The King

by Steven James

  Flower beds surrounded us, as well as a six-foot-tall sculpture of the twin towers in a pentagon enclosure. The towers had an engraved outline of Pennsylvania that overlapped both of them with a star in the lower left-hand corner to indicate where United Flight 93 had gone down.

  The 207th National Academy class had raised the money to purchase the memorial in honor of everyone who died when the twin towers fell, including the two National Academy grads who were with the Port Authority.

  • • •

  Agent Kantsos told me that over the last two days he’d studied our case files on Corey Wellington’s death, but he had a number of questions that I now did my best to answer. When I was through, I summarized what we knew about Natalie Germaine’s suicide in Montana.

  “The cable news stations are saying Corey’s death was a suicide,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you suggesting his wound might not have been self-inflicted?”

  “No, by all indications it was.”

  “Okay.” He sounded confused. “Honestly, from what I’ve heard so far, I’m not sure I can help you out much here.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, first, because I’m no expert on psychotropic drugs. Second, I have a view that’s a little more, well, extreme than ICE’s official stance about counterfeit pharmaceuticals.”

  “What view is that?”

  He bent and brushed some grass blades off the melon-size piece of the Pentagon that lay in front of the 9/11 memorial.

  “In this attack, when the towers fell, how many people died?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. I think just under three thousand.”

  “Do you know how many people die each year of malaria?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “Over a million, worldwide. And nearly fifty-five percent of the malaria medication used on the African continent is counterfeit. Each year over two hundred thousand people die of malaria that goes untreated because they’re taking counterfeit drugs. And that’s only a conservative estimate of the death toll of one disease from one category of counterfeit drugs on one continent.”

  “A quiet, unreported genocide,” I said softly.

  “That’s one way to put it.” He stood, then gestured toward the monument. “We remember the three thousand people who died on 9/11. Not many Americans give a second thought to the hundreds of thousands who die each year because they’re unknowingly taking counterfeit drugs. Where are the memorials for them?”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Agent Bowers, if I knew you were dying of cancer and I purposely substituted your lifesaving medication with one that I knew was inert or dangerous—but in either case, one that I knew full well would not treat your cancer—if I did that to you, fully aware that my action would contribute to your death, isn’t that a form of homicide?”

  “I would say that it is.”

  “So would I—but our government does not.” He shook his head and we walked to the other side of the courtyard. “Companies and individuals have been prosecuted over wrongful deaths from counterfeit drugs, but no one has been successfully prosecuted for first-degree murder for distributing counterfeit drugs—even though the manufacturers doing so know full well that they’re causing thousands or tens of thousands of deaths.”

  His cynicism seemed well founded. “You might distribute millions of counterfeit drugs and face a sentence of maybe five years in prison. Plus, perhaps, some fines for fraud and conspiracy charges, but never homicide or manslaughter. Accidentally start a fire in a national forest that causes a hiker to die and you could spend decades in prison, but knowingly distribute drugs that’ll directly defraud people and result in thousands of deaths, you receive a slap on the wrist.”

  The more he explained the extent of the problem to me, the more I could see why he had such sharp views. His words reminded me of my lecture earlier in the week when I was discussing with my class the three ways criminals have the advantage over those who track them, specifically the third reason: until we catch them they’re always one step ahead.

  Which means we’re always one step behind.

  Kantsos went on, “A decade ago it was difficult not only to produce the drugs but to distribute them. Today, the production is easy—just about anyone can do it. And with the Internet and international shipping, the distribution is easy too. No middleman. Apart from a few isolated exceptions, drug dogs can’t sniff counterfeit pharmaceuticals out at the airport. And the profit margin is extraordinary. If you produce the drug well enough, no doctor, no pharmacist, not even FDA investigators can identify them using the naked eye.”

  “Like the people who died in 2008 from the tainted heparin that made it past all those inspections.”

  “Exactly. Since Americans tend to trust Canadian pharmaceutical firms to sell name-brand drugs at discount prices, counterfeiters know that one of the easiest ways to get the drugs to Americans is to set up Web sites that purport to be from Canada. They simply route the drugs through the Canadian package delivery services. Some counterfeiters will even set up fake call centers.”

  He reflected on that for a moment. “Of course, you can just ship them into any U.S. ports of entry along with a load of legitimate pharmaceutical products. It’s not like the distribution system is secure.”

  Everything he was saying made me reticent to ever fill a prescription off the Internet again.

  We spoke for a few more minutes about the implications of all of this. Then, since I was primarily looking for a connection between Corporal Tyree and a facility that might be producing the lot number of Calydrole under question, I directed the conversation back to the main reason I’d asked to speak with him in the first place. “I told you about Tyree’s prints. It looks like there’s something more in play here than just counterfeit pharmaceuticals. Are there drugs out there that cause people to commit suicide?”

