Dead End

Seven

Edward C. Grant said: ‘I needed to speak to you like this, just the two of us. Discreetly.’

‘Of course,’ agreed Dwight Newton, who had caught the first shuttle from Washington that morning, wanting to be at the Dubette corporate building before the president. He’d failed. He’d been careful to wear his seminar suit, which matched the dark grey of Grant’s. And to enter, as instructed in the summons, by the special penthouse-only elevator.

‘We’re talking risk assessment,’ announced the Dubette president.

‘I understand.’ Newton thought the football-pitch size of Grant’s desk accentuated the man’s bantam-cock shortness.

‘It was a good idea to have security check everything out as thoroughly as they did.’ It was a safeguard to let the other man imagine he’d initiated the precaution, which he hadn’t. After what Grant regarded as the one and only mistake of his life – relegating that in his mind to a lapse more than a mistake – he now took no risks.

That amounted to praise, Newton decided. ‘I thought so.’

‘I had the same done in Paris. That was useful, too.’

‘You’ve seen everything I sent up, about the website proposal?’

Grant nodded, tapping a folder on the left of his desk. ‘You did good there, too, Dwight. I wish others had.’

Newton was quite relaxed, which he rarely was in Grant’s presence, certainly on a one-to-one basis. But he’d calculated the situation from every which way and concluded that he was probably the only person who couldn’t be accused of mistake or misjudgement. It certainly seemed that way from the conversation so far. Guessing the other man’s reference, he said: ‘What’s the take from Paris?’

‘Buck-passing,’ replied Grant, at once. ‘I hauled Saby back, for a personal explanation. And Mendaille, obviously.’

Newton was surprised, properly realizing how seriously the president was treating the misdirected communication. Henri Saby was the chief executive of the French subsidiary. Georges Mendaille was head of research in Paris and the man personally responsible for the mistake. ‘What do they say?’

‘Saby entirely blames Mendaille. Mendaille says it was a simple but understandable mistake, that out of habit he mishit the automatically logged email address, sending it to Washington in the normal way instead of personally to you, which was the specific instruction.’

‘If it was the specific instruction, Mendaille shouldn’t have been hitting keys from habit,’ said Newton. ‘He should have been concentrating.’

‘Exactly!’

Toadying bastard, thought Grant. But hadn’t he made everyone with whom he had to deal a toadying bastard?

‘You firing him?’

Grant shook his head. ‘Dismissed, he’d be resentful, wanting to hit back, a potential whistle-blower. I want him where I can see him, know what he’s doing all the time…’ The man paused. ‘Mendaille’s our hostage, we’re not ever going to be his. That’s the way it always works.’ There was another pause. ‘Which brings us back to your problems.’

Newton shifted uncomfortably at it being described as his problem, recognizing that no blame or culpability for anything would ever be traceable to Edward C. Grant. There’d be no record, not even a diary entry, of this meeting. Newton accepted, too, that despite everything being already set out in the file upon Grant’s desk, it all had to be talked through.

‘Rebecca Lang’s in a relationship with Parnell,’ he began. ‘Sometimes she stays at his place, sometimes – usually weekends – he stays over with her in Bethesda…’

‘We got photographs?’ cut in Grant, who already knew the answer from his direct contact with Harry Johnson, the head of Dubette security. The question was to bind Newton into any future action that might be necessary.

‘Coming and going from both places,’ confirmed Newton. That wasn’t in the file, so perhaps there was after all a purpose in talking it through. ‘She asked Showcross outright what was going on. He told her it was beyond her clearance and nothing to do with her…’

‘But then she rang Paris?’ cut in Grant, again.

‘On a cockamamie excuse about a transmission screw-up that could have been sorted out in a second by email.’

‘We know who she spoke to in Paris? What was said?’

Newton humped his thin shoulders. ‘Just the phone log, recording the outgoing call. It lasted six and a half minutes.’

‘Long time to sort out a simple transmission misprint,’ judged Grant.

‘Too long,’ agreed Newton. ‘You think we should get Saby or Mendaille to find out who she spoke to – what was discussed?’

‘We need to know,’ said Grant. ‘But I don’t want any more curiosity in Paris than might already have been aroused by my bringing Saby and Mendaille back.’

Not my problem or my decision, thought Newton, thankfully. ‘I think we’ve got to assume Rebecca will have told Parnell.’

