Last shot

Chapter 26

An attractive redhead sat behind a curved shield of a reception booth, elevated as if on a captain's chair, punching phone buttons and speaking silkily into her headset. A frosted-glass sign stood out from the anodized aluminum frame of the console, exhibiting the company logo-a V with an arrow rising from the second upstroke.

Feeling stiff in his father's old suit, Walker flashed Tess's laminated visitor card. Workers streamed past-lunch break in full swing.

"I'm slotted for the investors' twelve o'clock walk-through," Walker said. Five bucks at an Internet cafe had bought him enough buzzwords from Vector's Web site to bluff and jive. "Running late-we sat on the tarmac for a good half hour."

The receptionist tipped down the phone mouthpiece and whispered over her call, "Straight back. Go catch the group."

Walker waited for the electronic click, then moved forward through the doors. A fresh-faced researcher in a white lab coat stood before a door at the end of the corridor, her bearing that of a Disney attraction guide. As Walker neared enough to hear velvety voice-over murmuring within, she leaned forward and mouthed, "Here for the tour?"

At his nod she opened the door. Walker brushed past, surreptitiously lifting the access card clipped to her coat pocket. The rows of mesh swivel chairs in the auditorium were curved to face a projection screen descended from the ceiling. Walker saw now that the room, which could have accommodated a couple hundred people, ran the length of the corridor he'd just passed-a big space that came out of nowhere, like a hotel ballroom. The narrow casement windows set high in either corner of the east wall were cracked for air, but the room smelled of paint and upholstery, and the pale outside light that the tinted panes allowed through was barely enough to dent the darkness.

The thirty or so people inside were captivated by the video. Surround-sound speakers poured the Vector spokesman's voice into the room: "…the leading genetic cause of liver transplants in children. It's also a leading cause of death. Why?"

Walker slid into a chair by the aisle, upsetting the carefully placed stack of glossy corporate literature.

"Because children are born without a proper gene. It's a horrible-but now treatable-disorder." Accompanied by funereal music, a montage of children waxed and waned on-screen, each ethnicity represented by a model specimen-large sad eyes, smooth skin, hair mussed just so. Like Sam looked in the photo-booth pictures, before his condition worsened. "How does it harm the liver? Well, the faulty gene produces abnormal proteins that amass in the liver, a process called 'pathological polymerization.'" It dawned on Walker that his GED might not have armed him with enough arrows in this particular quiver, but he did his best to follow along. "These variant proteins get trapped in the liver, and eventually-tragically-impede its functioning."

Walker scooped a brochure from the floor, titled Xedral to the Rescue! As he tried to make sense of the bullet points, the omnipresent voice asked, "What are viral vectors? They're the vehicles used in gene therapy to transfer the gene of interest to the target cells, which will then go on to express the therapeutic protein encoded by the transgene."

The folks at Vector seemed awfully fond of answering their own questions.

Taking advantage of the darkness, Walker removed a digital scanner, about the size of a cigarette holder, from his pocket. Inserting in the slot the stolen access-control card, he activated the reader, setting the miniaturized row of lights blinking. Then he refocused on the screen.

"— freeze-dried storage in five-millimeter vials. And there's no need for IV infusion or any fancy procedures or surgeries. A few drops of sterile water reconstitute Xedral to a solution, and it can be injected into the arm like a basic vaccine." Jerky 1950s newsreel footage of kids hopping onto exam tables and baring their arms elicited a few titters from the viewers. A musical theme, five upbeat chimes of a xylophone, punctuated a pan across a community of children, gathered together now and apparently happy at their prospects. "A lifetime of change…"-the image pulled to the northwest quadrant of the TV, the other sections depicting Vector's high-tech labs and scientists in industrious motion-"…in a simple shot." A distinguished pause and then a smoothly cadenced afterthought: "Vector Biogenics. The human touch."

When the lights came up, the presenter thanked Walker for joining the group and made a few closing remarks about Xedral's market potential, his voice echoing off the high ceiling. Walker perused the other tour members, guessing most of them to be scientists, graduate students, or heavy-hitter investors. An Asian doctor entered and tugged importantly at the sleeves of his white coat.

The presenter smiled at the group. "I'm delighted to see that Dr. Huang, our study director, can join us for a few minutes of our laboratory tour."

Hanging to the rear of the group, Walker shuffled out behind two bearded men discussing commodities futures. At the doorway Walker smiled at the researcher, letting her access card drop secretly down the side of his leg. It was important that she find her card and not report it missing.

Fielding questions magnanimously, Huang led them up a corridor that ran alongside the laboratory's various suites, generous windows affording aquarium vantages. Walker jogged his dated tie and listened to a few of the grad students natter on about some famous gene-therapy trial where the subjects came down with leukemia.

