Noble Vision (49 page)

“But what about all the other researchers who’ll want to bankrupt the system and undermine our authority?”

“They’ll apply. We’ll stall things for a while. After the election, you’ll see what you can do. Then we won’t need to support some of the things we support now, so the priorities will change. When we toss everything in the air after you’re reelected, we’ll see how research shakes out.”

“Hmmm.”

“Think about it, Governor.”

As Clark turned to go, Burrow buzzed his secretary. “Mary, who’s my next appointment?”

“John Slater,” a pleasant voice from the phone’s speaker replied. “After that, Tess Olson. And someone arrived without an appointment—”

“I’m not seeing anyone unscheduled.”

“Okay, I’ll ask Dr. Randall Lang to leave.”

“Who?”

“Secretary Lang’s son Randall, the hospital administrator.”

Burrow and Clark looked at each other, surprised. A curious grin formed on Burrow’s face.

“Send him in, Mary. I’ll see Dr. Randall Lang after all.”

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Randy sat in the governor’s outer office, staring vacantly at a painting of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Little sleep and a long drive from Manhattan to Albany, following a stressful weekend of memorial services for his father, made staying awake a challenge. Restless with worry, Randy had awakened at 4:00 that morning. As he had sipped coffee in the kitchen, his wife had entered, wearing a black silk robe, her red hair tousled.

“I didn’t want to wake you, Beth.”

“What’s wrong, honey?” she had said, throwing an arm around his shoulders, sitting on the stool next to him at their breakfast bar.

“My job has become an exercise in being a person who’s not me.”

“I hate seeing you unhappy. I wish you could quit.”

“Not until Victoria gets her skating lessons, Stephen his piano training, and Michelle her private grade school, and not until we put all three of them through college.”

Beth had nodded. Their three children were gifted, and also expensive.

“Policing David to keep him out of the OR hasn’t made my job more pleasant.”

“I’m sure.”

“David’s going to do the second nerve-repair surgery. I don’t know how or where, but he’ll do it. Unless his experimental procedure is an unqualified success in its first human trial, he’ll lose his license, and no other state will accept him. It’ll be the end of my brother.”

“Now that he’s talking to the press, maybe public pressure—”

“The public are whores. They’ll respond to David one minute, then they’ll demand more of Burrow’s programs to take care of them. The only thing that can save David is something he won’t do—play Burrow’s game.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we have to be whores, also, to get concessions from the BOM.”

“What are you thinking of doing, honey? You’re worrying me.”

“Never mind.”

Randy had not shared with Beth the plan that had brought him to the governor’s office. His half-closed eyes suddenly sprang open at the sound of Burrow’s secretary approaching. “Dr. Lang, the governor will see you.”

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Under an historic painting of the Founding Fathers drafting the constitution, Malcolm Burrow sat with his feet up on his antique desk, cutting a hangnail with a nail clipper.

“Good afternoon, Governor. How nice of you to see me when you seem so busy.”

“Have a seat, Dr. Lang,” said Burrow. Randy sat on a dainty Victorian chair as Burrow lowered his feet and sat up. “So what brings you here?”

“I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d drop by.”

“How nice. Now what topic can we find to discuss, because you apparently didn’t bring one?”

“How about double-crossing?”

“You’ll have to talk to your brother about that.”

“I heard him say to talk to you.”

“You heard wrong.”

“That must be it! My hearing’s on the blink. I’d better get my CareFree hearing aid.”

Burrow smiled pleasantly. “If that’s all, Dr. Lang, you will excuse me.”

“I came here because I’m concerned about you, Governor.”

“And why would that be?”

“If you don’t already know it, my brother is crazy.”

“So?”

“So his patient’s eyes are healing. The nerves are doing what everyone says they can’t do; they’re growing. My brother’s going to restore the patient’s sight when he does her second surgery, which will make headlines worldwide. And you, Governor, I’m afraid, will go down in history along with the inquisitors who took pause at the idea of the Earth revolving around the sun and persecuted Galileo.”

“I appreciate your concern for my place in history, but you’re forgetting one thing, Dr. Lang: Your brother can’t do the second surgery.”

“I told you he’s crazy. He’ll do it.”

“But no hospital in the state would—”

“He doesn’t need a hospital.”

Burrow paused, as if genuinely surprised at something he had not considered. “But even if that’s true, surgery still requires an operating team, which he doesn’t have.”

“If he looks hard, he may find a couple of people in medicine who are less than elated with CareFree and willing to help.”

“If your brother’s success is guaranteed, as you’re suggesting, then what’s your problem, Dr. Lang? Surely a concern about something besides securing my proper standing in history brought you here.”

“I want my brother to do the surgery legally.”

“In case he fails?”

“Yes. And you, I suggest, should want him to do the surgery legally in case he
succeeds
. So we have a common goal, Governor.”

“We have so much in common, Dr. Lang.”

“By the extravagant promises of its charter, CareFree is supposed to support new research and treatments. The best time to establish a research institute would be now. You can name it after my father to pluck at people’s heartstrings. The institute will expand the bandwidth so that CareFree can approve experimental procedures it denied in the past. Because my father bent over backward to avoid favoritism, you can say, he was too harsh with his son. In Warren’s memory, you can lift David’s suspension and allow him to continue his experimental surgery under the auspices of the new institute. Then when David is successful, you can take all the credit. What a perfect media event right before Election Day.”

