Miracle Cure (32 page)

“Ah, the wonder drug. I’ve already got half a dozen candidates lined up for it. I heard it was going to be available this weekend. That right?”

“I think so. Dr. Purefoy—”

“Sam. Please call me Sam.”

“—Sam, I’ve bumped into a couple of cases of patients who were part of the early Vasclear studies and who had something that looked and acted like severe pulmonary hypertension. Is that much of a possibility in Mrs. Vitorelli, from what you could tell?”

“Pulmonary hypertension, huh. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a case. Or if I did, I didn’t diagnose it. Her ankles were terribly swollen, about as bad as I’ve ever seen. That’s part of pulmonary hypertension, right?”

“Absolutely, although it’s not specific to PH.”

At that moment, Richard Vitorelli came in, looking and smelling like a man who spent his life in the fields. He was broad-shouldered with thick, curly black hair and an extremely kind face. He tentatively shook a callused hand with Brian, then turned to Purefoy.

“This guy legit?” he asked, his expression suggesting that trust didn’t come easily to him.

“Oh, he’s legit all right,” Purefoy replied. “White Memorial Hospital, just like he said. He’s checking up on that drug Vasclear your mother was taking.”

“What about it?”

“Well,” Brian said, “in just a couple of days, people all over the world will be taking it.”

“Including a bunch right here in Fulbrook,” Purefoy interjected.

“I’m checking on people who were taking Vasclear and died. Your mother was on my list.”

Vitorelli looked again to Purefoy, who nodded that it was okay to say anything he wanted.

“My mother was never sick until my father died of a stroke four years ago,” he began. “Then, just a few months after he died, she started getting pains in her chest.”

“That’s when she was put on Vasclear,” Brian said.

“Yes. She took it for almost a year,” Vitorelli said. “At first, it looked like it was going to be really good for her. Her chest pains pretty much went away, and she perked right up. Then she started complaining again. When she came up here and I got a look at her legs, I was scared. I was gonna call Doc Purefoy, but it was Sunday and I … I thought it would keep until the next day.”

He rubbed the back of his hand at the sudden moisture in his eyes.

“It wasn’t your fault, Ricky,” Brian said, more sympathetic than either of the other men would ever know. “If your mother had the lung problem I think she had, no one could have saved her—not me, not Sam here, no one.”

“She was a very good woman,” Ricky said. “Is there
anything else you want to know? If not, I’d better get back to the tractor.”

No questions about the possible link between his mother’s death and Vasclear; no sudden interest in a big lawsuit. Richard Vitorelli hadn’t been raised to think
sue
first, ask questions later. Silently, Brian vowed that if Vasclear had harmed Sylvia Vitorelli and Newbury Pharmaceuticals knew about it or had tried to cover it up, he would be back to visit with her son.

Ricky shook Brian’s hand more forcefully this time. Brian stood to go, then he thought of something.

“Sam, it just occurred to me,” he said. “Did they ever do a blood count on Mrs. Vitorelli?”

“I don’t really know. I would imagine we sent bloods off, but then she … she didn’t make it.”

“Could you find out? I’m specifically looking for her total white-cell count and the percent of eosinophils.”

“If it’s there, I don’t see why not. Ricky, I know it was two years ago, but do you by any chance remember the exact date your mama died?”

“It was two years ago this month. October the fifth.”

Sam Purefoy called the hospital, spoke to the lab, then hung up. They didn’t have to wait two minutes for the results, which came in via a printer tucked into the corner of his office.

“Well,” he said, scanning the sheet, “the eosinophils are up, but just a bit. Seven percent of a total white blood cell count of twenty thousand.”

He passed the sheet over. Brian studied the numbers excitedly. He didn’t bother to point out that stress and maybe even dehydration had artificially elevated Sylvia’s white-cell count. If it had been the normal 5,000 to 10,000, the eo count would have been between fifteen and twenty percent—strikingly elevated.

“Can I keep this?” he asked.

“Of course,” the GP said.

Three Phase One patients, two dead of heart failure, a third
with
heart failure, and all with an elevation in eosinophils. It certainly sounded as if there had been a drug reaction of some sort going on.

