Blood Brothers (16 page)

But Karl’s dreams were interrupted with ever-increasing frequency by glances at his watch. By three forty-five, he could no longer even concentrate on his pleasant visions of the future. All he could do was stare at the clock on his credenza and wait for the minutes to tick by.

Finally, four o’clock came. The business day was done at the FDA’s East Coast headquarters, and he knew there was no longer any risk that they might call. He waited five more minutes to be sure his clock wasn’t fast. Then he strode across his office, opened his door, and smiled broadly at his secretary. “Michele, call the kitchen and tell them to pop the corks, cut the cake, and get the big conference room set for a party. We’re starting human trials tomorrow!”

C
HAPTER
N
INE

D
ISCOVERY

“So, what do we do now?” asked Gunnar. It was the morning after the preliminary-injunction hearing had ended, and he, Ben, and Noelle had assembled around the table in Ben and Noelle’s conference room. A plate of breakfast pastries sat in the middle of the table, and Gunnar and Ben had each taken one. Noelle contented herself with caffeine-free tea, though Ben had noticed her eyeing a lemon poppy-seed muffin.

“I’ve been giving that some thought,” replied Ben. “We need to get ready for the permanent-injunction trial, of course. August fifteenth is only about two months away, and we’ve got plenty to do between now and then. But before we dive into trial prep, we need to decide what we want that trial to be about. If it’s about whether you should give the formula for XD-463 to the company, we’ll probably lose. If it’s about whether Karl can be trusted with a multibillion-dollar asset, we have a shot at winning. We need to find a way to convince the jury that Karl is not fit to run the company.”

“I thought you did a good job of that at the hearing,” said Gunnar. “If a jury had seen that, I don’t think they would have let him run a gas station by the time he left the witness stand.”

“But that was only because I caught him by surprise,” said Ben. “Karl actually did pretty well during most of his testimony, but once those reports knocked him off balance, he fell apart. That won’t work twice, though.”

“So you need a new surprise for him,” said Gunnar. “I still have a lot of friends at the company. I’ll call them to see what kind of useful documents they can find. Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?”

“Actually, don’t do that,” replied Ben. “Remember, you’re not an officer or employee of the company anymore; you’re an adverse litigant. You could get in a lot of trouble by trying to get confidential documents from the company without going through their lawyer.”

“But if we have to go through their lawyer, how can we have the element of surprise?” asked Gunnar.

“We may not be able to,” conceded Ben. “Surprise witnesses and evidence are a lot more common in movies than in real courtrooms.”

“If Gunnar were still an officer of the company, would that make a difference?” asked Noelle.

“Uh . . . probably,” replied Ben. “But he isn’t. Or is he?”

“Not Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals, but maybe the Norwegian sub, Bjornsen Norge. One of the boxes I looked through had the board resolution removing him as president of Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals, but it didn’t say anything about Bjornsen Norge. The preamble said it was a joint board meeting of the two companies, so I assume that if they had voted him out of Norge’s presidency, they would have done it then.”

Gunnar’s eyes lit up and he leaned forward in his seat. “That preamble is part of the form we use for all our minutes and resolutions. I don’t think anyone has read it in years, except you. Bjornsen Norge has its own separate corporate structure. When we set it up, all the officers and directors were the same as for Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals. I doubt that its formal organization has ever been updated—there’s never been any reason to. All the stock is owned by the parent company, and all the decisions are made there; the Norwegian operation is basically just a sales office and warehouse. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if nobody thought to remove me as president when Karl staged his coup.”

“Let’s confirm that as quickly and quietly as possible,” said Ben. “If the company’s president gives us permission to go through the corporate records, Karl and Bert will have a tough time arguing that we’ve done anything illegal or unethical. I’ll bet we could find some very interesting nuggets if we poked around in Norge’s files, especially if Karl and Bert don’t have a chance to sanitize them first.”

“Any change to the officers or directors of a Norwegian company should be a matter of public record,” said Gunnar. “I can help you check the relevant databases.”

