Nano (13 page)

17.

PIA’S APARTMENT, BOULDER, COLORADO

TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2013, 6:50
P.M.

For the rest of the day, Pia found it almost impossible to concentrate on her work. Mariel’s evasiveness under her questioning had certainly made Pia more interested in what she’d witnessed. And Mariel’s reaction to Pia’s mention of the Chinese government definitely seemed significant. China frequently competed with the United States in commercial interests, including the medical arena. From her time growing artificial human organs with Dr. Rothman in New York, she knew that the best work being done outside the United States was in China. And in China there wasn’t always the same level of respect for the binding nature of patents in general, and medical patents in particular, as there usually was in the United States.

For an hour, Pia played devil’s advocate, taking the opposite point of view and trying to bolster the case that Mariel wasn’t dissembling or hiding anything significant and that the runner’s ailment could easily be explained away. The man certainly didn’t want to be treated by Paul Caldwell, that had been clear, and he seemed to want to go with the Chinese men and the guards who came to pick him up, even if they did come armed to a civilian hospital ER. And by the time he was discharged, the man appeared against all the odds to be in decent health. He was weak, to be sure, but otherwise reasonably okay. Pia remembered he had the presence of mind to acknowledge her help.

And what about those guards?
Pia thought. If they were employed by Nano, they represented a much higher level of paramilitary security than she’d seen before. Their uniforms were different from the regular security personnel Pia encountered downstairs in her building and at the vehicular entrance to Nano’s grounds. And who were the two Chinese men in business suits? Were they part of the Chinese contingent currently visiting Nano? The more Pia pondered the situation, the more questions she had.

But what puzzled Pia the most were the runner and his medical issues. As Pia thought back over the episode, she was convinced that he had been in full cardiopulmonary arrest when she had came upon him on the road and had probably been in that state for a considerable length of time. But by the time he left the ER two hours later, mostly under his own power, he didn’t seem impaired in any way. He certainly was a medical curiosity, if not a total anomaly. She also recalled seeing the numbers tattooed on his right forearm as well as the puncture marks on his left arm when she went to take his blood. The blood!

Pia reached into her pants pocket and found Paul Caldwell’s card. She dialed his number on her cell phone, but Caldwell didn’t answer. She cursed and declined to leave a message. She wandered into the kitchen but realized there was no food in the house, as if that were ever not the case. Then the phone rang.

“Pia, it’s Paul. Sorry, I put the phone down and couldn’t find it for a second. I do it all the time.”

“Thanks for calling back,” said Pia.

“Sure. Did you find anything out at work? ”

“No, I found nothing. I couldn’t find out anything about a medical facility, or the Chinese man, or anything. What I’m calling about is to ask if you ran any tests on the blood.”

“Yes, I sent a sample out to the lab late in the day. We won’t hear anything till tomorrow at this point. I’ve been thinking about the runner, and I wonder if we were totally off base right from the beginning. Can he have been truly as ill as he appeared when you came upon him? Because the symptoms and signs, as meager as they were, don’t add up to anything I’m familiar with. And he walked out of the ER under his own steam with only a little help, which would seem impossible if he’d been in cardiac arrest for God knows how long.”

“I know, it doesn’t add up,” Pia agreed. “I’ve been thinking about the whole affair since you dropped me off. But I’m about as sure as I can be that he had no pulse and wasn’t breathing when I came upon him.”

“So what are you going to do? Let it drop? It was pretty clear that woman who showed up was in charge of the situation. If she’s your boss, it puts you in a difficult position, I’d imagine. Then again, I guess we should wait and see what the blood tests show, right?”

The symptoms and signs didn’t add up. Caldwell was entirely correct, Pia thought, the clinical history didn’t make sense at all. But she was sure he was wrong in thinking they were totally off base from the start. She was 99.9 percent certain the runner had been clinically dead when she happened upon him. And now, miraculously, he had all but totally recovered and seemed to have suffered no ill effects.

Pia corrected herself. She couldn’t be 100 percent certain the runner had not suffered any ill effects since she could not talk to the guy to find out, or find anyone at Nano who would tell her. Maybe he wasn’t doing so well now. But if he was, then there had to be some medical Lazarus program running within the four walls of Nano that enabled a man to survive a massive, normally lethal medical crisis apparently unharmed.

“Pia, we’ll have to wait and see, right? Pia, are you still there?”

The fact that she was on the phone with Paul Caldwell had slipped from Pia’s mind entirely. She ended the call without saying another word and sat on the arm of her rented couch. It was suddenly obvious to her what she had to do to find out what was going on at Nano. There was one person who undoubtedly knew everything. That was Zachary Berman.

