The Target (7 page)

Hardass.
“I will.” Coffee fetching and data entry. Oh boy. Good to see her college education and sniper training paying off. But she would enjoy the challenge, at least for a while. If she had to do the same thing every day for the rest of her life, she’d put her Glock to her head. Some people thrived on predictability. She wasn’t one of them.

The employees gathered in the atrium outside the break room. The space had tables on both sides of a glass wall, with the patio being accessible through a locked door. She would have to remember to keep her badge with her if she ever stepped outside. Only one person approached and introduced himself.

“Max Grissom, CEO. Thanks for joining us.” He was short, and because she wore heels, his eyes stared directly into her chest. He caught himself and looked up again. “I hope you find our gathering inspirational.” His face was pleasant, with a deep worry wrinkle on his forehead and a patch of dark pigment along one jawline.

She would have to fake an interest in him to get close enough to access his texts and emails. “I’m excited to be here.”

He touched her arm, then trotted to the glass wall that everyone was facing. Most of the employees were women between the ages of thirty and fifty, dressed in gray or black A-line skirts and jackets. Not one was smiling. Sales and marketing, she guessed. Two men in short-sleeved cotton shirts stood in the back, commenting in voices too low to understand.

She stepped toward them. “What’s this about?”

The guy next to her let out a little laugh. “You’ll see. I’m Eric. You must be Cheryl’s new assistant.”

“Yes. Jace Hunter.”

He shook her hand and introduced his pal, Nikola. She committed their names and faces to memory.

“Good luck with Cheryl,” Eric leaned over and whispered. “She can be demanding. And you might as well know that Max Grissom will hit on you right away. Just tell him no. He won’t fire you.”

“Thanks for the head’s up.”

A moment later, the CEO’s voiced boomed, “Good morning! Let’s get physical!”

A loud version of
Eye of the Tiger
blasted into the room. Grissom began a series of stretches and jumps, and the employees joined in.

What the hell?
Was it mandatory? Dallas glanced at the other women in skirts and heels. They were participating, so she did too. The sales reps had to be making a damn good commission, or the job market was even worse than she’d heard. Cheryl Decker, in the front row, wore black pants and a white pullover shirt. Smart woman, but maybe she was the only one who could get away with wearing casual clothes. Her background file indicated that she didn’t socialize or meet with clients.

After the physical routine, Grissom announced the week’s sales numbers—‌which everyone cheered. Then he burst into a pep talk, urging a better performance, stopping intermittently and calling, “Give me a ‘hell yeah’!”

The employees raised their hands and gave it their best. Dallas was too stunned to do much but watch, wide-eyed. Was this typical in the medical device industry, or was Grissom an ambitious wingnut? She decided to focus her probe on him first, and she’d probably have to get cozy with his administrative assistant to gain access to his files. Thank goodness this wasn’t her real job. Even her love of acting couldn’t get her to embrace the drink-the-Kool-Aid crap.

The cheerleading was abruptly over, and the employees quickly dispersed. Eric paused to caress her shoulder and say, “Let’s have lunch today, and I’ll give you survival pointers.”

An opportunity to pump him for information.
“Thanks. I think I’ll need them.” She gave him a look of mock distress, followed by a smile. “Unless my boss has other plans for me, I’ll meet you in the lobby at noon.”

In the hallway, Decker grabbed her elbow. “Walk upstairs with me and we’ll get started.”

On the climb, her boss laid out her training philosophy. “I’ll show you how to open the software I use and sort the data I’ve collected, but I’m not going to explain how our server works or where to find everything.” Decker looked back to check her expression, then continued, “Your one reference that I could reach said you were smart and competent, so I assume you’ll figure it out. The product I’m working on will be a blockbuster, so I can’t waste time on anything else.”

“That sounds exciting. What is it?”

Decker stopped on the landing and locked eyes with her. “This is strictly confidential, and I’m only telling you because you’ll see it once you start working with the data. It’s called Slimbiotic, and it’s a device that you swallow. Once it reaches the intestines, the case dissolves and releases special microbiota that begin to change the patient’s metabolism and response to inflammation. The molecular chemistry is more complex than that, but no one will care. The product is incredibly effective and safe, and every overweight person in the developed world will want it.”

