Jesus Christ. What was going on? How could Rousseau be a threat to the brain chip program if he worked on cholesterol drugs? That didn’t make any sense. The two weren’t even in the same building. Evan knew the corporate structure of Veritas well, and he was positive the statin research group was in BioTech Five, along with the corporate offices. Brain chip development was in one of the satellite parks in White Oak, a biotechnology park in Henrico County, miles from the Richmond research park.
Evan checked his watch. Shit, he had to get moving or the trigger was going to ignite before the house had a chance to fill with gas. He grabbed the kitchen chair that had fallen over and tucked it back under the table, then hopped up on the counter and slid his arm down behind the stove. He felt the tape with his fingers and pulled. The unmistakable odor of natural gas immediately filled the room. He set the trigger device on the back of the stove, picked up the plastic bag and left through the back door, locking it behind him. There were no neighbors about, and he walked briskly down the back lane and around the corner to his car. He checked his watch again, quickly started the car, and pulled away from the curb. He was less than a block away when the town house exploded.
The explosion blew out the back of the unit and all the front windows on the main floor. The side walls held, which was good as it limited collateral damage. Flying bricks, jagged shards of glass, and splintered wood rained down on the town houses backing onto the target. Dogs were barking, children screaming, and adults yelling as Evan rounded the corner and the carnage disappeared from his view. He would read about it in tomorrow’s newspaper, but the explosion had gone off almost exactly as he had hoped and he doubted there would be any casualties except for Albert Rousseau.
But that didn’t mean no innocent people had been killed.
Evan pulled over at the first coffee shop he passed and ordered an extra-large latte. He sat by the window and watched the rain splatter in the puddles. Albert Rousseau was a lab rat from BioTech Five, not a key player in the brain chip department, as Andrews had said.
How many of the four people he had killed for Andrews were legitimate threats to the program that could give his son back feeling in his body? One? Two? None? He drained the last of his coffee and returned to the rental with one thought on his mind:
9
Elsie Hughes stuffed her groceries in the plastic bag, wondering who had come up with the bright idea of charging three cents per bag. As if they didn’t make enough money off the food she had to buy every few days. She smiled at the clerk as she left; it wasn’t his fault.
The Texas sun was hot, the mercury pushing ninety-two, as she exited the store. It took less than a minute to load the bags in her trunk and return the cart to the small corral and retrieve her quarter. She plopped into the front seat and checked her watch. She could stop by the bank if she hurried; the kids wouldn’t be out of school for another eight minutes. Her paycheck sat on the passenger’s seat, and she ripped off the stub showing her deductions as she waited for a traffic light. Fleetwood Mac played softly on her radio, and she twisted the knob slightly to the right. Stevie Nicks’s quivering voice shot shivers down her spine. The light changed and she hit the gas, singing along with Stevie.
Her bank was two blocks north of the supermarket and on the way to the kids’ school. She pulled into the parking lot and lucked out with a spot right by the ATM. There was no line, and she took the open machine on the far left. Deposit envelopes were tucked in a slot next to the machine, and she pulled one out, slipped her check in, and licked the flap. It tasted tart, but she swallowed the glue residue and tucked the check in the opening. She glanced at the account balance and grimaced slightly. Why was money so hard to earn and so easy to spend? She returned to her car and dropped the slip of paper into the console between the two front seats. The dashboard clock read 3:15, the exact time her kids were released from classes. She swung out onto the road from the parking lot and gunned the car. She’d make it in time.
The taste from the envelope lingered on her tongue, and she scraped the top side against her upper teeth. First the grocery store charging three cents for plastic bags, now foul-tasting glue on the envelopes.
Why were the simple things getting complicated?
10
The law firm of Stevens and Hilbrecht was tucked away on the second floor of one of the old historical buildings on Harrison Street. On the side of the building was a prominent ghost sign in white paint on red brick, promoting the long-defunct Bronx Lounge. Parking was in a secluded lot behind the building, and Gordon left his BMW in the stall closest to the alley and entered through the rear door. A musty smell tickled his nostrils and he sneezed a couple of times. It happened every time he visited his lawyer.
The stairs were wooden and creaked slightly under his weight. He reached the second-floor landing and veered right, down the hall and into Christine Stevens’s office. Her receptionist and paralegal, Belinda, was manning the scarred wooden desk and smiled as he entered.
“Hi, Gordon,” she said cheerfully. “Christine said to send you right in when you arrived.”
“Thanks, Belinda.” He tried to force a smile, but he couldn’t seem to force his lips to make the journey. He strode down the hall and into the second office on the left. A mid-thirties woman sat in the pewter and tanned- leather chair behind the desk, a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. She was diminutive, no more than five-four, with a slender figure that probably fit into a size two, three at best. Her hair was dark brown with a few lingering streaks of color she’d tried months back and realized she didn’t like. Her face was chalk white and bony, and her teeth were too big for her mouth when she smiled. But this Friday morning, she wasn’t smiling. She pointed to one of the chairs facing her desk, and Gordon sat. The chairs were more tanned leather on pewter frames and decidedly uncomfortable. They melded with the rest of the room, which was sparsely decorated with spindly halogen lamps and cold metal sculptures.
“I’ve been on the phone for fifteen hours on this file, Gordon,” she said. Christine Stevens charged by the hour and didn’t make idle conversation. “And I don’t have very good news.”
Gordon was stone-faced. “Just tell me what you found.”
Christine Stevens focused on some papers on her desk. “Veritas Pharmaceutical is a medium-size company if you compare it to the Big Pharma companies, but that doesn’t mean it’s small potatoes.”
“Big Pharma?” Gordon asked.
“Marcon, Frezin, GlasoKlan-the big guys in researching and marketing new drugs. They’re collectively referred to as Big Pharma. I don’t think it’s meant as a term of endearment. These are the guys who spend up to eight hundred million to bring a new drug to the market. Their research and marketing budgets are in the ozone. We’re talking big-time here, Gordon. Anyway, Veritas is a few billion short of fitting in with the big boys.”
“Okay,” Gordon said.“What did you find out aboutTriaxcion?”
She flipped over a few pages. “Not the best drug on the market. There have been some rumblings over the past couple of years that Triaxcion might cause peripheric tissues to mutate slightly, rendering A-positive blood incapable of coagulating.”
Gordon stared at her. “What?” he finally said. “What are you saying?”
“Billy was A positive, Gordon. And when he slashed himself with the chain saw, he bled to death because his blood wouldn’t clot. And Billy was taking Triaxcion for his hair loss. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.”
“That drug caused Billy’s death?” Gordon said quietly.
Stevens leaned back in her chair. “I can’t say that with total conviction, Gordon. If you were to ask me if I thought Triaxcion was responsible for Billy dying, I would say yes. But proving it in a court of law won’t be so easy. I’ve spoken with twelve other lawyers who have clients with family members they suspect have died as a result of Triaxcion, but none of them feel they have what is necessary to go to court.”
