Jan Coffey, page 6
The second reason for David's popularity with the company had to do with his habit of not dictating orders, but explaining a situation clearly and giving his team all the facts. Of course, he'd do a major selling job on the decision he wanted them to make, but in the end his people always felt that they had an input in decisions.
With the situation that had been dropped on his lap here, he wasn't totally sold himself, but he had to give it a try.
"Let's put all the facts on the table," he broke in.
The undercurrent ceased momentarily. The VP of Sales nodded to him gratefully. David pulled out his notepad and conveyed some facts and figures that he'd put together as soon as he'd arrived at his office before the meeting.
"Rather than getting competitive quotes and all the rest of it, the undersecretary of Health and Human Services asks us to produce one million units of DM8A serum in two weeks. They know our production rate, and they're well aware that we're operating now at maximum capacity across the board. It's public knowledge that the Dover plant won't come online with Strep-Tester production until early September. They also know that the Scranton plant is ready to switch over to production of DM8A when FDA approval comes down. The bottom line is this - to come close to filling this order, everything else in the queue - including new orders and the processing of returns - everything would have to come to a screeching halt and the focus put on this one order. So why would we do that?"
Someone at the far end of the room responded. "HHS comes to us because they know that every one of our competitors would tell them to go pound sand with that kind of deadline."
David nodded. "You're right. At the same time, we know that with standard lead time for that kind of volume, the unit selling price for DM8A serum is planned at just under two dollars. But HHS is offering to pay us close to fifty dollars for each unit, and they're throwing in a onetime setup charge and authorization for overtime billing to run our facilities 24/7. Overruns are theirs, too. They'll take any extra units we can produce in that amount of time. In addition, the money will turn over net-ten... not the standard sixty to ninety-day payment."
As always, it felt great to work in Sales. David could see pens scribbling on paper and numbers being punched in the calculators.
"That's a lot of money," someone said.
Heads were nodding.
David looked around at the faces. "And who in this room is not part of our profit-sharing?"
The murmurs were starting to take on a more positive note.
"Of course, we all are," the California sales manager said in his booming voice. "But what's the rush? Is there a fire they're trying to put out? We've been hearing that DM8A isn't scheduled for FDA approval for another five months. So what's it about?"
"DM8A is a new antibiotic," David replied. "It's better than anything out there and they want it."
"Yes, but HHS doesn't spend this kind of money without months of red tape... unless there's some emergency disaster relief in the works. What's going on?"
David shook his head and deferred to the VP of Sales, who shrugged his shoulders. No one had the answer to the question... not even Bill or Ned Reynolds, as far as he knew. That did bother him somewhat, but he wasn't about to let his emotions be a distraction here.
David tapped his finger on his open notepad. "The answer to that question falls outside of our purview. The government is insisting on complete confidentiality. This is nothing new. We've done it before. We get paid generously to meet their demands and keep quiet about it. And it's not like we're making some kind of chemical weapon. They're asking for antibiotics. I say we do our part in supporting this large order."
The fight seemed to have seeped out of them. There were a few nods, no objections.
"Since this is obviously a done deal," the East Coast director said calmly, "we should be spending our time now coming up with a strategy on how to deal with preorders on Strep-Tester. Our customers won't be happy."
"Preorders of Strep-Tester aren't the only problem. How about the standing orders on existing products?" another person added.
"We're putting together numbers on warehoused product right now," the VP of Sales replied. "We'll have an impact report later today. With regard to the Strep-Tester, we've arranged for some ten thousand additional sample-size packages of testers to run through this coming week as we gear up for DM8A. Use these as giveaways. We're raising the ceiling on your expense budgets for the next two months. Wine and dine the big accounts. Do what you're good at. District sales managers will provide information sheets to the reps regarding what we'll call a possible delay at this point. Tell them that we'll be shipping production lots before October 1. You all know the drill. Keep them happy, whatever it takes."
In addition to a year's worth of promotional brochures and literature, advertisements in key publications and months of beating the pavement, only five hundred samples of Strep-Tester had been distributed by the sales force. David knew the ten thousand additional samples would definitely be a help.
He also knew that everyone in this room, along with the entire sales force, would have medicine cabinets full of samples of DM8A, in case of an emergency. They weren't fools, and this was one perk that went with being in this line of business. The general public might have to wait in lines and pay an exorbitant price for new medications, but not drug company reps.
"Okay." The VP of Sales stood up. "We all know the routine. Production information is not to leave this room. Now, let's get to work."
Chapter Seven
Brickyard Prison, Afghanistan
For five years, she'd kept up the lie and not one person had questioned her identity. There'd never been any hint of a doubt. No one had ever asked if she wasn't the person she claimed to be. Until now.