Brian was about fifteen minutes outside of Fulbrook, cruising through a late-afternoon canopy of red, orange, and gold on a largely deserted, winding two-lane road. Distracted by the Vasclear puzzle and by his interaction with Sam Purefoy and Ricky Vitorelli, he didn’t notice the brown unmarked sedan in his rearview mirror until the red strobe on the dash began flashing.

Reflexively, he glanced down at the speedometer. Forty-five. Maybe he had missed a microscopic twenty-five-miles-per-hour sign and had gone through a small-town speed trap, he thought.

Annoyed, he pulled off onto the narrow, soft shoulder. The sedan rolled up behind him, and the dashboard strobe was cut off. There were two men in the front seat, both with sunglasses on. The one on the passenger side got out. He was under six feet and trim, but he moved with the looseness of an athlete. He was wearing slacks and a dress shirt with an open collar. He also had a shoulder holster under his left arm.

He circled to Brian’s side and flashed the badge in his wallet.

“License and registration, please,” he said, his tone perfunctory to the point of boredom.

“What seems to be the problem?” Brian asked, rummaging through the glove compartment for the registration, then handing it over along with his license.

“Speeding,” the policeman mumbled.

He turned and ambled back to the sedan. A minute later he was back.

“Would you mind stepping out of the car, please, Doctor.”

Doctor? How could he
—Then Brian remembered that on his first driver’s-license renewal after his graduation from med school, he had insisted on adding M.D. after his name. Deduct one more point for arrogance. The fine he was going to be asked to pay had probably just doubled. Next renewal—

“I really don’t think I was speeding,” he said as he opened the car door.

The policeman glanced back at the other officer, who had Brian’s license and registration, and nodded. The man opened his door and stepped onto the pavement. Unlike the first officer, he
was
physically imposing—six four, narrow waist, massive shoulders.

It took Brian only moments to place where he had seen him before. The high cheekbones and badly pockmarked face were not easy to forget.

B
RIAN’S ENTIRE FOOTBALL CAREER AND MOST OF HIS
time in the cath lab had been guided by one rule: Evaluate. React. Now, 175 miles from Boston, as he watched the man he had seen in the White Memorial basement emerge from the bogus police car, his evaluation took less than a second. He was going to be badly hurt … or he was going to die.

In the three or four minutes since they had pulled him over, not a single car had passed. And even if one did, the chance of the driver stopping, or even realizing something was wrong, was remote. In a few more seconds, Brian would be disabled on the floor of the sedan or in the trunk, headed for someplace where he could be patiently and persuasively grilled about Vasclear—what he had learned and whom he had told. There was nothing appealing about the prospect. Assuming Cedric L. was right
about the Russian mob controlling Newbury, these two were almost certainly professional killers.

Nothing in the huge man’s manner suggested that he realized he had been recognized, or even that he remembered those fifteen seconds by the basement canteen. But he had eased the sedan door closed and was turning in the direction of Brian’s car. Brian knew he might be killed outright if he tried to run. But doing nothing, placing himself at the mercy of these two, was an even more frightening option. He was taller by six inches than the man standing just three feet from him. If he had any chance, it was now.

He brought his left foot up with all the strength he could muster, and kicked the man squarely in the groin. Brian was tempted to hit the gunman as he sank to his knees. Instead, he whirled and bolted down the road. From behind he heard a firecracker snap, then another, followed immediately by the soft thud of a bullet slamming into the pavement just ahead of him.

Brian zigzagged as much as he dared, cursing himself for not changing into his sneakers for the drive home after the Purefoy interview. Another gunshot, this time accompanied by a sharp sting across his deltoid muscle.
Was that it? Was that what it felt like to be shot?

He had been running for no more than fifteen or twenty seconds, but already he felt his wind beginning to go. Six foot three, 215, and slowing down—he was about to become a hell of a target. Staying on the road was suicidal. There was a small opening up ahead between the trees to his right. He feinted once to his left, then charged into the woods, glancing back just long enough to check on his pursuers. The linebacker with the gun was closer to him, maybe twenty yards away. Behind him, the smaller man, moving with an awkward gait, was trying gamely to catch up. Neither of them wore sneakers, either.

