The Associate

The Associate

Phillip Margolin

*

Summary:

Daniel Ames, a blue-collar associate at a preppy, white-shoe law firm, gets snookered by a pretty colleague into reviewing thousands of pages of documents. The client, a pharmaceutical company, is charged with falsifying test results on a new drug that appears to cause horrendous birth defects. Daniel is sure the company didn't do it, but among all the documents he overlooks a letter that could destroy his client's defense. The opposing counsel gets hold of it, and the next thing you know, Daniel's smack in the middle of a murder as well as the attendant legal fraud and chicanery. Who else, besides its manufacturer, wants the truth about the drug trials covered up? Whose body, charred almost beyond recognition, was found in the lab along with a score of dead test monkeys? And what's the connection between a double kidnapping and murder that happened years ago in Arizona and the headline-grabbing lawyer that's trying to pin the blame on Daniel's client for the drug's terrible effects?

PROLOGUE:

An icy wind whipped down Mercer Street, rattling awnings, scattering paper scraps and raking Gene Arnold's cheeks raw. He turned up his coat collar and ducked his head to avoid the arctic chill. This wasn't the Arizona lawyer's first visit to New York City, but it was his first winter visit and he was unprepared for the biting cold.

Arnold was an unremarkable man, someone you could sit opposite for an hour and not remember five minutes later. He was of average height, tortoiseshell glasses magnified his brown eyes, and his small, bald head was partially ringed by a fringe of dull gray hair. Arnold's private life was as placid as his personality. He was unmarried, read a lot, and the most exciting thing he did was play golf. Nothing that had happened to him had even registered as a blip on the world's radar screen except for a tragedy he had endured seven years before.

Arnold's law practice was as tedious as his life, business transactions mostly. He was in New York to secure financing for Martin Alvarez, the king of the Arizona used car market, who wanted to expand into New Mexico. Arnold's successful meeting with a potential investor had ended sooner than expected, leaving him time to wander around SoHo in search of a painting he could add to his small collection of art.

Arnold's eyes teared and his nose started to run as he looked around desperately for shelter from the wind. An art gallery on the corner of Mercer and Spring streets was open and he ducked into it, sighing with relief when a blast of warm air greeted him. A thin young woman dressed in black was leaning on a counter near the front of the store. She looked up from the catalog she was reading.

"Can I help you?" she asked, flashing him a practiced smile.

"Just looking," Arnold answered self-consciously.

The art hanging on the white walls of the gallery did not fit into one category. Arnold glanced briefly at a series of collages with a feminist theme before stopping to admire some paintings that were more his style. Back home he owned several western scenes, brown and red mesas at sunset, cowboys on the trail, that sort of thing. These landscapes were of New England, seascapes really. Dories on a raging ocean, waves breaking on a deserted beach, a cottage scarred by the sea's salt spray. Very nice.

Arnold wandered over to a group of black-and-white photographs entitled Couples. The first grainy shot showed two teenagers holding hands in a park. They were viewed from behind, leaning into each other, their heads almost touching. The photographer had captured their intimate moment perfectly. The picture made Arnold sad. He would have given anything to be that boy with that girl. Being alone was the hardest thing.

The next photo showed a black couple sitting in a cafe. They were laughing, his head thrown back, mouth open, she smiling shyly, delighted that she was the source of such joy.

Arnold studied the photo. It wasn't the type of art that he usually purchased, but there was something about the photograph that drew him to it. He checked the information on the small, white rectangle next to the photo and learned that the photographer was Claude Bernier and the price was within his means.

Arnold moved to the third photograph in the series. It showed a man and a woman dressed for the rain striding across a square in the center of some city. They were angry, faces tight. The woman's eyes blazed, the man's mouth was a grim line.

"Oh, my God," Arnold said. He fell forward, bracing himself against the wall.

"Sir?" The young woman was staring at him, alarmed by his ashen pallor and his inability to stand upright. Arnold stared back, panicky, light-headed.

"Are you okay?"

Arnold nodded, but the woman was unconvinced. She hurried forward and slipped a hand under his elbow.

"Is there someplace I can sit down?" he asked weakly.

The woman led him up front to a chair behind the counter. Arnold sagged onto it and put his hand to his forehead.

"Can I get you some water?" she asked anxiously.

Arnold saw that she was trying to hold it together. He imagined that she was thinking "heart attack" and wondering what it would be like to sit with a corpse while she waited for the police.

"Water would be good. I'm okay, really. Nothing to worry about," he said, trying to reassure her. "I'm just a little dizzy."

By the time the woman returned with the water Arnold had regained his composure. He took two sips and breathed deeply. When he looked up the woman was watching him and worrying her hands.

"I'm much better." He gave her a weak smile. "I'm just not used to this cold."

"Please, sit here as long as you want."

"Thanks." He paused, then pointed toward the exhibit. "The photographer, Bernier, does he live near here?"

"Claude? Sure. He's got a walk-up in Chelsea."

"I want to buy one of his pictures."

Arnold stood up slowly, steadier now, and led the woman to the photograph of the angry couple. As he crossed the room doubts assailed him, but they melted away as he drew closer to the scene that Bernier had captured.

"Do you think he'd see me today?" Arnold asked as he produced a credit card without moving his eyes from the photo.

The woman looked worried. "Do you feel up to it?"

Arnold nodded. She seemed on the verge of trying to change his mind. Then she carried the photograph to the front to ring up the purchase. As she waited for clearance from the credit-card company she used the phone. Arnold sat down again. His initial shock had abated and had been replaced by a sense of urgency and purpose.

"Claude can see you anytime," the woman told him as she handed Arnold his purchase and stationery from the gallery bearing the photographer's address and phone number. He memorized the address and placed the paper in his jacket pocket.

"Thank you. You've been very kind," he told the salesclerk before stepping into the street. A frigid wind greeted him, but Gene Arnold was too distracted to notice.

Chapter One.

The headlight beams of Dr. Sergey Kaidanov's battered SAAB bounced off a stand of Douglas firs then came to rest on the unpainted wall of a one-story, cinderblock building buried in the woods several miles from downtown Portland. As soon as Kaidanov unlocked the front door of the building the rhesus monkeys started making that half-cooing, half-barking sound that set his nerves on edge. The volume of noise increased when Kaidanov flipped on the lights.

Most of the monkeys were housed in two rooms at the back of the building. Kaidanov walked down a narrow hall and stood in front of a thick metal door that sealed off one of the rooms. He slid back a metal sheet and studied the animals through the window it concealed. There were sixteen rhesus monkeys in each room. Each monkey was in its own steel mesh cage. The cages were stacked two high and two across on a flatcar with rollers. Kaidanov hated everything about the monkeys-their sour, unwashed smell, the noises they made, the unnerving way they followed his every move.

As soon as Kaidanov's face was framed in the window, the monkey two from the door in the top cage leaped toward him and stared him down. Its fur was brownish gray and it gripped the mesh with hands containing opposable thumbs on both arms and legs. This was the dominant monkey in the room and it had established its dominance within three weeks even though there was no way it could get at the others.

Rhesus monkeys were very aggressive, very nervous, and always alert. It was bad etiquette to look one in the eye, but Kaidanov did it just to show the little bastard who was the boss. The monkey didn't blink. It stretched its doglike muzzle through the mesh as far as it could, baring a set of vicious canines. At two feet tall and forty pounds, the monkey didn't look like it could do much damage to a one-hundred-and-ninety-pound, five-foot-eight male human, but it was much stronger than it looked.

Kaidanov checked his watch. It was three in the morning. He couldn't imagine what was so important that he had to meet here at this hour, but the person whose call had dragged him from a deep sleep paid Kaidanov to do as he was told, no questions asked.

Kaidanov needed caffeine. He was about to go to his office to brew a pot of coffee when he noticed that the padlock on the dominant monkey's cage was open. He must have forgotten to close it after the last feeding. The scientist started to open the door but stopped when he remembered that the key to the monkey rooms was in his office.

Kaidanov returned to the front of the building. His office was twelve by fifteen and stuffed with lab equipment. A small desk on casters stood just inside the door. It was covered by a phone book, articles from research journals, and printouts of contractions that the monkeys experienced during pregnancy. Behind the table was a cheap office chair. Along the walls were metal filing cabinets, a sink, and a paper towel dispenser.

Kaidanov walked around the desk. The coffeepot was sitting on a table alongside a centrifuge, scales, a rack of test tubes, and a Pokemon mug filled with Magic Markers, pens, and pencils. Above the table was a television screen attached to a security camera that showed the front of the building.

The pot of coffee was almost brewed when Kaidanov heard a car pull up and a door slam. On the television a figure in a hooded windbreaker ran toward the lab. Kaidanov left his office and opened the front door. The scientist peered at the hooded face and saw two cold eyes staring at him through the slits in a ski mask. Before he could speak, a gun butt struck his forehead, blinding him with pain. Kaidanov collapsed to the floor. The muzzle of a gun ground into his neck.

"Move," a muffled voice commanded. He scrambled to his knees and a booted foot shoved him forward. The pain in his face brought tears to his eyes as he crawled the short distance to his office.

"The keys to the monkey rooms."

Kaidanov pointed toward a hook on the wall. Seconds later a blow to the back of his head knocked him unconscious.

Kaidanov had no idea how long he had been out. The first thing he heard when he came to were the hysterical shrieks of terrified monkeys and the sound of cages crashing together. The scientist felt like a nail had been driven into his skull, but he managed to struggle into a sitting position. Around him filing cabinets had been opened and overturned. The floor was littered with gasoline-drenched paper, but that was not the only object doused in gasoline-his clothing, face, and hands reeked of it. Then the acrid smell of smoke assailed his nostrils and his stomach turned when he saw the shadow of flames dancing on the wall outside his office.

Fear dragged Kaidanov to his knees just as his assailant reentered the office holding the gun and a five-gallon can of gas. Kaidanov scurried back against the wall, much the way the more docile monkeys skittered to the back of their cages whenever he entered the monkey room. The gas can hit the desk with a metallic thud and Kaidanov's assailant pulled out a lighter. Kaidanov tried to speak, but terror made him mute. Just as the lid of the lighter flipped open, an insane shriek issued from the doorway. An apparition, engulfed in flame, eyes wide with panic and pain, filled the entrance to the office. The dominant monkey, Kaidanov thought. It had been able to force open its cage door because Kaidanov had forgotten to secure the padlock.

The term "monkey etiquette" flashed through Kaidanov's mind. He ducked his head and assumed a submissive position then watched out of the corner of his eye as his assailant turned and stared. The human and the primate locked eyes seconds before forty pounds of adrenaline-fueled, flame-tortured muscle launched itself through the air with a terrifying scream. Kaidanov saw the rhesus land on its prey and sink its fangs into his attacker's shoulder. As the pair toppled to the floor, Kaidanov staggered out the door and ran toward the woods. Moments later two shots rang out.

Chapter Two.

"Ready to rock-and-roll?" Joe Molinari asked as he ambled into Daniel Ames's tiny office.

"Not today," Daniel answered regretfully, pointing at the papers on his desk. "Briggs just laid this on me."

"We're talking happy hour, compadre," Molinari said as he slid his angular body onto one of Daniel's two client chairs.

The litigation associates at Reed, Briggs, Stephens, Stottlemeyer and Compton met for happy hour once a week at a popular steak house to bitch and moan about how hard they worked and how unappreciated they were-and to make fun of other lawyers who were not among those chosen to work at Portland, Oregon's largest and most prestigious law firm. Daniel enjoyed the camaraderie, but he knew that it would be impossible to drag himself back to the office after sharing a pitcher of margaritas with the gang.

"Briggs needs my memo tomorrow morning."

Molinari shook his head ruefully. "When are you going to learn to say no, Ames? I've got a picture of strikers outside an auto plant. I put it on my door when I'm full up. I can make you a copy."

Daniel smiled. "Thanks, Joe. I may take you up on that, but I've got to get this done."

"Hey, man, you've got to stand up for yourself. Lincoln freed the slaves."

"The Thirteenth Amendment doesn't apply to associates at Reed, Briggs."

"You're hopeless"-Molinari laughed as he levered himself out of the chair-"but you know where we are if you come to your senses."

Molinari disappeared down the corridor and Daniel sighed. He envied his friend. If the situation had been reversed Joe wouldn't have hesitated to go for a drink. He could afford to give the finger to people like Arthur Briggs and he would never understand that someone in Daniel's position could not.

Molinari's father was a high muck-a-muck in a Los Angeles ad agency. Joe had gone to an elite prep school, an Ivy League college, and had been Law Review at Georgetown. With his connections, he could have gotten a job anywhere, but he liked white-water rafting and mountain climbing, so he had condescended to offer his services to Reed, Briggs. Daniel, on the other hand, thanked God every day for his job.

On one wall of Daniel's narrow office were his diplomas and his certificate of membership in the Oregon State Bar. Joe and some of the other associates took their education and profession for granted, but Daniel had made it through Portland State and the U. of O. law school the hard way, earning every cent of his tuition and knowing that there was no safety net to catch him if he failed. He took pride in earning a spot in Oregon's best law firm without Ivy League credentials or family connections, but he could not shake the feeling that his hold on success was tenuous.

Daniel's office wasn't much, but no one in his family had ever even worked in an office. His mother waitressed when she was sober and serviced long-haul drivers when she was too drunk to hold a job. He phoned her on her birthday and Christmas when he knew where she was living. He'd had six "fathers" to the best of his recollection. The nice ones had ignored him, the bad ones had left him with night sweats and scars.

Uncle Jack, father number four, had been the best of the lot because he owned a house with a yard. It was the first time Daniel had lived in a house. Most of the time he and his mother stayed in trailers or dark, evil-smelling rooms in transient hotels. Daniel had been eight when they moved in with Uncle Jack. He'd had his own room and thought this was what heaven was like. Four months later he was standing half-asleep on the sidewalk at four in the morning listening to his mother's drunken screams as she pounded her hands bloody on Uncle Jack's bolted front door.

