Hidden in Dreams (22 page)

Elena felt her heart swell, and resisted the urge to hug the young lady. It would not help matters to burst into tears. “Thank you all. So much. Now I really must be going.”

The glow carried her out of the building and into the afternoon’s sultry heat. Yet another storm had come and gone. The wind carried a bayou quality of thick humidity and tropical fragrances. Elena was midway down the connecting sidewalk when the idea came to her, as though the young woman’s words illuminated some recess of her mind. She slowed, and when the philosophy building’s entrance came into view, she stopped altogether. She turned away from a group of approaching students and their whispered comments. She focused on a palm wilting in the heat and tried to draw the mental strands into some form of cohesive order. She gave it ten more minutes, long enough for the perspiration to stain her shirt. Then she allowed the pressure of the next step to move her forward.

The ACU campus underwent a drastic change beyond the new student center. The philosophy department occupied the first of a cluster of buildings dating from the sixties. The two-storied structure had old-fashioned louvered windows and low ceilings and an air conditioner that rattled and grumbled. The department was slated to move into new offices at the end of September. Or rather, they were moving if the hurricane did not strike.

The department secretaries were corralled into a glass-fronted structure opposite a useless waiting area, as if the building had been originally designed as a dentist’s office. One of the staffers waved Elena into the room beyond their chamber. She knocked
on the closed door and entered an empty classroom whose tables had been clustered into a conference shape. Reed Thompson stopped his pacing in front of the board and said, “Finally.”

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I’ve had, well . . .”

“Another idea?”

“Half an idea. Maybe. That’s why I was late. I wanted to give it time to germinate.”

“Okay. I’m happy to talk it through if you think that might help, but first we need to do this.” He slipped into a chair by a laptop. “The gentleman’s name is Dr. Dwight Chester. Heard of him, by any chance?”

“Sorry. No.”

“No reason you should. Dwight is assistant director of the FDA. He is absolutely to be trusted. Five years ago, he backed the wrong candidate for president and was slated for dismissal. I fought a hard battle to keep the man in place. He owes me. Not his life. But close.”

“Why are we meeting here, Reed?”

“There’s no way I can sweep my office or home for bugs without alerting watchers. If they’re out there. Any discussion of evidence needs to take place in conditions like this.”

Elena did as she was told. “Thank you, Reed. For backing my plans. This means the world.”

“You’re welcome, Elena. Now draw the blinds, please.” His attention remained held by the computer and the sheet of handwritten instructions unfolded beside the laptop. “If anyone points a directional mike at a glass window, blinds will block their ability to overhear.”

The laptop was decorated with a plastic rainbow and three sparkling flowers. “Is that Stacy’s?”

“She said to tell you that she is praying for us. She also told me this would be easy to set up. I should . . .” The laptop chimed. “Okay, Dwight, are you there?”

“You’re late, Reed. And I’m facing an extremely tight schedule.”

Reed frowned across the table. Elena nodded agreement. The man sounded anything but cordial. “Sorry for the delay.”

“Look, I’ve got to tell you, this is not a good place you’ve put me in. I know I owe you. But if I talked this over with my lawyers, they’d tell me I was well over the line even getting on the phone with you.”

Reed’s tone hardened to match the unseen man on the other end of the line. “I told you this was highly confidential.”

“I didn’t say I’d gone to legal. I just . . .” Dwight Chester sighed. “Look. The regulations governing our new product analysis are there for a reason. We are given exclusive access to highly confidential data. Divulging this information could literally bring down a company. What you’re asking could mean a felony charge.”

“I understand.” Reed scribbled hastily at the bottom of his instruction sheet, then swiveled it around so Elena could read:
Dwight is not alone.

“I really must insist on knowing what is going on and why you’ve approached me,” Chester went on. “I have to warn you. If I don’t like what I hear, I won’t tell you a thing. Debts can only take you so far, Reed. You didn’t break the law to help me.”

“No. All I did was save a friend from professional ruin, and put my own job on the line to do so.”

Dwight’s voice trembled with the strain, but he held his ground. “I would hardly be a decent professional if I broke our code of ethics, much less the law.”

Reed looked at Elena and silently mouthed two words.
Your call
.

Elena rose from her seat, rounded the table, and pulled out the chair next to Reed’s. “Dr. Chester, my name is Dr. Elena Burroughs. I’m a clinical psychologist, with a particular focus on dream analysis. For the past week—”

“Wait, I know you. You’re that woman on the news conferences. About the crisis.”

“That is correct. And this is why I’m calling.”

“But the drug Reed called me about, SuenaMed’s new product, it’s for the treatment of ADHD.”

“And if that is all it does, then we have no further interest in the matter.” Elena took a long breath. “Dr. Chester, what I’m about to tell you is extremely confidential. If any word of this conversation leaks out, I could be killed.”

There was a silence, then, “Reed, is she on the level?”

“The answer is definitely yes. And both of us are potentially facing the most extreme risks,” Reed said.

“In that case, the best assurance I can give you is what I said at the beginning of this conversation,” Dwight Chester replied. “We are in the business of keeping secrets.”

Elena said, “Recently we have been alerted to the possibility that this entire sequence of events is a scam.”

“What, the dreams?”

“The dreams, the crisis, everything.”

“How is that possible?”

“That is why I’m calling. We need further evidence. This requires our investigating two different directions, and doing so with all possible speed. Have you heard about the latest dream?”

“Two days,” Dwight replied. “It gave me chills.”

