Green Kills (24 page)

Gadi got closer and looked at the vial from up close as well.
Jim shot him a hostile look and continued with evident contempt, “The first six
digits — 070613 — describe the production date, which is also the last date on
which we produced the medicine. The next two digits represent the batch. In this
case, the number is 01 because in this lot we produced only a single batch.”

Ronnie raised the bottle and looked at it with indifference.
“And what does the serial number signify, and why is it so long?”

“Ah” — Jim waved off the question — “it’s just a random number
provided for each bottle by a computerized system, called a numerator. This is
common practice among pharmaceutical manufacturers. The number is long and
meaningless. You know, no company would want its competitors to know the exact
number of units it manufactures.”

“So how do you know how many vials were produced in each batch?
I suppose it’s an important number, at least for organizational purposes,
financial reports and so on?”

“The numerator itself does the counting. According to the production
and the batch date, it adds up the total production numbers and sends the
information to the company’s enterprise resource planning — ERP — and
accounting systems. Everything is done automatically.”

“Thank you, Jim. I see that your signature is on the sticker as
well. Why is that?”

“It is part of the company’s strict procedure. Once the medicine
was checked and before it was packaged, I signed to confirm the quality
assurance tests had been properly conducted.”

“So it seems there was no way to tamper with the medicine in the
factory,” Ronnie summed up, and everyone emitted a sigh of relief and reached
their hands toward the binders in order to sign the contract.

“Before we sign, just one last little thing,” Ronnie added, much
to the dissatisfaction of Jim, Henry and David. “I’ve been bothered by two
things ever since the surgical deaths. The first is how, from an eight-unit
batch, only two vials were involved in death cases—”

“We’ve decided they were not implicated in the deaths.” He was
interrupted as they all started to lose their patience.

“That’s right,” answered Ronnie evenly, “but two days ago, I
logged in to the company’s ERP system and found out the numerator had reported
the production of ten units in the batch we’re examining. But Christian
reported to me in our last meeting that only eight had been produced. Jim had
also reported to me that no medicine vials remained in the safe, other than the
six empty vials from previous trials. To prove his claim, he’d also sent me a
photo of the bottles in the safe. So why did the numerator report ten units?
There was another thing that subconsciously kept bothering me, but I wasn’t
quite able to grasp, until yesterday, when I suddenly realized what I’d found
so disturbing. It happened when my friend Gadi, the man standing in front of
you here, enlarged the photo Jim had so generously sent me, and turned my
attention to the fact that on each of the stickers both Christian’s and Jim’s
signatures appear, and only the vial photographed by Brian at Mount Sinai bears
a single signature, Jim’s. From there, the road leading to the realization Jim
had created two poisoned vials, while destroying the originals, was a short
one—”

“Nonsense.
And you don’t represent any
law enforcement agency!” Jim tried to rise from his chair, but Gadi forcefully
shoved him back down.

“Perhaps he doesn’t, but I sure as hell do.” Bukowski entered
the room. “Jim Belafonte, you’re under arrest for the murders of Samuel Yoder
and Abraham Berkowitz. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say
can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

Newark, November 8, 2013, 8:30 PM

Ronnie and Gadi were sprawled on spacious sofas in the United
Airlines business class lounge. Three glasses of beer and a bowl of peanuts were
on the table in front of them. They were on their way to Israel and waiting for
a flight leaving at ten forty PM. Gadi’s available arm was around the shoulders
of a beautiful dark-skinned woman he wouldn’t stop kissing, ignoring all the
other passengers in the lounge. Even the casual onlooker could have no doubt he
was in love. Ronnie looked at them and smiled.

“What are you smiling about, dumbass?” Gadi pretended to be
upset.

“I never thought you’d be in love enough to buy a girl a
business class ticket.” Ronnie tried to maintain a serious expression.

“Never gonna happen. I bought
both
my tickets with your
credit card. I thought you owed me at least that. Don’t even think about
complaining, because I couldn’t care less what you think. By the way, I bought
a third ticket for her.” Gadi waved toward Liah, who was walking toward them.
“I told her
you
asked her to join us. Of course, you can always tell her
I lied. On the other hand, this could be a pretty good opportunity for you to
grow up and admit how desperately you’ve missed her.” He rose and embraced
Liah, kissing both her cheeks noisily. “Liah, I’d like you to meet Juanita.
Juanita, sweetheart, this is Liah, the love of Ronnie’s life,” Gadi introduced
the two women to each other, a sly, satisfied smile on his face.

Liah took a quick look around, and when she saw the only
available seat was next to Ronnie, she sat beside him carefully, making sure
she wasn’t touching him.

“Come, let’s grab us something a little stronger than beer,” Gadi
said to his new girlfriend in Spanish, lifting her from her seat while hugging
her hips, and dragging her after him to the lounge bar.

Ronnie and Liah remained seated, avoiding each other’s eyes.
After a long and embarrassing moment, Ronnie turned to her and quietly said,
“I’m glad you’re joining us. How are you feeling?”

