Vaccine Nation (15 page)

Dani awoke in bed next to Richard. After she’d hung up the phone with Mom, they’d kissed and then moved from the sofa into the bedroom, where their desire had been sated. She now took in the room: the sun streaming in and forming a quadrangle on the parquet floor, oriental rug and the bed. Not over-thetop opulent, but definitely not a Marriott. Richard still slept. His body was half exposed, the body of a halfback. She’d never slept with a halfback, but she imagined that was the training regimen that would produce a chiseled body like Richard’s. He was the only man she’d been with, other than James, in five years.

She pulled the sheet down, enjoying the cool of the airconditioning on her breasts.

Richard’s eyes were open now, admiring her body. She reveled in it.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

“Thank you.” She kissed him. “I like the way you look at me.”

He grinned, smitten.

She rolled toward him and propped her head on her elbow. “That was an unexpected pleasure.”

“I don’t know why you wouldn’t have expected it.”

“Is that something I can look forward to in the future?”

“I wondered about that earlier. I think there’s an old adage about life-threatening situations creating intense but unsustainable emotional bonds.”

“Ports in a storm?”

“Something like that.”

He looked at her for a moment, pondering. “I asked you on the train if your divorce was recent. You said it was a long time ago. Yet you still don’t seem settled. You mentioned an ex-boyfriend.”

Dani sighed. “My son was a year old when my ex decided all he wanted was to make the majors. He bounced around in the Colorado Rockies’ single-A farm system. He’s a decent shortstop but he hits 220 in a good year. He’s still never sent his first child support check and I haven’t heard from him in six years.”

He laughed. “My wife—ex-wife—did something similar, only she bats around 350
and
hits for power. One day she woke up and quit dabbling with her magazine startup, cut her hair, lost ten pounds, got a new wardrobe and a new attitude. Or, rather, her old attitude, the one she had when I first met her, swearing she’d be the youngest woman Managing Director ever on Wall Street. She rejoined Morgan Stanley, where she’d worked before I met her. Some of my friends on the Street tell me they call her the Dragon Lady.”

Dani mouthed the word, “Ouch.”

“Actually it kind of helped the first time I heard it.” Richard shifted his weight. “And I’ve gotten used to the idea. You move on. Today is just a bad day.” Dani agreed. Richard said, “You seem to have survived your own experience. But it can’t have been easy, being a single mom.”

“I had help. I lived in the same town as my Mom. But I did take an assortment of jobs to get by. When Gabe was still a baby I transformed my apartment into a day care. I have some friends in fashion who got me some oddball jobs, too. I was a fit model—I’m the standard 36C bra size—because they need models to fit when they’re coming out with a new line. The pay was outrageously good for a few hours’ work. Same thing with being a shoe model. I’m the standard 6B, which is the sample size they make all new shoes as they’re designing them. And Gabe models, too. He’s been doing it since he was three, and he’s got a nice little college fund started. So things haven’t been so bad.”

“It must’ve been hard for your son, not having his dad around.”

“Still is. But I had a steady boyfriend for the last five years. He was really good with Gabe. And he had kids of his own about the same age. They all got along really well.” Her words tugged at her heart. She’d seen Bobby and Jamie, James’ sons, grow up, almost like they were hers. She missed them.

“You’re talking in the past tense.”

“Yes. We broke up recently. I think part of the reason I stayed with him so long was because of Gabe.” She wondered if Gabe missed Bobby and Jamie, too.
Of course.

“Bad relationship?”

“No, to the contrary. James is a great guy. He’s a successful corporate lawyer, does really well, good-looking, considerate. Quite a catch, actually. But things came to a head after he proposed. Before I could respond he started looking at the real estate listings in Upper Montclair, even started making phone calls to people he knew on the board of Montclair Kimberley Academy to get Gabe accepted for private school. I guess I just got weirded out by it. I told him I didn’t want to move back to New Jersey and be a soccer mom.”

“Like I said to you yesterday, sounds like it isn’t really resolved yet.”

