Alan Glynn - The Dark Fields aka Limitless

What was there to be upset about?

After a while I got my computer out of its box and put it on a wooden crate. I went online and tried to catch up with the day’s financial news.

I WAS BACK IN FORTY-EIGHTH STREET the next morning at around seven-thirty, drafting speeches and making some final changes to the press release. Given that the announcement was only a couple of hours away and that secrecy was no longer an issue, Van Loon had been able to call some of his regular people in to get the PR machinery up and running. Although this was a great help, the place was now busier than Grand Central Station.

Before leaving the apartment, I had taken my usual dose of five pills – three MDT and two Dexeron – but then at the last minute I had gone back and rummaged in the holdall bag and taken two more, one of each. As a result, I was operating at full tilt, but I found that my accelerated work-rate was intimidating some of these Van Loon regulars – people who probably had a lot more experience than I had. To avoid any friction, therefore, I set up a makeshift office in one of the boardrooms and got some work done on my own.

At around ten-thirty, Kenny Sanchez called me on my cellphone. I was sitting at a large oval table with a laptop computer and dozens of pages spread out in front of me when he rang.

‘I have some bad news, Eddie.’

I got a sharp, sinking feeling in my stomach.

‘What?’

‘Well, a couple of things. I’ve located Todd Ellis, but I’m afraid he’s dead.’

Shit.

‘What happened?’

‘Hit-and-run accident, about a week ago. Around where he lived, in Brooklyn.’

Fuck .

This flooded in on me now – without Todd Ellis, what chance did I have? Where did I go? Where did I even begin ?

I noticed that Kenny Sanchez was silent.

‘You mentioned there were a couple of things,’ I said. ‘What else?’

‘I’ve been re-assigned.’

‘ What ?’

‘I’ve been re-assigned, given another case to work on. I don’t know why. I kicked up shit, but there’s nothing I can do. It’s a big agency. This is my job .’

‘So… who’s looking after it now?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe no one.’

‘Is this normal – I mean, interference like this?’

‘No.’

He sounded very pissed off.

‘I worked the phones all yesterday afternoon when I left you, and even late into the evening. Then this morning I get called in to make a report and they tell me I’m needed on another case and to hand over all my paper-work.’

I thought about it for a second, but what could I say? Then I just said, ‘What else did you manage to find out?’

He sighed, and I pictured him shaking his head.

‘Well, you were right about the list,’ he said eventually. ‘It was incredible.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Those out-of-state numbers? You were right. They all seem to be cult members living under assumed names. Most are sick, but I got to speak to some of them.’ There was a brief pause, during which I heard him sighing again. ‘Of the three I was originally looking for, two are in the hospital and one is at home suffering from severe migraines.’

I could tell by his tone that despite having been reassigned he was excited at the progress he’d made.

‘It took a while to get anyone to speak to me, but when I did, it was amazing. The longest conversation I had was with a girl called Beth Lipski. It seems the standard Dekedelia make-over involves a completely new identity – chemically-assisted alteration of metabolism, plastic surgery, new “designated” relatives, the lot. And just like you said, career advancement is the measure of a successful new identity, with 60 per cent of income going back into the organization. Shit, it’s like a cross between the Freemasons and the Witness Protection Program.’

‘Why did she talk?’

‘Because she’s afraid. Tauber has cut off all contact with her, and she feels nervous and lost. She has a permanent headache and can’t work properly. She doesn’t know what’s happening to her. I don’t even think she knows she’s been taking a drug – and I didn’t want to push her over the edge by bringing it up. She was paranoid about talking to me in the first place, but then once she started she couldn’t stop.’

‘So how do you think he gives them the drug?’

‘Apparently, he has them all on a programme of vitamins and special diet supplements, so I guess he slips it in there somehow. And that’s obviously the source of his power over these people, and of his supposed charisma.’ He paused. I heard him stamping his foot, or banging his fist on something. Then he said, ‘Damn! I really can’t believe this shit. I’ve never worked on such an interesting case before.’

I didn’t have time for this now – Kenny Sanchez having a career crisis down the phone at me. I felt a slight queasiness all of a sudden. I took a deep breath, and then asked him if he had come up with anything on United Labtech.

He sighed again.

‘Yeah, I did,’ he said, ‘one thing anyway. It’s owned by the pharmaceutical company, Eiben-Chemcorp.’

Soon after that, I told him I had to go, that I was at work. I thanked him, wished him luck, and got off the phone as quickly as I could.

I put the phone down on the table and stood up.

I walked across the room, slowly, and stood at the windows. It was a clear, sunny day in Manhattan and from up here on the sixty-second floor everything was visible, there to be seen, and picked out, every landmark, every architectural feature – including some less obvious ones, such as the Celestial Building over to my right, or the old Port Authority Terminal further down, on Eighth Avenue, where Kerr & Dexter had their offices. Standing at this window, in fact, I saw that my whole life was laid out in front of me, like a sequence of tiny incisions in the vast microchip of the city – street corners, apartments, delis, liquor stores, movie-theaters. But now, instead of a deeper and more permanent line being cut into the surface, these minute nicks were in danger of being smoothed over and levelled off.

I turned around and stared at the plain white walls on the other side of the room, and at the grey carpet and at the anonymous company furniture. I hadn’t given in to panic yet – though it surely wouldn’t be long in coming. The press conference was scheduled for the afternoon, and already the thought of it filled me with a sense of dread.

But then something else occurred to me, and with the single-mindedness of a condemned man, I latched on to it – and wouldn’t let go.

Sanchez had mentioned Eiben-Chemcorp. I knew I’d heard that name somewhere quite recently, and after a couple of minutes I remembered where. I’d seen it at Vernon’s that day – in the Boston Globe . Vernon had apparently been reading about an upcoming product liability trial in Massachusetts. As far as I could recall, a teenage girl who’d been taking Triburbazine had murdered her best friend and then killed herself.

I walked back over to the table and sat in front of the laptop. I went online and searched the Globe archives for more detail on the story.

The girl’s family had filed a lawsuit looking for punitive damages against Eiben-Chemcorp. In the trial, the company would be defending charges that its anti-depressant drug had caused ‘loss of impulse control’ and ‘suicidal ideation’ in the girl. Dave Morgenthaler, a personal injury lawyer, was to be the lead counsel representing the plaintiffs, and according to one article I read, he had spent the last six months collecting depositions from expert witnesses – among them scientists who’d been involved in the development and production of Triburbazine, and psychiatrists who would be willing to testify that Triburbazine was potentially harmful.