Arms flailing at branches, Brian thrashed through saplings and bushes, frantically trying to put some distance between himself and the two men. One of them called out to the other in a language other than English. Russian? There was another gunshot, but no sound of an impact. Brian, now battling a fierce stitch in his side, lost his footing and tumbled down a steep, shrub-covered embankment. Scraped, scratched, and bleeding from the backs of both hands, he scrambled to his feet and risked a check behind him. He could hear the two men, but couldn’t see them. Then suddenly, there was only silence. They had lost sight of him, too, and were waiting for a telltale sound.

Brian crouched down, fighting the urge to suck in air too greedily. It was after five now, and the gathering dusk was his ally and their enemy. If he could only find a place to hide.…

He dropped onto all fours and slowly, quietly began inching his way along the gully at the base of the embankment. Suddenly, from above and behind him, one of the gunmen cried out. It was the smaller of the two, hanging on to a tree at the top of the embankment about thirty yards away, visible through a perfect corridor in the foliage. The only word Brian made out clearly was Leon, the name of the taller man.

As the killer reached for his gun, Brian pushed off and started running again—a steeplechase this time, hurdling fallen logs and splashing across a narrow streambed. Slipping on the slick rocks, he barely managed to keep his balance. Another shot. Then another. Brian knew the trees and shadows were making him a tougher target. His knee was beginning to worry him, though. Running on the roads, with no twisting, no torque, the knee had felt reasonably solid and secure. But now, sprinting on sodden, leaf-covered, uneven ground, over bumps, rocks, and
branches, he knew a disaster was only an unlucky misstep away.

As he ran, in spite of himself he wondered how the two men had known he would be in Fulbrook. It was possible they had followed him from Reading. When he was cruising through the magnificent autumn colors, lost in thought, he hadn’t been paying much attention. But he didn’t recall noticing their car, even on the mountain roads. Then he remembered the strange click on the line when he was talking with Teri. He had actually mentioned the sound to her, just as he had mentioned he was going to Fulbrook. His phone was tapped. That had to be it. They didn’t follow him to Purefoy’s office. They were already there, waiting.

He sensed that he was opening some ground on the two thugs. As he pushed deeper into the forest, huge granite boulders and outcroppings became part of the landscape, offering him even more protection. Gasping for breath, he stopped, leaned against a massive boulder at least ten feet high, and listened. He could hear one pursuer behind him, and another to his right, both closer than he had expected. If he moved, they were almost certain to hear him. If he stayed and tried to conceal himself at the base of the boulder, he might luck out. Being passive, doing nothing, had never been in character for him. He decided to keep running.

He took another few moments to gauge the two men’s positions, and decided to bolt up the hill to his left, away from at least one of them. He whirled, but as he planted his right leg, his knee popped out, then back. There was an immediate dull shock all the way up to his hip. But just as quickly, most of the pain vanished. He took a tentative step. There was discomfort, but he had no trouble bearing weight. A slight sprain—the sort that would slow him down some.
Now what?

The rustle made by the man behind him sounded closer. Brian wondered why in the hell he hadn’t listened to Phil, and simply let the whole matter drop. He was about to get tortured and probably killed, and for what? Even if they had left him completely alone, he still hadn’t come across anything significant enough to interest Teri and her boss. Apparently the Russians didn’t care.

A branch snapped not too far away. It was almost over, Brian thought. Two professional killers, two guns against one unarmed doctor with a gimpy knee. He thought about Caitlin and Becky. The idea of never seeing them again, the notion of their pain should anything happen to him, forced him into action. Running seemed out of the question. But there was a large rock by his foot. If he could loosen it enough to pick it up, and somehow manage to haul it up on top of the boulder …

Without the time to reason his actions through too carefully, he dug his fingers beneath the rock, pried it up from its muddy bed, and filled the hole with leaves and soil. The rock was twenty, maybe twenty-five pounds of absolute dead weight, but Brian found a balance point beneath one arm, and using the other to brace himself, inched his way around to a spot where he could gain some purchase on the boulder. He made the tough first step up, clutching the rock in the crook of his arm like an oversized, prehistoric football. Then he had to set it down to maintain his balance. The boulder sloped just enough, though, so that he could inch the rock along ahead of him as he climbed.