“Not in his mind. He keeps insisting I’m afraid to commit. I’m okay with where I am.”

Richard didn’t respond, seemed to be thinking.

Dani was thinking about her “ports in a storm” comment, wishing she hadn’t made it. She said, “I know I couldn’t have gotten this far without you. I certainly couldn’t have done
Face the Press.”

“Sure you could. You just needed a push. So now you’re out in front of the camera. And you seemed to like it, and you’re good at it. What is it they say about teachers or critics? Those who can do, do; those who can’t, teach or critique.”

“Or do documentaries? I’m not sure you’re being complimentary to people who consider documentaries an art form.”

“You’re taking it wrong. I’m just saying that now instead of being behind the scenes, reporting on others taking a stand, you’re out in front now, standing by your own truth.”

Dani thought about it. She remembered how disappointed she was with herself for blurting out simply, “Thank you,” when accepting her award at Tribeca. Too scared to say what the award meant to her, what the film meant to her. But going toe-to-toe this morning with Madsen, she seemed to herself a different person. She touched Richard’s hand. “Thanks. So, what happens to us after all this is over?”

“I said before we were strange bedfellows. I didn’t mean it literally. Sometimes it works.”

Dani stroked his face. “It is ironic, me in this mess and you working for the dark side.” Dani gazed over Richard’s head at the wall. She wondered,
does anything like this ever work?
“What exactly do you do for Madsen, anyhow?”

“I’m one of his investment bankers. I bring him merger deals, help him do the financings to help him build his business.”

“So you’re helping him grow his empire, while I’m doing everything I can to destroy it.”

“Destroy it? I don’t see it that way.”

“No, you’re wrong. If I had my way, I’d like to push the entire pharmaceutical industry into a black hole.”

“Why?”

“I told you about my ordeal with DYFS in New Jersey. When I lost the case, the bastards were actually going to take Gabe away from me unless I agreed to have him drugged. You can’t imagine how horrible that was.” She felt the sensation as if someone was stomping on her heart. “You don’t have children, do you?”

“Nephews and nieces.”

“You don’t have to have held them as newborns or breast fed them to understand how I was feeling then. Gabe is the best thing I’ve ever done. If I die tomorrow I can say I brought one of the most precious gifts to the world it could ever have, that I’ve done at least one remarkable thing in my life. Gabe.” Tears came to her eyes. “Can you imagine someone telling me that because I don’t agree with them they’re going to take the center of my universe away from me? My Gabe? And then bullying me, distorting the facts, bankrupting me over three years to get some heartless judge to actually do it?” She was leaning toward him, her muscles taut, feeling her nostrils flaring. “I hate the bastards!”

“But that was DYFS, not the pharmaceutical companies.”

Her expression hardened. “None of that would have happened if the drug companies hadn’t been pushing their wares on doctors, the schools, the entire medical community. It’s at the point where they simply dream up a drug and figure out who they can push it to. Even conjure up some ridiculous subjective criteria like they have for ADHD that you can apply to almost anybody. If your child can’t sit still, calls out in class without raising his hand—in short, if he hasn’t learned self-discipline yet, or if they pumped him full of sugary snacks and juice in the lunchroom—some school nurse can apply a half-dozen subjective criteria from the DSM-5 psychological diagnostic ‘Bible’ and call him ADHD. No objective, physiological tests. No brain scan, no physical diagnosis. Just some school nurse with no training,
who’s watched some ‘educational’ videos provided by the drug industry. And it doesn’t stop there. The psychiatrists and the drug industry keep dreaming up new diagnoses for new categories and subcategories. God knows what will happen when we get to DSM-6. Is shyness a mental disorder? Grief? Should we be treating these everyday personality characteristics and experiences with drugs?” Dani clenched the sheet in her hand, squeezed it. “The whole thing’s become a science experiment with our children’s brain chemistry. We’re medicalizing everyday life into disorders treated with drugs, disempowering parents and parenting. They did the same thing to my brother, Jack. They drugged him for years for hyperactivity. My Mom was a nurse and she believed in all that crap until she saw what it did to him. And now he’s addicted. He’s finally off painkillers, but on prescription Adderall, and buys any downs on the street he can get his hands on. Can’t hold a job. Still living at home at twenty-seven. No savings, no girlfriend, no life. The bastards ruined him, and as much as we’ve tried, we haven’t been able to bring him out of it. I have these awful visions of finding him dead in an alley.”

