Running Dark (3 page)

EDWARD BANNER, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF DARKVIEW, SAT AT
a desk and faced a raised dais behind which sat three United States senators and seven congressmen. Banner’s attorney sat on his right, taking notes on a legal pad. Banner’s phone lay on the desk in front of him, switched to “silent.” He saw an “unknown” number appear on his telephone screen and noted the 786 area code. He let it go to voice mail.

“Mr. Banner, can you tell this committee why you chose, unilaterally, to disobey direct orders from your superiors at the Department of Defense and assist Mr. Cameron Sumner and Major Miguel Gonzalez in their ill-advised and destructive actions in Colombia?”

The question came from the esteemed Senator George Cooley, a self-proclaimed devout man who prided himself on his conservative views but who kept a wife in a clapboard house in the South and a mistress in a condominium in D.C. The senator was doing the bidding of an oil conglomerate and a major contributor to his campaign. He was searching for a scapegoat in what he called the “shameful Colombian incident” and had decided that Banner would fill the role.

Banner’s part in the rescue of the Colombian hostages had earned him the highest praise from the media and was the subject of endless magazine and newspaper articles. His military background, coupled with his impeccable credentials and exceptional good looks, had made him a minor celebrity and the crush of scores of women. His refusal to capitalize on the media feeding frenzy by declining all requests for
interviews, photo shoots, or speaking engagements only served to boost his enigmatic image. Dressed in a dark blue suit, a muted gray silk tie, a crisp white shirt with French cuffs, and discreet silver cuff links, he managed to appear imposing, down-to-earth, and competent all at the same time. In contrast, the senator, a tall man with a thin, pinched face and avaricious eyes, looked like a particularly mean ferret. He knew better than to allow the meetings to be televised.

Banner considered the senator a blowhard, but his righteous claims that he “owed it to the American people to get to the bottom of the incident in Colombia” posed a threat to Darkview, something Banner took quite seriously. Banner also respected the office the man held, even if he didn’t like the man. Therefore he answered in as pleasant a voice as he could muster.

“At no time did I or Darkview ignore the orders of a superior. Darkview was charged with the task of rescuing the passengers of Flight 689. The mission was still authorized when I flew to Colombia. Mr. Sumner and Major Gonzalez were coming to the aid of one of the passengers on the downed airplane, a woman named Emma Caldridge.”

Senator Blowhard waved an impatient hand in the air. “We all know who these men were claiming to save, but at what cost?”

Banner nodded. “Whatever cost is claimed, it was justified. The rescue mission ended up crippling one of the biggest drug cartels in the world. A feat that I would expect this committee to applaud rather than condemn.”

Senator Blowhard leaned forward. “You and your cohorts managed to destroy the largest oil pipeline in South America in the process. This committee has been assigned the job of determining whether the rescue mission could have been undertaken without such an extreme act of destruction.” Blowhard peered at a notepad in front of him. “Now we understand that Mr. Sumner never returned to the United States. Is that correct?”

Banner nodded. His attorney leaned in to him.

“Edward, the court reporter can’t take down nods. You need to reply out loud.”

Banner glanced at the female court reporter tapping on the keys of her device. He smiled at her in apology. She flushed red. He turned back to the senator.

“Mr. Sumner is a member of the Southern Hemisphere Drug Defense Agency. After the mission they deemed it too dangerous for him to return to his duties in Key West until they were sure that the cartel leaders were not seeking retaliation. Darkview agreed to hire him on an ad hoc basis and place him far away from his usual territory.”

“Where is he?” Blowhard said. The committee members all looked up from their notes.

“He’s on a sensitive mission at an offshore location.”

“Which one of you blew up the pipeline?”

Banner’s attorney leaned in to Banner’s microphone. “Mr. Banner, if you know, you can answer. However, I don’t want you to speculate.”

Banner waved the attorney off. “I don’t know the answer to that.” Banner watched Blowhard shuffle some papers.

“You are aware that Ms. Caldridge appeared before this committee one month ago? That she was cooperative and forthcoming?”

Banner nodded again. “Ms. Caldridge is one of the bravest women I know.”

“Then you are aware that she claims to be the one who caused the pipeline to explode? That if this committee finds any wrongdoing, she expects to bear the fault alone?”

“I have complete confidence in Ms. Caldridge. If she destroyed the pipeline, then she had a damned good reason to, and little other choice.”

Blowhard looked irritated. “I have an affidavit here from Cameron Sumner. He also claims to have been solely responsible for the destruction of the pipeline. Now, I ask you, Mr. Banner, why is this man lying?”

Banner’s attorney spoke up. “I object. It’s a complete assumption that Mr. Sumner is lying.”

Everyone ignored the attorney.

Banner shrugged. “Maybe he’s not. Maybe they both did it.”

