Dead End

Nineteen

It was a welcome change for Dwight Newton to enter the Dubette corporate building on Wall Street at the same time as everyone else and take a public elevator to the executive floor. He’d been able to catch a later shuttle, too, but he’d still allowed himself time for waffles and maple syrup, unsure if the emergency meeting of the parent board and its subsidiaries would run over lunch time. He entered Edward C. Grant’s office through the secretarial cordon, to smiles and insistences it was good to see him again. The moment Newton was inside, without any greeting from behind his enormous desk, Grant demanded: ‘Bring me up to date. I need to know everything!’

The other man was frightened, Newton guessed, enjoying the thought. Prepared, having even made himself prompt notes to read on the plane from Washington, the research vice president recounted his encounter with the FBI agents, for once without any interruption from Grant.

‘The lawyers have to intervene to prevent any awkward questions?’

‘No,’ said Newton. He’d have to disclose the problem, but not this early.

‘That’s good. Right they should have been there but we don’t want to give the impression of having anything to hide.’

‘I thought we’d decided, you and I, that we didn’t have anything to hide?’ Newton actually felt superior to Grant and he enjoyed that, too.

‘What about that godamned flight number?’ Grant ignored him.

‘They didn’t ask.’

‘That’s good, as well,’ nodded Grant. ‘How did it go with the others?’

The upset wasn’t far away, accepted Newton. ‘We got a bit out of synch there.’

‘What do you mean, out of synch?’ The concern was immediate.

‘The way they set out their interview request was to see me first, then Russell Benn and after him Harry Johnson. That’s how I arranged it, to have the lawyers with me, waiting, before going on to Russell’s interview and after that to Harry’s. But they saw Harry first.’

‘Alone!’

‘Yes.’

‘Shit!’

‘I think it’s all right.’

‘It’d sure as hell better be! I want it – all of it – in every little detail!’

‘Harry’s a former Metro DC officer.’

‘I know that. Do they?’

‘They didn’t ask. He didn’t tell them.’

‘What did they ask?’

‘If AF209 ever carried anything addressed to Dubette. Which it didn’t, did it?’

Grant stared across his desk, momentarily unspeaking. Then: ‘Baldwin think that’s OK?’

‘I haven’t talked it through with him.’ Because I don’t want to be complicit, Newton thought.

‘No, perhaps not. What do you think?’

‘I’m a scientist, not a lawyer,’ refused Newton.

Grant stirred, irritably. ‘What’s Johnson say, from his police experience?’

‘That he answered all their questions completely honestly – that that’s how it could be argued in court, if it ever got to a court – that he was asked a specific question to which he provided a specific answer,’ said Newton.

Grant remained unmoving, his face fixed. With witch-doctor clairvoyance, he said: ‘What else?’

‘He didn’t tell them anything about the phone-tapping.’

‘Why not?’

‘They didn’t ask, so he didn’t offer. His interpretation of the law, you answer the questions you’re asked, not those that you’re not asked.’

‘He shouldn’t have been left by himself.’

‘It wasn’t intended he should be left by himself! I told you how it happened!’

‘He’s not to be alone if the FBI come back to him.’

‘I know that! He won’t be. If there’s another approach, he’s to tell me before it happens and we’ll get the attorneys back, with Baldwin.’

‘Did Johnson set the tap up by himself?’

‘He says so – says he learned to do it when he was with the police, and that he didn’t need help, from any electronics guys.’

‘The switchboard must have known something!’

‘It’s automated. Just a few supervisory staff and Johnson says it was easy to use his security authority to get by them and work unobserved.’

‘It still in place?’

‘I wanted your views, today.’

‘Take it off. Get rid of it. Today, as soon as you get back.’

‘I will.’

‘We got some frayed edges,’ decided the president. ‘Too many frayed edges. You seen the Journal?’

He should have bought the Wall Street Journal at the airport, Newton immediately realized. A bad mistake. ‘I didn’t have time.’

‘They’ve picked up on today’s meeting. We’ve dropped three points already.’

Your problem, not mine, thought Newton. ‘We had to be affected, in the circumstances.’

‘We’ve got to lose this terrorism tag. I don’t want this to become a mess.’

‘I don’t see why it should. Dubette hasn’t done anything wrong – doesn’t have any skeletons in any closets, does it?’

‘You know what I mean,’ said Grant, carelessly.

‘No, I’m not sure that I do.’ Newton thought he’d made that refusal before. He wondered how many more times he was going to have to say it again. He became aware how creased, unkempt, Grant’s suit appeared to be. Newton was glad he’d had his pressed.

The boardroom, normally over-large, was today inadequate for its intended function of reassuring unsettled boards. The cause was the electronic paraphernalia needed to link every other subsidiary board by satellite on to a wall-dominating screen, in many cases in what was the middle of their nights or early mornings. Each location was served by three cameras, the primary to provide a single, encompassing view of each and every board composition, the others to enable split-screen close-ups, against that general view, of individual speakers. To make that visually possible, none was able to sit, in the normal way, around a complete table, but had to be in a horseshoe, each chief executive at its middle, Edwin C. Grant heading the assembly – and the global gathering – from New York. Irrationally – but even more unfittingly – Dwight Newton had a mental image of the Last Supper, even before noticing that, including himself in New York, there were a total of thirteen men. He refused to extend the Judas reflection.

