Shadow of Eden (65 page)

“Forty thousand people die each year in car crashes, half caused by alcohol. Would you stop driving? Return to prohibition? Of course not. Compared to smoking and drinking, Eden is, shall we say, heaven sent—even if it killed hundreds each year.”

“That’s the problem, really.” Steve turned and walked over to the window. “Even if it kills hundreds each year, you say. That’s really quite a generous assumption. We already know that nearly a hundred already have it.”

“Really?”

“Some of Dr. Walker’s work before Mallis killed him.” He turned back and looked at Morloch. “But here’s the problem. We don’t really know how many will eventually get it, now do we? With hundreds of millions of people using it every day and with an unknown latency that may incubate for years, we may be in for an epidemic like AIDS. You’re good with millions dead from your brain rot?”

“Sheer speculation.”

“And at this point that’s enough to worry me. I think you have a disclosure problem here, Morloch.”

Morloch walked over to Steve and leaned close. His breath was perfumed. “It’s too late to pull it off the market, Dr. James. It’s part of the social fabric. It’d be a new prohibition all over again. People crave this drug and they’ll steal and kill to get it. You’re playing God, Dr. James, if you think you can stop this. You like that role? You feel comfortable with that?”

“You’re the one playing God, Morloch,” Steve rejoined. “You lied to the world about the safety of your drug. People can’t make a choice if they don’t know the danger. Without the facts, we can’t make an informed decision. You’re gambling with human life.”

Steve poked Morloch in the chest. “You think you know better than anyone else what’s good for them.”

“I do know what’s better,” Morloch roared. “What’s more, over three hundred million people taking Eden agree with me. When I invested in Blumenthal’s pitiful drug company, I knew the huge pent-up desire—no, insane lust—for this drug. You’re so right, Dr. James. I do know what’s best—better than the sanctimonious FDA dogs. I am God to three hundred million people. I gave them Eden and they worship me.”

Steve stepped back, away from Morloch’s cloying smugness. This wasn’t going like he had expected. Morloch wasn’t telling him anything. He had to raise the ante. A bronze plaque on Morloch’s desk caught his eye.

All great things must first wear horrifying and monstrous masks, in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity
–
F. Nietzsche.

“You believe your own shit, don’t you?” Steve pointed at the desk plaque. “You misconstrue the words of a philosopher to justify your actions. How pitifully dangerous. This quote from Nietzsche is out of context. You don’t even know, yet you presume to patronize millions of people who might die from your drug. You are delusional.”

Morloch’s eyes narrowed. “You are the one who is delusional if you think that anything you do will make a whit of difference to me or Eden’s sales. It’s here to stay. People will take my drug no matter what might happen to them.”

“Yeah, well tell that to Shirley Rosenwell. Your Eden threw her into the pits of hell and stole her mother’s only child. Tell that to her mother, you bastard.”

Morloch laughed mockingly. “Collateral damage, Dr. James. A pimple.”

Steve threw a hard punch into Morloch’s face, knocking him back against a heavy leather chair before he slipped and fell to the floor. Massive hands pulled Steve’s arms painfully back behind him. As Steve squirmed in the bodyguards’ grasp, he saw with satisfaction that Morloch’s nose was bleeding.

“You little shit. You hit me.” Morloch screeched. He touched the blood on his nose and glowered at the redness on his fingers.

“That’s for Shirley, asshole. And what your shit drug did to her. Don’t give me a second chance at you.”

“Mallis should have slit your throat long ago,” Morloch hissed.

“He was a little too fucking inept.”

“Throw him out!” Morloch yelled. “I’m going to have your ass so smothered with lawyers, you’ll choke on every word you’ve ever said.”

“But you’re going to jail,” Steve retorted, as the bodyguards roughly hauled him out the door.

When they left, Morloch grabbed his phone and punched a number.

The phone answered on the first ring. “Perera.”

“Oscar, destroy all your Eden files, all your tapes, and all your prion complaints.”

“I can’t.” His voice sounded panicky.

“Why the hell not?”

“The FBI’s here. They’ve sealed off the floor and they’re confiscating everything.”

“Goddamn it, why didn’t you call?”

“I tried to, but they cut off all outgoing calls.”

Morloch slammed down the phone. He snatched the CD off his desk and slid it into his computer. He anxiously watched the screen. Instead, Led Zeppelin’s
Stairway to Heaven
blared from his speakers. In a rage, he smashed the computer monitor off the desk.

Chapter 147

T
he two bodyguards hustled Steve out of the building’s front doors and shoved him. He tripped and landed hard on his hands and knees. Valenti and Fitzgerald ran up to him and pulled him to his feet.

“We got it,” Valenti shouted. “Every last word. Great job. You even got a punch in.”

“I had to. He was stonewalling. Where’s the phone?”

“Over here.” They walked to a van parked on a side street where Fitzgerald handed him a phone handset. “Here.”

Steve took it, stretching the cord to a comfortable length and held it to his good ear, while another agent punched in some numbers. Fitzgerald and Valenti listened on separate handsets.

It rang only once. “Morloch.” His voice had a raw edge.

“It’s me, again.” Steve said as smoothly as he could.

“How the hell did you get my direct line?”

“Castell.”

“Castell! That son of a bitch.”

