BLIND TRIAL by Brian Deer (good books to read for adults .txt) 📕

found. An international phase III trial on something so important as a vaccine, run so sloppy, so lazy, and dishonestly that a very senior company executive can turn up and forge signatures. And, if they’d do that—which they did—what else would they do that we don’t know about?”

There was a mismatch here that didn’t sit right. One minute she was coming on to him; the next minute this shit. The Hoffman hypothesis looked compelling. You hit on that lady and you see her laugh in your face. It was worse than that: the lady wasn’t laughing.

“All I know’s she’s calling Atlanta about your friend Murayama. And about catching me today with him. Which is probably gonna end my career.”

“I’m sorry. Did I say something?”

He banged the empty bottle on the hardwood and stood up. “And what’s all this Wilson shit anyhow? First, he’s insulting patients. And yeah, okay, that’s pretty bad. Next thing we’re driving round like some seventies cop show. What exactly’s your angle with all this?”

“My angle?”

“Coming on with all this professional angst, making out you’re some kind of whistleblower, with stuff you could have raised months ago. Chewing up our time out here days before FDA comes up with our license.”

“I’m sorry if you feel that way, but I’m genuinely concerned. I thought you were concerned about integrity.”

“Integrity, my ass.” This was all so sneaky. It was obvious she’d a hidden agenda. “Okay, so you got a thing about Wilson, and yeah they screwed up and cut corners? Everyone screws up sometime.”

“This is a phase III clinical trial.”

“Yeah, and what could he do about Doctorjee signing those forms? Which, I’d point out, you didn’t even know about before we got here, and Doc Mayr found them. You didn’t give a rat’s ass about your ‘home visits.’ You only wanted to chew up everyone’s time going round there.”

“What more could I do? Honestly. Cool it.”

“I’m telling you, some people think you’re digging the dirt so your friend Murayama can get something juicy on the company and say we did jack about it.”

She vaulted from the settee. “I resent that.” She slammed down her beer and gripped her hips. “I haven’t told Hiroshi about any of it. Not the forged paperwork. Not the volunteer being thrown off the trial. Not the dead lost to follow-ups. And if that’s not professional, what is?”

“Oh sure. What I think’s this. You and him are in it together. You’ll use any stuff Doc Mayr finds to yell blue murder. And BerneWerner Biomed goes down the chute, taking my job with it.”

She dropped to perch on a blue-and-white ottoman: part of a suite with the settee. “That’s insane. You’re paranoid. You know that?”

“Professional? Yeah, sure. If you say so. Professional. You and Murayama and his proposition. His proposition. Seems pretty obvious he’s fucking you stupid and wants to fuck the company as well.”

He pulled open a drape, lifted it above his head, and looked out onto the street, now dark. He saw nothing unusual; no rented Camaro. He released the curtain and put his hands in his pockets. “Yeah well, if you want to know anything about the trial, I suggest you ask Doc Mayr.”

“Hiroshi’s proposition? Huh. Oh right. So, I suppose you think that’s some kind of conspiracy, do you? Show me the data and I’ll give you the money.” Her brown eyes looked up from the ottoman. “They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

“Probably a bribe. Typical biotech conduct.”

She raised her eyebrows and laughed. “You want to know what it is? His proposition?”

“Probably. I can guess.”

“You can, can you?”

“Probably.”

“He’s asked me to go and live with him.”

“What?”

“I said, he’s asked me to go and live with him.”

Twenty-nine

THE CURTAIN opened. Or, more exactly, it raised. But at the third-floor window on the corner of Twentieth and Missouri, Henry’s boy signaled. As expected. Hoffman was parked about fifty yards east, his arms on the wheel of the Camaro. “She’s laughing at the kid. She’s laughing at all of us. Well, the last laugh’s on you, Dr. Honda.”

In the seat to his right, Dalbert Skeet nodded, causing his afro hair to rasp the coupe’s roof. He was the Athens night gateman, a humdrum hoodlum, but the best for this job at short notice. “Like you said, boss. Yep. You got it right. Yep. Some folks don’t deserve to be Americans.”

Hoffman sprang the locks of his alloy gun case, now resting between Skeet and himself. “I knew it. I knew it. She’s in it with Sanomo. Fucking assholes want to bring us all down.”

The general counsel opened the case and stroked his Smith & Wesson, pressed snug in egg-crate foam. In a faint glow of streetlight, the anodized black of its hammer and trigger gave a beautiful smooth contrast with the stainless. It had the Wayne Novak sights. It had the patented Lo-mount. It had the fine rear adjustment for windage.

Skeet sucked his teeth. “You’re sure you don’t want me to slap her around though? You know, teach the bitch a lesson? Show we’re serious about this?”

“No.”

“Aww.”

Hoffman lifted the pistol, released the magazine, and checked the chamber for a shell. He’d loan the gun empty, so there could be no shooting. Shooting was for gun clubs, not business. “I told you. No. You do not slap her around. Get it? We don’t want any kind of rough stuff here.”

“Won’t be rough. I’ll be controlled, like I said. Slap her around but controlled.”

“You were meant to be controlled in DC, and what you do? Nearly killed the fucking woman. Dumbfuck.”

“You said give her a scare. Freak her out, you said. Take her mind off work, you said.”

“Listen fuckwad, the deal was to feel her ass, snatch her purse. Something proportionate.” Hoffman snapped back the empty magazine. “I said nickel-and-dime stuff. Something she’d spend a week dining out on. Something she’d whine about to get her off our ass. That was the deal. Not throw her in front of a fucking train.”

“Yeah, well,