Michael Palmer - Side Effects

Just tell me, Drexler thought, tell me how in the hell you know the medications you are taking won't just kill you on the spot?

"Yes, " he said, through a tight smile, "I suppose I must." you.".. The sleek, stretch limousine moved like a serpent through the light midafternoon traffic on the Southeast Expressway. In the front seat, Redding's portly driver chattered at the taciturn Nunes, whose contribution to the conversation was an occasional nod or monosyllable.

In the rear, seated across from one another, surrounded on all sides by smoked glass, Redding and John Ferguson sipped brandy and reviewed the session they had just completed with Vernon Drexler. "I am sorry things have not been going well with you, John," Redding said. "Perhaps we should have stayed and let Drexler exnmine. "Nonsense. I have an appointment next month, and that will be quite time enough."

"Yes, I suppose so." There was little question in Redding's mind that Ferguson, perhaps eight years his senior, was failing. The man, never robust, had lost strength and weight. He could shuffle only a few dozen steps without exhaustion. His face was drawn and sallow, dominated by a mouth of full, perfect teeth that gave his every expression a cadaverous cast. Only his eyes, sparkling from within deep hollows like chips of aquamarine, reflected the immense drive and intellectual power that had marked the man's life. Their collaboration, for that is what it quickly became, had begun on the day of their first meeting in Drexler's office.

Ferguson, though still ambulatory with a cane, had the more advanced disease of the two. He was employed at the time as medical director of a state hospital outside of the city and was already taking two experimental drugs after testing them for a time on the patients of his facility. Within a year, Redding had begun locating new preparations, while Ferguson expanded his testing program to include them. Quickly, though, both men came to appreciate the need for a larger number of test subjects than could be supplied by Ferguson's hospital. Establishment of the Total Care Women's Health Center in Denver and, soon after, the Omnicenter in Boston, was the upshot of that need. Vernon Drexler continued as their physician, monitoring their progress and watching over their general states of health. Redding's driver, still prattling cheerfully at Nunes, swung onto 95 North. Although they would eventually end up at John Ferguson's Newton home, his only other instruction had been for a steady one hour drive. "John, " Redding said, setting his half-filled snifter in its holder on the bar, "how long has it been since you were at the Omnicenter?

" Ferguson laughed ruefully. "How long since I've been anyplace would be a better question. Two years, perhaps. Maybe longer. It's just too difficult for me to get around."

"I understand."

"I take it from our conversation yesterday evening that there's been some kind of problem. Zimmermann?"

This time it was Redding who laughed. "No, no, " he said. "From all I can tell, Zimmermann was the perfect choice for the job. You were absolutely right in recommending him. A harmless fop with the intelligence to implement and monitor our testing program without getting in the way. No, not Zimmermann."

"Well, then?"

"Actually, there may not even be a problem. When you were working with Dr. French to set up the Omnicenter, did you ever run into a Dr. Kathryn Bennett? " Ferguson thought for a moment and then shook his head. "I suspected you wouldn't have, " Redding said. It took only a few minutes for Redding to review the events leading to Kate Bennett's inspection of the Omnicenter. Ferguson listened with the dispassion of a scientist, his silence punctuated only by occasional gestures that he was following the account. "Carl Horner assures me, " Redding concluded, "that none of the pharmaceuticals we are studying could have been responsible for the problems young Dr. Bennett is investigating."

"But you are not so sure."

"John, you've worked with Carl. You know that being wrong is not something he does very often. The man's mind is as much a computer as any of his machines."

"But you think two such distinctive cases, and now possibly a third, are too many to explain by coincidence?"

Redding stared out the window, he removed his glasses and cleaned them with a towel from the bar. "To tell you the truth, John, I don't 338. know what to think. The facts say one thing, my instincts another. You know the Omnicenter better than I do. Could anyone be fooling around with some drug or other kind of agent behind our backs?"

"I hope not."

"John, mull over what I've told you. See if you can come up with any theories that might explain why all three women with this bleeding problem, and two of them with the same ovary problem, were all patients of the Omnicenter." He flipped the intercom switch. "Mr. Crosscup, you may drive us to Dr. Ferguson's house, " he said. "I will think it over,

" Ferguson said, "but my impression is that this once at least, your instincts should yield to the facts."

"A week."

"Excuse me?"

"A week, John, " Redding said. "I should like to hear something from you about this matter in a week."

Ferguson probed the younger man's eyes. "You seem to be implying that I am holding something back."

"I imply nothing of the kind." He smiled enigmatically. "I am only asking for your help."

The limousine pulled into the snow-banked drive of John Ferguson's house, a trim white colonial on perhaps an acre of land. Redding engaged the intercom. "Mr. Nunes, " he said, "our business has been concluded.

Kindly assist our guest to his home."

The men shook hands and Redding watched as Nunes aided an obviously exhausted John Ferguson up the walk to the front door. The old man was many things, Redding acknowledged, a brilliant physician and administrator, an exceptional judge of human nature and predictor of human behavior, a gifted philosopher. What he was not, Redding had known since the early days of their association, was John Ferguson. Redding's investigators had been able to learn that much, but no more. There had been a John Ferguson with an educational background identical to this man's, but that John Ferguson had died in the bombing of a field hospital in Bataan. Originally, Redding's instincts had argued against a confrontation with his new associate over what, exactly, the man was hiding from. That decision had proved prudent-at least until now.

Ferguson bid a final good-bye with a weak wave and entered his home.

Behind the smoked glass of the limousine, Cyrus Redding was placing a phone call through the mobile operator. "Dr. Stein, please," Redding said. "Hello, Doctor, this is your friend from Darlington. The man, John Ferguson, of whom I spoke last night, I should like the reinvestigation and close observation instituted at once. Keep me informed personally of your progress. He seems to have materialized shortly after World War Two, so perhaps that is a period to reinvestigate first.

Thank you."

All right, my friend, he thought. For fifteen years, I have allowed you your deception. Let us hope that courtesy was not misplaced. + i Kate Bennett set her dictaphone headpiece in its cradle and stared across the street at the darkened Omnicenter. Reflections from the headlights of passing cars sparkling off its six-foot windows lent an eerie animation to the structure, which stood out against its dark brick surroundings like a spaceship. Kate knew it was her never-timid imagination at work, knew it was the phone call she was expecting, but she still could not rationalize away her sense of the building as something ominous, something virulent. The message had been on her desk when she returned from the Friday meeting of the hospital Infection Control Committee, which she had chaired for almost a year. The department secretary handed her a note: sent normal, one spec contaminated. Please await phone call with details between six and seven tonight."