‘Told him what?’ seized Grant, at once. ‘Is there any way she could have seen anything other than that one misdirected message?’

Newton didn’t answer at once, trying to assess the commitment being forced from him. Then he said: ‘No. No, I’m sure she couldn’t.’

‘And what could she infer from what she did see?’

‘Only that there was an out-of-the-ordinary exchange going on at the highest level between Paris and Washington.’ You were the guy who mentioned France publicly at the seminar, thought Newton.

Grant pulled a sheet of paper from another folder, gazing down at it for several moments before reading aloud: ‘ Welcome your assessment of our detailed security proposal. And it’s signed Mendaille.’ He didn’t speak for several more moments, and Newton remained silent, too. ‘No,’ the bulky, white-haired man abruptly decided. ‘By itself it wouldn’t mean anything.’

‘I think I’ll keep security on to things – ensure that she does as she’s been told. Warn Showcross that I want to be told if she shows any more curiosity.’

‘Do that!’ agreed Grant, who’d already given the order to the security chief. ‘What about Showcross? He likely to become too curious?’

Newton shook his head, positively. ‘Showcross knows where his salary cheque comes from.’

‘Keep the security check on Parnell, too. Let’s watch for any interest there shouldn’t be from him.’ There was another pat on the Washington dossier. ‘I really do think you handled that website business very well, too. What I find unbelievable is that the son of a bitch actually suggested it in the first place.’

‘He’s got a lot of adjustments still to make to living in the commercial world. But I’m knocking him into shape. I’ve set up some other things,’ openly boasted Newton.

‘Keep on the job, Dwight.’

‘I always do.’

‘And I’m always grateful.’ There was a too obvious look at his watch. ‘Sorry I can’t offer you lunch…’ Grant put a hand tight beneath his chin. ‘I’m up to here.’

It would have risked his New York visit becoming too publicly known, acknowledged Newton. ‘I need to get back anyway.’

‘We’ll keep in close touch – the closest,’ insisted the president. ‘I don’t want to lose control of this.’ Control, of everything and every one and every cent, was Edward C. Grant’s watchword.

‘I’m not clear on one thing,’ said Newton, briefly refusing the dismissal. ‘Are we going to go ahead with the French idea?’

Grant gave himself time to compose the reply. ‘Commercially it makes very good sense. But the medical decision has got to be yours, Dwight. If it is medically safe, as the French insist, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t do it. But we can’t, obviously, risk being caught out.’ Which is why you’re being given the total responsibility, thought Grant.

It put his name very firmly – and provably – on the proposal, Newton realized. So he couldn’t relax – the very opposite, in fact. ‘If I decide there’s a chemical danger, we don’t go ahead?’

‘We can’t chance anything unethical. But at the same time we’ve got every right to protect our products, intellectual and otherwise,’ smiled Grant. ‘It would certainly be commercially good for the company. I want you to keep that in mind.’

That was the closest he’d get to a positive order, accepted Newton. ‘We’ll put it through every test.’

‘I know you will. That’s why you are where you are, Dwight. I’d trust you with my life… and those of everyone else whose lives are made better by the drugs and treatments we devise.’

‘Thank you. That’s good to hear.’ It was almost as if they were working from a script now. He wished it wasn’t a script written entirely by the other man.

‘And Dwight,’ added Grant, as Newton was almost at the door to the suite.

‘What?’ frowned Newton, turning back into the room.

‘Not that way. The private elevator. Don’t forget the security.’

Or the culpability, thought Newton.

‘So, you’re finally set up?’

‘And ready to go,’ agreed Parnell. Today there was no obvious resentment and the coffee had been freshly brewed and waiting when he reached Russell Benn’s office. Parnell had considered inviting the head of chemical and medical research across to the newly established pharmacogenomics wing, only changing his mind during the two-day delay in this intended work-planning meeting: inter-office protocol decreed he still go to the other man.

‘Sorry I couldn’t make it earlier,’ apologized Benn. ‘The way I understood our earlier meeting was, quite simply, that you’d like to be involved in everything we’re currently doing?’

‘Become an integral – extra – part of it, yes,’ said Parnell. ‘And run simple nucleotide polymorphism tests on what Dubette are already producing, to make them more effective.’ The change in Benn’s attitude was encouraging.

