Dead End

Twenty-Five

Richard Parnell didn’t set out upon a warned-against personal investigation, although there was something about the last meeting with Barbara Spacey that stayed in his mind, like a distracting noise for which he couldn’t locate a source. But there suddenly seemed to be a lot he found distracting. Although he fully understood his mother’s concern, her insistence upon such regular contact was intrusive and he found it irksome having to respond to letters from former vague acquaintances in England who’d obviously got his Washington address from closer, genuinely concerned colleagues, and written as if it were a members’-club obligation. The most positive, persistent distraction of all, of course, remained the discontinuity within his unit. The lack of a single, feasible experimental idea to further the influenza research had made the previous night’s end-of-day discussion virtually pointless, although he’d thought Sean Sato’s suggestion of a combined discussion with Russell Benn’s unit worth pursuing, until being told by Benn that morning that his scientists didn’t have anything to contribute either. Parnell was increasingly accepting Ted Lapidus’s view that they weren’t ever going to find a treatment as objective logic rather than impatient defeatism, although he hadn’t yet openly admitted it.

It was the persistent nag of uncertainty from his meeting with the psychologist that prompted Parnell to go to the personnel department, in a part of the complex so remote he had to use the wall guides. As he moved through connecting corridors, he supposed it would have been a courtesy to tell Wayne Denny that he was coming, but accessing his own personnel file – without any positive reason for doing so – scarcely justified bothering the department director.

He was greeted at the enquiry section, quite separate from an open-plan, glassed-off office beyond, by a blonde, milk-fed girl who clearly recognized him without needing to read his ID tag. Hers identified her as Sally Kline. Adopting the American informality, he called her Sally. She called him professor. With ‘have a good day’ glibness she assured him retrieving his file wouldn’t be a problem, which it obviously wasn’t, because she returned from a side room with a manila folder in minutes. Directing him to one of the several reading tables, she asked if he wanted coffee. Parnell thanked her but refused.

The folder was thicker than he’d expected. And far more detailed. All his references had been taken up and there were copies of every scientific publication paper he could remember submitting. Surprisingly – the beginning of what became intense, even unsettling, curiosity – there were confirming copies of all his academic testimonials – school as well as college – duplicating every one he’d disclosed on his original application. A substantial reason for the file’s thickness were cuttings of what Parnell judged to be every newspaper account he could remember – and some he couldn’t – of his work on the international genome project, including all the interviews he’d given after his participation became public. There was also at least a quarter of an inch taken up by media accounts of Rebecca Lang’s murder, the inexplicable terrorism connection, his initial arrest and subsequent release. Several, he saw, were even from British newspapers, from which he was able to see how widespread the coverage had been in England and better appreciate his mother’s concern. Beyond the printed text were a selection of photographs of him at the time of his arrest, and afterwards, on the court steps. They were on top of an assortment of other prints, two of him gowned and mortar-boarded at graduation ceremonies, and three showing him in rowing strip at college events. Barbara Spacey’s first and second assessments, her third yet to come, were attached to his itemized personal records, the second so specific that it ran to two single spaced A4 pages.

Parnell’s surprise had grown into astonishment by the time he finished the dossier. It contained, he calculated, more information than he knew about himself – certainly things he had totally forgotten about himself. And more, much more, than he believed any employer, no matter how caring, to use Barbara Spacey’s justifying word, would or should need. His remark to Barbara Spacey about Nineteen Eighty-Four was very apposite. Parnell’s mind jumped. The FBI had traced Rebecca back to grade school, according to Howard Dingley. Had they had access to her Dubette file? The answer should be obvious, but so very little of what he knew about Rebecca’s murder investigation seemed obvious that it was definitely worth mentioning to the two agents.

He ached from the concentration with which he’d read all about himself, realizing for the first time that he’d been hunched over the table for forty minutes. Sally Kline responded at once to the summons bell. Through the glass behind her, Parnell saw several obviously alerted people looking at him in the smaller office.

‘Everything OK?’ she asked.

‘Fine.’

‘I filled out all that’s necessary for you,’ she said. ‘All you need to do is sign your access.’

‘I’m sorry?’ frowned Parnell.

‘The log,’ explained the girl. ‘Every file has an individual log, recording the date and the arrival and departure times of anyone reading it. I filled in everything for you. All you need to do is add your signature, to agree my figures.’

The document was upside down on the counter before him, but he could see there were three entries above his own name. ‘That’s who’s read it before me?’

‘Yes,’ confirmed the girl.

Parnell accepted the offered pen, tensed for the users’ log to be reversed towards him. He instantly registered the names Barbara Spacey, Harry Johnson and Dwight Newton. Each was timed and dated. The security chief was listed, ahead of the vice president, as having spent fifty minutes with the dossier, starting at ten past five in the evening, four days before Rebecca’s death. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve just remembered something. Could I just quickly check what I’ve forgotten? It won’t take a minute.’

‘If it’s only a minute,’ said Sally. ‘I’ve already written down your hand-back time.’

‘A minute,’ pledged Parnell. Which was all it needed to find his itemized personal records and confirm that the number of his Toyota was dutifully recorded.