Although she had been avoiding it, she was going to have to get closer to Zach Berman. With security at Nano as tight as it was, as evidenced by iris scanners and armed guards, his house was possibly the weak link. She assumed he had a home office, even if she hadn’t seen one when she’d visited with George. A few minutes in his home office could probably answer all her questions. The question was, how to arrange it? Pia felt her pulse quicken as her mind shifted into high gear. There was a way to do it, but it involved considerable risk.

18.

NANO, LLC, BOULDER, COLORADO

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2013, 6:09
A.M
.

Ensconced in his private Nano office, Zach Berman nursed a mild hangover as he waded through online editions of
The
New York Times
,
The Washington Post,
and select German and British papers. Nano paid for subscriptions to a number of Chinese publications, and Berman entrusted that part of the morning ritual to Whitney Jones, whom he didn’t expect to see until considerably later in the day. Outside it was still dark.

Berman had spent the previous evening entertaining his Chinese guests, who had been pleased with their early-morning tour of Nano’s facilities and had worked the rest of the day in the restricted areas, watching their compatriots being tested and put through some basic, and safe, exercise routines for the dignitaries’ benefit. For the celebratory dinner, he again used his imposing home as the venue. He found it impressed Chinese visitors far more than the fanciest restaurant in either Boulder or Denver. It was also easier to arrange for a bevy of escorts at the house than at any restaurant.

By now, Berman was familiar with the long rounds of toasts that always accompanied such an occasion. Although he usually drank wine or beer while eating, with Chinese visitors he drank whiskey, which was their preference, hence the hangover, thanks to the number of toasts. Yet the meal had been a great success.

After dinner, Berman had made his formal PowerPoint presentation, detailing how nanotechnology was poised to become a global medical phenomenon, and how, through mutual respect and cooperation, Nano, LLC, and the People’s Republic of China would be able to capitalize on the unlimited potential they would soon unleash together. Everyone in the room had heard the spiel before in some previous iteration, but Berman’s bravura claim on this occasion had turned the last toast of the evening into the loudest and most emotional, requiring Berman to toss back an entire shot glass of scotch. Within minutes, as he reclaimed his seat, he had already felt the dull throb of an oncoming headache. A half hour beyond that, citing the need to get at least a few hours’ sleep, Berman had excused himself as his guests began playing poker in his living room with the escorts.

As Berman had gotten up to take his leave, the leader of the delegation, Shen Han Li, took him aside. He thanked his host for his generous hospitality and said that everything he had seen that day convinced him that his colleagues had been correct in their previous assessment of Nano’s progress. He reminded Berman that his superiors were still anxious to see concrete evidence of the efficacy of the particular nanorobots they were interested in. Such a demonstration would go a long way toward securing Berman his capital needs for the foreseeable future. Berman thanked Li for his candor and the generosity of what the deal could be. After the many hours of the meal and the innumerable, mutually congratulatory toasts, this was what Berman needed to hear.

It had been a successful evening indeed.

But now in the cold light of morning, Berman again felt the pressure of time and the need to assure himself that the athletes’ performances would be enough to ensure the full investment from the Chinese. There had been three recent setbacks, and even if all of the incidents had been contained, he couldn’t afford any more potential disasters. If the Chinese found out, it could unravel the whole deal. He was going to have to talk with Stevens that morning to be absolutely sure.

While glancing through the London
Times
, Berman became aware of what sounded like a knock on the outer door of his office suite. Berman thought his woozy head was playing a trick on him, but then he heard it again. It was too early for any of his regular secretaries, and Whitney Jones had told him she was going home to power down for a few hours. Even compulsive Mariel never came in before seven or seven-thirty. With mounting curiosity, he flicked on the screen that showed the feed from the security camera outside his office, and what he saw surprised him.

“Well, well,” Berman said aloud, and he happily buzzed his visitor in. “Through here,” he called out. Berman was shocked but pleased. Pia Grazdani was coming into his office! He stood, mildly flustered. The surprise made him feel like a smitten teenager. Nervously he smoothed back his hair and made sure his shirt was properly tucked into his slacks while his mind conjured up a mental image of George with his arm around Pia. It was a fleeting image from the other evening as the two were leaving his home, which at the time had bothered him. But not for long. Whitney had told Berman that George had been drunk and talkative, and had actually asked if Pia and Berman were sleeping together. Berman and Whitney had gotten a laugh out of it. Whitney had further said that George had admitted that his relationship with Pia was not intimate. Berman had found the information encouraging, especially now that Pia was coming into his office at the crack of dawn.

“Good morning, Mr. Berman,” said Pia brightly, appearing in the open door into his inner office. “I hope it’s not too early to come and see you.”

“It’s never too early for a pleasant surprise such as this. To what do I owe the pleasure?” To Berman she never had looked quite so good. He found her unbelievably alluring. “Come in! Please. Sit down!” He pointed toward a leather couch, while clearing away some papers that littered its cushions.

