Fever Dream

Hayward glanced over at Pendergast. They both rose simultaneously, walked over to the doorway, and pushed through.

They found themselves in a pleasant, although somewhat spartan, office. A man who looked more like a professor than a CEO, with glasses, a tweed jacket, and khaki pants, was conferring with the secretary in front of a large desk. His white hair was carefully combed, and a white brush mustache sat above lips pursed in irritation as he watched them enter.

"This is a private office!" the secretary said.

"I understand you people are police officers," said Dalquist. "Now, if you have a warrant, I'd like to see it."

"We don't have a warrant," said Hayward. "We were hoping to speak to you informally. However, if we need a warrant, we'll go get one."

A hesitation. "If I knew what this was all about, that might not be necessary."

Hayward turned to Pendergast. "Special Agent Pendergast, perhaps Mr. Dalquist is right and we should get a warrant after all. By the book, I always say."

"It might be advisable at that, Captain Hayward. Of course, word of the warrant might get out."

Dalquist sighed. "Please sit down. Miss Farmer, I'll handle it from here, thank you. Please close the door on your way out."

The secretary left, but neither Hayward nor Pendergast sat down.

"Now, what's this business about avian flu?" asked Dalquist, his face flushing. Hayward stared but could see no glimmer of knowledge in his hostile blue eyes.

"We don't work on flu here at all," Dalquist went on, stepping back behind his desk. "We're a small pharmaceutical research company with a few products to treat certain collagen diseases--and that's it."

"About thirteen years ago," Hayward said, "Longitude conducted an illegal research project here into avian flu."

"Illegal? How so?"

"Safety procedures weren't observed. A diseased bird escaped the facility, infected a local family. They all died, and Longitude covered it up. And are still covering it up--as certain recent homicides would suggest."

A long silence. "That's a monstrous charge. I know nothing about it. Longitude went through a bankruptcy about a decade ago. A complete Chapter Eleven reorganization. There's nobody here from those days. The old management team is gone; we downsized, and we now concentrate on a few core products."

"Core products? Such as?"

"Treatments for dermatomyositis and polymyositis, primarily. We're small and focused. I've never heard of any work being done here on avian flu."

"Nobody is left from a decade ago?"

"None as far as I know. We had a disastrous fire that killed the former CEO, and the entire facility was shut down for months. When we restarted, we were essentially a different company."

Hayward pulled an envelope from her jacket. "It's our understanding that, at the time of your bankruptcy, Longitude closed down research lines on several important orphan drugs and vaccines. Just like that. You were the only facility working on those lines. It left millions of sick people in the Third World without hope."

"We were bankrupt."

"So you shut them down."

"The new board shut them down. Personally, I wasn't involved with the company until two years after that period. Is there a crime in that?"

Hayward found herself breathing hard. This wasn't good. They were getting nowhere. "Mr. Dalquist, your corporate filings indicate you make almost eight million dollars a year in salary and benefits. Your few drugs are very profitable. What are you doing with all that money?"

"Just what every other corporation does. Salaries, taxes, dividends, overhead, R and D."

"Forgive my saying so, but considering those profits, your research facility looks decidedly run-down."

"Don't let appearances fool you. We've got state-of-the-art equipment here. We're isolated, so we don't have to run a beauty contest." He spread his hands. "Apparently you don't like the way we do business. Maybe you don't like me. You may not like that I make eight million a year, and that we're now quite a profitable company. Fine. But we're i

"Prove it."

Dalquist came around his desk. "My first impulse is to stop you cold, make you get a warrant, fight this thing tooth and nail in the courts, use our highly paid attorneys to delay and harass you for weeks or months. Even if you prevailed, you'd end up with a limited search warrant and a mountain of paperwork. But you know what? I'm not going to do that. I'm going to give you a free pass, right here and now. You can go anywhere you like, look into anything, and have access to any documents. We've got nothing to hide. Will that satisfy you?"

Hayward glanced at Pendergast. His face was unreadable, his silvery eyes hooded.

"That would certainly be a start," she said.

He leaned over his desk and pressed a button. "Miss Farmer, please draft a letter for my signature giving these two people complete, total, and unlimited access to the entire facilities of Longitude Pharmaceuticals, with instructions that employees are to answer all questions fully and truthfully and provide access to even the most sensitive areas and documents."

He punched the button and looked up. "I just hope to see you off the premises as soon as possible."

Pendergast broke a long silence. "We shall see."

57

BY THE TIME THEY REACHED THE FAR END of the Longitude Pharmaceuticals compound, Hayward felt exhausted. Dalquist had kept his word: they had been granted access to everything--labs, offices, archives. They had even been allowed to wander through the long-shuttered buildings that littered the sprawling campus. Nobody had accompanied them, no security harassed them; they were given free rein.

And they had found absolutely nothing. Beyond a few low-level service employees, nobody at the facility remained from the pre-bankruptcy days. The company records, which went back decades, made no reference to an avian flu project. Everything appeared to be on the up-and-up.

Which made Hayward suspicious. In her experience, everyone--even honest people--had something to hide.

She glanced at Pendergast as they walked down the corridor of the last shuttered building. She could discern nothing about his thoughts from his cool, alabaster face.

They exited the far door, a fire exit crash door that groaned as they opened it. It gave out onto a broken cement stoop and patchy lawn. To the right lay a narrow muddy lake, a stranded bayou, surrounded by bald cypress trees hung with Spanish moss. Straight ahead, through a tangle of vegetation, Hayward could see the remains of a brick wall covered with vines, and behind it a jutting, burned-out ruin tucked away at the far edge of the campus, surrounded on three sides by the dark fastness of Black Brake swamp. Beyond the ruin, an old pier, burned and ruined, hardly more than a series of pilings, fell away into the dark waters of the swamp.

A fine rain had begun to fall, bedewing the grass, and ominous clouds rolled low in the sky.

"I forgot my umbrella," Hayward said, looking into the wet, dismal trees.

Pendergast, who had been staring off in the direction of the pier and the swamp, reached into his suit. Oh, no, she thought, don't tell me he's got an umbrella in there. But instead he removed a small packet containing clear plastic rain covers, one for her and another for himself.