Last shot

Chapter 38

The command post took shape as it usually did, around an enormous conference table on the third floor, the Top Fifteen designation buying the Escape Team a two-story promotion, court security officer admin backup, and a few loose hands from Probation/Parole. It was just the second dawn since Walker's escape, but already the paperwork had claimed most surface areas in the room. The false sightings were rolling into the phone banks, Walker Jameson popping up everywhere from the Griffith Park Zoo's reptile house to the Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier.

Tim lifted his notepad, the page now more ink than white. Ignoring the palimpsest effect from Tyler's purple crayon-in toasting an English muffin, he'd left the young artist unattended-he reviewed the updates on the checklist he'd jotted at the breakfast table. No word back from Aaronson yet on the red stain with the odd sweetener and gelatin composition. No information on Aryan Brotherhood hit men from Ian Summer and the Vegas Task Force.

The Bronco had indeed traced to Ted Sands. He'd been taken in a front-yard snatch, the dried rivulet of blood and snapped fingernail on the driveway saying it hadn't been gentle. Since Walker had driven Ted off in Ted's own vehicle, Guerrera was running down taxi records to Cheviot Hills around the time of the kidnapping-Walker had to have gotten there somehow. The cab companies that were actually organized enough to keep records had produced logs too numerous to be helpful, and there were enough other transportation scenarios-accomplice, bus, cached car-to irritate Guerrera about doing likely dead-end work.

Thomas had spent the morning looking into Dean's head of security. Percy Keating, who'd done two tours in Vietnam, lived in the Kagan guesthouse with his Bangkok mail-order bride. He'd been investigated for a handful of indiscretions over the years-everything from illegal wiretapping to criminal threats-though he'd never been formally charged.

Working a vast range of mostly inherited business and IRS contacts, Freed was still gathering background on Dean Kagan's corporate doings. When Tim had arrived a little before seven, Freed was at his desk downstairs, slaving away, wearing the same suit he'd had on the day before. He'd waved Tim off; Freed wasn't ready to talk until he was ready to talk.

Haines and Denley reviewed Sam's news segment on the wall-mounted TV in the corner. Tim had watched it through several times last night, his somber mood prompting Dray to recommend that he incorporate SpongeBob into his Netflix queue. Tess's moving declaration-"The only thing I want is for Sammy to be well enough. To live a life. That's all."-was tearjerked into cheapness by Melissa Yueh's sobering coda: "We can all hope that treatment for young people like Sam Hardy…may not be far away. For KCOM News, I'm-"

"Believe me, lady," Denley said, "we know who you are."

Chewing his pen cap flat, Tim swiveled to take in Yueh's windblown image outside Tess and Sam's house. "Hey, Denley. Will you contact Yueh, see if you can get the raw footage? Unedited?"

"Can I wear earplugs?"

"I'd recommend a condom, too, socio," Guerrera said.

Freed entered, soft briefcase swollen, Armani wire-frames low on his thin nose. With aplomb he kicked aside the rolling chair at the head of the table and began removing and organizing his notes. Everyone silenced. Tim caught sight of a cover of Forbes magazine, Dean Kagan astride a golf cart with Jack Welch, looking tanned and pleased with himself.

"Dean Kagan," Freed said, displaying an impressive grasp of dramatics, "was a legend in the barter trade in the seventies and early eighties, dealing primarily with the Soviet Union. He made tens of millions in the commodities market, walking the line between free trade and private profiteering, raping the USSR of their natural resources."

"Poor commies," Denley said.

Freed continued, "He set up a shell corp in Australia to get around Our Country 'Tis of Thee's more stringent regulations."

"What kind of product?" Bear asked.

"He bartered copy machines, shoes, TVs, jeans, toilet paper, that kind of shit, for copper, tin, steel, fertilizer. He'd acquire enough tonnage to resell at up to a two thousand percent return to, say, China, even before having to fork out for the acquisition. His activities engendered more investigations than I could count, but he was never charged. In some of those years, he paid seven figures in legal fees. It wasn't until the late seventies he made the move to pharmaceuticals."

"Why'd he go legit?" Zimmer asked.

In a rare instance of inelegance, Freed released a guffaw. "Yeah, legit. There's a reason Kagan, with his From Russia with Love skill set, saw an opening in Big Pharma. Greener pastures, zero downside. The Rx T. rexes are a step ahead of clowns like Kozlowski, Lay, and other relatively honest, hardworking corporate looters. They don't have to do anything illegal-they bought the three branches and retooled the laws instead. Big Pharma has the largest lobby in Washington-more members than Congress-and a revolving-door employee policy that would make Dick Cheney dizzy. We, the humble taxpayers, get hit twice: First we foot the research bill, then we pay marked-up prices for the drugs generated by the research our money funded.

