Dead End

Twenty-Eight

Overnight the pendulum swung and Parnell’s day began with the mountains seeming higher and the oceans wider. Richard Parnell’s unsettling disappointment in himself was compounded by what he’d so easily agreed with Beverley the previous evening, which scarcely made sense because he wasn’t in any way disappointed or depressed by the thought of being with her the coming weekend. He wanted very much to be with her, and that wish outweighed all the rest of the conflicting doubts, like guilt and concern at their being seen together or at his being accused of hypocrisy, or whatever the accusation might be, if the outing – or any that hopefully followed – became public. In fact, the biggest contradiction of all, for someone with so many conflicting emotional confusions, was that, for the first time for a very long time, he felt remarkably happy by the time he arrived at McLean. And that had everything to do with the idea that had come to him after Beverley left, a thought that had so excited him he’d even considered calling her, needing someone with whom to talk about it. He hadn’t, though, because it would have appeared too much like an excuse, and by then he hadn’t rationalized his uncertainties as he believed he had, finally, on his way to North Virginia the following day.

Ted Lapidus was the first to arrive after Parnell, and told him at once that the previous day’s meeting with Russell Benn hadn’t shown any chemical research progress, adding that his impression had been that Benn’s unit were expecting a lead from pharmacogenomics.

‘Which, from the way it’s going so far, they’ll be lucky to get,’ remarked the dolefully moustached Greek scientist.

‘Let’s talk, when everyone else arrives,’ suggested Parnell. ‘I’ve had a thought.’

Beverley was once more the last, although it was still only just past eight. She smiled and said, ‘Hi!’ when the Greek geneticist led his group into Parnell’s instantly overcrowded office.

Parnell said: ‘I’ve been thinking about approaches. So far we’ve been trying to follow how the flu virus attaches itself and enters a host cell, like the spiky little bastard of 1918, right?’

‘That’s the A, B, C, D system,’ confirmed Lapidus.

‘Why don’t we try D, C, B, A?’ proposed Parnell. ‘Offer up a host target molecule, coloured so we’ll be able to trace which, if any, get hit.’

‘You get the idea from the colorants the French introduced?’ seized Pulbrow, at once.

‘As a matter of fact, I did,’ admitted Parnell. ‘This time the mutation, if it occurs, will be beneficial, not the other way around. I can’t understand why the method didn’t occur to me earlier.’

‘Or any of us,’ accepted Lapidus, doubtfully. ‘It’s worth trying.’

‘If going backwards gets us forwards, then let’s try it,’ said Beverley. ‘It’s the only idea in town.’

‘It’ll be a slow process of elimination,’ warned Deke Pulbrow.

‘It was always going to be that,’ Parnell pointed out. ‘But it doesn’t necessarily have to be that slow. Influenza is basically respiratory – that narrows our genetic field.’

‘By a few thousand,’ said Beverley.

‘We’ll need more samples. And a lot more mice,’ said Lapidus.

‘Get as many samples as you need from Tokyo,’ said Parnell.

‘We’ve got enough to start already,’ said Beverley, enthusiastically. ‘Kathy’s the mouse mother.’

‘Then start,’ urged Parnell.

Pulbrow hesitated, as they began filing out, and Parnell said: ‘Beverley told me. Why not close the door?’

Pulbrow did so, but stayed by it. ‘I don’t want to cause trouble.’

‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s entirely down to you whether you undergo the assessment or not. I’m certainly not going to put any pressure on you. I don’t see how I could. Or why I should.’

‘You think I should have it?’

The man wanted someone to make the decision for him, guessed Parnell. He said: ‘I think you should decide yourself what you want to do. And then do it.’

‘I’ve talked around. This seems to be a pretty structured, authoritative organization.’

‘The organization might be. This unit certainly isn’t,’ said Parnell. ‘No one’s holding a gun to your head, Deke.’

‘You took it?’

‘I thought it was a waste of time. Still do, for that matter. I couldn’t then be bothered to refuse.’

‘Then?’ questioned the other man.

‘I think I might tell her to forget it next time, if indeed there is a next time.’

‘Her?’

‘The psychologist is a woman. Kind of an earth mother.’

‘I’ll think some more about it,’ said Pulbrow, uncertainly.

‘You do that,’ encouraged Parnell, looking up at Kathy Richardson’s entry.

‘You’re high on Dwight’s demand list,’ said the secretary. ‘Written confirmation after the telephone call.’

Why the duplication? wondered Parnell.