Daniel had run away from home several times, but he'd left for good at seventeen, living on the streets until he could not stand it, then joining the army. The army had saved Daniel's life. It was the first stable environment in which he had ever lived and it was the first time his intelligence had been recognized.

Daniel's dark jacket was hanging from a hook behind his door, his paycheck sticking out of the inside pocket. Ninety thousand dollars! The size of his salary still amazed him and he felt incredibly lucky to have been chosen by the powers at Reed, Briggs. Every day he half expected to be told that his hiring had been a cruel practical joke.

Daniel had talked with the recruiting partner who visited the law school only to practice his interviewing technique. His invitation to a second interview at the firm had come as a shock, as had the offer of employment. Reed, Briggs's hires were graduates of Andover and Exeter; they attended Yale and Berkeley as undergraduates and went to Harvard and NYU for law school. Daniel was no dummy-his undergraduate degree in biology was with honors and he had made the Law Review -but there were still times when he felt out of his league.

Daniel swiveled his chair toward the window and watched the darkness gather over the Willamette River. When was the last time he had left these offices when it was still light out? Molinari was right. He did have to learn to say no, to relax a little, but he worried that he would earn a reputation as a slacker if he turned down work. Just last night he had awakened, drenched in sweat, from a dream in which he cringed in the dark at the bottom of an elevator shaft as a car descended slowly, but inexorably, toward him. You didn't have to be Sigmund Freud to dope out the meaning of that one.

At 6:45, Daniel finished rereading a draft of his memo. He stretched and rubbed his eyes. When he pulled his hands away he saw Susan Webster smiling at him from the doorway. He couldn't decide what was more shocking-that she was smiling or that she'd deigned to pay him a visit.

"Hi," he said casually, consciously keeping his eyes off of her runway-model figure.

"Hi yourself," she answered as she perched gracefully on the arm of one of Daniel's chairs. She glanced at the papers spread across his desk.

"If you're not at happy hour you must be working on a case of monumental importance. Is that a brief for the United States Supreme Court or a letter to the president?"

Susan looked and dressed like a cover girl, but her degree from Harvard was in physics and she'd been in the top ten at Stanford Law. Because of their science backgrounds, Susan and Daniel had been chosen as part of a team that was defending Geller Pharmaceuticals against a claim that one of its products caused birth defects. During the six months that they had worked together she had never asked Daniel's opinion on anything and rarely addressed him, so he was surprised that she was talking to him now.

"This is a memo for Mr. Briggs," Daniel said finally.

"Oh? Anything interesting?"

"It's another one of Aaron Flynn's cases," Daniel replied.

"Flynn again, huh? He sure has his fingers in a lot of pies."

"I'll say."

"Which of our clients is he suing, this time?" Susan asked.

"Oregon Mutual. They insure Dr. April Fairweather for malpractice."

"The therapist?"

"Yeah. How did you know?"

"Arthur had me do some work on the case, too. It's really weird. Do you know the facts?" Susan asked.

"No," Daniel answered. "I'm just working on an evidence issue."

"This college student went to Fairweather because she was depressed and having trouble sleeping. She's alleging that Fairweather hypnotized her and caused her to develop false memories that her folks were in a satanic cult that did all sorts of stuff to her when she was a kid."

"What sorts of stuff?"

"Weird sex, torture."

"Sounds kinky. Is any of it true?"

"I doubt it."

"I met Dr. Fairweather once when she was with Mr. Briggs," Daniel said. "She seemed normal enough."

"Do you have a lot more work to do on the memo?"

"No. I just have to proof it once more."

"So you're almost done?" Susan asked.

"Pretty much."

Daniel didn't really imagine that Susan was going to suggest a drink or dinner-he pictured Susan's dates as rich, GQ -model types who drove exotic sports cars and owned homes in the West Hills with fabulous views of the mountains-but for just a second he fantasized that she'd been won over by his curly black hair, his blue eyes, and his engaging smile.

Susan leaned forward and spoke in an inviting whisper.

"Since you're finished with your work"-she paused dramatically-"could you do me a huge favor?"

Daniel had no idea where this was going, so he waited for Susan to continue.

"Coincidentally, it involves another one of Flynn's cases, Geller Pharmaceuticals," Susan said. "You know he made that request for production weeks ago?"

Daniel nodded.

"As usual, Geller took forever to get the documents to us. They're supposed to be delivered to Flynn by eight in the morning."

Susan paused.

"Renee has it in for me," she said. Renee Gilchrist was Arthur Briggs's secretary. "She knew I had important plans tonight, but she told Brock Newbauer that I could review the documents this evening. She claims that she forgot, but I know she did it on purpose." Susan leaned closer and spoke conspiratorially. "She is jealous of any woman Arthur works with. That is a fact. Anyway, since you're done, I was wondering if you could finish the document review?"

Daniel was exhausted and hungry. He'd been looking forward to going home.

"Gee, I don't know. I still have some more work on this memo and I'm pretty beat."

"I'll make it up to you, I promise. And there's not that much to do. Just a couple of boxes and you'd only have to give the papers a cursory review. You know, check for attorney work product or privileged stuff. It would mean a lot to me."

Susan looked desperate. He was almost done, and there wasn't anything he was going to do tonight. Maybe finish a book he'd been reading, if he wasn't too tired, or watch some TV. What the hell, it never hurt to do a good deed.

"Okay." He sighed. "I'll save you."

Susan reached across the desk and laid her hand on top of his.

"Thank you, Daniel. I owe you."

"Big time," he said, already feeling like a sucker. "Now go and have fun."

Susan stood up. "The boxes are in the small conference room near the copying machine. Make sure they get to Flynn's office by eight in the morning. And thanks again."

Susan was gone so quickly her disappearance seemed magical. Daniel stood and stretched. He was going to take a break anyway, so he decided to see what he'd let himself in for. He walked down the hall to the conference room and turned on the light. Five banker's boxes covered the table. He opened one. It was packed with paperwork. Daniel did a quick calculation and came up with a ballpark figure of three to five thousand pages per box. This would take all night, if he was lucky. This was impossible. He'd never get home.

Daniel hurried into the hall to see if he could catch Susan, but she was gone.

Chapter Three.

The Insufort case had started with the Moffitts. Lillian Moffitt worked as a dental hygienist and her husband, Alan, was an officer in the loan department of a bank. The day they found out that Lillian was pregnant was one of the happiest days of their lives. But Toby Moffitt was born with severe birth defects and their happiness turned to heartache. Alan and Lillian tried to convince themselves that Toby's bad fortune was part of God's mysterious plan, but they wondered what part of this plan could include heaping such misery on their little boy. All became clear to Lillian on the day she went to her neighborhood grocery store and saw a headline in a supermarket tabloid about Insufort, which called it the "Son of Thalidomide."

Thalidomide was one of the great horror stories of the mid-twentieth century. Women who used it during pregnancy bore babies with dolphinlike flippers instead of normal limbs. The article in the tabloid claimed that Insufort was as harmful as Thalidomide and that women who took the drug were giving birth to monsters. While she was pregnant Lillian had taken Insufort.

The night that the Moffitts read the article about Insufort they prayed for guidance. The next morning they called Aaron Flynn. The Moffitts had seen Aaron Flynn's television ads and they had read about the flamboyant Irishman's multimillion-dollar judgments against a major auto company and the manufacturer of a defective birth control device. "Could Mr. Flynn help Toby?" they asked. "You bet," he told them.

Soon after the Moffitts hired him, Flynn ran newspaper and television ads informing other mothers who had used Insufort that he was there to help them. Then he posted information about his case on corporate protest sites on the Internet. He also alerted friends in the media that Toby Moffitt's case was the tip of a product liability iceberg. This strategy brought in more clients.

One of the first things that Flynn did after filing Moffitt v. Geller Pharmaceuticals was to serve requests for discovery on Geller through its law firm, Reed, Briggs, Stephens, Stottlemeyer and Compton. Flynn asked for every document Geller had regarding the testing and analysis of Insufort, the warnings that had been provided to physicians dispensing the drug, copies of other lawsuits that had been filed, reports from physicians and others telling of problems with Insufort, data about the manufacturing process-and any other information that would help him discover the connection between Insufort and Toby Moffitt's terrible deformity. The boxes of paper that Susan Webster had conned Daniel into reviewing were only a few of the boxes of discovery that had flowed through the offices of Reed, Briggs to the law offices of Aaron Flynn since the Geller Pharmaceutical litigation had commenced.

Daniel was furious with Susan, but he took every task seriously, no matter how routine. At first he tried to read each page of each document, but his attention to detail waned after a few hours, as did his energy. By three in the morning he was barely aware of what was on each page. That's when he went to a small room on the twenty-eighth floor with a bed, an alarm clock, and a washroom with a narrow shower that was used by associates who were pulling all-nighters.

When the alarm went off at six, Daniel showered and shaved and, coffee in hand, attacked the remaining documents. There were still two boxes to go and an eight o'clock deadline to meet. Daniel remembered Susan saying that he only had to give the documents a cursory review. He hated doing anything halfway, but there wasn't much more he could do in the time remaining. At 7:30, Daniel began stuffing the remaining papers back in their boxes. He was almost through when Renee Gilchrist walked in, immediately noticing the boxes spread over the conference table and Daniel's obvious exhaustion.

Arthur Briggs's secretary was in her early thirties. At five nine, she was almost as tall as Daniel and she had the sleek, muscular build of an aerobics instructor. Renee's dark hair was cut short. It framed wide blue eyes, a straight nose, and full lips that were pursed in an angry frown.

"Is that the Geller discovery?" she asked.

"All one billion pages of it," Daniel answered groggily.

"Susan Webster was supposed to review that."

Daniel shrugged, a little embarrassed that Renee had found out that he'd been duped into doing Susan's work.

"She had plans for last night and I wasn't doing anything."

Renee started to leave, then she stopped.

"You shouldn't let her do that to you."

"It's no big thing. Like I said, she was busy and I wasn't."

Renee shook her head. "You're too nice a guy, Daniel."

Wheeling a dolly loaded with cardboard boxes across the lobby of Aaron Flynn's law office gave Daniel the same queasy feeling he would have if he saw someone running keys along the side of a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. The exterior of Flynn's pre-World War I office building gave no hint of the grandeur Daniel encountered when he stepped out of the elevator on the seventh floor into a huge lobby that soared upward two stories. The lobby floor was made of shiny black marble and the space was decorated in rich dark woods and bronzed metals. Several columns of lapis-colored marble supported the ceiling. A balcony containing the library ran along three sides of the upper story. Carved into the middle of the lobby floor was a medallion displaying blind Justice holding her scales. Written around the rim in gold leaf were the words justice for all.

A young woman sat at the far side of the lobby on a high dais that looked more like a bench for a judge than a desk for a receptionist. Daniel was asking the woman where to leave his load when the man himself strode through a door that led to the inner sanctum. Aaron Flynn was talking quietly to another man with the shoulders and neck of a serious bodybuilder and the craggy, weather-beaten face of an outdoorsman.

"Let me know as soon as you find out where the card was used," Flynn said.

"I'll get on it," his companion answered. Then he walked past Daniel and out of the office.

On television, Aaron Flynn's deep voice asked viewers if they needed a champion to help them take on the mighty corporations that had wronged them. "You are not alone," he promised, his face at once sober and compassionate. "Together we will fight for justice, and we will prevail."

Flynn was equally impressive in person. He was tall and broad-shouldered with red hair and a face that radiated self-confidence and sincerity. His clients saw Flynn as a savior, but Daniel didn't trust him. Part of Daniel's duties on the team defending Geller Pharmaceuticals was to review the animal and human studies conducted on Insufort. They showed it to be a safe product. Daniel was convinced that Flynn's claim that the drug caused birth defects had no factual basis. It would not be the first time Flynn had tried to make millions by creating causes out of whole cloth.

Five years ago one of the networks had broadcast a horrifying story about a six-year-old boy who was killed in his driveway. His mother swore that her sports utility vehicle had surged forward suddenly when she stepped on the brake, driving her son through the garage door. Other victims of "sudden acceleration" surfaced. They claimed that their SUVs would surge forward when the brake was applied and could not be stopped.

Aaron Flynn had just opened his practice in Portland, but he had the good fortune to represent the plaintiff in the first "sudden acceleration" case. His million-dollar judgment against the manufacturer of the SUV made his reputation. In the end, the explanation for "sudden acceleration" proved simple. It was not caused by a mechanical malfunction but by human error: drivers were stepping on the gas instead of the brake. By the time the truth came out, the manufacturer had paid millions in damages and settlements, and attorneys like Flynn had made out like bandits.

Daniel had been introduced to Flynn when the lawyer visited the Reed, Briggs offices for a deposition, but the introduction was quick and Flynn had barely glanced his way during the proceedings. That was why Daniel was surprised when Flynn smiled and addressed him by name.

"Daniel Ames, isn't it?"

"Yes, Mr. Flynn."

"From the way you look, I'd guess you've not had much sleep."

"No, sir," Daniel answered cautiously.

Flynn nodded sympathetically. "Lisa can bring you to our coffee room for a mug of java and a muffin."

"Thanks, Mr. Flynn, but I've got to get back," Daniel answered, unwilling to accept gifts from the enemy even though the idea of coffee and a muffin sounded like heaven.

Flynn smiled to show he understood. Then he turned his attention to the stack of boxes on the dolly.

"So Arthur's got you slaving away doing document review. Not what you expected, I'll bet, when you were studying the opinions of Holmes and Cardozo at Yale."

"Actually, it was the U. of O."

Flynn grinned. "Then you must be one of the really bright lights if you were able to squeeze in between the lads and lassies of the Ivy League. I'm a graduate of the law school at the University of Arizona myself. Middle of the class."

He looked at the boxes of discovery again and sighed.

"You know, when I filed Moffitt v. Geller Pharmaceuticals this firm consisted of two partners and six associates. But since your client has been kind enough to answer my requests for discovery with such thoroughness, I've had to lease another floor and hire five new associates, ten paralegals, and eight support staff people to work on my little set-to with Geller."

