“Do you know something I don’t?”
“About what?”
“Nothing, nothing. I’m just a little paranoid and a lot overtired.”
“I can understand both. Bri, if I sound preachy, I apologize. But it’s a fact of life that every place that has more than one person working in it has a set of egos that the lower-downs like you and me have to deal with. In places where those people are doctors, the personalities are just … more sharply defined, that’s all. Once you get used to who has the fragile egos around here and what you have to do to stay on their good side, it really is a decent place.”
“Hey, you don’t have to tell me. I’m the one who was pulled off the medical scrap heap, remember?”
“Yeah. Well, I wanted to thank you for not pushing matters.”
“No problem.”
Brian could see the discomfort in his friend’s face. The decision to remain uninvolved wasn’t an easy one for him.
“Well,” Phil said awkwardly, “see you later.”
He backed off a few steps, then turned and hurried away.
Brian opened his briefcase and took out an envelope on which he had written Phil’s name. Inside it was a copy of the list of the ten Phase One patients. Brian had intended to see if Phil would feel comfortable searching out the records of some of them. Instead, he tore up the copy and dropped the bits in the trash. Phil was officially out of the loop. Now, Brian thought, if he could only be as definitive about himself.
“Dr. Holbrook,” the ward secretary called out, “do you have a second?”
“Sure.”
Brian snapped his briefcase shut and crossed over to her desk.
“Dr. Holbrook, I just noticed this envelope on the corner of my desk had your name on it. I don’t know who left it there or when. I just looked and there it was. I’m sorry.”
“Nonsense. That’s fine, thanks. It looks like nothing important, anyway. Probably fell out of the pile I lugged up from my mailbox.”
He didn’t believe that explanation for a second, but it was the best he could do on the spur of the moment. He took the envelope from her and retreated as nonchalantly as he could manage to the lounge.
The envelope was plain white, and sealed, with DR. BRIAN HOLBROOK carefully printed in block letters. Brian tore the envelope open, but even before he unfolded the single sheet, he knew it was trouble.
WHITE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL DIAGNOSTIC LAB
Patient: 1744 SPECIMEN DATE: 10/15
Test Name Result
Ethanol (Urine) NEGATIVE
Drugs of Abuse Screen (Urine)
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) NEGATIVE
Amphetamines NEGATIVE
Barbiturates NEGATIVE
Benzodiazepine Metabolites NEGATIVE
Cocaine and Metabolite NEGATIVE
Methadone and Metabolite NEGATIVE
Opiates POSITIVE
Phencyclidine NEGATIVE
Propoxyphene and Metabolite NEGATIVE
Comments
—The specimen processed under chain of custody
—Positive opiate results confirmed by gas chromatography
—Quantitative result to follow
Patient 1744. Brian’s number. But the date was today’s. He hadn’t even given a urine today, much less one that was positive for the opiate narcotic group—the class of drugs for which he had gotten in trouble. He sat there staring across the tiny lounge at a framed print of Hippocrates pouring something from a clay bowl down a patient’s throat. It felt as if a barbell had been dropped on his chest. According to his agreement with Ernest Pickard, just one positive test confirmed by gas chromatography was it. No excuses, no alibis, no protestations of innocence, no hiding behind lab error, no second chances. It. Termination at BHI. Immediate report to the Board of Registration. Humiliation. Suspension. Forget about doctoring. Forget about unsupervised visits with the kids. It.
The clinic where he had his urine testing done had a log book—a hedge against someone blaming the lab or the collection procedure for a missing specimen. Had whoever sent this bogus report also forged his name in the book? Brian wondered why they had picked a day when he hadn’t been ordered to get a test, rather than wait until he had actually gone and simply alter the results. If they could do this with an official report, they could do anything.
Suddenly, he realized his beeper had gone off. The LED displayed OUTSIDE CALL. Brian stuffed the bogus report into his pocket and dialed in. The caller was a man with slow, deep, almost guttural speech … and some kind of accent.
“You have the envelope, Dr. Holbrook?”
“Who are you?”
“Today, this is only a warning. A show of our capabilities. If you continue trying to cause trouble with the FDA or anyone else, we will find out about it. I promise you we will. And if we do, the next report will be on a urine sample you dropped off. Your name will be in the log book. The test will be positive, and you will be finished. Have I made myself clear?”
“Who are you?” Brian blurted again.
The caller hung up.
Brian stared at the phone, wondering why he was being given a second chance at all. Surely, with a positive urine, the credibility of anything he had to say would be badly tarnished. It had to be that he had stumbled onto something important and potentially damaging to Vasclear’s squeaky-clean image. Teri had said it any number of times. Alexander Baird was looking for something, anything, that would offset the incredible hype surrounding the drug, and enable his office to delay its release to an all-too-eager public. The caller and his people wanted Brian quiet and were willing to trade him his career for that absolute silence. Brian tore the report into tiny pieces and sprinkled them into the trash. He was being given one last chance—but by whom?
Numb, bewildered, and distracted, he left the lounge and nearly collided with Ernest Pickard. During the weeks Brian had been on the service, not once had he seen the institute chief on the ward. Yet here he was. Coincidence?