Richard watched her, maybe waiting for her to talk herself out, maybe thinking again that, yes, they were strange bedfellows. Finally he stood up. “I remember this demure woman who sat down next to me on the train, kind of mousy. I’m not sure what happened to her, but I think somebody stuck a hornet, or maybe a drug company up her ass.” He smiled. “I suppose we should get dressed. I’ll call room service and order us that brunch.”

Dani wanted to pull him back into bed, start over again, but by then the moment was gone. She rolled back over, heard Richard talking to room service on the phone. She checked in with herself: she felt somehow liberated, surprised she didn’t feel
guilty to James. It was so foreign, yet so wonderful, to be held, kissed and touched by another man. She’d had so few lovers in her life. Was the passion she felt real, or was it lust? She wondered how this was for Richard. Did she mean anything to him? She refused to believe she didn’t. He didn’t seem like a one-night stand personality. He’d been hurt by his ex-wife, that was clear, and he was still suffering. But was he open to starting over? Was she someone he would consider that with? Did she want that?
Maybe.

D
ANI AND
R
ICHARD WERE JUST
getting ready to eat when there was a knock at the door. She said, “Just a minute,” and walked over to peer through the glass peephole. She saw a bellhop, an athletic woman in her 30s, standing there in one of those ridiculous caps the hotel made them wear. She opened the door.

“Yes?”

“I have a package for Mr. Blum.”

“Thank you, I’ll take it.” Dani extended her hand.

“Someone needs to sign for it.”

Dani turned toward the room service cart to get the pen from the bill folder. She saw in the mirror that the bellhop had closed the door and pulled a gun from her jacket. Dani felt a choking sensation.
My God!
In one motion, Dani took the carafe of tea water from the room service cart, spun and threw the scalding water into the bellhop’s face. The woman threw her hands up and screamed. Dani lunged toward her and grabbed the gun in both of her hands, then pulled the bellhop down. The bellhop grabbed Dani by the hair with her free hand, slammed Dani’s head to the floor. Richard ran out of the bedroom and across the room. He picked up the carafe and swung it at the bellhop’s head. The bellhop rolled away; Richard’s swing went wide. Dani tried to pry the woman’s thumb from the gun grip, but she had a death hold on it. Now the bellhop swung a karate chop at Dani’s neck. Dani
felt a blast of panic, jerked her arms up to deflect the blow. One of her wrists exploded in pain.

Richard smashed the carafe into the bellhop’s hand. Dani heard her grunt and the crack of breaking bone. The bellhop pulled herself halfway to her feet, lifting Dani with her, and swung a leg at Richard that took his feet out from under him, toppling him to the ground. Dani pulled her now numbed hand off the gun and smashed her fist into the bellhop’s nose. Blood spattered in a halo.

The bellhop sneered and turned back to Dani, her elbow on the way toward Dani’s face. Richard righted himself and slammed the carafe into the woman’s forehead. She went down as dead weight.

Dani pulled the gun from her and stared at her laying unconscious on the floor. Richard smashed the carafe into the bellhop’s skull, once, twice, three more times.

“Richard!” Dani yelled. Richard looked up at Dani, then gave the bellhop one more whack.

He said, “You okay?” She nodded. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” He checked the bellhop’s pulse. “She won’t be following us.” He took the gun. “I’ll bring this.”

The gun was small, some kind of automatic, and was surprisingly light. Richard switched the safety on and stuffed it in the waistband of his pants, where he could reach it easily if he needed to. He went into the bedroom and put on a sports jacket to cover the gun. As he walked back, he saw Dani’s face: cheeks pink from exertion, eyes bulging, and her mouth partly open. She was sucking in air in huge gasps. He realized his own ears were throbbing
and he felt his heart knocking against his chest. His left calf hurt where the woman had kicked him to knock him down. He took Dani by the shoulders. “You okay?” he asked again.

