Authors: S. W. Frank
A
senior chemist
formulating street drugs in their lab would tarnish the
perfect
image
,
certainly open the door to inquiry and negatively affect their stock value. T
herefore, they’d
lie
there
like a dead frog
, green and mottled
.
It’s true
,
h
e
violated
the company
trust for personal gain,
but
a quarter
of a million dollars
was
an
attractive
inducement
.
It was
equivalent
to five
years’ salary without tax deductions.
He could pay off the house, take an overdue vacation and buy his wife a new minivan.
All-in-all, a
nice chunk of
money
for
developing a
n
oral drug for human
consumption
.
The monetary reward was too
tempting
to reject!
A
nyway
, it hadn’t taken long to concoct a usable product
, only
t
wo we
eks, during which
time
he
experimented with
synthetic and natural substances
, mindful of his client’s request for a
cost effective
product,
one which was
easily replicable
.
H
e
chose
a
natural substance
and a trace amount of
a
synthetic compound
found OTC.
Ideally, new drug
s
underwent four phases of testing and
subjects were
carefully monitored before
receiving
approval from the FDA.
Mirshman
’s
limited testing consisted
of a trial study using
hamsters
over the course of
fourteen days
. In the first week,
Smurfy
, one of
his son’s pet
hamsters died, the other became hyperactive and
during
the second week, grew listless
before going
into a
comatose
state
.
They buried
Murfy
out in the backyard next to his rodent friend
Smurfy
,
all the while he comforted his nine year old son who couldn’t quite understand why his healthy beloved pets died. He feigned ignorance and went out and replaced the
c
repuscular animals
, making the
boy
happy
once
more
!
This spurred him to adjust the dosage,
to include
a benign ingredient to the mixture
which resulted in
a near
perfect designer
drug ready for immediate
street
distribution.
Mirshman
removed his jacket
,
put on the dingy white lab coat and settled on a rolling stool in front of the long counter filled with
everything he needed, courtesy of
Hilbrendt
Pharmaceuticals
.
He snapped on a pair of blue
latex gloves
,
concentrated on the
items spread
neatly in front of him
then went to work
.
He ground the tablets
with a
pestle into a fine powder, measured,
and then
used a small funnel to insert
the ingredients
into an empty dissolvable capsule. Throughout the night he alterna
ted between
the
boring task of
punching in formulary codes
and packaging
capsules
before t
omorrow’s
deadline
.
He glanced at
a
cheap
aesthetic
clock
on t
he wall. To think, the
company made billions of dollars a
nd skimped on a more appealing
timekeeper.
Functional
and
minimalist work
stations
were throughout the building, except for the administrative offices upstairs. The company splurged there. C
ompanies like
Hilbrendt
stay
ed
in the black
by giving workers the bare necessities, even when it came to salaries.
T
ime passed quickly
and b
y two a.m. he
was done. At three in the morning
the
client
arrived
through
a
back door
using the
key
Mirshman
had given
. When he
entered
the lab
M
irshman
waved the tall,
muscular
man
over where
his order
waited
.
“It’s done?”
“
Not a complicated
formula, good eye
-hand coordination and
anyone can manufacture
it
. Won’t pass FDA
,
though
, a
CNS depressant combined with a stimulant can have adverse
,
even
fatal
effects
for people with
compromised immune system
s
.
”
The
muscular
man
leaned his elbows on the hard counter eyeing the assortment of instruments. He wasn’t interested
in
the
chemists’
warnings;
his only
objective was retrieving
the
formulary compound.
“
W
alk me through the process
and
I’ll judge for myself
how simple it is
.”
He gave the client
a
rudimentary
lesson in
chemistry,
simultaneously
point
ing
to the unprocessed chalky substance
,
as he
direct
ed the man on the proper weights and measures
.
T
he man foll
owed instruction to the letter,
a natural
, judging by the ease in which he worked.
“You’re right, anyone can do it.”
“The capsule is completely dissolvable, has a sugar coating, giving it a candy taste.”
Mirshman
chuckled pleased with himself, “I added th
at
little touch myself.”
“Clever.”
“Have you stored
any
records during the experimentation process?”
“Hell no, it’s in my head
.”
“Our business is
finished
, then?
”
“Yes,”
Mirshman
smiled agreeably.
The only thing left to
do was
settle
the balance of
his fee. The
client
reached in his pocket for what
Mirshman
believed
was payment for services
rendered;
instead his smile faded a
s
metal pierced
his throat.
The
chemist
’s lifeless body dropped at the
man’s
feet
. He
stooped
down,
remove
d
Mirshman’s
wallet, watch and cell phone
then
looked around
. Atop a corner desk he spotted
a
backpack and
laptop
. The items were scooped
up, stuffed in
side
the backpack and carried to the counter. He
casually
searched under the cabinet for cleaning products
,
found
some and meticulously sterilized the work station, removing
any trace of his existence or
Mirshman’s
moonlighting
activities
.