Dead End

by Brian Freemantle

  Parnell decided that Pulbrow would definitely need advice about the dress code for the next seminar: beneath the regulation, nameplated laboratory coat, the man wore bib-and-braces overalls and a denim work shirt. Parnell said: ‘No, I don’t mean that at all. I very definitely expect – and intend – to work in tandem with the rest of this division. And to get channelled through to us, via the ongoing research here, anything that comes in from overseas. It’s our contribution that’s got to be innovative. The most obvious is nucleotide polymorphism of Dubette products. We’ve been set up genetically to research and develop treatments and drugs, in conjunction, if necessary, with the traditional chemical experimentation that until now has been Dubette’s established route.’ Parnell accepted that he was preaching to the converted but he hoped at least he was making better sense than the careless way in which he’d begun.

  ‘Bacteria are genetic,’ declared Lapidus. ‘Already there’s been complete genetic sequencing of Streptococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Helicobacter pylori, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Vibrio cholerae. Genetics – and its engineering – in the drug development for treatment of such conditions has already been scientifically accepted. Are you seriously telling us that there’s a resistance here?’

  Parnell acknowledged that he was very obviously, before an audience, being tested – by the man whom Dwight Newton had judged to be a potential challenger for his job. ‘You missed off your list the genome of a prototypic streptomycete, Streptomyces coelicolor,’ reminded Parnell, confronting professional knowledge with professional knowledge. ‘And yes, that’s exactly what I’m seriously telling you. And that is my battle to fight, as head of this department.’ No one broke into the pause this time. Smiling at the Greek geneticist, determined to come out the winner of the exchange, Parnell said: ‘I’m grateful for your listing, although I know none of us needed reminding of it. Any more than any of us needed reminding of the potential of genome exploration in combating disease.’

  ‘Precisely what disease?’ demanded Peter Battey, the second of the original Washington-based applicants, a balding, pebble-spectacled man.

  ‘I’ve already told you I haven’t worked out a specific tandem schedule; I won’t until I’ve had detailed discussions with Russell Benn across the corridor. But there are obvious targets and I think we should shoot for as many as we can.’

  ‘So, we’re going for the top prizes: AIDS, hepatitis B, cancers, influenza variants, common cold?’ enumerated Beverley Jackson.

  It wasn’t a sardonic, professionally combative list like that of the Greek geneticist, needing a matching confrontation. His unspoken idea came again into Parnell’s mind as he said: ‘Why not? I don’t expect – won’t have – any of you backing off from a project that’s taken everyone else into a cul-desac. It’s because they’ve ended in dead ends that we’ve got to try something different, something newer and better.’

  ‘If we can think of something newer and better,’ said Lapidus, doubtfully.

  ‘The only way to find out is to try,’ said Sean Sato. The Japanese-American had the deeply black hair of his Asian ancestry but was taller, almost 6'. He was immaculately and fastidiously dressed beneath the laboratory uniform, the club-patterned tie tight behind a pin-collared shirt, the trousers of his muted check suit razor-creased above mirror-polished brogues.

  It wasn’t a sycophantic remark, Parnell immediately guessed. ‘You’re arriving with some already-formed ideas?’

  The man’s smile was apologetic. ‘Not so much pre-formed. Projects that could be added to the list.’

  ‘Such as?’ This first, getting-to-know-each-other meeting was evolving far differently from how he’d expected but it was better than he’d imagined. Certainly there’d been some professional posturing but already they were scratching the surface into which he wanted them more deeply to dig.

  ‘I could be accused of personal interest,’ announced Sato.

  ‘I won’t accuse you until I hear what it is,’ promised Parnell.

  ‘There’s a lot of concentration upon AIDS. Rightly so,’ said the man, eagerly. His gesture towards Beverley was a polite bow. ‘There’s a lot of concentration upon hepatitis B. Rightly so again: seventy-five per cent of the thirty-five million suffering from it are in the Western Pacific and South East Asia region, which very much includes Japan. But in less than five years – with little if any reduction in that figure – it will be overtaken by hepatitis C, an obviously genetically linked but wholly different strain of the same disease. At the moment the only antiviral agent that suppresses hepatitis B is lamivudine, which is also effective in treating HIV. Already there are some indications of superbug resistance to lamivudine. If that resistance becomes established, it will reduce any fight against not only hepatitis B, but C as well. And AIDS.’

