BLIND TRIAL by Brian Deer (best books to read for beginners TXT) 📗

was brighter than she remembered from last time, with extra lights on metal racks and chairs laid out without tables—theater-style—divided by an aisle down the middle. At the far wall, a podium was loaded with microphones, tulips, and bottles of water, while at the rear, between the doors and the last row of chairs, yawned an expanse of jazzy mauve carpet.

She ushered Hiroshi to seats halfway back on the aisle and scoured the room for faces. To their right: Simone Thomas, second author of the paper. Ahead: Wang Lei Wu, the fifth author. Beside him: Maureen—“Hi!”—with Darlene Ruffin, lab researchers, sales staff, and suits.

Video cameras were rigged at strategic positions, each branded with the company’s logo. One grabbed the scene from the carpet at the rear, another from the left-side wall. On the aisle, midway between her seat and the podium, a third was trained, in theatrical drama, on a gray-and-black Brother fax machine.

Who still used fax machines these days, she wondered? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen one. And the Brother was displayed like Fax Machine of the Year at the World Congress of Fax Machine Operatives. Resting on what looked like a hotel dining table, it nestled among layers of folded pink cloth and a gray-and-white sign.

The Time Has Come

A sticker under the keypad read, “BerneWerner Biomed,” and two tiny spotlights brightened the paper feed from which the marketing approval to change the history of global health was scheduled to slide at four o’clock.

Sumiko opened the folder that Ben had given her, expecting the usual bragging. But she couldn’t suppress a gasp when she eyed the first sheet. She elbowed Hiroshi. Unbelievable.

REMEMBERING DR. GERTRUDE S. MAYR

It is with the deepest regret and sadness that the Chairman and Board of BerneWerner Biomed Inc. announce the tragic death, in a domestic accident yesterday, of Dr. Gertrude S. Mayr, our Director of Vaccine Development, and the pioneering force behind WernerVac.

Today’s meeting will commence with silent tribute, reflection, and personal prayers for Dr. Mayr.

A biographical note completed the page with a list of Trudy’s honors and awards. On the back was a photograph from the latest annual report: the vaccine chief surrounded by her team. She wore a white coat and cradled a model of HIV the size of a Halloween pumpkin. She stared into the camera through tortoiseshell glasses, her face an unreadable mask.

“CHOP CHOP. Let’s go.” Marcia Gelding snapped shut a silver mascara case and strode to her appointment with destiny. She wore a company-gray suit, with company-pink piping, gray heels, and pink fingernails. A pearl-studded halter strengthened her horizontals. She clutched a sheet of handwritten notes.

She descended the stairs, passed the brown-uniformed guard, and strode into the foyer beside the ballroom. In her wake trailed the platform party for today’s formalities, plus Mr. Hoffman, who said he never sat on platforms. Frank Wilson scooted from the doors of an elevator. And, at the rear, hauling a rucksack, limped the awful, vile, disgusting man himself: her temporary, very temporary—one-month-to-termination—Executive Vice President, Research & Medicine.

His presence appalled her. But her general counsel argued that not bringing Doctorjee was risky. If a scandal broke later, his nonattendance might be viewed as implying they’d known what he’d done. The sole consolations were his difficulty walking and a padded neck brace supporting his chin. Apparently, Trudy hit him with a car.

“Marcia. One thing.” It was him addressing her.

She spun and flapped her notes at his mouth. “Don’t you say anything. Don’t you even speak. Don’t you even speak to me again.” Then she adjusted a button and winked at Heinz Hendriksen. The impression she sought—and not without grounds—was that she often addressed staff in this way.

Marcia nodded to Ben, glanced at the literature, and passed into the brilliance of the ballroom. It was 14:46 when she strode toward the podium, with the rest of them following in line. Wilson gathered speed and scooted up a ramp. Mr. Hoffman grabbed a chair near the front.

Applause swept the room—already too warm—as her party took their designated seats. She tapped a microphone nestled among tulips and took a few breaths to calm her nerves. “Thank you everyone,” she began. “Thank you so much. This is such a great delight. Quite fantastic.”

She summoned her best smile and unleashed it on the gathering with a dollop of her best British diction. “I’m afraid our change of venue has evidently confused some news organizations, so perhaps we are a little more sparse in attendance than expected. But even now, traffic permitting, I very much hope they will be with us momentarily from the NIH campus at Bethesda.”

Traffic permitting? They’d be sitting there like dumbbells. The fewer witnesses to this farrago the better. She glanced at her notes: three pages she’d drafted on the plane from Atlanta this morning. “But before we proceed to the very important, history-making, business of this afternoon, however, I do have a couple of announcements.”

She gestured toward the fax machine. “As I think most of you know, at sixteen hundred hours—when the NASDAQ financial market closes—we are scheduled to receive confirmation from the Division of Biologics at the Food and Drug Administration, where the commissioner is standing by to formally notify us that WernerVac has been, yes, officially approved for marketing in the United States of America.”

Clapping and cheers. Then everybody stood, clapped, cheered, and clapped.

“Please. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.” She raised her palms.

They sat.

“And we can finally tell all and sundry that BerneWerner Biomed really has solved one of the most challenging riddles of immunology and developed the first significantly effective vaccine against a foe long regarded as unconquerable by immunization: the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV.”

More cheers. Applause. Intermittent foot stamps.

She allowed her cheeks to slacken and her demeanor to darken. “However, before we hear from our keynote speaker, Professor Hendricksen, I’ve two items of less pleasant news. Really rather bad news, in fact.” She silently counted—one, two, three—to embed a new mood in her features. “The first