Alchemist Read online

  ‘Rheobatrachus silus is a rare aquatic frog of eastern Australia. The female ingests the eggs after fertilization and broods them in the stomach until fully formed. “Gastric brooding” takes place in the fundus and proximal part of the stomach, which dilates to accommodate the growing young,’ he read, wondering what this paper was doing in the midst of Dr Bannerman’s research, although nothing much surprised him any more about the work of the Nobel-winning scientist.

  During the past nine days he felt as if he had got to know Dr Bannerman intimately, without having actually met the great man yet; he had lived and breathed him almost every waking moment, poring through his life’s work document by document.

  Bendix Schere wanted to file patents in Britain, Europe and the US on as much of Bannerman’s work as possible, and Conor’s brief was to report on what patents might be obtained in the US. Dr Vincent Crowe, the company’s Chief Executive, wanted to see the report himself within ten days.

  Conor knew he was on trial and had been thrown in at the deep end. Patent applications were expensive and time-consuming. If he recommended filing any applications that failed, it would reflect badly on him. Equally, if he missed any opportunities it could cost the company millions, or even billions, in lost revenue – not that he would lose any sleep over that.

  To obtain a patent, you had to convince the Patent Examiner that nobody had made public enough details of the invention, or scientific discovery, to enable anyone else to reproduce it. However, Dr Bannerman had published copious papers detailing virtually every single aspect of his work, for the whole world to copy. Conor’s report was going to make grim reading if Bendix Schere had been hoping to cash in on Bannerman’s work to date.

  Conor smiled. I haven’t met you, Dr Bannerman, he thought, but I like you. I like you a lot.

  His door, which he had left ajar, opened suddenly and Charley Rowley stuck his head in. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘OK, I guess.’

  ‘I wondered if you were free on Friday night? Having a little dinner party – thought you might like to meet some normal people?’

  Conor caught the look in his eye and acknowledged it. He’d been out to the pub for lunch a few times with Rowley, and had remarked on the apparent lack of any social contact between staff members of Group Patents and Agreements. Rowley had told him it wasn’t just GP & Ags – it was the same throughout the whole company, and it was deliberate policy: staff were not encouraged to mix during office hours, or to socialize in private. It was a total reversal of the corporate bonding ethos found in most large corporations. ‘All part of the mystique, the secrecy,’ Rowley had said. And the paranoia, Conor had almost replied at the time.

  ‘Sure, I’m free on Friday; sounds good.’

  Conor was free every night. He had not even become acquainted with anyone else in the company yet, although he now knew a number of names and faces, with whom he exchanged polite greetings. And most of his free time had been spent working through the Bannerman paperwork, punctuated by the occasional unsuccessful foray of apartment hunting.

  ‘About eight o’clock?’ Rowley said. ‘I’ll eMail you the address and directions – just over the river in Wandsworth.’

  Conor was just trying to recall from the map the Relocation Officer had shown him whether that was an approved residential zone or not, when he was saved the trouble.

  ‘Dead easy to find. Parts of it are even approved BS zones,’ Rowley said with a mocking expression. ‘Though fortunately not my particular street, so you’ll be slumming it with the outcasts.’

  ‘As long as smoking’s permitted, I’m sure I’ll just about get by,’ grinned Conor. The idea of meeting people appealed; he fancied a break from his own solitude, and Rowley seemed like the kind of guy who would know some decent unattached females.

  Rowley flipped through a stack of unopened magazines on Conor’s desk, which had all arrived in the morning’s post. Monitor Weekly, Doctor, Prescribe, BMJ, Genetic Engineering News, Human Genome News. ‘Didn’t take long for these guys to cobble you on to their mailing lists.’

  Conor had already dumped most of yesterday’s pile into an incinerator bag and dropped it down the chute. ‘I don’t know how anyone gets time to read them.’

  Rowley became serious suddenly. ‘You are going to be OK for Dr Crowe’s deadline?’

  ‘No sweat. I just have a few gaps to plug in the work on psoriasis, and there’s some stuff I can’t figure out. I’m going to need to spend a few hours going through it with Dr Banner-man – that should do it.’

