‘Crawshaw! Is that Braithwaite woman here yet?’
‘Yessir! USAMRIID Sir!’ Captain Crawshaw shouted. ‘Quickly, the Colonel’s waiting,’ he urged, waving his hand back and forth as he shooed Kate towards the door.
Kate tilted her head, raised her eyebrows and made cross-eyes at the captain before wandering in to Colonel Cluster’s inner sanctum.
‘You wanted to see me, Colonel?’ Kate asked, blinking innocently at the red-faced Wassenberg who was drumming his fingers on the top of his desk.
‘At ease.’
‘Thank you, Colonel,’ Kate said condescendingly, infuriating Wassenberg even further.
‘I said this morning that I wasn’t happy with the standard of dress on this base, and one of the main offenders is you! Jeans are not an acceptable form of dress and your hair is to be cut short or tied in a bun. Crawshaw is sending you a copy of the dress manual.’
‘This may come as a surprise to you, Colonel,’ Kate responded angrily, ‘but I’m not part of your army, or anyone else’s. If I wanted to parade at six o’clock in the morning and tie my hair in a bun I would have gone to West Point, but from the little I’ve seen of that institution’s product,’ she said, glaring at the small man sitting behind his bombproof desk, ‘I’m quite happy with my decision to be a microbiologist!’
Incensed, Kate turned on her heel and strode through the sandbags, leaving Colonel Wassenberg speechless but more determined than ever to demolish the fiery young scientist’s career. He reached for the letter he’d received in the afternoon post, signed personally by the Secretary of Defense, requesting two high quality scientists skilled in Level 4 laboratory work be temporarily assigned to Halliwell Pharmaceuticals as liaison officers on the smallpox vaccine project and added Braithwaite’s name to Sayed’s. This would be a backwater that would at least stall her career until he could think of something more permanent.
CHAPTER 28
D r Richard Halliwell parked his red Mercedes-Benz SLR 722 McLaren Sports in his private car park underneath the Halliwell Tower. With a top speed of 208 miles an hour and a price tag of over $400,000, the sports roadster was just another symbol of Halliwell’s relentless pursuit of power; although for church on Sundays he conveyed a more subtle if no less powerful image with the big black Mercedes S600 sedan he allowed his wife to drive. Simone Carstairs, Halliwell’s personal assistant of nearly eight years, preferred the McLaren.
Halliwell inserted the key to his private lift and rode it to his office. The gleaming monolith of chrome and glass symbolised the ‘Big Pharma of Big Pharma’. Halliwell Pharmaceuticals had offices and factories in sixty-three countries.
Dr Halliwell took off his coat and hung it in the walnut-panelled cupboard adjacent to his private bathroom. Deep in thought, he wandered over to the windows of his office and, as was his habit, stared out towards the early morning mists that hovered over the lake below Stone Mountain. The day before, Vice President Bolton had telephoned to congratulate him on being awarded the Administration’s half-a-billion dollar contract for the production of 300 million doses of smallpox vaccine. Keeping Bolton on the books as a consultant, albeit on a separate set of books, had been a stroke of genius. Fleetingly he reflected on the expertise of his Chief Financial Officer, Alan Ferraro, who was away on leave. He’d never warmed to him, but then again, with the possible exception of his secretary, Halliwell didn’t warm to anyone. As long as Ferraro managed to keep the company clear of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the rest of the Wall Street regulators, Halliwell would continue to pay him his exorbitant salary and tolerate Ferraro’s need to disappear from time to time to explore the stupidity of his private interests. His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the inner doors to his spacious suite.
‘Come in, Simone,’ he said, moving back to his large walnut desk.
‘Morning, Richard.’ Simone Carstairs was tall and fit. Her striking red hair contrasted arrestingly with her deep tan. She was universally referred to as ‘Big Red’ around Halliwell Pharmaceuticals, although no one ever used the nickname in earshot of either her or the company’s chairman. Simone guarded the moat around Level 37 with an iron fist in a velvet glove. If you wanted to get to the chairman, you had to get past her. She had an oval face and her immaculate teeth were a brilliant white. Simone Carstair’s orthodontist was one of the most expensive in Atlanta, although there was nothing artificial about her cleavage, a fact that had never been lost on Richard Halliwell. Simone was wearing a loose-fitting top; she bent over his desk, lingering for a fraction longer than she needed to as she placed a cup of freshly percolated coffee on his desk. ‘Sleep well?’
‘Like a log – you?’ he asked meaningfully. Although he knew better than to quiz her, Halliwell often wondered what Simone got up to out of hours, or when she was on one of her numerous holidays to the Caribbean. So far his private investigator had not turned up any attachments. Where possessions were concerned Richard Halliwell was not one to be crossed.
‘I would have slept better if you’d been around,’ Simone replied none-too-subtly. It had been a constant source of irritation to her that Richard would not countenance leaving Constance, his depressingly boring and very religious wife, but she’d reluctantly learned to live with it.
Richard Halliwell had married into one of the most well-connected families in American politics, although if Halliwell thought he might benefit, he’d been sadly mistaken. Constance Halliwell was the daughter of Congressman Davis Burton. The Congressman had failed in both of his attempts to win the Republican nomination for the White House, but as one of the most respected and erudite congressmen on the Hill, he’d risen to lead the Republicans in the House. Speaker Davis Burton was now second-in-line to the Presidency after the Vice President, and a very astute judge of people. With years of experience in dealing with lobbyists and other characters of dubious pedigree swimming in the murky waters of politics, Davis Burton had taken an instant dislike to the young Halliwell. He’d been opposed to the marriage from the very beginning, and as time had gone on, that opposition had strengthened to the point he would no longer tolerate Halliwell in his house; but Richard Halliwell continued to believe he could win the congressman over. At the start of their marriage, when Halliwell discovered his wife was a complete waste of time in the bedroom, he’d nevertheless decided Constance was worth keeping. His difficulties with her father were not in the public domain and there were advantages in having a wife to whom middle-America could relate. To the voters, Halliwell was the ‘all-American boy’ made good, with powerful connections on the Hill and to the White House. Richard Halliwell had no doubt that when the time came, his prominent membership of an increasingly politically savvy Southern Baptist Church would also be a factor. Dan Esposito was not the only one to notice that the new Christian Right in America had become a powerful political force.
‘Your wife rang a few minutes ago. She said to tell you that Randy Baker has been offered a congressional page’s place. He’s going to work with your father-in-law.’
Halliwell nodded in satisfaction. Randy Baker, a young member of the Buffett Center, had recently expressed to Halliwell he had an interest in politics. Richard Halliwell had immediately recruited Constance to put in a word with her father. For the cost of a mobile phone and a few nickels out of petty cash, Halliwell had no doubt he could recruit the impressionable young Randy Baker to report on the comings and goings in the Speaker’s office. Information was power. Halliwell made a note to ring the young man and congratulate him.
‘She also asked me to remind you that you’re having lunch with Jerry Buffett after church next Sunday. He’s asked a Marine Corps Colonel to come down from Maryland and give the sermon as part of his “Wake Up America” program.’ Simone raised her eyebrows ever so slightly in a ‘that should be fun’ expression. ‘And the White House rang. They wanted to know if you are free for a game of golf with the President on Thursday this week at The Vineyard Country Club in California. Dan Esposito will be there as well.’