Burrow remained stone-faced, to ensure that his visitor would never suspect that he was already considering such a plan. Only Burrow’s eyes showed expression—the intensity of someone stumbling on a mother lode. “I see another matter involved here, Dr. Lang. Because you’re so concerned with securing my reelection and my proper place in history, I should think you’d want to squelch those nasty rumors that your father’s death was anything other than a terrible accident, rumors spread by your brother.”

“I could possibly make a statement about that.”

“I should think you’d want to do more than merely make a statement. I should think you’d want to campaign for me to demonstrate publicly your conviction that your father’s death was indeed an accident and not triggered by any double-cross associated with me. I should think you’d want to stand on a platform beside me with your arm around my shoulder.”

Randy said nothing. His eyes stared at a spot on the rug.

The governor smiled, leaned back, and locked his hands behind his head in repose. However, his eyes were not relaxed; they displayed more than their usual shrewdness. He noticed the pause, the change in Randy’s demeanor, the subtle signs that he was a master of detecting. Those signs told Burrow how to find the sacred in men, the way a hound sniffs a trail, and how far he could go.

“You have a strong resemblance to Warren. You’ll look very good on my platform. Don’t you want to campaign for me, Dr. Lang?”

Randy closed his eyes for an imperceptible instant. “I could possibly make a few appearances,” he said, the casual shrug of his shoulders negating an inner pain.

“I think we may have a deal, Dr. Lang.”

Randy nodded, rising from his chair. “When my brother sees me waving your campaign banner at the same time his suspension is lifted and his research approved, he’s going to fling your presents back in your face.”

“Why would he be such a fool?” said the governor sincerely.

“For an odd thing called integrity. But because so few of us possess it, it’s not worth worrying about. When David storms into my office to accuse me of colluding with you, I’ll need to call you on my phone’s loudspeaker, so he can hear, and demand that you not reinstate him for reasons I’ll give and he’ll understand. You just have to take his side against me. And you need to act as if we’re close friends,
Mack
.”

“It’s done,
Randy
.” The governor scribbled a number on notepaper and passed it to Randy as pleasantly as a shopkeeper closing a sale. “Here’s my private cell phone number. You can reach me there any time.”

Randy slipped the paper into his jacket. “Okay. And there’s also the matter of getting my brother’s staff privileges reinstated by Riverview’s board of directors.”

Burrow beamed. “I’m sure I can do something for you there.” He rose to face Randy across the desk. “Your brother will be hearing from us soon. And you’ll be hearing from my campaign manager to schedule your public appearances on my behalf.”

Randy nodded somberly and his friend Mack smiled as they ended the meeting with a handshake.

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The next day Mack Burrow stood on a podium outside the governor’s mansion with his newly appointed secretary of medicine, Dr. Henrietta Richards. He had summoned the press to make an announcement: “Secretary Lang and I frequently discussed ways of stimulating medical research through the Bureau of Medicine. Just days before he passed away, we were finalizing plans for an institute to streamline the regulatory process, so scientists could work more productively and devote themselves to cutting-edge research. Today I feel tremendous personal satisfaction at announcing the culmination of our plans.” The governor paused, lowered his eyes, and softened his voice in sadness. “I only wish Warren were alive today to see his vision become a reality.” He slowly raised his head, as if recovering from his grief. “I hereby announce the establishment of the Warren Lang Institute for Medical Research.”

No one knew what the institute was, where it was, or what it did; however, everyone was moved by a grand gesture to a fine man.

The following day the Burrow administration issued a press release:

In view of Warren Lang’s distinguished public service, the governor reviewed the recent judgment of CareFree against the secretary’s son, David Lang. Governor Burrow believes the verdict to be excessive in levying both the maximum fine and the maximum suspension, as the secretary was obviously trying to avoid partiality. In honor of Warren Lang’s memory, the governor has asked Dr. Henrietta Richards, the new secretary of medicine, to consider lessening the suspension so that Dr. David Lang can once again serve his community.

That evening Randy appeared at a political rally in Manhattan with the governor. “The age of unbridled individualism is past,” said Randy. “The man best suited to grab the reins on the new stagecoach of humanity is Mack Burrow.”

The next day a letter and a visitor appeared in David’s office, both from the Bureau of Medicine. The letter notified David that CareFree was lifting his suspension. The visitor was the first to enter David’s office in two months, except for Nicole, whose perceptions of light, motion, and color he measured and recorded there. A thin man with a pale, oblong face introduced himself as Dr. Harold Wabash, the director of the Warren Lang Institute for Medical Research, a new department within CareFree. He sat on a dusty chair.

“Dr. Lang,” he said, opening his briefcase and producing a document, “I would like to give you an application for admission to our institute. If after careful review we find your proposal acceptable, CareFree will permit you to continue your nerve-repair research by conducting animal experiments and completing the human trial you started.”

“Why the change of heart?”

“CareFree is committed to supporting medical research. With the new institute, we can now do that.”

“Why choose me?”

“Why not choose you? Your research is in the public interest.”

“Why is it in the public interest this week, when last week it wasn’t?”

“CareFree is a dynamic program. Its priorities change frequently.”

“You mean it contradicts itself left and right.”

“You may think what you wish, Dr. Lang, but I’m offering you a golden opportunity.”

“Do you mean that if I’m approved, CareFree will let me perform the second surgery on my patient, Nicole Hudson?”

“Precisely.”