  ‘He can be a bit of a tricky bugger,’ Rowley warned. ‘Doesn’t approve of patenting – if you catch him in the wrong mood he can go nuclear. And he’s not that easy to get hold of – your best bet’s his daughter.’

  Something rang a bell in Conor’s head: last Tuesday, his second day here, the blonde he’d seen in the lift and who’d spoken of, ‘… my father and I.’ He’d been meaning to ask Rowley about her and now he wondered if this was the same young woman.

  Rowley continued. ‘Works as his PA – and she’s bloody efficient – knows where everything is.’ He gave Conor a lascivious grin. ‘She’s also bloody gorgeous.’

  Monty had been feeling happier since her meeting with Sir Neil Rorke, and she’d been impressed at the speed with which he had acted. Not only had Walter Hoggin been reinstated within twenty-four hours, in the Quality Control Department of one of Bendix Schere’s manufacturing plants only a few miles away, he had also been informed that he would be receiving a bonus of six months’ salary as compensation.

  Monty had been left with the distinct feeling from Rorke that someone’s head would roll over this affair, and she thought it would be very nice if it was Dr Vincent Crowe’s – but somehow knew that was unlikely.

  From her desk she could see through the partition window straight into the corridor whose plush doors led to the fourteen laboratories under her father’s control. Some were tiny rooms, purpose-built for one specific function, but eight were substantial general research labs, the largest of which was directly opposite her.

  The equipment her father had ordered was arriving daily, together with some of the experiments in progress from their Berkshire University site. Even as she watched, four workmen were awkwardly manoeuvring a massive crate, plastered with ‘FRAGILE’ warning stickers.

  Then she saw the lanky figure of Jake Seals, the Bendix Schere Chief Lab Technician, who was in charge of their move. He strode past, rapped on her door, then opened it using his electronic pass card – as usual without waiting for her to answer.

  He wore a sweatshirt and jeans beneath his white coat, which was contrary to the Bendix Schere dress code, but his slovenly appearance and a certain attitude problem belied a sharp brain, a comprehensive knowledge of his field and a willingness to work hard, all hours, without complaint. Monty respected his abilities.

  ‘Morning, Mr Seals,’ she said pleasantly. ‘How are we today?’

  He tossed his shoulder-length hair back, then closed the door behind him and sat down at the chair in front of her desk. ‘Got a minute?’

  ‘Yes – but only about a minute – someone’s on their way down to see me.’

  He held a thumb up in front of him and examined the nail for a moment, staring at it while he spoke to her. ‘You don’t like this place, do you?’

  She was genuinely surprised by the question. ‘Whatever gave you that impression?’

  ‘It sucks, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It’s too early for me to have formed any kind of opinion,’ she said, guardedly, not sure what he was driving at.

  He lowered his thumb, glanced at the ceiling as though he were checking for bugs. ‘You know what I mean – except you don’t know the half of it.’

  ‘The half of what?’

  He stood up, tossed his hair back again and dug his hands into his coat pockets. ‘We’ll have a longer talk some time. Away from here.’ He went out and disappeared down the corridor.

  15
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  A small black Christmas tree sat beside each of the thirty-four names the Director of Security was scrolling through on one of the screens in front of his desk. It might have seemed an innocent enough symbol to outsiders, but there was nothing innocent about its significance here: these were people whose loyalties to Bendix Schere were uncertain, and Bill Gunn kept them under close scrutiny.

  It was his Wednesday morning routine to scan the computer summaries of their activities, and he had been paying particularly close attention today to Jake Seals. The Chief Lab Technician’s pattern of activity had altered significantly during the past three months. Firstly the usage of his car had gone up dramatically, and tracking back his journey paths had revealed that he had made three visits to one of BS’s principal rivals: Cobbold Tessering. Two visits to their London head office and one to their research campus in Buckinghamshire.

