Dead End

Thirty-Four

The review preparation was for its later submission to FBI lawyers for their decision, but it enabled Dingley and Benton to fly up to New York fully rehearsed for the meeting with Edward C. Grant. Both men were subdued, no more encouraged by the second intercepted conversation between Grant and Harry Johnson than they were by the first.

Trying to lift the despondency on their way in to Manhattan from the airport, Dingley said: ‘We still haven’t heard back from Paris. Or Dulles airfreight.’

‘You know how high my hopes are for either?’ said Benton, once again narrowing his thumb and forefinger too closely for any chink of light.

‘I suppose we should call in on the guys at the Broadway field office?’ suggested Dingley.

‘Let’s see how we feel after we’ve talked with Grant,’ said Benton. ‘Wakes depress me.’

‘Nothing’s dead yet.’

‘Dying by the minute,’ insisted Benton.

Peter Baldwin was the only person with the Dubette president when they were shown into the penthouse office suite. It was the company lawyer who made the introductions but Grant who solicitously led them away from desk-focused formality to the flickering, genuine fireplace around which were arranged leather-upholstered easy chairs and couches. Both agents refused Grant’s offer of coffee.

Accustomed to the legal assembly of the previous interviews, Dingley said: ‘Are we waiting for others?’

‘Who?’ frowned Grant.

‘I thought…’ said Dingley, discomfited.

‘You’re surely not implying Mr Grant requires a criminal attorney?’ said Baldwin.

‘They seem to have featured a lot during the enquiry,’ said Benton, trying to help his partner. ‘But no, of course we’re not suggesting that. It would have been Mr Grant’s right, that’s all.’

‘I don’t think there’s any risk to my rights, do you?’ smiled the white-haired man.

‘We appreciate your agreeing to help us,’ said Dingley, their customary opening.

‘I’m not quite sure how I can, but let’s get on with it, shall we?’ said Grant, a busy man with a busy schedule.

‘There are some inconsistencies in what Mr Johnson’s told us, things we can’t quite fit into the puzzle,’ said Benton. ‘You spoken directly to Mr Johnson since Ms Lang’s death?’

‘Yes,’ said Grant, at once. ‘I think he believed it was his job to do so. I agreed.’

‘How many times?’ asked Dingley.

‘Twice,’ frowned Grant, as if he had difficulty in recalling. ‘Yes, twice.’

‘Did you speak about the flight number in Ms Lang’s purse, which is the reason for FBI involvement?’

There was another frown. ‘There was some mention, I think. I can’t remember precisely what the context was.’

‘His thumb print was on it,’ said Benton. ‘He’d earlier told us he didn’t know anything about a number or why it should have been in Ms Lang’s bag.’

‘Really?’ remarked Grant. And stopped.

‘Did you and Harry Johnson specifically discuss the flight number?’ asked Benton.

‘We might have done, after it emerged in court. I really can’t remember.’

‘We’re surprised at the direct communication between you and your security chief,’ declared Dingley.

‘Why?’ demanded the man.

‘You’re the head of an international conglomerate. Harry Johnson is head of security at McLean,’ said Dingley. ‘That seems quite a divide.’

‘You a snob, Mr Dingley?’

‘I don’t believe myself to be, sir,’ said the FBI man.

‘Sounds like it to me,’ said Grant. ‘I run a different sort of organization than a lot of people – than perhaps the FBI. I want my chief executives and division heads to talk to me. That way problems get solved before they become problems.’

‘So, it’s not unusual for you and Harry to speak?’ persisted Dingley.

‘Not at all.’

‘How often would you say?’

‘Whenever it’s necessary,’ shrugged Grant.

‘How? He come up here to report to you direct? When you’re in Washington? Telephone?’

‘Whichever’s convenient,’ shrugged the president, again. ‘I always make a point of speaking to every division head in Dubette whenever I’m down there. And there’s the telephone.’

‘Did you know Harry Johnson before he joined Dubette from Metro DC police department?’ asked Benton.

‘ Before?’

‘That was my question, sir.’

‘How could I have known him before?’

‘We thought you might have done,’ said Dingley.

‘What reason do you have for thinking that?’ came in Baldwin.

‘Just an impression,’ said Benton.

‘I thought the FBI worked on the basis of evidence and facts,’ said Grant. ‘I did not know Harry Johnson before he joined Dubette.’

‘How did that come about, his joining Dubette?’ asked Dingley.

‘The previous security chief was retiring. Recommended Harry. He seemed to fit the bill.’

‘Who employed him? You personally? Or your personnel division?’ pressed Benton.

‘It would have been personnel, obviously,’ said Grant.

‘Eighty thousand dollars a year is a substantial salary.’

‘He heads what is considered an important division. Dubette is noted throughout the industry as a substantial payer.’

‘You seem well informed about how Harry Johnson came to be employed,’ said Benton.

‘I’m well informed about every senior employee at Dubette,’ said Grant. ‘Perhaps security more than most. Security is very important for a company like mine.’

‘Because of stealing and commercial theft and piracy,’ anticipated Benton.

‘Precisely,’ agreed Grant.