Pickard was dressed immaculately in a blue double-breasted suit. A stethoscope protruded from one pocket, although Brian doubted the man got to use it very much anymore.
“Well, well,” Pickard said, with his usual cheer, moving Brian to a spot far enough away from the workstation counter so they could talk, “how’s the quarterback doing?”
Brian studied the man as hard as he dared, trying to pick up any intonation that this was a follow-up visit to make certain the Vasclear message had gotten through.
“I haven’t taken too bad a hit yet,” he said.
“The reports that have reached me are quite a bit more glowing than that. Well, I dropped by because I wanted to make certain you were all right after the tragedy.”
“Tragedy?”
“Yes. Your father.”
“Oh, yes. Yes. That’s very kind of you, Dr. Pickard. The truth is, I feel like I’m just going through the motions right now.”
Pickard put a hand on his shoulder.
“That’s a perfectly normal reaction. I know it’s hard to keep your concentration. Well, don’t let it get you down too much.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“And for God’s sake, don’t allow yourself to have a relapse. You are still going to your meetings?”
“Absolutely.”
“Excellent. Because you seem to be fitting in quite well here, and I would certainly hate to lose you.”
Without waiting for a response, Pickard patted Brian on the shoulder again, smiled toward the nurses and secretary, who were gathered behind the counter ogling him, and left.
Brian wandered back to the lounge. It was impossible to tell if Pickard knew what was going on with him or not. But one thing was clear. With only four days left until the Vasclear signing ceremony, he was a marked man. He glanced out the door to be certain there was no one about, then called the one person he could completely trust. Thank God, Freeman was in his apartment.
“Freeman, I called to see if there are any meetings arou
nd, say, three this afternoon, that you might be able to make.”
“Let me check my trusty meeting-list books. I see nothing in the NA department until this evening, but there’s an AA meeting at eighteen Stiles Street in Brook-line. Four to five. Discussion.”
“Can you meet me there?”
“Hey, if you need me, you got me. Especially at a meeting. That’s in the sponsors’ handbook.”
“Thanks. Well, I need you and the meeting. One other thing. Do you have any idea how to find out who owns and is on the board of directors of a company?”
“No, but I can tell you that between AA and NA there is always someone who knows whatever it is you want to know, whether it’s business, rap music, home repairs, or neurosurgery. It’s just a matter of trackin’ down the right dude.”
“Could you try?”
“Of course, provided you’re gonna tell me what this is all about.”
“I’m going to tell you, Freeman. I promise.”
“Okay, then. What’s the company?”
“Newbury Pharmaceuticals. I want to know who runs Newbury Pharmaceuticals.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
FREEMAN SHARPE ARRIVED AT THE CHURCH IN BROOKLINE fifteen minutes after the AA meeting had started, but Brian was there saving a spot for him. They sat together for a time, listening to a lawyer talk about the mistakes he had made in his practice over the years because of his drinking, and the changes that had occurred during the eight years since he had stopped. In addition to doing volunteer work answering the phones once a week at AA central service, he had resigned from his high-powered firm, exchanged his BMW for a Tercel, thrown away his Maalox, and begun doing legal-aid work for the inner-city poor.
The glow off the man’s craggy face lit up the hall.
“Sounds like he’s pretty well got it,” Sharpe leaned over and whispered.
Brian looked up at a stained-glass window.
“Yeah,” he said flatly.
Sharpe sighed.
“Dr. Brian, I think maybe we should go outside and talk.”
“Go outside? Sharpe, you’ve never left in the middle of a meeting in all the time I’ve known you.”
“Well, my special spider sense is tingling and it says that you’re a mess.”
They stopped at the pot for coffee and carried the cups out with them to the street. The late afternoon was cloudy, but warm, and Brian was grateful he had changed into jeans and a T-shirt before leaving the hospital. In silence, they wandered down a block, then across a deserted ball field to a concrete bench. Freeman packed his corncob pipe.
“I’m in trouble,” Brian said.
“Seems like you’ve been in trouble almost since the day you went to work at that place.”
“Renting cars was a lot simpler, I’ll grant you that. Freeman, Jack died in part because I chose not to push him to have surgery. And the main reason, hell, the only reason I didn’t was because I had him on Vasclear. Now I’m starting to find some things out about the early patient trials with that drug—things that the drug company never knew or else never told the FDA.”
“Is there something wrong with the drug?”
“I can’t say that for sure. Not now, anyway. But two and a half years ago, they did some preliminary testing on eighteen people. I’ve only located three of those eighteen, but they’re all dead. Two of them had a weird blood test and the kind of symptoms that might have been caused by the drug. The third one I just found out about. She died at her son’s place in upstate New York. I don’t know any of the details. But her hospital record and the record of one of the other patients both look like they’ve been tampered with. Pages are missing.”
“But the drug’s working okay now?”
“Yes. It still doesn’t work for everyone, but it doesn’t seem to harm anyone, either.”
