Brian Freemantle - Dead End

‘Some of us!’ qualified Beverley.

‘However, I’m looking beyond this,’ picked up Parnell. ‘I could not be happier, more satisfied, with the way this unit’s worked out. We’ve considered what’s worrying… some of you… Now hear what’s worrying me. What’s worrying me is that this is going to fuck up what we’ve had going, thus far. I don’t want it to. And I hope you don’t want it to – won’t let it – happen either.’ He looked at Beverley. ‘What we’ve done for Dubette should establish us, not knock us off balance, damaging what we’re building between us. Have I made myself clear?’

‘I hope we both have,’ said Lapidus.

Parnell decided a further hour without contact from Dwight Newton was sufficient. Refusing to wait any longer – or risk being fobbed off on the telephone by one of the man’s protective secretariat – Parnell made another unannounced approach into the centre of the Spider’s Web. This time he did stop off at the chemical research unit and wasn’t surprised to be told Russell Benn was with the vice president. At Newton’s outer office, the man’s personal assistant, an indeterminately aged woman with crimped hair, not wearing a wedding band, said the vice president was in conference and could not be disturbed, under any circumstances. Parnell said he would wait but asked that the woman tell Newton that he was doing just that, waiting in the outer office.

‘He told me he wasn’t to be disturbed under any circumstances,’ repeated the woman, making no move towards Newton’s office.

‘And you told me,’ said Parnell.

‘I’ve no idea how long it’ll be.’

‘As long as it takes,’ said Parnell, settling himself in an easy chair in direct line with Newton’s office door. He ignored the magazines on a side table, near a tall plant with polished leaves, reminiscent of the FBI field office, inwardly unsettled by the doubt of the previous evening’s conversation with Beverley. Surely Newton had called New York – spoken to Edward C. Grant! It was inconceivable that Newton wouldn’t have made the call. Salaries and stock options didn’t come into the consideration – any consideration. For Newton to have hesitated, looked for an excuse or an escape, would be criminal. Literally criminal, opening him – and Dubette – up to both criminal and civil prosecution. But what if Newton hadn’t telephoned New York? Had looked – was still looking – for a way out? Should he go over the vice president’s head, as Beverley had asked if he would? He’d have to, Parnell accepted. He’d have no alternative. Another recollection from the previous night swirled into his mind, his now embarrassing insistence upon travelling home with the woman in her car. About which he shouldn’t be embarrassed, he told himself. The danger did exist. Without any reason, any evidence, for the speculation, he asked himself if it would increase, become any clearer, if he did go directly to New York? He didn’t have to, he realized. There was an intended meeting with the FBI team. He wasn’t sure – didn’t care – if it came within their jurisdiction. They’d have to take some action if he told them. It would, after all, amount to possible mass murder.

‘Would you do me a favour?’ he called to the obstructive personal assistant. ‘Would you just slip a message to Dwight and tell him I’m waiting out here. That the FBI are waiting on me to fix a meeting?’

‘He doesn’t want to be interrupted.’

‘Just tell him that,’ insisted Parnell.

‘He doesn’t want to be interrupted,’ the woman repeated.

‘He’ll want to be, about this.’

She hesitated, looked for guidance to the other secretaries, each of whom shrugged, refusing advice or involvement, and finally got to her feet. She reappeared almost immediately at Newton’s office door, smiling with relief. ‘He says to come in.’

‘What meeting with the FBI?’ demanded Newton, virtually as Parnell crossed the threshold.

‘They want to see me again.’

‘What about?’

Russell Benn was beside the desk again and Parnell thought they looked like two boys exchanging secrets. ‘They didn’t say. I was told you were in conference. I thought I might have been invited.’

‘You were just about to be.’

‘Fortunate I came by, then. Have Paris been stopped?’

‘Yes.’

Parnell was unsure whether to believe the man. There was a possible way of finding out, he thought. ‘Had any been distributed?’

‘They’re checking.’

‘They don’t know?’ queried Parnell, disbelievingly.

‘It was the middle of the night!’ said Benn.

‘Now it’s getting towards the middle of their day!’ insisted Parnell.

‘They’re checking,’ repeated the vice president.

‘You haven’t yet seen the cultures.’ The overnight HPRT production was enormous.

‘I’d like to go over them in my laboratory,’ said Benn, unable to meet Parnell’s look as he spoke.

To avoid an accusing audience, thought Parnell, at once. The cultures weren’t sterile, so there was no reason why they shouldn’t be transferred. No reason, either, why Newton or Benn should be humiliated further. ‘Sure. Did you tell Paris we want everything that hasn’t been tested?’

Newton said: ‘I’m going to speak to Saby again, later. I haven’t forgotten.’

‘I’ve already prepared a schedule of what’s to come,’ added Benn, supportively, offering the single sheet of paper from which Parnell quickly saw that there were still six missing items. All were for child treatments.

‘They need to be withdrawn, ahead of any examination.’ said Parnell.

‘That’s what I’ve told Paris, that everything’s got to be stopped,’ assured Newton.

Parnell paused, mentally rehearsing his promised approach. ‘I think it would be appropriate for my unit to be thanked officially, by letter, for their contribution yesterday.’

‘You’re the unit director,’ said Newton, sharply. ‘Haven’t you thanked them?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then it’s done,’ insisted Newton. ‘Just as I thanked you, last night.’

‘I’ll tell them Dubette is grateful.’ But not tell you I’m doing it by the official letter you’re frightened will lock you into a scandal, Parnell decided. He’d known in advance what Newton’s response would be, and had only asked the question because he’d promised the unit he’d do so. Newton’s rejection was still… What? Indicative, he supposed.

‘When’s the meeting with the FBI?’ asked Newton, abruptly.

‘Not fixed yet,’ said Parnell.

‘But it’s about Rebecca…? Her death…?’

They were shit-scared about France, Parnell guessed at once. With every cause and reason. ‘They didn’t tell me what it was about. But it has to be connected with Rebecca, doesn’t it?’

‘There’s… I’m sure you’re aware…’ stumbled the vice president.

‘You got something to say, why don’t you say it, Dwight?’ demanded Parnell.

‘After Rebecca’s murder, your discovery could totally destroy Dubette if it ever became public,’ blurted the thin man.

‘Dwight! That’s what I told you, in as many words, remember? I’m not going to talk to anyone about it. Neither is anyone in my unit. Your only risk – Dubette’s only risk – is if some of this stuff has already been shipped, for sale or use. And people start dying.’

‘I know. And thank you, again. For the assurance, I mean.’

‘That’s what we need, not my positive assurance, but far more importantly the positive guarantee from Paris that every-thing’s recovered. Destroyed. We’re agreed on that, aren’t we! We can’t be anything else but agreed on that!’ challenged Parnell, abandoning all his previous reservations about what he said at this encounter. Abandoning, too, any reliance upon Newton to achieve anything. Into Parnell’s mind drifted Beverley’s cynicism: You’d be surprised what someone will do to keep five hundred thousand a year and stock options . The vice president and Benn were still shell-shocked, their ears ringing – deafened – from the reverberations of an explosion they hadn’t ever imagined.