Rahaf hadn't been found because the Americans thought they had her in their prison. Fahimah had no doubt that if they went searching for her sister, they'd find her. There were so many informers. From the little news that had been trickling inside, she knew the country was in the middle of a civil war. There were so many desperate people that could be bought for so little. There would be no sense of loyalty toward an Iraqi scientist from Saddam's regime, especially when that scientist was a woman and a Kurd.
No one knew how much Rahaf had risked in attempting to save her people. No one knew what she had sacrificed.
Now that the Americans knew, no place would be safe for her sister. Rahaf would never have a chance.
Fahimah pressed her forehead against the wall and closed her eyes, trying to block out the pictures the American agent had shown her. She couldn't forget. She had seen the wounds herself… in real life. She'd seen what that microbe or bacteria or whatever they called it could do to a person in such a short time.
Her sister's leg had been exposed to the bacteria in the lab. As Fahimah watched and listened to her sister's cries, a retired Kurdish doctor had amputated Rahaf's leg. She still would have died from the disease without the serum she had to inject in herself continuously over the following days. If what the agent was saying was true, the same serum could have possibly saved the lives of those American children - the ones in the pictures. Perhaps the same serum could have stopped the bacteria from emerging into something much more contagious.
Abruptly, she turned away from the wall. She didn't want to feel sorry for them. Fahimah told herself she had no sympathy left in her, not after all the years that they had left her to rot in one prison cell after another, left her locked up without ever being charged for any crime. The twisted irony was that Rahaf had never committed any crime, either.
Fahimah had never seen the hallways they'd passed through to get to this room. She looked up at the high ceiling, the whitewashed walls. The door had a small window with some kind of silver glazing that blocked any view of the hallway. She guessed they were probably watching her through it. She looked up. A lightbulb dangled from the middle of the ceiling. The cot in the corner had clean sheets, blankets and a pillow. The room was unlike any cell they had ever locked her in. On the table next to it, a tray of food sat untouched. This was nothing like the food she'd been fed for all these years. It looked like ghormeh sabsi, a Persian dish of greens served over rice. The smell made her remember Oxford, of the little restaurant on Cowley Road.
Fahimah hadn't thought of those days for a long while. It seemed like another lifetime.
The photos came into her mind's eye again. She'd been told they were only children. She and her sister had suffered when they were that young. After all that had been done to them and to their family, after all that they had witnessed, she'd had many occasions in her life to wish that they had died. The old anger rose up in her, and she hated her inability to stop it. All her life, Fahimah had forced herself not to feel the past, not to care about it. For longer than she'd been held prisoner by these people, she'd taught herself how to be indifferent, not to remember. But the floodgate was bursting open, the pain was rushing in, the memories were all around her. The helplessness was overwhelming, but she couldn't fight it. The burning in her brain was too much. She couldn't escape it.
The closest thing within her reach was the tray of food. She pushed it from the table with one sweep of her hand, sending everything flying into the middle of the room. Fahimah listened to the clatter of the metal dishes, eyed the scattered food. There was strength in the release of anger.
She'd put up with imprisonment for five years... and for nothing. They would go back to the university in Baghdad.
They would find other professors who would remember her. They would detain and interrogate students who must have graduated by now, but who would be able to help them. They would dig into her personnel files. Fahimah had studied at Oxford. Yes, she had a British accent, for she'd spent nine years of her life in England. She'd always been careful to hide it. Today it had ruined everything. All the American agents had to do now was just ask. They would find her sister. And now, with what was going on in America, the disease caused by the bacteria, they would pin the entire thing on Rahaf.
The bedding was next. She tore the blanket off. The sheets ripped in her thin fingers. Her own strength surprised her. She didn't know where it came from, but it was there. She upended the mattress, ripped the pillow open using a sharp metallic edge of the cot. Clumps of synthetic foam spewed out. She wanted to find relief in this destruction. But there was no relief. Her anger only escalated.
Enough was enough. She had paid for the nonexistent crime that these Americans thought her sister was guilty of. She and Allah were witnesses to the fact that Rahaf had paid a stiff penalty, too. Fahimah couldn't take it anymore.
The cot was light, and she lifted it and threw it against the door. The loud bang echoed through the room. She looked around wildly, at the chaos she'd created. This should have made her feel better. But it didn't.
Suddenly, she felt very tired. She crouched against the wall for a moment and caught her breath.
The agents from the U.S. were here to make a deal, to convince her to help them. At least, this was what the one named Newman said. He was clearly in charge. She had to take advantage of that before they were certain of the truth. They had played her. She could do the same.
Fahimah stood and walked to the door. She raised both fists to the small window and hammered on it.
"Why did you have to show those pictures to me? I had nothing to do with it. I hate you. I'm tired of this. Do you hear me?"