The worldwide gathering began, oddly, with the unnecessary introductions of individual boards and each member from each country. That done, the master camera came back upon Grant. They were, said the president, caught up in a situation beyond their control. The tragic death of a valued member of their headquarters staff was upsetting enough – the repercussions of her having in her possession the number of an Air France flight which had been the subject of a terrorist alert was severely affecting the company. Already, that morning, the stock was down three points on the Dow Jones after this conference had been publicized, which brought to a twelve-point drop the total loss since Rebecca Lang’s killing and the discovery of the flight details. Certain people at McLean were co-operating fully with the FBI investigation. The parent board hoped for an early and successful conclusion of that investigation, until which time they had reluctantly to expect Dubette to be the subject of unsubstantiated speculation. To restrict that as much as possible – and by so doing limit any further stock-market uncertainty – the parent board’s lawyers were retaining additional attorneys to initiate immediate action against publication of any material judged malicious or likely adversely to affect the reputation of the company. There was going to be a full media release at the end of today’s meeting, in which this precaution was going to feature prominently, as a warning to the media. The parent board wanted that release simultaneously issued by each subsidiary. Additionally, legal teams were to be established by each overseas board he was addressing, to take similar action against any confidence-damaging publication in their respective countries.

One by one the chief executives of the subsidiaries recounted the individual effects upon them of what publicity there had already been. There had been stock-slippage in England, Germany, France and Japan. There had been no drop so far in Italy, Spain or Australia. Anti-terrorist police or agencies had examined company laboratories in England, Germany and France. It was chief executive Henri Saby who spoke from Paris. Newton only just stopped himself physically coming forward, and thought he detected a similar held-back shift from Grant. The thinning-haired, urbane Saby appeared quite relaxed on the satellite link, the superbly cut grey suit a sharp contrast to that of the president. In addition to scientifically examining everything in their laboratory, French anti-terrorism officers had personally questioned him about the AF209 flight listing being in Rebecca Lang’s possession. Like everyone at Dubette headquarters, he had been unable to explain it but had assured the investigators of his full co-operation on any future developments.

Edward C. Grant picked up on that, insisting that all subsidiaries offer every assistance to official enquiries and investigators. The promised media release had been prepared well in advance by Dubette’s public affairs division and faxed to every overseas branch. The president invited improvements, additions or corrections from every link-up. There was no challenge from any foreign division.

‘This has the utmost priority,’ concluded Grant. ‘I want daily input from all of you. We must know, here in New York, of everything that happens in your countries. Nothing – nothing whatsoever – is too small or inconsequential…’ He hesitated and then, as if they’d had a choice, said: ‘Thank you for participating, particularly those of you for whom your local timing is inconvenient.’

The parent board remained in session after the closedown of the satellite connection, but the discussion was a pointless repetition of what had been debated before and after the global conference. They adjourned both for the electronic equipment to be removed and to watch the midday television news in an outer office. All three major networks carried the press release threatening legal action against malicious publication, tacked at the end of stories about the global conference. To groans from almost everyone – and the outburst of ‘shit’ from Grant – all three described it as an emergency session and listed the current stock-market loss.

To Dwight Newton’s surprise, lunch was provided, in the restored boardroom. By the time they emerged, Dubette’s stock was down a total of ten points on the day.

‘Sorry I couldn’t see you yesterday,’ apologized Newton. ‘I was up in New York.’

‘I saw the stories on television. And read about it in this morning’s Post,’ said Parnell.

‘You got something on the flu research that’s going to lift our spirits and maybe our stock ratings?’ said Newton.

‘Not exactly,’ said Parnell.

The vice president frowned. ‘What is it then?’

‘There seems to have been a misunderstanding,’ said Parnell.

Newton’s frown remained and he felt a twitch of apprehension. ‘About what?’

‘When we spoke about that business from France, I understood you to say it was something that hadn’t worked.’

‘I don’t recall, exactly,’ said Newton, warily. ‘Why?’

Liar, thought Parnell. ‘That’s not what I understood from the FBI guys. They thought it was something ongoing. Something that’s being adopted?’

It wasn’t a problem, Newton decided. ‘Maybe I gave the wrong impression. Like I said, I don’t really remember. It’s some changes being made to the routine formulas coming out of France on proprietary stuff: cough mixtures, linctuses, decongestants, that sort of thing.’

‘What type of changes?’

‘Colourings, mostly. For better recognition. All placebos, but we had to check them out chemically, of course. That’s what it was, safety checks.’ Newton was sweating now under the regulation white coat, again glad he was wearing it.

‘At the seminar I thought the president referred to it as a way of preventing piracy of our products?’ persisted Parnell.

There was nothing dangerous in the truth, Newton thought. ‘That too. It’s a winner, every which way. If the formula is pirated, it makes it more expensive than our competitors. If the products are bought genuinely, it makes them easier to recognize by people who can’t read too well.’

‘I looked on my list – everything made available to check out genetically,’ pressed Parnell. ‘I couldn’t find anything as up to date as that.’

Newton smiled. ‘Wasn’t that list provided before we checked out the French stuff?’

‘Only for our French subsidiary? Nowhere else?’

‘No.’

‘Why not across the board?’

‘I told you, specifically targeted. It’s in the Third World where the piracy is greatest and where the literacy and comprehension is the lowest.’

‘I’ll ask Russell for some samples, shall I?’

Newton’s frown return. ‘What the hell for?’

‘I thought I was getting everything? That’s the arrangement, isn’t it?’

‘And I thought your unit had been very specifically tasked.’

‘It has. And we’re working on it in every way that’s open to us. I’m not for a moment suggesting we break away, certainly not on something like placebo infusion you’ve already cleared to be totally safe. I just want to stick with the working arrangement we agreed when we set my unit up, to get everything and look at everything over the course of time.’

There was no danger, Newton told himself again. He shrugged. ‘Sure, get samples from Russ. Just don’t take your eye off the main ball, OK?’

‘I won’t take my eye off the main ball,’ promised Parnell, an assurance more for his satisfaction than Dwight Newton’s.