“One direction has to do with uncovering how this dream manipulation might have occurred. If it happened at all. SuenaMed has been at the heart of these events from the beginning. This is why I asked Reed to call. I have just two questions. First, would you please review the clinical trials related to SuenaMed’s new drug to see if there is any hypnotic quality, anything that suggests it might carry the power of altering the patient’s dream state. And second, is there perhaps another of SuenaMed’s products that has shown such psychotropic qualities? We are looking
for something that could be secretly administered, something that leaves no trail whatsoever.”

There was a long pause, then the director asked, “You said your investigations were taking two directions. What is the other one?”

“We need to determine whether there is evidence of financial market manipulation.”

Dwight’s tone grew more worried still. “If you’re talking about somebody big enough to rig international markets and topple governments, this would have to be somebody a lot bigger than SuenaMed.”

“We agree.”

“Any group that big, they’d have all the power in the world to cover their tracks. That is, if they exist.”

Reed said, “Which is why we’re taking such precautions.”

Elena added, “We are trying as hard as we possibly can to identify the group without alerting them to our search. Your help could be vital.”

“Okay. Give me fifteen minutes, then call me back.”

When Reed cut the connection, he said, “Dwight is correct. Our chances of uncovering evidence are almost nil. Especially given the time constraints.”

The idea she had first sensed on the pathway grew into crystal clarity. “Can we set up a safe call with Agatha Hune?”

“Of course. But if she had such evidence, don’t you think . . .” His gaze tightened. “It’s the next part of your idea, isn’t it?”

She nodded slowly. “I think I may have found a way around that particular mountain.”

•    •    •

Fifteen minutes later, Dr. Chester resumed the call by saying, “The FDA approval process for new prescription drugs follows a very concrete series of stages. Following the preliminary lab
studies, all new drugs undergo extensive animal trials before being administered to human patients. These patients are carefully monitored, and all results must be divulged to the FDA committee responsible—”

Reed broke in: “Dwight, we are chasing shadows. We need the ninety-second version.”

“Right.” There was the sound of shuffling papers. “SuenaMed’s new product is going into worldwide release next week under the name of SuenaMind. Or it will, if the economy doesn’t explode in our faces. SuenaMind is a revolutionary new method of ADHD treatment. It is delivered as a nasal spray, administered once every two weeks.”

“The timing works,” Elena said to herself.

“Excuse me?”

“This entire sequence of dreams could fit within the time frame of one dose.”

“But there is nothing in the experimental evidence to suggest it can affect the dream patterns of patients,” Dwight said.

Reed demanded, “You are sure of this?”

“This is what I do. The clinical trials for SuenaMind are totally clean. No known side effects. Excellent short- and long-term results.”

Reed gave her a long look, disappointment etched into his features. “This is not what we had hoped to hear.”

“Sorry. But I have to tell you, this is as clean a study as I’ve ever seen.” There was the sound of more papers being shifted. “The only thing that is even the least bit curious is how long it’s taken SuenaMed to bring the drug on line.”

“Explain what that means, please.”

“We were alerted to this product’s potential eight years ago. That’s part of the FDA approval process. The instant a drug moves from lab work to animal testing, we are notified. Normally it would go from there to first human trials in about a year, perhaps
two. SuenaMind took seven. Seven years would generally indicate there was a serious flaw, one that sent them back to the labs. In this case, four years ago SuenaMed’s director of clinical trials died suddenly. We were notified that the final report would be delayed. That was the last we heard from them for, let’s see . . .”

There came more sounds of pages being turned. “It was eleven months before they responded. Then a new product director was brought in. I have the letter of notification here in front of me.”

“Rachel Lamprey,” Elena said, her voice hollow.

“That’s the lady. We immediately lodged a second official query with her. This is standard ops. Sometimes a delay means the drug company has reformulated the product to overcome side effects that emerged in the animal testing phase. But the lab results were clean, so I have no idea what happened here. In any case, Ms. Lamprey’s new team was already moving at lightning speed. Within four months of her coming on board, the group filed their initial clinical trial report and moved into large-scale trials. As soon as these reports began confirming what the preliminary results had shown, their PR team started the first round of promotions, getting the medical community hungry for the product. Eight months ago, the initial license was issued. The rest you probably know. We have received notice from two other companies that they’re working on their own products, but this is normal with any drug that has the potential of reshaping the market. Which this one does. SuenaMind will have the field to itself for at least two years, possibly three. Their profit potential is huge—we’re talking billions.”

Elena shook her head. This was not what she needed to know. She searched hard.

“You still there?”

“We’re here,” Elena replied. “Dr. Chester, one final question. Do you have any idea how the original team director died?”

“Sure, I can tell you precisely. The companies are required to file all such reports, in case we learn at a future date that the demise may be related to chemical exposure. Here it is. He died of a seizure that led to heart failure. The autopsy report suggested a latent epilepsy.”

“Thank you, Dr. Chester.”

“About your other question. SuenaMed does no research in psychotropics. Never has. Sorry I couldn’t be of any more help.”

Elena was already reaching to cut off the laptop. “This is exactly what we needed. Good-bye.”

Reed eyed her doubtfully. “Really? It sounded like a total failure to me.”

“Just the opposite.” Elena reached for the instruction sheet, flipped it over, and began making notes. “I need to talk with Agatha Hune. Now. There isn’t a moment to lose.”

22

W
hen the Federal Reserve bank executive came on the line, she said, “I’m glad you set up this call. I needed to speak with you as well.”