"You're keeping me employed, too, Mr. Flynn," Daniel said, making a nervous joke to keep the conversation going. There was something about Flynn that made Daniel want to prolong their meeting. "It seems like you cross swords with Reed, Briggs pretty often."

"So I do," Flynn answered with a laugh. "If you ever grow tired of toiling away for evil corporate interests and decide you want to engage in some honest labor, give me a call. We public school boys should stick together. It was good seeing you again."

Flynn stuck out his hand. As they shook, the elevator door opened, attracting Flynn's attention.

"Before you go, I'd like you to meet someone."

Flynn released Daniel's hand and led him toward the office entrance. A haggard-looking woman in her late twenties was propping open the door with her shoulder and pushing a stroller into the lobby. In the stroller was a baby boy about six months old. His head was down and Daniel could not see his face. Flynn greeted them both.

"Alice, how are you? And how is Patrick doing?"

At the sound of his name, the little boy looked up. He had a mop of blond hair the color of new-mown hay and sky-blue eyes, but below his eyes something had gone terribly wrong. Where his lip should have been was a raw and gaping hole so wide that Daniel could see the saliva that moistened the back of the baby's throat. Patrick's left nostril was normal, but his deformed lip had pushed into the right side of the baby's nose, stretching it wide like Silly Putty. Patrick should have been adorable, but his cleft palate made him look like a horror-movie monster.

Flynn knelt next to the stroller and ruffled Patrick's hair. The baby made a whistling, hissing sound that bore no relation to the cute cooing sounds made by normal babies. Daniel fought with every ounce of his energy to hide his revulsion, then felt guilty for being repelled by the child.

"Daniel, this is Patrick Cummings," Flynn said pleasantly as he watched the reaction of the young associate. "And this is Alice Cummings, Patrick's mother. She had the misfortune to take Insufort during her pregnancy."

"Nice meeting you, Mrs. Cummings," Daniel said, managing somehow to keep his tone light. Patrick's mother was not fooled. She could see that her son's looks repulsed Daniel and she could not hide her sadness.

Daniel felt awful. He wanted to get out of Flynn's office as fast as possible, but he forced himself to say good-bye and to walk to the elevator slowly so Patrick's mother would not think that he was fleeing from her son. When the elevator doors closed Daniel sagged against the wall. Up until now the children in the Geller case had only been names on a pleading, but Patrick Cummings was flesh and blood. As the car descended Daniel tried to imagine the life Patrick would lead. Would he ever have friends? Would he find a woman who would love him? Was his life over before it had started?

There was one other question that needed an answer: Was Insufort responsible for the fate of Patrick Cummings?

Chapter Four.

Irene Kendall had let the john pick her up in the bar at the Mirage a little before eight in the evening. He'd had a good run at the craps table and was high on his good fortune. She'd listened attentively while he bragged about his gambling prowess. When he started to feel his drinks Irene hinted that she might be amenable to a sexual adventure. It was only after she was sure the john was panting for it that she explained that she was a working girl and told him her rates. The john laughed and told her that the bell captain had pointed her out to him. He said he preferred sex with whores.

The john had paid up front and tipped her afterward, and he hadn't roughed her up or asked for anything exotic. The only downside to the evening was the motel, a by-the-hour fuck pad in a run-down part of town. A lot of Irene's clientele stayed in the classy rooms at the Mirage or the other upscale casinos on the Strip and the motel was definitely a comedown. Still, the room was clean and the john was satisfied with a quick in-and-out, so she didn't have to work hard for her money. When Irene got ready to go, the john surprised her by telling her that she could stay in the room because he had to catch an early flight. She accepted the offer and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

Irene never heard the door being jimmied and had no idea that there was someone else in the room until a gloved hand clamped across her mouth. Her eyes sprang open and she tried to sit up, but the muzzle of a gun pressed hard into the flesh of her forehead and forced her head deep into her pillow.

"Scream and die. Answer my questions and live. Nod slowly if you understand me."

The feeble light cast by the flashing neon sign on the bar next door revealed that the speaker wore a ski mask. Irene nodded slowly and the gloved hand withdrew, leaving the sour taste of leather in her mouth.

"Where is he?"

"Gone," she gasped in a voice hoarse with fear.

"Say good-bye, bitch," the intruder whispered. Irene heard the gun cock.

"Please," she begged. "I'm not his friend, I'm a pro. He was a pickup at the Mirage. He fucked me, he paid me, and he left. He said I could use the room for the night because he had an early flight. I swear that's all I know."

"How long ago did he leave?"

The prostitute's eyes shifted to the clock radio on the nightstand.

"Fifteen minutes. He just left."

Two cruel eyes studied Irene for what seemed an eternity. Then the gun withdrew.

"Stay."

The intruder vanished though the door. Irene did not move for five minutes. Then she raced into the bathroom and threw up.

Chapter Five.

The main entrance to Reed, Briggs, Stephens, Stottlemeyer and Compton was on the thirtieth floor of a modern, thirty-story office building in the middle of downtown Portland, but Reed, Briggs leased several other floors. A week after delivering the boxes of discovery to Aaron Flynn's office, Daniel stepped out of the elevator on the twenty-seventh floor at 7:30 in the morning. This floor, where Daniel had his office, could only be entered by tapping in a code on a keypad that was attached to the wall next to one of two narrow glass panels that bracketed a locked door. Daniel started to reach for the keypad when he noticed what appeared to be some kind of microphone affixed to the wall above the keypad. Taped next to it was a sign that said:

REED, BRIGGS'S KEY ENTRY SYSTEM IS NOW VOICE-ACTIVATED. CLEARLY AND LOUDLY SAY YOUR NAME, THEN STATE "OPEN DOOR NOW."

On closer inspection Daniel could see that the "microphone" was really a round, metal cap from a juice bottle that had been taped to a small, plastic pencil sharpener. Both had been painted black. Daniel shook his head and tapped in his number. The lock clicked and he opened the door. As he expected, Joe Molinari was lurking behind a partition staring through the glass panel that gave him a view of the keypad.

"You're an asshole," Daniel said.

Molinari jerked him behind the partition just as Miranda Baker, a nineteen-year-old from the mailroom, approached the door.

"Watch this," Molinari said.

Baker started to tap in her code when she noticed the sign. She hesitated, then said, "Miranda Baker. Open door now." She tried the door, but it would not open. She looked puzzled. Molinari doubled over with laughter.

"That's not funny, Joe. She's a good kid."

"Wait," Molinari insisted, trying to stifle his laughter for fear that Baker would hear him. She repeated her name and the command. Molinari had tears in his eyes.

"I'm going to let her in," Daniel said just as Kate Ross, one of Reed, Briggs's in-house investigators, got out of the elevator. Kate walked up to Miranda as she was saying her name for the third time and yanking on the doorknob. Kate took one look at the sign and ripped it, the pencil sharpener, and the bottle cap off of the wall.

"Shit," Joe swore.

Kate said something to the young woman. They looked through the glass and stared coldly at Joe and Daniel. Miranda tapped in her code and opened the door. She flashed the two associates an angry look as she brushed past them.

Kate Ross was twenty-eight, five-foot-seven, and looked fit in tight jeans, an oxford blue shirt, and a navy-blue blazer. Kate stopped in front of the associates and held out the sign, bottle cap, and pencil sharpener. Her dark complexion, large brown eyes, and curly black, shoulder-length hair made Daniel think of those tough Israeli soldiers he'd seen on the evening news. The hard look she cast at Joe and Daniel made him glad that she wasn't carrying an Uzi.

"I believe these are yours."

Joe looked sheepish. Kate turned her attention to Daniel.

"Don't you have better things to do with your time?" she asked sternly.

"Hey, I had nothing to do with this," Daniel answered.

Kate looked skeptical. She dropped the bottle cap, pencil sharpener, and wadded-up sign into a garbage can and walked off.

"What a spoilsport," Molinari said when Kate was out of earshot.

Daniel hurried after Kate and caught up with her just as she was entering an office she shared with another investigator.

"I really didn't have anything to do with that," he said from the doorway.

Kate looked up from her mail. "Why should I care how you preppies amuse yourselves?" she asked angrily.

Daniel reddened. "Don't confuse me with Joe Molinari. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I'm a working stiff, just like you. I didn't like Joe's practical joke any more than you did. I was going to let Miranda in when you showed up."

"It didn't look that way to me," Kate answered defensively.

"Believe what you want to believe, but I don't lie," Daniel said angrily as he turned on his heel and walked down the hall to his office.

Reed, Briggs used a large wood-paneled room on the twenty-ninth floor for important depositions. As Daniel hurried toward it he narrowly missed running into Renee Gilchrist.

" 'Morning, Renee," Daniel said as he stepped aside to let her pass.

Renee took a few steps, then turned around.

"Daniel."

"Yeah?"

"Mr. Briggs thought you did a good job on the Fairweather memo."

"Oh? He didn't say anything to me about it."

"He wouldn't."

The partners never told Daniel what they thought about his work and the only way he could tell if they believed it was any good was by the volume of work they gave him. It dawned on Daniel that Briggs had been loading him up for the past month.

"Thanks for telling me."

Renee smiled. "You'd better get in there. They're about to start the deposition."

At one end of the conference room, a wide picture window offered a view of the Willamette River and, beyond it, Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens. On another wall, a large oil painting of the Columbia Gorge hung over an oak credenza. On the credenza, silver urns filled with coffee and hot water stood next to a matching platter loaded down with croissants and muffins and a bowl filled with fruit.

Dr. Kurt Schroeder, a Geller Pharmaceuticals executive who was about to be deposed, sat at the end of a huge, cherrywood conference table, with his back to the window. Schroeder's thin lips were set in a rigid line and it was obvious that he did not enjoy his position on the hot seat.

To Schroeder's right sat Aaron Flynn and three associates. To Schroeder's left sat Arthur Briggs, a reed-thin, chain-smoker who always seemed to be on edge. Briggs's jet-black hair was swept back revealing a sharp widow's peak and his eyes were always moving as if he expected an attack from behind. In addition to being one of the most feared attorneys in Oregon, Briggs was a mover and shaker of the first magnitude with a heavy hand in politics, civic affairs, and almost every conservative cause of note. Daniel thought that Briggs was probably a sociopath who had channeled his energy into law instead of serial murder.

To Briggs's left was Brock Newbauer, a junior partner with a sunny smile and whitish-blond hair. Brock would never have made the cut at Reed, Briggs if his father's construction company had not been one of the firm's biggest clients.

Daniel took the chair next to Susan Webster. Arthur Briggs shot him an annoyed glance, but said nothing. Susan scribbled, You're late, on her notepad and moved it slightly in Daniel's direction.

"Good morning, Dr. Schroeder," Aaron Flynn said with a welcoming smile. Daniel placed a legal pad on the table and started taking notes.

"Good morning," Schroeder answered without returning the smile.

"Why don't we start by having you tell everyone your occupation."

Schroeder cleared his throat. "I'm a board-certified pediatrician by training and am currently a senior vice-president and chief medical adviser to Geller Pharmaceuticals."

"Could you tell us a little bit about your educational background?"

"I graduated from Lehigh University with a chemistry major and biology minor. My medical degree is from Oregon Health Sciences University."

"What did you do after medical school?"

"I had an internship in pediatrics at the State University of New York, Kings County Hospital Center, in Brooklyn. Then I was assistant chief resident at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as a pediatric resident."

"What did you do after your residency?"

"I spent several years in private practice in Oregon before joining Geller Pharmaceuticals."

"When you joined Geller did it have any particular focus on pediatric drugs?"

"Yes, it did."

"Could you describe for us your job history after joining Geller?"

"I began in the clinical research and development division and rose through the ranks in various different positions of responsibility until I was appointed vice-president for medical affairs and later was promoted to senior vice-president. For the past eight years I've had responsibility for the development of, and gaining approval for, products we've discovered."

"And that would include Insufort?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. Now, Dr. Schroeder, I'd like to discuss with you the normal process for drug development and marketing and just sort of walk through the steps so that I'll have an understanding of what's involved in bringing a drug onto the market. And am I correct that the first step is identifying something that might have some pharmacological value?"

"Yes."

"And then you conduct preclinical studies, studies that are not done with humans."

"Yes."

"And the preclinical studies involve animals."

"Not necessarily. Prior to animal studies, you might conduct studies in tissues or cells. Maybe you would do a computer simulation."

"Okay, but at some point you get to the stage where you do what are called preclinical studies to assess both safety and effectiveness?"

"Yes."

"And when you do preclinical studies, the results of those studies are submitted to the Federal Drug Administration, or FDA, for review in what's called an investigational new drug application or IND, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"What is an IND?"

"It's a request for an exemption from the regulations which preclude physicians or companies from giving a substance which has not been approved by the FDA to humans in a clinical situation. If the FDA approves the IND, you are permitted to conduct clinical studies of the drug with humans."

"Can I assume that you, as chief medical adviser to Geller Pharmaceuticals, were familiar with the results of the preclinical and clinical studies conducted to determine if Insufort was a safe and effective product?"

"Well, I certainly reviewed the studies."

Flynn smiled at Schroeder. "Can I take it that is a yes?"

"Objection," Briggs said, asserting himself for the first time. "Dr. Schroeder did not say that he read each and every study and all of the documents involved."

"That's true," Schroeder said.

"Well, Geller Pharmaceuticals conducted extensive preclinical rodent studies, did it not?"

"Yes."

"You were aware of the results?"

"Yes."

"And there were studies of primates, pregnant monkeys?"

"Yes."

"And you were aware of those results?"

"Yes, I was."

"And there were phase-one clinical studies of human beings?"

"Yes."

"And you know about those results?"

"Yes."

"Tell me, Dr. Schroeder, did any of the clinical or preclinical studies show that Insufort can cause birth defects?"

"No, sir. They did not."

Flynn looked surprised. "None of them?" he asked.

"None of them."

Flynn turned to the young woman on his right. She handed him a one-page document. He scanned it for a moment, then returned his attention to Dr. Schroeder.

