"Your mother is quite an inspiration," he said with a smile. "I'll need those tests to create a baseline, but already I can tell she'll almost certainly respond to the treatment. She fits our success profile. I'd say the odds are heavily on her side." Then he darkened his look, for effect. Better let her know I don't have to do this, he reasoned."The truth is, we already have enough data on Alzheimers that I don't really need any further clinical trials. I know the parameters of what the procedure can do and what it can't. But when Grant told me about his mother's condition, I saw no reason not to work her into the trials. We're winding down now and we have some empty beds.""Don't think I'm not grateful," she said, "even though I may ask a lot of questions."She got the message, he thought. Good."Alexa, I'm now going to tell you something I've never told anyone else," he went on, feeling a tinge of sadness arise in his chest. He hadn't planned to say this, but for some reason he now wanted to. Perhaps because it was true. "My late wife, Camille, was a brilliant medical researcher. We worked together for many years, first at Johns Hopkins and then at Harvard. What took her from me was a heart condition very similar to your own. That was over a decade ago and I vowed I would dedicate my work to her. I wanted the final clinical trial in this program to be on a young person with advanced valvular stenosis, but I could never find a patient who matched that profile. But you would be perfect." He looked carefully at her. It was all so true, which made this whole scene especially poignant."I'm sorry about your wife," Ally said. "I read in your—""You see, if I can succeed with you, it would almost seem as though I'd had a second chance to save her life. You bear such a striking likeness to her in several ways. You look something like her, but more importantly I sense that you share her indomitable will.""So I'm not just another statistic to you?" She seemed to be trying to gauge the depth of his sincerity."No one here is a statistic, but you would definitely be someone special.""I see," she said still sounding noncommittal.Am I getting anywhere? he wondered Just press on. You've got to make this happen."All right, whatever you decide, we need to get some preliminaries out of the way. For one thing, we must have a complete new cardiology exam. Nothing in the file you brought presents an obvious red flag, but still, it's essential that we have an up‑to‑the‑minute stress test. Toward that end I've taken the liberty of arranging for a checkup at the New York University Faculty Practice Radiology onEast Thirty‑fourth Street. Among other things, they can run a high‑speed computed tomography screening using ultrafast X rays. Also, I'd like to see a phonocardiogram. A sonic analysis of 'murmurs' can tell us a lot about valve abnormalities. Regardless of what you decide to do here, it's a good idea for you to have this done regularly anyway.""You've already scheduled tests?" Her tone of voice told him she was mildly taken aback at the presumption."It's just that the NYU Faculty Practice is sometimes difficult to get into on short notice. They can be booked for weeks in advance. But a cardiologist I know there, Lev Amram, has agreed to make room for you this afternoon. It's a professional courtesy. There'll be no charge. After that, and assuming you want to proceed, you should get a good night's rest and then come back here as early as possible tomorrow morning. You should pack for a three‑week stay, though we'll provide you with pretty much everything you'll need here."Just get her here."You know," she said, "I was actually hoping we could do this on an outpatient basis. I know you like to have your patients here for constant observation, but I run a business that needs me there every day.""Alexa," he said, putting every last ounce of authority he had into his voice, "this is not a conventional procedure, and it's possible you might suddenly need special care of some kind. This is an experimental clinical trial, so we don't know what can happen. That's why I really must insist that you be here twenty‑four hours a day." He looked at her with great tenderness. "We're talking about the possibility of completely repairing your heart. Surely you don't expect just to drop by now and then for that.""All right, point taken," she said, "but—if we go forward with this—I'll need to hire at least one temp to be at the office while I'm gone. Somebody to at least handle the phone. That could take time.""Surely someone there could manage to handle that," he said. She's getting resistant again, he told himself. Don't let that happen. "And there's also the matter of your mother. I think it would be wise for you to be nearby during the early stages of her procedure. When her mind starts climbing out of the abyss, it's important for a close family member to be there to provide a visual and emotional anchor. It truly can make all the difference. I fully expect that her functions of attention and recall will return to those normal for a woman her age, or quite possibly even better, but it will happen a lot quicker if you're here to help her, to remind her of things.""This is a lot to digest." Ally turned and sat down in a chair. "All right, I might as well get the exam. It doesn't mean I've agreed to anything here."He heard the ambivalence and knew he had no choice but to do what he was going to have to do tomorrow."I will proceed on the assumption that you'll be entering the program. Truthfully, if you don't, a week from now your mother is going to be asking you why." He smiled. "In any case, we need to have those tests done in the city. Also some blood work here. We're affiliated with a lab. I want to check your T‑cells and certain other markers, like C‑reactive protein and homocystine. It's something you should do regularly anyway.""All right, then," she said finally. "But after that, let me go see how Mom's doing. Then I'll arrange things with Maria somehow and drive back to the city.""By the way, before I forget, we have to complete a formal application for your mother to admit her into the clinical trials, and we also need a signed liability waiver. I assume you have power of attorney for her by now. If you don't, then we may not legally be able to proceed.""I have it.""Then let's get started" he declared almost certain he had her.Chapter 14Tuesday, April 711:35a.m.Stone Aimes was in his cubicle, staring at the phone when it rang.He prayed this was the call he'd been waiting for. As a gamble, a long shot, he'd requested that Jane Tully, his former live‑in lover and the Sentinel's part‑time corporate counsel, do him a small favor. After he hacked the NIH Web site, he'd asked her to pass along just one question concerning Gerex to Winston Bartlett's corporate attorneys: Why had a patient been abruptly and mysteriously terminated, without explanation, from the clinical trials now under way by the Gerex Corporation? If that wouldn't get a rise out ofBartlett, he didn't know what would. It was the only part of the corporation's encrypted NIH file that seemed irregular. But wouldBartletttake the bait?He reached for the phone."Aimes here." Around him came