Phillip Margolin: The Associate

The purpose of this letter and the enclosed preliminary results is to alert you to my findings, as I believe it will have important implications for our current phase II and III studies in human beings. I will forward a detailed anatomical and biochemical analysis when my study is completed. Daniel was stunned. Kaidanov’s letter was the smoking gun that could destroy Geller Pharmaceuticals’ case, and Aaron Flynn had just told Arthur Briggs that Daniel had placed the lethal weapon in his hands.

While Daniel read the letter in shocked silence, Susan Webster’s fingers flew across the keys of her laptop. “I have a few questions about this document, Dr. Schroeder,” Aaron Flynn said in a cordial tone. Susan slipped beside Arthur Briggs and gestured at a case she had called up on her computer. She whispered hurriedly in his ear and Briggs shouted, “Objection! This is a confidential communication between Dr. Kaidanov and his attorney that has been inadvertently turned over to you. You had an ethical obligation to refrain from reading the letter once you saw that it was an attorney/client communication.” Flynn chuckled. “Arthur, this is a report of the results of a preclincal test on rhesus monkeys. Your client, probably at your suggestion, has been instructing its scientists to send all their test results to in-house counsel, so you can raise this silly objection to our discovery requests, but it’s too transparent to take seriously.” “You’ll take this damn seriously when I report you to the bar disciplinary committee.” Flynn smiled. “Take any steps you think you must, Arthur.” Flynn nodded and one of his associates sped several copies of a legal document across the polished wood table. “I want the record to reflect that I have just served Dr. Schroeder and his counsel a request for production of Dr. Kaidanov’s study and all supporting documentation, as well as a notice of deposition for Dr.

Kaidanov and Mr. Fournet.” Flynn turned back to the witness. “Now, Dr.

Schroeder, I’d like to ask you a few questions about the Kaidanov study.” “Don’t you say a thing,” Briggs shouted at the witness.

“Arthur, Dr. Schroeder is under oath and we’re in the middle of his deposition.” Flynn’s tone was calm and condescending, and it raised Briggs’s blood pressure another notch. “I want Judge Norris on the phone.” A blood vessel in Briggs’s temple looked like it was about to burst. “I want a ruling on this before I’ll let Dr. Schroeder give you the time of day.” Flynn shrugged. “Call the judge.” Daniel barely heard what Briggs and Flynn said. All he could think about was the steps he’d taken when he reviewed the discovery. How could he have missed Kaidanov’s letter? He had skim-read many of the documents, but he was specifically looking for privileged information. A letter to an attorney would have raised a red flag. It didn’t seem possible that it could slip by, but it had. Daniel was devastated. No one was perfect, but to be responsible for an error of these proportions… As soon as Judge Norris was connected to the conference room, Flynn and Briggs took turns explaining the legal arguments supporting their position in the Kaidanov matter. The judge was too busy to deal with a matter of this complexity over the phone. He told the attorneys to stop questioning Schroeder until he ruled and he ordered Briggs and Flynn to submit briefs on their positions by the end of the week. As soon as Flynn and his minions cleared the conference room, Briggs waved Kaidanov’s letter in Schroeder’s face. “What is this, Kurt?” “I’ve got no idea, Arthur.” The Geller executive looked as upset as his attorney. “I’ve never seen the damn thing in my life.” “But you know this guy Kaidanov?” “I know who he is. He works in R and D. I don’t know him personally.” “And he’s working with these monkeys?” “No. Not to my knowledge.” “What does ‘not to my knowledge’ mean? You’re not holding out on me, are you? This letter could cost your company millions, if you’re lucky, and it could sink Geller if you’re not.”

Schroeder was sweating. “I swear, Arthur, I’ve never heard of a single study that we’ve conducted that came back with results like these.

What kind of company do you think we run? If I got wind of a study of Insufort with those results, do you think I’d okay human trials?” “I want to speak to Kaidanov and Fournet immediately, this afternoon,”

Briggs said. “I’ll phone my office and set it up.” When Schroeder walked over to the credenza and punched in the number of his office, Briggs turned toward Daniel, who had tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Briggs held out his copy of the Kaidanov letter, which had sustained serious damage. “Explain this, Ames,” he demanded in a soft tone that was more frightening than the screams he’d expected. “I … uh, Mr. Briggs… I’ve never seen it.” “Never seen it,”

Briggs repeated. “Was Flynn lying when he said that you gave it to him?” Daniel glanced at Susan. She averted her eyes, but her body language revealed her anxiety. Daniel looked back at Briggs. “Well?”

Briggs asked, his voice slightly louder. “He didn’t mean that literally, Mr. Briggs. I was told to review five large boxes of documents that Geller produced in response to a demand for discovery.”

Daniel was the only one who saw Susan release her pent-up breath. “I was told to deliver the discovery first thing in the morning, eightA.M. I didn’t see the boxes until eight the night before. There were roughly twenty thousand pages. I stayed at the office all evening. I even slept here. There were too many pages for me to review every one of them in that time.” “And that’s your excuse?” “It’s not an excuse. Nobody could have gone through every page in those boxes in the time I had.” “You’re not a ‘nobody,’ Ames. You’re a Reed, Briggs associate. If we wanted nobodies we’d pay minimum wage and hire graduates of unaccredited, correspondence law schools.” “Mr. Briggs.

I’m sorry, but-” “My secretary will set up the meetings,” Schroeder said as he hung up the phone. To Daniel’s great relief, Schroeder’s statement distracted Briggs. Schroeder reread Kaidanov’s letter. When he was done he held it up. He looked grim. “I think this is a fraud.

We never conducted a study with these results,” he declared emphatically. “I’m certain of it.” “You’d better be right,” Briggs said. “If Judge Norris rules that this letter is admissible in court, and we can’t prove it’s a fake, you, and everyone else at Geller Pharmaceuticals, will be selling pencils on street corners.” Briggs started to lead Newbauer and Schroeder out of the room. Daniel hung back, hoping to escape Briggs’s notice, but the senior partner stopped at the door and cast a scathing look at him. “I’ll talk with you, later,” Briggs said. The door closed and Daniel was left alone in the conference room.

Daniel spent the afternoon waiting for the ax to fall. Around two, he dialed Susan’s extension to find out what was going on, but her secretary told him that she was at Geller Pharmaceuticals with Arthur Briggs. An hour later, when he realized that he’d never get any work done, Daniel went home to his one-bedroom walk-up on the third floor of an old brick apartment house in northwest Portland. His place was small and sparsely furnished with things Daniel had transported from his law-school apartment in Eugene. Its most attractive feature was its location near Northwest Twenty-first and Twenty-third streets with their restaurants, shops, and crowds. But today the apartment could have been in the heart of Paris and Daniel would not have noticed.

Arthur Briggs was going to fire him. He was sure of it. Everything he had worked for was going to be destroyed because of a single sheet of paper. Something else troubled Daniel. He had been so worried about being fired that it was not until he was in bed, eyes closed, that the true importance of Dr. Sergey Kaidanov’s letter dawned on him. Until he read the letter, Daniel had been convinced that there was no merit to the lawsuit Aaron Flynn had brought on behalf of Toby Moffitt, Patrick Cummings, and the other children allegedly affected by Insufort. What if he was wrong? What if Geller Pharmaceuticals knew that it was selling a product that could deform innocent babies?