Alchemist

by Peter James

  In his early thirties, at a shade over six feet tall, with his short black hair fashionably gelled and shovelled haphazardly backwards, even red-eyed with jet-lag he cut a striking figure, and several of the people waiting to greet passengers looked at him, wondering if he was a movie star they ought to recognize.

  Both his outfit and his face shouted Entertainment Industry: he was dressed in an open-necked denim shirt over a white t-shirt, washed-out cotton chinos with rugged boots, and a suede bomber jacket. His face had elements of both Tom Cruise and Tim Robbins but was an improvement on each. Conor Molloy possessed, by almost any criteria, drop-dead good looks. Much of his charm came from the fact that he was unaware of this. In fact, in his chosen profession, looks did not matter at all; he would have made exactly the same progress if he had been born the Elephant Man.

  His eye was eventually caught by a man pushing his way through the jostling crowd, and he realized that this was his driver.

  ‘Conor Molloy? Charley Rowley! We’re going to be working together. Fucking awful traffic this morning – thought I was going to miss you!’

  ‘The flight came in a little early, I guess. Pilot said we had a strong tailwind,’ Conor replied, taking an instant liking to the man’s cheery nature.

  They shook hands. Although Charley Rowley was also only in his thirties, from the way he was puffing and perspiring he seemed badly out of shape. Ignoring Conor’s protest, he wrestled the baggage cart away from him and began pushing it across the concourse.

  The American hurried along in pursuit, holding his shoulder bag, containing his laptop computer, which he had not let out of his sight on the journey. ‘It was good of you to come – you needn’t have worried – I could have taken a cab.’

  ‘The Directors wouldn’t hear of it! BS is very big on the personal touch. You’ve heard the slogan “The World’s Most Caring Company”? Well, that applies to its staff as well as its customers.’

  Conor detected the note of cynicism. ‘Yeah, well, it’s still good of you to give up a Saturday morning.’

  Rowley sniffed and said with a grin, ‘Yah, I think so too!’

  As he accompanied Rowley through the exit and into the car park, Conor was careful not to say too much. No one was to be trusted. No one. He had waited twenty-five years for this opportunity, had worked himself into the ground to get the qualifications, and finally pulled off what he had once thought to be an impossible goal. He was aware that his mother’s fears for his safety were wholly justifiable, and he did not underestimate the intelligence, the resources and the sheer power of what he was up against. He knew that with just one slip he could lose his chance for ever – and very probably his life.

  ‘Shit!’ Conor looked around his apartment with a broad grin. ‘This is all mine?’

  Charley Rowley nodded.

  Conor walked across the living-room floor and stared out of the window. He could see right across Hyde Park to the hazy silhouettes of South Kensington beyond. The morning sun glinted like foil on the dewy grass; he saw a jogger, and a woman walking a string of assorted dogs. Traffic poured down the Bayswater Road beneath him. It made a different sound from the traffic in Washington; there it was the tramp of rolling tyres, here it was the grinding roar of trucks, and the diesel rattle of idling taxis.

  ‘Great view!’ He stifled a yawn and wished he hadn’t drunk so much on the plane, nor smoked so much. Nerves. His nerves had got to him on the flight. Now his brain was muzzy and a sharp band of pain ran down the centre of his forehead. He felt unwashed and grungy, and was aware of the smell of his body through his crumpled shirt; his trousers had rumpled and his feet felt sweaty from spending the night inside his insulated boots. But in spite of that he was on a high right now, adrenaline running.

  He fancied strong coffee and a cigarette, but decided to be careful about the cigarette; Charles Rowley might not smoke and he didn’t want to start off giving a bad impression. At least that was one compensation about living alone: he no longer had to worry about someone else’s health fascism.

  Since splitting up with his live-in girlfriend eighteen months back, he’d been enjoying the luxury of not having to sneak out into the street whenever he fancied a smoke, or write down the units of alcohol he drank in a daily log. He looked forward to the possibility of a sexual fling with someone in England, but not an emotional relationship. He was going to need all his wits about him in the coming months, and wanted minimum distractions.

  ‘That view gets even better in mid-summer,’ Rowley said, ‘when the crumpet lies out there topless.’