The holy grail of pharmaceutical research?
“What a breakthrough.” Dallas wanted to know more. “What exactly are special microbiota?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I really do.”

“They’re living organisms that originally came from the intestines of healthy, naturally slim people. But they’ve been produced in large quantities through recombinant processes.”

“You mean like a fecal transplant?”

Decker scowled and shook her head. “We never use that term. Our product is an advanced, patient-friendly form of that medical procedure.”

Bacteria.
Slimbiotic was the intestinal transfer of healthy bacteria without surgery. The concept was brilliant. But it also meant TecLife could have produced the bacteria that killed Agent Palmer. Was Decker, or maybe Santera, a killer, or had it been accidental? The product could be more dangerous than anyone realized.

“What are you thinking?” her boss demanded. “Are you bothered by it? We know we have a public relations challenge, but most people won’t even question the device if it works.”

“I think it’s brilliant. And by calling it Slimbiotic, people will think it’s like the good stuff in yogurt.”

“Exactly.”

“How did you get interested in this line of research?”

Decker paused, a flash of something in her eyes.
Pain?
“We’ve known for ages that antibiotics help fatten farm animals, so it seemed logical that certain gut bacteria kept us from getting fat and that killing them led to weight gain. Following that line of thinking, I hypothesized that overweight people don’t have enough of the right microbiota.”

Could it be that simple?

“Obesity is more complex than that,” Decker continued, “And for some people, food is an addiction, but many scientists and doctors have come to believe that gut bacteria is the primary determination of our overall health.”

“Where is it in development?”

“We’ve completed Phase Three trials and submitted to the FDA, but they want more data.” She pushed through the door into the hall and kept talking. “We did the clinicals in Costa Rica to help keep the device confidential. Our competitors would love to get their hands on this one. So you must never talk about it outside these walls.”

Yet TecLife was the company suspected of sabotage. Was there more going on? Was the whole industry cutthroat? “Is the research being done here in one of the other buildings?”

“Mostly.”

“You must be excited.”

“You have no idea how personal this is for me.” Her eyes misted. “Eight long years, but we’re almost there.”

They reached their offices, stepped in, and closed the door. Dallas lobbed her first probe. “Isn’t ProtoCell about to launch something similar?”

Decker’s eyes hardened again. “No. Their product releases peptides and requires a doctor to implant it. I’m sure it’ll work, but the SlimPro is more invasive, more expensive, and insurance companies might not even pay for it.”

A full-throttled competition. Jana Palmer could be right about TecLife starting the fire in ProtoCell’s warehouse. Even though a different product had been destroyed, a financial setback could slow down research. She couldn’t wait to hear what River would discover about the competitors. She herself couldn’t risk visiting their businesses and blowing her cover. “It’s interesting that both companies are developing devices to treat obesity.”

“There are good reasons for that.” Decker gestured at the computer. “Let’s get started.”

Dallas spent the next few hours pasting codes into search fields and creating new files with the results. Boring. The monotony of it would have driven her insane without taking occasional peeks into other files on the server. But she had to be careful until she knew whether her computer activities were monitored. The patient files also made her think about her father in the hospital. How sick was he really? Her mother tended to exaggerate. But if he was really dying…

Decker breezed into the outer office. “I’m running over to the R&D building to check on something. Take a lunch break while I’m gone.” Her boss kept moving.

Yes, ma’am.

Dallas closed the program, grabbed her purse, and headed out. In the hall, she ran into another young woman coming out of Grissom’s office. “Hey, I’m Jace Hunter, Ms. Decker’s new assistant.”

“I’m Holly Jaseria.” She didn’t smile or offer her hand.

“You’re Mr. Grissom’s assistant?”

“I am now.” The heavyset woman sounded unhappy.

“I heard you wanted the open position.”

“Only to keep my job. Cheryl would have fired me soon.”