  ‘Which conveniently rounds the square to drug resistance …’ began Parnell.

  ‘Not quite,’ refused Lapidus. ‘Interferon is a very successful treatment for hepatitis C.’

  ‘If the disease is identified sufficiently early,’ accepted Sato. ‘The problem is that it’s usually without symptoms until it’s too late, by which time liver disease and cancer are already established. The last paper I read estimated in five years from now, ten at the most, more people will be dying of the C strain than from AIDS.’

  Far better than he’d expected, Parnell thought again: it could scarcely even be acknowledged as the first step but this was exactly how he wanted them to work, arguing not to prove him or herself more knowledgeable or qualified, but properly, expertly, bouncing ideas and theories off each other.

  ‘That’s a chicken-and-egg situation,’ said Beverley. ‘If disease is already generally established before there are any noticeable symptoms, the answer must be in much earlier screening of risk groups. And you’ve already identified them demographically.’

  ‘Perhaps I haven’t explained myself sufficiently,’ said Sato. ‘Earlier screening is obviously a factor and when the seriousness of hepatitis C is globally recognized, governments will have to devise a better and quicker diagnostic system: some, indeed, have already started to move in that direction. What I’m talking about is a new drug or treatment when chronic liver inflammation or cirrhosis or cancer is already there.’

  ‘Let’s start our list with it,’ decided Parnell, unwilling for a specific discussion to become too protracted this soon. He decided, too, against remarking upon their seemingly unconscious adoption of his operating plan: to do so would have sounded schoolmasterly and he considered he’d already suffered too much from that himself. Instead he said: ‘I think things have started well. I do want drug rejection and resistance to be on our agenda. That is where we might make our most obvious, hopefully even quick, contribution …’ He nodded towards Lapidus. ‘We’re all familiar with the diseases that have already been genetically coded. I want our work to identify others high on our agenda, even before we start properly liaising with the people next door …’ He hesitated, nodding now towards his side office. ‘On the subject of doors, mine isn’t ever going to be closed. Any problems, difficulties, anything at all upsetting anyone, I want to know about it and I want them solved, not gestating out of their proper proportions. Thank you for coming to work with me. I think it’s going to turn out just fine.’ Did he really think that? First an anticlimax. Now uncertainty about something he couldn’t identify … unless, that is, it was not about his international acclaim as a genetic explorer, but self-doubt at his personal competence to control, administrate, financially supervise and lead, as he was determined to lead along the forever-God’s-gifted upward spiral. Parnell was as unaccustomed to self-doubt as he was to commercial science. He wasn’t sure he liked either.

  Parnell was surprised at the same-day response from Dwight Newton, promptly although not prematurely on time for the agreed meeting, the earlier uncertainties boxed away, hopefully forever. Neither was to be ashamed of: each was understandable, acceptable.

&nbs
p; There was no avuncular, standing-in-readiness greeting this time from the research and development vice president. Instead the stick-thin man remained behind his desk, gazing up from between humped shoulders, spider’s-leg fingers at momentary rest before him.

  Easily remembering the upbeat, reach-for-the-sky presentations at the seminar, Parnell enthused about his opening encounter with his staff, unembarrassed at the hypocrisy of intentional phrases like ‘team players’ and ‘pulling together’ as he recounted that morning’s gathering.

  The scuttle-ready hands remained unmoving. Newton said: ‘I told you I always wanted to know what was going on.’

  ‘I’ve just told you!’

  ‘I would have liked to have sat in on it.’

  ‘It was a getting-together of a team. Nothing formal. Nothing formative.’

  ‘I would still have liked to have been there.’

  ‘I’ve found where the washrooms are now,’ retorted Parnell. ‘And can go there all by myself and I wash my hands afterwards.’

