The R.E.M. Project_A Thriller Read online

  Shorebirds chirped and the brackish water sloshed with the outgoing tide. The sky was blue and the incoming breeze was refreshing. Donny took a big breath of the fragrant salt air. It hit his nostrils and filled his lungs, and what was once panic quickly turned to peace. Warmth filled his chest, and in that moment he knew everything was going to be just fine.

  He floated toward the bridge, finally able to understand what he had to do. It felt like salvation. The same burden that had overtaken him moments earlier was lifted, vanishing with the faint morning fog into the cool coastal air.

  Just do it, son. The voice was benevolent now, like a wise old man speaking soothing parables to a wayward son.

  He stepped off River Street and started the long walk up to the top of the Talmadge Bridge. A thought occurred to him, and then he smiled.

  Just a few more steps and the voices will stop.

  Chapter 25:

  Turncoats

  Chatter through the grapevine moved quickly between the FDA and Big Pharma; a side effect of the long-standing culture between the government watchdog and private-sector pharmaceutical companies. Industry insiders called this the revolving door policy, where FDA employees maintained fruitful relationships with Big Pharma in exchange for future high-paying jobs at the same companies they once oversaw. You scratch my back, and one of these days, I’ll scratch yours.

  For George Sturgis, a thick rolodex of back channels to the Food and Drug Administration had typically meant getting the jump on competitors; gaining insight into potential clinical trial barriers; and learning how to get the strictest FDA reviewers to loosen up and move a drug forward for approval. On most days, such phone calls and email correspondence usually led to good news for Sturgis and company.

  This was not one of those days.

  The double doors to the boardroom burst open and slammed into the walls on both sides as Sturgis stormed in, effectively silencing every mouth in the room.

  “Did anyone else know about this shit?” he asked as he hastily walked to the head of the table at the far end of the room. Halfway, he tossed a memo on the table, the closest board members leaning forward curiously for a peek. A bright yellow Post-it note was stuck to the front and read, “Thought you’d want to know—J.D.”

  One of the members removed the note and read:

  FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION

  **This is an internal document and not intended for public use.**

  MEMORANDUM

  DATE: Friday, August 19th, 2022

  FROM: Anthony Hoover

  Commissioner of Food and Drugs

  SUBJECT: Federal formulary blacklist revision

  TO: Dorothy Adams

  Deputy Commissioner for Regulatory Operations and Policy

  Deputy Commissioner Adams,

  Previously undisclosed information has led me to believe that the recent approval of the sleep medication Ocula from Asteria Pharmaceuticals needs to undergo an emergency investigation into the recent approval of the drug. This includes, but is not limited to, setting up employee interviews, reviewing clinical trial policies and procedures, and most importantly, putting an immediate stop to the clinical supply chain to limit further distribution of Ocula until the investigation can be completed.

  I’m sure you’ll have questions regarding the basis for the blacklist request, and I plan on explaining to the remaining leadership first thing Monday morning. In the meantime, please draft the necessary documents needed to move the formulary blacklist request forward and have it ready by 9 a.m. Monday.

  Best,

  — Anthony Hoover, M.D.

  Commissioner of Food and Drugs

  10903 New Hampshire Avenue

  Silver Spring, Maryland 20993

  (555) 555-8423

  The memo was passed around the boardroom while Sturgis sat at the head of the table in silence, arms crossed, face full of consternation, waiting for everyone to take it all in. The last board member read the note, then everyone sat back in their chairs, confused, and waiting for Sturgis to tell them more.

  Finally, “Everyone’s read the memo. Now I want to know which one of you knew about this.”

  Everyone was silent. A few held their breath, afraid to draw the slightest attention from the raging CEO.

  “Well, someone must have known,” Sturgis said. “Otherwise, what ‘previously undisclosed information’ is Hoover citing here?”

  Shoulders shrugged and faces were blank.

  “For God’s sake, people. Don’t any of you have any kind of clue as to what’s going on here? Someone has given something to the FDA; information that is causing the man at the top to question our recently approved mega-drug. Now if you people don’t start talking here, heads are going to roll. So,” he leaned forward, “who’s first?”

  Jillian Penn raised her hand.

  “Ah, Jillian. Ironically, the only female at the table is also the only person here with any balls. Would you care to shed some light on the developing situation here?”

  Slightly irked by Sturgis’s penchant for the politically incorrect, she answered, “I may have an idea.” She looked around the table. “I think it’s clear most of us are just as shocked as you are right now. Honestly, this seems more like a bad joke than a revelation set in reality . . .”

  Sturgis shook his head no. The threat was real. Jillian continued, “That said, maybe it has nothing to do with new information at all. Have you considered the possibility that one of the FDA reviewers is trying to extort the company?”

  “If that’s the case,” Sturgis said, “they’ve got a funny way of going about things. Usually, one would contact the people they were extorting before going to their bosses. If someone involved in Ocula’s approval is looking for a payday, they’d do well to pick up a copy of Extortion for Dummies.”

  Jillian asked, “What about your other sources at the FDA? Is anyone else talking about this memo?”