Huang fielded each question magnanimously, playing the old pro by catching the nonscientists up. "We've got that covered three ways." Point number one bent back his thumb: "We've engineered Xedral to insert into a nonfunctioning section of DNA." Index finger: "We've flanked our transgene with starting and stopping codons so it won't disrupt neighboring genes." And the fuck-you finger: "We've employed a temporary model that eliminates long-term complications by requiring a booster every month to keep transgene expression active."

They moved along the corridor, spying in on a room walled with vast, glass-fronted refrigerators filled with Xedral vials. A scientist unpacked jars from an ice-packed Styrofoam shipping cooler, taking no note of the observers.

One of the investor types, a wizened man in a leisure suit, chimed in, "Aren't you worried about using a deadly virus to carry this new gene?"

"Push up your sleeve, sir," Huang said. "No, your left. That's it. Your smallpox vaccination scar. We use an attenuated strain of poxvirus, like the one you had injected there. It can't cause infection."

They passed one end of the test-subject suite, the tour-group participants cooing cloyingly and waving at the monkeys. A woman with jangly earrings proudly claimed, "I have issues with animal cruelty," in a voice not quite loud enough to draw a remark from Huang.

Walker fell even farther back from the crowd, and when the group passed around the corner, he held the digital scanner to an access pad beside a metal door, testing if it had captured the frequency from the card. A low-register hum and the door came uneven from the wall. Walker pulled it open and peered down another hall, this one appearing to house executive offices. The sound of an argument carried to him.

"Of course not, Dolan. You read the preclinical reports-it just wasn't working." A beat. "Why would you even say that? What are you insinuating?"

Another male voice answered, glumly. "Nothing. I just want to see all the raw data, and I'm not waiting until-"

Walker slipped into the hall, shoes silent on the expensive carpet. He followed the raised voices. A door opened behind him, and he froze, but the two young executives headed in the opposite direction, cuffing their sleeves, not seeing him.

"You going tonight?" one asked.

"Bel Air? I'd go just to see the mansion."

That they didn't turn around seemed a good indication that raised voices from the far end of the hall were not an uncommon occurrence. Walker passed a stretch of corkboard, mounted between light sconces. The top pushpinned flyer, importantly titled Interoffice Memo, announced, S-1 Filing Celebration. 7:30 at the Kagan Estate, tonight. Formal. All staff and spouses welcome. No uninvited guests, please. Printed below was a Bel Air address.

Walker continued down the hall, matching the names on the metal plates to recalled Web site bios.

The discussion continued.

"Listen, D, data is-I know, are-the whole problem. You've got a study director who has to cover the stuff you've missed, because you're busy trying to micromanage him. And me."

The comment was met with silence.

"You wanted a company, not just a lab. This is how a company has to work. We're about to have stockholders. Ten thousand or more. Are you gonna be the one accountable to them?"

Walker reached the threshold of the office from which the voices issued. The nameplate read CHASE KAGAN, CEO.

The same voice continued, softer, "I thought not. Now. I want to give you some advice out of this morning's meeting, if you're open to it. You slouch when you sit. It shows you lack confidence."

"I slouch?"

Angled blinds mostly blocked a hall-facing window. Walker rose on his tiptoes to see through the gaps. Spacious corner office. Darkened and soundproofed exterior windows overlooked muted traffic. A broad desk, cherry with gold handles, held neat stacks of papers. Journals and business books lined the shelves, and on a low-lying table rested an illustrated Art of War. One man sat on a leather-and-chrome love seat; the other leaned ass to desk, arms propped behind him, a mauve linen shirt hanging loosely around his muscular frame. Though their coloring and bearing were nearly opposite, Walker pegged them immediately as brothers.

"Tight hamstrings," the man at the desk said, in the voice Walker recognized as the aggressor's. "They make your pelvis tilt, accentuating the arch of your back. It's a common posture pitfall. You really ought to get to the gym, do some stretching. Or if you're tied up here, I'll send Harper-she's a genius."

Dolan was darker, a few years older, and more thinly built-Chase's charitable suggestions aside, Dolan did need to log some gym time.

A woman exited her office across the hall, her office overheads back-lighting Walker against the blinds. He jerked back, but too late-Chase's pale eyes had already pulled to the window.

Chase strode across the office and threw open the door. He called after Walker. "Who are you? Excuse me?" As Walker slipped out into the main corridor, he heard Chase's voice again. "Call security."

Walker pressed through the doors into the lobby. He moved briskly past the receptionist and several well-dressed lobby occupants. Outside, lunchtime foot traffic was flowing past the dark-tinted lobby windows in clogs and streams, massing at the intersections.

As security was converging on the hall outside Chase Kagan's office, Walker floated through the revolving door and disappeared into the midday Los Angeles blaze.