“And I’ll track down those documents I saw,” said Noelle.

“That sounds good,” said Ben. “I’m glad you read their corporate records more closely than they did. I’ll do a little legal research to make sure we’re playing by the rules.” He paused. “You know, if this all pans out, we should probably make at least one trip to Norway to interview witnesses and review documents. That will be a significant expense.”

“That won’t be a problem,” said Gunnar immediately. “As a matter of fact, I would have been concerned if you had said that you
weren’t
going to Norway. I’ve worked in international business long enough to know how essential it is to actually be on-site. I’ll help you set up witness interviews. I’m also friends with a senior accountant at Bjornsen Norge. He’s semiretired now, but I think he still goes into the office regularly. He speaks good English, and I’m sure he will be happy to help you.”

The meeting ended a few minutes later, and Noelle and Ben walked Gunnar to the elevator. As they headed back to their offices, Noelle turned to Ben. “So you managed to swing the Norwegian trip you wanted when you took this case. Nice job.”

“Hey, you heard Gunnar. It’s ‘essential’ that we go. Besides, I couldn’t have done it without you; I owe you for figuring out that Gunnar might still be president of the Norwegian sub. That could turn out to be a very valuable piece of information.”

“Just let me eat as much salmon as I want while we’re there and we’ll be even.”

Ben laughed. “Deal. And you can have that lemon poppy-seed muffin in the conference room. You earned it.”

She smiled luminously, but shook her head. “No way. I’m saving myself now.”

When Noelle got back to her office, she was surprised to find a message waiting for her from Anne Bjornsen. She put down her notes from the meeting and returned the call.

“Noelle, I just heard what happened with the Field Museum,” Anne said a moment later. “I’m terribly sorry. Charitable boards can be very uncharitable.”

Noelle felt as if a cold wind had just blown through. She had been so caught up in the litigation that she hadn’t thought about Emily Marshall and her committee for days. It wasn’t pleasant to be reminded of them. “It’s not your fault.”

“I still feel responsible. This all happened because you and Ben are helping my husband. Would you like me to talk to some people for you? I doubt that you’ll want to be involved with that committee again, but the Field is a fine institution and there are other opportunities there. There are also a lot of other good organizations in town, and I have friends at most of them. Gunnar and I are very supportive of the Brookfield Zoo, for example.”

“Thanks, but I’m pretty busy with Gunnar’s case right now, and my baby is due in three months. This probably isn’t the best time for me to get involved in something new. I really appreciate the offer, though.”

“Well, I’m in the Loop today. Can I at least take you out to lunch?” Anne asked.

“Lunch would be great.”

Two hours later, the two women sat at a table in the Walnut Room, the flagship restaurant in the State Street Macy’s. Panels of richly stained walnut wood lined the restaurant’s walls, and spotless white linen cloths covered each table, even at lunchtime. The Walnut Room was not the place to grab a quick lunch during a busy workday, but it was the perfect place to have a quiet conversation over a good meal.

Anne looked at home in the Walnut Room. She had the mature, slightly stately beauty of a wealthy woman who has aged gracefully. Her hair and nails looked as if she had just left a high-end salon. She wore a stylish white twinset and pearl necklace that set off her light tan and flattered her trim figure.
I hope I look like that in twenty-five years,
Noelle thought.

“So you’re due in September?” Anne asked.

“September 28,” Noelle confirmed.

“How exciting! Is this your first?”

“It is. Ben and I are really looking forward to meeting him or her. We’re already spending our weekends outfitting the nursery. Ben is building a chest of drawers in his workshop in the basement. Right now it’s just a bunch of boards with markings on them, but it looks great in the pictures he showed me.”

“I remember when Gunnar and I were young and looking forward to the birth of our first son. He built a crib—or at least he started to. I think there are still some old, half-finished pieces of wood in a corner of our attic.”

Noelle laughed. “Now that Ben’s busy again, I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happens to us. I guess it’s the thought that counts.”