  Conor grinned. ‘Think I can hang on to this place until next summer?’

  Rowley yawned, as if he had been infected by the American’s tiredness. ‘Someone from Human Resources will be along to see you on Monday about finding a permanent pad.’

  Then he eyed the two heavy suitcases in the doorway with their dog-eared Washington baggage tags, and the Duty Free carton of Marlboro beside them. ‘OK, I’d better leave you to get settled in. You must be knackered.’

  ‘Want a coffee first?’

  Rowley squinted at his watch and wavered. ‘Yah, OK, thanks, just a quick one. The kitchen should be stocked – there’s a woman who looks after the BS apartments and she’ll get you anything else you need.’ He checked his watch again. ‘I have to pick my girlfriend up – going to a charity ball down in Dorset this evening, otherwise I’d have suggested doing something.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. I’m going to crash out for a few hours then take a wander around – try to see some of the sights. Might catch a movie if I can stay awake.’ Conor nodded at the thick envelope packed with magazines and papers he’d just been given. ‘And you’ve left me enough reading material on the company to keep me occupied most of the weekend.’

  They went through into the kitchen, which looked as if it had never been used, and searched their way through the fitted units for the coffee and cups.

  ‘Got any friends over here?’

  Conor shook his head, and gave the answer he’d been rehearsing for months: ‘A few ancestors kicking around some place in Ireland; we’re not a very tight-knit family.’

  ‘Irish ancestry?’

  ‘Yup – but we don’t make any big deal about it’

  ‘You’re not married, right?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Rowley grinned. ‘Next question: couldn’t help noticing the carton of cigarettes – do you smoke?’

  ‘Uh huh,’ Conor said guardedly.

  ‘Brilliant! Join the Bendix Schere Speakeasy!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Rowley pulled a pack of Silk Cut from his pocket and offered one to Conor. ‘Bendix Schere’s a no-smoking company.’ He clicked a gold Dunhill and held it up to give Conor a light.

  Conor inhaled. ‘We have plenty of those in the States.’

  ‘As extreme as BS?’

  ‘Extreme?’

  ‘You’re not just forbidden to smoke on the premises, you’re forbidden to smoke at all, anywhere … ever.’

  ‘You don’t mean at home?’

  ‘At home, on holiday, on Mars.’ Rowley began opening and shutting cupboard doors searching for a substitute ashtray. He finally settled for a saucer.

  ‘Any other regulations I ought to know about?’ Conor began to fill the kettle.

  ‘You mean they didn’t send you a list?’

  ‘Maybe I didn’t read the small print.’

  Rowley shook his head. ‘The Bendix Schere bylaws are seriously unreal; there’s pages of them; it’s written into your contract of employment that you learn them by heart. You didn’t read that?’

  ‘I saw the clause but I don’t remember seeing a copy of the actual bylaws.’

  ‘They probably didn’t want to scare you off. You don’t drink, do you?’

  Conor looked alarmed. ‘Drink? Alcohol? Sure I drink.’

  Rowley wagged a finger reproachfully. ‘Naughty boy. Drinking is strictly verboten! No one is permitted to enter company p
remises within twenty-four hours of having consumed alcohol.’

  ‘That is unreal!’ Conor said indignantly.

  ‘If the Thought Police catch you, you’re out; for good.’

  ‘The who?’

  Rowley sniffed again. ‘S’what I call them. Security.’

  Conor said nothing.

  ‘You want me to go on? Your car, right – you’ll be getting a car on Monday – it should have been ready for you today, but there was a cockup. You have to keep that car clean. The Thought Police patrol the car park. They see a dirty car belonging to a staff member, they take it away and they return it a week later with an eighty-nine pound bill for valeting. Docked from salary.’

  Conor stared at him. ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘I’m serious. You want the honour of working for Bendix Schere, you play by their rules. Everyone who works for BS knows there’s a long queue pressing up against their back, waiting for their job. They pay the best, they have the finest equipment and some of the finest people. Their gameplan is to become the largest pharmaceutical company in the world and that’s where they’re heading. I’ve met a lot of folks who are actually shit scared of this company.’

