Miracle Cure (42 page)

It was nine o’clock when Brian realized that new lights were on in Jessup’s home. Wearing a dark windbreaker, he took the cell phone, left the Taurus, and hurried across the deserted street to the safety of the hedge. Next he worked his way around to the water side. There was a narrow, well-maintained lawn behind the house, and then a rocky slope of twenty feet or so to the ocean. The dense overcast helped keep the entire yard in darkness, but there was some glow across the water from the city.

As Brian had anticipated, the south side of Jessup’s house was almost entirely glass, with a ten-foot-square deck off the kitchen. He made his way to the edge of the yard, then dropped down and maneuvered himself over the embankment and several feet down the sea-smoothed rocks. From that vantage point, he had a clear view into Jessup’s kitchen and living room. He fished out her phone number, then stopped as she entered the kitchen.

He was fifty or sixty feet away, but even at that distance, he could tell she was agitated. She was still dressed in her skirt and blouse, pacing about the room. Then suddenly she stopped, took a bottle from a cupboard, splashed some liquid in a tumbler, and drained it in a single gulp. She poured another but left the drink on the counter as she crossed to the sliders and gazed out across the water at the city.

Brian slid farther down the wet, rocky embankment. It felt uncomfortable to be spying on her this way, but at this point, the more connected he was to her, the better. Jessup appeared drawn and very tired. She loosened her dark hair and shook it free. It was time, Brian decided. He punched in her phone number and watched with relief as she reacted to the ring. Freeman’s NA sources had
come through again. Her phone was a portable on the built-in desk in one corner of the kitchen.

“Hello?”

“Dr. Jessup, it’s Brian Holbrook.”

She stiffened at the mention of his name.

“How did you get my number?” she asked.

“My back’s against the wall. Desperate people can be very resourceful. I’m sorry to call you like this, but as you know, I’m in a great deal of trouble. And the truth is I have no one to turn to.”

“You need to be turning to the police, not to me.”

“Dr. Jessup, yesterday you and I worked together to save the life of a man on the surgical service. I think you’re a remarkable doctor. I also think you’re fair enough at least to hear what I have to say. And one other thing.”

“Yes?”

“I think you tried to save my father’s life by insisting he have surgery instead of Vasclear.”

During the few seconds of silence that followed, Brian watched her retrieve the tumbler of liquor from the counter and drain it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“Dr. Jessup, I didn’t kill Phil Gianatasio. He was my friend. But I did have to shoot the man the papers are calling a part-time security guard for the hospital. He might have worked part-time for the hospital, but he worked full-time as a hired gun for Newbury Pharmaceuticals. I shot him because he was about to kill me. And he was about to kill me because I was leaving the film library at the cath lab with the before-and-after angiograms of Nellie Hennessey. I know the before film wasn’t hers, Dr. Jessup. I didn’t check any other patients, but I’d bet whatever you like that close study of their films would reveal the same thing. Phil was beginning to realize what was
going on, too. That’s why they killed him. That’s why they burned the films.”

“Who are
they?”

“The people at Newbury. I think Art Weber is at the center of what’s going on, although I don’t believe he controls the whole company.”

There was another telltale hesitation. Jessup was braced against the refrigerator.

“I don’t believe you,” she said. “If you have accusations to make, you should go to the police. Now, I’m going to hang up—”

“Please! Please, Dr. Jessup. Just listen. My life depends on you. So do a lot of other lives. I can’t believe you wouldn’t at least listen.”

“Go on,” she said finally.

“Thank you,” he said. “I don’t know how you got into all this so deeply, but I don’t think you fully understood what these people have done. All those Phase One patients—the patients who started developing pulmonary hypertension from their Vasclear treatments—Newbury has been arranging accidental deaths for those of them who didn’t die of PH. While you were creating a phantom medical miracle by curing patients who had no heart disease to begin with, Newbury has been eliminating anyone who could possibly slow down the approval process for Vasclear.
Killing
them.”

“You have proof of what you say?”

“You’re my proof, Dr. Jessup. You could have just let my father die, but you tried to save him. If you had known what Newbury was doing to the Phase One patients, I think you would have come forward. I need your help. I need you to do what’s right.”