The truckers’ stop, about ten miles into New Jersey beyond the Hudson tunnel, had been designated by Edward C. Grant, who had been waiting when Harry Johnson arrived, the untasted coffee like a totem before him, the menu pushed to one side. Johnson chose the Big Breakfast, with an extra side order of hash browns and a double orange juice, his necessary and already marked serviette tucked tightly into his collar in a forlorn attempt to protect his shirt.

Johnson said: ‘You should have ordered this. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day – sets you up.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ said the white-haired man. He sat strangely in their window booth, overlooking the interstate car park of dinosaur-sized trucks, as if he feared contamination by contact with the table or the red plastic seat or even the mug.

‘You haven’t touched your coffee, either. It’s good coffee.’

‘I’m not thirsty.’

‘I’m glad we could meet like this,’ said the Dubette security chief, who’d made the demand.

‘So am I.’

‘How’d you know about this place? Know how to dress to fit in, like you belong?’

Grant was wearing jeans and a work shirt, although neither had ever been worked in. Johnson’s better fitted the surroundings, more stains being added by what the inadequate serviette wasn’t catching.

Grant said: ‘That’s not what we’re here to talk about. What do you want?’

‘You’re right about that,’ said Johnson. ‘I’d say there’s a lot for us to talk about, one way and another, wouldn’t you?’

‘What’s your problem, Harry?’

‘That’s exactly what my problem is!’ said Johnson. ‘It’s not knowing what my problem is.’

‘You watch a lot of television, Harry?’

‘Crime stuff, mostly. The old life, before Dubette, I guess. You know how it is?’

‘No,’ denied Grant. ‘I don’t know how it is. I’m waiting for you to tell me.’

‘Which is what I thought the arrangement was between us, you telling me, me telling you. But always direct, not through any intermediary… like Dwight Newton.’

Grant sighed. ‘There was a directors’ meeting in New York. It was easier, more convenient, to pass the message on through him.’

‘It was never easier, more convenient, before. I don’t like the way everything’s falling down. I particularly don’t like the idea of being cut out of the chain of communication. I wouldn’t have thought you would, either.’

‘The problem’s that fucking flight number!’

‘You told me there was a problem: that something had gone wrong and that the girl was dead and Parnell had to be incriminated. I thought the flight number, which the Paris office used a lot in the past, would make it look as if they were stealing secrets. I forgot the earlier terrorist alerts. If Parnell hadn’t dismissed Fletcher, there would have been a plea, imprisonment, and Parnell would have been disgraced, imprisoned and unemployable anywhere else. Which was what you also told me to fix…’ Johnson looked again around the truck stop packed with drivers. ‘And if you’d had me fix the accident, the driver wouldn’t have killed Rebecca, just created the accident in a police district where I could have handled everything.’

‘What can the FBI find out?’

‘Nothing!’ insisted the man. ‘It’ll run into the ground.’

‘Like Dubette’s stock value!’

‘Your problem, largely of your making,’ insisted Johnson. ‘I’m more interested in personal things – you and I, for instance. As I think you should be.’

‘You’re not being cut out of anything!’ insisted Grant. This was wrong, all wrong – his worst nightmare. He wasn’t sure what the feeling was, but didn’t want it to be fear, because Johnson was the sort of man who could smell fear, like the animal he was.

That’s good to hear. That’s very good indeed. I really wouldn’t like that,’ said Johnson. He mopped up the egg and grease with a piece of bread, ate it, and immediately belched. He said: ‘See how good it was.’

‘You got anything else to say?’

‘I got this witness summons.’

‘You’ve been in enough courts.’

‘You see the fucking press conference? Hear the threats?’

‘What can they threaten you with?’

‘I don’t know. The lawyer talked about a lot of evidence.’

‘It’s got to be exchanged. You’ll know what you’re facing, before you’re called to the stand.’

‘I want a good attorney.’

‘You’re going to get the best. You know how Dubette looks after its people.’

‘I think I got particular reason to be looked after.’

‘Don’t worry.’

‘I do worry when I think I’m being cut out of things.’

‘We’ve gone through that.’

‘I’m not sure about the Metro DC guys. I think they’re flaky.’

‘They drop you, they drop too.’

‘I told them I knew where Parnell’s car was. I think I told the FBI I didn’t know.’

‘So what? You forgot, then you remembered. That’s how it happens.’

A saggy-breasted waitress came by with coffee refills, freshened Johnson’s mug and took away the congealed plate. As she left, Johnson ordered toast, peanut butter and jelly.

He said: ‘You didn’t tell me how a guy like you knows about a place like this!’