the clatter of computer keys and muted laughter from the direction of the water cooler. Everybody had watched a Tivo of the latest Sunday night and they were still critiquing the shows. Mondays were everybody's day off, so Tuesdays were the first chance to catch up. The staff was also starting to rev up again for the coming week's edition, everybody with the hope that their particular assignment would have legs and make its author a household name. Stone, however, felt like this was either the first day of the rest of his life or the last day of a career built on dealing to inside straights. This cannot go on much longer, he kept telling himself; it was an unstable condition. His soul was already over the fence, keeping company with that wild, free ox he liked to muse about."Stone," came a husky female voice, strained and yet strong. Just as he'd hoped, it was Jane, whose office was down on the third floor. "Can you come down? Right now.""Did you hear back from—""Stone," she admonished her voice growing urgent, "just come down. Do it now, all right?""Sure." He paused a moment, wondering. Why did she sound so upset? Had his plan somehow backfired? "I'm on my way."He glanced up at the fluorescent light over his head like a pitiless hovering spaceship, and wondered if this was going to be the break he had been praying for. There was a nervousness in Jane's voice that indicated something major was afoot. Something was about to change.He switched off his Compaq laptop and reached for his brown corduroy jacket, which was hanging from a hook on the side of the glass‑walled cubicle. He straightened his brown knit tie as he stepped on the elevator, and for some reason he found himself thinking of his daughter, Amy.He mimed a toast. Here's looking at you, kid.She was in the fifth grade and lived with her mother, Joyce, in a small condominium nestled in the hills nearEl Cerrito, where his ex‑wife grew up. Joyce was a television producer who had left him to go back out there, where she got work as a garden designer. When he got over the shock, he finally concluded she lovedCaliforniamore than she loved him. Maybe not an unreasonable choice. But then she got custody of Amy, based solely on the fact that his income was inadequate to send her to private school inNew Yorkand the public schools were out of the question. But Joyce had agreed that if he ever had the money, she could live with him some of the time. This book, he hoped, would make that happen.He still didn't know why he and Joyce couldn't have made a go of it. It had occurred to him that there was the real possibility she had fallen in love with the idea of a dashing investigative reporter, not the grueling reality. These days she had Amy all the time except for three weeks in July, and he had so many things to regret he scarcely knew where to start.He kept a year‑old photograph of Amy on his desk, in a frame far too expensive for a snapshot of a young girl on a black horse named Zena. But it was Zena that his $1,500 a month in child support had helped to pay for, and he felt it somehow bonded them.Hi, Dad, from me and Zena, went the inscription.Why was he thinking about her now? he wondered. The answer was, because he wanted her world to be different from the one he had known as a child. He hadn't had a father around, and that had left him with a lot of anger. He didn't want the same fate for her.Amy's world, he knew, was going to be very different, no matter what he did. To be young like her and starting out was a daunting prospect these days. He wanted to make everything easier for her, but the only thing he could give her now was a measly $1,500 every month and his unshakable love.Even so, that was more than his mother, Karen, got for child support—from a natural father he had never actually seen in the flesh until he was eleven. And that was a chance encounter....So, if this book got some traction and he got some recognition, along with some economic security, he might be able to have Amy come back and live with him. It was somethingshe'd said she wanted to do, though he wasn't sure where he would keep Zena.But all in good time. Now everything depended on the book....The elevator door opened and he stepped out on the third floor. The receptionist, Rhonda, a dark‑haired resident of Avenue A who usually tried to flirt, looked at him as though he'd just been convicted of a crime and nodded with her head toward the corridor leading to Jane's office."Stone, you've really screwed up this time. You'll never guess who's in there and after your scalp. What on earth did you do?""You mean—""This is a guy I've only seen in newspaper pictures, though, needless to say, not in this upstanding rag." In her dismay, she unthinkingly reached for the pack of Virginia Slims lying next to the phone, momentarily forgetting that smoking had long‑since been forbidden in the building. "You'd better get your ass in there. Jesus, he came in with a bunch of lawyers, but then he told them to split. 'I'm going to handle the fucker myself.' Quote, unquote. Right here by my desk."Stone didn't know, with absolute certainty, who she was talking about, but surely it had to be ... My God, he thought with a thrill, maybe it worked. Maybe I've smoked him out."Truth tellers have nothing to fear, Rhonda." He winked at her. "I'm protected by the sword of the Lord. 'He is my rod and my staff. He leadeth me beside still waters.'""You're crazy, you know that?" She'd remembered where she was and began putting the cigarette back into the pack. Then she smoothed her short black hair. "He leadeth you into the shit, handsome. That's where He 'leadeth' you. You're adorable, but you're also a sane person's nightmare.""Thanks," he said giving a thumbs‑up as he walked past her desk. "I appreciate your unstinting praise."He headed on down the hall, the plush gray carpet soft against his feet. Could this be the break? he wondered feeling his hopes cautiously rising. Had the Big Man himself shown up? Could it be that there was something funny going on with that patient who got dropped?But what? He still didn't have a clue.As he walked into the room, he felt as though time just stopped. He had fantasized about this moment more and more as the years went by. Now here it was. What next? He thought he had been emotionally prepared, but now he realized he wasn't. Were they going to acknowledge the past, or were they just going to act as though nothing existed between them?That first chance meeting, when Stone was eleven, had been when his mother threatened to sueBartlettfor formal child support. The threat of publicity caused the matter to be immediately settled, as she'd hoped it would be. Stone had been sitting in the law firm's reception area whenBartlettwalked through. Each knew who the other was, but Bartlett just stopped and glared at him for a moment before moving cm. Stone had sized up the man who had abandoned his mother and only barely managed to suppress an urge to leap up and lash out at him, if only to say, Look at me. I'm here.He had not been in the same room with his father since, but this time around he was definitely noticed.Winston Bartlett looked just as he did in news photos. He was in his late sixties, with