Megan's Cure (21 page)

She was quiet for a moment but was looking intently into Lee’s face.

“You take care her.
 
You take care of Megan,” Mary Kim said.

“I will do everything I can to make sure she is safe,” said Lee.
 
“To get her back to you.”

“No,” said Mary.
 
She held the edge of the table and Lee could see her grip was so tight that the muscles in her forearms stood out.
 
“You take care her.
 
You promise.
 
You promise.”

Lee could see tears in her eyes.
 
She gritted her teeth.
 
She stared intently at Lee.
 
He realized that she was a mother whose only child had nearly died a little more than a year ago.
 
And now her daughter was under attack again by forces that must seem just as mysterious as the disease that had attacked Megan from within.
 
Of course Mary Kim was desperate.
 

Lee slowly lowered the screen of the laptop in front of him until it latched with a click.

“Okay,” he finally agreed.
 
“I promise you.
 
I’ll get Megan back to you.
 
Safe.”

Chapter 40

CHIEF DAVIDSON DROVE them to the New Orleans airport with two deputies escorting them in a second car.
 
They had stayed with them until Novak, Lee and Megan boarded the non-stop flight to San Francisco.

Det. Bobbie Connors was waiting for them at the end of the flight with two uniformed cops in tow.
 

Enzo Lee gave Connors a hug when he saw her just inside the terminal.
 
He handed her the key lime pie packed in a cardboard box tied with twine that Davidson had entrusted to him.

“From Cliff Davidson,” he told the detective.
 
“He said to tell you, ‘Greetings from New Orleans…and thanks.’”

Connors gave him a small smile.
 
She wore a dark brown pants suit, a silver chain around her neck with a cross and the ever present profusion of braids.

“And I’ve got something for you,” she said.
 
Connors handed him a single sheet of paper.
 
Lee let the others go past him and followed behind with Connors.
 
As he walked he read the printout.
 
He saw it was a story from the Ann Arbor News in Michigan.
 
The story had appeared a week earlier.

Retired Teacher’s Death Appears Accidental

ANN ARBOR
—
Preliminary autopsy results indicate a woman whose body was found in her bathtub died of accidental drowning.

Ann Arbor Police Lt. Lawrence Pellam said 63-year-old Nancy Johannsen of Ann Arbor probably slipped in the bathtub, hit her head and was knocked unconscious.

Pellam said Thursday that bruises on the body are consistent with a fall.
 
Drowning was the cause of death.
 
Her death is not considered suspicious.

Johannsen worked as a school teacher for the Ann Arbor School District for 36 years prior to her retirement three years ago.
 
Johannsen’s body was found Tuesday night by her niece.

Lee looked at Connors.
 
He had given the detective the name of Megan’s bone marrow donor to whom Novak had given the Roxaten-based vaccine in the hope that a strong resistance would be transferred to the sick girl along with the marrow transplant.
 
Lee had left several unreturned messages for the retired teacher using a telephone number Novak had given him.
 

Connors gave him a shrug conveying the same sense of helplessness he felt.
 

“I’ve asked them to take another look,” said Connors.
 
“And I’ve arranged for the guard you wanted outside Megan’s room…around the clock.
 
Your friend pays the off-duty bill, right?
 
Looks like a good call.”

 
Lee folded the paper and put it in his back pocket.
 
He would tell Novak about it later when Megan wasn’t around.
 
He looked warily around him at the bustling crowd in the airport terminal.
 
They were surely safe with Connors and two uniformed cops as escorts.
 
And it was unlikely anyone with a weapon could have gotten into the secure part of the terminal.
 
Still, he recalled that night in Savannah, being chased in the darkness with the noise of the guns being fired at them.
 
He had felt their pursuers’ determination when they shattered the door of the flat. They would have been caught there – trapped and killed – but for the luck that Lee was jet-lagged and awake when they came.
 

Now they would be desperate to get to Megan.

* * *

Troy Axmann sat in his office with a view of downtown San Francisco.
 
He was busy preparing his presentation for the next month’s international sales meeting in Hawaii.
 
The banana splits had been so successful with the
MBA
interns that he planned to use the same trick with the 200 or so salesmen to whom he would proclaim the benefits of Morceptin.
 
It would be preaching to the choir.
 
Sales of the drug were climbing steadily and the skies ahead looked clear and trouble-free.

Then his laptop made a loud ping.
 
His assistant had just sent him an instant message with the highest priority setting.
 
All it said was, “Look.” It was accompanied by a link that the Merrick vice president quickly clicked open.

A webpage from the American Review of Medicine appeared on his computer screen with an online article bearing the current date.
 

Scientist and His ‘Cure’ Face Scrutiny
By Jason Rosenthal

An experimental drug administered to a patient in clear violation of rules governing human medical trials has attracted the interest of cancer experts and the National Institutes of Health.

