Scott Nicholson - Liquid fear

Just before she closed the door, Anita called her name. Not angry, just frustrated.

“Yeah?” Wendy asked.

“Take your pills. Don’t become like me.”

By the time she got to her car, Wendy was starting to remember things. Chase Hanson. Dr. Briggs. Susan.

Those things never happened if you keep forgetting them.

She took a pill by the light of the dashboard before driving home. She would take as many as she needed to keep the past away.

And to keep her from her true self.

The black limousine turned off the street in front of the hotel and glided through the narrow underground tunnel to the service entrance Mark waited in front of.

Mark Morgan peered at the tinted, bulletproof glass, wondering what they thought as they sized him up. As the limousine came to a stop, Mark caught his own reflection in the window, a pale smudge painted by the unhealthy yellow of the security lights.

The car stopped, its engine so quiet that Mark thought the ignition was off, though the exhaust quickly made him lightheaded. The driver’s door opened and a man in a dark suit emerged, nodding and bending to take Mark’s suitcase. His face was cold, lean, and wolfish.

“I can do that,” Mark said.

The glass on the rear window slid down. “Now, Mark, let Winston feel useful. He hates to be stereotyped.”

“Good morning, Senator.”

“I hope we’re not running too far behind.”

“No, my plane doesn’t leave for another hour.”

“Fine. Get in.”

The door opened as the driver carried Mark’s bag to the trunk and loaded it. Mark settled into the spacious rear compartment. Senator Daniel Burchfield, the Republican from North Carolina, moved into the middle of the brown leather seat.

“You know Wallace Forsyth, don’t you?” the senator said.

“Yes,” Mark said, reaching across the senator’s abdomen to shake Forsyth’s hand. “It’s been a while.”

“That wife of yours is some kind of hell-raiser, Morgan,” Forsyth said. “And I mean that with all due respect.”

“She keeps my hands full,” Mark said.

Forsyth’s skin was cadaverous and cool, as if he’d been dipped in a thin layer of wax, and his cologne was overpowering. “Well, you need to rein her in a little,” Forsyth drawled in his rough, Kentucky-inflected voice. “She’s got the bioethics council chasing its tail. You ever seen what happens when a dog chases its tail?”

“Afraid not, sir.”

“Well, it either catches it, or it drops over dead. I don’t know which one will come first with this bunch. The president put too many liberals on the council, for one thing.”

“Now, now,” Burchfield said. “You really mean he put too many atheists on it.”

Forsyth harrumphed as if he saw no difference in the two. “A good scientist can work God into anything. Especially if it makes better people.”

“Save it for the council, Wallace,” Burchfield said. “We’re all on the same page here. Right, Mark?”

“Right.”

A pane of soundproof glass separated the driver’s compartment from the rear. Winston settled behind the wheel and negotiated a turn between the hotel shuttle vans.

Mark had planned to take a taxi. Alexis had left the previous evening, and Mark had an extra stop on his itinerary. He didn’t feel he could trouble a U.S. senator to make a pit stop, however. He decided to get to business.

“We can give the FDA-”

Forsyth held up a chapped palm. “Is the car clean?” he asked Burchfield.

Mark didn’t comprehend the remark. The interior still had that acrid chemical scent of new upholstery.

Burchfield nodded. “Secret Service swept it.”

“You trust the Service?”

“You know me better than that. I had my own people go over it after that, in case the NSA wants a piece. Defense has been sniffing around, too.”

Mark finally understood they were talking about bugs. He’d never considered that a senator’s car might be bugged, especially by the very federal agencies whose budgets passed through one of Burchfield’s other committees.

“Okay,” Forsyth said with a crooked grin. “Now that Mr. Morgan knows we’re not playing matchstick poker here.”

“The subcommittee on health care is meeting Thursday,” Burchfield said.

“They moved it up a week?” Mark asked. Congress usually moved at glacial speed on legislative matters.

“I had to call in some favors. There’s a certain blowhard Democrat who is scheduled to be in Afghanistan this week, and I wouldn’t mind if he misses a few votes. One thing you can count on in the current political environment-no politician dares cancel a photo op in Afghanistan.”

The limousine merged into afternoon traffic, took an exit, and was soon on the freeway headed for Dulles International. Mark looked out at passengers in nearby cars, who stared back at the dark glass and no doubt tried to guess what type of important person was shielded from their view.

He’d noticed the same phenomenon in Los Angeles, where stargazers imagined Tom Cruise or Sandra Bullock behind every tinted windshield.

Only in New York did people not give a damn one way or another, as long as you weren’t cutting them off in traffic. In that case, it wouldn’t matter whether you were a pope or a polar bear, you’d be in for a horn blast and a middle finger.

“Where are we on Halcyon?” Burchfield asked.

“We’ve got our best people on it,” Mark said.

“How long have the trials been going on? FDA doesn’t like to fast-track. It’s been bitten on the ass too many times. Look at the Vioxx mess.”

“Well, there’s a minor problem with that, sir.” Mark resorted to the salutation because it might soften the bad news. Burchfield didn’t buy it.

“Problem? Hell, Morgan, I thought the problem was getting this through the red tape and putting Halcyon on those blocks of sticky pads in your friendly neighborhood doctor’s office. Don’t tell me we’re shaky on the approach?”

“We’ve had some trials and rigorous testing. We’re doing a double-blind study right now.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Ain’t it obvious?” Forsyth said. “The boy’s walking on mule eggs. He has no idea what Halcyon can do.”

“I have a real good idea, Mr. Forsyth.” Mark looked past Burchfield to the wispy-haired fundamentalist. “Trouble is, I’m not sure we want the whole story out there.”

“Now, now,” Burchfield said. “Either you can deliver the damn drug or you can’t.”

“We’ve had the trials. Years of trials. Our lead researcher has been on it for a decade. But not all of it’s documented.”

“What do you mean, ‘not documented’?”

“There are gaps in the record. The FDA likes a timeline, the introduction, the animal testing, the check for cross-reactions, all that. But we kind of skipped a step.”

“It’s a little late for surprises.” Burchfield had the politician’s knack of changing moods quickly, at least when not in front of the camera or on the Senate floor. His cheeks blotched with anger. “Fill me in.”

“Well, it’s an offshoot of a drug we had in trials a decade ago, before I joined CRO. The original testing was a little…” Mark shopped around for the right word.

“Squirrel-eyed,” Forsyth finished. “You got some bad results and you chucked them off the back porch.”

“The results were mostly positive,” Mark said. “But the testing started with human trials.”

“Goddamn it,” Burchfield said, unapologetic for cussing in front of his Christian ally. “Can the FDA trace that to Halcyon?”

“Not likely. The only link is Sebastian Briggs, the doctor who-”

“I know Briggs. He gave a briefing to the subcommittee years ago on the ethics of mood-enhancing drugs. Before he went in the shitter.”