"What about the study conducted by Dr. Sergey Kaidanov?" Flynn asked.

Schroeder looked puzzled.

"Do you have a scientist in your employ named Dr. Sergey Kaidanov?"

"Dr. Kaidanov? Yes, he works for the company."

"In research and development?"

"I believe so."

Flynn nodded and the associate to his right pushed copies of the document that Flynn was holding across the conference table as Flynn handed a copy to the witness.

"I'd like this marked Plaintiff's Exhibit 234. I've given copies to counsel and Dr. Schroeder."

"Where did you get this?" Briggs demanded as soon as he'd skimmed the page.

Flynn smiled and gestured toward Daniel.

"I received it as part of the discovery that young man over there delivered to my office a few days ago."

Every eye in the room focused on Daniel, but he did not notice because he was reading Plaintiff's Exhibit 234, which appeared to be a cover letter for a report that Dr. Sergey Kaidanov had sent to George Fournet, the in-house counsel for Geller Pharmaceuticals.

Dear Mr. Fournet,

I have great concerns about thalglitazone (trade name, Insufort) based on the results emerging from our congenital anomaly study in pregnant primates. We have to date studied the effects of an oral dose of one hundred micrograms per kilogram, given for ten days beginning on the thirtieth day of conception, on the fetus in forty pregnant rhesus monkeys. The early results are striking-eighteen of the forty neonate primates (45 percent) were born with maxillofacial abnormalities, in some cases severe, the most severe being complete cleft lip and palate. It is unclear to me how this could have been missed in the rodent studies, but as we all know this does happen from time to time.

The purpose of this letter and the enclosed preliminary results is to alert you to my findings, as I believe it will have important implications for our current phase II and III studies in human beings. I will forward a detailed anatomical and biochemical analysis when my study is completed.

Daniel was stunned. Kaidanov's letter was the smoking gun that could destroy Geller Pharmaceuticals' case, and Aaron Flynn had just told Arthur Briggs that Daniel had placed the lethal weapon in his hands.

Chapter Six.

While Daniel read the letter in shocked silence, Susan Webster's fingers flew across the keys of her laptop.

"I have a few questions about this document, Dr. Schroeder," Aaron Flynn said in a cordial tone.

Susan slipped beside Arthur Briggs and gestured at a case she had called up on her computer. She whispered hurriedly in his ear and Briggs shouted, "Objection! This is a confidential communication between Dr. Kaidanov and his attorney that has been inadvertently turned over to you. You had an ethical obligation to refrain from reading the letter once you saw that it was an attorney/client communication."

Flynn chuckled. "Arthur, this is a report of the results of a preclincal test on rhesus monkeys. Your client, probably at your suggestion, has been instructing its scientists to send all their test results to in-house counsel, so you can raise this silly objection to our discovery requests, but it's too transparent to take seriously."

"You'll take this damn seriously when I report you to the bar disciplinary committee."

Flynn smiled. "Take any steps you think you must, Arthur."

Flynn nodded and one of his associates sped several copies of a legal document across the polished wood table.

"I want the record to reflect that I have just served Dr. Schroeder and his counsel a request for production of Dr. Kaidanov's study and all supporting documentation, as well as a notice of deposition for Dr. Kaidanov and Mr. Fournet."

Flynn turned back to the witness. "Now, Dr. Schroeder, I'd like to ask you a few questions about the Kaidanov study."

"Don't you say a thing," Briggs shouted at the witness.

"Arthur, Dr. Schroeder is under oath and we're in the middle of his deposition."

Flynn's tone was calm and condescending, and it raised Briggs's blood pressure another notch.

"I want Judge Norris on the phone." A blood vessel in Briggs's temple looked like it was about to burst. "I want a ruling on this before I'll let Dr. Schroeder give you the time of day."

Flynn shrugged. "Call the judge."

Daniel barely heard what Briggs and Flynn said. All he could think about was the steps he'd taken when he reviewed the discovery. How could he have missed Kaidanov's letter? He had skim-read many of the documents, but he was specifically looking for privileged information. A letter to an attorney would have raised a red flag. It didn't seem possible that it could slip by, but it had. Daniel was devastated. No one was perfect, but to be responsible for an error of these proportions . . .

As soon as Judge Norris was connected to the conference room, Flynn and Briggs took turns explaining the legal arguments supporting their position in the Kaidanov matter. The judge was too busy to deal with a matter of this complexity over the phone. He told the attorneys to stop questioning Schroeder until he ruled and he ordered Briggs and Flynn to submit briefs on their positions by the end of the week.

As soon as Flynn and his minions cleared the conference room, Briggs waved Kaidanov's letter in Schroeder's face.

"What is this, Kurt?"

"I've got no idea, Arthur." The Geller executive looked as upset as his attorney. "I've never seen the damn thing in my life."

"But you know this guy Kaidanov?"

"I know who he is. He works in R and D. I don't know him personally."

"And he's working with these monkeys?"

"No. Not to my knowledge."

"What does `not to my knowledge' mean? You're not holding out on me, are you? This letter could cost your company millions, if you're lucky, and it could sink Geller if you're not."

Schroeder was sweating. "I swear, Arthur, I've never heard of a single study that we've conducted that came back with results like these. What kind of company do you think we run? If I got wind of a study of Insufort with those results, do you think I'd okay human trials?"

"I want to speak to Kaidanov and Fournet immediately, this afternoon," Briggs said.

"I'll phone my office and set it up."

When Schroeder walked over to the credenza and punched in the number of his office, Briggs turned toward Daniel, who had tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Briggs held out his copy of the Kaidanov letter, which had sustained serious damage.

"Explain this, Ames," he demanded in a soft tone that was more frightening than the screams he'd expected.

"I . . . uh, Mr. Briggs . . . I've never seen it."

"Never seen it," Briggs repeated. "Was Flynn lying when he said that you gave it to him?"

Daniel glanced at Susan. She averted her eyes, but her body language revealed her anxiety. Daniel looked back at Briggs.

"Well?" Briggs asked, his voice slightly louder.

"He didn't mean that literally, Mr. Briggs. I was told to review five large boxes of documents that Geller produced in response to a demand for discovery." Daniel was the only one who saw Susan release her pent-up breath. "I was told to deliver the discovery first thing in the morning, eightA.M. I didn't see the boxes until eight the night before. There were roughly twenty thousand pages. I stayed at the office all evening. I even slept here. There were too many pages for me to review every one of them in that time."

"And that's your excuse?"

"It's not an excuse. Nobody could have gone through every page in those boxes in the time I had."

"You're not a `nobody,' Ames. You're a Reed, Briggs associate. If we wanted nobodies we'd pay minimum wage and hire graduates of unaccredited, correspondence law schools."

"Mr. Briggs. I'm sorry, but-"

"My secretary will set up the meetings," Schroeder said as he hung up the phone. To Daniel's great relief, Schroeder's statement distracted Briggs.

Schroeder reread Kaidanov's letter. When he was done he held it up. He looked grim.

"I think this is a fraud. We never conducted a study with these results," he declared emphatically. "I'm certain of it."

"You'd better be right," Briggs said. "If Judge Norris rules that this letter is admissible in court, and we can't prove it's a fake, you, and everyone else at Geller Pharmaceuticals, will be selling pencils on street corners."

Briggs started to lead Newbauer and Schroeder out of the room. Daniel hung back, hoping to escape Briggs's notice, but the senior partner stopped at the door and cast a scathing look at him.

"I'll talk with you, later," Briggs said.

The door closed and Daniel was left alone in the conference room.

Chapter Seven.

Daniel spent the afternoon waiting for the ax to fall. Around two, he dialed Susan's extension to find out what was going on, but her secretary told him that she was at Geller Pharmaceuticals with Arthur Briggs. An hour later, when he realized that he'd never get any work done, Daniel went home to his one-bedroom walk-up on the third floor of an old brick apartment house in northwest Portland. His place was small and sparsely furnished with things Daniel had transported from his law-school apartment in Eugene. Its most attractive feature was its location near Northwest Twenty-first and Twenty-third streets with their restaurants, shops, and crowds. But today the apartment could have been in the heart of Paris and Daniel would not have noticed. Arthur Briggs was going to fire him. He was sure of it. Everything he had worked for was going to be destroyed because of a single sheet of paper.

Something else troubled Daniel. He had been so worried about being fired that it was not until he was in bed, eyes closed, that the true importance of Dr. Sergey Kaidanov's letter dawned on him. Until he read the letter, Daniel had been convinced that there was no merit to the lawsuit Aaron Flynn had brought on behalf of Toby Moffitt, Patrick Cummings, and the other children allegedly affected by Insufort. What if he was wrong? What if Geller Pharmaceuticals knew that it was selling a product that could deform innocent babies? Daniel was part of a team representing Geller. If the company was knowingly responsible for the horror that had been visited upon Patrick Cummings and Daniel continued to defend Geller, he would be aiding and abetting a terrible enterprise.

Daniel tossed and turned all night and was exhausted when his alarm went off. By the time he arrived at Reed, Briggs the next morning, he was certain that everyone in the firm knew about his blunder. Daniel managed to get from the elevator to his office without meeting anyone, but he was barely settled behind his desk when Joe Molinari walked in and his day started to go downhill.

"What the fuck did you do?" Molinari asked in a hushed voice as soon as he shut the door.

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked nervously.

"The word is that Briggs has a hair up his ass the size of a redwood and you put it there."

"Shit."

"So it's true."

Daniel felt utterly defeated.

"What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Look, compadre, I'm here for you."

"I appreciate the support. I'd just rather be alone now."

"Okay," Molinari said reluctantly. He stood up. "Just remember what I said. If there's something I can do, ask."

Molinari left. Daniel felt exhausted and the day had just started. It suddenly dawned on him that he had never gotten around to discussing with Susan her role in the discovery fiasco. If Susan went to Briggs and told him that she was partly to blame, it might help, and from what Molinari said, he could use all the help he could get. Daniel walked down the hall to Susan's office. She was wearing a cream-colored blouse and a gray pantsuit and looked as fresh and untroubled as a woman who had slept for twenty-four hours.

"Susan?"

"Oh, hi," she answered with a smile.

"Got a minute?"

Daniel started toward a chair.

"Actually, I don't." Daniel stopped in his tracks. "Arthur needs this yesterday."

"We really have to talk."

"Now is not a good time," she said firmly. Her smile was starting to look a little strained.

"I was hoping that you'd tell Arthur that you were supposed to review the discovery and that I helped you out."

Susan looked surprised, as if the idea had never occurred to her.

"Why would I do that?"

"So he'd know how big the job was and that I didn't get started until the last minute," Daniel answered, trying to rein in his temper.

"Even if I was supposed to review the discovery, you're the one who did," Susan answered defensively. "If I tell Arthur, it won't help. All that will accomplish is getting me in trouble, too."

"If Briggs knew that we were both to blame it would take some of the pressure off of me."

Susan looked nervous. " Ididn't go through the discovery. You're the one who missed that letter."

"You'd have missed it, too. Briggs would have missed it."

"You're right," Susan agreed quickly. "Look, you'll be okay. Arthur gets angry easily, but he'll be distracted by this mess and forget you delivered the letter."

"Fat chance."

"Or he'll see that you're right. That the letter was a needle in a haystack that no one could have found unless they were incredibly lucky. You don't have to worry."

"You're the one who doesn't have to worry," Daniel said with a trace of bitterness. "He'd never fire you."

Susan looked very uncomfortable. "I really do have to finish this assignment. It's research on the admissibility of Kaidanov's letter. Can we talk about this later?"

"When, after I'm unemployed?" Daniel shot back.

"I mean it, Daniel. I'll buzz you as soon as I get some free time."

_ _ _

Daniel could not concentrate on the pleading he was drafting because his thoughts kept drifting to the Insufort case. He could not believe that Geller Pharmaceuticals would intentionally sell a product that produced the horrible results he'd seen in Aaron Flynn's office. He had met many of the Geller executives. They weren't monsters. The results that Sergey Kaidanov wrote about had to be an anomaly.

Daniel set aside the pleading and opened a large folder that held all of the Insufort studies. He started with the earliest and worked his way through them looking for anything that would help. By the time he had finished his review it was almost one. Daniel suddenly remembered Susan's promise to call him when she was through with her work. He dialed Susan's extension and her secretary told him that she had left for the day. Daniel wasn't surprised. Deep down he knew that Susan was not going to help him. If he wanted to stay at Reed, Briggs, he was going to have to save himself, but how?

Suddenly he laughed. The answer was obvious. Sergey Kaidanov wrote the report that was about to torpedo Geller's defense. Kaidanov's study had to be flawed. If he could find out why Kaidanov had erred he would save the litigation and, maybe, his job.

Daniel dialed Geller Pharmaceuticals and was connected to the receptionist in research and development.

"Dr. Kaidanov isn't in," she told him.

"When will he be in?"

"I couldn't say."

"I'm an attorney at Reed, Briggs, Stephens, Stottlemeyer and Compton, the law firm that represents Geller Pharmaceuticals, and I need to speak with Dr. Kaidanov about a matter of importance to a suit that was brought against your company."

"I'm supposed to refer all inquiries about Dr. Kaidanov to Dr. Schroeder. May I transfer you to his office?"

"I don't want to bother Dr. Schroeder. I know how busy he is. I'd rather just speak to Dr. Kaidanov myself."

"Well, you can't. He's not in and he hasn't been in for more than a week."

"Is he on vacation?"

"I don't have that information. You'll have to talk to Dr. Schroeder. Do you want me to connect you?"

"Uh, no. That's okay. Thanks."

Daniel dialed information and discovered that Sergey Kaidanov had an unlisted phone number. He thought for a moment then phoned personnel at Geller Pharmaceuticals.

"I need an address and phone number for Dr. Sergey Kaidanov," he said to the clerk who answered. "He works in research and development."

"I can't give out that information over the phone."

Daniel was desperate. He had to get to Kaidanov.

