R. Parish—RS: Coordinator: “Excellent points, but Foster does not have family left to turn to. Both his parents are deceased. His mother died in an automobile accident in 1994, and his father passed away from a heart attack last year. Foster is an only child, has never been married, and has no children out of wedlock. By all accounts, he is alone and on his own.”
K. Immel—RS: Physical: “Then who’s been taking care of his personal affairs while he’s been a human guinea pig all these months?”
R. Parish—RS: Coordinator: “Foster assigned temporary power of attorney to a corporate trustee after he was placed in quarantine. This document was included in the packet of documents turned over to us by Ms. Morley. Also included was a confidentiality agreement, Vyrogen test program enrollment paperwork, a hold harmless waiver, an acceptance of experimental risks statement, as well as a generous compensation schedule to be paid by Vyrogen in exchange for Foster’s submission to experimental treatment in quarantine. All these documents are signed by Foster and appear to be legitimate.”
K. Immel—RS: Physical: “What about his apartment?”
R. Parish—RS: Coordinator: “His apartment rent, plus utilities and parking, were paid in advance for six months by Vyrogen. Part of the terms of the agreement.”
K. Immel—RS: Physical: “His job at his advertising firm?”
R. Parish—RS: Coordinator: “He was laid off four months before enrolling in the H1N1 vaccine study.”
A. Mesnil—RS: Social: “I want interviews with his supervisor and coworkers at McEwen and Rogers. Send a female RS: Social. In fact, send Rebecca Knight. I want confirmatory evidence for all of this. Also, find out who is his closest male colleague at the firm. I want two interviews with him: one at the office and one after working hours, somewhere private. Find out everything he knows. Was Foster in debt? If so, how much did he owe? What kind of guy is he? What accounts did he handle for his firm? Does he have ties to or contacts in the pharmaceutical, biotech, or government realms? What was he working on right before getting mixed up with Vyrogen? Did you get all of that, Coordinator?”
R. Parish—RS: Coordinator: “Yes. I’ll make it happen. What else?”
A. Archer—RS: Bio: “I think we should try to validate Meredith Morley’s story about the mutated H1N1 strain. I’ve never heard any mention of this in popular news or in scientific journals.”
R. Parish—RS: Coordinator: “Okay. I’ll add that to the list.”
A. Mesnil—RS: Social: “Next topic?”
K. Immel—RS: Physical: “The events of the theft and Foster’s next steps. Meredith seemed convinced that Foster was working with a powerful individual or corporation to steal the formula. If that’s true, Foster will be trying to contact that entity, turn over the product, and get paid.”
E. VanCleave—RS: Technical: “It’s all so inelegant. It doesn’t make sense.”
A. Mesnil—RS: Social: “What do you mean?”
E. VanCleave—RS: Technical: “Let’s assume Foster was hired by someone to steal the formula. Let’s further assume this someone is powerful and has resources at his or her disposal. Then why steal the formula like this? If I were the mastermind behind a plot to steal Vyrogen’s secret drug, then I would have deployed other agents and technology so, that at the end of the research trial, my mole could walk out of quarantine with the formula secretly in hand. Why make a public spectacle of it? It’s too clumsy to have gone down like this on purpose.”
K. Immel—RS: Physical: “Good point. Why would Foster have ever signed onto this gig if he thought he was going to be the fall guy?”
A. Archer—RS: Bio: “Maybe his hand was forced. Maybe Vyrogen learned about the plot, and he had to act immediately or he would lose his window of opportunity.”
A. Mesnil—RS: Social: “And if we follow that line of reasoning, then Foster taking the plague sample was probably an impromptu decision. Think insurance policy — it may be the only leverage he has. If the authorities corner him, he can threaten to release the agent. If the buyer tries to screw him, he can threaten to release the agent. It’s what I’d do.”
E. VanCleave—RS: Technical: “That’s good, Social, I hadn’t thought of that.”
K. Immel—RS: Physical: “Regardless of his motive, one thing is certain, Foster is a man on the run, and he needs help. I think we should focus on identifying his accomplice. If I were in his shoes, the first thing I would do is contact my Daddy Warbucks, tell him to ‘show me the money,’ and then get my ass on a plane out of the country. We should brainstorm the most likely candidates for Daddy Warbucks. Who has the most to gain from stealing Vyrogen’s miracle drug?”
A. Mesnil—RS: Social: “According to Archer, we should be looking at a list of biotech companies capable of creating the mutated strain of H1N1 that Foster was reportedly infected with.”
E. VanCleave—RS: Technical: “I can shorten that list considerably based on the probability matrix I constructed. We should begin our search by focusing on pharmaceutical companies in direct competition with Vyrogen for BioShield funding.”
K. Immel—RS: Physical: “What is BioShield?”
E. VanCleave—RS: Technical: “Mr. Parish, can you please brief the team on Project BioShield?”
R. Parish—RS: Coordinator: “On July 21, 2004, President George W. Bush signed into law Project BioShield. The Project’s stated purpose is to provide funding for new medical countermeasures against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats. The stakes: five and a half billion dollars of appropriated funds for the purchase of countermeasures against the most deadly biological agents, including smallpox, anthrax, plague, and others.” Project funding is managed by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA.”
A. Archer—RS: Bio: “I remember hearing something about this. Didn’t Congress just reallocate a portion of the BioShield funding?”
R. Parish—RS: Coordinator: “Yes, approximately one and a half billion has be reallocated. To date, two and half billion dollars has been contracted, and of that amount nearly one billion has gone exclusively to the manufacture of anthrax vaccines. Which leaves roughly one and half billion remaining.”
A. Archer—RS: Bio: “The article I read stated that one of the criticisms of the program is that no broad-spectrum countermeasures have emerged from the efforts to date.”
R. Parish—RS: Coordinator: “That is correct. Our research shows that since its inception, all BioShield contracts have been allocated to specific threat agents. In the industry, this is commonly referred to as the ‘One Bug, One Drug’ approach.”
K. Immel—RS: Physical: “No wonder Morley is so hot and bothered.”