  ‘I don’t understand that remark,’ protested Newton.

  ‘You asked to be fully informed of everything that happens in my section. You just have been. Fully informed. I don’t expect everything I say or do or initiate to be monitored. I’ve been given the responsibility of a department, which I intend to fulfil according to the terms of my employment.’

  ‘I’ve made it perfectly clear to you that I want to know every intended genetic research project before it is initiated, not after. There could be conflict with other, parallel research …’

  ‘Not if it’s carried out as it should be, with total co-ordinated exchanges between every section,’ broke in Parnell.

  ‘I am the ultimate co-ordinator,’ said Newton. ‘I’ll decide if there’s a conflict or unnecessary duplication.’

  ‘What appears to be parallel duplication can’t be avoided if my section genetically compares and cross-references matching although alternative experimentation: that’s the whole purpose of pharmacogenomics being set up here, forming a part of what becomes a whole.’

  ‘I will co-ordinate and decide upon everything that is conducted in the research and development division of this organization,’ pedantically insisted Newton, the fingers at last scrabbling back and forth in exasperation. ‘I’ll make that clear in a written memorandum, which perhaps I should have done earlier. There seems to have been some verbal misunderstanding.’

  There was no benefit in any longer revolving on this argumentative carousel, Parnell recognized. Just as he recognized the weak threat of putting this latest disagreement on written record. ‘I came here to talk about something else.’

  ‘What?’ demanded the research vice president, the peculiar fingers drumming out his impatience at the dispute ending on Parnell’s terms, not his.

  ‘Science – all sciences – benefit from exchange, from the cross-fertilization of ideas.’

  ‘Are you lecturing consciously to irritate or aren’t you aware how you sound!’

  ‘I want to set up a dedicated website,’ announced Parnell.

  The hands stopped. Newton became quite still, his rising colour the only indication of his incredulity, heightened when he finally spoke by the way in which he spaced the words. ‘You-want-to-do-what?’

  ‘Set up a website dedicated to my section,’ repeated the more controlled Parnell. ‘Upon which …’

  ‘… Every competitor can log on and work out not just what you but every other Dubette research section might be working on and anticipate every patent and licence before we even apply for it! Are you actually expecting me to take you seriously!’

  He hadn’t properly balanced the counter-argument, conceded Parnell. ‘I think that’s a minimal danger, dependent entirely upon how the research is set out. What I propose …’

  ‘Let’s hypothesize, just to amuse ourselves and show this up as the insane, absurd idea it is,’ persisted Newton, relentlessly. ‘Let’s say someone outside the company suggests something you incorporate. Whose copyright – exclusive patent or licence – will it be? How many civil courts in how many countries do you imagine we’d keep in business for the next millennium arguing infringement or plagiarism actions?’

  ‘Let me tell you …’ Parnell tried, yet again.

  ‘No!’ refused the other man, loudly. ‘You’re not going to tell me anything. I am going to tell you. You will not set up any dedicated website, now or in the foreseeable future … if, indeed, the future for you here at Dubette is foreseeable. I will put my refusal – and my reasons for it – in writing, too. And attach to it the legally binding and agreed confidentiality agreement signed by you, as a condition of your employment. To which I want a written response from you that you’ve read that agreement and fully understand it. Let’s start right now. You understand everything, every single thing, I’ve just told you?’

  Parnell burned with the humiliation, accepting that he’d not only been out-argued but that the defeat was entirely of his own making. Shortly he said: ‘Yes, I understand.’

  ‘The next time we talk I want common sense, not nonsense,’ said Newton, warmed by the conviction that he’d irreparably punctured all the previous insufferable arrogance. He couldn’t remember enjoying himself so much for a long time.

  ‘It sounds like a one-victim massacre, if there is such a thing,’ sympathized Rebecca.

  ‘It was,’ admitted Parnell. ‘God knows what Kathy imagined I’d done when I dictated the reply Newton insisted upon.’ Kathy Richardson was the greying, middle-aged divorcee whom he’d finally engaged as his secretary, the only position Dwight Newton hadn’t insisted be considered by the appointments committee.

