Nano (35 page)

55.

THE OLD VICARAGE, CHENIES, U.K.

THURSDAY, JULY 25, 2013, 2:10
P.M.
BST

Pia felt as if she were swimming in molasses. Without another sedative injection, it had taken her an age to fall asleep, but once she did, she fell hard. It was obvious to her that she still had some of the drug on board. As she slowly awoke, Pia wondered how much time she had lost. She hadn’t seen Berman since he had left her in the underground cell after making his big speech about nanotechnology. It was impossible to keep track of time. She had been denied the usual diurnal cycle; the light in the room was always on. When was it that she saw Berman? Yesterday? Last week? It might have been last year, for all she knew. Pia’s head was throbbing and her vision was blurry. She felt terrible, but she had to try to focus on what was happening to her.

However much time had passed, Pia hadn’t had much of an opportunity to think about her situation because of the drugs she’d been given, but now, as she passed through her mind whatever details she could recall, she came to an understanding. Berman had told her too much for her release to be a viable proposition. Her position was extremely precarious. She’d have to submit to Berman or face the consequences.

It took only seconds for Pia to look around her room. An IV ran to a bag that hung on a plastic drip stand for hydration. There was nothing else she could use as a weapon, even if she could reach it, as she was still loosely restrained.

As Pia tried to clear her head a little, a slot in the door that she hadn’t noticed opened, and then closed quickly. The lock on the door was activated and the doctor came back in. Pia sat up, ready to fight him again.

“I come to look at your arm. They want you healthy.” The man avoided making eye contact with Pia.

“So you do speak English. They want me healthy for what? What do they plan to do with me? And who are ‘they’? If you are a doctor, you have an obligation to help me.”

The door swung open and a powerful-looking guard came in, closed the door, and silently faced forward, an intimidating presence.

“Where is Berman, the American . . . ?”

“You cannot talk, miss.”

The doctor took hold of Pia’s bad arm. In addition to her muddy brain, her arm was hurting. Pia knew enough about bone fractures to understand that ideally she should have been holding her arm in the sling to maintain the proper alignment for it to heal. But she had been spending most of her time prone, and she may even have been lying on the arm, she didn’t know. However much she hated the doctor, she let him manipulate her arm gently. She didn’t want a nonunion, meaning the shaft of the humerus would not reconnect to itself, or a misalignment if they connected but did not line up properly. Both situations would require operations to rectify.

“How does this feel?”

“It feels okay. I mean, there is some tenderness but it’s not overwhelming.”

“You know this could be a problem if you do not look after it.”

“I’m being held prisoner somewhere shackled to a bed. It’s not like I have a lot of say in the matter. You’re too much, telling me it is my responsibility.”

“If it doesn’t heal, your arm may be bad forever.”

“Like that is the worst of my problems.” Pia realized she was not in the best of shape, and she wondered if that was the reason Berman hadn’t forced himself on her. “I’m rather vulnerable on a lot of fronts,” she added.

The man said nothing.

“Maybe being infirm has its advantages. Maybe that’s why I haven’t been taken advantage of by the wealthy American.” No sooner had the comment escaped her lips, than a dreadful thought crossed her mind.

“Unless he has. He hasn’t, has he?” Pia thought not, but when she was awake she couldn’t remember much, and when she was out of it, she wouldn’t know, as heavily as she’d been sedated. But she’d feel something, and Berman would have bragged about it. Wouldn’t he?

“You know what kind of man you are working for, don’t you?” she said to the doctor.

The doctor did not respond, but scribbled some notes in a small book, pocketed it, and left the room. A moment later he came back with a bowl and a bottle of water. He had a manila folder tucked under his arm.

“This is soup. You should eat. And water. The American boss man wants you to read this.”

The man left the soup on the floor, where Pia could reach it, and left. The folder contained a document about ten pages long. It was stamped
CONFIDENTIAL
in red and had a serial number printed like a watermark on each page. Pia skimmed through before tossing the document on the floor in the corner of the room. It was a business prospectus for potential investors outlining plans for Nano’s expansion through the year 2020.
He’s trying to impress me,
she thought.
And a prospectus is supposed to prove that he’s a legitimate businessman. Do legitimate businessmen do this?
she asked herself holding up a shackled arm. Pia’s head hurt too much for her to read what she was sure was Berman’s self-aggrandizing BS.

“If you want me to read this crap, let me out of here,” she yelled at the door.