thinning blond hair that was cut too long and shaggy in the back. Stone's first thought was that the tightfisted old rou6 should spring for a better barber.But it wasBartlett's eyes that really caught him. They were strong and filled with anger, but they also contained a hint of desperation. They were very different eyes from the haughty dismissal he remembered from a lifetime ago.Good, Stone thought. I've finally made you squirm, Daddy dearest. Nothing else I've done has ever gotten the slightest notice from you.For a moment they stood sizing up each other."Stone," Jane said, "this is—""I know," he said.Even though they had been practically married, he had nevertold her that he was the unacknowledged son of Winston Bartlett. He had never told anyone. To him, his father had died before he was born and that was the story he stuck to.He naturally had a lot of complex feelings about that. He had seen his mother struggling to give them a decent life, hoofing in the chorus line of Broadway shows long after she should have, and a lot of his anger remained. Now, though, Stone Aimes wanted nothing from the old man. Except the truth."Miss Tully,"Bartlettbarked, glowering at her, "I think you’d better leave us alone.""Of course," Jane said with a wry look, and in a tactful instant she had slipped past them and out, gently closing the office door behind her."I don't believe it,"Bartlettsaid turning back after he watched her leave. "You're trying to blackmail me, you little prick. Which tells me you're not half as smart as I thought you were."Wait a minute! Did that mean Winston Bartlett has been following my career? Stone felt a thrill in spite of himself."I never knew you thought about me, one way or the other."He was experiencing a curious sensation. Although he was in the same room with his father for only the second time in his life, it felt natural. They were having one of those age‑old arguments. The younger generation had just challenged the older generation, and because of that sparks were set to fly.This was the kind of thing that was supposed to happen between fathers and sons all the time. In fact, it felt good. It felt normal. More than that, he was finally being acknowledged.My God, he thought, I share DNA with this man and yet we have so little in common.Then he had a more scary thought: Maybe we have a lot in common."I think it's time you told me what the hell you're up to,"Bartlettdeclared, ignoring the jibe. "How did you—""I'm trying to do us both a favor, but you're not cooperating. If the Gerex clinical trials are going half as well as I think they are, then it seems to me you've got everything to gain by publicity. I'm trying to write the first book that tells the Gerex story. So why the hell won't your legal flunkies let me interview Karl Van de Vliet?""That's actually none of your business."Bartlett's eyes abruptly turned cloudy. "I want you to stay the hell away from—""Right now I'm the best friend you've got in this world. Believe me." Stone couldn't believe he was saying this. For how many years had he loathed and despised this man? But now, for the first time, he actually needed something from him. "I want to tell the real story of what Van de Vliet has accomplished. What Gerex has accomplished. It'll be the latest word on stem cell technology. But your office keeps giving me the runaround.""We have a damned good reason to keep our work proprietary just now,"Bartlettdeclared. "This is like the Manhattan Project." His eyes bored in. "The results of the clinical trials are going to cause a press feeding frenzy, and I want to be in a position to control that when the time comes."This is incredible, Stone told himself. We 're talking as though we have no history. You have a granddaughter by me whom you've never even seen. Don't you at least care about her?"I've got a pretty good idea of what Gerex is doing and I think it's going to be a milestone in medical history." Stone looked at him, trying to figure him out after all these years. For all his bluster, Winston Bartlett seemed like a man with a lot of vulnerabilities and insecurities. He hadn't expected it. "It so happens I'm a damned good medical reporter and all I'm asking is to be the Boswell to Van de Vliet's Johnson. I want to be the one to chronicle this historic moment. There's no one who can do it better, believe me.Illeven agree to embargo everything until I get a green light from Gerex. But I want to start now and get it right""You can't ethically know any details of the work,"Bartlettdeclared. "So the question I'm waiting to hear answered is, how did you find out–?""I can't reveal my source." Because, he told himself, I still don't have one. All 1 have is guesswork. "But I know that Karl Van de Vliet is running the first successful clinical trials using stem cell procedures. And I'm going to report on it whether you want me to or not. So are you going to help make sure my facts are accurate?""I'm going to help make sure there's no reporting at all till I say so,"Bartlettwent on. "Anything you print will be— by definition—irresponsible speculation and you can expect enough legal action to—""The original schedule was that they'll be finished in less than a month. I'm not going to publish anything before that I just want to have the manuscript I've been working on ready when the Gerex story finally can be told. It'll be the final chapter, the payoff. I'm going to describe your clinical trials, and it would be better for all concerned if it could be the 'authorized' version. If you force me to publish without your cooperation, it's not going to do either one of us as much good."Again he wondered whyBartlettwas so upset. What was it about that one terminated patient that made him freak when he found out somebody knew? So freaked he charged up here personally, all the way from his fancy corporate building in TriBeCa, to breathe fire and brimstone and yell threats?"Do I have to get a court injunction to put a stop to this corporate espionage?"Bartlettdemanded."Everything I know is in the public domain somewhere." Actually, Stone thought that's a serious out‑and‑out lie. Nobody knows that a patient got mysteriously terminated from the trials. "I just want to work together with you."Even as he was saying it, Stone Aimes realized that it was not in the cards, now or ever. He watched Winston Bartlett's eyes narrow."What kind of contract do you have with this paper?""Quite frankly, the terms of the contracts for employees of this paper are confidential.""I knew I should have kept those fucking lawyers here. It takes a shark to deal with a shark." Then he seemed to catch himself. "So if you're planning on writing anything about this, you'd be well advised to get yourself an attorney, because you're sure as hell going to need one.""Thanks, Dad." It just came out. Maybe he'd been wanting to say it all his life.Bartlett's look was shock for a moment, and then it turned pensive."You don't think I take an interest in you, but I do.""Yeah, you've really been around through thick and thin." He felt the old anger of abandonment welling up."I took care of your mother. Whatever she did was beyond my control." The eyes were switching to chagrin. "Do you have