  ‘Hardly a day to celebrate,’ said Rebecca. They were eating in her uncle’s restaurant, accustomed now to the food and wine choice being made for them and to Ciro sometimes talking them through special dishes he’d created, always ‘just for you two’.

  ‘I wanted a change from eating crow,’ said Parnell. ‘And it was a good day until the Newton episode. I think they’re all going to come together very well.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you give it more than a first-day impression, like you should have given the website idea more thought?’ cautioned the woman.

  ‘I am only talking first-day impression,’ said Parnell. ‘And I’ve already admitted to the other mistake. I still don’t believe it represented more than a one or two per cent danger. Five tops.’

  ‘Darling! To a company like Dubette the one or two per cent possibility of a competitor getting into its research is a major drama. Five per cent registers ten on the Richter scale. You’re not involved in pure science any more. You’ve got to remember that.’

  ‘I will, in future. Believe me!’ Parnell didn’t like losing, certainly not to someone like Newton, whom he judged to be a bully. But it had been an ill-considered mistake and he was determined not to make another.

  ‘I asked outright,’ suddenly blurted Rebecca.

  ‘What?’ frowned Parnell, totally confused.

  ‘My section head, Burt Showcross. I asked him outright what all the secrecy was about between France and us.’

  ‘What did he say?’ His mind blocked by the humiliating confrontation with Newton, Parnell had forgotten his earlier conversation with Rebecca about back-channelled secrecy from Dubette’s French division.

  ‘That he didn’t know either but that it sometimes happened and that I wasn’t to concern myself with it – any of it – again.’

  Parnell was about to say that she should let it go at that but was halted by a sudden thought. Instead he said: ‘If Paris has come up with something they’re excited about – something to which they’re attaching such a degree of priority and secrecy – it could be something which has an application to pharma-cogenomics?’

  Rebecca shrugged. ‘Who knows? But guess what?’

  Parnell wished Rebecca didn’t so often conduct conversations like a quiz game. ‘What?’

  ‘There was a mistyped report from Paris
, a good enough excuse to telephone them direct. While I was chatting to the girl I normally deal with, I was told the chief executive had been recalled to New York … along with the research-division head who misdirected that one message that no one, not even Showcross, was supposed to see.’

  ‘I think you should do what Showcross told you. Forget about it.’

  ‘Maybe it’s been a bad day for both of us.’

  ‘Forget about it,’ repeated Parnell. He wasn’t sure he would, though.

  Seven

  Edward C. Grant said: ‘I needed to speak to you like this, just the two of us. Discreetly.’

  ‘Of course,’ agreed Dwight Newton, who had caught the first shuttle from Washington that morning, wanting to be at the Dubette corporate building before the president. He’d failed. He’d been careful to wear his seminar suit, which matched the dark grey of Grant’s. And to enter, as instructed in the summons, by the special penthouse-only elevator.

  ‘We’re talking risk assessment,’ announced the Dubette president.

  ‘I understand.’ Newton thought the football-pitch size of Grant’s desk accentuated the man’s bantam-cock shortness.

  ‘It was a good idea to have security check everything out as thoroughly as they did.’ It was a safeguard to let the other man imagine he’d initiated the precaution, which he hadn’t. After what Grant regarded as the one and only mistake of his life – relegating that in his mind to a lapse more than a mistake – he now took no risks.

  That amounted to praise, Newton decided. ‘I thought so.’

  ‘I had the same done in Paris. That was useful, too.’

  ‘You’ve seen everything I sent up, about the website proposal?’

  Grant nodded, tapping a folder on the left of his desk. ‘You did good there, too, Dwight. I wish others had.’

  Newton was quite relaxed, which he rarely was in Grant’s presence, certainly on a one-to-one basis. But he’d calculated the situation from every which way and concluded that he was probably the only person who couldn’t be accused of mistake or misjudgement. It certainly seemed that way from the conversation so far. Guessing the other man’s reference, he said: ‘What’s the take from Paris?’