  Head-hunting by competitors was a major problem – although Bendix Schere were just as guilty of it themselves – and Cobbold Tessering were a particular worry. From their own industrial espionage operations, in which Gunn was actively involved, BS were aware that Cobbold Tessering was almost certainly the second largest player in the field of genetics research next to themselves. Jake Seals’ position gave him access to an awful lot of research information for any one employee. And if they lost him to Cobbold Tessering, it would be a major disaster. The whole Board knew that.

  Secondly, Seals’ movements around the Bendix Building itself had altered recently.

  Gunn leaned back in his chair, fingers intertwined, his stare fixed on one of the row of monitors in front of him. Occasionally he would disentangle his fingers and stab a symbol on his keyboard to scroll forward, as he studied the comparison graph of the subject’s movements around the building for the past three months, compared with the previous three, and then against the previous year.

  ‘What are you up to, you little shit?’ he said quietly, squeezing his fingers so hard the bones hurt. After some moments he reached for the polystyrene cup on his desk, sipped some coffee, then keyed in the command to run a program giving him a more detailed analysis of exactly where in the building Seals had been going.

  The program showed that the main difference was that instead of spending most of his time on the sixth floor, where he was based, Jake Seals was now spending most of his time up on the eighth. Gunn felt a twinge of disappointment. Since Seals was in charge of the Bannerman move, it was hardly surprising he’d been spending his time there.

  His internal phone rang. It was on a network that only operated within the two security floors and could not be tapped from the outside. He swept the receiver to his ear. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Just picked up something interesting, Mr Gunn.’

  It was Norbert Ricks. The kid was like a robot; Gunn felt sometimes that Ricks’ brain was wired into his job. He was twenty-six and nerdy-looking, but he could do any job within his field, which was voice-analysis systems, brilliantly. And other than Gunn, whom he treated the slavish way a dog treats his master, he had no communication with anyone else in the company. In line with most of the hand-picked team Gunn had assembled during his tenure, Ricks suffered from a personality disorder. In his case: Aaitkhcken-Yeltz Syndrome – an inability to interact with his colleagues.

  All staff under Gunn’s command in Security worked in similar isolation. Divide and rule – like Adolf Hitler’s policy. Bill Gunn had read every word ever written about Hitler and the Third Reich. Organization, manipulation, control. Those were the watchwords.

  You selected your team carefully: you chose brilliant but damaged, inadequate people, you divided them, isolated them into pockets, fired them up with dreams of gain, and then you spread fear among them – so that they would only, ultimately, communicate with and trust one person. Bill Gunn.

  And this was not simply the way Gunn chose to run his team, it was also his own personal insurance policy: no one at Bendix Schere could ever get rid of him – unless they wanted to watch the whole internal security fall apart.

  ‘Yes, Mr Ricks, what is it?’

  ‘Something you should listen to. Got it on Voice-Ac just now.’

  Voice-Ac was a voice-recognition monitoring system. Through the microphones planted in every office and in the common parts of the Bendix Building, Voice-Ac could distinguish the voices of the thirty-four people under close surveillance and automatically record anything the said. The system was not activated by any other voices, so it was a relatively easy process for Ricks, who was trained in fast-forward listening, to trawl the suspects’ conversation for anything that might be significant.

  ‘Patch it through,’ Gunn said.

  ‘Coming on Channel Three.’

  Gunn stabbed the button on the control panel and listened. Almost instantly he heard the clearly recognizable tones of Jake Seals, and a woman whose voice he did not know:

  ‘You don’t like this place, do you?’

  ‘Whatever gave you that impression?’

  ‘It sucks, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It’s too early for me to have formed any kind of opinion.’

  ‘You know what I mean – except you don’t know the half of it.’

  ‘The half of what?’

  We’ll have a longer talk some time. Away from here.’

  There was a click, then silence. Gunn still had the receiver in his hand. ‘Who’s the woman?’

  ‘It’s that Miss Bannerman. The conversation took place at ten thirty-four this morning.’

  Gunn glanced at his watch. It was now twelve o’clock. ‘Good boy,’ he said, then hung up.

