George Chesbro - Bleeding in the Eye of a Brainstorm

"Interesting," Kramer said in a mild tone.

"I'm glad I've piqued your curiosity."

"This drug sounds like something the CIA would dream up."

He'd surprised me. "Why do you say that?"

"The CIA is always nosing around academia. They like to keep up with the latest research in chemistry, pharmacology, psychology-all sorts of areas. You'd be amazed at how much academic research is totally funded by the CIA, although they're almost never up front about it."

"I wouldn't be amazed at all."

"You're in danger, aren't you?"

There didn't seem to be much sense in denying it. "Ah, well, you know how it goes, Bailey. Mongo's the name, danger's my game."

"I'm serious. I've had dealings with these people, probably turned down close to two dozen research grants for odd jobs they wanted me to do. They're very strange."

"Tell me about it. My safety isn't your concern, Bailey. And you should be safe as long as you lie low while you're working on this, and don't talk to anybody else about what you're doing."

"You don't have to worry about that." He paused, lowered his gaze, then added softly, "Thanks."

"For what? Giving you the chance to get sent to prison?"

He looked back into my face, said, "For having the chutzpah to come to me with this totally absurd request."

"You can do it, Bailey."

"I don't need a pep talk, Frederickson," he said with a wry smile as he put the capsule in his pocket, picked up the computer printout, and rose to his feet.

"When will I hear from you?"

"When I have something to say. I told you I'd let you know in a day or two if I won't be able to do it."

"Call or fax me with a list of everything you need-amount of lab space, equipment, materials, general expenses, whatever. The phone and fax numbers are on the printout."

"Sure. I'm not doing this for the potential payoff, Frederickson- not the potential profits from marketing a safe version of the drug, and not even for the chance to get my old life back. At least, those aren't the major reasons."

"I don't care why you're doing it, Bailey. I'm grateful to you."

"Maybe your reasons are good enough for me; I'd like to save these people's lives."

"It wouldn't surprise me at all."

"I'll be in touch," he said, then turned and walked away.

Step Six.

With MacWhorter on Punch and Judy's case, Veil and his students safeguarding my charges, and Bailey Kramer at work trying to replicate the drug, I had breathing room to go off on another tack. As a result of our recent work on an industrial espionage case in the prescription drug business, Garth and I had made a lot of contacts in the pharmaceuticals industry. I figured it couldn't hurt to do a little poking around in a few executive suites to see if I might not be able to get a lead on what company had been playing Igor to the CIA's Dr. Frankenstein.

Since there were upwards of a hundred drug companies that had corporate headquarters or major branch offices in New York, and since my time was severely limited, to say the least, I decided to start at the top with Lorminix, the biggest drug and chemical company of them all, a giant cartel with corporate headquarters in Berne and its largest distribution outlet and branch office in New York. In addition to the logic of starting with the largest researcher, designer, and manufacturer of pharmaceuticals in the world, with sensitive, up-to-date information on just about everything that was going on in the business, I had another reason for going first to Lorminix; I had a personal relationship with the vice president for North American Operations, Peter Southworth. Not only had I worked with Southworth on the industrial espionage investigation, but we had served together on the board of directors of the Bronx Zoo, which housed a certain animal in which I had an intense personal interest.

I considered Peter an interesting man-not exceptionally bright, but good-hearted, and with the strength of character to fend off the bitterness that I was certain he must feel, and which could have twisted his life if he had allowed it. His grandfather had founded Lorminix, and his family had run it up until the time of his father's death, when control had passed to Peter. Peter had simply lacked the vision, marketing skills, toughness, or whatever it was that was needed to run such a gigantic enterprise. Whatever the reason, in a relatively short time he had just about run the company into the ground before it had been acquired by a team of European businessmen in a leveraged buyout that had brought Peter millions of dollars and a lifetime sinecure, but on the payroll of a company that was no longer his. He had immediately been shunted off to New York, and it was widely known in the industry that he was nothing more than a figurehead, even in his own office. The fact that he had so much money, a great deal of which he gave away through various philanthropic foundations he had set up, could not erase the fact that he had lost the family business, and been branded an incompetent. Unless there was something about his personal situation or contract I didn't know about, I frankly couldn't understand why he remained where he was. A very wealthy man like Peter Southworth can find a lot of better things to do with his time and money than sit around a plush office on sufferance. Like start another business, or, through investment capital, buy his way to an executive position of real power with another company. Maybe he was just gun-shy, or possibly gutted. The long knives of big-time capitalism will do that to a man. In any case, it was none of my business. I liked the guy, and felt sorry for him. I hoped he could be useful.

I'd made an appointment, and I was immediately ushered into his palatial office by his secretary the moment I arrived. The secretary left, but reappeared with coffee and croissants before I'd barely had time to shake Peter's hand and settle down on the plush, butter-soft brown leather sofa he'd motioned me onto, and which stretched along the entire length of one of the walls in his office.

"Mongo the Magnificent!" the lanky executive exclaimed, slapping me on the back as he sat down next to me on the sofa. He was wearing a thousand-dollar Armani suit and three-hundred-dollar wing-tip shoes, a wardrobe that clashed somewhat with the gold hoop earring he wore in his left earlobe and his long, graying brown hair which he wore in a ponytail, probably some kind of statement he was trying to make that had nothing to do with fashion. "It's good to see you, my friend. How the hell are you?"

"It's good to see you, Peter, and I'm doing fine. You look well."

"I am. We miss you at the zoo's board meetings. They just aren't the same without you. Too damn stuffy; not zooey enough, in a manner of speaking. Why did you resign?"

"I just didn't have the time to spare any longer."

I also didn't have the time to sit around all afternoon chatting with Peter Southworth, something I was quite certain he would be happy to do, since there was very little real work or decision making his bosses in Berne let him handle. In order to expedite the point of my visit, I took the last of the black-and-yellow capsules I had appropriated from Margaret's supply, one I would at least be able to return, and set it down in the center of the glass-topped coffee table in front of us. "Peter," I continued, "I was hoping you might be able to help me on a very important matter I'm working on. Have you ever seen a capsule that looks like this? It looks larger than average to me, and I don't recall ever seeing a medication that was packaged in black-and-yellow. I thought a pharmaceuticals man might have. Is there anything you can tell me about this? I'm looking for the manufacturer."

He stared at the capsule on the glass for what seemed to me an inordinate length of time, almost as if he couldn't quite manage to focus on it. It seemed an odd reaction; the capsule was unusual enough so that it seemed to me he would recognize what it was immediately, or not. Finally he looked back at me, said quietly, "I don't think I can help you, Mongo."