In the silence that followed, he watched her once again take a drink.

“I … I don’t know if I can,” she said finally.

She had sunk onto a kitchen chair now, and was staring, unseeing, out the sliders.

“Will you at least talk to me in person?” he asked. “I need you to fill in some gaps for me. Then, if you don’t want to do any more, that’s up to you. I’ll take my own chances.”

Jessup was beaten—exhausted. Brian could see that now.

“When?” she asked.

“Right now. I left instructions just under the stairs off the deck in back of your house. They’ll tell you where to meet me.”

Brian had come up with the lie as a way of neutralizing the danger of Jessup calling the police and getting the Nahant causeway sealed off. She still had no idea he was on her property. If she hung up on him now, or made a phone call to anyone, he would simply leave. If she came directly out onto the deck and then later refused to help him, he would have to tie her up so he could get away.

Keeping Jessup in his line of sight, and staying low, he moved to a spot where he could insert himself between her and the sliding doors. In the kitchen, she cradled the phone as she mulled over his request. Finally, after an interminable minute, she opened the sliders and stepped out onto the deck. Brian forced himself deeper into the shadows. She looked around cautiously, then moved to the stairs and stepped down to check beneath them. Brian bolted from his concealment and leaped up onto the deck.

“Dr. Jessup, please don’t be frightened,” he said quickly. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk.”

Jessup stumbled backward a step and glared up at him, her lips pulled tight in a startled snarl. For a moment Brian thought she was going to charge him.

“How dare you sneak in here and spy on me this way,” she said, her voice raspy.

He had to hand it to her. He held the advantage in size and position, yet she looked completely unintimidated.

“Dr. Jessup, my father died because I believed what I read and was told about Vasclear. Now my friend is dead, I’ve had to kill a man, and my own life is going down the drain. It’s got to end. Fabricating research results is one thing. But people are getting murdered. You can’t let it go on any longer.”

Jessup continued glaring up at him, but Brian could see the fatigue and confusion in her eyes. Finally, she let her breath out in a long, defeated sigh.

“Do you want to go inside?” she asked.

“I’d rather stay back here.”

He motioned her to a spot on the edge of the deck and set his windbreaker down for her to sit on.

“I really am deeply sorry about your father’s death,” she said.

“I know you are. At least now you’ve got a chance to do something about it.”

“I’m very frightened.”

“So am I.”

Jessup rubbed wearily at her eyes.

“Okay,” she said finally, “where do you want me to begin?”

“It doesn’t matter. I need to know about Vasclear. I need to know how this could have happened.”

“A number of years ago, Art Weber was working with an international medical group at a clinic in the Amazon River basin in Columbia. That’s where he discovered Vasclear. Or thought he did, anyway. There was a tribe of primitive meat eaters that chewed some sort of boiled bark every day and lived to be a hundred or more with no sign of hardening of the arteries. Art believed he had found the fountain of youth, but he needed money to
analyze the contents of the bark, isolate the bioactive substance, synthesize it, and test it. And he wanted to retain as much control and profit as possible. I don’t know how he knew the people who own Newbury, or what sort of deal he made with them. But I’ll tell you this, he could talk a frightened rabbit out of its hole.”

“He made a deal with the devil,” Brian said. “They’re Russian Mafia.”

Jessup looked over at him, impressed.

“Actually, they’re
Chechen
Mafia,” she said, “although I didn’t know anything about them at all until things began to go wrong. According to Art, even the
Russian
Mafia is scared of the Chechens.”

“I believe it.”

“The people behind Newbury anted up an enormous amount of money, but Art had made clear to them how much they had to gain. It took three years of chemistry and animal work just to isolate the bioactive substance they named Vasclear. I was made director of clinical research, and Newbury began funding a number of BHI projects in exchange for the work I was doing. Everything seemed fine with Vasclear until we began our Phase One testing. The drug showed some initial promise. But first the animals got in trouble, especially the primates, then some of the patients.”

“Eosinophilia followed by pulmonary hypertension.”