Pia lay back on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She didn’t feel well but didn’t want to sleep anymore. Some time passed and Pia remembered the soup the man had left her. She sat up, which made her head pound anew. After a minute her head cleared a little and she ate the cold soup. With her foot she pulled the prospectus to where she could pick it up. Out of sheer boredom, she read through it.

According to what Pia read, nanotechnology was going to change medicine forever.
Tell me something I don’t know,
thought Pia. Nanobots could eat plaque and fix clogged arteries. They could consume even the most rapacious of cancers and infection. They could attack the sites of inflammation; seal wounds; clean teeth, even.

One application was given more prominence in the document than any other. Nanobots could have an impact on the buildup of proteins in the brain of a patient with early-stage Alzheimer’s; they might even have prophylactic properties that would ensure a person at risk of the disease could be treated before the onset of any symptoms. Berman had told Pia about his mother suffering from the disease while she lived out her life in an assisted-living facility near Nano.

Of course,
thought Pia in a moment of clarity,
this is why Berman is taking so many chances, cutting so many corners. This is why he was desperate to get a ten-year march on his competition.
Berman was how old? Late forties? If he was susceptible himself, the first changes may already be taking place in his brain. In ten years, they might be irreversible. Pia felt sure she was right. But what could she do with this information?

Pia thought about Berman’s motivation. Working to cure Alzheimer’s was a legitimate reason to pursue research. It could be vitally important, even noble work, but not when it was carried out as Berman was doing it. Pia finished her meal and drank some water. She knew there was nothing she could do until she saw Berman again.

56.

INCENSE NIGHTCLUB, MAYFAIR, LONDON

FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2013, 2:27
A.M.
BST

Jimmy Yan never ceased to amaze Zach Berman. Berman was barely able to keep his eyes open while Jimmy sat in the VIP area of this expensive nightclub in Mayfair, deep in conversation with a stunningly beautiful Chinese woman who was at least six inches taller than he. The other woman, who had sat down next to Berman when they arrived, had lost interest and wandered off a half hour previously. The club throbbed with beat-heavy music and was thronged with young, attractive men and women. Try as he might to join in, Berman just wanted to go to bed.

“You are not enjoying yourself?” asked Jimmy, shouting to be heard above the noise.

“I can hardly hear you,” said Berman, cupping a hand to his ear.

“But you like places like this. We went to places much like this in Milan.”

“I know. But it’s late, and I’m tired.”

What Berman truly wanted was to have Pia there by his side. Try as he might he couldn’t get her out of his mind, knowing she was back at the vicarage wasting away. He had fully expected to have heard through the Chinese doctor that she wanted to see him, but it hadn’t happened. Berman had asked the doctor directly, but he had insisted that Pia had not said anything of the kind. It was, in Berman’s mind, a kind of Mexican standoff, both accustomed to getting their way. He cursed her doggedness while recognizing it was part of her allure.

Berman yawned, and he covered his mouth to try to conceal it. There was no doubt he was tired. He and Jimmy had been on the go all day. The difference was that Jimmy still looked as bright as he had that morning. They had driven in an official car from the vicarage in Chenies to the Olympic site in east London where the international championships were taking place, a journey of forty miles that should have taken an hour but took three in nightmarish traffic, which was bad by local standards.

Jimmy Yan took Berman to the apartment where the marathoner Yao Hong-Xiau was staying. Berman had been pestering Jimmy relentlessly to be allowed to see the man who carried his future on the soles of his size-eight shoes. Lying on the bed in his small apartment room, Yao seemed calm and well prepared. He didn’t go out much, he told Zachary and Jimmy, there were too many distractions, and he was sticking to his light training schedule and resting.

Later, Berman told Jimmy that Yao was right about the distractions. London was in full summer mode. Jimmy had abandoned the car with its driver in Stratford, where the championships were taking place, and had taken Berman on the Underground—the London subway, something Berman hadn’t done since he was an undergraduate at Yale on the grand tour—back into the center of the city. The small subway cars were packed with people. Berman heard a multitude of tongues, and two-thirds of the occupants appeared to be tourists. A busker started singing a Sinatra song, badly, and was shouted down by a gaggle of Australians clutching beer cans.

The narrow sidewalks of central London were bursting with tourists and Londoners. Groups of armed police stood on major intersections, and local cops tried to keep the pedestrians out of the street. Rock music blared from storefronts, and the aromas of a hundred cuisines filled the air. It was a hot and sunny day, and Berman wondered what had happened to the famously bad English weather.

