Last Shot (2006) (28 page)

"I hope that's a help," Chase said. "Everything you asked for."

"Not everything," Bear said.

"I've got a very busy day."

"Yeah"--Bear nodded to the unplugged Gibson acoustic--"you look pretty wrapped up here in high-level corporate affairs. We'll try not to inconvenience you too greatly."

"On Friday we have our pre-IPO presentation to investors and management. Which means..." Chase's lips pressed thin. "My staff at Vector and I have three days to prepare to receive a hundred of Wall Street's top money managers here in the auditorium on our first floor. Not to mention a raft of business reporters and various other members of the media. So as for inconveniencing us? You haven't. But Mr. Jameson has. And you seem a lot more interested in harassing our company than in apprehending him. Why is that?"

Dean continued alternating between the various lines feeding his headset and the countless stacks positioned at even intervals along the vast run of oak. He paused to offer his son a patient warning: "Chase."

Bear answered the question. "Because you've turned over what looks to be an embarrassment of riches from your PR department, but not much that'll shed light on why Walker Jameson is out to wreck you. Until we can find some answers, we'll keep coming back to you with the same questions." He shifted his attention to Dean. "Where's Dolan?"

A raised report covered Dean's eyes. "Any second." An assistant entered with a question about where to house a hedge-fund group winging in for the presentation, and Dean said, "Four Seasons. The whole team. But rooms--not suites."

"Okay." Chase sat on an arm of the leather couch, set his guitar across the cushions, and busied himself on his BlackBerry. "I'll play along. What more do you need?"

Bear said, "We need you to answer some questions."

"Like."

"Why did your former employee get killed in front of your house?"

"Haven't the foggiest."

"Coincidence, maybe?"

"A lot of power forwards at that party. So. Maybe it had to do with one of them."

"As we suggested--but your father's pretty sure the guest list is not the motive. And it was his flagstone that got stained."

"Indeed it was." Chase lowered his BlackBerry and offered an intentionally insincere smile.

"Listen," Tim said, "maybe we got off on the wrong foot. We know how valuable your time is, but you're giving the impression it's routine for brutal killings to happen on your doorstep. If that's the case, you can understand our deepening interest in you."

Chase put down his BlackBerry and slid his guitar onto his lap. "My company is about to launch its first product. It's not a video game or a hair conditioner. It's a viral-vectored genetic enhancement that will save the lives of a hundred thousand children in this country alone in the coming year. So as for the relative importance of Ted Sands, who seems to have been exactly the kind of sleazeball you think he was...?" He twanged the opening notes of "Taps" on his guitar.

Dean removed his glasses and tossed them on his desktop. "Knock it off, Chaisson."

Chase stopped immediately. At Dean's glare he set down the guitar altogether.

Dolan came in, slightly winded, nervous energy twisting his hands around each other. "Sorry I'm late."

"Sit down," Dean said from behind the report.

Dolan dutifully moved to the couch as Dean mumbled his displeasure at whatever he was reading, then turned his focus to Tim and Bear. "What are you after? Tess Jameson, family connection with Sands's killer. What about her?"

Tim said, "You were looking into why you dropped her son from the trial."

"The specifics on that are proving harder to retrieve than we thought--there are so many applicant subjects," Chase said. "We're still digging. But my guess? Since there's nothing specific, it means he was disqualified for the same reason ninety-six percent were: didn't meet the criteria."

"What were the criteria?"

"Well. There are a lot of medical variables when it comes to--"

"Because I took much of last night to read your corporate Web site--very impressive, by the way--and I found out that what's so great about Xedral is..." A considered pause as Tim patted his pockets, withdrew his notepad, licked a thumb, and found the page. "Here we are. 'Xedral is unique in its broad applicability and effectiveness. Preliminary tests project an eighty-six percent success rate in treating anyone from infants to adults afflicted with ATT.'"

Dolan seemed suddenly to realize that his father and brother were both waiting on him to speak, and he said, "The inclusion criteria for the Phase I subjects are very strict. The issue isn't scientific, though. Medical records are confidential. Our preclinical analyses are part of the private data on these subjects, so discussing them with you would be illegal."

Tim picked up the stack of folders and fanned them. "Some of your records seem to be more confidential than others."

Dean rolled back his chair and pulled himself upright. For the first time since Tim and Bear had entered, they had his full attention. "I don't like where this started, and I don't like where it's headed. We're doing our best to work with you, and we're even willing to put the operation of two companies on hold to do it. But everything about your approach--and the entire...worldview of your oversize friend here--would suggest that perhaps you should be dealing with our lawyers, since you have somehow converted this into a grudge match between yourself and Vector. Which it may be, for all I know. But if so, it's one in which you will not prevail. I will match my resources against those of the Justice Department anytime. And have. If you want cooperation, stop making ludicrous, poorly veiled accusations. We all know that the murder at my house last night is, in all likelihood, unrelated to me, my sons, or this corporation."

Tim said, "The victim was a former security employee of Beacon-Kagan. The perpetrator, the uncle of a kid discontinued in a Vector trial. Unrelated? Not even you can sell that, Mr. Kagan. Why else would you add a two-man security detail to the house as of this morning?"

"Caution, of course."

"You sure you don't know something we don't?"

"I'm quite sure I know many things you don't, Deputy." Dean's hand raised from the desktop, tilting toward the door. "Now unless there's something else...?"

The door closed behind the deputies, leaving the three Kagan men in uneasy silence. Dolan started to say something, but Dean held up a hand, pausing him until the elevator doors dinged shut in the hall.

Dolan said, "Walker Jameson blames us for his sister's death."

"Come on," Chase said.

