"The legislators, state and federal, the competition, and especially the goddamn FDA are all doing their best to cloud the issue, but in the end it always boils down to this." Again, he tapped the glass. If the pep talk was meant to buoy Paquette's flagging morale, it failed miserably.
The greatest good for the most people at the highest profit was all he could think of. The shortcuts and the human testing, the clinics in Denver and Boston, the bribery and extortion involving 1? DA officials-all had been tolerable for him because all were abstractions.
Kate Bennett was flesh and blood, a voice, a face, a reality, and worse than that, a reality he was growing to admire. Paquette snapped out of his reverie, wondering how long it had lasted. A second?
A minute? Then he realized that Redding's eyes were fixed on him. "I understand, sir, " he said, clearing away the phlegm in his throat, "and I assure you, you have nothing to worry about." How did the man know about the stinking mirror? Spies in Boston? A bug in the room?
Damn him, Paquette thought viciously. Damn him to hell. "Fine, Arlen,"
Redding said. "Now, you have a flight back to Boston this afternoon?"
"Two o'clock."
"I suspect that our meddlesome pathologist is on the ropes. However, her father-in-law assures me that she is far from out on her feet. Her discovery regarding the Ashburton Foundation suggests that he is quite correct."
"I believe Norton Reese is arranging a surprise for her that may help,"
Paquette said, vividly recalling the glee in Reese's voice as he announced that something was set to fall heavily on Kate Bennett.
"Excellent, " Redding said. "Her father-in-law has promised to do what he can to help us as well. One final thing."
"Yes?"
"Has anything further surfaced on the cause of the ovary and blood problems in those three women? " Paquette shook his head. "Strange,"
Redding said, more to himself than to the other man. "Very strange…"
For several seconds, he remained lost in thought, his eyes closed, his head turning from side to side as if he were internally speedreading a page. "Well, Arlen, " he said suddenly, opening his eyes, "thank you for the excellent job you are doing. I know at times your duties are not easy for you, but continue to carry them out the way you have, and your rewards will be great."
"Yes, sir, " Paquette said. He sat for nearly half a minute before realizing that the Warlock had said all he was going to. Sheepishly, he rose and hurried from the room. Cyrus Redding studied the man as he left. The Boston business seemed to be having some untoward effects on him, particularly in the area of his drinking. As he motored from the sitting area to his desk, Redding made a mental note to arrange a vacation of some sort for Paquette and his wife as soon as Boston was over. That done, he put the issue and the man out of his head. There was more important business needing attention. Stephen Stein, the enigmatic, remarkably resourceful investigator, had made a discovery that he suspected would unlock the mystery of John Ferguson. "Mr. Nunes,"
Redding said through the intercom of his desk, "would you bring that package to me now."
At the far end of the office, a perfectly camouflaged panel and one way mirror slid open. The man Nunes emerged from the small, soundproof room from which he kept vigil, revolver at hand, whenever Redding was not alone in his office. The package, containing a book, several typewritten pages, and an explanatory letter from Stein, had arrived by messenger only minutes before Arlen Paquette. "If you have errands to run, Mr.
Nunes, this would be a good time. When you return in, say, an hour, we could well have a new slant on our friend, Dr. Ferguson." He smiled, nearly beside himself at the prospect. "I think this occasion might call for a pint of that mint chip ice cream I have forbidden you to let me talk you into buying."
The taciturn bodyguard nodded. "I can't let you talk me into it, " he said, "but perhaps I could purchase some on my own."
Redding waited until his office door had clicked shut, then he locked it electronically and spread the contents of the package on his desk. "My apologies, " Stein wrote, "for missing this volume during the course of earlier efforts to tie our mysterious Dr. Ferguson's background in with the war. I borrowed it from the Holocaust Library at the university here with assurances of its return, along with some token of our gratitude.
Its title, according to the German professor who did the enclosed translation for us, is Doctors of the Reich, The Story of Hitler's Monster Kings. The work is the product of painstaking research and countless interviews by a Jewish journalist named Sachs, himself a death camp survivor, and is believed by my source to be accurate within the limits of the author's prejudices. Only the chapters dealing with the experiments at the Ravensbruck concentration camp for women have been translated. The photographs on pages three sixty-seven and three sixty-eight will, I believe, be of special interest to you."
For most of the next hour, Cyrus Redding sat transfixed, moving only to turn the pages of the translation or to refer to specific photographs in the worn, yellowed text. John Ferguson was a physician and scientist named Dr. Wilhelm Becker. The photographs, though slightly blurred and taken nearly forty years before, left no doubt whatsoever. "Amazing,"
Redding murmured as he read and reread the biography of his associate.
"Absolutely amazing."
There were two snapshots of Wilhelm Becker, one a full-face identification photo and one a group shot with other physicians at the Ravensbruck Camp. There was also a shot of what remained of the laboratory in which Becker was purported to have died, with the bodies of the man and his staff sergeant still curled amidst the debris on the floor. Redding withdrew a large, ivory-handled magnifying glass from his desk and for several minutes studied the detail of the scene. The body identified as Willi Becker was little more than an ill-defined, charred lump. "Nicely done, my friend, " Redding said softly. "Nicely done."
Familiar now with the man and with his spurious death, Redding turned to the page and a half dealing with Becker's research, specifically, with his research on a substance called Estronate 250. Much of the information presented was gleaned from transcripts of the war crimes trial of a physician named Muller and another named Rendl, both of whom were sentened to Nuremberg Prison in large measure because of their association with the supposedly late Wilhelm Becker. Redding found the men in the Ravensbruck group photo. Muller had served five years at hard labor before certain Ravensbruck survivors were able to document his acts of heroism on their behalf and get his sentence commuted. For Rendl, the revelations of his humanitarianism came too late. Three years after his incarceration, he hanged himself in his cell. Redding read the Estronate material word by word, taking careful notes. By the time he had finished, he was absolutely certain that neither Wilhelm Becker nor the notebook containing his work on the hormone had perished in the Ravensbruck fire. A substance, harmless in every other way, that could render a woman sterile without her knowledge. Redding was staggered by the potential of such a drug. China, India, the African nations, the Arabs. What would governments be willing to pay for a secret that might selectively thin their populations and thereby solve so many of their economic and political woes? What would certain governments pay for a weapon which, if delivered properly, could decimate their enemies in a single generation without the violent loss of one life?