The Codex

9

Lewis Skiba, CEO of Lampe-Denison Pharmaceuticals, sat motionless at his desk, looking down the file of gray skyscrapers along Avenue of the Americas in midtown Manhattan. A late-afternoon rain was darkening the city. The only sound in his paneled office was the mutter of a real wood fire in an eighteenth-century Siena marble fireplace, a sad reminder of fatter times. It was not a cold day, but Skiba had cranked up the A/C in order to have the fire. He found it soothing. It reminded him somehow of his childhood, of the old stone fireplace in the battenboard cabin by the lake, with the crossed snowshoes over the mantelpiece and the loons calling off the water. God, if only he could be there now…

Almost without knowing it, his hand unlocked the little front drawer of his desk and closed on a cool plastic bottle. He popped the top off with his thumbnail, fished out a dry little ovoid, put it in his mouth, and chewed. Bitter, but it cut the wait. That and a scotch chaser. Skiba reached to his left, slipped open a wall panel and took out a bottle of sixty-year-old Macallan and a whiskey glass, and poured himself a good slug. It was the color of rich mahogany. A dash of cool Evian released the flavor, and he brought it to his lips, sucked in a goodly amount, savoring the taste of peat, hops, the cold sea, the Highland moors, fine Spanish Amontillado.

As the feeling of peace stole over him he thought longingly of the big swim, of floating away on a sea of light. If it came to that, all it would take would be two dozen more of those tablets followed by the rest of the Macallan and he’d be sinking forever into the blue deep. No pleading the Fifth before Congress, no claiming to be just another poor misled incompetent CEO before the SEC, none of that Kenneth Lay shit. He’d be his own judge, jury, and executioner. His father, an army sergeant, had taught him the value of honor.

The one thing that could have saved the firm, but had sunk it instead, was that big breakthrough drug they thought they had. Phloxatane. With that in hand, the bean counters figured it was safe to start cutting long-term R&D to jack up current profits. They said the analysts would never notice, and at first they didn’t. It worked like a dream, and their stock price shot through the roof. Then they started shifting current marketing costs to amortizable R&D, and still the analysts didn’t notice and still the stock price rose. Then they assigned losses to paper-thin, off-the-books partnerships in the Cayman Islands and Netherland Antilles, booked loans as profits, and blew whatever cash was left over to buy back company stock to inflate the price even more — also inflating (naturally) the value of executive stock options. The stock soared; they cashed out, they made millions. God, it had been a heady game. They broke every law, rule, and regulation on the books and had a creative genius of a CFO who invented new ones to break. And all those high-flying stock pickers — they turned out to be about as perceptive as Br’er Bear. Ize a-earnin’ a dollah a minute.

Now they’d come to the end of the line. There were no more rules to bend or break. Finally the market woke up, the stock crashed, and they had no more tricks up their sleeve. The carrion crows were circling above the Lampe Building at 725 Avenue of the Americas, cawing his name.

A shaking hand slipped the key into the lock; the drawer slid open. Skiba chewed up another bitter pill, took a second slug of scotch.

There came a buzz, announcing Graff.

Graff, the CFO genius who had gotten them to this point.

Skiba took a swig of Evian, swilled it around, swallowed, took another swig, and a third. He swept his hand over his hair, leaned back in the chair, and composed his face. He was already feeling that creeping lightness of being that started in his chest and moved outward to his fingertips, buoying him up, filling him with a golden glow.

He swiveled his chair, his eyes falling briefly on the photographs of his three bright little children smiling from their silver frames. Then his eye reluctantly traveled from the desk to rest on the face of Mike Graff, who had just entered the room. The man stood before Skiba, oddly delicate, encased from head to toe in impeccable worsted wool, silk, and cotton. Graff had been Lampe’s rising young protégé, profiled in Forbes, courted by analysts and investment bankers, his wine cellar featured in Bon Appetit and his house in Architectural Digest. Now his protégé was no longer rising: He was holding hands with Skiba as they swan-dived off the edge of the Grand Canyon.

“What is it, Mike, that was so important it couldn’t wait until our afternoon meeting?” Skiba spoke pleasantly.

“I’ve got a fellow outside you need to meet. He’s got an interesting proposition for us.”

Skiba closed his eyes. He suddenly felt tired almost unto death. All the good feeling was gone. “Don’t you think we’ve had enough of your ‘propositions,’ Mike?”

“This one’s different. Trust me.”

Trust me. Skiba waved his hand in a gesture of futility. He heard the door open and looked up. There, standing in front of him, was a cheap hustler in a wide-lapel suit wearing too much gold. He was one of those types who combed five hairs across half a continent of bald skull and thought that solved the problem.

“Jesus Christ, Graff—”

“Lewis,” said Graff, forging ahead, “this is Mr. Marcus Hauser, a private investigator formerly with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. He has something he wants to show us.” Graff took a piece of paper from Hauser’s hands and passed it to Skiba.

