Lethal Dose

by Jeff Buick

  “Wait,” she said. “Before you put that cloth over my face, tell me what this is all about.”

  He stopped moving and looked at her. He glanced around then nodded. “Okay,” he said, the smell of the chloroform slowly dissipating. “There’s no rush.” He leaned on the car door, close to her. “My son is in a wheelchair, and will be for the rest of his life if he doesn’t get the technology your company is working on.”

  “Are you talking about Veritas Pharmaceutical?”

  “Yes.”

  “What technology?” she asked.“What technology couldVeritas possibly possess that would get your son out of a wheelchair?”

  “Brain chips,” he said. “Veritas is ready to begin Phase I trials on its brain chips.”

  “What?” Jennifer said.“Brain chips? Oh God, are you ever out in left field. Veritas isn’t working on brain chips anymore. That department is being phased out.”

  His face turned mean. It took on color and his mouth twisted into a sneer. “You’re just trying to save your ass,” he said. “I know otherwise. My son will be included in the first set of Phase I trials. And they’re scheduled to start two months from now.”

  Jennifershook her head.“No, no, no, that’s not right. Listen to me. I’m the head of the Alzheimer’s research group at Veritas. Even I know what’s going on, and I’ve got nothing to do with brain chip development.What I’m telling you is common knowledge.” She shook her head a few times to clear the cobwebs. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes-they’re dismantling the department.” Desperation sounded in her voice. “In fact, I’ve got three new staff that came over to my team from brain chips.” Her head was clearing a bit, and the words started coming easier. “When Duke University released their findings that fat cells can be transformed into stem cells which can then be used to regenerate damage on the spinal cord, the whole concept of brain chips went obsolete almost overnight.” She saw the uncertainty in his eyes and said, “You have got to believe me.Veritas is not going to produce anything that will get your son out of his wheelchair.”

  “I think you’re just telling me something to keep me from dumping your car over the edge of this cliff.”

  She shook her head. “If you kill me, you’ve killed an innocent person. And I won’t be the first one, either.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Albert Rousseau. Kenga Bakcsi. Both Veritas employees. Both murdered. And both totally innocent.”

  “He told me they were going to derail the brain chip program,” Evan Ziegler said, seething with anger.

  “Kenga Bakcsi worked for me. She was in the Alzheimer’s group. The only thing Kenga did wrong was to get information for someone. Information on Triaxcion.”

  “What’s Triaxcion?”

  “One of Veritas’s big money-producing drugs. The last thing the company wants is for the FDA to recall a drug that’s already approved and is generating them a ton of money. They’ll do anything to keep the information under wraps. By the looks of it, that includes murdering innocent people.”

  “What about Albert Rousseau?” Ziegler asked.

  “He had damning evidence that Triaxcion could cause people with A-positive blood to become hemophiliacs. And that was what happened to Gordon’s brother. He was taking Triaxcion, and he bled to death when he cut himself.”

  “Who is Gordon?”

  “He’s the guy that Kenga was getting information for. But it was strictly on Triaxcion. There was no tie-in to the brain chip labs anywhere.” She took a breath and said, “You’re being lied to. You’re killing innocent people.”

  The man backed off from the car and slowly walked to the edge of the embankment. He stared out at the night sky, cloudless with little moonlight. The stars seemed intense, bright against a stark black backdrop. Jennifer watched him, all the while wriggling her fingers around, trying to loosen the straps. Nothing was working. Whatever the man had used to tie her hands was not giving in the least. The same for her feet: They were lashed together tightly. She stopped struggling against her bonds as her captor returned to the car. His pace was impossibly slow, as though he was resigned to some unpalatable conclusion. He reached the car and gave her a hint of a smile.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t believe you.”

  The last thing she saw was his hand coming toward her face. And she smelled chloroform again.