“Jimmy, what are we doing here?”

“This is Leicester Square, in the middle of London. It is fun, no?”

“No. I’ve never seen more people in my life.”

“I am Chinese, at home I see more people every day. Come on.”

Jimmy grabbed Berman’s arm and steered him through narrow side streets to a doorway. A small sign, in Chinese, hung above the door and Jimmy pushed Berman through.

“We are in Chinatown. Best Chinese food in Europe right here. These people are from my province.”

Jimmy obviously knew the proprietor, who bowed three or four times. The food, when it came, was incredibly spicy, and unlike any Chinese food Berman had tasted.

“Is it too hot? I asked them to tone it down, for a Westerner.”

“It’s good,” said Berman, chewing a piece of fiery meat. “But it is spicy.”

“I want to take your mind off that woman. She is not going to come around, you know.”

Why did Jimmy think that? The rooms at the vicarage were probably bugged, Berman realized, and Jimmy probably knew of Pia’s response to his entreaties.

“She will come around,” Berman said. “She has to. Look, Jimmy, I appreciate your being discreet about her, with your bosses.”

“Who says I haven’t told them?”

“I trust you haven’t. Nothing has happened to this point to jeopardize our enterprise. The only fallout from snatching her out of Boulder is a couple of guys who went to the Boulder police and asked a couple of questions. They are not getting anywhere. In fact, they’re the ones who may be in trouble, not us. As far as anyone knows, Pia’s in the wind.”

Jimmy shrugged. Berman knew Pia meant nothing to Jimmy. But while the deal was in the balance, she could remain as his guest. The marathon wasn’t for another two weeks, so there was ample time for Berman to wear her down. He’d never failed before.

Now, many hours after lunch, with more sightseeing and an endless dinner, Berman was calling it a night,

“As you wish,” said Jimmy. “The car is outside if you want to go back. My friend and I were discussing Chinese agricultural policy. Seriously. I’ll come back later.”

Jimmy turned back to his new companion.
Good for you,
thought Berman,
but I’m done.
He wondered how much of what he was feeling was because of Pia or if it was because it was half past two in the morning. Berman had a sense that his feelings for Pia were not just carnal, otherwise he would have made sure he could possess her as soon as they had reached the vicarage. He wanted her recognition that he was a pioneer and that they could build this company together, with Berman at the helm and talented scientists like her alongside. The Chinese phase would be over soon, and there would be no more need for clandestine experimentation. It had been necessary to jump-start the program, to get the capital funding, but now everything was going to be aboveboard. Pia could take the NIH on a tour of Nano herself if that would placate her.

A new rhythm thudded its way into Berman’s head as the disc jockey started a new set. Berman could see that Jimmy wasn’t about to leave anytime soon, so he got up from the leather couch, thanked the man for the enjoyable day, and made his way through the crowd of pretty people toward the exit.

57.

PAUL CALDWELL’S APARTMENT, BOULDER, COLORADO

THURSDAY, JULY 25, 2013, 7:55
P.M.
MST

Paul and George disagreed over whether they were likely to receive a visit from the police after their jaunt to Mariel Spallek’s home, and Paul took no pleasure in being proved correct. George had not dismissed Paul’s opinion out of hand, so the two men were able to agree on their story before Detective Samuels came around the evening following with a colleague he introduced as Detective Ibbotson. The four men got situated in Paul’s living room, with Paul and George on the couch and the two investigators on kitchen chairs facing them. The atmosphere was strained. Samuels started in.

“We can talk here, or we can talk more formally at the station tomorrow,” Samuels said. He was looking at Paul as the host, but George answered.

“We’re happy to talk here.”

“So where did you go after we talked yesterday?”

“We drove around, figuring what to do. I mean, we were worried about our friend and didn’t get much satisfaction from our visit to the police.”

“Sorry you feel that way, but we are still looking into the situation. Where did you drive to?”

“About one-thirty, we went out to Niwot. We found out that Pia Grazdani’s boss at Nano, Mariel Spallek, lived out there. We thought maybe she might be home and willing to answer some questions about Pia. We’re really kind of lost about what to do. But Mariel Spallek was not at home, so we went away, thinking we might return some evening.”

“You were out there around one-thirty,” said Samuels.

“Around then, yes,” said George, and offered no more. They had been at Niwot, but by one-thirty, he was in a cab on his way home.

“And you can confirm this,” Samuels said to Paul.