“Sad.
Very sad.
Sad
for the misery that I’ve caused you.
Sad for the way I’ve messed up my
life again. Sad for the fact I’m going back to Israel for good, without the man
I hoped would one day be my husband.”

“What do you mean going back to Israel for good?”

“I finished my studies. I’ve been approved for an internship in
Israel and accepted at Kaplan Hospital. I’m starting next week. I’m going to
spend the next year in Israel, then, God only knows.”

“And you never thought…” Ronnie stopped and grew silent.

“No, Ronnie, I never thought of asking you. I didn’t want to add
to your misery. I realized I needed to respect your decision to sever all
contact.”

Ronnie allowed his hand to search for hers until he finally
found it. She raised her head and met his eyes. They both froze for a moment,
then she drew nearer and rested her head on his chest.

“Good thing I’m heading back to Israel myself. We’ll have all
the time in the world to examine our relationship,” he whispered in her ear,
feeling her palms tightening.

Liah drew away from him, questioning him with her eyes. “What
about your job? After all you’ve been through, you’re just going to walk away?”

“I already have. The same day word of my resignation spread, I
received four tempting job offers, including one from Accord, but I rejected
them all. At the moment, I feel like I need time to reorganize the priorities
in my life. For starters, I bought a villa in my kibbutz’s expansion area.
Perhaps I paid a bit above the market value, but it was important for me to go
back and live among the people I love most.”

“But why?
You’ve never been one to give
up so easily, especially after what I heard from Gadi about the TDO affair
ending so well.”

“You don’t know all the details. It turns out, the Chinese guy
who broke my leg, the same one who so generously let you take the cab, had also
threatened the life of David’s wife. David was the one who’d been pressuring
the investors to sell their holdings contrary to reason. He was also the one
who’d systematically pitted Henry against me, under various obscure pretenses.
After everything blew up in his face, David broke down, admitted his actions
and resigned from managing the fund. Henry was elected by the other partners to
take his place. As you know, Henry and I don’t really get along. He asked me to
stay, but I refused.”

“You don’t need to love someone in order to work with him.”

“True, but you need to respect him. And I can’t respect a man
who conceals information from company reports, not to mention that he’s a
compulsive gambler. He confessed to the other partners and swore never to
repeat his foolish behavior. They’ve all chosen to believe him, perhaps because
they realized they wouldn’t be able to raise money for another fund without him
and a failure would cost them a lot of money. Money, as I’ve learned the hard
way, has a tendency to bend a lot of people’s principles. Not for me. To their
credit, they were decent enough to leave me with my shares in the fund. I
didn’t say no to that. Even my principles have their limits.” A tiny smile
sprouted on his lips.

At the other end of the room, three young men began to cheer
together about something. One of them read something off his laptop to his friends,
and the three reacted with rowdy joy. Their happiness was natural and enviable.
Liah sighed and turned back to look at Ronnie.

“When they offered you the chairmanship of TDO, did they know it
was about to collapse?”

“They didn’t. That was just a coincidence. I really matched
David’s vision of the buildup of the fund. He knew Henry was very attached to
TDO and was afraid he’d change his mind and decide not to transfer the company
to me at the last moment. That’s why he forged my signature on the paperwork.
After he had sent the paperwork, he informed Henry that I was already listed as
chairman in the company’s
directors
registry and
claimed that if we changed it again, it might hurt the company’s reputation.”

“What are you two so serious about?” Gadi cut off their
conversation. “Well, at least you’re talking. What are you having? The barman
will do anything for Juanita.”

“Well, I do feel like having a gin and tonic. Get Liah…” Ronnie
turned his gaze to her.

“Plain tonic water,” said Liah and got back to Ronnie.

“And what was the turning point that helped you to understand
what’d happened in the hospitals?”

“It wasn’t just one point, but rather several things that I was
finally able to piece together to form a clear picture. The first was the letter
you left in my room, which made me realize for the first time that whoever
treated the medicine needed to have in-depth knowledge about its chemistry.
Only Christian and Jim had that kind of knowledge. Your hint about the
numerator sank in only later. To be honest, I didn’t even know what a numerator
was. But when I happened to run across the word in one of the company reports,
it set my warning bells off, and when I delved into it, I discovered more vials
had been produced than were listed on the clinical trial reports. Furthermore,
throughout that period, I’d been receiving confusing text messages. Only when I
realized the anonymous sender was trying to protect the fund and its employees
did I recognize that one of the messages had been different and was probably
sent by someone else. That somebody, so I started to suspect — was Jim. 