  There was a slightly bitter taste in his mouth which he tried to swill away with a mouthful of lukewarm coffee. He activated the replay button and listened in a couple more times. The woman sounded innocent enough but that wasn’t the point.

  The Bannerman acquisition had been vital to Bendix Schere’s long-term plans, more so than they had ever let on to the scientist himself in all the negotiations that had taken place. Gunn had made it his business to be fully aware of all this; of how difficult it had been to get Bannerman. And he knew the last thing anyone wanted was for Bannerman, his daughter, or any of their old team to learn things that would put them on their guard. But Seals was obviously going to spill something, soon, and was planning to do so safely away from the premises. In his mind at least.

  He called up the Bendix Building staff list on the computer screen and added a Christmas tree symbol to the right of Montana Bannerman’s name. Her conversations would also have to be monitored from now on. Then he picked up his internal phone and set in motion a home phone tap and twenty-four-hour surveillance operation on Jake Seals.

  16

  Shortly after half past ten, a wodge of files tucked under his arm, Conor enunciated ‘Floor Eight’ and felt the lift respond. He checked out his reflection in the bronze mirror, adjusted his tie, and smoothed the gelled tangle of his hair. Then the doors opened and he walked out into the green-carpeted foyer of the genetics research floor.

  ‘Miss Bannerman, please,’ he told the security guard, his eyes picking up the camera directly above the oak console.

  ‘Room 814, fifth door on the right down the corridor,’ the guard said, with a glazed look, as if he had already given the same directions a thousand times that morning.

  As he walked past, Conor glanced round to see what the guard was watching on his monitor screens. One showed a blank stairwell behind what was presumably a fire-exit door. Another showed an empty corridor. A third showed a large lab with several people working in it.

  Ahead of him, two men in the corridor were negotiating a crate on a porter’s trolley through a doorway. And on the door directly opposite was the number ‘814’. Through the window he could see a frizz of long blonde hair and his spirits rose as he realized it was the same young woman he had already met; she was seated at her desk surrounded by stacks of unopened packing cases and cardboard boxes. He rapped on the door which was ajar.

  ‘C
ome in.’

  He felt an instant attraction the moment he entered; hair the colour of winter wheat cascaded either side of a welcoming face, and clear blue eyes sparkled up at him with life and humour. Their owner looked elegant and businesslike in a bottle-green suit with a white, open-neck blouse.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Conor Molloy – we met before, right?’

  ‘Good morning, Mr Molloy.’ She put emphasis on the ‘Mr’ as if to remind him of the regulations, but also to convey that she could not take the formality too seriously.

  She gestured to one of the chairs in front of her desk and he sat down, holding the files on his lap, feeling good in her presence and enjoying the tease in her eyes. He noticed the tiny dimples in her cheeks and the almost perfect whiteness of her teeth. Miss Bannerman, he thought; you are seriously gorgeous.

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’

  ‘Sure, thanks.’

  She stood up. ‘Black or white?’

  ‘No milk or sugar.’

  He watched her as she walked out of the office. She was short, no more than about five foot three inches, with a slender figure, and she carried herself with a carefree air that exuded sensuality. It took him several moments after she had gone to collect his thoughts on the paperwork he had brought, and the questions he needed to ask. Then he glanced around, looking for clues about her.

  It was a pleasant office, flooded with the illusion of natural light and with the hi-tech furnishings that were standard throughout the building. There were a few personal touches, but not many: a couple of potted plants on the floor; a framed photograph of a man he recognized as Dr Bannerman with a woman who looked like an older version of Montana Bannerman; and a Burberry mackintosh hung from a hook on the door.

  He looked up at the ceiling with its built-in light and climate-control panels, and the ugly nozzles of the fire sprinkler system, wondering darkly what else might be concealed up there.

  Yes, she was a rebel, this young woman, he thought. No question about it. She would need a little coaxing along; gently, gently catch a monkey. But if he played his cards right he had a feeling he could win himself a powerful ally. And she was perfectly positioned; her father was now effectively masterminding the entire Bendix Schere genetics research programme; there would be very little information to which she would not have access.