the slightest idea what I could do for you? I've . . . I'm not getting any younger and I've been thinking about . . . with your medical background you could easily have a place . . . I mean, if you've got a head for business, then someday . . . So why do you fucking want to do this now? "Stone listened, trying to internalize what he was hearing. Not only did Winston Bartlett know about him, he was finally thinking about acknowledging him. Sort of.Or was this just a bribe to hush him up?Either way, it was too little, too late."You've never given me anything and I've sure as hell never asked. I'd just like for you to get out of my way so I can do my job."Bartlettstalked toward the door. Then he turned back."You'd better think long and hard about what you're getting into. You can ask some of the two‑bit reporters I've dealt with in the past. They're fucking roadkill."With that pronouncement, he slammed the door and was gone.Stone stared after him, feeling his heart pump. It wasn't the threat; it was the mixed emotions. For a moment, in spite of his better judgment, he'd felt like he had a father, but thenBartlettbecame the enemy again.Then the door cracked open and Jane appeared, dismay in her eyes."What wasthatabout?""What waswhatabout?""I've gotta tell you, that man doesn't know how to keep his voice down. What was that about helping your mother? Karen. You never talked about her much, but I sure don't remember you ever saying anything about her and Winston Bartlett.""That's because I didn't. Jane, there are parts of my past life that I try not to think about any more than I have to.""After the fact, it's nice to know that there were parts of your life that you didn't see fit to share with me." She sniffed."Maybe someday.""It's a little late for that," she declared, hurt lingering in her voice. "Look, Stone, I don't know what you know that's gotBartlettso upset, but he's not the best guy in the world to piss off. He stormed in here, fit to be tied, personally demanding to know how the hell did you have proprietary information about the Gerex Corporation's clinical trials. He already seemed to know who you were. Now I realize there's more to the story, somewhere back there in time.""And what did you tell him?""I was completely blindsided for which I thank you. I told him I didn't know anything about your sources, but I wouldn't reveal them even if I did. He's our landlord but that doesn't give him subpoena power. He doesn't have the right to barge in here and try to intimidate the Sentinel's staff. We're current on the rent."Stone felt a tinge of nostalgia. Sometimes her gold‑plated bitchiness was the very thing he admired most about her."Well, thanks for sticking up for me. Maybe I've got him upset enough that he'll come around eventually and decide it's better to have me inside the tent, where I can be monitored."She snorted at the improbability of that."No, Stone, as usual you're an idiot idealist and dreamer. I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen.Bartlettis most likely on his cell phone right now, as we speak, threatening the Family, trying to get you fired. He's saying you're stealing proprietary information somehow and he's going to sue the Sentinel for our last dime if we print a syllable of anything you write about him. That's his next move, Stone. I expect my phone to ring in approximately fourteen and a half minutes. Their attorneys are going to tell me to tell Jay to get you under control. That's what's going to happen. The Family does not want Winston Bartlett pissed off. Especially by the likes of you, somebody who's always writing muckraking articles that make them real nervous. Does anything I've said have the ring of logic to you? Or are you living in some never‑never land where the facts don't fucking penetrate?"Hey, he thought, that's pretty good. Jane is in DEFCON 1 mode today."Depends on what you look at, the doughnut or the hole. That is, the stick approach or the carrot. I'm betting he's going to split the difference and try a little of both. He's going to cool off and then offer me a few crumbs as an inducement to go away.""God, you're so naive." She laughed in derision. "Winston Bartlett is not accustomed to having to ask anybody for anything. So the fact he came up here this morning to try to get you to back off on whatever it is you're doing must mean you've really got him psyched." She stared at him. "What is it, Stone? Tell me. What do you have on him?""Right now I'm more interested in what he thinks I mighthave. And the truth is, I don't really know. But it must be something pretty big.""Stone, why is it so hard to hate you? You can make a person's life miserable and that stupid person will still root for you. God, I don't know what it was about you." She paused a moment as though thinking. "Maybe you're just too honest. Or just too sincere. Maybe that's what it was.""Don't try to butter me up. I know my weaknesses. But dammit, Jane, I'm this close to the story of the century. And the paranoid zillionaire who was in here just now yelling at me is trying to freeze me out""Well, please don't involve me in this anymore, Stone. You've just provided me with a week's worth of unnecessary shit. From now on, any communicating you want to do with Gerex's attorneys is going to have to be done by someone else. Trust me when I tell you I do not need this in my life.""Sweetie, wait till you see what I'm on the track of. What the Gerex Corporation is doing at a small clinic out inNew Jerseyis going to change everything we know about medicine. And it's going to blow wide open the second they finally let the press in on what's happening at the clinical trials they're now winding up for the NIH. When they finally hold that big press briefing, I want to have a manuscript already in copyediting. I want to be first.""Then why is he so worked up over your question?" she mused. "About somebody being dropped from the clinical trials?" She paused "Incidentally, I can do without being called 'sweetie' by a man I'm no longer screwing.""Sorry about that." He winced. It did just sort of slip out in this orgy of intimacy. "But what I thinkBartlettdesperately doesn't want me to find out is the reason that patient was dropped. And he's afraid I'm getting close. Unfortunately, I'm not, and I just took my best shot at prying the information out of him and—you're probably right—blew it." He was turning to leave. "But I'm, by God going to find out somehow. Just see if you can keep me from getting fired for a little while longer. If I'm still working for the Sentinel three months from now, you may get honorable mention in my Pulitzer acceptance."It was bluff talk. But he believed it with every fiber of his body. You've gotta believe, right?Come on, Ally, get lucky. Find out who that mystery patient was. The way things look now, you 're the only shot I've got left.
"Your mother is quite an inspiration," he said with a smile. "I'll need those tests to create a baseline, but already I can tell she'll almost certainly respond to the treatment. She fits our success profile. I'd say the odds are heavily on her side." Then he darkened his look, for effect. Better let her know I don't have to do this, he reasoned.