The other professor nodded. ‘That, as of an hour ago, involves something like three hundred and sixty different experiments covering new possibilities with existing drugs, treatments and therapies currently under phase one evaluation between oral, blood or muscle injection. Additionally there are fifty-three other quite new investigations still at animal-level testing, which, obviously, are at the moment open-ended.’

‘That’s a hell of a schedule!’ exclaimed Parnell. He hadn’t anticipated half that number.

‘We’re a hell of a cutting-edge company,’ said Benn. ‘And I haven’t included competitor analyses.’

‘What’s the extent of your total programme?’

‘Stick a pin anywhere into an infectious-diseases dictionary and we’re doing it, the most obvious and current at the top of the list.’

It was all very forthcoming, prepared almost. ‘Looks like quite a challenge.’

‘You really want it all?’ frowned Benn.

‘I want to go through the entire schedule,’ qualified Parnell. ‘Until I study it all, I won’t be able to decide how applicable it is to my discipline. There’ll have to be prioritizing.’

‘Why? Of what?’ challenged Benn.

The sharpness of the demand was Parnell’s second surprise. ‘I would have thought our liaising would initially be better begun with your newer experiments than looking for possible improvements to remedies already tried and proven.’

‘You said you wanted everything?’

‘In a proper, workable order.’

‘How’s that to be decided?’

‘Between the two of us. Between others in our departments, maybe: with the workload you’ve just outlined, it’ll make practical sense to delegate, don’t you think?’

‘You want details of everything!’ persisted Benn.

‘Unless you’ve got a more effective way of our co-operation getting off the ground.’

‘You think you’ve got sufficient people?’

‘No,’ admitted Parnell at once. ‘That’s why it’s necessary to prioritize from the very beginning.’

‘So, you start – we start – with a long list!’

‘And the research notes of that list, all of which I guess is computerized and easily downloaded without causing any of your people any extra work. We’ll simply create our genetic order of priority, where we think we can make the best contribution, share it with you and arrange to the convenience of us both the inclusion of my people in the ongoing physical experiments. Which won’t mean anything more than the exchange of slides and cultures and specimens, surely?’ Parnell was glad he was talking now as if he’d had everything ready in advance, which he hadn’t. There were only a few things, one specifically, that he wanted to introduce when he considered the time to be right.

‘OK,’ said Benn, not trying to conceal the doubt. ‘Let’s try it your way.’

‘And if it doesn’t work my way, we’ll devise another,’ said Parnell, easily. He nodded acceptance to the offered coffee refill.

‘What about your people?’ asked Benn. ‘Any of those arrive with anything interesting from what they did before?’

‘Sato’s interested in hepatitis C. He’s got a good argument, going beyond interferon, that I’ll let him follow. You doing anything on that?’

‘Tokyo is. Canberra, too.’

This could be the route he was seeking, Parnell realized. ‘That fits the demographics. But you’d have everything copied here, right?’

‘It’ll be on the list.’

‘What about Asia and severe acute respiratory syndrome?’

‘SARS is being worked out of Tokyo again.’ He hesitated, forced into a concession. ‘You know, of course, that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is experimenting with a vaccine containing the DNA from the virus?’

‘Yes, I do know,’ said Parnell, who had intentionally manoeuvred the conversation. ‘Cross-species infection, from animals to humans, is a field we could successfully explore,’ suggested Parnell. ‘It’s virus mutation, which is genetic, and it’s a carrier-borne condition, so it isn’t demographically limited. It just starts in China and Hong Kong from their live-animal trade but then spreads globally.’

‘That’s why it’s on the list,’ said Benn.

Parnell wasn’t sure whether the other man’s patience was forced. ‘Working genetically on hepatitis C will obviously lead on to tumours, restricted perhaps to liver cancer.’

‘Cancer’s on every list, here and throughout all the subsidiaries.’

The door was creaking open, Parnell decided. ‘Generally? Or defined, region to region?’

Benn frowned at the specific question. ‘Rome and Canberra are concentrating on sun-generated melanomas, because of the predominant climate. Delhi and Manila on lung cancer, because of the combination of heavy nicotine use and uncontrolled air pollution in their countries.’

‘What about France?’

‘What about France?’ echoed the black professor.

‘Diet,’ said Parnell, rehearsed. ‘Japan, with its very particular diet, a lot of fish and much of it raw, has the lowest cancer incidence in the world. You probably couldn’t find more polarized eating than the fat, oil and rich sauce preparations of France. Any subsidiary – or us, here – working on a dietary connection to cancer – bowel or stomach maybe?’