"He's after something else," Dean said. "Ted Sands hasn't worked for this corporation for over a year--he certainly had nothing to do with Tess or her son. And besides, what could we possibly be at fault for?"

"We drove Tess Jameson to her suicide." Hearing it aloud, even from his own mouth, sent a wash of acid through Dolan's stomach. Months ago Dolan had been informed of Sam's discharge in a closed-door meeting with his father, brother, and Chris Huang, his protests quickly dissolved into silent complicity (what was that adage about good men doing nothing?).

"No one drives anyone to suicide," Dean said. "If you think so, you're a fool."

"She was hanging on by her fingernails for that kid when she came to us, sir."

Biting his lip and sliding his hand up the neck to the tenth fret, Chase played the opening phrase from "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," bending the last note into a whiny vibrato.

"We've been over this," Dean said. "We didn't have a choice."

"We knew Sam. We used him. I visited him in his own room. And we pulled the rug out on his last option."

"Right," Chase said. "And now some other fucking kid will live and not the one you played checkers with on the local news. We can't save everyone. Not until we have this product approved. And don't forget, she brought this on. Not us."

Dolan said, "It didn't look that way when I came into the parking garage."

Dean laughed--the dry chuckle that had made Dolan's palms sweat for more than three decades. "This isn't test tubes and Bunsen burners. This is the real world." He jogged a finger back and forth, indicating himself and Chase. "Where we live. Wise up, son. And don't lecture me about options."

"If the Xedral trial goes as smoothly as we think it will," Chase said, "who's to say it won't be to market in time to save the kid?"

Dolan smoothed the wrinkles at his thighs. "His liver's deteriorating faster than our business plan's progressing."

"You're so wrapped up in that kid that you're keeping tabs?" Dean shook his head. "Guilt is an indulgence, Dolan. It tangles you in the past. Science is forward-looking. Likewise our business. We have a sound product that will save millions of lives. If you have confidence in Xedral--"

"One of the monkeys is missing," Dolan said. "From the longitudinal safety study. She just disappeared."

Dean settled back in his chair. Same dry chuckle. "Test subjects don't just disappear."

"Well, this one did."

"You watch your tone."

"I'm sorry, sir." Dolan moistened his lips nervously. "The thing is, this isn't the only monkey that disappeared. I checked the safety study trial data, and we also lost two subjects in X3 trials and one in X4s that aren't accounted for. I now require the Lentidra data--not reports, not summaries, but all of it, in raw form--so I can gauge the comparison--"

"Trust me," Dean said. "The data's sound."

"Sir"--Dolan took a moment to still his voice--"you're not..."

"I'm not what? A scientist? Qualified to assess data? No. I'm an entrepreneur who's done approximately forty billion dollars of business in pharmaceuticals. I believe that I--and your CEO--can be trusted to know if there's a problem with some standard data."

Dolan kept his hands together in his lap, his gaze on the union of his knuckles. He couldn't push any further, but he also didn't want to capitulate. He heard some rustling and figured that Chase and Dean were exchanging glances--puzzlement, contempt--and then Dean said, "Jesus Christ," and snatched up the phone. "Get me Huang. Upstairs. Now." He turned his attention to Dolan. "I'll tell you what. If there is, in fact, a problem with Huang's numbers as you claim, we'll get you anything you need. If not, can we stop this endless cycling through old data on discontinued products?"

By the time Huang had arrived and Dean had impatiently brought him up to speed on the impasse, Dolan had settled his nerves enough to remain calm and--he hoped--confident on the couch.

Huang turned to him with evident irritation and said, "Yes, we took a hit in X3 animal trials, two subjects gone. And one in X4. And their deaths aren't noted in the main body of data."

Dolan shifted to the edge of the couch.

Huang held the pause, stoking Dolan's anticipation. "It was simian hemorrhagic fever, Dolan. Not a conspiracy. This shouldn't be news to you. You know we lost two subjects to it at the outset of our X5s."

"Now three. If you count Grizabella."

"Grizabella reached through her cage and drank a beaker of sodium hypochlorite last night. I don't think that cause of death figures prominently in our areas of concern. Nor does SHF, which is why it's not factored into the stats for transgene effectiveness."

"Okay. Fine." Dolan caught himself backpedaling. "That begs the issue--"

"Which is?" Chase asked impatiently.

"Which is not that monkeys are dying--fourteen percent of our Xedral monkeys die--it's that they're disappearing from the subject suite and the staff refuse to tell me how."

"What is going on in that test-subject suite downstairs will reverberate around the world," Huang said, "both medically and financially. I hold my team to the highest level of confidentiality. They clear everything through me. That they won't answer the random questions of a scientist from another department--"

"I am the principal investigator and senior scientist of Vector Biogenics. I started this goddamned company, Chris. You're my employee. And your employees are my employees." Dolan felt his face growing hot. "I'll ask whatever questions and take whatever data I require to advance our work."

Huang glanced at Dean, and Dean offered him a patient tip of his head. "Of course you can. And of course you will," Huang said. "But you, like me, have to answer to a board. And adhere to corporate policies for internal communication. I would've been happy to tell you about Grizabella and the other test subjects we lost if you'd simply come to me and asked." A pause, and then Huang pressed on, "How did you get that data from earlier trials anyway?"

Dolan polished his glasses to give his hands something to do. "I pulled it off your computer."

Dean made a soft noise low in his throat, and Huang sank back in his chair.

"Well," Huang said after a measured pause, "I'll be sure to log off my computer every time I leave my station. Any more questions, or can I get back to my work?"

The door swung shut behind his angry exit. Dean ruffled papers at his desk, and Chase strummed a few chords before his cell phone chimed, summoning him into a Net meeting with investors in Asia.