“I wanted to thank you for having George and me over to dinner the other night. We enjoyed ourselves immensely, particularly me. I’m afraid George ended up drinking more than he should have. Anyway, thank you.”

“And you wanted to come and thank me at six-fifteen in the morning? Not that I don’t appreciate the gesture.” Berman was amused—he couldn’t imagine this was the reason Pia wanted to talk with him.

“I know you come in early, and I thought it might be easier . . .”

“. . . if Whitney and or Mariel wasn’t around?” Berman’s imagination began running away with itself.

“Well, since you mention it, yes,” Pia said, smiling. She felt transparent but forged ahead.

“Miss Spallek can be a little . . .” Berman let Pia finish his sentence.

“. . . possessive?”

“That’s a good description. But don’t let it bother you. Please, sit down!” Berman again gestured to a couch positioned in front of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto a Japanese rock garden. He patted one of the cushions with an open palm as if Pia needed further direction.

Pia ventured into the room, checking out the memorabilia, including what was labeled as the horns of several different types of African gazelle. The place oozed of a stereotypical, old-school masculinity that she thought had died with Hemingway. Pia sat down where Berman had indicated. She was inwardly surprised and relieved at the apparent ease with which she seemed to string Berman along. She was pleased that men like Berman were so predictable.

Pia wondered whether she could simply drop the pretense and just go ahead and ask about the Chinese government runner. Just as quickly, she thought better of it. Her intuition was telling her that Berman would most likely not tell her anything. In her mind’s eye she remembered the number tattooed on the runner’s forearm. There was something unnerving about it when she had seen it, and it jarred her again now that she recalled it.

“Mariel might be possessive,” added Berman, “but she has a good heart and she’s loyal. What I’m trying to say is that she is a terrific lieutenant.”

“Lieutenant? That’s a curious choice of words,” said Pia.

“Can I offer you an espresso?” Berman questioned while pointing toward a modern machine built into the mahogany paneling.

“That would be nice,” Pia said. Before she’d arrived, she felt nervous about what she was doing, remembering uncomfortably how Berman had tried to force his way into her apartment. Yet now she felt confident and in control. She’d dealt with guys more intimidating than Berman. The Albanians who had kidnapped her, for instance. Much more intimidating guys.

“I always think of her as having a somewhat military air. She is very well organized.”

“She’s a good boss.”

“Absolutely. She keeps me abreast of everything you’re doing in the lab.” Berman handed Pia a cup of espresso, then made one for himself.

Pia was sure Mariel had briefed Berman about Pia’s role with the Chinese runner and was curious why he wasn’t mentioning it.

“She’s very impressed with you,” he went on. “As I mentioned the other night, we’re very appreciative of the great strides you and she have been making on the microbivore biocompatibility issue.”

“I hope we’re making good progress. It’s really fascinating work, and I very much want to make a contribution to the science. That’s what my goal is.”

With his coffee in hand Berman sat in an upholstered swivel club chair situated on the opposite side of a coffee table from Pia. For a second, he regarded her with a slight smile on his face.

“So, speaking of the possessive type, how’s your friend, Dr. Wilson? Did he get back to L.A. okay?”

Pia smiled a little herself.

“I assume so, I haven’t heard. It’s good to have the apartment back to myself. I’m not equipped for company.”

“That’s understandable,” Berman said.

“Does Miss Jones live with you in your house?”

“Hardly,” Berman said.

“I’d like to see it again. It was so overwhelming; I think I missed a lot of detail.”

Berman tossed back the rest of his espresso. This was all going so much better than he could have imagined.

“You’ll have to come back for dinner again.”

“Sure,” said Pia. “I’d be happy to come to dinner.”

Berman eyed Pia. She truly was one of the most exotically attractive women he’d seen in a long time, and here she was, seemingly offering herself on a platter. He tried to calm himself. It was more than he could have hoped for. “Okay,” he said. “So when are you free?”

“I’m free tonight, I believe. If that’s not too presumptuous.”

“That’s not presumptuous at all. So tonight it is. Does eight o’clock suit you?”

“It suits me fine,” said Pia, who smiled. “But there is one thing I would like to make clear.”

“And what might that be?”

“You promised no repeat of what you called your boorish behavior that happened before you went on your trip to China. I want to hold you to that promise.”

Berman raised his hands palms out. “On my mother’s honor.” His lips curled into a slight smile.

“Okay,” Pia said simply. “See you at eight!” She stood up and left Berman’s office, feeling his eyes burning into her back. “Let him enjoy his fantasies,” she whispered to herself. Once outside in the cool morning air she further murmured: “Mission accomplished.”

For his part, Berman rocked back in his plush rocking swivel chair and thanked the gods for such an unexpectedly promising start to his day. Even his hangover had miraculously disappeared.