The guard opened a door, letting the agents into the outer office of the chief executive officer of Royce Pharmaceuticals, then closed it and withdrew into the hallway.
“Mr. Royce is waiting,” a very polite secretary said, standing from her desk and walking to the door on the back wall. “Right through here.”
The agents followed the directions and were met by the reason for their visit.
“Hello,” Monte Royce said as the agents entered. He stood in the center of his spacious office, halfway between the door and his desk, which was backdropped by a panoramic view of the green hillsides that would turn brown once the region’s brief rainy season had ended. “I’m Monte Royce.”
Art took the man’s outstretched hand first, then Frankie did.
“Can I offer you anything?” Royce asked. “Some tea? Water?”
“No,” Art said. “Thank you. We’re fine.”
Royce looked to his secretary waiting in the doorway. “Thank you, Mary.”
“Mr. Royce,” Frankie began as the heavy oak door closed, “I have to tell you, you have some beautiful artwork here.”
Royce bowed his gray and balding head graciously. “Thank you. My mother’s father began the collection over a hundred years ago. I have a few pieces here to brighten the place up.”
“It does,” Frankie said.
Royce motioned to two couches facing each other across a stunning Persian rug. He took a seat on one, the agents on the other. “I suspect you are not here to discuss eighteenth-century art.”
“No, we’re not,” Art said. “We’re here about Nikolai Kostin.”
“Yes, Mr. King,” Royce said, nodding, his almost black suit combining with his aged features to give him the appearance of a mortician expressing sympathy over a lost loved one. “I grew used to using his new name while he worked for us.”
The tone of the tense Royce used in referring to Kostin tweaked an alarm in both agents, Frankie jumping on it first. “While he worked for you? He hasn’t worked for you recently?”
Royce’s eyes wandered the room for a moment, his expression and manner becoming somewhat sad as he looked back to the agents. “Unfortunately, no. His time with us was short. Just less than a year, I believe. He had, you see, a problem adjusting to our working methods. To the way we operate here. It was a matter of culture, partly, and of personality.”
“He was fired, then?” Frankie sought to confirm, her notebook and pen coming out.
“Yes. Not an amicable parting,” Royce revealed. “He was not happy with us for doing so.”
Art had watched the man as Frankie began the questioning, measuring his reactions to each query posed. Once he jumped in, the roles would reverse, his partner becoming the observer. One to receive and record the response. The other to make a mental record of the person’s manner. It was nothing discussed, being instead a process ingrained from the earliest days of their academy training. The words and the ways, it was called. Somewhere in those, sometimes far from the spoken answers, was the truth.
“And you met him in Russia?”
“Yes. In St. Petersburg. In the spring of 1993. It was a rather high-profile trip I undertook. The Russian government provided guides and a good deal of assistance in the way of transportation.”
Frankie nodded, checking her notes quickly. “And you went there to…”
“To tour facilities with similar functions to mine,” Royce explained, taking the long pause after his short response as a signal that the agent was not yet satisfied. “It was a…a chance to see the level of sophistication they had attained under the stifling system of state control the plant operators were subject to. In a way, I suppose, I wanted to see if there might be ways for my company to assist the industry in Russia with technical help in the form of joint ventures. Partnerships. And the like.”
“So it was business?”
“Yes. Most definitely. Though not devoid of altruism,” Royce added with a smile. “Good can come from a profitable relationship. That is possible.”
“I guess it is,” Frankie benignly agreed. “And Nikolai Kostin approached you as Congressman Vorhees stated?”
“I did not see Richard’s statement. I was told of it.”
Richard? Art decided to take it from there. “You know the congressman well?”
“I know many people in our government well. Senator Crippen from this state is a friend, as well as Richard Vorhees. I have a facility in Massachusetts, and my mother lived in his district until a few years ago. I moved her out here then. She is quite old, you can imagine.”
In her nineties at least, Art guessed, given the visual clues to Royce’s advanced age. “And—”
“But,” Royce interjected, “to the young lady’s question, yes, he approached me in St. Petersburg.”
Young lady? Art saw the smile, then the seemingly friendly head tilt his partner had mastered. It’s Agent Aguirre! he could almost hear her screaming inside. “Back to the congressman,” Art said. “You proposed the idea of Mr. Kostin coming to work for you to him, correct?”
“Correct.”
“And the name change. Who proposed that?”
Royce looked away again, thinking back. “I believe it was myself. You see, I understand the vociferous nature of some societal elements. People that oppose our using animals in testing, and so on. I thought that having a man on staff who had worked in the Russian defense establishment could bring on similar actions. That, in my opinion, would not have been good for my company, or for Mr. King.”
“Kostin,” Art corrected.
“Yes. Mr. Kostin.”
“So he came over, it didn’t work out, and he went on his way,” Art said. “Is that the simple picture?”
“That is the picture,” Royce answered.
Very straightforward, Art thought. And very clean. Too clean. “You make drugs here.”
“No, we design them here,” Royce corrected. “And we prefer to call them pharmaceuticals. Several other facilities actually produce them.”
“Pharmaceuticals deal heavily with chemicals, correct?”
Royce nodded at Art’s question.
“Are you a chemist?”
“A chemical engineer.”
“I assume, then, that you know what chemicals would be required to make what Mr. King was making,” Art said.
“The basic ones, yes,” Royce confirmed.
“Would those chemicals be available here?” Art asked. “Would the equipment needed to manufacture nerve gas be available here?”
“Agent Jefferson, there is absolutely no way that Mr. King could have made that poison here,” Royce responded, showing more animation than at any time so far in the conversation. “Absolutely no way.”
“I don’t think he did,” Art said. “But could he have acquired either the chemicals or the equipment here?”
Royce shook his head emphatically. “Absolutely not. It is a violation of our regulations, and federal regulations, to allow that to happen.”
“Mr. King was not following too many regulations,” Frankie reminded him.
“Still, any pilferage would have been noticed, reported, and stopped,” Royce assured the agents.
Frankie knew it was time for a new tack. “Does the name Frederick Allen mean anything to you?”
Royce’s head shook as he recrossed his legs. “No. No it doesn’t.”
Frankie sensed something in the response, or a lack of something. A challenge was warranted. “Are you very sure?”