Strong Medicine (85 page)

Sam's choice to head it.

Celia, Andrew and Lilian were staying at the latest "in" place for affluent

tTavelers-Fortyseven Park Street in Mayfair, where hotel convenience was

combined with private luxury apartments.

Lilian, who would be sixty at her next birthday, was still a strik-

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ingly handsome woman, and during a visit by the trio to the Harlow institute

Rao Sastri was obviously attracted to her, despite the twenty-year

difference in their ages. Sastri conducted a special tour of the labs for

Lilian and afterward the two of them took off for lunch. Celia was amused to

learn that they had arranged an evening in London--dinner and a theater-for

the following week.

On Monday, two days before the investiture, Celia received a transatlantic

call from Bill Ingram. "I'm sorry to burden you with bad news," the

executive vice president began, "but Childers Quentin just called. It seems

that in Washington all hell just broke loose."

The news, he explained, concerned the FDA, Dr. Gideon Mace, the Department

of Justice, Senator Dennis Donahue and Hexin W.

"The way Quentin tells it," Ingram said, "is that Mace got tired of what he

saw as inaction at the Justice Department. So on his own, unofficially, he

took all the Hexin W papers over to Capitol Hill to one of Donahue's aides.

The aide showed them to Donahue, who grabbed the whole schmear as if it

were a Christmas present. According to Quentin's informant, the senator's

words were, 'I've been waiting for something like this.'

"Yes," Celia said, "I can imagine."

"The next thing," Ingram continued, "is that Donahue called the Attorney

General and demanded action. Since then--again as Quentin tells

it-Donahue's been calling the A.G. every hour on the hour."

Celia sighed. "That's a lot of bad news at once. Is there anything else?"

"Unfortunately, quite a bit more. First, it's now definite that a grand

jury will be empaneled to look into the Hexin W delayed reports, plus

something else that's come out. And the Attorney General, who's taking a

personal interest because of Donahue, is sure he can get indictments."

"Against whom?"

"Vince Lord, of course. But also, I'm sorry to tell you, Celia, against

you. They're going to argue that you were responsible--and that's on

Donahue's urging. According to Quentin, Donahue wants your scalp."

Celia knew why. She remembered the Washington lawyer's warning after the

Senate hearings. "You made him look a fool . . . 1f any time in the future,

he can do harm to Felding-Roth or to you . . . he'll do it and enjoy it. "

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Then she recalled some words of Ingram's spoken moments earlier and

asked, "Bill, you said there was 'something else that's come out.' What?"

This time Ingram sighed. Then he said, "This gets complicated, though

I'll try to put it simply.

"When the clinical testing data on Hexin W was submitted to Washington

with our NDA, it contained the usual gamut of medical studies, including

one by a Dr. Yaminer of Phoenix. It now turns out that Yammer's study was

a fake. He listed patients he didn't have. Much of his data was

fraudulent."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Celia said, "though it happens occasionally.

Other companies have had the same problem. But when you find out about

the faking-if you do-you tell the FDA and they go after the doctor."

"Right," Ingram agreed. "What you're not supposed to do, though, is

include the data in an NDA after discovering it to be false."

"Of course not."

"Vince did. He initialed Yammer's report and let it go."

Celia asked, "But how does anyone know that Vince was aware

"I'm coming to that."

She said wearily, "Go on."

"When those federal marshals were with us, doing their search and

seizure, they took away files from Vince's department. Among them was one

for Dr. Yaminer. In that file were some rough notes in Vince's

handwriting, showing he'd discovered Yaminer's report to be false before

he let it go to FDA. The Justice Department now has the original report

and Vince's notes."

Celia was silent. What was there to say? She wondered: was there any end

to infamy?

"And I guess, that's all," Ingram said. "Except

"Except what?"

"Well . . . it's about Dr. Mace, and the way he seems antagonistic to us.

I remember you saying once that you had no idea why."

-I still haven't."

"I think Vince knows why," Ingram said. "I have an instinct. I've watched

Vince too. He seems scared stiff any time Mace's name comes up."

Celia weighed what she had just heard. Then suddenly, in her

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mind, Ingram's words linked up with a conversation she had had with Lord at

the time of the Senate hearings. She had accused him then of lying on the

witness stand and . . .

Making a fast decision, she said, "I want to see him. Over here."

:'Vince?"

'Yes. Tell him it's an order. He's to get on the first available plane and

report to me as soon as he arrives."

Now they faced each other. Celia and Vincent Lord.

They were in the living room of the Jordans' Mayfair apartment.

Lord looked tired, older than his sixty-one years, and under strain. He had

lost weight so that his face was even thinner than before. His face

muscles, which earlier had twitched occasionally, were doing it more often.

