The Delta Factor (22 page)

13

Sandra cornered Cliff outside his office just after lunch the next day. “What's this I hear about you taking more time off?”

“It was mine to do with as I please,” he replied. After receiving Deborah's go-ahead, Cliff had taken the samples by the lobbyist's labs, and was now enormously glad to have them out of his hands.

“I just better not find out you've been down in Edenton again,” she warned. “You come within a hundred miles of that place, and it'll cost you your job.” She wheeled around and tap-tapped down the hallway.

Cliff sighed, started for his door, only to be hailed from the hall's opposite end. He turned to find an extremely nervous Horace Tweedie scurrying toward him. “Do you have a minute?”

“Sure, Horace, come on in.”

“No, no, not in there. Let's just walk for a second, okay?”

Cliff allowed himself to be led down the corridor. The little man's forehead was beaded with perspiration. Cliff asked, “So how are things down in files?”

“Fine, fine.” The little man checked the hall, then asked, “Have you been in contact with anyone strange recently?”

“Strange?” Cliff locked into gear. He lowered his voice. “Oh, you mean your friend Wendell. Sure, I saw him this morning. Gave him something to test at his labs.”

Tweedie's eyes scrunched tighter. “Who?”

“Wendell Cooper. Head of the Health and Medicine Advisory Council. I think I've got that right. Like you said, a weird sort of character, but at least he's willing to help us.” Cliff dropped his voice even further. “Just do me a favor, will you? Don't let anyone know around here. It's not really been approved by the higher-ups.”

“But I don't know any Cooper,” the little man whispered.

“Yeah, right,” Cliff grinned. “Great idea.”

“I'm not kidding,” Tweedie hissed. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

Cliff straightened in alarm. “Then who—”

“Look,” Tweedie said, his voice hoarse with strain. “I gotta go.”

Cliff grabbed for him. “No, wait a second, I—”

“I've got to go
now
.” The little man pulled himself free. “You just watch your back, Devon. That's all I can tell you.” He was already moving down the hall, picking up speed. “Watch your back.”

Cliff was almost beside himself when he called Deborah that afternoon and announced, “I can't find him.”

“Who?”

“Cooper. I guess that's his name. Now I don't even know if that's real.”

“The guy at the lab agency? What's the matter?”

“I've just gotten back from his office. The people there don't know of any lab. And Tweedie's never even heard of him.”

“Who's Tweedie?”

“The guy who introduced us. Supposedly. And now I just missed him.”

“You're not making any sense, Junior.”

“Hey, life isn't making much sense either.”

“Slow down,” Deborah intoned. “Take a deep breath.”

Cliff did as he was told. “Okay.”

“Are you all right now?”

“No. Definitely not. Something's going crazy around here.”

“So start from the beginning and give it to me slow.”

Cliff did so, though it cost him. “I called Cooper's office, and he wasn't there, and I asked to speak to his chief lab technician, and the receptionist said, the who? That got me going, let me tell you. So I drove out there. Which was a trial and a half, seeing as how the sky has decided to finally cave in.” He looked out his rain-streaked window at a world gone dark and gray. It suited the way he felt to a T.

“Didn't you check out his lab?”

“Sure, I met him and discussed our problem.” Cliff's free hand dragged continually through his hair. “He showed me around this incredible lab area, but you know, I was there after hours. That was when he set up our appointment. Said it would be easier for me, not drawing attention to myself if I came after work. So nobody was working in the labs. And when I brought the samples, he met me in a coffee shop halfway between here and there—I thought he was doing me a favor, helping me get back to the office as quickly as possible. Anyway, when I went out there this afternoon, it turns out the lab is one of these diagnostics groups that hires their services out, and Cooper's rented space from them because they have done a lot of work for him in the past. But it's not his lab, Debs. And they don't know anything about our samples.”

There was a moment's silence, then the grim pronouncement, “We've been set up.”

“Sounds that way to me,” Cliff agreed, misery coalescing into a tight little ball at gut level.