She looked over her shoulder at the cot sitting on its side, at the sharp edge sticking out at the corner. She stepped away from the door, jerked at her sleeve and looked at her wrist. With a grim smile, Fahimah looked back at the cot and started toward it.
They must have been waiting just on the other side of the door, for she didn't have to take more than a couple of steps. There was a click behind her and the door opened. Agent Newman stepped in ahead of two guards.
"Stop right there, Dr. Banaz. We don't want to do anything stupid, now, do we?"
Chapter Eight
Sedona, Arizona
Faas Hanlon climbed out of the helicopter and moved quickly out from under the whirling blades. Two of his top people were waiting for him near three black SUVs parked at the edge of the cliff overlooking Boynton Canyon. Agents were on phones and laptops in each of the vehicles.
The site below was something out of a Steven Spielberg film set. Large silver-and-white tents covered sections of the canyon. Police tape and ropes had been set up all along the parameter. Dozens of police cars parked in the vicinity of the resort kept away curiosity-seekers. Crime labs set up inside trucks and vans were parked everywhere inside the restricted area. The tents hid most of the foot traffic, but the occasional glimpse of people from this view revealed that they were dressed in some kind of protective gear and masks.
"Give me the status, Bea," Faas demanded of the woman standing beside him.
"We've contained the site, sir," Bea Devera shouted back, pointing out the perimeter. Her Homeland Security jacket flapped in the wind caused by the chopper.
"I can see that. What about casualties?"
The situation was more critical than any disaster they'd encountered as yet in this administration. Every investigative department in the government was working together to figure out exactly what it was that they were facing. The potential damage was unknown, but the speed with which the disease struck was stunning.
"Five confirmed dead so far. The two occupants of the truck, the two police officers who found them, and one jogger who got too close to the scene before our search-and-rescue teams arrived."
"Where are the bodies?"
"They just airlifted the last one out of here. The others are en route to our facility in Phoenix."
Faas looked at the folder Bea held under one arm. "Pictures?"
"They're not pretty," she said grimly. She handed him the folder. "There are two Polaroids here. We took a lot more with the digital cameras. They should already be available to view online. You can look at them when we go down to the site."
Faas looked hard at the photos. The pictures were taken from outside of the truck. A dead police officer, showing early signs of decomposition on his face, was sitting against the door.
"Do we know exactly how fast the bacteria killed?"
"No, we don't. From the time the police officers called in after finding the bodies in the truck to the time when our people started arriving on the scene was two hours and fifteen minutes. By then, all five were dead."
"But I was told the officers called in when they realized they were infected."
"Yes, sir. But we lost contact with them about ninety minutes before arriving on the scene. These canyons do funny things to communication devices. The locals say there's a vortex here-"
"Two hours to respond," Faas snapped unhappily. "That's too slow. These people don't understand the severity of what we're facing yet."
"They do now, sir," Bea said in defense. "Most of our equipment and experts were on the East Coast. We were operating under the mistaken premise that the bacteria had been localized to Maine. We had to fly most of these people in from L.A. The mobile crime labs came in from Phoenix, but they couldn't get on the site until the proper protective gear arrived."
Faas appreciated Devera's loyalty to her team.
"How about the local emergency response?" he asked.
"They were instructed not to approach the victims," the other agent explained. "Local police were tasked with closing the trails and keeping the gawkers away."
Without divulging specifics, Homeland Security had communicated these instructions overnight to every law enforcement agency across the country.
"Beyond the initial five people, we're certain that no one else has been infected?" he asked.
Bea exchanged a look with the other agent.
"We can't say that for certain. We don't know where the two teenagers in the truck were before stealing the vehicle.
We haven't even been able to positively ID the two," she explained. 'There were a couple of backpacks and wallets in there, but we're not sure if they're stolen property, as well."
Faas turned as a command control van pulled up behind the SUVs. This was a new method of investigating. The agents in charge weren't being allowed on-site.
"As far as our people being infected," the other agent told him, glancing toward the van, "they seem to have everything under control down there. The protocol we're following is similar to that for an Ebola outbreak."
Bea broke in. "Now that the van has arrived, we'll be directing operations from up here."
A remote-control investigation. They were expected to work like surgeons who use computers to operate on patients lying in hospitals on the other side of the country. Faas grimaced at the thought, not for an instant wanting to be on an operating table under those conditions.
"Maine and now Arizona," he said aloud. "Any connections between the victims? Any similar places they visited? Things they ate or drank? Anything that ties them together? This folder is empty. I need a lot more." He handed the manila folder back to Bea.
"As I said, we don't even have a positive ID. Everything has been taken away to the lab. We're hoping that in a couple of hours we'll have more to report."
"Hoping isn't enough. You'd better be sure that you have a lot to report," Faas said impatiently. He was frustrated and snapping at his people, not that it made him feel any better.