‘Stop it, Harry. I’m not amused.’

‘What happened to the girl, Ed? What happened to Rebecca?’

It was the first time ever that Johnson had felt bold enough to address Grant like that, and a shudder visibly went through the older man. It was several moments before Grant could reply. ‘I don’t understand your question.’

‘I organized the detective-agency stakeout, like you told me to when we were dealing direct. Alerted you to their Sunday day out to Chesapeake. Called my people off, like you told me. Then…’ He clicked his fingers. ‘… POW, poor kid’s dead at the bottom of a ravine. You know what I think? I think Rebecca Lang might just still be alive if I’d kept agency guys on the job… I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they’re more than a little concerned, the way things happened…’

They don’t know you or your connection with Dubette, do they?’

Johnson’s laugh was more of a sneer. ‘Of course not! I’m a professional, remember?’

‘And you’re using another agency now?’

‘Just as anonymously.’

‘So, there’s no problem.’

‘You can’t guarantee that, Ed. For the first time for a very, very long time, we’re into things you can’t control or guarantee, which I’m sure you don’t like any more than I do.’

‘You know I was concerned at the possibility of a commercial leak. Putting in place the precautions that we did was perfectly justifiable. As was my taking them off, as I did, when I did.’

‘It’s the coincidence that worries me, Ed. Deciding on a Sunday of all days that Rebecca Lang wasn’t a snitch, and lifting the surveillance from her and lover boy a couple of hours before she’s shunted over the edge of a canyon…’ He sat back for his new order to be placed on the table between them.

The waitress said: ‘You sure believe in keeping your strength up, don’t you?’

‘Gotta lot of grateful gels to keep happy,’ smirked Johnson.

‘Surprised you can manage it, the size of that gut,’ the woman smirked back.

‘… And then there’s Parnell’s car,’ resumed the security chief, as if there hadn’t been any interruption. ‘That’s another coincidence, your asking me for its make and registration on the very day it got damaged like it did. Wouldn’t you say that’s one hell of a double coincidence, Ed?’

Grant said: ‘Stop calling me Ed! No one calls me Ed!’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Johnson, not sounding it. ‘I didn’t mean any offence. You want to try some of this toast, with a little jelly? It’s terrific.’

‘You’re so far out of line, Harry, that you’re in danger of getting lost and not being able to find your way back,’ said Edward C. Grant. ‘You are watching too many bad crime movies. You should try different channels. And try remembering who I am and who you are. I don’t ever want anything like this – your imagining you can put on anything like this – again. You’ve got a direct line to me because I worry – because it’s my job to worry – about security at Dubette. Everything I’ve ever had you do is provably just that, my worrying about product and marketing security. You can stuff coincidence up your fat ass, like you’re probably going to have to stuff an enema up your fat ass to get rid of all that shit you’ve been putting down your throat. I don’t take threats, Harry. I make them. There anything I’ve said so far that isn’t clear to you?’

Harry Johnson stared back across the table, holding Grant’s look, his jaws crunching slowly, rhythmically, on his toast. A lost blob of red jelly made its way down his chin, finally pitching off to miss the serviette and add another stain to his already much marked jeans.

‘I asked you a question,’ said Grant.

‘Let me ask you one back,’ said the other man. ‘You think we understand each other now?’

‘I sure as hell hope you understand me,’ said Grant.

‘And I sure as hell hope you understand me,’ came back Johnson. ‘And that we can go on just as we were before this misunderstanding came up between us. You think we can do that?’

Grant was white-faced, once more not able immediately to form words. When he did speak, his voice was restricted, as if his throat was blocked. ‘You told me there was something to show me?’

‘Show you,’ insisted Johnson. ‘Not pass on through Dwight Newton.’

Grant sat, waiting. It seemed a long time before the security head responded, not speaking either, but sliding a photograph across the table.

‘It’s not a good picture,’ complained Grant.

‘Good enough,’ said Johnson.

‘Who is she?’

‘The ex-wife of Parnell’s lawyer, Barry Jackson. She’s a geneticist in Parnell’s unit. The picture was taken last night, as she left Parnell’s apartment, where she’d been for two hours.’

‘You’ve ignored a specific instruction!’ accused Dwight Newton.

‘How’s that?’ asked Parnell, calmly. The mountains and rivers were back at their proper, surmountable heights.

‘I told you I wanted – Dubette wanted – maximum concentration on avian flu. You’ve downscaled, put Lapidus in charge of a smaller group … ignored what I asked you to do.’