“Not sounds,” she corrected. “Is.”

“I'm sorry, Debs.”

“You and me both,” she said. “I should have come up there and looked this thing over personally. But he sounded one hundred percent professional, knew the right words. He sounded so positive he could get to the bottom of this.” She sighed. “Brother, did we ever get took.”

“Who's behind this?”

“I wish I knew. You check around up there, see if you can find anything out. I'll do the same at this end.”

Madge had one speed for work—first gear. Cliff did not complain. At least it wasn't reverse. She was as much a friend to him as she could be, after twenty-seven years of watching them come and watching them go. She did her work well, never needed to have anything explained twice, and never needed to redo. Madge held too much respect for her own time to make mistakes the first time around.

She was busy at her computer terminal when he walked from his office and announced, “They're gunning for me, Madge.”

She did not even blink. “So I heard.”

He was surprised but knew he shouldn't be. Madge was connected to the local grapevine at root level. “Yeah? And were you planning on sharing the news with me one of these days?”

She gave her hefty shoulders a simple shrug. “I didn't see how it would do you any good, so why bother you when you're so much in love?”

Cliff had to smile. “It shows, does it?”

Madge adjusted her cat's-eye glasses. “Who's the lucky lady, anyway.”

“Somebody I met down in Edenton.”

“Gotta watch out for those small-town Southern girls,” she warned. “Once they get their hooks in, they don't let go.”

“In this case, I wouldn't mind,” Cliff said. “So who's holding the weapons, Madge.”

“Well, Sandra for one.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Cliff replied.

“Right. But she's got some kind of backers from outside the FDA. Somebody over on Capitol Hill, from what I hear.”

“And Ralph hasn't said anything to back me up?”

“Sure he has. That's why you've lasted as long as you have.”

Cliff felt a rush of relief. He liked Ralph and hoped the feeling was mutual. It helped to know the man had stood up for him.

“But Ralph is a political appointee,” Madge reminded him. “He can only go so far before sticking his neck on the chopping block beside yours.”

“How long before the ax falls?”

“Hard to say. Seems like things are in a holding pattern for the moment. Can't tell you why. Want me to check around?”

“If you wouldn't mind.”

“I'll do it for you.” Madge stood and shrugged on her coat. She seemed genuinely sad. “You're a good boy, Cliff. Maybe too good for the rough and tumble of bureaucratic life.”

Cliff reached over and patted her hand. “You're not getting sentimental on me, are you?”

“Not me, honey,” she said, collecting herself. “I've been around too long to waste a tear on the ways of this old world.”

Horace Tweedie's frantic scampering was hampered by the heavy summer thundershower. Every third step or so, a sudden gust tried to wrench the umbrella from his grasp and sent bitter needles rushing against his body.

He never should have waited.

He knew it now. He could feel it in his bones. He should have taken the first big payment and scampered. But always the man had offered more. Bigger payouts. More cash. More freedom.

Now something in Devon's words left him terrified that the freedom was no more.

Another gust, fiercer than the others, almost blew him off his feet. Tweedie recovered, but in doing so he stepped off the curb and stumbled in the gutter. Water poured in a steady brown stream, ankle deep and treacherous and burdened by enough silt to form a viscous mud underneath. When Horace Tweedie righted himself, his shoe was sucked off by the mud.

Horace Tweedie shouted a curse at his fate, squatted, and stuck one arm down into the filthy water. As he fished around, another vicious gust powered through. First it blew his umbrella inside out, then wrenched it from his grasp. Horace let it go. He had to use both hands to free his shoe.

Water dripped down his glasses, turning them into liquid prisms. Horace pried his foot into the water-logged shoe and fumbled with his shoelaces. Then a gust blew the droplets from his glasses, and pushed his head up and over just far enough to see the car.

The car was moving far too slowly, even for this weather. And it was dark.

Horace squinted, wiped his spectacles with fingers that suddenly were shaking spastically, and saw, yes, it was a black Infiniti.