Skiba stared down at the page. It was covered with strange symbols, the margins drawn with curling vines and leaves. This was insane. Graff was cracking up.

Graff pushed on. “That’s a page from a ninth-century Mayan manuscript. It’s called a codex. It’s a two-thousand-page catalog of rainforest drugs, how to extract them and use them.”

Skiba felt a sensation of heat on his skin as the import sank in. It simply could not be true.

“That’s right. Thousands of indigenous pharmaceutical prescriptions identifying medically active substances found in plants, animals, insects, spiders, molds, fungi — you name it. The medical wisdom of the ancient Maya in a single volume.”

Skiba looked up, first at Graff, then at Hauser. “Where’d you get this?”

Hauser stood with his plump hands folded in front of him. Skiba was sure he smelled some kind of aftershave or cologne. Cheap.

“It belonged to an old friend of mine,” said Hauser. His voice was high and irritating, with what sounded like a Brooklyn accent. A prepubescent Pacino.

Skiba said, “Mr. Hauser, it’ll be ten years and half a billion in R&D before any of these drugs come on-line.”

“True. But think what it’ll do to your stock price now. As I understand it, you’ve got a bargeful of shit drifting down your little river here.” He swept a plump hand in a circle, taking in the room.

Skiba stared at him. The insolent son of a bitch. He should throw him out now.

Hauser went on. “Lampe stock opened this morning at fourteen and three-eighths. Last December it was trading at fifty. You, personally, have two million stock options at a strike price of between thirty and thirty-five laddered out to expire over the next two years. All of which are now worthless unless you can get the stock price back up. On top of that, your major new cancer drug, Phloxatane, is a dog and is about to be disapproved by the FDA—”

Skiba rose from his chair, his face red. “How dare you speak these lies to me like this, in my office? Where are you getting this false information?”

“Mr. Skiba,” said Hauser mildly, “let’s cut the bullshit. I’m a private investigator, and this manuscript will be coming into my possession in about four to six weeks. I want to sell it to you. And I know you need it. I could just as easily take it to GeneDyne or Cambridge Pharmaceuticals.”

Skiba swallowed hard. It was amazing how fast clearheadedness could return. “How do I know this isn’t some kind of swindle?”

Graff said, “I’ve checked it out. It’s as good as gold, Lewis.”

Skiba stared at the huckster in the tasteless suit. He swallowed again, his mouth dry. This was how far they had sunk. “Tell me your proposal, Mr. Hauser.”

Hauser said, “The Codex is in Honduras.”

“So you’re selling a pig in a poke.”

“To get it, I need money, weapons, and equipment. I’m running a big personal risk. I’ve already had to undertake one urgent piece of business. This isn’t going to come cheap.”

“Don’t hustle me, Mr. Hauser.”

“Who’s the hustler here? You’re up to your neck in accounting irregularities as it is. If the SEC were to hear about how you and Mr. Graff here have been booking marketing costs as long-term amortizable R&D these past few quarters, you’d both be leaving the building in handcuffs.”

Skiba stared at the man, and then at Graff. The CFO had turned white. In the long silence, a piece of wood popped in the fire. Skiba felt a muscle twitching somewhere behind his left knee.

Hauser went on: “When I deliver the Codex to you and you’ve authenticated it, as you will naturally insist on doing, you’ll wire fifty million dollars to an offshore account of my selection. That’s the deal I’m offering. No negotiations — just a yes or a no will suffice.”

“Fifty million? That’s totally insane. Forget it.”

Hauser rose and headed for the door.

“Wait,” Graff called, jumping up. “Mr. Hauser? None of this is engraved in stone.” The sweat was trickling down from his well-groomed scalp as he chased after the man in the cheap suit.

Hauser kept walking.

“We’re always open to — Mr. Hauser!”

The door closed in Graff’s face. Hauser was gone.

Graff turned toward Skiba. His hands were shaking. “We’ve got to stop him.”

Skiba said nothing for a moment. What Hauser had said was true: If they got their hands on the manuscript, the announcement alone would turn around their stock. Fifty million, however, was blackmail. Dealing with a man like this was odious. But some things couldn’t be helped. Skiba said, “While there’s only one way to pay a debt, there are a million ways not to pay it. As you well know, Mike.”

Graff couldn’t quite muster a smile through the sheen of sweat on his face.

Skiba spoke into his intercom. “That man who was just here, don’t let him leave the building. Tell him we agree to his terms and escort him back up here.”

He laid the phone back in its cradle and turned to Graff. “I hope for both of our sakes this guy is for real.”

“He is,” said Graff. “Believe me, I looked into this very thoroughly. The Codex exists, and the sample page is real.”

In a moment Hauser was standing in the door.

“You’ll get your fifty million,” Skiba said brusquely. “Now take a seat and tell us your plan.”