More intrigue.
“But why?”

“I can’t tell you.” She glanced up and down Dallas’ body. “I’m sure you’ll do fine. Just don’t gain any weight.” Holly stepped on the elevator, hit the down button, and the doors started to move.

“What do you mean?”

A wailing fire alarm drowned out Dallas’ voice, and the elevator closed. The noise made it hard to think, but instinctively she headed for the stairs, not wanting to wait for the elevator to return. Inside the stairwell, shielded from the ear-splitting racket, her brain kicked in and she turned around. With everyone out of the building, this was a perfect opportunity for spying. Dallas trotted back upstairs, trying to calculate the odds that there really was a fire. Not likely. Unless she took into account the fire in ProtoCell’s warehouse, the intense competition, and the possibility that the other company was getting even.

Even if this was a case of revenge arson, she still had a few minutes. Dallas hurried back to her office and tried the interior door leading into Decker’s space. Locked. She had picks her in purse and was pretty good with them, but maybe this was a better opportunity to snoop around Grissom’s office. His intensity at the meeting flagged him as aggressive and a more-likely saboteur. And this might be her only chance to sneak into his office during the day, certain that he wasn’t there. With Decker, she would have a chance every time her boss left her office.

Dallas rolled up some tissue and stuffed it into her ears, then hurried next door. The alarm was still deafening in the empty hallway, but she tried to tune it out. The door to Grissom’s exterior office stood wide open. She stepped in, closed it, and glanced around. The same size and shape as her little space and no cameras that she could spot. Most employers, except banks, didn’t spy on their crew. She tried the interior doorknob and it turned easily.
Yes!

Inside, the drapes were open and the lights on. Grissom had left in a hurry. His computer monitor was dark but blinked an invitation. She glanced around, noting that, unlike Decker’s, his office was clean and organized. It was also bigger, with a private bathroom and closet. She sat at the desk and tapped the keyboard. The monitor lit up, and she looked for icons, indicating open programs or files. She clicked one, and a Word document opened. A correspondence, addressed to someone at the FDA, on company letterhead. Dallas scanned the text. It mentioned clinical trials and a product called HealthPatch. She noted the details to add to her file later, then opened his email program. If Grissom was smart, he wasn’t using his company email to correspond with a criminal-for-hire, but she checked anyway, skimming through batches and folders, looking for anything personal.

After a minute, she looked up at the doorway out of habit. Through the outer office, she saw the exterior door opening.
Shit!
Dallas bolted out of the chair. Should she hide or try to bullshit her way out of this? She ran for the bathroom, hoping it would give her time to come up with a plausible story. She swung the door behind her but didn’t let it completely close. She might get lucky. Maybe Grissom had just come back to grab something and would leave right away.

Adrenaline pumped in her veins, and the roar of the fire alarm made it worse. She took deep breaths but couldn’t get her pulse to slow. She stayed next to the cracked-open door and watched.

A man with a beard and a baseball cap strode into the room. Maybe thirty, dressed in jeans and a dark T-shirt, and wearing a backpack. He headed straight for Grissom’s computer, plugged in a thumb drive and started downloading files.
Holy shit! A data thief.
Had the intruder triggered the fire alarm? ProtoCell, with its competing product, came immediately to mind. What had she gotten herself into the middle of? Dallas reached for her cell phone, clicked the zoom on the camera, and took pictures through the crack. They wouldn’t be great, but she had to document the activity if she could.

She checked the time on her cell, wondering how long he would stay. The noise was maddening and she covered her ears. While the thumb drive was in the machine, the intruder searched drawers but didn’t seem to find anything he was interested in. The alarm shut off, but the wait still seemed to take forever. The intruder finally yanked out the drive and left. Dallas glanced at her cell again. The whole thing had taken nine minutes.

Follow him or try to get some intel while she could? She was running out of time. The fire department had probably arrived and would clear out the building. Dallas bolted out of the office. Down the hall, the elevator door was closing. She sprinted to the stairwell. He had to exit the building on the ground floor, didn’t he?