Roxaten, a drug developed by Medvak Technology and its founder Walter Novak, gave early indications that it might be a powerful anti-cancer medicine useful against an array of cancer types.
 
Animal tests also suggested it could form the basis of a general cancer vaccine, according to sources.

But recent human trials of the drug by industry giant Merrick & Merrick, which acquired Medvak early last year, were suspended due to unexpected side effects.
 
At the same time, Novak came under scrutiny for administering the drug to a young cancer patient prior to approval of the human trials, say Merrick insiders.
 
Such unauthorized use of the drug would breach many ethical and legal rules and possibly violate criminal laws governing the improper practice of medicine.

Researchers are reportedly intrigued by the drug’s effectiveness as an anti-cancer medicine and are examining whether the limited use of the drug so far, while improper, may also provide evidence of Roxaten’s potential.
 
The inquiry will include tests on the patient, now 10, who received the medication and survived a particularly aggressive and usually fatal form of leukemia.

Sources say key NIH officials have requested regular updates on the ongoing research into the drug which is being conducted at the University of San Francisco Medical Center.

Troy Axmann sat perfectly still.
 
His phone rang but he let it go to voicemail.
 
He stared out his window which had a view of the neighboring small office buildings, a small park in the middle crisscrossed by paths and pedestrians scurrying across on their way to lunch.
 
He suddenly wished he was out there with them.
 
He would walk and walk and avoid the maelstrom that he knew was coming.

Chapter 41

EDWIN MERRICK REREAD the medical review article for the second time, using his ball-point pen to underline one particular sentence: “
Such unauthorized use of the drug would breach many ethical and legal rules and possibly violate criminal laws governing the improper practice of medicine.”

He picked up the phone and dialed Troy Axmann’s extension.
 
The Merrick vice president’s only contribution to the conversation were his two words uttered upon picking up the phone:
 
“Troy here.”

“Call our attorneys,” ordered the CEO.
 
“Have them terminate Novak.
 
Tell them to figure out every possible way to go after him.
 
Go over his published work for the past five years.
 
Ask every publication to review his work for possible fraud and scientific misconduct.
 
Call the Louisiana state police and tell them we think one of our
former
employees may have deliberately injured a child in their state and misrepresented himself as a physician.

“Get public relations started on a press release covering all this.
 
I want to see it in the next hour.
 
Tell them not to pull any punches.
 
I’m going to pound this son of a bitch into the goddamn ground.”

* * *

Jason Rosenthal was exhausted and worried.
 
His mood had shifted in less than 24 hours from exhilaration to dread.

The article about controversial scientist Walter Novak and his possible miracle drug, Roxaten, had seemed like the highlight of his six years at the American Review of Medicine.
 
His usual job was ushering into print articles written by others – usually scientists studying the effectiveness of some new drug or medical device.
 
He would find other experts to review the articles to ensure the research was good and significant.
 
At most, he might offer a minor edit or two.

But the Roxaten story was legitimate news.
 
And he could put his byline on it for once.
 
He’d even fantasized about the follow-ups.
 
If Roxaten proved to be truly important, he could ride the wave of a big story.
 
It would give him bragging rights at his next journalism grad school reunion – finally some ammunition to use against the hotshots who had gone on to the big newspapers.
 
He had fought hard to get the Roxaten story into print.

But now the suits were huddled together in the main conference room.
 
Two were his bosses.
 
The other two were lawyers and they were doing the good-cop, bad-cop thing.
 

Rosenthal had been in the room for the first 20 minutes.

The bad-cop lawyer had spit out the allegations like bullets from a revolver.

Why was the publication jumping the gun and speculating about a drug still in early clinical trials?
 
Why was the review using Merrick & Merrick’s internal private information?
 
Why was it exposing its trade secrets?
 
How could they give credence to a scientist who had violated basic ethical guidelines and possibly even criminal laws? Why should this go outside the normal FDA process where it was now?

Rosenthal had watched his bosses shrivel under the assault.
 
He knew they saw that much of this was just a smokescreen.
 
But he also knew that the mere mention of a lawsuit – the “L” word – would ruin their day.
 
Just making the most bullshit legal filing go away would take – what? – a week of lawyer time?
 
Forty hours at $400 an hour…$16,000?
 
Christ.
 
That was a quarter of his annual salary.
 
It was enough to put the review into the red for the quarter.
 
And Rosenthal knew that Merrick & Merrick could easily keep a lawsuit going long enough to put the publication out of business.
 
It would be like flicking a beetle off the sleeve of the drug giant.

They sent Rosenthal out of the room before the groveling began.
 
But he could read the body language from his desk.
 
And when his bosses did look out the big window separating the conference room from the office area where Rosenthal sat, he saw their anger.
 