“The breakthrough took place after Gadi found out the signatures
on the older vials were different from the ones on the last two. When I learned
that, I realized Jim was behind it all. My only problem was proving a motive.
The motive was revealed when I managed to contact Roselyn, the clerk who’d
switched the operations at Mount Sinai. Only after Bukowski, the FBI agent,
promised her immunity — and, if need be, joining a witness protection program —
did she agree to come back to New York, accompanied by agents. The testimony
she provided cleared both me and the company of all suspicions. Furthermore,
based on the extortion methods applied to pressure Roselyn, the FBI has no doubt
a criminal organization was behind the entire plot.
An
organization that was probably interested in using TDO for money laundering
then selling the company at a profit.
In a conversation the FBI had with
Mentor’s CEO, he broke down and admitted he’d been pressured too and was forced
to back out of the deal. He gave them a description of the person who’d
threatened his life, an exact match to the one Roselyn and I gave them, a
description of the Chinese man. It was clear to me that I couldn’t possibly sell
the company, but I needed to put on a show, pretending I was about to sign the
contract, in order to make Jim confess he was the one who’d switched the
medicine. It turns out the mob had promised him ten million dollars and an
equal amount in company shares. The FBI found some of the money in a bank
account Jim had opened solely for that purpose. Jim was a number two kind of
employee throughout his professional career. He knew they’d never let him run
such a company for long. This was a chance for him to prove to the world he was
capable of being a good CEO who could lead a company from a crisis to success.
When he broke down, he dragged the two investment bankers down with him.
According to his testimony, they were the ones who’d given him his instructions
all along. The FBI is still looking for them, but it looks like they’ve
disappeared, or were made to disappear, off the face of the earth.”

“And what happened to the Chinese man? Are you sure he won’t
come after you to make you pay for ruining his deal?”

“I’m sure. They found his body, with a little extra lead in the
skull, next to the Jefferson University Hospital morgue. No one has a clue how
it got there.”

“Dead?”

“As dead as it gets.”

“How did that happen?”

“I asked Bukowski the same question. He claims it was the work
of a professional, nice and clean. No traces of what had happened were found.
The FBI’s working premise is that someone followed the Chinese guy in order to
eliminate him and took advantage of the fact he followed Brian to a dark place.
Because they have no leads to follow, the police and FBI decided to close the
case.”

“Gadi?”

“Gadi’s a lot of things, but he’s not a killer. He’s also a
pretty messy guy. He didn’t murder the Chinese guy, just like he didn’t kill
your husband.”

“What about Gadi? Again you’re talking about me behind my back?”
Gadi placed the drinks on the table in front of them.

“Did you hear they caught the drug addict who murdered my
husband?” asked Liah, ignoring Gadi’s remark.

“Of course I did,” Ronnie and Gadi answered together.

“I need to ask for your forgiveness, Gadi. I’m sorry I suspected
you.”

“There’s no need. I forgave you long ago. Ronnie, on the other
hand, will keep paying for suspecting me for a long, long time.”

“Gadi, would you excuse us for a minute, I need to discuss a few
private matters with Ronnie,” Liah said.

“And why would you…” Gadi began but then saw her expression.
“The bar is a much happier place to be,” he told Juanita, and they both left
for the bar laughing.

“I also should have asked for your forgiveness long ago.” Liah’s
voice cracked as she said it.

“Forget it. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that we’re
together again.”

“One evening, I missed you so much that I went to the hotel you
were staying at. I stood outside for an hour before mustering enough courage to
go inside. I saw you sitting in the lobby with a young man, Hispanic. You were
both talking excitedly. You seemed so happy and
relaxed,
it took the wind out of my sails… I just turned around and ran away, praying
you wouldn’t see me.”

“That was Javier Rodriguez, the son of the woman who told us
about the suspicious changes in the operation dates. Thanks to her, we were
able to find Roselyn. He’s brilliant, her son, and I’ve decided to help him.”

“All right.
Yes.
Maybe.
But forget about that. There’s one thing I can’t figure out. Why did Christian
kill himself?”

“He believed he had no choice. That was also one of Gadi’s
discoveries: The Chinese guy’s men were the ones who’d caused the power outage
at Christian’s house. When his wife called to report it, she was actually
speaking to his men. They’d managed to connect to her telephone line and
impersonated the electric company’s employees. I assume the Chinese man told
Christian about it and threatened to kill his wife and twins unless he
cooperated. When Christian found out, while speaking with his wife, that the
thugs were at his house that very same moment, he realized he had no choice but
to swallow the pills the Chinese guy had given him. We’ll never know if he
hoped he’d somehow manage to call for help, after his assassin left his room,
or if he simply sacrificed his own life to save his family, whom he loved so
dearly.”

“It’s frightening,” Liah’s voice turned hoarse, “just thinking
we were in the same elevator with that cold-blooded monster! And that he
attacked you, and was so close to me when I flagged the taxi…”

“It is really scary, but it’s also behind us.” Ronnie caressed
her arm, enjoying the sensation of touching her skin again.

“So what happened with TDO in the end?”

“After it turned out, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the
company was not responsible for the tragedy of the final two operations, I went
back to Accord and convinced them to invest in the company. Of course, they
tried to take advantage of the situation and had a lot of special conditions,
but following a brief negotiation process we signed the investment deal.
Yesterday, we received the FDA’s approval to continue with the clinical trials,
and right after that the money was wired to the company’s bank account. This
morning, while preparing for this trip, I got an interesting call from Mentor’s
CEO, asking if we’d be willing to sell the company for one point two billion
dollars. I must admit, I felt a primitive sense of satisfaction when I rejected
his offer.”