Sandra Moore - The Orchid Hunter

“Hmm,” he said, then surprised the hell out of me by saying, “Tell me about your great-uncle.”

“He’s not your business,” I replied.

“He’s ailing, is he not?” Von Brutten’s left hand twisted a gold ring around his right hand’s index finger. “Victim of a pharmaceutical experiment?”

“That’s not—”

“It’s a shame that someone who raised you after your parents died—car accident, wasn’t it?—should now be facing imminent death as well as the loss of everything he owns.”

I stood up, tossed the linen napkin onto the table. “Thanks for the Earl Grey. I’m glad you liked your flowers.” I walked toward the door.

“I know what it’s like to lose all of one’s family,” he called.

He could go screw himself. I kept walking.

“My sources tell me Cradion has a record of concealing its failures no matter the cost.” And when I didn’t stop, he added, “I can repair the damage they did to your uncle.”

I spun. There was no point in shouting How do you know about Cradion? How do you know about Scooter? because of course this was Linus Geraint Newark von Brutten III. I kept my mouth shut and glared at him instead.

He inclined his head toward me. A conciliatory gesture. “But I need your help to do so.”

“Surprise me.”

“Bring me back the Death Orchid and I’ll see your great-uncle has the best chance at living out his full span of years.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s everything it’s rumored to be.” He spread his hands as he said, “It’s the elixir of life.”

He was out of his mind. As nuts as Lawrence Daley and his nutty high-society employer. As nuts as any nutty botanist, taxonomist, or nursery owner who longed for glory in the insulated, isolated, nutty world of rare orchid collecting.

Before I could open my mouth, von Brutten said, “I have proof the orchid exists.”

He snapped his fingers. Sims glided in with a thick padded envelope, laid it on the table, bowed and vanished.

“Please.” Von Brutten’s long fingers gestured to the envelope. “See for yourself.”

I didn’t budge. “What about Cradion? What proof do you have of their wrongdoing?”

“Let me handle Cradion.”

Fair enough. My agenda was pretty narrow. “What will you do for my uncle?”

“I have controlling interest in Lexicran Pharmaceuticals, which directly competes with Cradion. I can…encourage…a particular kind of research.”

“You’re way behind. Cradion’s already in phase two trials. The drug’ll be on the market in no time.”

“My company has been developing a similar treatment for Parkinson’s.”

“Maybe so, but my great-uncle’s problems are a little bigger than that now.”

“A Parkinson’s cure is not the only endeavor my company pursues. Heart medications, like the one that may restore your guardian’s damaged tissues, are also of interest to us. The Death Orchid is the difference between our drug getting FDA approval in two years and Cradion killing off more old people.”

“You just want to see Cradion go down the tubes so your company won’t have any competition. You don’t care about its ethics. Or the Parkinson’s patients.”

Von Brutten’s silver eyes flashed with what might have been humor. “Of course I don’t. I care about the bottom line. So do you. You only want your guardian to survive. You don’t care about the patients who might die because Cradion can pull the wool over the FDA’s eyes.”

“That’s pretty harsh,” I began, but he kept going.

“Stop pretending we’re not the same, Dr. Robards. If you were perfectly honest with yourself, you might find you don’t even care that much about your great-uncle because you’re too busy hating Cradion.”

“Bullshit!” I reached for the doorknob.

He raised his voice. “I can take Cradion down with your help. And save the old man.”

The door handle’s coldness penetrated my palm. I was too much of a pragmatist to obsess over ethics or consequences, but I resented his assumption that my hatred of Cradion overshadowed my love for Scooter. Being successful had made von Brutten arrogant. And offensive. On the other hand, experience had taught me he was also a man of his word, twisted as it was.

He turned my pragmatism against me to get what he wanted: the Death Orchid. And he’d use my bottom line—Scooter’s life—to get it.

Damn.

I let go of the doorknob. “Show me,” I said.

“The Death Orchid is real. I’m told it contains the compounds necessary to create a lifesaving heart medication.”

“Terence Harrison published a paper that refuted claims the Death Orchid exists.”

He inclined his head. “He did so at my request.”

“You mean he lied?”

“I mean he massaged the data so we could continue our work with the plant unmolested by competitors. But that’s old news, Dr. Robards. My researcher ran out of specimens for testing and I need you to bring me another.” His lips quirked. “Or two.”

He opened the envelope and slid its contents onto the table as I walked over to see what he had. It wasn’t much. A blood-streaked, ripped-out page of a spiral notebook. A brass key.

I raised one eyebrow at him.

“Harrison’s last work,” he replied.

“Harrison’s been on sabbatical for a year.”

“I know. He was working for me.”

“What?” My brain struggled. “Harrison isn’t the kind of guy to give up his precious scientific detachment to squander his talents in a commercial effort.”

Von Brutten beamed a pitying look my direction. “If you only knew how many idealistic academics I have on my payroll. Harrison was your mentor, wasn’t he?”

I nodded. “Plant Biology, specializing in taxonomy and biochemistry. And he works for you now?”

“He did, yes.”

“Did?”

“May still do. I’m not sure.”

“Why not?”

“He’s missing.”

A chill shot through my gut. The mild-mannered and anal-retentive Dr. Harrison was physically no match for one of Scooter’s nursing home girlfriends, much less a hired thug. The shock subsided a little in time for anger to take over. Harrison was harmless. They didn’t have to get rough, whoever they were.

I turned the notebook page over, studying the brown stain’s irregular edges sprawled on top of scribbled black ink. The writing beneath was illegible, partly because of the blood and partly because of Harrison’s trademark chicken scratch and the torturous, self-invented shorthand he’d used. Shorthand I’d spent long hours deciphering, keying his lab observations into the best taxonomy and morphology database in the country.

My mind flashed on Harrison’s characteristic fastidiousness, his fondness for bow ties and cheap cologne, his weirdly pale green eyes. Dedicated to the cause. He wouldn’t work for von Brutten unless he had to, no matter what von Brutten had said. I’d sat through too many ad hoc lectures about ethics and the purity of intellectual scientific pursuit to believe otherwise.

But there was that day I’d come back to his office early from lunch and settled down in my cubicle to catch up on some tedious cataloging. Over the high wall that separated my desk from Harrison’s, I heard the door snick shut and him pace quickly to his desk. We worked in silence for a few minutes until I popped up from behind my cube to ask a question. His desk faced mine. Behind it, he stared intently at his computer screen, like a kid lost in a video game. When I spoke, his eyes snapped to mine and his face flushed. Caught. I couldn’t understand what he said to me then, he was stuttering so badly. It’d taken most of the day for his hands to stop shaking and his face to resume its normal pallor.