He was the reason they had to sit there being raked over the coals by those jerks.
 
The lawyers were no smarter than the editors.
 
They had just opted for big-time lawyer money and the clout provided by clients like Merrick & Merrick.
 
It made it that much worse – being punching bags for those pricks.

How bad would it be?
 
Rosenthal doubted he’d be fired.
 
He was cheap and worked hard.
 
And, after all, he hadn’t really done anything wrong.
 
But they would be pissed at him all the same.
 
And as far as the follow-ups?
 
Forget it.
 
It would be a mistake to do anything that would dredge up the memory of what was going down in the conference room.

Rosenthal stared at his computer screen.
 
The email had been waiting for him when he got back to his desk from the conference room.
 
It was anonymous.
 
The sender described an illicit meeting in Macau of Big Pharma executives involving price fixing, bribery of government regulators and suppressing Roxaten.
 
Rosenthal felt sick.
 
He stared at the words until they blurred in and out of focus.

He glanced up at the conference room.
 
Everyone was standing.
 
They would walk out in a couple of minutes.
 
Rosenthal hit ‘reply,’ typed “try Enzo Lee at the San Francisco News” and clicked on the ‘send’ button.
 
His relief was instantaneous.
 
He inhaled deeply.
 
Had he actually been holding his breath?
 
Rosenthal grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and headed out the door.
 
He wanted to avoid his bosses for at least another hour or two.

He decided on his way down in the elevator that he would treat himself to a fabulous lunch.
 
He would start off with a very cold vodka gimlet.

* * *

The first television van arrived while Novak and Lee were inside the scientist’s two-story Edwardian in Lower Pacific Heights.
 
After getting Megan settled into her room at the San Francisco medical center, they went to pick up extra clothes for Novak who had agreed to stay in Lee’s North Beach flat.
 
Between his sudden notoriety and the possibility that Megan’s pursuers had targeted him as well, it seemed the safer course for Novak to avoid staying in his home for a while.
 

Within 15 minutes, two more television crews and a couple of print journalists were assembled outside the house.
 
Stuffing the clothes and a few other items into duffle bags, Lee and Novak made a dash for Lee’s Spyder.

“No comment. No comment.
 
No comment,” said Lee as he pushed Novak ahead of him toward the car.

“Hey, Enzo,” one of the television reporters that he knew yelled.
 
“Enzo…hey.”

“Sorry, Scott,” said Lee.
 
“Got to go.”

As they drove away, Lee looked over at Novak.
 
He was shaken.

“You okay?” he asked.
 
Novak nodded his head.

“Yes…I guess,” said Novak.
 
“I didn’t expect
this.
 
I mean what have I done to deserve this treatment?
 
Do they think I’m a mass killer or something?”

Lee shrugged.

“They don’t know what to think,” he said.
 
“Savior or sinner.
 
I told you I know what plays in the media.
 
They just know you’re a story...however it plays out.
 
Merrick & Merrick is just pouring gas on the fire.”

Lee thought back to his own time in the media glare.
 
That was when he was a reporter in New York.
 
An investigative story about a supposedly corrupt detective backfired.
 
His key source – also in law enforcement – had fabricated the evidence.
 
Before it was over, the innocent target almost died in a suicide attempt.
 
Lee became the poster child for bad journalism as his editors abandoned ship and shifted all the blame to him.
 

He survived the storm but it led him to move back to San Francisco and change his focus to light frothy features where the only controversy was how many puns he could squeeze into a sentence.
 
But he recalled how hot the spotlight could be and how helpless it felt to be buried under a mountain of shame.

“This will all pass, Walter,” he said.
 
“You’ve done something that matters.
 
Remember that.
 
Otherwise, no one…including the Merrick’s of the world…would give a damn.”

Novak nodded his head in silence.
 
Then he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small vial.
 
It was clear with fluid inside and a white sticker on the outside that bore a handwritten label.
 
Novak held it between his thumb and forefinger, rocking it slowly left and then right.

“We need to get this into a refrigerator,” said Novak.
 
“It’s the last that I have.
 
The rest of it...Roxaten…is locked up inside Merrick.
 
If you decide to give it to her, it’s the beginning of your grandmother’s treatment.”

“The beginning?” Lee said.

“Our tests show that leukemia patients need sustained exposure to Roxaten,” said Novak.
 
“At least for 15 days and preferably 20.
 
Less than that and it isn’t able to reach enough of the problem cells.
 
Reservoirs of the cancer survive and it comes back…with a vengeance.
 
So there may not be a good second chance.”

“So how far does this get us?” asked Lee.

“The doses should be given every fifth day,” said Novak.
 
“There is enough here for the first two.
 
So, after the first dose, the second is given five days later.”

“Then what?” asked Lee.

“Then…you’ll need more,” said Novak.
 
“Ten days after you begin.”