“Listen to me, Morloch. Castell just happened to be the FDA Director when Eden was approved. He broke the rules pushing your damn drug through. Then, as one of President Dixon’s major campaign donors, you got Castell a cabinet post to fulfill your half of the bargain. In addition, the FBI’s investigating a large block of Trident shares transferred to an offshore bank just after Eden was approved. We think it went to one Jacob Castell.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Castell was the only person who had my cell phone number. That’s how Mallis listened to the call we made to Dr. Green, and knew how to intercept us. He gave it to you and you turned it over to Mallis. Bingo, Morloch’s in deep. The time for bullshit is over. Castell has turned state’s witness and is talking to the FBI. The Justice Department has frozen your assets and is executing search warrants on all of Trident’s holdings.”

“You’re full of shit. They can’t possibly have done all that in one morning.”

“No, Morloch, you’re wrong. When you poison the President of the United States, you piss off a lot of very capable people. They are swarming like hornets around everything you ever touched.”

Morloch did not say anything.

“Save those fucking lawyers you promised me. You’re going to need them. And, by the way, look out the window and wave to the friendly window cleaners. They’re FBI agents who just recorded everything we said while I was in your office.”

“Shit!”

“You just gotta love technology. So long, chump.”

Steve hung up the phone and handed it back to an agent.

“Great job.” Fitzgerald said. “We might have enough. While you were getting escorted out of the building, he called a Mr. Perera. You know him?”

Steve recognized the name. “Yeah, he’s the one I spoke to when I reported my suspicions about Eden.”

“Well, Morloch had a few choice things to say about destroying all the Eden files and tapes and prion complaints.”

“That ought to nail him,” Valenti said. “That, plus Castell’s testimony, and that guy we captured outside the Cathedral. It’s a damn shame Mallis wasted Blumenthal.”

“Speaking of Blumenthal,” Fitzgerald turned to Steve, “Do you own a thirty-eight Smith and Wesson?”

“I did, but I couldn’t find it that night my house burned down.”

“Well, it resurfaced.”

“It did? Where?”

“Near Blumenthal’s house in a trash can. It was used to shoot him, we think. Your prints were on it.”

“Jesus, just like the glove at Sheridan’s.”

Fitzgerald continued. “Right. Mallis and company implicated you in a pattern of arson and homicide that by all rights should have landed you in prison.”

Steve’s anger roared back. “Those—” He stopped. It was over. It was really over.

“They were professional, Steve,” Valenti said. “You don’t know how lucky you are to still be alive.”

Fitzgerald nodded. “It could have easily gone their way. And we’d still be in the dark about Trident and Eden—worse, minus a Navy fleet in the Pacific.”

“Excuse me for a minute.” Steve turned and walked down the street, towards the river. He needed the movement and the open air. Valenti caught up with him and walked silently at his side.

“It’s over,” Valenti finally said

“Yeah.”

“We made a good team.”

“We did.”

“I’m going to miss the excitement, the adventure . . .”

Despite himself, Steve had to smile. “I thought you hated bullets and guns. You told me on your first day when we met.”

“It snuck back into my system. I had forgotten how much I loved it.”

“Well, it looks like you’ve been rehabbed by the Feds.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“So what do you think you’ll do? Go back to Phoenix and stay a PI?”

Valenti looked thoughtful. “Don’t know. Probably, for now.”

“You’ll be as famous as Magnum PI. Maybe your clientele will be well-heeled and pay you those big bucks you’ve deserved all these years. Who knows, maybe a book and the talk circuit.”

Valenti kicked a stone that bounced down the asphalt. “Too soon to tell.” Nevertheless, he sounded pleased at the prospect. Then he looked at Steve. “Say, you’re not shivering.”

Steve shrugged. The truth was, he felt pretty good. He was tired and he hurt—Lord, he hurt—but he had shed an enormous burden. He could get his life back. Steve thought about Anne and her smile—the smile that had caught his heart the first time he met her.

Valenti grabbed Steve’s shoulders and shook him affectionately. “I’m proud of you, bud.”

“Oww, that hurts.”

“Now, here’s the phone, go call your wife.” Valenti handed Steve the cell phone. “I know how much you’ve missed her.”

“No way. That’s a radio.” Steve fished in his new pants pocket. “Got any change?”

Chapter 148

R
esnick hung up the phone and smiled at her INR head sitting on the edge of his chair across from her desk.

“What did he say?” Calhoun asked.

“Ambassador Justice just had a short audience with Premier Chow. Amazing story. Apparently Colonel Tanggu’s public statements caused some already nervous Generals to defect from the Yao camp and back Chow. But with the ultimatum already issued and without movement on the Taiwan independence issue, Chow was committed to go forward with the invasion. Sullivan’s call gave him the break he needed to call the invasion back. Mind you, Chow didn’t say all this directly, but Pierre is pretty good at reading a subtext.”

“And Yao?”

“Marginalized for now.” She chuckled. “I doubt Tanggu’s characterization of Chow’s manhood helped any. But he may resurface sometime.” She paused. “Although we’ll be pressing hard for his prosecution for the Thanksgiving Day Massacre.”

Larry shook his head. It’s amazing how a single event, in this case the CNN broadcast, can tip the course of history. Without that and Dr. James . . . well, we got real lucky.”

“Damn lucky.”

“What happened when President Sullivan called President Lai?”

“They’re furious with us.”

“Then, why are you smiling?” Calhoun asked.

Resnick’s smile broadened. “They’re alive to be furious with us. And already we’re hearing that they are privately relieved at the turn of events. Their official missives are probably just posturing, hoping we’ll feel sorry and send them lots of money.”

“I don’t think so,” Calhoun said.