Dead End

Thirty-Seven

Richard Parnell did not return to Washington DC for a further three days, because of the immediate and unpredicted effect – which the New York Post awarded the macabre headline, Fall Out – of his denunciation and the aftermath of a continuing, back-to-back series of meetings and interviews with US Food and Drug Administration officials and their French counterparts, specially flown-in French intelligence officers, officials from five West African countries at the United Nations, World Health Organization executives, the familiar FBI duo and Barry Jackson. Jackson demanded to know why the fuck Parnell hadn’t told him what he intended to do, to which Parnell replied that the lawyer would have tried to prevent it on grounds of libel, commercial slander and breach of confidentiality, which Jackson at once agreed was exactly what he would have done, an admission that ended the argument. Parnell maintained telephone contact with the executive vice president administering Dubette’s affairs from New York, and briefly with Beverley – and even more briefly with his mother in England – but it was a full two weeks before he and Beverley were alone together, at her insistence, at her Dupont Circle apartment.

When he arrived she gestured him away from her and said: ‘I want to make sure you’re the same guy I used to know.’

‘I’m not sure I’m the same guy that I used to know.’

‘“Hero’s” been used a lot. Then there’s “brave” and “courageous” and “whistle-blower extraordinary” – and I’ve even cut out “genius” from Newsweek. Take your choice.’

‘I think I’ll pass on the lot. Christ, I’ve missed you.’

‘I’ve missed you, too. And been as worried as hell.’

‘It’ll take time, for things to settle. But they are settling.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me think you were a lily-livered shit who’d sold himself out?’

‘I wasn’t sure I could do it. Didn’t know until I actually got into the room that there was going to be a microphone I could grab. I was going to try to get on the stage. Grant could have stopped me then, prevented it all coming out.’

‘How did you know he hadn’t kept his word about issuing the health warning about the French shit?’

‘With what you called my toy. From home, on the laptop, I accessed the United Nations and the World Health Organization and the public websites of every West African country on the map. There wasn’t a warning on one of them. And if there had been, it would have been a media sensation anyway. And there wasn’t one. The son of a bitch – and all the other smaller sons of bitches – thought they were God and little people didn’t matter. Me included among the little people.’

‘The papers and television said he ran.’

‘There was incredible confusion. He didn’t actually run but he got out of the room before I finished talking. Couldn’t be found in the hotel. No one expected him to commit suicide, of course. Me least of all.’

‘Would you have still done it, if you had?’

‘I’ve had meetings with government people from Guinea-Bissau, Monrovia, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Niger. With more scheduled. There’s never going to be an established figure, but a conservative estimate is that over a thousand people have died. It’ll be even harder to put a number on those who’ve been permanently harmed. Of course, I would have done it. Pushed the bastard out of his penthouse window, from which he jumped, if I could have done.’

‘It was his favourite view, according to what I’ve read. Stood there all the time.’

‘When he wasn’t fucking up people’s lives. Prying into people’s lives.’

‘Do you know the full extent of what he had, on so many people?’ asked Beverley.

Parnell shook his head, in disbelief. ‘There was actually an entire room, linked to his office, to hold it all. The FBI are still going through it. They’ve already found most of the computer-accessed stuff Johnson supplied when he was in Metro DC police. Seems he used police authority to get into every competitor system, particularly any police records on any of its executives. And there’s the entire stolen evidence of Edward Grant being caught in a parked car getting a blow job from a hooker. Johnson’s plea bargaining, says he’s got a lot to tell the Bureau. Bellamy and Montgomery are trying for a deal, too. And Metro DC want an out of court settlement for wrongful arrest – seems the idea was to discredit me, get me thrown out of the country. Barry actually warned me it could have happened, if I’d been convicted.’

‘I need to ask it,’ declared the woman.

‘You don’t,’ anticipated Parnell. ‘All three deny knowing anything about Rebecca’s murder. Or who did it. Johnson’s got some story about a truck stop in New Jersey that the Bureau are trying to check out.’

‘So, we’ll never know?’

‘Whatever, whoever, Grant organized it. And he’s dead.’

‘Is that enough?’

‘It’s got to be.’

‘What about you?’

‘Would you believe the emergency board have asked me still to be vice president in charge of research and development! The stock is trading at little more than pennies and obviously they want to use the appointment for all its publicity value. But, having caused so much damage, I figure I should try to repair some of it. And I meant what I said about believing we’re close, with SARS. And not wanting to give up on the flu research.’

‘I was frightened Dubette might have invoked the confidentiality clause.’

‘And get even worse publicity? They wouldn’t have dared, once I’d got it all out.’

‘Seems like some of the media descriptions fit.’

‘There are some changes I want to make. I don’t see any reason to keep Barbara Spacey. Or Russell Benn.’

‘There’s some coverage of the woman’s special assessments, for Grant.’

‘He had what amounted to a manual for a blackmailer. Or a control freak. I guess he was a combination of both. You know what Barbara Spacey’s real psychological assessment was of me? I was supremely arrogant, unlikely ever to adjust to the Dubette management and work system and someone likely to be a continuing unsettling influence at McLean.’

‘Ain’t that the truth!’ said Beverley.

‘When the FBI are through with all of it, I’m going to have every single assessment destroyed.’

‘If you’re going to take the job, you’ll be staying?’

‘If you’ll have me.’

‘That wasn’t quite my question,’ said Beverley.

‘Answer mine.’

‘If you’ll have me.’

‘You ever going to tell me what went wrong between you and Barry?’

‘No. That’s his business – his problem – not yours.’

‘How do you know it won’t happen with us?’

‘We make love, don’t we?’