"The truth is, we already have enough data on Alzheimers that I don't really need any further clinical trials. I know the parameters of what the procedure can do and what it can't. But when Grant told me about his mother's condition, I saw no reason not to work her into the trials. We're winding down now and we have some empty beds."
"Don't think I'm not grateful," she said, "even though I may ask a lot of questions."
She got the message, he thought. Good.
"Alexa, I'm now going to tell you something I've never told anyone else," he went on, feeling a tinge of sadness arise in his chest. He hadn't planned to say this, but for some reason he now wanted to. Perhaps because it was true. "My late wife, Camille, was a brilliant medical researcher. We worked together for many years, first at Johns Hopkins and then at Harvard. What took her from me was a heart condition very similar to your own. That was over a decade ago and I vowed I would dedicate my work to her. I wanted the final clinical trial in this program to be on a young person with advanced valvular stenosis, but I could never find a patient who matched that profile. But you would be perfect." He looked carefully at her. It was all so true, which made this whole scene especially poignant.
"I'm sorry about your wife," Ally said. "I read in your—"
"You see, if I can succeed with you, it would almost seem as though I'd had a second chance to save her life. You bear such a striking likeness to her in several ways. You look something like her, but more importantly I sense that you share her indomitable will."
"So I'm not just another statistic to you?" She seemed to be trying to gauge the depth of his sincerity.
"No one here is a statistic, but you would definitely be someone special."
"I see," she said still sounding noncommittal.
Am I getting anywhere? he wondered Just press on. You've got to make this happen.
"All right, whatever you decide, we need to get some preliminaries out of the way. For one thing, we must have a complete new cardiology exam. Nothing in the file you brought presents an obvious red flag, but still, it's essential that we have an up‑to‑the‑minute stress test. Toward that end I've taken the liberty of arranging for a checkup at the New York University Faculty Practice Radiology onEast Thirty‑fourth Street. Among other things, they can run a high‑speed computed tomography screening using ultrafast X rays. Also, I'd like to see a phonocardiogram. A sonic analysis of 'murmurs' can tell us a lot about valve abnormalities. Regardless of what you decide to do here, it's a good idea for you to have this done regularly anyway."
"You've already scheduled tests?" Her tone of voice told him she was mildly taken aback at the presumption.
"It's just that the NYU Faculty Practice is sometimes difficult to get into on short notice. They can be booked for weeks in advance. But a cardiologist I know there, Lev Amram, has agreed to make room for you this afternoon. It's a professional courtesy. There'll be no charge. After that, and assuming you want to proceed, you should get a good night's rest and then come back here as early as possible tomorrow morning. You should pack for a three‑week stay, though we'll provide you with pretty much everything you'll need here."
Just get her here.
"You know," she said, "I was actually hoping we could do this on an outpatient basis. I know you like to have your patients here for constant observation, but I run a business that needs me there every day."
"Alexa," he said, putting every last ounce of authority he had into his voice, "this is not a conventional procedure, and it's possible you might suddenly need special care of some kind. This is an experimental clinical trial, so we don't know what can happen. That's why I really must insist that you be here twenty‑four hours a day." He looked at her with great tenderness. "We're talking about the possibility of completely repairing your heart. Surely you don't expect just to drop by now and then for that."
"All right, point taken," she said, "but—if we go forward with this—I'll need to hire at least one temp to be at the office while I'm gone. Somebody to at least handle the phone. That could take time."
"Surely someone there could manage to handle that," he said. She's getting resistant again, he told himself. Don't let that happen. "And there's also the matter of your mother. I think it would be wise for you to be nearby during the early stages of her procedure. When her mind starts climbing out of the abyss, it's important for a close family member to be there to provide a visual and emotional anchor. It truly can make all the difference. I fully expect that her functions of attention and recall will return to those normal for a woman her age, or quite possibly even better, but it will happen a lot quicker if you're here to help her, to remind her of things."
"This is a lot to digest." Ally turned and sat down in a chair. "All right, I might as well get the exam. It doesn't mean I've agreed to anything here."
He heard the ambivalence and knew he had no choice but to do what he was going to have to do tomorrow.
"I will proceed on the assumption that you'll be entering the program. Truthfully, if you don't, a week from now your mother is going to be asking you why." He smiled. "In any case, we need to have those tests done in the city. Also some blood work here. We're affiliated with a lab. I want to check your T‑cells and certain other markers, like C‑reactive protein and homocystine. It's something you should do regularly anyway."
"All right, then," she said finally. "But after that, let me go see how Mom's doing. Then I'll arrange things with Maria somehow and drive back to the city."
"By the way, before I forget, we have to complete a formal application for your mother to admit her into the clinical trials, and we also need a signed liability waiver. I assume you have power of attorney for her by now. If you don't, then we may not legally be able to proceed."
"I have it."
"Then let's get started" he declared almost certain he had her.
Tuesday, April 7
11:35a.m.
Stone Aimes was in his cubicle, staring at the phone when it rang.
He prayed this was the call he'd been waiting for. As a gamble, a long shot, he'd requested that Jane Tully, his former live‑in lover and the Sentinel's part‑time corporate counsel, do him a small favor. After he hacked the NIH Web site, he'd asked her to pass along just one question concerning Gerex to Winston Bartlett's corporate attorneys: Why had a patient been abruptly and mysteriously terminated, without explanation, from the clinical trials now under way by the Gerex Corporation? If that wouldn't get a rise out ofBartlett, he didn't know what would. It was the only part of the corporation's encrypted NIH file that seemed irregular. But wouldBartletttake the bait?
He reached for the phone.