Senator Blowhard snorted. “That’s not what Ms. Caldridge said. Can you tell me why Mr. Sumner would lie to this committee under oath?”

Banner’s attorney made a small, angry noise. “Don’t answer that. It would be speculation on your part.”

Banner shrugged. “To protect Ms. Caldridge from this committee’s wrath?”

“Why would he do that?”

“Don’t answer that,” Banner’s attorney said, a little louder.

Banner raised an eyebrow at the senator. “You’ve seen Ms. Caldridge.”

The room exploded in laughter. Senator Blowhard looked annoyed as hell. Banner put up a hand for quiet.

“The last hours in Colombia were some of the most dangerous in my career. We were all under siege, dodging sniper fire from several directions and grenades from above. Any one of these things could have caused the pipeline to blow. It is conceivable that both believe themselves responsible for the explosion.”

Senator Blowhard leaned forward. “Could
you
be responsible for blowing up the pipeline?”

Banner hesitated. Leaving Emma Caldridge and Cameron Sumner to shoulder the blame for the pipeline went against his personal code of ethics. If he could help them, he would. The room fell silent. Senator Blowhard got a triumphant look on his face, as if he believed he’d maneuvered Banner into a corner.

“You’re under oath, Mr. Banner.”

Banner nodded. Lying under oath went against his personal ethics as well, not to mention that it was illegal. He’d tell the truth and find some other way to help them.

“I’m aware of that, Senator. And no, I could not be responsible for blowing up the pipeline.” The senator’s triumphant look deflated in an instant.

“Why not?” he said.

“Because when I appeared on the scene, the pipeline was already blown.”

Sporadic clapping echoed in the room. Senator Blowhard looked supremely annoyed. He made a note on his pad, then shook his pen up and down, the way people do when they’ve run out of ink. The pen splattered all over his paper. The senator wiped the ink off his fingers with a tissue before announcing that testimony for the day was concluded. Banner walked out of the meeting with the distinct impression that the testimony for the day might have been over but the trouble brewing for Darkview was just beginning.

EMMA WOKE IN HER HOTEL AT EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING,
disoriented. After a minute the horrible details came back to her. The bombing, the injection. She ran through her mind what the EpiPen could have contained: anthrax, ricin, botulinum toxin, HIV. All were deadly, none contagious. She sat up. Although the abrupt movement caused stars to dance in her eyes, she felt otherwise completely normal. Her stomach growled, but her head no longer pounded. The cell phone next to her bed rang, the persistent beeping getting louder the more she ignored it. She answered it to find Karen on the line.

“I finished your sample. We were unable to find anything untoward or illegal. You tested clean.”

Emma hadn’t expected a negative test. Whatever was pumped into her had increased her athletic ability tenfold. There was no way she could have run as fast as she did and still felt as good as she had without some sort of chemical boost.

“That’s not possible. No trace of steroids? EPO for blood doping?”

“Nothing. If you had won this race, no one would know you’d been on medication. Just how much of a boost did this injection give you?”

“A huge one. I ran the last two hours faster than I’ve ever run. I reduced my split time by thirty minutes, and that’s
after
mile thirty-five.”

“And you have no other symptoms?” Karen asked.

“Only an extreme anxiety reaction bordering on paranoia.”

“You were just blown off your feet in a blast. I would think it’s natural to have some anxiety after that. In fact, you’d be crazy
not
to be anxious. Umm, Emma?” Karen sounded hesitant. “Could you have imagined the injection? I mean, you told me you were dazed for a few minutes after you landed.”

Emma considered Karen’s comment a moment.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think I imagined him. And to be honest, if it weren’t for the increased ability, I might entertain the idea. But the race splits speak volumes. There is no way I could decrease my time so dramatically so late in the game without the boost that injection gave me. Especially considering the condition I was in right before the blast. My feet were failing, my head was pounding from the heat, and I could feel dehydration setting in, but I was having a terrible time keeping down the gel. Whatever he pumped into me was a miracle drug. Maybe I’ll run a few more extensive tests of my own. Can I have access to your temporary facilities here?”

“Of course, but first, did you go to the police?”

“Yes. I gave them a report. Do you have a key card for the lab?”

“You’ll need to ask Mr. Stark for that. Do you have his number?”

Richard Stark was the CEO of Price. Emma not only had his phone number, but she was placing the finishing touches on a report that Pure Chemistry had prepared for him regarding a Price drug. The report contained devastating news, and she had hoped to delay speaking with him until after they were back in the States. As it was, she needed his facility, so she had to run the risk that he’d take the opportunity to ask about the findings. She hung up and called him. He listened in silence while she tried to make light of the reason for her need to use the temporary facility. She didn’t want him to object and demand she go to a hospital, as Karen had.

“I used some new supplements and had an outstanding race. Too outstanding, actually.” She told him that she’d given a urine sample that had tested negative.