"Listen," he said forcefully, "this is George Fournet in legal. We just received a subpoena for Kaidanov. He's out of the office and I've got to get in touch with him ASAP. If he doesn't show up for his deposition we're going to be held in contempt by the judge. I have a messenger waiting to hand-deliver the subpoena, but he's all dressed up with no place to go."

"I'm not sure . . ."

"What's your name?"

"Bea Twiley."

"Did you get mine, Ms. Twiley; George Fournet? I am the head of the legal department and I don't waste my time on frivolous calls. Do you want to go to court and explain to United States District Court Judge Ivan Norris why you're there instead of Dr. Kaidanov?"

Chapter Eight.

It was a little after three when Daniel found Sergey Kaidanov's drab, gray bungalow in a run-down neighborhood on the east side of the Willamette. The paint was peeling and the front lawn had not been mowed in a while. It was not the type of home in which Daniel expected to find a research scientist who worked for a prosperous pharmaceutical company.

The weather had turned nasty and there was no one on the street. Daniel parked down the block and watched the house. The shades in the front windows were drawn and the old newspapers lying on the lawn told Daniel that no one was home. He hunched his shoulders to ward off the wind and shivered as he walked up the path to Kaidanov's front door. After ringing the bell three times, he gave up. Daniel raised the metal flap of the mail slot and peeked inside the house. Mail was scattered across the floor.

Daniel followed a slate path that ran along the side of the bungalow to the back of the house. A low chain-link fence ran around the edge of a small, unkempt yard. Daniel opened the gate and went to the back door. The shades on the kitchen window were drawn. He knocked a few times, then tried the knob. The door opened. Daniel was about to call out Kaidanov's name when he saw the chaos in the kitchen. Cabinets and drawers were open and their contents littered the floor. Daniel took a slow survey of the room. There was a layer of dust on the counters. The sink was full of dirty dishes. Daniel stepped gingerly over broken glass and shattered plates and opened the refrigerator. He was hit by the sour smell of decay. Greenish-gray mold covered a piece of cheese. Daniel uncapped a bottle of spoiled milk and wrinkled his nose.

A small living room opened off of the kitchen. Except for an expensive stereo that had been ripped out of its cabinet, most of the other furnishings looked secondhand. CDs were strewn around the floor. Daniel saw a lot of classical music and some jazz.

A bookshelf took up one wall, but the books it used to hold had been thrown around the room. Many of the books were about scientific subjects like chemistry and microbiology. Daniel spotted a few popular novels and several books on gambling and mathematics.

The contents of a liquor cabinet were lying among the books and CDs on the hardwood floor. Most of the bottles contained Scotch and many of them were empty. On top of the liquor cabinet was more dust and a framed photograph of a slightly overweight man in his early forties dressed in sports clothes. Standing next to him was an attractive woman in a revealing sundress. They were smiling at the camera. The picture looked like it had been taken in front of a Las Vegas casino.

Daniel turned slowly, taking in the room again. This couldn't be a coincidence. Kaidanov's disappearance, the search of his home, and the primate study had to be connected.

A short hall led to the bedroom. Daniel edged into it, half expecting to find a mutilated corpse. Blankets and sheets were heaped on the floor, the mattress of a queen-size bed had been dislodged, drawers in a chest had been pulled out, and shirts, underwear, and socks had been strewn around the room. The doors to a clothes closet were open and it had obviously been searched.

Across the hall was a small office. More books had been pulled out of a bookshelf, but Daniel's attention was drawn to a monitor on Kaidanov's desktop. It looked odd sitting where it was supposed to be when everything else in the room had been tossed about. Daniel sat down and turned on the computer. As soon as it booted up, he tried to gain entry, but he needed a password. If Kaidanov had information about his study in the house it would be on his computer, but how could he access it?

Daniel turned off the computer and pulled the CPU tower out from under Kaidanov's desk. Using the screwdriver on his Swiss army knife, Daniel removed the sheet-metal cover of the computer's case, popped the cover, and pulled it off. He placed the computer on its side so he could see the motherboard, which held all of its electronics. Next to the motherboard was the hard-drive bay, a rack that held the hard drive in the computer. The hard drive was connected to the motherboard by a ribbon cable and a power cable. Daniel unplugged the cables from their connectors and unscrewed two more screws on the bay. He then flipped the CPU tower upright and took out two more screws on the other side. When all the screws were out Daniel gently slid the hard drive out of its bay. It consisted of a green circuit board encased in heavy black metal and was about the size of a paperback book. Daniel wrapped it in his handkerchief and placed it in his jacket pocket.

Daniel put the CPU tower back together and was sliding it under the desk when he froze at the distinctive sound of a bottle rolling across a wood floor. Daniel remembered that the liquor bottles were in the living room, which meant that he was trapped, because he would have to go through the living room to get out the front or back doors.

A shadow appeared on the corridor wall. Daniel could make out the bill of a baseball cap, but the shadow was too indistinct to tell him much more. He edged the door almost shut. The shadow flowed toward him along the wall. Daniel held his breath. If the intruder went into the bedroom he-Daniel-might be able to slip down the hall. If he went into the office first . . . Daniel opened the large blade on his knife.

Through the narrow gap in the door Daniel saw a figure in jeans and a leather jacket stop between the two rooms, facing away from him. The intruder hesitated, then the office door slammed into Daniel with enough force to stun him. Before he could recover, his wrist was bent back and his feet were kicked out from under him. The knife flew from his grasp.

Daniel crashed to the floor and lashed out with a punch that brought a gasp from his attacker. The grip on his arm loosened and he broke it, then struggled to his knees. A knee smashed into his face. Daniel grabbed his attacker's leg, surged to his feet, and twisted. His assailant went down with Daniel on top, his head pressed against the leather jacket. A blow glanced off Daniel's ear. He worked himself into a position to punch back, then reared up. As soon as he saw his attacker's face he checked his punch and gaped in astonishment.

"Kate?"

Kate Ross stared at Daniel. If she was relieved to discover that her foe was not a psychopath, she didn't show it.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded angrily.

"I could ask you the same question," Daniel snapped.

"I'm working on a case for Arthur Briggs."

"If you're looking for Kaidanov he's not here."

Kate hit Daniel in the shoulder, none too gently.

"Get off me."

Daniel stood up and Kate got to her feet.

"How did you know I was behind the door?" he asked.

"I saw you push it shut."

"Oh."

"Did you make this mess?" Kate asked as she surveyed the chaos in the office.

"It was like this when I got here."

Kate walked into the hall and stared into the bedroom. Then she said, "Let's get out of here before someone calls 911."

_ _ _

Kate and Daniel agreed to meet downtown at the Starbucks on Pioneer Square, an open, brick-paved block in the center of the city. Daniel parked and found a table next to a window. When Kate walked in he was nursing a cup of coffee and watching a group of teenage boys, oblivious to the cold, playing hacky-sack in the square.

"I got this for you," Daniel said, pointing to a cup of coffee he'd put at Kate's place.

"You want to explain the B and E?" Kate asked without looking at Daniel's peace offering.

"Yeah, right after you explain the assault and battery," Daniel answered, peeved by Kate's offhand manner.

"When someone pulls a knife on you it's called self-defense, not assault."

Daniel flexed his still aching wrist. "Where did you learn that judo stuff?"

"I was a Portland cop before I went to work for Reed, Briggs." Daniel's eyebrows went up in surprise. "I still know the person who's in charge of burglary. Right now I'm undecided about whether to call him."

"Why, are you going to turn yourself in? I didn't hear anyone invite you into Kaidanov's house."

"Nice try, but Geller Pharmaceuticals is a Reed, Briggs client. Kurt Schroeder authorized the entry to look for Geller's property. So, let's start over. What were you doing at Kaidanov's house?"

"Did you hear what happened at the deposition in the Geller case?" Daniel asked with a mixture of nervousness and embarrassment.

"Dan, everyone in the firm knows about your screwup. It was the main topic of conversation yesterday."

"Do you know exactly what happened, why I'm in trouble?"

Kate shook her head. "I heard something about a document that you turned over to Aaron Flynn, but I don't know the details."

"Are you familiar with the Insufort litigation?"

"Only a little. I told Briggs that I wouldn't work on it."

"Why?"

Kate's tough demeanor cracked for a second. "My sister's kid was born with birth defects. She and her husband have gone through hell caring for her."

Kate took a sip of coffee. When she looked up she had regained her composure.

"Do you mind if I give you some background on the case?" Daniel asked.

"Go ahead."

"Insulin is a protein hormone secreted by the pancreas that helps the body use sugar in the form of glucose. Insulin becomes less effective in metabolizing glucose during pregnancy, which can cause some pregnant women to become diabetic. Insulin resistance during pregnancy must be treated because high sugar levels are toxic to a fetus and can cause birth defects. Geller Pharmaceuticals addressed the problem of insulin resistance during pregnancy by developing thalglitazone, which has the trade name Insufort. Insufort reverses the body's insulin resistance and prevents diabetes and its complications."

"But there are problems, right? Birth defects?" Kate said. "And isn't there a connection between Insufort and the Thalidomide scare from the late 1950s?"

"Yes and no. One tabloid called Insufort the `Son of Thalidomide,' and there is a connection. A drug called troglitazone helped pregnant women solve the insulin resistance problem, but it also may have caused liver failure. Geller's scientists combined a glitazone with the thalido ring from Thalidomide and created a harmless product that helps pregnant women overcome diabetes during pregnancy."

"So why are women who take the pill giving birth to deformed babies?"

"It's either a compliance problem or coincidence."

Kate looked at him with disgust.

"No, it's true," Daniel insisted. "Many of the women who claim that Insufort caused their child's birth defect probably didn't take the pill as prescribed. Maybe they took it occasionally or irregularly or only a few times and their glucose rose to dangerous levels."

"So we're blaming the victim."

"Look, Kate, most women give birth to healthy babies, but some women give birth to babies who have problems. Sometimes we know why. Some anticonvulsant drugs cause cleft palate. Babies of older mothers are more prone to have birth defects. Maternal infections can also cause them. Then there's alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. But the causes of most birth defects are medical mysteries. The difficulty is that Americans have been taught that there is an answer to every problem." Daniel leaned forward and looked at Kate. "Americans can't accept the fact that shit happens. You get cancer, so you blame overhead power lines; you run someone over, so you blame your car. Are you familiar with the Bendictin cases?"

Kate shook her head.

" `Morning sickness' is a problem for many pregnant women. For most it's unpleasant, but it can be deadly. You've heard of Charlotte Bronte?"

"The author of Jane Eyre ."

Daniel nodded. "Hyperemesis gravida-`morning sickness'-killed her. In 1956, the FDA approved Bendictin, which was developed by Merrill Pharmaceuticals as a therapy for women with severe morning sickness. In 1979, the National Enquirer announced that Bendictin was the cause of thousands of defects in infants.

"The best way to determine if there is a cause-and-effect relationship between a drug and a problem is to conduct an epidemiological study. If a control group that hasn't taken the product has as many, or more, problems as the group that's taken the drug, you can conclude that there's probably not a casual connection between the drug and the problem. All of the epidemiological studies of Bendictin concluded that there was no statistical difference in the incidence of births of babies with defects in the two groups. That didn't stop lawyers from convincing women to sue."

"The plaintiffs' attorneys must have had some evidence of a causal connection between the drug and the defects."

"They used experts who altered the results of studies or conducted studies without proper controls or inaccurately reported doses. The plaintiffs lost almost every case because they couldn't show that Bendictin was to blame for any defects, but it cost Merrill Pharmaceuticals a hundred million dollars to defend all of the cases. In the end, a perfectly safe product was taken off the market because of all the bad publicity and other drug companies were scared to produce a drug that would help women counteract morning sickness. In 1990, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported a twofold increase in hospitalizations caused by severe nausea and vomiting in pregnancy since the disappearance of Bendictin. So who suffered? Only the innocent."

"Did all of the Insufort studies show that it's safe?" Kate asked.

"All but one," Daniel answered hesitantly.

Kate cocked her head to one side and watched Daniel carefully as she waited for him to continue.

"I'm in trouble because I missed a letter from Dr. Sergey Kaidanov when I reviewed some discovery that was turned over to Aaron Flynn. The letter discusses a primate study involving Insufort."

"And?"

A vision of Patrick Cummings flashed through Daniel's mind.

"The study showed a high incidence of birth defects in rhesus monkeys that had been given the drug during pregnancy," he answered quietly.

"Did Geller tell you about this study before the deposition?"

"No. Geller's chief medical adviser swears that he's never heard of it."

"I see." Kate sounded skeptical.

"The Kaidanov letter doesn't make sense, Kate. The percentage of defects was very high, in the forty-percent range. It's so out of line with the other study results that there's got to be something wrong."

"Maybe there's something wrong with Geller's other studies."

"No, I've never seen any evidence in any study of a link between Insufort and birth defects."

"Maybe you've never seen any evidence because Geller is hiding it. Remember the asbestos cases? The asbestos industry covered up studies that showed increased cancer in animals. It wasn't until a lawsuit was brought that it came out that they'd known about the problem for decades. The lead-paint industry continued to defend its product even though lead poisoning was one of the most common health problems in children under six and there was scientific documentation of the dangers of lead poisoning as early as 1897. And let's not forget the tobacco industry."

"Jesus, Kate, whose side are you on? Geller is our client."

"Our client is in the drug business to make a buck and it wouldn't surprise me if Geller covered up the Kaidanov study if the results are as devastating as you say they are. Do you think Geller markets Insufort to help women? Companies whose executives are men make a lot of these defective products that are used by women. There's Thalidomide, DES-the synthetic estrogen that was supposed to prevent miscarriages and caused vaginal cancer-and the Dalkon Shield."

"Plaintiffs' attorneys play on this sympathy for women to gouge money out of corporations with frivolous lawsuits so they can rake in millions," Daniel answered angrily. "They don't care about their clients or whether they really have a case. The Bendictin lawyers were hoping that jurors would be so appalled by the birth defects they saw that they'd forget that there was no evidence that Bendictin caused them. The breast implant cases used sympathy for women to sway public opinion even though there's no evidence of a connection between defects in silicone gel implants and connective tissue diseases like systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis."