"Aimes here." Around him came the clatter of computer keys and muted laughter from the direction of the water cooler. Everybody had watched a Tivo of the latest Sunday night and they were still critiquing the shows. Mondays were everybody's day off, so Tuesdays were the first chance to catch up. The staff was also starting to rev up again for the coming week's edition, everybody with the hope that their particular assignment would have legs and make its author a household name. Stone, however, felt like this was either the first day of the rest of his life or the last day of a career built on dealing to inside straights. This cannot go on much longer, he kept telling himself; it was an unstable condition. His soul was already over the fence, keeping company with that wild, free ox he liked to muse about.
"Stone," came a husky female voice, strained and yet strong. Just as he'd hoped, it was Jane, whose office was down on the third floor. "Can you come down? Right now."
"Did you hear back from—"
"Stone," she admonished her voice growing urgent, "just come down. Do it now, all right?"
"Sure." He paused a moment, wondering. Why did she sound so upset? Had his plan somehow backfired? "I'm on my way."
He glanced up at the fluorescent light over his head like a pitiless hovering spaceship, and wondered if this was going to be the break he had been praying for. There was a nervousness in Jane's voice that indicated something major was afoot. Something was about to change.
He switched off his Compaq laptop and reached for his brown corduroy jacket, which was hanging from a hook on the side of the glass‑walled cubicle. He straightened his brown knit tie as he stepped on the elevator, and for some reason he found himself thinking of his daughter, Amy.
He mimed a toast. Here's looking at you, kid.
She was in the fifth grade and lived with her mother, Joyce, in a small condominium nestled in the hills nearEl Cerrito, where his ex‑wife grew up. Joyce was a television producer who had left him to go back out there, where she got work as a garden designer. When he got over the shock, he finally concluded she lovedCaliforniamore than she loved him. Maybe not an unreasonable choice. But then she got custody of Amy, based solely on the fact that his income was inadequate to send her to private school inNew Yorkand the public schools were out of the question. But Joyce had agreed that if he ever had the money, she could live with him some of the time. This book, he hoped, would make that happen.
He still didn't know why he and Joyce couldn't have made a go of it. It had occurred to him that there was the real possibility she had fallen in love with the idea of a dashing investigative reporter, not the grueling reality. These days she had Amy all the time except for three weeks in July, and he had so many things to regret he scarcely knew where to start.
He kept a year‑old photograph of Amy on his desk, in a frame far too expensive for a snapshot of a young girl on a black horse named Zena. But it was Zena that his $1,500 a month in child support had helped to pay for, and he felt it somehow bonded them.
Hi, Dad, from me and Zena, went the inscription.
Why was he thinking about her now? he wondered. The answer was, because he wanted her world to be different from the one he had known as a child. He hadn't had a father around, and that had left him with a lot of anger. He didn't want the same fate for her.
Amy's world, he knew, was going to be very different, no matter what he did. To be young like her and starting out was a daunting prospect these days. He wanted to make everything easier for her, but the only thing he could give her now was a measly $1,500 every month and his unshakable love.
Even so, that was more than his mother, Karen, got for child support—from a natural father he had never actually seen in the flesh until he was eleven. And that was a chance encounter....
So, if this book got some traction and he got some recognition, along with some economic security, he might be able to have Amy come back and live with him. It was something
she'd said she wanted to do, though he wasn't sure where he would keep Zena.
But all in good time. Now everything depended on the book....
The elevator door opened and he stepped out on the third floor. The receptionist, Rhonda, a dark‑haired resident of Avenue A who usually tried to flirt, looked at him as though he'd just been convicted of a crime and nodded with her head toward the corridor leading to Jane's office.
"Stone, you've really screwed up this time. You'll never guess who's in there and after your scalp. What on earth did you do?"
"You mean—"
"This is a guy I've only seen in newspaper pictures, though, needless to say, not in this upstanding rag." In her dismay, she unthinkingly reached for the pack of Virginia Slims lying next to the phone, momentarily forgetting that smoking had long‑since been forbidden in the building. "You'd better get your ass in there. Jesus, he came in with a bunch of lawyers, but then he told them to split. 'I'm going to handle the fucker myself.' Quote, unquote. Right here by my desk."
Stone didn't know, with absolute certainty, who she was talking about, but surely it had to be ... My God, he thought with a thrill, maybe it worked. Maybe I've smoked him out.
"Truth tellers have nothing to fear, Rhonda." He winked at her. "I'm protected by the sword of the Lord. 'He is my rod and my staff. He leadeth me beside still waters.'"
"You're crazy, you know that?" She'd remembered where she was and began putting the cigarette back into the pack. Then she smoothed her short black hair. "He leadeth you into the shit, handsome. That's where He 'leadeth' you. You're adorable, but you're also a sane person's nightmare."
"Thanks," he said giving a thumbs‑up as he walked past her desk. "I appreciate your unstinting praise."
He headed on down the hall, the plush gray carpet soft against his feet. Could this be the break? he wondered feeling his hopes cautiously rising. Had the Big Man himself shown up? Could it be that there was something funny going on with that patient who got dropped?
But what? He still didn't have a clue.
As he walked into the room, he felt as though time just stopped. He had fantasized about this moment more and more as the years went by. Now here it was. What next? He thought he had been emotionally prepared, but now he realized he wasn't. Were they going to acknowledge the past, or were they just going to act as though nothing existed between them?
That first chance meeting, when Stone was eleven, had been when his mother threatened to sueBartlettfor formal child support. The threat of publicity caused the matter to be immediately settled, as she'd hoped it would be. Stone had been sitting in the law firm's reception area whenBartlettwalked through. Each knew who the other was, but Bartlett just stopped and glared at him for a moment before moving cm. Stone had sized up the man who had abandoned his mother and only barely managed to suppress an urge to leap up and lash out at him, if only to say, Look at me. I'm here.
He had not been in the same room with his father since, but this time around he was definitely noticed.
Winston Bartlett looked just as he did in news photos. He was in his late sixties, with thinning blond hair that was cut too long and shaggy in the back. Stone's first thought was that the tightfisted old rou6 should spring for a better barber.