  ‘Employees?’

  Rowley glanced around the kitchen, sizing it up. ‘Yah. And outsiders in related industries. BS has long tentacles and they’re spreading all the time.’

  ‘A lot of subsidiaries, right?’

  ‘You can’t believe what they own. In a couple of years they’ll control the world baby-food market. They own half the over-the-counter pharmaceutical companies in this country, in Europe and in the States, and they’re buying up generics companies around the world in a kind of feeding frenzy.’

  ‘I heard,’ Conor said.

  ‘Did you also hear about their retail operations?’ Rowley said, his voice dropping a fraction.

  ‘Retail?’

  He nodded. ‘Retail pharmacy. They own PriceSave DrugSmart, one of the largest pharmacist chains in Britain.’

  Conor frowned; PriceSave DrugSmart were also one of the largest mall pharmacist chains in the States, but his research into Bendix Schere had not revealed any connection to them. ‘I didn’t know that,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not meant to.’ Rowley unscrewed the cap from a jar of Nescafé, as the kettle hissed. ‘You’re also not meant to know that they fund the United States Herpes Association, the World Psoriasis Group and the International Arthritic Association – among other leading charities.’

  ‘A lot of pharmaceutical companies give charitable donations, surely?’

  ‘Sure – donations. With BS it’s more than just donations. They actually fund them. They control them and they appoint the trustees.’

  ‘So these charities all recommend Bendix Schere drugs in their newsletters?’

  ‘Exclusively. And they trash all the competitors’ products.’

  ‘Even if they’re better?’

  ‘Especially if they’re better.’

  Conor began to wonder how much more about the company his research had failed to show up.

  Rowley raised his eyebrows, and added, a trifle defensively, ‘They’re not doing anything different from their competitors –except perhaps doing it better.’ He held up the coffee jar. ‘One spoon or two?’

  ‘Two, thanks.’ Conor tapped ash off his cigarette, his mind working hard. The kettle rumbled as it came to the boil then switched itself off, and he poured the water into their cups.

  ‘Best thing to do, Conor, is not get too stressed about it. They pay well and there are a few OK people amongst the dross. Just keep your head down and get on with it, and before you know it you’ll be sixty-five and collecting your pension!’

  Conor blinked slowly. You might be, he thought. But not me, baby.

  With that, Charley Rowley stubbed out his cigarette, took two gulps of coffee, tugged on his battered Barbour and shook Conor’s hand. Wishing him luck, he told him he looked forward to seeing him on Monday.

  ‘Oh – by the way,’ he said. ‘When we meet in the office I’m Mr Rowley and you’re Mr Molloy, OK?’

  ‘Sure,’ Conor said, a little surprised.

  ‘Another rule,’ he said. ‘No first-name terms between staff at any time. Under the terms of our contracts I could be sacked for calling you Conor in here.’

  ‘Lucky no one’s listening,’ Conor said.

  Rowley gave him an odd smile. ‘Don’t bank on it.’

  ‘You mean that?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not so much here – but be careful in the office – you never know when the Thought Police might be eavesdropping.’

  ‘Great!’

  ‘You get used to it. We all seem to survive!’ Then he sloped off down the corridor towards the lift.

  Conor closed the door, sensing the void Rowley had left behind. He was alone now, really alone for the first time, in a foreign country, and the extent of his task seemed to have grown. He looked around the apartment, walking from room to room, checking it out, and wondering if it really might be bugged. But there was nothing anyone was going to pick up from him with a microphone.

  Three bedrooms, one really sumptuous and each with bath and shower. Designer kitchen, and an amazing living room the size of a football pitch … bare parquet floor scattered with oriental rugs; big soft sofas, stark chromium lamps and chairs that looked like they’d been lifted from the Museum of Modern Art. This pad had style. Like something out of a commercial. It disgusted him.

  He poured himself a second coffee, then unpacked his Macintosh PowerBook, opened the lid and switched on. While it was booting up, he unwound the modem lead, slipped the plug into the rear of the computer, then knelt down on the floor, pulled out the phone jack from the wall, and inserted the modem jack in its place.