Celia remembered an incident from her early days as assistant director of

sales training, when she had often gone to Lord for technical advice. In

attempting to be friendly she had suggested that they use first names, and

Lord had replied unpleasantly, "It would be betterfor both of us, Mrs.

Jordan, to remember at all times the difference in our status. "

Well, Celia thought, for this occasion she would take his advice.

She said coldly, "I will not discuss the disgraceful Yaminer affair, Dr.

Lord, except to say that it gives the company an opportunity to dissociate

itself from you, and leave you to defend yourself about everything-at your

own expense."

With a glint of triumph in his eyes, Lord said, "You can't do that because

you're going to be indicted too."

"If I choose to do it, I can. And any defense arrangements I make for

myself are my concern, not yours."

:'If you choose . . 7" He seemed puzzled.

'I will not make any commitment. Understand that. But if the company is to

help with your defense, I insist on knowing everything."

:'Everything?"

'There's something in the past," Celia said. "Something that you know and

I don't. I believe it has to do with Dr. Mace."

They had been standing. Lord motioned to a chair. "May IT'

:'Yes." Celia sat down too.

'All right," Lord said, "there is something. But you won't like hearing it.

And after you know, you'll be sorry that you do."

"I'm waiting. Get on with it."

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He told her.

Told everything, going back to the first problems with Gideon Mace at the

FDA, Mace's pettiness, the insults, the long, unreasonable delays in

approving Staidpace-in the end, a good, lifesaving drug . . . Later the

attempt to discover something harmful about Mace, resulting in Lord's

Georgetown meeting in a homosexual bar with Tony Redmond, an FDA

technician . . . Lord's purchase from Redmond of documents incriminating

Mace. The cost: two thousand dollars--an expenditure approved by Sam, who

later agreed not to disclose the information to a law enforcement agency

but to hold the papers secretly, thus making Sam and Lord accessories to

a crime . . . Two years later, when Mace was delaying FDA approval of

Montayne, the decision, shared by Sam, to blackmail Mace . . . The

blackmail succeeding, despite Dr. Mace's unease about the Australian

report on Montayne and his honest doubts about the drug . . .

Then it was done. Now Celia knew it all and, as Lord had predicted,

wished that she did not. Yet she had had to know because it affected

future judgments she would make as president of FeldingRoth.

At the same time so much became clearer: Sam's despair and guilt, the

real and deeper reason for his suicide . . . Dr. Mace's breakdown at the

Senate hearings and, when asked why he had approved Montayne, his

pathetic answer, "Ijust don't know.

Mace's anger at Felding-Roth and all its works.

Celia thought: If I were Mace I would hate us too.

And now that Celia knew the sorry, dismal story, what came next? Her

conscience told her there was only one thing she ought to do. Inform the

authorities. Go public. Tell the truth. Let all concerned take their

chances-Vincent Lord, Gideon Mace, FeldingRoth, herself.

But what if she did? Where would it leave everybody? Lord and Mace would

be destroyed of course-a thought which left her unconcerned. What did

concern her was the realization that the company would be disgraced and

dragged down too, and not just the company as a paper entity, but its

people: employees, executives, stockholders, the other scientists apart

from Vincent Lord. Only she herself might look good, but that was least

important.

Equally to the point was the question: If she went public what would be

achieved? The answer: After this length of time-nothing.

So she would not do the "conscience thing." She would not go

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public. She knew, without having to think about it any more, that she too

would remain silent, woLld join the others in corruption. She had no choice.

Lord knew it also. Around his thin lips there was the ghost of a smile.

She despised him. Hated him more than anyone else in all her life.

He had corrupted himself, corrupted Mace, corrupted Sam. Now he had

corrupted Celia.

She stood up, Emotionally, almost incoherently, she shouted, "Get out of my

sight! Gol"

He went.

Andrew, who had been visiting a London hospital, returned an hour later.

She told him, "Something's happened. I'll have to go back right after

Martin and Yvonne's party. That means a flight the day after tomorrow. If

you want to stay a few days more-"

"We'll go together," Andrew said. He added quietly, "Let me handle the

arrangements. I can tell you've a lot on your mind."

Soon afterward, he reported back. Thursday's Concorde to New York was fully

booked. He had secured two first-class seats on a British Airways 747. They

would be in New York, then Morristown, on Thursday afternoon.

21

Yvonne could scarcely believe it. Was she really inside Buckingham Palace?

Was it truly herself in the State Ballroom, seated with others whose spouses

or parents were about to receive honors, all of them waiting with varying

degrees of excitement or expectancy for the Queen's arrival? Or was it all

a dream?

If a dream, it was delightful. And set to music by the regimental band of

the Coldstream Guards in the minstrels' gallery above. They were playing

Early One Morning, that happy, jouncy tune.

But no, it was no dream. Because she had come here to the

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