“Yes. I know the time, because I had to get to the hospital. I was late.”

“He drove in, I took a taxi. From Niwot.” George knew that if they checked, they would find that he had taken a taxi, but from a location that might require some explanation.

“Why did you take a taxi?”

“Paul had to get to work. I took a taxi from there rather than from the hospital. I was on my way back here.”

Samuels regarded the two men. He guessed they were being less than truthful, but in the grand scheme of things, did it matter that much. “So you rang the bell at Miss Spallek’s, and no one answered?”

“That’s right,” said George.

“Did you see anyone? Anyone that you might have thought didn’t belong in the neighborhood?”

“There was a car parked suspiciously on the same street.”

“Suspiciously how?”

“Well, not parked suspiciously, but parked in the street with two men sitting in it. It was just down the road from Mariel’s house. There were no other cars or people. It looked suspicious to us, and we talked about it.”

Paul nodded.

“Can you describe the car?”

“Dark blue,” said Paul. “Full-size sedan. American. Buick or something like that. I actually assumed it was a police car. It was kind of drab like that. No offense.”

Samuels looked at Paul, then at George.
Very clever,
he thought, and closed his notebook. This whole situation wasn’t worth his time. He knew that the police had gotten the tip from Nano, suggesting that Nano had had them under surveillance, possibly because they had tried and failed to get into their facility. Samuels had the gut sense that there was some weird romantic aspect to this story, but at that point he wasn’t going to speculate. The facts of the case were that someone, maybe the two sitting in front of him, had broken into Mariel Spallek’s apartment, but nothing had been stolen or damaged save for a pane of glass in a back door. More important, Mariel Spallek specifically declined to take the matter further when contacted, and the responding police officers hadn’t actually seen anyone, despite the clear evidence of a break-in.

“Detective Ibbotson, how about you head out to the car. I’ll be right out,” said Samuels. His partner nodded and left.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” he said, “but my sense is that you guys need to cut out playing detective before you get yourselves in trouble. I know those security people at Nano, and they’re no fools. Next time you try a stunt like this, I hope they don’t get to you first.”

“That sounds like a threat,” said George.

“Actually, it isn’t. It’s a piece of friendly advice. Your girlfriend will come back, provided she wants to. That’s what happens in ninety-nine point nine percent of cases like this. If she doesn’t, then she won’t. But we have the facts as they exist, and we will continue to follow up on the case. We are in direct contact with the Nano human resources department. We have the woman’s description and photo. There was evidence that she had returned to her apartment after sending the text to you, Dr. Caldwell, along with the suggestion that she had driven east. We, of course, will be following up on that. So, fellows, cool it before you get arrested or hurt.”

Samuels got up and left.

“Funny they should know to come right after my shift finished,” said Paul after Samuels had walked out.

“Paul, I’ve been thinking. It’s pretty apparent we’re being followed by Nano, and the police are onto us, and we’re getting nowhere finding Pia. She’s gone, I’m sure of it. I don’t believe she drove east for a second. I think someone took her. I think it was Berman. And we don’t have the resources to find her.”

“So what the hell do we do? The authorities obviously aren’t listening to us.”

“When Pia was in trouble before, her father saved her. I think I have to ask for his help. I hate to do it, because he’s basically a gangster of the worst kind.”

“Her father? I didn’t know Pia had any family.”

“He’s a higher-up in the Albanian mafia organization in the New York metropolitan area. I have no reason to think he’ll even help, but he did the last time Pia got into this kind of trouble, which, I have to say, is remarkably similar in many respects to what’s going on now. She was kidnapped then, too. God, it’s as if she is a magnet for disaster.”

“Albanian mafia. Good lord! I think I saw a movie about them. Extremely violent.”

“The worst.”

“What’s the father’s name?”

“Burim Graziani or something like that.”

“Not Grazdani, like Pia.”

“He had to change his name for some reason.”

“How did he save her?”

“She’d been kidnapped by a rival Albania mafia clan who were under contract by some financial types to kill her. They didn’t because of her last name, which they knew was Albanian. The father, being a connected man, was contacted, and he proved she was family. The Albanians are a bit like the Italian mafia with family and their own idiosyncratic ideas of honor above all else.”

“Mafia or no mafia, I think you should give this Burim a try. Why do you think he might not be willing to help?”