  44

  Gordon paid up front for three days: pilot, copilot, and the Lear 31A. They departed Helena under a low cloud cover at eight minutes to six, MDT. Just before eight o’clock in Richmond. The Lear 31A was engineered to cruise at 533 mph at 45,000 feet, and the pilots had the plane up to cruising speed and altitude eighteen minutes after takeoff. Gordon dimmed the lights, stretched out on one of the seats, and pulled a blanket over himself. Sleep would be good.

  But it never came. His mind was alive with what could be happening in Richmond. Jennifer having lunch with Bruce Andrews was not a good thing. Andrews must have been prodding her for information. She hadn’t seen it like that, but maybe Andrews was that good and she had inadvertently given him what he needed. The man was dangerous, Gordon was convinced of that. Who else stood to gain from protecting Triaxcion? It was Andrews who zeroed in on Jennifer two days after they secured the data that would eventually give him the edge in court. And once his case was in the books, precedent would have been set. Litigation would be coming at Veritas from every conceivable angle. From the legitimate claims where a death was directly attributable to Triaxcion to a litany of ambulance chasers with sleazy clients looking for an easy buck.

  Right now he represented a huge liability to Veritas, and therefore to Bruce Andrews.

  But it wasn’t his own personal safety that concerned him. It was Jennifer’s. The memory of that moment in the airport came back to him, vivid and wonderful. Their lips were an inch apart, their bodies tight to each other. It was one of those defining moments when you knew things were right. When both man and woman wanted each other so much. He had been severely tempted to walk away from his flight, drive back to Jennifer’s house, take her in his arms, and kiss her. But that would have been folly. The evidence he had so desperately sought was in his pocket. And until his lawyer had it in her possession, he was vulnerable. Logic had superseded passion. He had gotten on the plane and flown back to Montana. But now he was wondering if he had made the right decision.

  Jennifer was scared. The lunch with Bruce Andrews had shaken her very being. For her to ask him to pack up and leave immediately for Richmond was totally out of character and showed how worried she really was about her safety. And she was probably right. Andrews was not someone to mess with. He had shown that by removing Rousseau and Bakcsi from the equation. He wished there were a quicker way to get from Butte to Richmond, but looking about the private jet, he knew he had taken the fastest route possible. He closed his eyes and finally drifted off.

  He awoke with one of the pilots hovering over him. “We’ll be landing in ten minutes, Mr. Buchanan,” he said. “You should use the washroom if you have to, then get seated with your lap belt on.”

  “Thanks,” Gordon said. He was groggy but waking up quickly. By the time the plane was on the ground, he was fully awake. He had both pilots’ cell phone numbers and assured them he’d call at least three hours before he needed to fly. They required that time to get the plane ready and file a flight plan. The pilots headed for a nearby hotel and Gordon gave the cabdriver Jennifer’s address. It was almost three in the morning, and although he wanted to phone her residence, he didn’t want to wake her until he arrived. He sat in the backseat, staring blankly at the deserted city.

  The cab pulled up to a dark house and he paid the tab, grabbed his overnight bag, and hustled up to the front door. He rang the doorbell, scanning both sides of the road for her vehicle. He couldn’t see the Mazda RX-8 anywhere. He rang the bell again. Nothing. The house remained dark. He tried the door handle and it turned. A slight push and the door opened. His stomach was instantly in his throat, his a
drenaline pumping through his body as he stepped gingerly into the foyer. He quietly closed the door behind him and stood unmoving in the darkness, waiting for his pupils to dilate. After a minute or two, he could see fairly well. He started through the main floor of the house, past the piano and the couches, and into the kitchen. The counters were clean and everything in order. He retreated back through the living room and up the stairs to the second level.

  There were four doors off the upper hallway, all of them closed. He opened each door slowly, scanning the room intently before moving on to the next one. The last room he reached was the master bedroom. There was a slight creaking sound as he opened the door and he moved into Jennifer’s bedroom. Her bed was still made, no signs of anyone having slept in it. He switched on the light and looked about. Everything was neat and orderly, just as she would have left it before heading for work in the morning. He retreated back to the main floor, switching on lights as he went, looking for clues as to what might have happened.