  He wavered his head back and forth slightly, as if he were balancing how to respond to that. “Again, I’m not an expert on that specific topic, but I wouldn’t say there are ones that cause you to. However there are certainly drugs that lower your inhibitions, blur your judgment—especially with SSRIs in adolescents.”

  We entered the classroom building and headed for my office. “SSRIs?”

  “Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. They’re probably the most common kind of antidepressants. They block the reabsorption of serotonin, which helps the brain cells—the neurotransmitters—to communicate with each other, helping the person’s mood stabilize. But they cause some people to become more suicidal.”

  “So, you take an antidepressant to stop from having suicidal thoughts, but it might end up causing more of them?”

  “Antidepressants work for most people,” he said somewhat resignedly, “but for some people they don’t.”

  In my office, we took seats on each side of my desk.

  “Well, that’s one more reason we need to track down this production plant as soon as possible. We think this lot might have come from India.”

  “That would make sense. Taken together, India and China produce nearly ninety percent of all counterfeit drugs.”

  “Great,” I muttered, “that’ll really help us narrow things down.”

  “Well, no one makes one fake pill at a time; you make batches. So every counterfeit drug you discover means there’s a batch of thirty to sixty thousand out there. That might help you find some.”

  “You mean this lot number, this batch, might have tens of thousands of tainted or contaminated products?”

  “I’d be surprised if it didn’t.”

  Oh, this was just getting better and better.

  He was eyeing the photos on my wall of some of the raft trips I’d led in college.

  “Jason, there are a lot of agencies that might have jurisdiction on this, but I’m
afraid information will slip through the cracks if too many people stick their fingers in it. Can you see what the FDA finds out about these drugs and then let us head this up? We have a team of people working on the case already. I think it would be best if our agents stayed on task here rather than hand things off.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, we need to stop that lot number from being distributed.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “I can talk to my supervisors, but I’m guessing they’ll say that at this point we don’t have enough to approach PTPharmaceuticals about any kind of recall. Right now any decisions like that would probably need to come directly from the pharmaceutical firm. After all, no one at pharmacies or distribution centers really verifies those numbers unless they have to. The only practical way to stave this off would be to stop all Calydrole from being shipped and used.”

  “I’ll see what I can do on that front.” My vibrating phone showed a text from Dr. Neubauer that said it looked like he would be done with the analysis of the pills by two thirty, earlier than I’d expected.

  “Anything else?” Jason asked me.

  “I can’t think of anything right now. You’ve been helpful. Keep me up to speed.”

  “I will.”

  “And by the way, all that information about counterfeit drugs—pretty disturbing.”

  “You’re telling me. I’ve been trying, and failing, to slow down the avalanche for years.”

  We exchanged cell numbers, he left, and I put a call through to Margaret to see if we had some way to approach PTPharmaceuticals with the request to pull one of its most profitable drugs off the market until we could ascertain if more people were at risk.

  While I waited to hear from her, since the cafeteria was closed, I grabbed a quick, albeit late lunch—a turkey sandwich, Snickers, and a Cherry Coke—at the Board Room, the Academy’s deli and snack shop across the hall from the dining area, then I returned to my office to record my thoughts from my meeting with Kantsos before heading to the Lab to meet with Dr. Neubauer.

  60

  1:58 p.m.

  The secretary ushered Tessa into Assistant Principal Thacker’s office.

  “Good afternoon, Tessa.”

  “Good afternoon.”

  Even though she wasn’t at all excited about the idea, she geared up to tell him her “Death of Everything in the Universe” speech synopsis and hoped maybe he would decide she wasn’t the best person to speak at graduation after all. Then she wouldn’t be bailing, Aiden would have no reason to think less of her, and she would still get out of it.

  Perfect.

  Thacker, who was built sort of like a human penguin, laid a stack of papers on his desk. “Mr. Tilson has informed me that you’re on your way to an incomplete in his class.”

  A beat. “Excuse me?”

  “It appears you failed to turn in your senior project last week.” He consulted the report in front of him. “A paper I see you were writing about Edgar Allan Poe’s impact on modern gothic literature.”

  “No, I handed that in.”

  But Thacker shook his head. “There’s no record of that.”

  Ah, so this was what she got for standing up to Tilson in class.

  What a jerk.

  “How can I get this cleared up?”

  “You’re going to have to work that out with Mr. Tilson on Monday—he’s out sick today.”

  Of course.

  “One other thing.”

  Okay, here it comes.

  “I also wanted to check in with you about your graduation talk. How’s your progress on that coming along?”

  “Yeah, um, okay. I’m . . . what about if I get an incomplete? Do I still get to graduate on time?”

  “I’m confident that you and Mr. Tilson can straighten this out. Don’t worry, you’ll be on that stage come graduation day. So do you need to run any ideas by me?”

  “I’m . . . It’s coming. I think I’m gonna talk about the meaning of life.”

  “Sounds ambitious.”

