Jeff Buick - Lethal Dose

Serious money.

Not a million. Not two or three, but ten or twenty. He hadn’t decided yet. But they were going to pay. And when they did, he’d be living life large in the Caribbean or Europe. He ran his hands over his cheek, feeling the acne he’d lived with all his life. That would be gone, and his teeth would be straight and capped. He’d have all the women he’d always dreamed of. Money could perform miracles-he’d be living proof of that.

He touched the storage device again like it was a winning lottery ticket. But unlike sheer luck in a lottery, he’d worked for this. He’d noticed small things in the clinical trials for Triax-cion, errors that somehow had been overlooked by the other researchers and eventually by the FDA. He suspected someone inside the Food and Drug Administration was on the take, as the problems with the drug were too serious to be swept under some convenient carpet. No matter, he still had enough to fry the company’s top management-enough to lever a few million from the corporate coffers, then head overseas.

He pulled up in front of his town house on Cooley Avenue, a red brick building with black trim around the door and windows, and switched off the ignition. One week more and he’d be gone. No more lonely nights watching the Devils play hockey or reruns of Seinfeld on television. He had definitive proof that Triaxcion was dangerous, that it prohibited coagulants in human blood from bonding. And by searching the Internet with key words, he had clippings from six newspapers with stories of people with no history of hemophilia bleeding to death. Six deaths. And one of them, that Buchanan guy in Butte, Montana, had died just last week.

Perfect.

Christ, he was the keeper of the key to the Holy Grail of pharmaceutical lawsuits.

He grinned again as he slid out of the Mustang and slammed

the driver’s door. Maybe he’d hit them up for twenty-five million. Recent memories are always the sharpest, and that Buchanan fellow had died at just the right time.

Such luck.

A gentle mist settled on Mirror Lake, hovering three or four feet above the water. A solitary loon burst through the covering and glided inches above the murky cloud, trailing wisps of mist in its wing vortex. The bird reached the shoreline and banked sharply skyward, barely clearing the hemlocks bordering the lake. Jennifer Pearce watched until the loon disappeared behind the trees then glanced back over the soupy cloud blanketing the water.

The sun had yet to rise, the Porcupine Mountains still shrouded in the lingering shadows of the spent night. The spring air was cool, and as she exhaled, her breath sent short bursts of steam into the mountain air. The sound of approaching footsteps drifted to her and she turned to see who else was up before dawn. A man in his early fifties, tanned and dressed entirely in Eddie Bauer, nodded to her as he reached the lake’s edge. He leaned over and dipped his finger in the water.

“It’s cold,” he said with a hint of irritation in his voice. “Everything about this place is cold.”

“It’s not the Caribbean, Mel,” Jennifer said. “It’s Michigan and it’s the last week of April. Get used to it.”

“I don’t like cold weather,” he said, standing next to her and looking out over the lake. He was quiet for a minute. “I should have brought my camera. This is really beautiful.”

Jennifer didn’t speak. She didn’t like Mel Lun, just tolerated him for the doors he could and sometimes would open for her. Lun was a sycophant of the highest degree, with his perfect nose up so many Marcon assholes she was surprised to see him walk around without someone attached to his face. Lun was a regional director for Marcon Pharmaceuticals, and to some degree held the purse strings for her research money. Not directly-even with his Harvard degree he didn’t have that level of clout with the pharmaceutical giant. But he had the ear of those who controlled the money, and that made him a valuable ally.

“You made an excellent presentation yesterday,” Mel said, squinting slightly as the sun finally crested one of the eastern ridges. “They were impressed.”

“It’s important, Mel,” she said quietly. “I believe in what I’m doing. This goes far beyond the funding. It means quality of life to a lot of people.” She kept her gaze focused on the lake. The last thing she wanted Mel Lun to see was even the slightest hint of vulnerability. That could be taken as a sign of weakness, and that was not a trait to exhibit this week.

One week of every year, top Marcon executives and their department heads dropped off the corporate map to a remote retreat and made the decisions that would dictate which direction the company’s research and development would follow for the next twelve months. To the top executives it was an opportunity to meet with their key research scientists outside the lab environment. To the team leaders, each one with up to fifty lab technicians under them, it was crucial to whether their projects were funded or dismantled. Jennifer Pearce was no exception.

Her group was twenty-two highly trained researchers, intent on finding a drug to halt or eliminate Alzheimer’s. Their research was through Phase I and well into Phase II, which meant that the drug was already undergoing clinical trials on humans. And if Phase II results were good, the chances of having an FDA-approved drug were also good. And with the right drug for the right disease, that could translate to a billion dollars for the company. Big risks also meant big money.

“They made their decision, Jennifer,” he said, rubbing his hands together briskly, then returning them to his jacket pockets.

“And…” she said after he was silent for a few seconds. The short bursts of steam had stopped, and she realized she was holding her breath.

“They decided to fund Jenkins.”

She spun to face him now, anger flashing in her eyes. “You think this is a game, Mel? You tell me I made a good presentation, knowing they decided against funding my research. Do you enjoy hurting people, Mel? Is that it?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t make the decision, Jen, they did. Take your case to them.”

“I did,” she fired back at him.”Yesterday, in my ‘excellent’ presentation.” She felt the tears welling up and secretly cursed herself for being so emotional. This was business, and emotions had no place here. She stared into his cold eyes. “The difference between my research and Ray Jenkins’s is that mine will save lives. His will wipe a few wrinkles off some aging faces.”

“Wrinkles are big business, Jen, you know that. The boomers can’t get their credit cards out fast enough when what they’re buying will strip off some of the years. And they’ve got the money.”

“Money,” she said. “It’s all about money. Always money.”

He snickered and shook his head slightly. “Look at you. Talk about a hypocrite. If the board had decided to fund your research, you’d be ecstatic. Because you got the money. When you say that it’s all about money, keep in mind you’re as guilty as anyone else.”

“But I want it for the right reasons, Mel.”

Jennifer Pearce turned from the lake where the morning sun was burning off the mist and strode back toward the parking lot. Her hands were clenched in fists, and she could feel her teeth grinding as her jaw tightened. The tears spilled down her cheeks, but she didn’t brush them away. The rented Taurus sat in the parking lot, one of only two cars at this early hour. She glanced at Lun’s rental, wondering how he knew where to find her. It was a passing thought; she didn’t really care. She slid behind the wheel and gunned the engine, slamming the transmission into drive and spinning gravel across the driver’s side of the other car as she careened out of the lot.