  Nothing.

  Gordon paced through the house time and time again, his eyes searching for even the slightest clue that would tell him what had happened to Jennifer. He left the house, walking quickly up and down the road and looking for her car. It wasn’t there. He returned to the house, breathing a little easier as a logical idea came to him. Jennifer had probably stayed the

  night with a friend rather than come home. That would account for her car not being anywhere in sight. But other details still nagged at him. Why was the front door unlocked? Even if she had left the house open for when he arrived, surely she would have left a note somewhere in the house at least telling him that she was okay. Nothing was making sense.

  Then the phone rang, shattering the ominous silence.

  Gordon checked his watch. Three-thirty-five. Who the hell would be calling at this hour? Unless it was Jennifer calling to tell him where she was. He grabbed the phone and said hello.

  “Who is this?” a man’s voice asked. He sounded surprised.

  “Never mind who this is, who’s calling?” Gordon snapped back.

  “I didn’t expect to get a real person,” Evan Ziegler said thoughtfully. “Thought I’d get voice mail.”

  “Well, you didn’t. You got me. Now, what do you want?”

  “Let me think.” There was a pause. Ziegler said, “You must be Gordon.”

  That the man knew his name took Gordon by surprise. “Perhaps. Please tell me who you are and where Jennifer is.”

  “Yes, well, that’s why I called. To leave a voice mail as to where you can find Jennifer.”

  Gordon’s hand tightened on the phone, almost crushing it. He struggled to keep his breathing normal. “Where is she?”

  “Well, she had a bit of an accident in her car. I don’t think she’s going to make it.”

  “You son of a bitch. Where is she?”

  Ziegler’s tone changed; a cold edge crept into his voice. “Careful what you say, Gordon, or you may never find her body.”

  Buchanan wanted to scream. “I’d like to know where she is,” he said calmly, ready to explode.

  “That’s better. You should get a pen and a piece of paper, because unless you know this area really well it’s going to be a little confusing.”

  Gordon found a pencil and grabbed a flyer with a picture of

  a vacuum cleaner on one side. He flipped it over and said, “All right. Give me the directions.”

  “Write quickly. Miss a turn, you miss the crash site. Go west through Charlottesville and head up into the Shenandoah Mountains. At Waynesboro, you turn north. Go seven miles, then turn right onto the forestry road. It’s a bit of a goat path, so don’t miss it. If you hit Grottoes, you’ve gone too far. Once you’re on the forestry road, go two miles, then veer right along the ridge. Watch for the gap in the trees and shrubs where a vehicle recently went over the edge. And be careful-the cliff is very steep and slippery.”

  Gordon finished writing the directions. “If she’s dead, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”

  “Somehow I don’t think so,” Ziegler said, then ended the call.

  Gordon was shaking so badly he could hardly dial a cab. He gave the dispatcher Jennifer’s address, then called the Alamo booth at the Richmond airport. They were open twenty-four hours and he confirmed that they had cars available. He gave them his name and hung up. As he waited in the darkness for the cab, one thought kept running through his mind.

  Was Jennifer Pearce alive or dead?

  45

  The night air was crisp and the sky clear as Gordon motored through Charlottesville and continued west into the Shenandoah Mountains. The road rose quickly, leaving the plains and small foothills behind. Pine, hickory, and oak bordered the road as it twisted along the east side of the ridge. He reached Waynesboro and made the turn, heading north on a secondary road that ran parallel to the massive ridge that defined the eastern edge of the Shenandoah Mountains. He reset the trip odometer on the Jeep and glanced at the dashboard clock. Five-eighteen. The sun was close to rising and the sky to the east began to lighten.

