Capitol Reflections (54 page)
At flight level 430, the jet leveled off, flying on autopilot toward Lanai. By that time, worried pilots in F-16’s had formed an escort around the uncommunicative private jet known to be carrying a U.S. senator. Since there were no grounds for a shoot-down, all they could do was follow the craft as it crossed the Sierra Nevada and West Coast. The fighters refueled over the Pacific, seeing no alternative but to keep following. When the jet came within range of the Hawaiian Islands, fighters from Hickam Air Force Base relieved the exhausted escort.
The Gulfstream navigated its way to Oahu perfectly, but failed to begin its programmed descent. Henry had seen to that. Lacking descent instructions, the jet kept flying west. Finally, it flamed out over the Pacific Ocean, losing its wings and shattering its fuselage as it entered an uncontrolled Mach 3 dive and scattered itself, and the remains of the two pilots and of Senator Henry Broome IV, over nine square miles.
The ocean was far too deep for any but the deepest of submersibles to consider a salvage mission. Unlike the waters off Martha’s Vineyard, the Pacific had a considerable population of sharks. Within a day, all that remained of Henry Broome were memories.
76
Jack was asleep when Gwen got to his hospital room. For a moment, she stood in the doorway watching him. He seemed weak, vulnerable. From the time she met him, she regarded him as a powerhouse, but in that bed, after what he’d been through, he seemed nearly delicate. She felt tears coming to her eyes and put a thumb and forefinger up to the bridge of her nose to stem them.
Taking a couple of deep breaths, she moved to Jack’s side. She put her head down on his arm and allowed herself to revel in the nearness of him. Over the past few days, she’d wondered at times if they’d ever be this close again. Now, even though he seemed weak, she took strength from him. The three of them—Jack, the baby, and her—were a powerful family unit.
“Gwen?”
Jack’s voice seemed strained, as though it took him an extended period to say the single syllable of her name. But when she looked up at him, his gaze was vivid. He was all there.
She reached across the bed and hugged him tightly, temporarily ignorant of the tubes and machinery around them.
“Wow, that’s quite a grip,” he said slowly but clearly. “Have you been working out?”
She kissed the side of his face, then his lips, and then sat back. “I’ve always been stronger than you thought,” she said with a smile. “I’ve just been holding back.”
“I’m impressed.” He reached out a hand and she took it. “Is it over?”
“It’s not over, but I think everything has been set in motion. Most importantly, my part in it—the part that’s kept me away—is over.”
He squeezed her hand. There was real strength there.
“Did you get the bad guys?”
“We’re getting them. At least one of them. We aren’t sure yet how far this goes.”
“That’s good.”
Gwen smiled and pulled his hand up to her lips to kiss it. She thought she knew how much she missed him when they were apart, but she had been far off.
“You were a big help in this,” she said.
“I got in the way.”
“You didn’t. You were … amazing through this. Even when you thought I was crazy.”
Jack’s eyes darted away. “I owe you an apology for that. You were right about Marci.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Jack. No—wait a second—you do owe me something. You owe me a new office.”
Jack turned back to her, his gaze more vibrant as though someone had just plugged him in. “I’ll get started on the basement as soon as I get home.”
“Maybe a few days after you get home.” Gwen reached down and produced a baseball mitt from a bag next to her purse. “You also need to work on your curveball.”
“Kids can’t hit curveballs until they’re teenagers.”
“Our kid is going to hit a curveball when she’s two!”
“She?”
“Or he. Either way, Dad had better be in great shape.”
Jack’s eyes glistened. “He will be.”
Mark and Billy Hamlin sat on a bench next to the Reflecting Pool extending from the Washington Monument. The day was overcast, causing the leaves in the nation’s capitol to show their darkest shades of green.
“I liked you, you son of a bitch,” Mark said sharply. “I don’t like many people—especially corporate people—but I liked you. And you screwed me.”
“I’m telling you, Mark, you just dropped several bombshells on me.”
They’d been together for several minutes, during which Mark briefed Hamlin on everything he and his colleagues had learned—and the contents of an upcoming hatchet job of Pequod’s in the
Post
.
Post
.
“Do you really expect me to believe that you knew none of this? You’re the CEO of the whole freaking operation.”
Hamlin put up his hands, as though to ward off Mark’s blows. “I didn’t say that I knew none of it. I knew about Pedregal, but not the rest of it. Certainly not about d-caffeine or—jeez—the sex slaves.”
“I find that impossible to believe.”
“You can believe what you want, Mark, but I’m telling you the truth. Randall told me Pedregal was necessary to maintain our secrecy. There was a certain logic to this. Every successful company keeps some secrets to hold on to its competitive edge. If the competition thought our beans came from South America when they really came from Hawaii, that would keep them one step behind us.”
“So you’re saying you knew nothing about the nature of those Hawaiian beans? You had no idea they’d been manipulated in such a way that they could kill people?”
