“Yeah, home of Count Dracula and his friends. Lots of them about. Vampires, of course.” Her eyes turned mischievous. “Actually, Transylvania is part of Romania now, so you don’t hear it referred to by its original name too often. But enough of that. Your staff is waiting to meet you.”
Kenga led Jennifer down a short hall, bare of any pictures or plaques. Jennifer smoothed her light green pantsuit with her hands and ran her fingers through her hair as she walked. She didn’t mind meeting new people or even speaking in public, but she knew there would be some tension in the room. Twenty-some people all waiting to meet their new boss. For all they knew, she could be Ms. Ogre with a pocket full of pink slips. They reached the end of the hall and entered a casual boardroom. A long table with enough chairs for all the staff centered the room, while a collection of whiteboards covered the walls. Most were filled with writing and chemical formulas. She immediately recognized some of the work. It was specific to the beta-amyloid approach to Alzheimer’s. This was obviously their meeting room, where the team brainstormed new ideas. She liked that-it indicated there was good communication within the group.
The chairs were mostly filled, every eye on her as she entered. She scanned the room quickly, assessing her staff. Most were in their late twenties to early forties. They were dressed in everything imaginable, from the standard white lab coat to ripped blue jeans. She liked that as well. Stifling creativity was a problem in the industry, and lax dress codes indicated an easygoing atmosphere, conducive to independent thinking. She stood at the head of the table.
“Good morning. I’m Jennifer Pearce. Not Dr. Pearce. Not Ms. Pearce. Just Jennifer. And the first thing I’d like to say is that no one in this room is going to lose their job or be transferred.” She could almost hear the collective sigh of relief as she continued. “But that said, things are going to change. I have some ideas I’ve brought with me from Marcon, and I’d like to incorporate them in how we do things. If you guys are okay with change, we’ll get along wonderfully.”
Ten minutes later, she thanked them for their attention and left the room with Kenga. Her assistant had a smile on her face.
“That was good,” she said as they walked. “Our previous team leader was a tyrant. He had no people skills. Not a good choice to head up an entire division.” She pointed to an office on the left, a window office considerably larger than the rest. “This is yours.”
Jennifer was tempted to ask what had happened to her predecessor but kept the question to herself. She entered the office and glanced about. It was spacious for a researcher’s office, about twenty feet long by fifteen feet wide. The entire twenty feet bordering the exterior was windows. The blinds were up, and she walked to one of the windows and looked out. The view was good, similar to Bruce Andrews’s, except one floor lower. She could see the edge of the Coliseum and a portion of Abady Festival Park. The walls were clear, ready for her degrees and diplomas, her teak desk clean and highly polished. A Pentium computer was tucked under the desk and a laptop sat in the work area. The interior wall was all bookshelves, mostly filled with medical and pharmaceutical texts. She glanced at the titles, glad that she wouldn’t have to lug all her books from home.
“What do you think?” Kenga asked.
Jennifer sat in the high-backed chair and smiled. She set the mouse in the center of its pad and placed a pen at a forty-five-degree angle next to the mouse pad. “I like it, Kenga. I like it a lot.”
“Would you like some coffee?”
Jennifer gave her a gentle admonishing look. “Kenga, if I want coffee, I’ll get it. Your job is to administer this group, not get me coffee or doughnuts.”
It was Kenga’s turn to smile. “I think this is going to work out just fine,” she said.
Jennifer nodded. “Me too.”
16
It was a perfect day, sun beating down on the city and the harbor, the mercury stuck at eighty-five. A wisp of wind came in off the ocean, cooling the sunbathers a touch but not enough to send anyone packing from the beaches to the parking lot. No one was complaining: This was San Diego in mid-July. Life was perfect.
Jimmy Gamble worked the counter at the post office in Grossmont Center, just east of San Diego State University. He enjoyed dealing with people and found the job rewarding-or as rewarding as working for the U.S. Postal Service can be. He arrived for work on Thursday, covering the ten-to-six shift, his favorite. Early mornings were for birds looking for worms, not for people who enjoyed a few cups of coffee before working the postage meter. He pinned on his name tag and stepped up to the counter.
Something on the floor near the cash register caught his eye. A prepackaged book of ten stamps was lying on the floor. He took a couple of steps, stooped over, and picked it up. He glanced back at the wall, where hundreds of similar packages hung in neat rows and columns. Now, how the hell did that get there? He shrugged, brushed off the dust, and slipped the renegade package onto the most accessible peg, then returned to his counter and opened for the day.
The sixth customer in his line asked for a package of ten stamps for mailing a standard letter, and Jimmy pulled the package off the wall and set it on the counter. The man also had two small packages: one for Phoenix, the other for Boston.
“That will be twenty-three dollars and sixteen cents,” Jimmy said, printing a receipt and making change.
“Thank you,” the man said.
“You’re welcome, Mr. English,” Jimmy said, reading the name off the return address on one of the packages.
The man did a double take at the sound of his name, and Jimmy pointed at the return address. English smiled at the extra initiative the postal employee had taken and returned to the July sunshine. The smile was still on his face as he climbed behind the wheel of his Cadillac and steered for Maderas Golf Club.
It was a perfect day for golf. What the hell, it was a perfect day.
17
The lighting in BioTech Five was muted, almost nonexistent. Jennifer Pearce slipped off her reading glasses, set them on the stack of printouts she was studying, and rubbed her eyes. The clock in the bottom right corner of her monitor read 11:15. She moved the cursor to the start icon and shut down her computer. Enough was enough. Working until almost midnight was stupid. And after three months of working for Veritas, she had her team functioning exactly as she wanted. There was no reason to work so late. She closed her office door, locked it behind her, and took the elevator down to the main foyer.
“Good night, Art,” she said to the graveyard security guard.
He brightened as she passed his desk. “Good night, Dr. Pearce. Take care driving home.”
“Thanks,” she said, and smiled as she passed through the doors into the muggy August air. She liked talking with the night watchman at Veritas, and she had a suspicion that he quite liked her. For a rent-a-cop, he was an interesting fellow, always with a story to tell about something or other. It was too late tonight to hang around for whatever the flavor of the day was. She’d find out tomorrow or the day after.
It was still hot for pushing midnight. Richmond was in a mini heat wave, typical for the last week of August, and there was no relief when the sun dropped out of sight at night. The mercury hovered near one hundred and the humidity was rotten. Clothes here were always wet and clammy, and that was something she wasn’t accustomed to. Her mind started to wander as she crossed the parking lot and she let it go. In seconds, she was a Russian ballerina, a product of the prestigious Moscow Ballet, defecting to the West. The night was dark, no moon, and she moved stealthily, keeping to the shadows. A solitary car was parked in the lot, her ticket to freedom. The Americans had been begging her to come across since 1978, and now was the time. Her parents were both dead at the hands of the KGB, and there was no reason to linger in Moscow any longer. Things were getting dangerous.