  Gordon slowed as he approached the seven-mile mark. Even at twenty miles an hour, he was past the forestry road before it registered. He backed up and turned right, his hands starting to shake. He reset the trip odometer again and drove the narrow, rutted road at a reasonable speed. The last thing he needed right now was to slide off the road into a grove of trees or, even worse, over one of the many drop-offs that cut perilously close to the tire tracks. At two miles there was a fork in the road, with the main branch heading to the left. He took the right fork, now glad he had paid extra to rent the Jeep. He touched the four-wheel-drive control and felt the front transaxle kick in. The trees opened up on his left, allowing a spectacular view of the sun rising over the eastern seaboard and distant Richmond.

  The caller had told him to watch for a gap in the trees where a vehicle had gone over, and as he drove he caught glimpses of the cliff he was paralleling. If Jennifer Pearce had gone over anywhere near here, she was most certainly dead. The drop was hundreds of feet to a base of rocks and large trees that would shred a fast-moving vehicle. He rounded a curve, and through the trees ahead he caught a glimpse of color. Blue. Jennifer’s Mazda was blue. He pulled ahead, his heart racing. One more curve in the path and he could see it. The rear of Jennifer’s car. He pulled up behind it and cut the engine. The silence was immediate. Slowly, he opened the driver’s door and stepped out of the Jeep onto the rocky ground.

  The car was perched precariously on the edge of the cliff. One good push and it would be over. He carefully picked his way through the surrounding shrubs and reached the driver’s door. He took a deep breath and looked into the car.

  Jennifer Pearce, her eyes wild with fear, stared back at him. At the sight of his familiar face, she broke into a huge smile and started to cry simultaneously. The tears rolled down her face. He reached in and gently brushed them away.

  “Gordon,” she said quietly. “Oh, thank God you’re here.”

  “I’m here,” he said, opening the door and reaching inside the car. It wobbled a bit, and he steadied it by pushing back against the frame. “Let’s get you out of there,” he said, surveying the situation. Her hands were bound with strips of leather, a thin piece of tanned hide between her wrists and the leather. The same with her feet. Her abductor had bound her in such a way that he could take the leather strips off and there would be no evidence she had ever been bound. The leather strips on her hands were pulled through the steering wheel, making it impossible for her to exit the car. Gordon untied her hands first, then her feet.

  “Just slip out easy so you don’t rock the car,” he said, taking her by the hand.

  She placed one foot on the ground and shifted her weight off the seat toward Gordon. Removing her body weight from the vehicle upset the delicate balance and the car started to move forward. Gordon yanked her out and they both went over backwards, he taking the brunt of the fall and she landing directly on top of him
. There was a strange scraping sound and the Mazda disappeared over the edge. A few seconds of silence, then a distant crashing sound as the car hit the rocks hundreds of feet below.

  Jennifer didn’t move from where she was. She wrapped her arms around Gordon and burrowed her face into his chest, pulling him tight to her. He responded by closing his arms about her back and giving her a gentle squeeze. He could feel the warmth of her tears on his chest as they lay silently on the forest floor. Finally, she raised her head and brought her mouth to his. They kissed, softly at first, then with the pent-up desire that was simmering inside both of them. When they stopped, Jennifer lifted her head and stared into his eyes.

  “How did you know I was here?” she asked.

  “Whoever left you here called your house. He was going to leave a voice mail so the authorities could find you or your body. I was at your house when he called.”

  “Thank God,” she said. “If you hadn’t come to get me, there’s no way I would have lived through this.”

  “We just got lucky,” he said. “Very lucky.”

  “Yeah. Lucky.”

  “Did you know the guy who left you here?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’ve never seen him before. But from some of the things he said, I’m pretty sure he was working for Bruce Andrews.”

  She told Gordon about how the man was killing to keep the brain chip program alive. How his son was in a wheelchair and that someone at Veritas had promised his kid a shot at a normal life. “It’s all a lie, of course,” she said. “The brain chip program is being dismantled. I’ve seen them physically taking the White Oak lab apart.”

  “This guy-he referred to the Veritas contact as ‘he’?”

  She thought about it for a moment. “Yes. He definitely called him ‘he.’ Not them. ‘He’ ”

  “Andrews,” Gordon said quietly. “The bastard.”