Three days before the Sunday when Rebecca was killed would have been the Thursday he’d found his car damage – the car whose make and number Johnson had told the FBI he hadn’t known.

When he got back to his unit, there was a message from Henri Saby in Paris that the missing samples had been despatched, as arranged, with the waybill number. Parnell telephoned Harry Johnson first on the internal system, and immediately afterwards Barry Jackson on an external line. The lawyer said clients always had to pay for lunch.

‘I should have been told Parnell knew about the box-number facility,’ complained Harry Johnson.

‘I didn’t know myself until yesterday,’ said Newton, determined to get as much as he could from the abruptly demanded meeting with the security chief.

‘How much does he know?’

‘The president isn’t sure,’ said Newton, taking the first step to distance himself as much as possible from Edward C. Grant.

Johnson shook his head. ‘I don’t understand this. I’ve just had a call from Parnell asking me to collect some outstanding samples from Paris “that would be arriving the box-number route”. Those were his exact words, the box-number route. How does he know there is such a system? It’s supposed to be restricted!’

‘You’re going to have to ask him, I guess,’ said Newton.

Johnson looked at him suspiciously. ‘You’ve specifically spoken to the president about this?’

‘In New York, yesterday,’ confirmed Newton.

‘So, what did he say?’ insisted the security chief, impatiently.

‘You normally deal direct with Grant, don’t you?’ challenged Newton.

‘I wanted guidance this time, before I did.’

‘That might be a good idea in the future, you and I talking to each other,’ suggested Newton. Could he make an ally – an informant – of this man?

‘Why?’ asked Johnson, the tone openly suspicious now.

‘It was me he spoke to, about Parnell’s call to Paris. And he told me that it should be handled as it normally is. I don’t know why he didn’t bother to call you, as well.’

‘Saby didn’t call me, which was the arrangement I understood,’ agreed Johnson.

‘We’d both avoid being left out of decisions if we talked to each other. Things are too uncertain to be left out.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ accepted Johnson. ‘So, I’m to collect it, as Parnell’s asked me to?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who do I give it to?’

‘Parnell.’

‘Not you? Or Russell Benn?’

‘Parnell,’ repeated the research director. ‘And you’re to reimpose the surveillance on Parnell.’

‘New York tell you that, too?’

‘Yes.’

Johnson stared challengingly at Newton. ‘Do Dubette think they can afford to cut me out of the loop?’

‘I don’t know what that means, Harry.’ He’d sown more doubt than he’d imagined possible, decided Newton.

‘I’ll talk to New York,’ said the security chief, intending it to sound like a threat.

‘I don’t know what your direct contact is all about,’ said Newton. ‘But I definitely think you should get on to New York. But it’ll still be an idea for us to talk about it, too. And for you to let me know what happens when you deliver the French stuff to Parnell.’ How much was he protectively going to learn from this man, wondered Newton.

Parnell was disappointed at Barry Jackson’s calm reaction. The lawyer continued to pick at his Caesar salad and sip at the mineral water he’d chosen in preference to Parnell’s wine, and when Parnell finished recounting his morning discoveries in Dubette’s personnel department, said: ‘Have you spoken with Beverley?’

‘Beverley? What’s she got to do with what I’ve just told you?’

‘Nothing. My misunderstanding. Forget it.’

‘Barry, haven’t you heard anything I’ve said?’

‘Every word.’

‘So, why are you asking about Beverley?’

‘Professional indiscretion. I said forget it.’

Parnell didn’t respond for several moments, totally confused. ‘So, what have I just told you?’

‘Something intriguing.’

‘Intriguing enough to tell Dingley and Benton?’

‘Definitely,’ decided the lawyer. ‘But not yet. Not before we serve the wrongful-arrest writs upon Bellamy and Montgomery, which we’ll do within the next twenty-four hours. As well, now, as summoning Johnson as a material witness, locking him into the frame. Incidentally, I’m setting the claim against Metro DC police department at ten million dollars.’

‘What?’ demanded Parnell, not immediately understanding.

‘It’s a civil case. We’re claiming damages for loss of reputation and character. You’re a publicly known guy, with a reputation and character to protect. We won’t get anything like that, of course, but it’ll concentrate their minds. And stop any intimidation move against you. You OK with that figure?’

‘I’m not interested in any figure,’ said Parnell, still curious at Jackson’s reference to Beverley.

Jackson grinned at him. ‘You might be when you get my final bill.’

Parnell didn’t smile back. ‘What I’ve told you fits in with what Dingley and Benton said, about Rebecca’s death having something to do with her workplace, doesn’t it?’

‘No,’ refused Jackson, at once. ‘It gives them a very good reason to talk to Harry Johnson again, that’s all.’

‘He lied, about not knowing what car I drove. The fucking number’s in a file he read the very same night my car was vandalized in the car park!’

‘There’s proof he read your personnel file. Not that he noted your car make and number.’

‘That’s playing with words.’

‘That’s what the law is, playing with words. You’ve got to make those words work in your favour.’

‘What about Johnson’s involvement – knowledge – of the French situation – the sideways route that made Rebecca so damned curious?’