  “No. No one. And it was drafted today. Not last week or last month. Today. Now what the hell has happened in the last twenty-four hours to make this son of a bitch want to throw a wrench in the one product that’s keeping this company afloat?”

  Another board member, vice-chair Gary Larcen, worked up the courage to speak. “Maybe it’s the higher-ups looking for a payday,” he said. “It would make sense, because the company was over-extended throughout the entire clinical trial process. Conventional FDA payoffs dried up, and we all know that didn’t go unnoticed. We had to play by the rules on this one, which is exactly why it took so long to move this drug through the approval process to begin with. Now that every stock analyst in the country is stampeding to pick up shares of the hottest biotech offering on the market, maybe a few rogue FDA officials are looking to get their dividends paid in full, directly from the source.”

  Sturgis nervously tapped a pen on the table and considered Larcen’s statement. Maybe Hoover was looking for a little under-the-table payback now that Ocula was the launching Asteria into unforeseen financial territory. The company was already up double digits year-to-date, and they were barely into quarter three. If Asteria’s line chart continued to climb on the Nasdaq, they’d be breaking biotech index records by Christmas. If there was ever a time to extort the company, this was it.

  “I guess it’s a possibility,” Sturgis said. “Tell me, Larcen. Have you”—he looked keenly around the room—“or anyone else in here heard about this from other sources?”

  They had not. They couldn’t have heard anything, either. In Hoover’s hasty effort to shoot off an email to Deputy Commissioner Dorothy Adams at the FDA, he had forgotten to carbon copy the other deputy commissioners and leadership. It appeared the commissioner’s nervous breakdown in a barbeque-joint bathroom had led to an ardent belief that now had him calling for a federal ban on a sleep medication with barely a year of exposure on the open market.

  Unfortunately, Sturgis had no way of knowing the true motive behind Hoover’s unforeseen and expedient Ocula reversal. He lowered his head
and sighed heavily. “Ladies and gentlemen, I think it goes without saying that this drug isn’t just another product manufactured and sold by Asteria—this drug is Asteria. Without it, we’ll be shuttering the windows and locking the doors within a month of it being pulled from the market.”

  He looked around the room again, desperate for answers, but consented to receiving none. Defeated, he told the board members to keep their ears open, and then called the meeting to a close. Soon, George Sturgis was the only person left in the room.

  He sat and wondered just why in the hell Hoover would do this now. Was it just about the money? If so, why write the memo? For better leverage on down the line? And why hadn’t he heard anything from his backchannels at the FDA yet?

  Nothing made a lick of sense. Sturgis leaned back in his chair and looked out of the window toward the Atlanta skyline. He watched a plane ascend from the busiest airport in the world before turning to head north. It climbed and then disappear into the distance, and that’s when the thought of Colin Kovic’s recent visit hit him.

  Kovic. That double-crossing bastard must’ve gotten to Hoover. The CIA field agent had already warned Sturgis days earlier that Director Lancaster was pushing to have the market version of Ocula banned from the government formulary. But that was before Sturgis got on the phone with his associates at the DEA and FDA. Hell, Hoover had assured him just two days prior that Asteria had nothing to worry about. Now the man was sending memos deeming the drug a potential threat to public welfare? What had happened in such a short period of time?

  And what about the DEA? Would they be the next federal agency to go full turncoat on Sturgis? The CEO fidgeted and cursed and ruminated on the lack of loyalty in the world today.

  Suddenly, he was still as stone as a thought, a question, rocked his very consciousness, causing him to call into question everything he’d believed about the world. Convictions he’d held his entire life. Values that had held true throughout a highly successful professional career in medicine and biotech. It was the question that Tanner and Doyle and Kovic had all raised at one point or another from the onset of the Ocula project:

  Do you still believe our research is nonsense?

  For the first time in his life, George Sturgis didn’t know what he believed.

  Chapter 26:

  Take Me to the River

  From a distance, the tourists that packed the deck of a Savannah riverboat floating downstream couldn’t tell the silhouette standing between two steel cables atop the Talmadge Bridge was about to jump into the chocolate-milk-colored waters below. Up close, however, his intentions were clear. Donny Ford was about to plunge to his death, and nothing was standing in his way.

  The unstable apex of a two-hundred-foot tall moving overpass should have been enough to make him rethink his decision. Cars rushed by and rocked his body, pushing him out before sucking him back in with every break in the traffic. His grip was white-knuckle tight around one of the cables—it had to be. The wind howled in his ears as the waters churned below. The top of the bridge was pure chaos, loud and unsettling, but for some reason, all of the doubts and apprehensions and what-ifs that had plagued Donny his entire life were gone. Now his choice was clear. This was the answer to everything. He thought he should feel worse, even tried to drum up some sense that stepping to an inevitable death was the wrong thing to do.

  But everything feels so right.

  He inched forward a little more, still grasping to one of the cables. He imagined being knocked out cold by the impact of a 185-foot drop; then he thought about living through it. Unlikely. A plummet from this height would be like hitting concrete. But if it did happen, he’d quickly be sucked under by the current. It would be cold, but probably wouldn’t take too long. Two or three minutes, tops. Then this whole charade would be over.