But it wasBartlett's eyes that really caught him. They were strong and filled with anger, but they also contained a hint of desperation. They were very different eyes from the haughty dismissal he remembered from a lifetime ago.
Good, Stone thought. I've finally made you squirm, Daddy dearest. Nothing else I've done has ever gotten the slightest notice from you.
For a moment they stood sizing up each other.
"Stone," Jane said, "this is—"
"I know," he said.
Even though they had been practically married, he had never
told her that he was the unacknowledged son of Winston Bartlett. He had never told anyone. To him, his father had died before he was born and that was the story he stuck to.
He naturally had a lot of complex feelings about that. He had seen his mother struggling to give them a decent life, hoofing in the chorus line of Broadway shows long after she should have, and a lot of his anger remained. Now, though, Stone Aimes wanted nothing from the old man. Except the truth.
"Miss Tully,"Bartlettbarked, glowering at her, "I think you’d better leave us alone."
"Of course," Jane said with a wry look, and in a tactful instant she had slipped past them and out, gently closing the office door behind her.
"I don't believe it,"Bartlettsaid turning back after he watched her leave. "You're trying to blackmail me, you little prick. Which tells me you're not half as smart as I thought you were."
Wait a minute! Did that mean Winston Bartlett has been following my career? Stone felt a thrill in spite of himself.
"I never knew you thought about me, one way or the other."
He was experiencing a curious sensation. Although he was in the same room with his father for only the second time in his life, it felt natural. They were having one of those age‑old arguments. The younger generation had just challenged the older generation, and because of that sparks were set to fly.
This was the kind of thing that was supposed to happen between fathers and sons all the time. In fact, it felt good. It felt normal. More than that, he was finally being acknowledged.
My God, he thought, I share DNA with this man and yet we have so little in common.
Then he had a more scary thought: Maybe we have a lot in common.
"I think it's time you told me what the hell you're up to,"Bartlettdeclared, ignoring the jibe. "How did you—"
"I'm trying to do us both a favor, but you're not cooperating. If the Gerex clinical trials are going half as well as I think they are, then it seems to me you've got everything to gain by publicity. I'm trying to write the first book that tells the Gerex story. So why the hell won't your legal flunkies let me interview Karl Van de Vliet?"
"That's actually none of your business."Bartlett's eyes abruptly turned cloudy. "I want you to stay the hell away from—"
"Right now I'm the best friend you've got in this world. Believe me." Stone couldn't believe he was saying this. For how many years had he loathed and despised this man? But now, for the first time, he actually needed something from him. "I want to tell the real story of what Van de Vliet has accomplished. What Gerex has accomplished. It'll be the latest word on stem cell technology. But your office keeps giving me the runaround."
"We have a damned good reason to keep our work proprietary just now,"Bartlettdeclared. "This is like the Manhattan Project." His eyes bored in. "The results of the clinical trials are going to cause a press feeding frenzy, and I want to be in a position to control that when the time comes."
This is incredible, Stone told himself. We 're talking as though we have no history. You have a granddaughter by me whom you've never even seen. Don't you at least care about her?
"I've got a pretty good idea of what Gerex is doing and I think it's going to be a milestone in medical history." Stone looked at him, trying to figure him out after all these years. For all his bluster, Winston Bartlett seemed like a man with a lot of vulnerabilities and insecurities. He hadn't expected it. "It so happens I'm a damned good medical reporter and all I'm asking is to be the Boswell to Van de Vliet's Johnson. I want to be the one to chronicle this historic moment. There's no one who can do it better, believe me.Illeven agree to embargo everything until I get a green light from Gerex. But I want to start now and get it right"
"You can't ethically know any details of the work,"Bartlettdeclared. "So the question I'm waiting to hear answered is, how did you find out–?"
"I can't reveal my source." Because, he told himself, I still don't have one. All 1 have is guesswork. "But I know that Karl Van de Vliet is running the first successful clinical trials using stem cell procedures. And I'm going to report on it whether you want me to or not. So are you going to help make sure my facts are accurate?"
"I'm going to help make sure there's no reporting at all till I say so,"Bartlettwent on. "Anything you print will be— by definition—irresponsible speculation and you can expect enough legal action to—"
"The original schedule was that they'll be finished in less than a month. I'm not going to publish anything before that I just want to have the manuscript I've been working on ready when the Gerex story finally can be told. It'll be the final chapter, the payoff. I'm going to describe your clinical trials, and it would be better for all concerned if it could be the 'authorized' version. If you force me to publish without your cooperation, it's not going to do either one of us as much good."
Again he wondered whyBartlettwas so upset. What was it about that one terminated patient that made him freak when he found out somebody knew? So freaked he charged up here personally, all the way from his fancy corporate building in TriBeCa, to breathe fire and brimstone and yell threats?
"Do I have to get a court injunction to put a stop to this corporate espionage?"Bartlettdemanded.
"Everything I know is in the public domain somewhere." Actually, Stone thought that's a serious out‑and‑out lie. Nobody knows that a patient got mysteriously terminated from the trials. "I just want to work together with you."
Even as he was saying it, Stone Aimes realized that it was not in the cards, now or ever. He watched Winston Bartlett's eyes narrow.
"What kind of contract do you have with this paper?"
"Quite frankly, the terms of the contracts for employees of this paper are confidential."
"I knew I should have kept those fucking lawyers here. It takes a shark to deal with a shark." Then he seemed to catch himself. "So if you're planning on writing anything about this, you'd be well advised to get yourself an attorney, because you're sure as hell going to need one."
"Thanks, Dad." It just came out. Maybe he'd been wanting to say it all his life.
Bartlett's look was shock for a moment, and then it turned pensive.
"You don't think I take an interest in you, but I do."
"Yeah, you've really been around through thick and thin." He felt the old anger of abandonment welling up.