  “Yeah . . .” She paused. “Listen, here’s the thing, though, I—”

  The tardy bell rang.

  “You should really get to class.” Assistant Principal Thacker scribbled his name on a hall pass for her. “We’ll talk soon about that speech, okay? I can’t wait to hear what the meaning of life is.”

  “Right,” she mumbled. “I’m sure you’ll find my thoughts on the matter unforgettable.”

  ++

  Vanessa stared across the table at her new client, Richard Devin Basque.

  “The man I represent has an offer,” she told him.

  Only the two of them were in the detention center’s interrogation room deep beneath the Hoover Building. As with all meetings between lawyers and their clients, no agents or other law enforcement officers were allowed to be present. The sessions were videotaped and monitored, of course, in case the prisoner attacked the lawyer, but they were taped in a way that the lips of the two people and any papers the lawyer might have were not visible.

  She continued. “He would like to help you.”

  “How?”

  “By getting you out of here.”

  “That’s not going to be easy.”

  “Trust me. He’s a man who does not shy away from a challenge.”

  Richard eyed her. “What does he want from me in return?”

  “He wants you to finish something you started with a certain person who works here at the Bureau.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Special Agent Patrick Bowers.”

  Silence. “Tell your employer I’m interested.”

  “I’ll do that. In the meantime, I’m going to start reviewing your case files. Is there anything I can get for you?”

  “A paper clip.”

  “A paper clip?”

  He held up his shackled hands. “Yes.”

  She smiled faintly. “I think I can manage that. Are you sure you want to go about things that way?”

  “I think it would save us both a lot of time. When do you think you can make it back in?”

  “Well, there’s no reason to wait. How about this evening? I have some things to take care of this afternoon. Let’s say five thirty? I should be able to make it back by then.”

  “Perfect. I’ll see you at five thirty.”

  61

  2:25 p.m.

  I stepped through the front door of the Lab and was shocked when Director Wellington met me in the lobby.

  “Agent Bowers. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “This involves my brother. I want to know everything there is to know about how the investigation is going. I want answers, and I want them as soon as possible.”

  Well, if nothing else, she was direct.

  How she’d learned that I’d called on Dr. Neubauer was a mystery to me, but she seemed to have her finger on the pulse of things, and for the time being I didn’t ask her how she’d ended up here ahead of me.

  There are three sets of elevators in the Lab—one for freight, one for people, and one that’s dedicated solely to transporting evidence. It’s just one of the precautions to make sure that evidence isn’t tainted at all before it’s examined here.

  As we walked to the personnel elevator, I summarized my meeting with Agent Kantsos.

  Margaret listened carefully. “Yes. I received your message about contacting PTPharmaceuticals concerning a recall. However, I agree with Agent Kantsos—there’s not nearly enough evidence yet to do that. The Bureau’s lawyers would never go for it. We need to at least wait for FDA’s analysis of the drug.”

  Not a big surprise, but catching a break at this point would have been nice.

  We left the elevator on the third floor and crossed the hallway
toward Dr. Neubauer’s lab.

  When we arrived, he was bent over a Zeiss microscope studying a slide. The microscope was fitted with a video camera and projection screen so other people could see what was under the lens without having to peer through the scope. Right now a pollen was projected up there for us to see.

  A copy of Ronald O. Kapp’s book Pollen and Spores lay beside the microscope, numerous pages dog-eared and bookmarked.

  Peering up from his work, he looked as surprised as I’d been to see Margaret here.

  “Director?”

  “Yes,” she said simply. “What do we have?”

  “I . . . Well . . .” Dr. Neubauer was a grizzled, slightly absentminded scientist who’d been working with the Bureau for decades. “I extracted the spores, and the flora of India is really quite unique and, of course, incredibly diverse—but thankfully, in that region of the world, we can look more at species than at the season. That helps us a lot. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “I have a personal interest in this case.” It was hard to tell if it was urgency or impatience in Margaret’s words. “What have you learned?”

  “The Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany is really the leading research lab on pollen and flora in India. Dr. Bhatnagar was very helpful. We have some pretty conclusive results.”

  Margaret furrowed her eyebrows. “He was able to identify the pollen already?”

  “Yes. When you know what you’re looking for it’s not that difficult. He named them almost immediately when I sent him the JPEGs of the grains I found.”

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “We are looking at the state of Andhra Pradesh.”

  He indicated toward a slew of slides on the countertop. “We find maize and rice, but that’s to be expected—common all throughout central and south India. Some bajra, mango, ragi, and red chili, which would lead us to think the Hyderabad area, but also . . .”

  Now he pulled up a slide on the microscope projection screen that, quite honestly, looked remarkably similar to the last one. “The Cycas beddomei is an endangered plant sometimes used for medicinal purposes. But it isn’t found in Hyderabad. The only place in India that it’s found is in the hills near Kadapa, northwest of Chennai, about two hundred and fifty miles south of Hyderabad.”