“You’re in such a great time of your lives. Everything is new. Everything is in front of you. So many things are possible.” Anne smiled. “I’m a little envious of you.”

“And I’m a little envious of
you
,” replied Noelle. “And not just because no one would dream of kicking you off a committee because of something your husband was doing.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind being thrown off a committee or two. It would be something of a blessing, really. These things can take on a life of their own, and getting off of them can be complicated.”

“Really? I hadn’t thought about it much, but I kind of figured you could quit whenever you wanted to. There are always plenty of people wanting to get on them.”

“Which is actually one reason it’s hard to leave them,” Anne replied with a sigh. “Every invitation to join a board or committee I’ve ever received has been a compliment from a friend or, especially when I was younger, somebody doing me a favor. It’s hard enough to say no to the invitation, but it’s even harder to quit after you join. You make friends and take on responsibilities. Unless you have an almost unarguable reason, you really can’t pull out without causing hurt feelings or giving offense.”

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time I’m thinking about joining something,” said Noelle. “It’s easy to overcommit, isn’t it?”

“It is. Or maybe a better way to put it is that it’s easy to make commitments and sacrifices without realizing you’re doing it. When I was your age, I tried to meet all the right people, worked at getting invited to all the right events, and volunteered for all the right causes. By the time I was forty, I had something scheduled four or five days a week, and if I didn’t have an engagement for a particular evening, Gunnar would invite an important customer over for dinner.”

“You didn’t like socializing that much?”

“Oh no, I loved it. I felt that Gunnar and I had truly arrived, that we were part of the glamorous and successful crowd. That was a wonderful feeling, but I eventually discovered that I couldn’t stop. There were board and committee events, of course, but there were also invitations to dinners and parties from our friends and Gunnar’s business partners, and we had to throw parties and host dinners in return. And then one day it dawned on me that this was the life I had created for myself, and I was powerless to change it.” She paused and took a sip of her coffee. “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘chasing after wind’? Well, sometimes you catch it—or it catches you. I suppose there’s not much difference.”

Kim Young sat in a conference room at Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals with Dr. Tina Corrigan’s team. Dr. Corrigan was a severe-looking woman of about sixty with sharp features, no makeup, and hair pulled back so tight that Kim thought it must hurt. Her appearance had intimidated Kim at first, but she soon found Dr. Corrigan to be warm and friendly. Her two lieutenants, Drs. Tim Black and Daruka Reddy, were also friendly—Dr. Reddy a little too much so at times. He was a tall Indian man in his late thirties with a habit of standing very close to attractive women when he talked to them.

Kim listened as Dr. Corrigan and two senior members of the clinical trials group picked participants for the Neurostim trial. Despite the relatively low compensation—only $1,000—offered in its ads, Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals had received more than three hundred applications for the thirty-five participant slots available for the Phase I trial. Dr. Corrigan had asked her newly acquired intern to put all the applications in a database for easier review by Drs. Black and Reddy, who winnowed the group down to one hundred. To Kim’s dismay, David’s application didn’t make it into the pool of finalists.

The purpose of the meeting was for Dr. Corrigan and her team to pick the thirty-five study subjects from the hundred names on their list. “Okay, we’ve got seven slots left,” announced Dr. Corrigan. “Who’s left?”

“How about number eighty-four?” suggested Dr. Black, a gray-haired man of about forty-five with an incongruously boyish face.

“Another Caucasian in the age-thirty-five-to-fifty cohort,” responded Dr. Reddy. “We’ve got all we need of those. Besides, this guy is a cop, and we’ve got five of them already. What about seventy-two?”

“Good call,” said Dr. Black. “Twenty-three-year-old Asian computer-game tester. If we get any delta in reflexes and problem solving, this guy will notice.”

“All right, seventy-two is in,” said Dr. Corrigan as she highlighted him on her list. “What do you think of fourteen and nineteen? One is an African American firefighter in his thirties, the other is a white personal trainer.”

“Both in,” agreed Dr. Black. Dr. Reddy nodded.