Kate looked fed up. "I have a good friend who's sterile because she used the Dalkon Shield. I worked on her lawsuit and I learned a lot about the way corporate America works. By the time the public discovers that a product is defective, the company has made so much money it can afford to buy off the victims. Tobacco is so flush it can make multibillion-dollar settlements and still keep trucking.

"And don't come down so hard on plaintiffs' attorneys. They can make millions when they win a case, but they don't make a penny if they lose."

"You think Aaron Flynn is a humanitarian?" Daniel asked, but his heart was not completely in tune with his words. As he spoke them he remembered Flynn ruffling Patrick Cummings's hair.

"Who else is going to represent the poor?" Kate asked. " 'Cause it sure ain't Reed, Briggs. If lawyers like Flynn didn't take cases for a contingent fee no one but the rich could afford to sue. And they risk their own money on expenses, which they don't recover if they don't win. A good, decent lawyer can lose everything if he doesn't prevail. The lawyer who sued when my friend became sterile did it to pressure the company into taking a dangerous device off of the market. He cared about Jill. If Insufort is disfiguring children the only way to make Geller stop marketing it is to expose the problem, and one of the best ways to do that is in the courts."

Daniel expelled the breath he'd been holding.

"You're right. Sorry. I'm just scared that I'm gonna lose my job because I missed that damn letter. And I'm certain there's something wrong with Kaidanov's study. It doesn't make sense that he could get those results with Insufort. That's why I was trying to find him. You know he hasn't been at work for a while?"

Kate nodded.

"When I went to Kaidanov's house I didn't plan on going in, but I saw that the house had been searched and I thought he might be hurt or worse. And I did find something that might help."

Daniel pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and laid the hard drive on the table. Kate stared at it.

"If the study exists, and Kaidanov wrote up his results, it may be on here."

Kate laughed. "You stole Kaidanov's hard drive?"

"I didn't steal it. I was trying to protect Geller. Isn't that why you were there, to protect Geller's property?"

Kate hesitated and Daniel remembered something about her.

"Wait a minute. Aren't you the investigator who got into the hard drive in that wrongful termination case when we needed to recover E-mail that an employee erased?"

Kate smiled ever so slightly.

"Could you look at this? I tried at Kaidanov's house, but you need a password to log on."

"Why should I?"

"I told you before that I wasn't born with a silver spoon like Joe Molinari. Well, the truth is that I wasn't born with any kind of spoon. This job is all I've got. Briggs will need a scapegoat if Kaidanov's letter sinks the Insufort case, and I'm it. I know there's something wrong with Kaidanov's study. If I can prove it I can save the case, and I might save my job."

"What if the study is the real thing?"

Daniel sighed and shook his head. "Then I'm toast."

Kate made a decision. She held out her hand.

"Give me that," she said, flicking her fingers toward the hard drive. "We'll take it to my house and see what we can see."

Chapter Nine.

Daniel followed Kate Ross into the West Hills along winding roads. At first, the streets were lined with houses, then forest began to predominate and the houses appeared farther apart. Kate lived at the end of a cul-de-sac separated from her neighbors on either side by a quarter acre of woods. Her modern glass-and-steel ranch perched on a hill overlooking downtown Portland.

Daniel followed Kate along a slate path through a small flower garden to the front door. A staircase next to the entryway led up to Kate's bedroom. She walked past it and through a living-room and dining-room area. The outer wall was all glass. Daniel glanced quickly at her expensive-looking furnishings. The abstract painting on the living-room wall was an original oil, and so was a smaller French country landscape. The chairs and sofa were covered in leather and the dining-room table was polished oak and looked antique.

Kate walked down another staircase across from the kitchen to a workroom lit by fluorescent lights. Scattered around the basement room were several workbenches covered with monitors, wires, motherboards, and computer innards. A desk was affixed to one wall and ran its length. Over the desk was a bookshelf filled with computer manuals and books on computer science and other scientific subjects.

"Do you run a computer repair business in your spare time?" Daniel joked.

"Something like that," Kate replied as she removed Kaidanov's hard drive from her jacket pocket. She tossed the jacket over a chair, brushed her hair back, and seated herself at the wall-length desk. In front of her was a removable hard-drive rack into which Kate inserted Kaidanov's hard drive before snapping the rack into one of her computers.

"How are you going to get around the password?" Daniel asked nervously.

"No problem. I've written some software that has yet to meet a password it couldn't break."

"Where did you learn to do that?"

"Cal Tech."

Kate saw Daniel's eyes widen. She laughed.

"I was recruited into the computer crimes unit of the Portland Police Bureau out of college. It seemed a hell of a lot more exciting than sitting on my ass in some high-tech company. Now I do my own thing on the side. It pays well."

Kate turned back to the monitor and started tapping in commands on her keyboard. A minute later she smiled and shook her head.

"It's amazing. They all do this. I would have expected more from a scientist. His password's six numbers-probably his birthday."

"You're in?"

She nodded. "First thing I'm gonna do is make a magnetic copy of this little devil, just in case something goes wrong."

Kate's fingers flashed across the keyboard and lines of text began to appear on the screen.

"This should be finished in a minute."

"How come you quit the cops to go to work for Reed, Briggs?" Daniel asked to make conversation.

"That's none of your business, Ames," Kate snapped before swiveling her chair so her back was to him. Daniel was so surprised by her outburst that he was speechless.

"The copy is complete," she said a minute later, all business now. "Let's bring up Kaidanov's files."

Kate tapped in some commands. "The stuff that's still on here isn't about Insufort. If Kaidanov did have files about his monkeys, they've probably been erased."

"Shit."

"Not to worry. Unless special software was used, the files aren't really deleted. They'll still be on the hard drive. I just happen to have written a voodoo program that will raise the dead," Kate said as she tapped the keyboard. More text appeared on the screen. She stood up and waved Daniel in for a closer look.

"There appears to be a big block of files that was erased on March fourth. Sit down at the keyboard and hit `page down' until you find what you want and we'll print it out."

Daniel took Kate's chair and stared at the monitor.

"There's a lot of stuff here."

"Give me some key words. I've got search software installed."

Daniel thought for a moment. "Try Insufort, rhesus monkeys, primates."

Kate leaned over his shoulder and tapped in some commands. Her hair brushed against his cheek. She smelled nice.

Suddenly the letter from Kaidanov to George Fournet appeared on the screen.

"That's it," Daniel said excitedly, but his excitement diminished as he scrolled through the files that followed the letter. When he stopped reading he looked grim.

"What's the matter?" Kate asked.

"Remember I didn't believe what I read in Kaidanov's letter?"

Kate nodded.

"Well, the deleted files are the supporting documents for Kaidanov's study. I've just skimmed them, but they appear to confirm his conclusions about the frequency of birth defects in the monkeys that were given Insufort."

"So the results of the study are real?"

Daniel nodded. "Which means I've just made my situation worse."

"But you may have helped get Insufort off the market."

"At the cost of my job."

"Do you really want to help Geller if it's marketing a product that destroys children's lives."

Daniel didn't answer.

"Here's something else to think about," Kate said. "Who deleted Kaidanov's files and trashed Kaidanov's house? Who wouldn't want Kaidanov's research to be made public?"

Daniel still didn't answer.

"Geller Pharmaceuticals fits that profile."

"I don't know."

"Can you think of anyone else with a motive, Dan?"

"No, you're right. It has to be someone from Geller."

He remembered Patrick Cummings again.

"This is bad."

"And it may be worse. Where do you think Kaidanov is?"

"That's a stretch, Kate. Geller's people are businessmen, not killers." Daniel protested without much conviction.

"Wake up. We're talking about billions of dollars in losses if Geller has to take Insufort off of the market. And don't forget the lawsuit. How much do you think the plaintiffs will recover if Aaron Flynn proves that Geller intentionally marketed a dangerous product? After one successful lawsuit, every woman who's ever had a problem with Insufort will line up at Flynn's door and Geller will be swept away in a tidal wave of litigation."

Kate turned back to the computer and used the search program again while Daniel tried to figure out what he would do next.

"Yes!" Kate exclaimed a moment later as she pointed at the screen.

"Monkeys have to eat. That's an order for a crate of Purina monkey chow and there's an address. That must be the location of the lab."

Kate walked over to another computer. "I can get directions and a map on the Internet."

While she worked Daniel took a closer look at Kaidanov's study. The more he looked the more depressed he felt. Five minutes later Kate showed Daniel a map with directions to the lab from her town house.

"I dug up something else," Kate said. "After I got the map I found the assessment and taxation information on the property. The land is owned by Geller Pharmaceuticals."

Chapter Ten.

Twenty minutes later Daniel was driving in the country on a narrow road with Kate beside him. The sun was setting and they had been quiet since leaving the highway. Kate was staring ahead and Daniel chanced an occasional glance at the investigator. Daniel had consulted with Kate at work a few times and she'd impressed him with her intelligence, but he had not been attracted to her. Now he noticed that she was good-looking in a rugged sort of way. Not model beautiful like Susan Webster, but interesting to look at. And she was certainly intriguing. He didn't know any other woman who wrote voodoo software programs and had been a cop.

"This is it," Kate said.

Daniel turned onto a logging road ignoring a "No Trespassing" sign. The shock absorbers on his secondhand Ford were not in the best of shape and Kate swore a lot after they left the pavement. She was registering another complaint when the road curved and a one-story building appeared. Just as they got out of the car the wind shifted and a strange odor made Kate's nostrils flare.

"What's that smell?" Daniel asked.

"It's a little like barbecue," Kate answered.

Pieces of glass covered the ground under a window that had blown out and the front door was charred and had buckled. Daniel peeked through the window cautiously, then jerked his head back. His face was drained of color.

"What is it?" Kate asked.

"There's a body on the floor. There's no skin. It's like a skeleton."

Kate extended a hand toward the door tentatively, worried that it might be hot. She touched her fingers to the metal. It was cold. Kate pushed and the door swung inward. She looked for a light switch and found one, but it didn't work.

"Do you have a flashlight?" Kate asked. Daniel got one from the car and Kate started inside. He tried to follow, but she stopped him.

"This is a crime scene. Just stay here and keep the door open so I can have a little more light."

Daniel propped open the door but did not go any farther. He was secretly grateful not to have to view the body.

Kate walked slowly toward the room she had seen through the window and stood in the doorway. Part of the roof had collapsed and a ray of fading sunlight illuminated a section of the room. Charred wooden beams had crushed a table and what had once been a video monitor. Near the monitor was a rack of plastic test tubes that had been melted by intense heat.

Kate edged around a burn-scarred desk that was tipped on its side. She noticed another roof beam resting on the top of two filing cabinets whose drawers had all been pulled out. The paint on the cabinets had blistered off. The metal was charred and scarred but intact. A breeze gusted through the broken window and drifted down through the gaps in the roof. It blew blackened scraps of paper around the room. The source of the paper was a pile of ashes in the center of the floor that Kate guessed had once been the contents of the filing cabinets.

Kate's eyes stayed on the pile for a moment more before being drawn, almost against her will, to the two bodies sprawled in the center of the room. One was human, its skull charred and its clothes seared to ash. Kate's stomach heaved, but she closed her eyes for a second and kept it together. When she opened her eyes they shifted to the second corpse. For a moment Kate was confused. The body was too small even for a child, unless it was an extremely young one. She braced herself and stepped closer. That's when she saw the tail. Kate backed out of the room.

"What's in there?" Daniel asked when she stepped outside.

"A human corpse and a dead monkey. I'm going to look down the hall."

"We should get out of here," Daniel said nervously.

"In a minute."

"No one's alive. We would have heard them."

"Just give me a second."

The light from the doorway barely reached the end of the hall, so Kate had to use the flashlight. She spotted two open doors but had no idea what was inside. The smell of burned flesh grew more intense as she neared the rooms. Kate held her breath and cast the beam inside. The first room was filled with cages, each containing a monkey, and every monkey was pressing against the wire mesh as if it had been trying to claw through the wire when it died.

Chapter Eleven.

A uniformed officer was taking Kate and Daniel's statements when an unmarked car parked behind the van from the medical examiner's office. Homicide detective Billie Brewster, a slender black woman in a navy-blue windbreaker and jeans, got out of the car. Her partner, Zeke Forbus, a heavyset white man with thinning brown hair, spotted Kate at the same time she spotted him.

"What's Annie Oakley doing here?" Forbus asked Brewster.

"Shut the fuck up," the black woman snapped angrily at her partner. Then she walked up to Kate and gave her a hug.

"How you doing, Kate?" Brewster asked with genuine concern.

"I'm doing fine, Billie," Kate answered without conviction. "How about you?"

The black woman shot her thumb over her shoulder toward her partner.

"I was doing great until they partnered me up with this redneck."

"Zeke," Kate said with a nod.

"Long time, Kate," Zeke Forbus answered without warmth. Then he turned his back to her and addressed the uniformed officer.

"What have we got here, Ron?"

"Crispy critters," the officer answered with a sly smile. "If you ain't had dinner, I'll get you a bucket of KFM."

"KFM?"

"Kentucky Fried Monkey," the cop answered, cackling at his joke. "We've got a passel of 'em inside."

"Why am I investigating monkey murders?" Forbus asked. "Don't we have animal control for that?"

"One of the crispy critters ain't a monkey, that's why," the uniform answered.

"I understand you called this in," Billie said to Kate. "Why were you out here at night in the middle of nowhere?"

"This is Daniel Ames, an associate at Reed, Briggs, the firm I work for. One of our clients, Geller Pharmaceuticals, is in the middle of a lawsuit over one of its products. Up until last week all of the tests of the product came out favorable to Geller, but a scientist named Sergey Kaidanov reported negative results in a study of rhesus monkeys."

"The same type of monkeys we've got in there?" Billie asked with a nod toward the lab.