‘Exactly what it is, damned curious,’ agreed Jackson. ‘Which is what I’ll get him to explain in a lot more detail in a court, on oath. That’s where we can have him twisting in the wind.’

Parnell pushed aside his pastrami sandwich, half of it uneaten. ‘It’ll make public what the French division, with Washington’s approval, were preparing to do – did do, if it’s not all recalled – won’t it? Conceivably destroy the company?’

Now Jackson finished eating. ‘Don’t get faint-hearted, after what almost happened to you – after what happened to Rebecca. And could have happened to God knows how many people, kids, in Africa, if you hadn’t picked up on it.’

‘I’m not getting faint-hearted,’ denied Parnell.

‘What, then?’

‘It’s difficult sometimes, like now, fully to accept what the outcome of it all could be… to believe that it’s real and that I’m part of it.’

‘Not part of it,’ corrected Jackson. ‘Central to it.’

‘I don’t understand why you asked about Beverley.’

‘I told you, I misunderstood.’

‘What did you misunderstand?’

‘What would you say if I told you it was covered by client confidentiality?’

‘I’d say bullshit.’ Should he tell the lawyer about the two utterly meaningless occasions?

‘It’s covered by client confidentiality,’ recited Jackson.

‘Bullshit,’ said Parnell. But nothing more.

Barry Jackson had compromised, driving part of the way out to McLean, so Parnell was back at the Dubette complex by two o’clock. Only Deke Pulbrow and Mark Easton were in the department.

Pulbrow said: ‘Everyone else is at lunch except Ted. He’s got a dental appointment. Getting to be like a regular workplace, nothing to do, lots of time in which to do it.’

There was a note on his desk from Kathy Richardson, who also wasn’t in her office, that Harry Johnson wanted to see him. The security chief answered his own phone and said he’d collected the French shipment and did Parnell want him to bring it over. Parnell said he’d appreciate it, his mind at that moment more occupied by a further distraction, as well as disappointment at the quickness with which antipathy appeared to have permeated the unit.

Harry Johnson came into the laboratory with a package about the size of a twelve-bottle wine case easily under one arm, encompassing the inactivity of the office with the look to locate Parnell’s office.

‘Your guys go in for long lunches,’ Johnson commented, as he entered the smaller room.

‘And long mornings and even longer afternoons, right into the evening,’ said Parnell.

‘Here’s your stuff, safe and sound,’ announced Johnson. ‘All right here on the desk?’

‘Fine,’ said Parnell. ‘The waybill number attached to it?’ The box number, which he still didn’t know, should show on it.

‘I signed, in your name,’ said Johnson.

‘That’s irregular, isn’t it?’

‘Thought it was easier – more convenient.’

‘I’m a foreigner here, working by permission. I’m sure as hell not going to contravene postal regulations. Give it to me to countersign.’

Johnson hesitated before taking the folded document from his uniform breast pocket. The box number was 322 at McLean’s main post office. ‘Your signature’s not on the top copy. That’s the record of delivery.’

‘I’ll keep this one, as proof that it was delivered to me.’

Johnson shook his head in immediate, bureaucratic refusal. ‘It’s got to go in with all the other proper records. It’s regulations.’

At that moment Parnell saw Kathy Richardson returning to her office and gestured before she had time to sit down. When she entered he asked: ‘Make me a copy of that, will you?’ To Johnson he said: ‘There! That’ll satisfy everyone, won’t it?’

‘I guess,’ said the security head, tightly.

The man was red-faced from what Parnell guessed he saw as – and Parnell himself regarded as – the stupidity of the exchange, but the delay allowed the idea to form. The French parcel was heavily bound in protective adhesive tape, every open edge covered. Parnell said: ‘All we’ve got to do now is get into it. You got a knife, Harry?’

‘Sure,’ said the security man, taking the switchblade familiarly from his right rear pocket and snapping it open in the same movement.

Parnell’s first impulse was immediately to call Jackson with the disclosure of the security head’s further lie to the FBI investigators about never carrying a knife, but he held back, cautioned by his earlier conversation about proof and assumptions. Instead he personally unpacked the cut-open box, sorted the French samples and assembled the new and old formulae on his personal work space. It put his back to the doors and he was unaware of Beverley Jackson’s arrival until she spoke, startling him.

‘I’d like to talk to you, alone,’ she declared.

He ushered her back into his office, following, concerned the approach had something to do with the atmosphere in the department. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘I’ve been told I have to take a psychological test. I consider it an intrusion into my civil rights – that it even contravenes the constitution. Barry says it’s an argument that could be made. I’m going to refuse but I wanted you to know first. I don’t want to upset anything here. Do you object to my refusing?’

‘Of course I don’t.’

‘Why are you smiling?’

‘You talked to Barry today?’

‘I just told you I had.’

‘I had lunch with him. He obviously thought it was about this. When he realized it wasn’t he talked of client confidentiality. I thought you’d told him about the couple of times we’d been together and was worried you might be at risk, by association.’

Beverley smiled back. ‘I did tell him about it. He said he hoped I’d enjoyed it and to be careful, and I told him I would be. And I don’t give a damn about any risk by association.’