Thunder boomed around him, drowning out his high-pitched cry. Horace stood and started running, his laces still undone. The shoe sucked on and off and flop-flopped and finally slipped off entirely. This time Horace Tweedie did not even notice.

His glasses were fogged up now, coated with each gasping little breath as well as the rain. Which was why he did not see the car stop nor the aquiline featured man race up the empty sidewalk and seize him fiercely by the neck.

The iron grip dragged him back toward the waiting car. The man held Horace with one hand strong enough to crush his bones and opened the driver-side door. To Horace it looked like a looming maw of darkness. He struggled as hard as his fear-drenched body would allow.

“I wrote it all down!” His screams were almost lost to the din of lightning that streaked across the sky. “If I disappear it's all gonna come out! I got it all hidden safe!”

The stranger with the delicate aquiline features pushed him inside, then slid in behind him. A pistol with a silencer appeared in one hand as the other shifted the car into gear. “I am sure you will tell me all about it,” he replied silkily. “In time.”

14

“Thank you for being so patient, Ms. Walters. Congressman Larson will see you now.”

Sandra Walters followed the chief secretary back into the congressman's inner sanctum and reflected that it might actually be happening.

The congressman had the telephone to his ear when she entered. Still, he bolted to his feet, shook her hand, waved her into a seat. “I've got to go now, Harry. Something mighty important just came in.”

She permitted herself a small smile. Yes, the doors to real power might about be ready to open for her. Finally.

Congressman Larson set down the phone, swept around from behind his desk, and said, “Ms. Walters. What a wonderful surprise.”

“I'm sorry to bother you like this, Congressman.” One nervous hand rose to check her hair.

“Nonsense. Always have time for a beautiful young friend.” He gave her his number one smile, showing off five thousand dollars' worth of capped teeth. He lowered himself into the chair beside her. “Now, what can I do for you?”

“I think I might have something of great importance for you,” she said, barely able to keep her voice steady in her excitement. “Do you happen to recall what you said to me at our meeting two weeks ago?”

“Of course.” He kept his chin cocked to smooth out the loose skin on his neck. “There is a very serious breach of public trust over at FDA. I have always been certain that some of the people working there must be aware of this, and chaffing under the restrictions placed upon them by those who insist on playing games with their power.”

“That is exactly right,” she agreed, trying hard to keep her eagerness under wraps.

“Naturally, my colleagues and I are seeking allies within the FDA, people who can be trusted to act in the public's best interest once our housecleaning begins.”

“I'd certainly like to be counted on your team, Congressman,” Sandra Walters replied, clenching one hand with the other. So close.

Larson examined her with a measuring gaze. “I thought I had identified such an ally in you, Ms. Walters.”

“Congressman, just this morning I was given some potentially explosive information. It appears that one of my subordinates has gone against every FDA guideline and offered confidential information on a new drug to an outside laboratory.”

Larson focused down tighter. “How did you learn of this?”

“I can't say,” Sandra replied, which was literally the truth. The confidential caller had not given his name. He had simply passed on the information in a distinctly accented voice, then given the name of a person who could confirm it. Sandra had called the number of something called the Health and Medicine Advisory Council, whose director had cheerfully agreed that yes, Cliff Devon had delivered samples for inspection to him. Why, was something the matter? No, he was so sorry, he could not return the samples. They had unfortunately been stolen from the trunk of his car just the night before.

“No, of course, you must respect the confidentiality of your sources,” Larson said, masking his disappointment well. “And just which drug are we speaking of here?”

“One up for a new drug application. One that I understand is of particular interest to you,” Sandra said, letting the words roll deliciously off her tongue. “The echin drug.”

“You were right to bring this to my attention,” the congressman intoned, his voice taut.

“I couldn't let them just sweep another one under the rug,” Sandra declared. “Which is exactly what they'd have done. Especially with this particular person. He's the apple of the director's eye, and he gets away with murder. As you can see.”