“A negative sample? I wouldn’t worry, then,” he said.

“I just want to run down some ideas I have. Clarify a couple of things.”

“Fine. I’m going there now before I take the corporate jet to Nairobi. Meet me in, say, an hour?”

Emma got up and packed to go. She needed to figure out what had been pumped into her, and soon. Once she did, she wasn’t staying an extra minute in Pietermaritzburg if she could help it.

She shrugged into a pair of jeans, pulled on a T-shirt, and covered that with a lightweight linen blazer. She slipped on soft-soled black athletic shoes. She’d expected to stay in Africa just long enough to run the race. As a result she’d brought only the bare minimum in a small duffel.

She had a tiny makeup bag, a wallet that fit in the interior breast pocket of her blazer, as well as a thin metal case. The case contained a circle of lipstick, a square of eyeliner, a pot of transparent cheek color, and a small wand prefilled with mascara. The sleek case was designed by a high-end makeup brand, for sale to women who travel. Emma had formulated the colors inside it at Pure Chemistry. She placed a travel toothbrush and paste into an outside pocket of the duffel. She used the express checkout feature to pay her hotel bill and headed to the temporary labs.

The Price lab was located in a sleek building in downtown Pietermaritzburg. A doorman stood behind the reception desk. He nodded at her after she explained why she was there.

“Mr. Stark is waiting for you. Just take one of those elevators.”

Stark was standing in the hallway when she stepped out of the car. He looked haggard, but Emma was aware of his reputation as a chronic workaholic, so his appearance didn’t surprise her. His dark hair was wet, as if he’d just showered. Only thirty-five years old, he was tall, with brown eyes and clean-cut dark hair. Handsome in an East Coast, well-bred way, he owed his meteoric rise in the business world to his ability to focus on work to the exclusion of all else.
Married young and divorced three years later, Stark, Emma had heard, required only four hours of sleep a night, a trait that stood him in good stead as the head of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

His dark chinos and blue button-down shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows was one of the rare relaxed outfits she’d ever seen him wear. She was interested to note that the casual clothes became him. They took the edge off his usual aloof manner. He still wore his expensive Patek Philippe watch. If not for that, he could have been mistaken for a “regular” guy, not the multimillionaire CEO of a Fortune 500 company. His eyes settled on her, not with a smile, nor a frown, but with a reticent air. He held the door to the lab open.

“Ms. Caldridge, please, come in.” He looked at his watch. “I should warn you that I need to leave for the airport in two hours.” Stark turned right without hesitation. When he reached a door with the number 3 on it, he took out a key card that he placed on the magnetic reader. The door sprang open.

Stark flipped on the lights. The lamp reflected off the room’s white walls, cabinets, and Formica countertops in a harsh glow, making Emma almost want to shield her eyes at first. The lab was large, but still a manageable size for one person to navigate, and laid out in a way that she thought was the most practical, with vials, pipettes, needles, and microscopes on long worktables within easy reach. Two Eppendorf microcentrifuges sat in the middle of each, along with test-tube holders. Emma headed to the nearest workstation, where labeled drawers itemized their contents. She removed surgical gloves, tubing, a needle with vials, alcohol swabs, and a Band-Aid and snapped on the gloves.

“What are you doing?” Stark asked.

“Drawing some blood.”

“Whose?”

“Mine.”

“Can you do that?”

“Yes. Unless you know how to do it?”

“No.”

She handed him the tubing. “Wrap this around my arm, could you? I’ll get the needle in, then you pull the plunger out. When the vial is full, you’ll need to pop on another.” She put three vials in a row.

Stark looked nervous. “Why are you drawing your own blood? The urine sample should have caught anything untoward.”

Emma went for the truth. “I was injected with something. During the bombing.”

Stark froze. Emma pulled open an alcohol swab to clean the inside of her elbow. When Stark still hadn’t moved or said anything, she looked up. He was ashen. His face held a frightened look that was unlike any expression she’d ever seen on him.

“You look scared to death. What is it?” She was holding a needle in one gloved hand and a vial in the other. He reached out and gently took the needle from her. He placed it on the table.

“You didn’t tell me someone had injected you. Tell me everything. Now.”

Emma gave him a short version of the man with the pen.

“Could you have been dreaming it? You said you’d taken a pretty hard fall.”

Emma was getting a little tired of people suggesting that she’d imagined the attacker.

“I still can’t account for my results. My feet had been swollen; they shrank back down, practically in front of my eyes. I was at the last third of the race, but my endurance increased a hundredfold.” Stark looked away. He appeared nervous—frightened, almost.

“Did you tell the authorities?”