‘You suffer a lot of it?’

‘We take every precaution to ensure that we don’t.’

‘When was the last time?’ asked Dingley, building up to what he and his partner hoped to be the puncturing question.

There was the now familiar shrug. ‘There was some warehouse pilfering about three months ago.’

‘Did you get the guys?’ asked Benton.

‘It was a delivery driver, supplying pills to kids. He drew a year. I’d have liked it to have been more. I know the danger of drugs as well as their benefits.’

‘What about commercially?’ said Dingley.

‘Last attempt was three years ago. A competitor got an informant into McLean. Harry got him before there was any serious damage.’

‘I can’t imagine Richard Parnell would steal pills from a Dubette warehouse,’ said Benton.

‘ What?’ exclaimed Grant, astonished.

‘We can’t imagine Richard Parnell stealing pills from a warehouse,’ echoed Dingley. ‘Why was he under surveillance, Mr Grant?’

Grant looked first to Baldwin, then to the huge desk with its orderly bank of variously coloured telephones.

Baldwin said: ‘We’d like an explanation for that question.’

‘We’d like an answer to it,’ said Dingley. ‘We know of Richard Parnell being under surveillance. And of Harry Johnson being aware of it. It’s extremely relevant to our terrorism and murder enquiries and we need to know why.’

‘Are you bugging my telephones?’ demanded Grant, looking back to his desk.

‘No,’ replied Benton, honestly.

‘So, it’s Harry’s,’ said Grant, answering his own question.

‘For which I hope you have a court order,’ said Baldwin.

‘Of course we do,’ said Dingley, impatiently.

‘Harry Johnson has explained to you how his thumb print came to be on the flight number,’ said the lawyer.

‘Which you’ve doubtless told Mr Grant in detail,’ anticipated Benton. ‘What no one’s explained to us yet is why Parnell was under surveillance, with Harry Johnson’s knowledge. And yours, Mr Grant.’

‘I would have thought that would have been obvious,’ said the man.

‘Not to us it isn’t,’ said Dingley.

Grant sighed, all the condescending affability gone. ‘A valued member of my company was murdered. An elaborate effort was made to frame a senior executive for that murder, for which, as I understand it, you have no suspects. I believed that Parnell might remain in danger. I felt it justified the setting up of some protective security – having photographs taken, even, to see if Parnell might be being watched by a person or a group of people. It’s been pointless…’ The man paused, looking to the telephone bank again. ‘And, as you obviously know, I’ve spoken to Harry about it – told him to lift everything.’

‘So, you no longer fear Richard Parnell is in danger?’ said Dingley.

‘I think it would have happened, some attempt would have been made, by now,’ said the Dubette president. ‘I was being overprotective.’

‘Having Parnell under surveillance wouldn’t have actually prevented anything happening to him, would it?’ said Benton.

‘It would if it had established he was being stalked.’

‘These photographs,’ said Benton, ‘who’s been taking them?’

‘A private detective agency,’ said Grant.

‘We’d like its name,’ said Dingley.

‘Get it from Harry,’ snapped Grant. ‘I don’t know it.’

‘I’m surprised that you don’t, as closely as you and Harry liaise,’ said Dingley.

Grant sighed again but didn’t speak, looking pointedly at the lawyer.

Baldwin said: ‘Is there anything else with which we can help you?’

‘During your conversation with Harry Johnson, you asked, and I quote, “What about the other two?” What other two would that be, Mr Grant?’ said Benton.

‘The two suspended Metro DC police officers, obviously,’ said the man.

‘Why were you curious about them?’ pressed Benton.

‘The suggestion is that they mistreated… wrongly arrested… a senior Dubette executive, isn’t it?’

‘And part of Johnson’s reply to your question, and again I quote, is, “He…” – he being Clarkson, Harry Johnson’s lawyer – “… says they’re standing up fine.” What did you understand from that reply, Mr Grant?’

‘I’m not sure that I understood anything from it.’

‘You asked about them, Johnson gives you a reply you don’t understand, and you don’t ask him to explain it?’ pressed Dingley.

‘No, I didn’t,’ said Grant.

‘Do you still find it difficult to understand, now that we’re talking about it? Now that you’ve had time to think about it?’ said Benton.

‘Yes,’ said Grant.

‘Before Johnson says that the two Metro DC officers are standing up well, he says, and again I quote, “Clarkson won’t let me speak to them direct,”’ persisted Benton. ‘We’ve got two police officers who are alleged to have mistreated – wrongly arrested – a senior member of Dubette’s staff, and Harry Johnson wants to talk to them. But then tells you they’re standing up fine. You know how that looks, to my partner and I, Mr Grant? It looks like there was collusion between the three. Wouldn’t you say that’s an interpretation?’

‘I don’t think Mr Grant can usefully speculate, as you are speculating,’ said the lawyer. ‘What I do think is that there is an obvious inference that, if it is pursued, could result in consideration of the sort of court action in which a quite separate claim has already been mounted, which could seriously embarrass you two gentlemen personally, and your already seriously embarrassed, ineffective employer, the FBI, to a far greater degree.’

