David Dun - Unacceptable Risk

He searched the desktop, which had a number of files stacked in the corner. One was labeled estate of mildred mcbeth, another troy vs humbitt manufacturing and still another southways corporation. Upon casual inspection they all involved patent rights. Looking at the bookshelves, he saw they were full with treatises on patents, many pharmaceutically related. So, this man was a patent lawyer and he did work with the patenting of molecules. It lent credence to the message Bowden had received.

Another file holder made of beautiful wood contained several more files: trustee: grace technologies. In this file Sam found some notes:

Contacted by Jean-Baptiste French government. Amazonia Molecule. Uses of the molecule strictly confidential. Molecular structure to follow. Discovered by Michael J. Bowden and under development by Northern Lights. Proprietary processes claimed by French Government trustee for Grace Technologies. Need to verify exclusive rights. Need to purchase any interest possible. Need location and habitat of the plant mate rial. Memo FPC file.

Sam supposed that FPC meant fireproof cabinet. It would be locked probably in a secure room, so the odds of getting in were not great. Still, he decided to look. Exiting the of fice, he walked down the hall and glanced down a narrow in terior hall, where he saw a young man and a young woman, maybe in their twenties, drinking coffee. No doubt, the junior associates burning the midnight oil. He decided to take a chance.

There was a reference to a secure file in the FPC and the date of initial contact was recent-right after they had left the Amazon. He couldn't imagine what he might find in the fireproof cabinet. He had been willing to wander around in this law firm, ostensibly lost, looking for the office of a Mr. Stewart, but breaking into a locked file cabinet was up a notch and he was still pondering the morality of that against his need to know. Borrowing the firm's copier for a couple of minutes, Sam duplicated the office file and walked into the kitchen with an air of nonchalance. The two young people barely glanced up, although the woman glanced a little longer.

He walked over to the coffeemaker, poured some black, and nodded at the woman. With a little effort he managed to catch her eye.

"I don't believe we've met," she said. "Are you a part ner?"

"No. I'm from another firm. Working with Mr. Stewart."

"I thought he went home."

"He did. He's coming back and asked me to meet him at the fireproof cabinet. This case."

Sam laid the file down.

"Yeah, well, I'm not his associate and know nothing. I'm in litigation. But the file room is all the way down this hall, then to the right. It's on the short outside wall with no windows. If that's where he is, that's where you'll find him."

The logic was amusingly tautological, but he decided not to tease her. As he walked away, he heard the young man." 'If that's where he is, that's where you'll find him'? Come on."

Sam went down the hall, turned right, and passed an of fice with a thirtysomething woman bent over a desk. Then he kept on to the end of the hall and found a locked door. This was the difficult part. He walked into an open attorney's office and found a phone directory. This office belonged to Norman Chapman. He was a bit of a pack rat, even had piles of papers on the floor. Using the directory, Sam determined that there were more than one hundred lawyers in the firm. He rifled through the drawers. In the top drawer he found a bunch of papers and a memo concerning one Scott Davis, dated the previous month. It was a bio, a memo with a busi ness plan, a bunch of interviews and partner ratings. Obviously, the man had been a partner at another firm and was a candi date to come to Binkley, Hart, amp; Rove. On a hunch he looked in the back of the phone book to the supplement and found that Scott Davis was added as of October. Davis was brand new. He dialed the extension for Davis and got a recording.

"My first day in the office will be November fourth, but until then, I will be getting my messages, so please leave a message."

Leafing through the resume papers and the business plan, he discovered that Davis was a civil litigator specializing in the defense of class actions. The man was from Boston and had been with the Arthur amp; Taylor firm. The business plan made the point that he would be bringing some large clients. On the first page of the resume was a picture of Davis. He had a full head of hair, some graying, was clean shaven, and slightly paunchy. Unfortunately, Sam couldn't judge the man's height.

Sam took a deep breath, knowing what he was about to try was very risky. Quickly he found a restroom and re moved his entire disguise. After wetting his hair down com pletely, he combed as near as he could to Scott Davis. He went back to the woman's office. Next to the door was a plaque with the name Martha McConnell.

"Hi, Martha, I'm Scott Davis. You probably don't even remember me-"

"Oh yes," she said. "Of course. I was in the group of partners at Grady's Bar a month ago. Actually, I stopped by for just a minute and never got to shake your hand. You've done something to your hair. It looks great."

"Thanks. Probably the Grecian Formula." He gave her a toothy smile.

"What can I do for you?"

"Oh, I was just helping out Stewart on some stuff and needed to get into the fireproof cabinet."

"Oh sure. Gosh, it's really a cabinet in a big safe and they've locked it… I'm sure… but on a good day I can do the combination of… Just a minute…" She fished around in her top drawer. "We're not supposed to keep this, but everybody does, otherwise you have to go to Mary Weiss's desk and she always has it locked, so it's just one thing after another. They never give anybody a thing they need until a month after they've been here."

She got a key and her piece of paper and another smaller key and went back to the locked door. When she opened the door and turned on the lights, they encountered a huge file room.

"What is your kind of lawyer doing with patents?"

"I'm just a little weary of defending drug companies and car manufacturers. The big class actions require a lot of travel. Some of the patent claim litigation isn't all that technical that a guy can't learn it. Especially with Arthur Stewart around. Anyway, he thought I might be interested in this. It's about a plant from the Amazon, of all things."

"Never heard of it. But anything to do with the Amazon sounds interesting."

"I thought so."

He noticed that she was appraising him and that she wore no wedding ring. Recalling the resume and the profile materials pertaining to Scott Davis, he recalled that he had seen nothing about a wife.

"It's normal I suppose for you to work into the evening."

"You can tell I'm relatively young and I'm a junior part ner."

"What kind of work do you do?"

"Environmental litigation mainly. That's our end of the hall. The other is the estate planners. They're in another world."

"Aren't they, though."

"I guess you must be busy moving," she said as she walked toward a massive safe.

"Oh yeah."

"This is interim filing for stuff closing or just closed in the last six months. But when somebody has the family jewels or some national secret, they put it in the cabinets inside the safe here. I think nobody ever put anything in here worth knowing, but it's fun to think about. Okay. Now for 'Big Bertha.' " She walked over to the steel door and began on the dial. It required two tries and probably three minutes, but at last she grunted and pulled open the nearly foot-thick door.

"Impressive," Sam said.

"Now we sign in. At one time this part of this floor be longed to a prominent wholesale jeweler and that's why the big walk-in safe. We would never have spent the money."