Emma shook her head. “I told a police officer at the finish tent, but he was preoccupied with the bombing. He gave me an address and number to call in order to create a report. I did that, and I’ll contact the race organizers to tell them what happened after I get these test results back. Maybe there’s nothing there.” And maybe it’s a group
targeting me from my last adventure, Emma thought. But there was no need to add that to the mix for Stark. That issue could be addressed best by Banner.

Stark nodded. “Sounds right. There’s nothing that can be done immediately.” He shifted on his feet. “Can you give me an idea of what’s in your report on Cardovin? As I told you, I have some unexpected business in Nairobi, and I won’t be able to attend the scheduled meeting.” He grabbed a stool, rolled it close, and sat on it.

Emma tensed. She had known that this moment would come, but she wanted to avoid it a little longer, if possible. She hated to be the bearer of such bad news.

“It’s in my report. You can read it when you finish in Nairobi.”

“What are you going to say to us?” Stark’s voice was flat and brooked no further delay.

Emma took a deep breath. No sense gilding the lily. Best be out with it fast and leave no room for doubt.

“Cardovin doesn’t work.”

Stark went still. All Emma could hear was the muffled sound of a car alarm, somewhere in the distance. She shot a glance at his face. He stared at her with a look that was a combination of anger and disbelief.

“What do you mean?” Stark’s voice was soft but held an intensity she hadn’t heard from him before.

“It doesn’t work.”

“At all?” He sounded shocked.

“At all,” Emma said. She felt some pity for him. The results were devastating. They would annihilate Price’s profits for a long time to come. The stool squeaked as Stark leaned toward her, his motion followed by a faint whiff of his cologne.

“Do you realize you’re telling me that a drug sold all over the world, that cardiovascular doctors in every teaching hospital in seventeen different countries prescribe every day, that represents over
four
billion
dollars in sales for Price, doesn’t work?” Now he sounded incredulous.

“Yes.”

Stark shook his head. “You must be wrong.”

Emma bit back a retort. “I am not wrong. My methodology will stand up to any scrutiny your scientists at Price wish to subject it to. The drug doesn’t work. Period.”

“If what you say is true, how do you explain the conclusions reached by Price’s own scientists? Results that won us FDA approval? Clinical trials showing that not only does the drug work, but it works extremely well?”

Emma sighed. “Actually, at first I deliberately avoided reading their studies before undertaking my own, so as not to be swayed by their approach. Remember, you hired Pure Chemistry to test this drug and urged us to start from scratch. That’s exactly what we did.”

Stark nodded. “Go on.”

“After, I went back and looked at every test with a positive finding. None of them tested Cardovin on its own. All of them tested it in combination with other, well-proven cardiovascular drugs, which is why Cardovin is approved only as an adjunct to those drugs. When it was combined in this manner, the results
were
slightly higher, but not as high as the marketing materials for Cardovin would suggest.”

“And yours?”

“My study showed that it worked no better than a placebo.” She returned to preparing to draw blood. Stark grabbed her wrist to stop her.

“No better than a placebo! Are you serious? Just what am I supposed to tell the board of directors? The shareholders? Price is due to report last quarter’s earnings in a few days, and to project future sales. You expect me to tell them that our number-one seller doesn’t work? Wall Street will eat us alive.” Stark’s eyes were hard, furious.

Emma shook off his hand. “How you reveal these findings is up to
you. My job was to analyze the drug. I did that. But, to be honest, I’m a little surprised by the depth of your reaction. You knew over two months ago that Cardovin had problems. I saw the memo from your head scientist telling you that he felt further action was required to analyze Cardovin’s efficacy. Price hired Pure Chemistry right after, so I assumed you were acting on the memo.”

Stark was up and pacing. “I was told that the drug had some questionable results, but not that it was a complete waste!” He stopped prowling the room and straightened. He pinned her with a stare. “I want a copy of that report e-mailed to me at your earliest convenience. Until that time I wish to remind you that Pure Chemistry is subject to a confidentiality agreement. You are not to release these findings to any scholarly journals, or to anyone else, without our express consent.” He delivered the order in a precise, clipped manner. It was all Emma could do to respond to him in a normal tone of voice.

“I’m aware of my responsibilities—and yours. Price cannot continue to sell a drug that it knows is worth no more than a sugar pill. Once your scientists review my findings and agree with them, Price will have to stop selling the drug. It’s that simple.”

“Nothing is ever that simple.” Stark strode to the lab door. “Inform the guard when you’re done here. The door will lock behind you.” He was gone in an instant.

Emma sighed. The day was getting worse by the moment. She returned to the task at hand. She’d worry about Stark later. Right now she was far more concerned about herself. Filling the vials was much more difficult now that she was alone. She watched as the red plasma rose in each one. She still felt normal, which was impossible if she’d been injected with a chemical weapon on the level of what she suspected. Each hour she didn’t react was further evidence that whatever had been pumped into her wasn’t going to cause immediate, catastrophic harm. So not a fast-acting chemical weapon—then what?