‘The question was put to Mr Grant, who has not answered,’ said the unintimidated Benton.

‘I think Mr Baldwin has already adequately answered on my behalf,’ refused Grant. ‘What I would say is that I think it is very fortunate for you both that I did not bother to include criminal lawyers in this interview.’

‘Which is concluded at this time,’ declared Baldwin. ‘If the Federal Bureau of Investigation seeks to resume it, it will be conducted in the different sort of circumstances that Mr Grant has indicated.’

Outside the Dubette building, on Wall Street, Dingley said: ‘You fancy calling in on the guys? Broadway’s only just up the road.’

‘Why don’t we just get on back?’ said Benton.

‘Yeah, why don’t we?’ agreed Dingley.

Beverley Jackson was the only one in the pharmacogenomics division to know of Parnell’s visit to New York, and then not in detail, because he maintained his decision not to involve her – or anyone else – any further in the French near-disaster. And there was in any case something far more immediate when he arrived back at McLean.

‘Why are they dying again so quickly when they’re vaccinated by lesser-strength preparations?’ Parnell rhetorically asked Sean Sato. ‘It doesn’t make sense!’ The disappointment was palpable throughout the laboratory.

‘I said the six we kept alive could have been a fluke,’ reminded Sato. ‘I’ve gone back to the twenty per cent ratio.’

‘What about blood from those that survived longer?’ demanded Parnell. ‘Any specific molecular assault?’

‘None,’ said Lapidus. ‘We can’t attempt to colour match the new tests, because we don’t have a suspect DNA host.’

‘What about those that died subsequently?’

‘Nothing,’ said Deke Pulbrow.

‘What about the brief survivors?’ persisted Parnell. ‘Anything different about them from the others who subsequently died? Anything about their strain, breed suppliers, diet, anything at all like that?’ He was conscious of the anxiety in his own voice.

‘Everything checked, even their comparable weights and ages,’ said Beverley. ‘Nothing.’

‘We started yet, with the twenty per cent ratio?’

Sato shook his head. ‘We waited, to talk it through with you.’

‘Let’s follow blood,’ suggested Parnell. ‘Isolate the mice, individually. No urine or faeces contamination between any. Strictly measured and itemized food. Blood tests from all, before infecting with SARS. And daily – no, half-daily – sampling after infecting, for DNA comparison between those treated and those untreated.’

‘Which assumes there will be a survival over a period of days,’ commented Lapidus.

‘We’ll have an additional test,’ Parnell pointed out. ‘We’ve got the blood of the first survival group. If we don’t get a DNA profile somewhere out of that, life’s not fair.’

‘My mother always told me that it wasn’t,’ said Pulbrow. ‘And my mother was always right.’

It was not until two nights later, when they were eating once more at Beverley’s favourite midtown restaurant, that Parnell told her of Dwight Newton’s breakdown and Edward Grant’s offer.

‘Poor Dwight,’ was Beverley’s first reaction. ‘I hardly knew him, and what I did know I didn’t particularly like, but to be too ill to work again is a rough call.’

‘It’s not going to be announced until after the stockholders’ meeting,’ warned Parnell.

‘I’m not likely to tell anyone,’ promised the woman. ‘What about you? You going to take it?’

‘I haven’t decided, not yet.’

‘Vice president responsible for research and development in just under a year!’ she said, with faint mockery. ‘The upward rise of Richard Parnell continues!’

‘If I take it.’

‘Of course you’ll take it!’

‘We’ll see. You coming back tonight?’

‘I thought you’d never ask! I was beginning to wonder if it was all over.’

When they entered Parnell’s apartment, Beverley went at once to the lidded laptop on the bureau and said: ‘Hey, what’s this! Dubette’s new vice president has got himself a new toy!’

‘It’s convenient,’ said Parnell. ‘I can access anything I want at McLean and download it here if I want. I should have thought of it before.’

‘You know what they say about all work and no play.’

‘It’s turned off, isn’t it?’ said Parnell, uncomfortably reminded yet again of Rebecca’s similar remark.

‘If it wasn’t, I’d turn it off,’ said Beverley. ‘I want to play.’

‘So, it’s a no-no?’ demanded Dingley, when Ed Pullinger finished telling them the legal opinion.

‘On what you’ve got so far,’ confirmed the lawyer. ‘After the shit we got following nine-eleven we’re not going to move on anything we can’t come out of with haloes and marching music. Everything here would be challenged, discredited or ruled inadmissible, and we’d lose. Lose, that is, if the Attorney General would even consider a Grand Jury, let alone any court hearing. You know what you’ve got here? You’ve got a hell of a lot that could help Barry Jackson in his civil action, diddly squat for a criminal prosecution. And that’s disappointing everyone at the J. Edgar Hoover building, because this is high-profile and all we’re getting is more shit.’

‘You thought of talking to Barry Jackson? Parnell maybe?’ asked Benton.

‘And risk my pension?’ smiled the lawyer.

‘Who would ever know?’ asked Dingley.

Barry Jackson called Parnell at McLean just before lunch the following day. The lawyer said: ‘Just got a call from the FBI. Might be an idea for you to come along.’