"I took care of your mother. Whatever she did was beyond my control." The eyes were switching to chagrin. "Do you have the slightest idea what I could do for you? I've . . . I'm not getting any younger and I've been thinking about . . . with your medical background you could easily have a place . . . I mean, if you've got a head for business, then someday . . . So why do you fucking want to do this now? "
Stone listened, trying to internalize what he was hearing. Not only did Winston Bartlett know about him, he was finally thinking about acknowledging him. Sort of.
Or was this just a bribe to hush him up?
Either way, it was too little, too late.
"You've never given me anything and I've sure as hell never asked. I'd just like for you to get out of my way so I can do my job."
Bartlettstalked toward the door. Then he turned back.
"You'd better think long and hard about what you're getting into. You can ask some of the two‑bit reporters I've dealt with in the past. They're fucking roadkill."
With that pronouncement, he slammed the door and was gone.
Stone stared after him, feeling his heart pump. It wasn't the threat; it was the mixed emotions. For a moment, in spite of his better judgment, he'd felt like he had a father, but thenBartlettbecame the enemy again.
Then the door cracked open and Jane appeared, dismay in her eyes.
"What wasthatabout?"
"What waswhatabout?"
"I've gotta tell you, that man doesn't know how to keep his voice down. What was that about helping your mother? Karen. You never talked about her much, but I sure don't remember you ever saying anything about her and Winston Bartlett."
"That's because I didn't. Jane, there are parts of my past life that I try not to think about any more than I have to."
"After the fact, it's nice to know that there were parts of your life that you didn't see fit to share with me." She sniffed.
"Maybe someday."
"It's a little late for that," she declared, hurt lingering in her voice. "Look, Stone, I don't know what you know that's gotBartlettso upset, but he's not the best guy in the world to piss off. He stormed in here, fit to be tied, personally demanding to know how the hell did you have proprietary information about the Gerex Corporation's clinical trials. He already seemed to know who you were. Now I realize there's more to the story, somewhere back there in time."
"And what did you tell him?"
"I was completely blindsided for which I thank you. I told him I didn't know anything about your sources, but I wouldn't reveal them even if I did. He's our landlord but that doesn't give him subpoena power. He doesn't have the right to barge in here and try to intimidate the Sentinel's staff. We're current on the rent."
Stone felt a tinge of nostalgia. Sometimes her gold‑plated bitchiness was the very thing he admired most about her.
"Well, thanks for sticking up for me. Maybe I've got him upset enough that he'll come around eventually and decide it's better to have me inside the tent, where I can be monitored."
She snorted at the improbability of that.
"No, Stone, as usual you're an idiot idealist and dreamer. I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen.Bartlettis most likely on his cell phone right now, as we speak, threatening the Family, trying to get you fired. He's saying you're stealing proprietary information somehow and he's going to sue the Sentinel for our last dime if we print a syllable of anything you write about him. That's his next move, Stone. I expect my phone to ring in approximately fourteen and a half minutes. Their attorneys are going to tell me to tell Jay to get you under control. That's what's going to happen. The Family does not want Winston Bartlett pissed off. Especially by the likes of you, somebody who's always writing muckraking articles that make them real nervous. Does anything I've said have the ring of logic to you? Or are you living in some never‑never land where the facts don't fucking penetrate?"
Hey, he thought, that's pretty good. Jane is in DEFCON 1 mode today.
"Depends on what you look at, the doughnut or the hole. That is, the stick approach or the carrot. I'm betting he's going to split the difference and try a little of both. He's going to cool off and then offer me a few crumbs as an inducement to go away."
"God, you're so naive." She laughed in derision. "Winston Bartlett is not accustomed to having to ask anybody for anything. So the fact he came up here this morning to try to get you to back off on whatever it is you're doing must mean you've really got him psyched." She stared at him. "What is it, Stone? Tell me. What do you have on him?"
"Right now I'm more interested in what he thinks I might
have. And the truth is, I don't really know. But it must be something pretty big."
"Stone, why is it so hard to hate you? You can make a person's life miserable and that stupid person will still root for you. God, I don't know what it was about you." She paused a moment as though thinking. "Maybe you're just too honest. Or just too sincere. Maybe that's what it was."
"Don't try to butter me up. I know my weaknesses. But dammit, Jane, I'm this close to the story of the century. And the paranoid zillionaire who was in here just now yelling at me is trying to freeze me out"
"Well, please don't involve me in this anymore, Stone. You've just provided me with a week's worth of unnecessary shit. From now on, any communicating you want to do with Gerex's attorneys is going to have to be done by someone else. Trust me when I tell you I do not need this in my life."
"Sweetie, wait till you see what I'm on the track of. What the Gerex Corporation is doing at a small clinic out inNew Jerseyis going to change everything we know about medicine. And it's going to blow wide open the second they finally let the press in on what's happening at the clinical trials they're now winding up for the NIH. When they finally hold that big press briefing, I want to have a manuscript already in copyediting. I want to be first."
"Then why is he so worked up over your question?" she mused. "About somebody being dropped from the clinical trials?" She paused "Incidentally, I can do without being called 'sweetie' by a man I'm no longer screwing."
"Sorry about that." He winced. It did just sort of slip out in this orgy of intimacy. "But what I thinkBartlettdesperately doesn't want me to find out is the reason that patient was dropped. And he's afraid I'm getting close. Unfortunately, I'm not, and I just took my best shot at prying the information out of him and—you're probably right—blew it." He was turning to leave. "But I'm, by God going to find out somehow. Just see if you can keep me from getting fired for a little while longer. If I'm still working for the Sentinel three months from now, you may get honorable mention in my Pulitzer acceptance."
It was bluff talk. But he believed it with every fiber of his body. You've gotta believe, right?
Come on, Ally, get lucky. Find out who that mystery patient was. The way things look now, you 're the only shot I've got left.