“Exactly. Art told his partners at Newbury that they had to go back to the drawing board. They said that would be fine with them as long as he repaid the tens of millions of dollars they had already laid out, plus interest.”

“But how did he get you to go along with the hoax?”

She looked away. Even in the semidarkness, he could see her cheeks flush. She and Art Weber were lovers!

“There … there was a great deal at stake for me,”
she said, carefully choosing her words, “financially and otherwise.”

“I understand,” Brian said, sparing her the humiliation of spelling things out.

“Art was genuinely panicked. He said the people at Newbury wouldn’t hesitate to kill both of us unless we found a way to recoup their money. That was when I came up with the idea to create fake heart disease in patients, then cure it. Yes, the idea was mine, almost all of it. Art made some refinements, but I set up the framework. We even calculated how long the drug would have to be on the market before we were safe from Newbury.”

“I’ll bet it wasn’t that long,” Brian said.

“The key was that the FDA would never conduct their own research.”

“And as long as no one got hurt by Vasclear, no one would pay much attention to it.”

“But the cases and the research results had to look good,” Jessup added, a note of proud accomplishment in her voice.

“And they did.”

“Reprogramming an EKG machine to print out abnormal stress tests was relatively easy. The caths were the challenge. I chose a storage area that had been built beneath the cath lab. We built an apartment down there for our technicians as well as a sophisticated electronics center linked to the video monitor in the lab.”

“I know where that room is,” Brian said. “The killer I shot must have been hiding out there, if not living there.”

“I didn’t know that,” she said. “You have to believe me. I didn’t know.”

“I believe you. Go on, please.”

“Well, I put together a set of twenty abnormal caths—enough of a selection so that one of them would come close to duplicating the anatomy of almost any patient.”

“The one you used for Nellie Hennessey was a very close match.”

“And it wasn’t even the best we had.”

“So what was it, an electronic switch somewhere?”

“Beneath the foot pedal I used to control the camera. With the switch thrown, which I usually did the evening before the cath, the dye injection that was projected on the monitor when I hit the pedal came from downstairs. It had to correspond exactly to the view we were doing in the cath lab.”

“But it wasn’t the patient’s.”

Jessup stared out at the water, utterly deflated. But Brian also sensed some relief.

“No,” she said. “It wasn’t.”

“Pardon me for asking, but are you and Art still … as close as you were?”

“He seems to be gradually pulling away, if that’s what you mean. But yes, we’re still lovers. There was a time when I think I would have done almost anything for him. But don’t get me wrong. I was going to benefit, too. Two million or more in just the first year if all went well. I have money, but not that kind of money.”

Brian rubbed at the strain and exhaustion that were burning his eyes.

“We have to come up with a plan,” he said. “What do you think we should do now?”

“Do?” the man’s voice behind them said. “Why, I would expect you to do nothing.”

Brian and Jessup spun to the voice. Art Weber stood by the edge of the deck, eyeing them calmly through the gloom. Fanning out from him in a semicircle were Leon and two other men, all of them holding guns.

Brian glanced over at Jessup to see if she was as shocked at the arrival of the intruders as he was. He didn’t have to wait long to find out.

“Art, he knows everything,” she said hoarsely. “Absolutely everything.”

Weber stepped forward and smacked her viciously across the face with the back of his hand.

“He does now, you stupid bitch!” he snapped.

M
INUTES?… HOURS?… DAYS?… FOR
B
RIAN
, time was completely lost within a swirling haze of drugs and pain. He was on a wooden chair in a spare, windowless room, his arms lashed together at the wrist and his legs at the ankles. His ribs, separated if not broken from the pounding he had taken to his abdomen and chest, made each breath a grunting, agonizing effort.

Now, for the first time, his head was beginning to clear. He remembered being pummeled by Leon in Carolyn Jessup’s backyard—sharp blows with fists and feet to his face and belly. He remembered the sting of the first injection, given deep into the muscle at the base of his neck while he was still lying on the wet grass. He remembered being zipped into a plastic body bag. He remembered his tall frame being folded into the trunk of a car. Then, he remembered nothing.