"Exactly. Everyone wants to talk to Kaidanov because the study could have a huge impact on the lawsuit, but he disappeared about a week ago."

"Anyone fixed the time of this fire?" Billie asked the uniform.

"Not yet, but it's not recent."

"Go on," Billie told Kate.

"Dan and I went to Kaidanov's house to interview him. He wasn't there, but someone had taken the house apart."

"What's that mean?" Forbus asked.

"Someone searched it and left a mess. We did a little investigating and found an address for the lab. We came out here hoping that we'd find Kaidanov and it looks like we have."

"You think the dead guy is your scientist?"

"I think there's a good chance he is."

"Let's take a look," Billie said to Forbus as she started inside. Kate took a step toward the door, but Forbus held out an arm and barred her way.

"No civilians allowed in the crime scene."

"Oh, for Christ's sake," Billie responded, glaring at her partner.

"Forget it. He's right. I'm not a cop anymore," Kate said, trying to sound unconcerned, but Daniel saw her shoulders slump.

"What was all that about?" Daniel asked as soon as the detectives were out of earshot.

"Old business."

"Thanks for covering for me."

Kate looked puzzled.

"You know, about my breaking into Kaidanov's house."

Kate shrugged. "You didn't think I'd burn you, did you?"

A deputy medical examiner was videotaping the office while a tech from the crime lab snapped 35mm photographs, then digital shots that could be fed into a computer and E-mailed if necessary. Billie took in the scene from the doorway. A corpse lay on its stomach near the center of the room. The flesh on its side and back had been burned off and the heat from the fire had turned the bones grayish blue in color.

"Any ID?" Billie asked the medical examiner.

"Can't even tell the sex," he answered.

"Is it a murder?"

"Best guess, yes. Deutsch says it's definitely arson," he replied, referring to the arson investigator. "And look at the skull."

The detective took a few steps into the room so she could get a better look at the corpse. The back of the skull had shattered. An exiting bullet or a blunt instrument could have caused the damage. She would leave that determination to the ME.

Billie moved nearer to the corpse and squatted. The floor was concrete, so they might get lucky. From other arson murders she had investigated, Billie knew that fragments of clothing and flesh on the front of the body might have escaped the blaze. Where the body pressed against the floor there would be less oxygen for the fire to feed on and some protection for flesh and fibers.

Billie turned her attention to a tiny corpse a few feet from the human. All of its hair and flesh was gone. Its skull had also been shattered. She stared dispassionately at the monkey for a few minutes then stood up.

"If you want to see more monkeys, there are two rooms filled with them down the hall," the medical examiner said.

"I'll pass," Forbus said, stifling a yawn.

Billie wasn't surprised that the bizarre crime scene bored her partner. He was a good old boy hanging on long enough to collect his pension so he could fish 365 days a year. The only time she'd seen him show any interest in a case was last week when they'd investigated a murder at a strip joint. Billie, on the other hand, was fascinated by anything out of the ordinary, and this crime scene was the most unusual she'd encountered in some time.

Billie wandered down the hall. The doors to the monkey rooms were open and Billie stood quietly, surveying the scene. The monkeys had died hard and she pitied the poor bastards. Death by fire was the worst way to go. She shivered and turned away.

Chapter Twelve.

The offices of the Oregon State Medical Examiner were on Knott Street in a two-story, red-brick building that had once been a Scandinavian funeral home. Arbor vitae, split-leaf maples, and a variety of other shrubs partially hid a front porch whose overhang was supported by white pillars. Kate parked in the adjacent lot and walked up the front steps to the porch. Billie Brewster was waiting for her in the reception area.

"Thanks for letting me come," Kate said.

"You're lucky Zeke is still in court. There's no way I could swing this if he was here."

"Like I said, thanks."

Kate followed Billie toward the back of the building. When they entered the autopsy room they found Dr. Sally Grace, an assistant ME, and Dr. Jack Forester, a forensic anthropologist, standing on either side of a gurney that had been wheeled between the two stainless-steel autopsy tables that stood on either side of the room. The body from the primate lab lay on top of the gurney. Just before Billie had left the crime scene, the deputy medical examiner and several firefighters wearing latex gloves had used the few scraps of clothing that had escaped destruction to lift up the corpse and place it in a body bag. The area around the body had been searched for skull fragments and they had been taken to the ME's office along with the body. The corpse of the monkey found in the room with the human remains had also been brought to the ME's office, along with skull fragments found near it. The monkey's corpse was lying on a second gurney.

"Hi, Billie," Dr. Grace said. "You're a little late. We're almost done."

"Sorry, I was tied up in court."

"Who's your friend?" the coroner asked.

Billie made the introductions. "Kate's ex-PPB and an investigator with the Reed, Briggs law firm. The dead man may have been an important witness in a civil case her firm is defending. She's been very helpful."

"Well, the more the merrier," Dr. Grace said cheerfully as she turned back to the corpse.

Forester and Grace were wearing blue, water-impermeable gowns, masks, goggles, and heavy, black rubber aprons. Kate and Brewster donned similar outfits before joining them at the gurney.

"We found out some interesting stuff," Forester said. "The monkey is a rhesus. Most research labs use them. We found some blood and flesh on its teeth and we're going to do a DNA match with the other corpse to see if that's where it came from. The surprise is the way the monkey died."

"Which was?"

"Gunshot," Dr. Grace answered. "We found a shell for a forty-five at the crime scene and the skull reconstruction shows an exit wound."

"Is that how this one got it?" Billie asked, motioning toward the remains on the gurney.

"That was my first thought, what with the skull blown out and all," Dr. Grace answered, "but we have a different cause of death with John Doe."

"Then it's a man?" Kate asked.

"We doped that out pretty easily," Dr. Grace said.

"Men's bones are larger because of the greater muscle attachment," Forester said, "so we either had an average- to below-average size male or a woman who pumped iron."

Forester pointed at the skeleton's crotch. All of the flesh had been burned from the bones in this area.

"The human pelvis provides the most reliable means of determining the sex of skeletal remains. The female pelvis is designed to offer optimal space for the birth canal and has a notch in it. A male pelvis is curved. This is definitely the pelvis of a male."

"And there were no ovaries and no uterus," Dr. Grace added with a smile. "That was a big clue."

Billie laughed. "So, how was John Doe killed?"

"First, you need to know that he was dead before he was set on fire," the ME said. "There was still some blood in his heart. It was deep purple instead of red or pink, so I guessed that carbon monoxide was not present. The test confirmed my guess. If he was alive when he burned I would have found carbon monoxide in his blood.

"His airways were also free of soot, which he would have breathed in if he was breathing when the fire started."

Dr. Grace bent over the corpse. "See these marks?" she asked, pointing to several notches that scarred one of the ribs. "They were made by a knife. The rib is in close proximity to the heart. Luckily, he was lying on a concrete floor, so his front was protected to a certain degree and the heart was preserved. It showed stab wounds and there was blood in the left chest and pericardial sac, which you'd expect with a stabbing."

"What about the skull? The monkey was shot. It looks like Doe's skull was blown out the same way," Billie said.

"Come over here," Dr. Grace said as she led the group over to a table covered by a white sheet that stood in front of a stainless-steel counter and sink. On the sheet were the fragments of Doe's skull that had been gathered at the crime scene. They had been painstakingly pieced together.

"Gunshots cause linear fractures that radiate out from the hole caused by the exit or entrance of the bullet. We didn't find linear fractures and you can see that there's no hole formed by the skull fragments.

"If the skull had been fractured by blunt force trauma from a club or baseball bat or something like that, we would have found sections of bone showing a depression from the blow."

"So what's the explanation?" Billie asked.

"The brain is blood-intensive. When the fire heated the blood it generated steam that blew out the back of John Doe's skull."

The detective grimaced.

"Was he stabbed to death at the lab?" Kate asked.

"I can't tell you that. We did find some fibers that were crushed into the fabric of his clothing and survived the fire. I'm having the lab test them. If they're the type of fibers you find in a car trunk, we can guess that he was transported to the lab, but that would only be a guess."

"What about time of death?" Billie asked. "Can you tell how many days he's been dead?"

"I can't do much for you there." Dr. Grace pointed to a sieve resting in a metal pot on one of the autopsy tables. "That's his last meal," she said, indicating pieces of steak, baked potato skin, lettuce, and tomato. "He was killed within an hour of eating, but how long ago I can't say."

Billie turned to Jack Forester. "Can you tell me enough about him for me to match him with a missing person report?"

"Well, we've got the teeth, of course. The guy has had dental work done. Brubaker's out of town," Forester said, referring to Dr. Harry Brubaker, the forensic dentist who was normally present at autopsies. "We'll get these over to him when he comes back from vacation. But he won't be much help until we have someone to whom he can match the dental work."

"Can you tell anything from the teeth?" asked Kate, who had read a few books in Forester's field.

"They do give us some idea of Doe's age," he answered. "We know a person is eighteen or younger if his wisdom teeth have not erupted, so this guy is definitely over eighteen. The degeneration of the skeleton also helps us with his age. Now this is very subjective, but the changes in this guy's spine tell me that he's probably older than thirty.

"The last thing I did was check out the configuration of the pelvis. Where the two halves of the pelvis meet in front is called the pubic symphysis and it wears with age. A guy named T. Wingate Todd made casts of the pelvis of a wide range of corpses whose ages were known. He found that the wear pattern on the pelvis is pretty consistent at different ages."

Forester pointed to a large Tupperware box that was sitting near the door. The lid was open and Billie could see several casts lying in foam.

"I matched the Todd casts to Doe. Taking all the other factors into account, I can give you a very subjective estimate of forty-five to fifty-five for our friend."

Forester pointed to the skeleton's nose.

"Now, I also know that we've got a Caucasian. An Asian's nasal aperture is oval, a black's is wide and short. This guy's is tall and narrow. Ergo, a Caucasian.

"You can also tell from the eye sockets. Whites' are the shape of aviator glasses, blacks' are squarer, and Asians' more rounded."

"Any way to tell eye color?" Billie asked.

Forester shook his head. "Not with a burn victim. The eyes burn out. But I can tell you the guy's height. He was between five eight and five ten. I got that from measuring his tibia and femur," Forester said, pointing to the corpse's shinbone and thighbone, "and comparing them to tables that were developed by measuring the lengths of the long bones of American casualties from the Second World War and the Korean War."

"So we've probably got a white male, five eight to five ten, of average build, and forty-five to fifty-five years of age," Billie summarized.

"Yup," Forester answered. "Get a possible and his dental records and Brubaker can give you a positive ID."

Chapter Thirteen.

After dropping Kate at her house, Daniel drove home and fell into bed. Visions of a flaming laboratory jammed with screaming monkeys and deformed children haunted his dreams and he jerked awake more than once during the night. When he arrived at work the next morning, Daniel was pale and there were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. He checked his voice mail and found a message from Renee Gilchrist telling him that he was expected in Arthur Briggs's office at eleven. This is it, Daniel thought. He slumped in his chair and looked around his office. A lump formed in his throat. He had worked so hard to get here and everything he'd earned was going to be snatched away because of a one-page letter.

At 10:54, Daniel pushed himself to his feet, checked his tie, and walked the last mile to Arthur Briggs's office. Renee announced Daniel's presence, then flashed him a sympathetic smile.

"Go on in. And good luck."

"Thanks, Renee."

Daniel straightened his shoulders and walked into the lion's den, an incredible corner office that was obviously the creation of an expensive interior decorator. With diplomas from Duke University and the University of Chicago law school, and framed tributes to its occupant, the room was a testament to the greatness of Arthur Briggs.

"Have a seat, Ames," he said without making eye contact.

The senior partner was reading a letter and he paid no attention to Daniel for a full minute. When Briggs finally signed his name and placed the letter in his out-box, he looked across his desk at the young associate with unforgiving eyes.

"Do you have any idea how much damage your incompetence has caused?"

Daniel knew that no answer was expected and he gave none.

"The partners met yesterday to discuss your situation," Briggs continued. "It has been decided that you should no longer work for this firm."

Though he had been expecting this, the words still stunned Daniel.

"You will be paid six months' salary and you can keep your health insurance for a year. That's very generous considering that your blunder could cost one of our best clients billions of dollars."

He'd been fired. At first Daniel felt shame, then his shame turned to anger and he stiffened.

"This is a crock and you know it, Mr. Briggs." His sharp words startled Daniel as much as they amazed Briggs. "You're firing me because you need a scapegoat now that Aaron Flynn knows about the Kaidanov study. But finding out about that study might help Reed, Briggs avoid aiding and abetting a client this firm should stop representing."

Briggs leaned back is his chair and made a steeple of his fingers but said nothing. Daniel pushed on.

"I think Geller Pharmaceuticals is covering up Kaidanov's results. Did you know that the police are investigating an arson fire at a primate lab located on land owned by Geller? It's where Kaidanov conducted his study. All of his monkeys are dead. And it looks like Kaidanov is dead, too-murdered. Quite a coincidence, wouldn't you say?"

Daniel paused, but Briggs just continued to stare at him as if he were some mildly interesting insect. Briggs's lack of reaction at hearing Geller linked to murder and arson surprised Daniel. But Briggs had made a fortune by perfecting a poker face, so Daniel forged on.

"Kaidanov has been missing for over a week. His home has been searched." Daniel thought he saw Briggs twitch. "Mr. Briggs, I've examined Dr. Kaidanov's hard drive. Someone tried to delete the primate study, but I've seen it." Now he definitely had Briggs's attention. "The results support the conclusions in Kaidanov's letter. I think there's a good possibility that Insufort is very dangerous and that someone connected to Geller tried to cover up Kaidanov's report."

"How do you know that Dr. Kaidanov's home was searched?"

Daniel swallowed hard. "I went over there," he said, suddenly remembering that searching the house and taking the hard drive were felonies.

"Is that where you examined Dr. Kaidanov's hard drive?"

Daniel felt like a laser beam had pierced him and he appreciated the terror witnesses experienced during one of Briggs's infamous cross-examinations.

"I'd rather not say," he answered.

"Is that right."