  After a further thirty seconds the machine was ready. He opened the eMail program and checked for messages. There were two. The first was from a long-time associate-cum-pal, Dave Schwab, who now worked at the US Patent Office, wishing him good luck in his new job. The second had no sender identification and was entirely encrypted into seemingly meaningless letters and digits.

  Conor opened his encryption program, moved his cursor to the box marked ‘Decode’ and clicked on it.

  9

  Monday 5 September, 1994

  Alan Johnson woke with a start. The smash of breaking glass. His chest felt as if it were caught in a wrench. Sarah … thrashing about beside him. Screaming.

  ‘Do something! Alan, for God’s sake do something!’

  She was shaking, convulsing, her body twisting from side to side. His right arm sent the clutter on his bedside table to the floor, his glasses amongst it; found the light, pressed the switch, turned to look at her.

  Oh, God!

  Her face was bloated one side, hideously contorted and distended like a rubber mask the other; her eyes, encased in black rings, were bulging and focusing wildly. Her skin was clammy, complexion opaque, except for the red spots and dark scabs where the livid ravages of the burning rash were attacking her.

  She thrashed to the right, the left, howling like someone possessed. Her stomach rose up under the bedclothes; she twisted again, seemingly in mid-air, fell on to her swollen belly, rose, fell down again, chewed the pillow in her agony, shuddered with a convulsion that crashed through her like an aftershock, tearing a moan from deep inside her.

  ‘Darling,’ he said, anxiety constricting his voice. ‘Darling, what’s happening – is it starting? The baby coming? I’ll call the doctor.’

  She spun round on to her back. He pulled the bedclothes off and stared wide-eyed; it was as if the baby she was carrying had gone berserk, was trying to bash its way out through her stomach. It was punching her, kicking her. He could see where sections of her skin had stretched, shrunk; her stomach extended so far he thought for one ghastly moment the skin would burst and a hand or a foot would come through.

  He jumped off the bed, grabbed the phone, hunting in the address book at the same time,
and dialled the doctor. Eight and a half months: she wasn’t due for another fortnight but she had been so ill with the rash, nausea, headaches. And no one had been able to do anything. They were scared to give her painkillers in case they harmed the baby. And they didn’t know what was wrong. A virus, they said. Unidentified viruses do sometimes strike, Dr Humphreys had explained. The phone rang, then gave way to a bland cold voice at the other end.

  ‘Dr Humphreys, please,’ gasped Alan.

  ‘Dr Humphreys is not on call tonight. I can page Dr Anselm for you.’

  ‘It’s an emergency!’

  ‘I don’t know how quickly I can get him. If you’re very worried, you had better call an –’

  The rest of her sentence was drowned by a horrendous scream from his wife. ‘Doooo something! Alan, quick! please do –’ Her voice dissolved into a choking gargle.

  He turned and the wrench around his chest tightened. ‘No, God, no. Sarah!’ Blood was spewing from his wife’s mouth, spattering the pillow. He depressed the phone cradle with his hand and dialled ‘999’. Pressed his free hand to her clammy forehead. ‘Be OK, going to be OK, going to be fine.’ It was just like she was plugged into an electrical socket, shimmying, pulsing, then contorting.

  Alan Johnson stood watching his wife stretched out on the metal table in the cramped Casualty resuscitation room, surrounded by emergency paraphernalia and figures in green surgical scrubs – attaching lines, hooking up tubes, adjusting monitors.

  He had married relatively late, at thirty-seven, largely due to his shyness with the opposite sex. A slightly built man of old-fashioned values, he worked as a junior accountant in an engineering firm and had met Sarah at Bible study at their local church. She was a quiet, gentle girl, who had worked as a book-keeper with a pharmaceutical research laboratory until five months into her pregnancy when she’d become too unwell. She had a straight bob of light brown hair which she normally kept immaculately neat, and which was in keeping with her shy demeanour. Her screams were as out of character as the tangled hair matted and plastered to her face. His heart heaved as he watched a nurse standing over her, holding an oxygen mask to her face; they had tried to get an endotracheal tube down but all her muscles had gone into spasm, rejecting everything, as if her body was trying with every ounce of remaining strength to expel the baby.