Hamlin tipped his head back, his expression pained. He was either an Oscar-level actor or Mark really had given him new information.
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but even as CEO I didn’t get access to everything. Randall made that a condition of my employment from day one. I knew he was ruthlessly competitive, but I didn’t know he was dirty.”
“And you can have Tassin over to your house for dinner—and regularly, from the way it seemed that night—and have no idea that he’s involved in all kinds of evil shit with your boss?”
Hamlin shook his head and laughed self-deprecatingly. “Makes me sound like the world’s biggest fool, huh? I knew Randall and Dieter went way back and I knew I had to be careful with Dieter. That’s why he came to dinner so often. Keep your enemies closer, right? I swear I didn’t know about the ‘evil shit’ though.”
“I guess that means you think I shouldn’t crucify you in the press, right?”
Hamlin looked genuinely mournful. “You’re going to do what you’re going to do, Mark. My only request is that you trust your reporter’s instincts here. If you do, I think you’ll realize I’m telling you the truth.”
“And if I do, what happens next?”
Hamlin gazed out at the monument. He didn’t say anything for more than a minute. “I have some decisions to make.”
It was Mark’s turn to be silent for a long moment after that. Finally he said, “You know, there’s something I still haven’t been able to figure out, though the bio-wizards may have done so already. Why does the seizure activity go down after the first couple of months?”
Hamlin’s brow furrowed. Then his eyes opened in recognition. “I think I might be able to help you with that.”
77
“The Proprietor’s Roast is the answer,” Dr. Ted Gallagher said.
It was four days later when Gallagher summoned the group back to the main campus of the NIH. Mark had called him right after he met with Hamlin to give him the “anonymous tip” that Pequod’s screwed with the coffee whenever they entered a new market. According to Hamlin—a tough guy to not believe, even though it was nearly impossible to believe him—Tassin concocted a special roast to be used during the first two months of a launch. Tassin said it was all about flavor and that it took too long to create to make it Pequod’s primary roast, but that it was a great way to get consumers hooked. Mark guessed that the last part was true, though the rest of it was bullshit.
“It’s taken a while to line things up, and even now, the results are only preliminary pending duplication and further study. Think of what I’m going to say as the rushes of a Hollywood film—rough cuts of the day’s shooting before the editor and director can put it all together. What we have now is awfully compelling, though.”
“Let us have it,” Mark said.
“First,” stated Gallagher, “using Mark’s tip, I made sure my teams carried out an analysis of Pequod’s beans, both in existing markets and those that represent new territory for the outfit. The coffee from new markets showed a higher concentration of the mirror molecule than coffee from established markets. Pequod’s has obviously been titrating the d-caffeine level—raising it—in order to hook people and keep the competition down when it expands to new markets. The d-caffeine binds to receptor sites that usually receive amphetamines and the like—cocaine, crystal meth, and a host of other uppers.”
“That explains the seizure spikes,” said Mark.
“Not really. The d-caffeine is enough to cause people to experience a slightly higher and more pleasant buzz, but that’s about all it can do … except in those very rare instances where someone might already be at risk for a seizure and in compromised health on top of everything else.”
“Does it make it more addictive?” asked Jan.
“It’s a lot more addictive than regular caffeine, partly because it makes you feel so great without the unpleasant jumpiness. It does raise the brain’s cyclic AMP level, just like Gwen said it would.”
“Then why do they scale back on the d-caffeine after a few months?”
“My guess is that a lot of it has to do with money. It’s more expensive to titrate. Once Pequod’s has consumers hooked on their brand, they can drop down the levels and keep their market. Moreover, as they drop the d-caffeine levels, people buy more coffee to keep the buzz going. Suddenly they start going for the extra shot in their latte. They start dropping in for an extra cup on the way home, instead of just at lunchtime.”
“And what about the interaction with nicotine?” Gwen asked.
“Nicotine is indeed the rogue factor that comes into play when we start talking seizures. Smoking, of course, raises the metabolism. As we already noted, it gives people who already take amphetamines or coke an extra rush. What’s happening is that nicotine and Pequod’s coffee are acting synergistically, pushing some people over the seizure threshold. Most people can handle it, even smokers. But not everyone.”
“Not Marci,” Gwen said sadly.
Mark saw Gwen’s pain and felt an immediate surge of anger. “We’re going to nail those bastards with this.”
“Don’t jump to that conclusion so fast,” Eddie Karn interjected.
“What are you talking about?” Mark said, riled and indignant. “They’re invading our bodies and they’ve killed people.”
“It might not matter. Caffeine is a legal drug regardless of its form—left- or right-handed—and people consume it for its stimulant properties more than for its taste. The FDA allows companies to put caffeine into headache remedies, energy drinks, and dozens of other products.”
“But Pequod’s’ caffeine acts differently in the human body than ordinary caffeine,” Peter pointed out.
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