‘Part of a general investigation,’ said Benn.

‘In France?’

‘No,’ said Benn. ‘Here.’

He’d taken it as far as he could and wasted his time, Parnell decided. It had probably been stupid hoping Benn would disclose whatever the restricted French communications were about. And after the website debacle, he’d determined against stupid approaches. ‘I look forward to getting the list.’

‘I’ m looking forward to your showing us how you can improve it.’

‘There’s no possibility of any complaint,’ assured Russell Benn. ‘I followed every lead you suggested. The pharmacogenomics division will have enough research material for months, if not years. Which is what Parnell wanted.’

‘What did he say about the volume?’ asked Dwight Newton.

The other man smiled. ‘That it was a lot and that he didn’t have sufficient staff to whom to delegate it. So that a priority schedule will have to be created.’

‘We have to know what that is,’ insisted Newton.

‘We agreed that I’ll have his itemized working schedule.’

‘So, we’ve got a check on everything they’re doing, quite separate from what he’s under strict orders to tell me?’ pressed Newton. It created a double-check system, the best he believed he could evolve.

‘That’s how you wanted it, wasn’t it?’

‘Anything out of the ordinary, anything you didn’t expect, from the conversation?’

‘He got a bit ahead of himself, began itemizing things. I told him to wait until he got the complete schedule to see what we were covering.’

‘Itemizing what, particularly?’ demanded Newton.

‘Hepatitis, cancers, all the obvious stuff. Wanted to know if some of the subsidiaries were specializing.’

‘He mention a particular subsidiary?’

‘He’s got some idea of a comparison between Japan and France that might show up a dietary connection with tumours.’

‘What did he say about France?’ demanded Newton.

Benn gave an uncertain gesture. ‘Nothing particular.’

Newton let some silence into the conversation. Then he said: ‘Would you say he explicitly manoeuvred the conversation to include France?’

‘Maybe that could be an impression. It wasn’t mine until now, when we’re talking about it. Is it important?’

‘We’ve worked together for a long time, Russ,’ said Newton, ignoring the question.

‘Yes?’ agreed Benn, asking one in return.

‘Dubette appreciates you. And your loyalty.’

‘You know it doesn’t have to be questioned.’

‘That’s exactly what we do know. Appreciate most of all. And what we want you to understand.’

‘I’m not sure I do, not at the moment.’ said Benn, doubtfully.

‘I want you to carry out some tests. You, personally. No one else. Not delegated to anyone, not discussed with or known about by anyone.’

Benn straightened in his seat, his concentration suddenly absolute. ‘What?’

‘France is traditionally Africa’s colonial power. French, or a patois of it, is the first language throughout a lot of African countries. It’s our French subsidiary drugs and treatments that are predominantly copied.’

‘The president’s seminar remark,’ remembered Benn.

‘The idea is to cheat the cheats,’ revealed Newton, at last. ‘Introduce into the printed formulae of our most often pirated research, placebos or non-active constituents to make them more expensive – and less cost-effective – to replicate than our competitors.’

‘That’s not ethical,’ protested Benn.

‘Placebos and non-active constituents,’ repeated Newton. ‘Colour alteration, more palatable taste. There’s nothing non-ethical in our doing that.’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Benn, doubtfully.

‘How’s the new house? And the kids?’

‘OK,’ said Benn, uncomfortably. ‘Thanks for asking.’

‘I want you to understand how much we appreciate the way you run your operation. In addition to the across-the-board ten per cent increase, I’m approving an additional salary increase for you of fifteen thousand dollars.’

‘That’s very generous.’ Benn was beyond surprise, practically in shock.

‘Very much deserved.’

‘Who’s got these formulae changes?’

‘I have.’

‘What if there are adverse reactions?’

‘The idea’s scrapped.’

‘I’m to do this totally alone?’

‘No. I’m your check. You initiate and confirm. I repeat the experiment and doubly confirm.’

‘I’ve your word the idea will be abandoned if there is the remotest risk?’

‘I am not going to put you at risk, myself at risk or the company at risk,’ guaranteed Newton.

‘And I’d see the results of your separate analyses and tests?’

‘Of course.’

‘Thank you, for the salary increase.’

‘It’s nothing you don’t deserve.’