  It would be worth it in the end. He just knew it.

  He let go of the cable and stared down. The wind continued to blow and the bridge rocked under his feet. The dizzying view forced his eyes closed. With no sign of second- guessing, he went to take one last step, but something stopped him from behind, leaving one foot hanging mid-air over the river below. He tried to push himself forward with the other, but the resistance coming from his back collar wouldn’t let go. A hand grasped his Hawaiian shirt firmly before jerking him back onto the sidewalk.

  “Jesus, Donny!”

  The journalist yanked the pitchman away from the edge so hard he fell on his back. She dropped to her knees as he lay there, dazed and in shock.

  “Claire? What are you doing here?”

  “I think the bigger question is what the hell are you doing here?”

  He sat up and rubbed his forehead. Come on, man. Think.

  “I’m not sure,” he said.

  “What do you mean, you’re not sure? Because from this angle, it looks like you were about to high-dive into the Savannah River.” She drew closer to analyze him. His eyes told the story. He didn’t know what he was doing.

  She asked, “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “I—I remember . . .” Nothing, thought Donny. But then there was something.

  “The hotel lobby,” he said. “I was in the lobby with Graham and Freeman and Fenton Reed. We were up all night talking about what Fenton had on Asteria and the CIA connection. I was pretty drowsy. Even drifted off a little, but I thought I was just dozing. Next thing I know, you’re body-slamming me to the sidewalk.”

  “You have no idea how you got here?”

  “Not a clue, Claire. One minute I’m talking to the guys, the next minute I’m about to go for a swim.”

  This is bad. Claire had a good idea about what Donny had just experienced, because she’d been there herself. That feeling. That witchy, intrusive, uncontrollable feeling, where it didn’t matter what you wanted to think, because the worst thoughts you could imagine were going to happen to you, regardless.

  It was a total loss of control only Ocula could cause. Donny had made someone’s nighttime to-do list, and he had just felt the effects firsthand. Losing control like that was a terrifying ordeal only a handful of people in the world had gone through, and the journalist in Claire was eager to pick Ford’s brain.

  But there was no point in frightening Donny any more than he already was. Not yet, anyway. She helped Donny to his feet and dusted off the back of his shirt.

  “You gonna be okay, Donny?” she asked.

  He looked around and shook his head. “Yeah. I think so. Just a little freaked out at the moment.” He paused, then said, “You don’t think this has anything to do with Oc—”

  “Don’t even say it,” she said. She took him by the arm and they began to walk down the bridge back toward River Street. “Come on. Let’s get you back to the hotel.”

  ***

  In the lobby, three members of the Atlanta crew sat around a small square table sipping coffee and checking the time, each one of them wondering where Ford had stumbled off to.

  “It’s been almost an hour,” Paul said. “Think we should go look for him?”

  “Maybe,” Dawa said. “If he is not back here in the next ten minutes, we will split up and search. But he is probably just clearing his head. This is a lot to take in, and we all handle these situations in different ways.”

  Fenton said, “If by situations you mean diarrhea, then yeah. He’s gonna be a while.”

  “Come on,” Paul said.

  “What? You saw his face.” Fenton gulped his Red Bull, then said, “Classic diarrhea face. A face no man can hide.”

  Paul and Dawa shook their heads while Fenton crushed his can and looked around for a trash bin. Across the lobby, he saw Donny returning with a pretty redhead by his side.

  “Hey, speak of the devil,” Fenton said. Paul and Dawa looked up to see the couple walking in.

  “Claire?” Paul couldn’t believe his eyes. He stood to greet her as she approached. “What are you doing here?”

  “You guys didn’t think I was going to wait in Atlanta
, did you?”

  “How did you get here so fast?” Paul asked.

  “Aguilar Airlines. How else?”

  Paul sunk his head, then said, “I’m sorry about your friend, Claire. I know you two were close.”

  Claire nodded and pressed her lips, then said, “Thanks, Paul. I don’t think it’s really set in yet. And honestly, I don’t want it to. That wouldn’t serve any purpose for Han’s memory. No, what I want to do is find the bastards who did this.”

  Paul looked back at the boys. “Trust me, Claire. So do we.”

  Dawa pulled up an extra chair for Claire as the rest took a seat. The square table in the corner of the hotel lobby had become their provisional war room. Fenton had printed documents and penciled scribblings scattered across the table. Aerial maps of the Skyline facility. Schematics for interior construction. Blueprints for the tower on top of the mountain designed to connect the underground facility to the rest of the world. Dawa picked up an internal memo and silently read through it. Nothing was redacted. Everything the CIA had on Project THEIA was at their disposal. He passed the memo to Paul, who immediately recognized the name of the author.

  “Holy shit, Claire. Check out the name here.” He handed the document over. She couldn’t believe it.

  “What did you find?” Dawa asked.

  “This guy heading up the project,” Paul said. “Roberto Ramírez. He worked for Tanner at the facility in Costa Rica. After the incident he helped us escape by hotwiring one of the Jeeps. He tried to convince us he was in the dark about the extent of Tanner’s experiments, but that argument went out the window the moment he bailed out of the Jeep halfway to San José.”