It would have been Ted Lapidus’s hoped-for liaison visit across the corridor, Parnell guessed, scarcely interested and even less intimidated by the vice president. ‘I downscaled first to save you and Russell Benn and Dubette. I’m still hoping both of you – and Dubette – will be saved. I won’t know until I’m sure about Paris, which at the moment I’m still not…’ Parnell stopped, scarcely interested either in the redness that suffused Newton’s face. ‘We weren’t getting anywhere – in fact, we were getting in each other’s way – all trying to work on the avian problem when there was only one path to follow and that seemed to be blocked. It made absolute research sense to reduce the number of people and occupy other people elsewhere, which is what I’ve done and what I want to continue to do. Which is not ignoring and certainly not minimizing the project you gave me and my unit. It’s responding properly, sensibly and scientifically, to it. We are today beginning a new approach, which it is still too early even to discuss. If there’s anything whatsoever to discuss, you – and through you Russell Benn – will be the first to know…’ The pause fitted, to make his point, but Parnell also needed to take breath. ‘And I really do think, Dwight, that if you’re going to get anything at all worthwhile out of my unit, you should let me run it and organize it and not keep calling me in here every five minutes to explain the last thing I’ve done or thought about. You told me in the beginning you wanted to know what I was doing. I heard you. When there’s something that makes sense to tell you and share with other people in this research area, then I’ll tell you and share it, just as I hope you will tell me and share with me anything that comes up elsewhere, as happened in Paris. Doesn’t that seem to you to be a sensible way for us to operate?’

Newton’s face was blazing now, the long-fingered hands twitching, seeking a scuttling direction. ‘We need to establish… recognize… a working relationship.’

‘I thought that was what we’re talking about,’ said Parnell.

‘Were you going to tell me about Beverley Jackson?’

‘What about Beverley Jackson?’ asked Parnell, guardedly.

‘She’s refusing to undergo a psychological assessment. She’s told Wayne Denny that you know and that you’ve said you won’t pressure her.’

‘That’s exactly what I have told her,’ confirmed Parnell. ‘And no, I wasn’t going to tell you, because I think that’s an administrative company matter for personnel to deal with – which is what they exist for – most certainly nothing important enough to bring before the vice president of research. Which brings us back to our problem, Dwight. Why are you worried, involved even, in whether Beverley sits some harassed mind test?’

‘Have you seen today’s newspapers?’ asked the man, instead of replying.

‘No,’ replied Parnell, who hadn’t bothered to stop at a newsstand or a gas station on his way from Washington DC. ‘I guess the coverage is pretty extensive?’

‘Dubette stock is at a six-year low and the prediction is that it will fall lower.’

‘I won’t accept my action against the police is solely or even partially responsible for that,’ refused Parnell. ‘You think, given a choice, I’d have gone through any of this?’

‘I got the impression from what you said on television, what I read in the papers, that you’re in close contact with the FBI?’ Newton’s colour was subsiding, his voice no longer strained.

‘They’ve needed to speak to me,’ said Parnell, guardedly again.

‘They got anything positive? Suspects?’

‘If they have, they haven’t told me,’ Parnell said evasively.

‘They must have said something!’

‘They haven’t,’ insisted Parnell. ‘Nothing that’s given me any reason to think they’re anywhere close to an arrest. Anywhere close to understanding it.’ Not understanding it was joining the long litany of cliches, he thought. Parnell said: ‘What about you, Dwight? You’re engaging yourself in everything: what do you think about Rebecca’s murder and French flight numbers? You managed to find a connecting thread?’

Parnell waited expectantly for Newton to say he didn’t understand, but instead he said: ‘Maybe I could see something if I knew all that was going on… if I had an overview…’

The remark rang like a bell in Parnell’s mind. ‘You spoken to the FBI yet?’

Newton answered the internal telephone at once, identified himself but contributed nothing to the exchange before putting the instrument down. He said: ‘Sorry. Something’s come up. Will you excuse me?’

He’d leave the office, Parnell decided. But he wouldn’t excuse Newton from anything.

‘Which personnel files?’ demanded Newton.

‘He didn’t specify,’ said Wayne Denny. ‘His name’s Pullinger. A counsel for the FBI. He said he hoped their agents would be allowed access to the personnel records without needing a court order. Baldwin says it might give a misleading impression if we insisted, but that he wants himself and myself to be present.’

‘Go back and tell Pullinger that,’ decided Newton. ‘If he objects, then ask for a court order – that’ll be them creating a problem, not us.’