“Not really.” She motioned with her head toward the door. Richard opened it, stuck his head out to look both ways down the hall and then waved Dani toward him.

“Let’s take the stairs,” he whispered. Now her jaw was set, her expression determined.
She’s doing fine.
Where he came from they called what this woman had “moxie,” the way she’d hung onto the assassin’s gun hand, fought her off. And now focused like a pitbull.

They didn’t speak in the stairwell, Richard leading the way. He waited for his pulse to return to normal, but it didn’t. He’d just killed someone. Obviously a hired killer, but still, it was a shock. Now he realized his right hand ached and his knuckles were sore from the way he’d held the carafe as he’d bashed it against the killer’s head. When they reached the bottom landing Richard glanced back at Dani and said, “Ready?”

“Yes.”

Richard opened the door and strolled out as nonchalantly as he could. The lobby was quiet, a half dozen people seated in lounge chairs, reading or chatting, a couple standing in front of the registration desk, a bellhop wheeling a luggage cart. Richard slowed so Dani could catch up with him and headed for the revolving doors.

So far so good.

Dani saw a man seated in one of the lounge chairs put down his newspaper and make eye contact with her. She felt a bolt of alarm
and clutched Richard’s bicep. He didn’t turn his head, but nodded to acknowledge her fear and picked up his pace. The man stood. Another man seated closer to the door put down his magazine and stood up as well.
My God. They have us staked out.
Richard ushered her into the revolving doors with his arm, and followed. They walked across Pennsylvania Avenue North and turned down 14
^th
Street, walking as fast as they could without breaking into a run. “At least two men in the lobby. Following us,” she said.

“Three. I saw two by the door.”

They crossed Constitution Avenue. “Head for the crowd on the mall,” Dani said. “The Vaccine Choice rally.” At least there Richard and she might have home field advantage, among 20,000 ralliers, many of whom knew who Dani was. She wanted to look back at the men but was afraid. The image of the woman pulling the gun from her coat flashed into her mind. They were almost to the intersection at Madison Drive where they could cross onto the National Mall. Dani broke into a run. “Don’t Walk” blinked at the crosswalk.

“I’m with you,” Richard said. “Go.”

Dani entered the National Mall and at last glanced behind her. The men were starting across the street. One of them was looking off to his right with one hand raised, as if directing someone else. Dani couldn’t see anyone.

“He’s signaling to someone,” Richard said. “There are more.” He took her hand and stepped forward into the crowd. She panicked. He was taking her right into the center of the crowd. The men obviously had guns and could fire at close range once they caught up with them, maybe after converging on them from all sides.

How many of them are there?
Now she felt claustrophobic in the crowd. “Richard, we’re sitting ducks in here.”

Richard stopped. “I don’t know how many there are. I think this is our only chance of losing them.”

A woman next to her said, “Dani? Dani North? I just saw you on
Face the Press.
I read your blog. I know your films.”

Dani spun her head to look at her.
Now what?

“Yes, it’s her. Dani North,” Richard said.

What’s he doing?

Richard lowered voice, “And if you know who she is you know she’s in trouble, and that we’re being followed. I need to get her out of here. Away from the people chasing her.”

Another woman, this one a mother holding her child by the hand, said, “We know you’re getting framed, Dani.” A couple standing next to that woman pressed in closer, murmuring their agreement. Within another 15 seconds a crowd had pressed into a circle around Dani.

Richard clutched her by the arm. “Keep your eyes open for those three men. With any luck the crowd will slow them down, and maybe we can work our way out of here.”

Dani turned, searching the crowd. A moment later she saw the first man from the lobby. “There’s one!” she yelled, pointing. The crowd surged in front of the man, blocking his passage. He pushed people away with his arms, but others filled in and jostled him.