Freeman lit his pipe. The cherry tobacco smoke blended perfectly with the scents of autumn.
“So?” he said.
“Last night I got caught on a video-surveillance camera in the clinic, getting the names of some of the early patients so I could check up on them.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I don’t know. I … I can’t shake the feeling that I didn’t push Jack hard enough about the surgery. I wanted so badly to believe that Vasclear was the answer.”
“A crusade. I just love crusades. All them horses, those little white capes with the red crosses.”
Brian managed a brief laugh.
“You know,” he said, “maybe it is a crusade. But the question is, who am I fighting against? The deeper I get into this thing, the more I think I’m battling against myself—my own arrogance. It almost destroyed my life twice—once when I tore up my knee, and later when I refused to get help for an addiction problem that was eating away my soul. But I thought that after all my work in NA and therapy, I was on top of that part of me, had it under control. Then, all of a sudden, I decide I know what’s best for my father and override the recommendations of his doctor and one of the foremost cardiac surgeons in the world.”
“So that’s why you won’t let this thing drop?”
“Maybe. Yes. Yes, I think that’s a lot of it. I can’t face what my own ego led me to do, so I’m looking to punish the drug and the people who make it. But Freeman, I also think there was something wrong with the drug. I don’t have any idea what, but I think this problem with the Phase One patients has been swept under the rug. The doctors involved with Vasclear are respected researchers, but they already lied to me once about something that’s crucial to the study.”
“And these respected researchers are getting upset with you?”
“Maybe them, maybe someone else. This morning someone left me a urine report with my case number on it. It looks authentic, but it’s not. It’s positive for narcotics. I didn’t even give a specimen today. A few minutes later a man called and implied that unless I stop trying to cause trouble, next time the report would go to my boss.”
“So, what sort of advice do you want from your sponsor?”
“I want you to tell me that I just started back in medicine after eighteen months, that this whole Vasclear thing amounts to nothing but my overripe imagination, that I really have no concrete proof there’s anything wrong with the drug, that the FDA isn’t the least bit interested in what I’ve found so far, and that I had better tend to my own business.”
Sharpe sent a smoke ring swirling skyward.
“Why do you think they threatened you with that fake urine?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. Either they’re afraid I’m going to stumble onto a skeleton in their closet, or they’re just being cautious with the approval of the drug only a few days away. If it turns out they knew something about Vasclear in Phase One and didn’t report it to the FDA, even if they subsequently fixed the problem, that would probably be sufficient grounds for the FDA to postpone the approval indefinitely.”
“Even if the drug has worked fine since then?”
“I think so. And there’s a tremendous amount of money at stake.”
“So, the best you could hope for would be postponing the release of a medication that seems to be working perfectly well and could save thousands of lives. And trying to accomplish that dubious feat might cost you your career as a doctor.”
Another smoke ring.
“When you say it that way, it sounds pretty foolish,” Brian said.
“It sounds like a guy who cared a lot for his father and is feeling very guilty, angry, and frustrated about his death. That’s not foolish.”
“So, you think I should forget the whole thing.”
“Not really, no.”
Brian did a double take.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you asked me to do some digging into Newbury Pharmaceuticals, right?”
“That was just this morning. You’ve got something already?”
“Maybe. First of all, the company’s privately held, and spotless on the surface.” He pulled a
piece of paper from his windbreaker. “The secretary of state’s office at the State House doesn’t demand much information from privately held companies, and that’s precisely what they’ve got on file for Newbury.” He handed a list of four names to Brian. “A CEO, a treasurer, a clerk, one name from the board of directors. Those and a mission statement are the minimum requirements. None of these names mean anything to me, and I doubt they’d mean anything to you.”
“They don’t.”
“Remember when I told you that in AA, whatever it is you want to know or you want done, there’s someone who knows it or can do it? Well, I got to thinking that if there was anything off-center about this company of yours, Cedric L. would know. You know him? Probably the only Chinese guy in the world named Cedric. He belongs to the downtown Friday-night group. He also belongs to a social club in Chinatown that’s really a hangout for one of the toughest gangs in the city.”
“And here you were worried about me walking off with a few vials of medicine.”
“Cedric’s got twenty years of solid recovery in,” Freeman replied. “Maybe more. When you got that long, you can make informed choices. Anyhow, I called ol’ Cedric, and it turns out he knows quite a bit about your Newbury Pharmaceuticals.”
“Such as?”
“Such as for the last ten years they’ve been a front for laundering money.”
“Drug money?”
“Is there any other kind?”
“The Mafia?”
“Not the one you’re thinking of. According to Cedric, the Russians own the place. Owned it even before the Berlin Wall came tumblin’ down.”
Brian glanced at the list of four names.
“Then who are these people?”
“Don’t know. People who have had their names changed. People who get paid off to put their names on corporate documents. Probably something like that. The company makes vitamins.”
“I know.”
“Well, Cedric says the word is they buy the raw ingredients for their vitamins from someplace over in Russia, then sell the finished products back there. Somehow, the money makes it from here to there as fives, tens, and twenties, and comes back as bank notes and electronic deposits.”
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