Daniel did not answer.

"Taking the Fifth, are we, Ames?" A terrible smile creased Briggs's lips. Daniel felt trapped. "Obviously I can't force you to answer my questions, but the police can. What do you think will happen if they discover that someone has stolen the hard drive from Dr. Kaidanov's home computer and I tell them that you've confessed to me that you were at his house and examined the hard drive?"

"I . . . I was acting on behalf of our client."

Even as he said the words Daniel knew that the excuse sounded pathetic.

"It's good that you've remembered that there is an attorney/client relationship between you and Geller, even though you no longer work for this firm. If you know that, then you know that any information about Insufort on Dr. Kaidanov's hard drive is the property of our client."

Briggs's smile disappeared. "I want the hard drive by five o'clock today, Ames."

"Mr. Briggs . . ."

"If it's not here by five, you will lose your health benefits, your severance pay, and you will be arrested. Is that clear?"

"What are you planning to do about Insufort?"

"My plans are none of your business since you no longer work for this firm."

"But Insufort is hurting babies. Someone at Geller may have committed murder to cover up the truth. The firm could be an accessory to-"

Briggs stood suddenly. "This meeting is over," he said, pointing toward the door. "Get out!"

Daniel hesitated, then walked to the door. As he crossed the room anger built in the pit of his stomach. He opened the door halfway, then turned and faced Briggs one more time.

"I've been scared and depressed about losing this job ever since the deposition, because working for Reed, Briggs really meant something to me. But maybe this is for the best. I don't think I want to work for a firm that would cover up the crimes Geller is committing. We're talking about little children, Mr. Briggs. I don't know how you can look in the mirror."

"You listen to me," Briggs shouted. "If you breathe one word of what you've told me to anyone, you'll be sued for slander and you will go to jail. How many people are going to hire a destitute, disbarred lawyer with a felony conviction? Now get the hell out!"

It wasn't until Daniel slammed the door to Briggs's office that he saw that he'd had an audience. Renee Gilchrist and a plain, middle-aged woman Daniel recognized as Dr. April Fairweather were both staring, openmouthed. Daniel's anger turned to embarrassment. He mumbled an apology and rushed toward his office.

Daniel was almost there when it dawned on him that Kate had the hard drive. He was about to go to her office when he saw a security guard standing in front of his door. He hurried the rest of the way. As soon as the guard spotted Daniel, he blocked the entrance.

"I work here," Daniel said. "What's going on?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Ames," the guard said firmly but politely, "but you can't go in until we're through."

Daniel looked over the guard's shoulder. A second guard was emptying his files into a box.

"What about my things, my personal items like my diplomas?"

"You can have them as soon as we're through." The guard held out his hand. "I'll need your keys."

Daniel was thoroughly humiliated. He wanted to fight, to protest, to scream that he had rights, but he knew that there was nothing he could do, so he meekly handed over his office keys.

"How much longer will this take? I'd like to get out of here."

"We'll be done soon," the guard answered.

A crowd was starting to gather. Joe Molinari placed his hand on Daniel's shoulder.

"What's going on, Ames?"

"Briggs sacked me."

"Ah, shit."

"It wasn't a surprise. I've seen this coming since the deposition."

"Is there anything I can do?" Joe asked.

"Thanks, but it's over. Briggs needed a scapegoat and I'm it."

Molinari squeezed Daniel's shoulder supportively.

"Look, I know people. I'm going to ask around. Maybe I can line up something for you."

"I appreciate the offer, but who's going to hire me? What kind of letter of recommendation do you think Briggs is going to write?"

"Don't think like that. Briggs doesn't control every law firm in Portland. You're good, amigo. Any firm would be lucky to get you."

"I don't know if I want to keep practicing law, Joe."

"Don't be a defeatist asshole. This is like riding a polo pony. When you get thrown you don't just lie on the ground feeling sorry for yourself. You get your ass back in the saddle and play on. I'll give you a day to mope, then we're going to figure out how to get you back working horrible hours and taking abuse from intellectual inferiors."

Daniel couldn't help smiling. Then he remembered Kate.

"Can I use your phone? They won't let me into my office."

"Sure."

"Thanks, Joe. For everything."

"Aw shucks, you're making me blush."

Daniel shook his head. "You're still a jerk."

Joe laughed and they started walking toward Molinari's office. When they reached his door, Daniel turned toward his friend.

"This is a private call, okay?"

"Say no more."

Daniel closed the door and dialed Kate's extension. Joe stood guard outside.

"It's Daniel," he said as soon as she picked up. "Are you alone?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Briggs fired me."

"Oh, Daniel. I'm so sorry."

"I can't say I didn't expect it."

"You should fight this."

"I'm not sure I'd want my job back even if I could get it. Really, being fired might have been the best thing."

"How can you say that?"

"I told Briggs that Geller might be covering up the fact that Insufort causes birth defects in little children. He threatened to have me arrested, to sue me. He wasn't the least bit concerned that Geller is ruining the lives of all those kids and their parents. So I guess the question is, would I have accepted Reed, Briggs's job offer if I knew I'd be using my legal education to protect a company that destroys lives for profit?

"But that's not why I called. I wasn't thinking straight after Briggs told me I was fired and I told him that I had Kaidanov's hard drive. He wants it by five today or he's going after me."

"You didn't . . . ?"

"No. I didn't mention you. He has no idea that you have it and I want to make certain that he doesn't find out. Can you get it to me? Briggs says he'll have me arrested if I don't give it to him and I'm in enough trouble already. And we have a copy, anyway."

"What are you going to do with the information?"

"I don't know, Kate, and I'm too mixed up now to make decisions."

"I'll get you the hard drive before one."

"Thanks."

There was dead air for a moment. Then Kate said, "You're a good person, Dan, and good people land on their feet. You'll come out of this okay."

Daniel appreciated the sentiment, but he wasn't sure that was the way things happened in the real world.

Chapter Fourteen.

As soon as she left the medical examiner's office, Billie Brewster drove west along the Sunset Highway. Twenty minutes later the detective took one of the Hillsboro exits and found herself in open country where rolling green hills and a sweeping blue sky formed a backdrop for the three interconnected, black-glass-and-polished-granite buildings in the Geller Pharmaceuticals complex.

The main attraction in Building A was an atrium with a three-story waterfall that started just under a tinted-glass roof and occupied one corner of the spacious lobby. Billie learned the location of Kurt Schroeder's office at reception and walked up a staircase near the atrium that led to the second floor. A glass-encased sky bridge connected the main building to Building B, which housed research and development.

Moments after Billie flashed her badge at Schroeder's secretary she found herself seated across from Geller's chief medical adviser.

"Dr. Schroeder, I'm Detective Brewster with Portland homicide."

"Homicide?" Schroeder said nervously.

"Yesterday evening I was at a building that was destroyed in an arson fire. There were approximately twenty dead rhesus monkeys inside. They were set on fire in their cages."

"That's terrible, but what does this have to do with me or Geller Pharmaceuticals?"

"The records show that Geller owns the property where the building is located. We think it's a primate lab."

Schroeder's brow furrowed. "All of our research is conducted in this building. We do own property apart from this campus for expansion, but it's undeveloped. If you found a lab, it wasn't Geller's."

"A body was discovered in the lab, Dr. Schroeder. The corpse was badly burned, but we can tell it's a forty-five- to fifty-five-year old white male, and we think it might be Dr. Sergey Kaidanov."

"Kaidanov! My God! He disappeared more than a week ago. We've been looking for him. This is terrible."

"Was Dr. Kaidanov involved in primate research?"

"That's where the problem comes in. The plaintiffs in a lawsuit we're defending produced what purports to be a letter from Kaidanov in which he claims to be conducting a primate study for our company, but we have no record of his being assigned to conduct such a study."

"A lawyer from the Reed, Briggs firm told me about that. That's where we got the idea that the victim might be Kaidanov."

Schroeder shivered. "God, I hope not."

"You can help with the identification by sending me Dr. Kaidanov's personnel file. His dental records would be very useful."

"I'll do what I can," he answered, apparently shaken by what he had learned.

Brewster handed Schroeder a paper with the location of the destroyed building.

"Can you check to see if your company has a lab on the property?"

"Certainly. I should have an answer for you in a day or so."

Brewster stood. "Thank you for your cooperation, Dr. Schroeder."

"Of course." He paused. "I hope you're wrong about Kaidanov."

"I hope so, too."

_ _ _

There were several phone messages waiting for Billie when she got back to the Justice Center. Halfway down the pile was a message from missing persons. Even though she was pretty certain of the identity of the body at the lab, Brewster had phoned them from the medical examiner's office and asked for a list of men who matched the description that Forester had given her. She dialed the extension for missing persons.

"Hey, Billie," Detective Aaron Davies said, "I got a live one for you. A guy named Gene Arnold. He's a lawyer from Arizona. His partner, Benjamin Kellogg, reported him missing right around the time you're interested in. He disappeared while staying at the Benson Hotel. I'll give you Kellogg's number."

Billie dialed the Arizona number. The receptionist at the firm connected her with Benjamin Kellogg and she identified herself.

"Have you found Gene?" Kellogg asked anxiously.

"No, but I wanted to get some information from you so I can follow up on your report. Can you tell me why you think Mr. Arnold is missing?"

"I know he's missing and I'm certain that something is wrong. We're all very worried about him."

"Why is that?"

"He went to New York on business, Sunday, February twenty-seventh. He was supposed to come straight back. I had his flight number and everything, but he wasn't on the plane. Then he called from Portland on Wednesday, March first. He asked for me, but I was in court, so he spoke with Maria Suarez, our secretary."

"You weren't expecting him to go to Oregon?"

"No. I've worked with Gene for six years, Maria even longer. We can't remember him ever mentioning any contacts, business or social, in Oregon."

"Okay, what did he tell Ms. Suarez?"

"He wanted me to know that he would be away for a few days on personal business. Maria said he asked about his mail and messages, and then he gave her his room number at the Benson Hotel and said he'd keep in touch. The hotel called on Tuesday, March seventh and said that Gene had reserved the room through Monday but had not checked out. They wanted to know if he still wanted it. I had no idea. The security chief said that he was putting Gene's belongings in storage. That's when I got scared that something was wrong and I contacted your missing persons bureau."

"And no one's heard from him since?"

"Not a word."

"Is Mr. Arnold married?"

"He's a widower. His wife died about a year before I started working here."

"Do you have a photograph of Mr. Arnold that you could send me?"

"I can find one."

"Good. I also need the name and phone number of Mr. Arnold's dentist."

Billie heard an intake of breath.

"You think he's dead?"

"I have no reason to believe that."

"You're homicide, right?"

Billie did not want to alarm Arnold's partner, but it was obvious that he was already upset.

"Yes."

"I'm not naive, Detective. I've handled some criminal cases. I know why a homicide detective needs dental records. You've got an unidentified body that might be Gene."

"I do have a body, but I'm pretty certain I know who it is."

"Then why call me?"

"I've been known to make mistakes. But I don't think I have in this case."

There was dead air for a moment. Finally Kellogg spoke.

"Gene's dentist is Ralph Hughes. If you give me your address I'll have him send you Gene's dental records."

Chapter Fifteen.

After Daniel traded the hard drive from Kaidanov's computer for a cardboard box with his personal belongings, he left his former employer's domain with hunched shoulders and a crimson face. Even though he had no reason to be ashamed, he was grateful that no one he knew had been in the waiting room or the elevator.

That evening, Daniel's phone rang several times. A few happy-hour companions had made condolence calls and promised to keep in touch. Joe Molinari invited him out to a bar. When Daniel said he was not in the mood to party Joe urged him to keep the faith. Daniel would not have minded talking to Kate Ross, but she did not call.

Daniel slept late on Saturday then treated himself to an extravagant lunch at Wildwood. He knew it was foolish to spend so much money when he was heavily in debt with no prospects for employment and almost no savings, but the gesture felt important: he'd been fired, but not defeated. After lunch, Daniel wandered around the neighborhood, but it was hard being in a crowd of happy people. He envied them too much. The army had given him his first taste of self-confidence and the inkling of an idea that he could have a future. His college diploma was more than a piece of paper. It was proof that he could be somebody. The job with Reed, Briggs was beyond his wildest dreams. Now the job was gone, and with it his reputation. Daniel believed that he would always be known as the associate whose incompetence destroyed Geller pharmaceuticals.

Sunday was hard to take. Since Reed, Briggs had hired him Daniel had spent most of his time, even weekends, in the office or thinking about things that he had to do at the office. Now there was nothing to dwell on except his failure. He killed the day by going for a long run and watching football. Shortly after six, he was preparing dinner when the telephone rang. The news was on but Daniel was not paying much attention to it.

"Dan, it's Kate."

"Oh, hi," Daniel answered, involuntarily breaking into a smile.

"Sorry I didn't call yesterday. I was in Astoria investigating an oil spill the coast guard claims is from a ship one of our clients insures. Did everything go okay after I saw you?"

"I gave the hard drive back and the cops didn't break in my door, so I guess so."

"Well, cheer up. I may have something for you. Natalie Tasman, one of the paralegals at Jaffe, Katz, Lehane and Brindisi, is a friend. She told me that they're going to be looking for an associate soon, so I talked to Amanda Jaffe about you. You should give them a call tomorrow."

"Isn't Amanda Jaffe the lawyer who represented that doctor who was charged with those serial murders?"

"The same. The firm is small-there are only seven or eight lawyers-but everyone is top-notch. They practice criminal defense and plaintiff's litigation. I think you'll fit in over there a hell of a lot better than you fit in at Reed, Briggs."

"Thanks, Kate. You're a good friend."

"You're a good lawyer."

Daniel was about to reply when something on the television caught his eye.

"Hold on, Kate. There's something on TV about the fire."

On the screen, a reporter from one of the local television stations was standing in front of the burned-out shell of the primate lab.

"There is a bizarre twist in the multimillion-dollar litigation against Geller Pharmaceuticals, manufacturer of the pregnancy drug Insufort," the reporter said.