She saw another man working his way through the crowd. “There’s another,” Richard called out. The throng stepped in front of that man, too, even pushing him backward.

“Please let us through,” Dani said, “They’re still after us.”

She heard echoes of her words. “Dani North.” “They’re after her,” and, “Let Dani through.”

Then Richard lunged forward at a man who came toward her, his jaw clenched. “Hey!” Richard shouted. He raised both hands to the man’s shoulders. “Get him!” The crowd grabbed the man as he clutched at Richard and threw him to the ground. Dani saw him with his face forced into the grass, two men pressing his arms outstretched with their knees in his back. A moment later she heard police whistles. Policemen appeared. Richard continued to pull her along. They reached Jefferson Drive at the opposite side of the mall and headed down a side street where they found a Starbucks. They took a table at the back. Dani saw a woman leave the restroom and stepped inside. She latched the door behind her, sat and broke into tears.

“Where did those men come from?” Dani said. Richard had brought two cups of tea back to the table.

“I assume the same place as the woman in the room who tried to kill you.”

“How did they find us?”

“Maybe through my credit card. These guys must have one helluva network. That guy on the train must have ID’d me somehow, or they chased me down at the car rental agency, and from that got my credit card. If somebody told me it could happen, I wouldn’t have believed it. But it happened, somehow.”

Is there no end to this?
Dani thought. For the tenth time today she thought of Gabe, how helpless she felt to keep him safe. Those worries might seem incongruous to what she’d been through in the last hour, but her own predicament made her fears for her little boy all the more profound. And for Mom, Jack and James.
How could she free herself? Them? Whoever was after her was relentless. “These people are incredibly powerful.”

“We need to change our plan,” Richard said.

Dani’s eyes were still sore from crying, but her sobs had released the tension from her shoulders. “What do you suggest?”

He leaned forward. “I did some research at the hotel last night. There’s a federal whistleblowers program. The Office of Special Counsel is charged with protecting whistleblowers, both legally and physically. They’re the ones who protected McCloskey when he went public on Myriad. They have a twenty-four-hour hotline. It’s time.”

Dani was too exhausted and scared to protest. She waved her hand.

“You just had another attempt on your life. You were tailed from our hotel.”

“I don’t need the set-up. I’m there. Go on.”

“If the Office of Special Counsel determines you have legitimate information about a wrongdoing, you may qualify for federal whistleblower status and protection. I say you go to them with your story, your USB flash memory drive, and everything you’ve learned about it from Salisbury. They can use the information to get to whoever is behind the attacks, and protect you, even hide you, until it’s no longer necessary.”

“Okay. How do I do it?” Richard typed some keys on his BlackBerry, then held it up to her with the information in his browser. Dani felt in her pocket for one of the cell phones, then walked into the restroom to make the call.

“Hello, you’ve reached the Office of Special Counsel, Kenneth Olsen. The Special Counsel is pleased to be of assistance to you. How may I help you?” Dani was waiting for instructions about what key to hit to speak to a live representative. “Hello? May I help you?”

Oh.
The voice that answered the phone was a woman on the line herself. “I need to speak with someone about the federal whistleblower program.”

“I can help you.” Now the woman sounded perky and alive.

“I have information about a massive industry fraud, as well as murders to cover it up. And attempted murders, including attempts on my life.”

The woman paused, said, “What’s going on?”

“First, who am I speaking to?”

“Angela Stevens. I’m an attorney. I know how the Office of Special Counsel operates, its standards and authorities, and have a direct line to Mr. Olsen himself as appropriate to the situation.” Now she sounded tough, like she might be what she represented herself to be. “Perhaps you should just come in and talk. Then we can decide if your situation warrants the Special Counsel’s attention.”

Dani’s antenna went up. The last thing she needed was some bureaucrat, or in this case maybe some sophomoric lawyer, thinking she knew what she was doing and getting her, and Richard, killed.

“I don’t think so.”

The woman paused. Then this Angela Stevens spoke, sounding bitchy for the first time. “We can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.”