“After he did manage to save her from the rival Albanian group, he tried to resurrect some sort of relationship with her, but she wouldn’t have any part of it. She wouldn’t even talk to him. When she was around six he had abandoned her to the New York City foster care system, where she had been psychologically tortured. He actually called me at that point, which is why I have his cell number. He asked me to try to intervene and get Pia to call him. Stupidly I tried to help, but Pia went ballistic, accusing me of interfering in her life. That was the last I saw her until I popped out here in April.”

Paul shrugged. “This father sounds less than charming, but I don’t think we have a lot of choice. Unfortunately it’s pretty clear the Boulder police are not going to do anything unless some sort of direct proof surfaces of her being snatched. My sense is that she is not here in Boulder.”

“That’s my thought, too.”

“I do have a contact out at the airport. Maybe as a starter I can find out if the Nano jet is around, and if it isn’t, where it might have gone. I don’t know if that is common information or not, but pilots do have to file flight plans.”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” George said. “Shit. I don’t like the idea of talking with the likes of Burim Graziani. He’s very hard-core, but I’m at my wit’s end. I don’t see any alternative.”

“I guess you’d better call him,” said Paul.

“Actually, I already did. Of course there was no answer. I had to leave my name and number.”

•   •   •

T
HE CALL
G
EORGE
had been hoping to get came an hour later. As soon as George started to talk, the caller, who admitted he was not Burim, said that he wanted to hear no details over the phone. If George wanted to talk to Burim, it had to be in person in a public place, meaning George had to travel east. The caller then warned George that he better not be wasting anyone’s time. The invitation, grudging though it might be, was what George needed to hear, but the question then arose of how to get away from Boulder without being seen. Neither George nor Paul thought it a good idea to advertise where George was going as long as Nano had them under surveillance.

George booked a ticket on the 8:37
A
.
M
. United flight to Newark, and then he and Paul strategized a way for George to get to the Denver airport without being detected. Which was why Paul sat in his Subaru at four in the morning in the car park of his apartment building with the engine running.

•   •   •

“H
EY,
E
RIC,
they’re on the move.”

Having failed to get Caldwell and Wilson arrested at Mariel Spallek’s house, Chad Wells and Eric McKenzie pulled the Nano security detail’s night shift. They had parked down the street from Paul Caldwell’s apartment building in a spot that afforded them a view of the parking lot. Chad was lucky—he had fallen asleep, as had Eric, but awoke in time to notice Caldwell’s car’s lights on and the engine running and see the men sitting in the vehicle.

“Are they both in the car?” said Eric trying to get his eyes to function. “What the fuck time is it, for chrissake?”

“It’s around four.”

“What the hell are they doing up at this time? Where the hell could they be going?”

“I think that’s what we have to find out. Remember, they are doctors. Maybe they got called on an emergency.”

“It looks like they are both in the car.”

“That’s my take,” said Chad, but he didn’t know for sure as far away as they were. But it seemed safer to sound definite than admit he couldn’t be sure. Besides, it was a good bet both of them were there, as the two of them had done everything together up to this point. Besides, he didn’t want to stand out in the damn cold if Eric suggested he do so.

“Okay, let’s follow. But stay well back, okay?”

“Got it.”

•   •   •

A
FTER FIVE MINUTES,
Paul started to move, and he drove very deliberately out of the parking lot making sure his headlights strafed the car he assumed was the surveillance vehicle. The idea was for him to drive out toward Berman’s house, hang out for a time, and then and loop back via the hospital. It would take at least an hour, by which time George would have the opportunity to walk out of the back entrance of the apartment building and be met by a prearranged car service at a gas station a half mile down the road in the other direction. Both Paul and George doubted there would be more than one car involved in any surveillance, and even if a man were to be left behind at the apartment complex, he wouldn’t be able to see George leaving out the back. Or so they hoped.

•   •   •

G
EORGE WATCHED
P
AUL LEAVE
and then let the curtain fall back into place. After waiting fifteen minutes, he followed the plan and left Paul’s apartment, making his way out the rear door, and walked down the road quickly without looking back. He had borrowed one of Paul’s sports coats and a pair of dress pants that fit him well enough. For some reason, he wanted to dress up for the meeting he’d arranged for four o’clock that same afternoon. Just thinking about it gave him an uneasy, queasy feeling that made his pulse race. George knew he was not a risk-taker by nature, but he knew he had to do it and do it soon. As he approached the gas station, he saw a town car sitting on the forecourt and knew it had to be his ride.

Now George essayed a glance over his shoulder and saw he was quite alone. He’d made it.