"And guess who was a prime mover behind the reengineering of the FDA and American patent law to work in Big Pharma's favor? In 1980 our very own Dean Kagan helped ram through the Bayh-Dole Act, solidifying technology-transfer laws and granting exclusive licenses for NIH research to drug companies for a royalty arrangement that in any other sector would be mythical. In '84, at Mr. Kagan and his competitors' prompting, our unparalleled Congress passed an act that extended monopoly rights for brand-name drugs to the point of preposterousness. Another piece of chicanery Mr. Kagan helped tug the marionette strings on: tax credits for 'orphan drugs.' These kick in if a pharm company bothers to tackle a disease with a smaller patient population-an unprecedented congressional guarantee that they'll profit on every product. Not that they don't manipulate the classification system anyway to get tax breaks on money earners. Beacon-Kagan has proven masterful at dodging kickback laws, too, offering prescribers-I mean physicians-paid consultancies, speaker-bureau gigs, advisory-board positions, and various other tits to slurp on the sow belly. Meanwhile those lobbyist dollars keep paying off in spades. The Medicare Bill of 2003 actually prohibits the government from negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies. You couldn't make this shit up."

Freed took a breath-his first? — then continued. "If they have trouble marketing a drug for a disease, they'll market a disease to sell the drug. Ever notice all the new disorders that pop up every year? Well, new, for-profit companies carry out trials or crunch the data from trials the pharmaceuticals run in-house. They're called contract research organizations-CROs. And guess who owns them?"

Denley, bored by his own cynicism, said, "Big Pharma."

"Worse." Freed smiled, a wan, bitter shaping of his mouth. "The advertising agencies employed by the pharmaceuticals. In some cases the ad execs are closer to the test tubes than the scientists."

Tim had never seen Freed-a laissez-faire, highest-tax-bracket, fiscal Republican who'd worked landmark corruption and embezzlement cases-so fired up.

Guerrera, channeling his past, naive self, said, "That can't be true."

"There's a lot at stake," Tim mused, "in Dean Kagan's empire."

Freed glanced at him. "You're thinking if you've gone legit to the tune of a 4.7 billion annual gross, you don't risk it by offing some broad in a glorified trailer home."

"No. You wouldn't."

Thomas added, "Not without a very compelling reason."

Slumped in his chair, Bear livened up at the switch of topic. "Did you get any information on Pierce?"

"I looked into it a bit," Freed said, "but got sidetracked with this stuff. I can say this, though-the guy may be a smaller fish than Kagan, but he's just as slippery. He's got corporations spun out of corporations. Not an easy trail."

Bear stood, hoisting his pants in a manner that wouldn't have looked out of place in a western. "I think whatever Tess had on her computer got her killed. As far as I'm concerned, the case turns on that missing hard drive. Guerrera, how are you making out with her phone records?"

"Whole lotta nada. But me and Haines found a red flag in her financials. Her bank statement shows she retained a lawyer on May twenty-eighth."

Eleven days before her murder.

Tim snatched the bank statement across the table. The buzz of conversation in the room stopped at once.

Guerrera held up his hands. "But we don't know what for."

"May twenty-eighth is the same day she bought folic acid pills for the pregnancy," Tim said. "Maybe she'd just found out."

"And hired an attorney," Bear mused.

"We just got off with the lawyer, and he won't budge on discussing it," Guerrera said. "Client-attorney privilege, no way around it."

"We gotta pay him a visit," Bear said.

Haines said, "You'd be wasting your time. I promise. We have no legal standing here, and the guy knows it."

Bear said, "Get him on the phone for me."

"I'm telling you-"

"Just get him for me."

Guerrera muttered something in Spanish, dialed, and flopped his wrist, offering Bear the cordless and a smart-ass introduction: "Esteban Martinez, Esquire."

Bear introduced himself as a deputy marshal and fellow attorney-at-law. Tim joined Guerrera in slipping on a headset, just in time to hear Martinez express his exasperation.

"I just explained to your colleague, I will not under any circumstances divulge the nature of confidential conversations I had with my client." His English was clipped slightly by the cadence of his accent.

Bear asked, "Even if she may have been murdered as a result of them?"

"Yes. Even if that. What would it mean to the security of future clients? To my reputation? I'm sorry, sir, and believe me I'm sorry about what happened to Ms. Jameson, but it simply is not an option." The regret in his voice was palpable, but also his resolve.

"Will you at least tell me how many times you met?" Bear asked. A long pause, during which Tim could hear Martinez tapping his pencil against his desk. "As far as I know," Bear added, "there's nothing confidential about dates."

"Only twice."

"May twenty-eighth when she retained you. When was the second?"

"June one."

"That Friday? Seems like a quick job…?" Bear waited, hoping to get something back. Guerrera flicked his chin, his youthful features pulled tight in a told-you-so scowl. Keeping the phone pressed to his ear, Bear resisted additional prodding, sensing, as did Tim, that Martinez was not the kind of man who responded well to pressure. They listened to the sound of Martinez's breathing, banking on that note of regret that had found its way into Martinez's voice. A full minute passed-an eternity of silence.

Finally Martinez said, "If you must know, she discharged me."

"She spent two hundred and fifty dollars to fire you?"

"It was a decision we arrived at together."

"Why?"

"Don't push your luck, Deputy."

Bear rolled his lips over his teeth, then popped them back out. "Might I ask if the subject discussed wasn't…General Foods?"

"I can assure you it wasn't."

"Was it not…Hughes Aircraft?"

"It was not."

"Was it not…Vector Biogenics?"

"I'll neither confirm nor deny that," Martinez said, leaving them with a click and the hum of the dial tone.