed anymore.”
“This sounds like science fiction.”
“It isn’t. Edvard Csáky learned about self-assembling molecules from Professor Julius Rebek at Scripps Research Institute in California. Rebek’s considered one of fathers of nanotechnology . . . making molecules act like robot workers on an assembly line.”
“Technology’s always on the move.”
“And it stops for no one. That’s why Edvard Csáky is so brilliant . . . he learned leading-edge techniques in the United States . . . he merged them into his own unique style . . . he then jumped into the most profitable technology . . . making drugs.”
“He’s that good?”
“Yes. For example . . . Csáky learned from Professor Heck at Delaware how to trick molecules into skipping several steps in the manufacture of new molecules . . . that means less by-products . . . faster processing . . . less costly impurities. . . . More purity equals more profit. Then he learned a most important technique from Professor Langer at M.I.T.”
“What?”
“How to get Big Pharma to fund your research and give you a big fat piece of the profit pie when the drug is approved by the government and goes commercial . . . with doctors all over the world prescribing it.”
Sohlberg could not help being impressed with Edvard Csáky and his organized crime backers. They had developed government-approved drugs that were protected with government-granted patents. Then medical doctors would become legal drug pushers for the painkiller Olera and the mood-altering Kyra.
No wonder someone stole Csáky from his owners. He’s very valuable. . . . And yet why would the Russians kidnap him when he was about to make them very rich?. . . Who took him?. . . Why?
~ ~ ~
The meeting with Uffe the Bureaucrat took far more time than expected. Sohlberg doubted if he was going to be able to meet his next informant. The man had indicated that he would not know until early afternoon if he was free to meet Sohlberg that evening. The informant was attending an international conference for lawyers.
At three o’clock Sohlberg was finally able to check the e-mail account in which he and the informant traded messages by leaving them in draft form. Sohlberg and the informant knew the password to the e-mail account but they never sent e-mails to each other—they just left them for the other person to read in the “draft” folder. The message read:
“GO TO ROOM 3021 TODAY AT 9:25 PM AND NO LATER.”
Sohlberg almost missed the train to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The exhausted detective fell deeply asleep during the 3-hour 100-mile journey to the enchanting tiny country with very low taxes and the world’s strictest bank secrecy laws—even more secret than Switzerland. Luxembourg’s corporate laws also provided very anonymous corporate structures where paid strawmen serve as officers, directors, and shareholders.
The train squealed and screeched to a halt. Sohlberg looked at his wristwatch. He left the train as fast as he could without running. He crossed Place de la Gare and headed straight to the Mercure Grand Hotel Alfa—an enormous 200-room hotel right in front of Luxembourg City’s main train station.
“My key please.”
“What room?” said the clerk at the front desk.
Sohlberg gave the number and when he got inside the room on the third floor he turned on the television to provide just the right amount of white noise. He glanced at his watch and waited a few seconds before he knocked softly five times on the door that separated the adjoining rooms.
“Paul?” whispered a man’s voice on the other side of the door.
“No. It’s me . . . Peter . . . with Mary.”
The door locks clicked opened and Sohlberg walked into the next room.
~ ~ ~
Despite his self-important airs the portly Hans Bonhoeffer looked extremely distressed. He worked as a senior manager and top lawyer at the Investigations Section of the Enforcement Division of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority—FINMA. The government agency was Switzerland’s equivalent of the U.S. Treasury Department, the FDIC, Comptroller of the Currency, and Securities & Exchange Commission.
Before Sohlberg could sit down on a sofa chair Hans Bonhoeffer angrily blurted out:
“I’m getting tired of you and your friend Laprade extorting me.”
“Come now. Extorting? . . . I like to think of it as us sharing information.”
“The hell we are. We share nothing. You two extort information from me and I deliver it.”
Sohlberg decided not to alienate Hans Bonhoeffer any more than necessary. After all the man was worth his weight in gold. Hans Bonhoeffer could look up any Swiss bank account and instantly find out who was the real owner and how and where and when money flowed in and out of the account. At FINMA’s Enforcement Division—and at any Swiss bank—no one would think twice about any inquiry from Herr Bonhoeffer. Best of all no bank would dare to refuse such an inquiry since such refusal could trigger an enforcement action that would ruin careers and reputations. “Hans . . . I’m sorry you feel this way but you’re forgetting that we do help you.”
“I don’t see how Laprade is helping me. Maybe it’s time to put an end to our relationship.”
“Me and Laprade would be disappointed. But we’d get over it
. . . we’d move on. Your son . . . on the other hand . . . would be more than disappointed if Papa Bonhoeffer left him rotting in a nasty French prison. You forget that Laprade has gone out of his way to protect Hans Junior and keep him in very nice detention facilities. And we’re working with the prosecutors to reduce his sentence and let him out early.”
Bonhoeffer paced back and forth like a caged animal. “Bah. Promises. Words. I’ve yet to see any results for helping you and that Laprade.”
“Look. Your son is the idiot who got caught in Toulouse with fifty pounds of cocaine in his car. He should’ve thought twice about falling asleep at the wheel and crashing into a school bus.”
“Alright. Alright. But I want him to get medical leave or a weekend pass for a family emergency or something like that so his mother can go down to see him. She doesn’t have much more time. The interferon therapy isn’t working anymore on her melanoma.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll tell Laprade and he’ll work out something.”
Bonhoeffer’s face reddened into a shade of purple. “He better work out something. Or else. . . .”
“Or else what? . . . Don’t you threaten us. You are in no position to threaten us.”
“Wrong.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I ran the list of names that you gave me . . . including your name. So don’t play coy with me . . . specially when I’m sure that you’re in business with Laprade.”
“What are you talking about?”
“His name came up! . . . Laprade has an account at U.B.S. for two million U.S. dollars . . . another one at Credit Suisse for one million euros . . . and a wealth management account at a top private bank . . . Lombard Odier . . . for two million euros.”
A disorienting tidal wave of paranoid fear threatened to undo Sohlberg’s sanity. The sickening sensation ebbed away just a little during the seven hour trip back to Lyon.
Is Laprade betraying me? . . Is he on the payroll of some drug cartel? . . . Could he be working for Ishmael?
Sohlberg and the White Death Page 22