Joshua Weinburger, Jr. was the stereotypical businessman, impeccably attired, obviously extremely reserved. He glanced at Charles with a mixture of disdain and boredom, switching his attention back to Dr. Ibanez almost immediately.
Seated to the right of the desk was Dr. Morrison, whose dress mirrored Joshua Weinburger, Jr.’s in its attention to detail. A silk handkerchief, which had been carefully folded, then casually flared, protruded from his breast pocket.
“Come in, come in!” commanded Dr. Ibanez good-naturedly.
Charles approached Dr. Ibanez’s huge desk, noticing the conspicuous lack of a fourth chair. He ended up standing between the Weinburgers and Morrison. Charles didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he stuck them into his pockets. He looked out of place among these businessman with his frayed oxford-cloth shirt, his wide out-of-style tie, and poorly pressed slacks.
“I think we should get right to business,” said Dr. Ibanez. “The Weinburgers, as co-chairmen of the board of directors, have graciously come to help us manage the current crisis.”
“Indeed,” said Weinburger, Jr., turning slightly in his chair so as to look up at Charles. He had a tremor of his head and it rotated rapidly in a short arc to and fro. “Dr. Martel, it’s not the policy of the board of directors to interfere in the creative process of research. However, there are occasionally circumstances in which we must violate this rule and the current crisis is such a time. I think you should know that Canceran is a potentially important drug for Lesley Pharmaceuticals. To be very blunt, Lesley Pharmaceuticals is in precarious financial condition. Within the last few years, their patents have run out on their line of antibiotics and tranquilizers, and they are in desperate need of a new drug to market. They have committed their scarce resources into developing a chemotherapy line, and Canceran is the product of that research. They hold the exclusive patent on Canceran but must get the drug on the market. The sooner the better.”
Charles studied the faces of the men. Obviously they weren’t going to dismiss him summarily. The idea was to soften him up, make him understand the financial realities, then convince him to recommence work on Canceran. He had a glimmer of hope. The Weinburgers couldn’t have risen to their positions of power without intelligence, and Charles began to formulate in his mind the way he would convince them that Canceran was a bad investment, that it was a toxic drug and would probably never be marketed.
“We already know what you discovered about the toxicity of Canceran,” said Dr. Ibanez, taking a short puff on his cigar and unknowingly undermining Charles. “We realize that Dr. Brighton’s estimates are not entirely accurate.”
“That’s a generous way of putting it,” said Charles, realizing with dismay that his trump card had been snatched from him. “Apparently all the data in the Canceran studies done by Dr. Brighton has been falsified.” He watched the reaction of the Weinburgers out of the corners of his eyes, hoping for a response but seeing none.
“Most unfortunate,” agreed Dr. Ibanez. “The solution is salvaging what we can and going forward.”
“But my estimates suggest the drug is extremely toxic,” said Charles desperately, “so toxic, in fact, that it might have to be given in homeopathic doses.”
“That’s not our concern,” said Joshua Weinburger, Jr. “That’s a marketing problem, and that’s the one department at Lesley Pharmaceuticals that is outstanding. They could sell ice to Eskimos.”
Charles was dumbfounded. There wasn’t even the pretense of ethicality. Whether the product would help people made no difference. It was business—big business.
“Charles!” said Dr. Morrison, speaking for the first time. “We want to ask if you could run the efficacy and toxicity studies concurrently.”
Charles switched his gaze to Dr. Morrison and stared at him with contempt. “That kind of approach would be reducing inductive research to pure empiricism.”
“We don’t care what you call it,” said Dr. Ibanez with a smile. “We just want to know if it could be done.”
Joshua Weinburger, Sr. laughed. He liked aggressive people and aggressive ideas.
“And we don’t care how many test animals you use,” said Morrison generously.
“That’s right,” agreed Dr. Ibanez. “Although we’d recommend you use mice since they’re considerably cheaper, you can use as many as you’d like. What we’re suggesting is doing efficacy studies at a very wide range of dosages. At the conclusion of the experiment, new toxicity values could be extrapolated and then substituted for the falsified data in the original toxicity study done by Dr. Brighton. Simple as that, and we’d save lots of time! What do you say, Charles?”
“Before you answer,” said Morrison, “I think I should warn you that if you refuse, it will be in the best interests of the institute to let you go and seek someone who will give Canceran the attention it deserves.”
Charles looked from face to face. His fear and panic had disappeared. Anger and contempt remained. “Where are my lab books?” he asked with a tired voice.
“Safe and sound in the vault,” said Dr. Ibanez. “They are the property of the institute but you will get them back as soon as you finish Canceran. You see, we want you to concentrate on Canceran and we feel that having your own books might be too much of a temptation.”
“We can’t emphasize enough the need for speed,” added Joshua Weinburger, Jr. “But as an added incentive, if you can have a preliminary study done in five months, we’ll give you a bonus of ten thousand dollars.”
“I’d say that is very generous,” said Dr. Ibanez. “But you don’t have to decide right this moment. In fact, we have agreed to give you twenty-four hours. We don’t want you to feel coerced. But just so you know, we will be making preliminary inquiries into finding your replacement. Until then, Dr. Charles Martel.”
With disgust, Charles whirled and headed for the door. As he reached it, Dr. Ibanez called out: “One other thing. The board of directors and the administration want to convey their condolences regarding your daughter. We hope she recovers quickly. The Institute health plan, by the way, only holds while you are actively employed. Good day, doctor.”
Charles wanted to scream. Instead he ran the length of the administrative department and thundered down the metal fire stairs to his office, but once there, he didn’t know whether he wanted to stay. For the first time he felt that being part of the Weinburger Institute was a disgrace. He hated the fact that they even knew about Michelle. On top of that they were using Michelle’s illness as leverage against him. It was an outrage. God!
He looked around his laboratory, his home for the last eight years. He felt as if he knew every piece of glassware, each instrument, every bottle of reagent. It didn’t seem fair that he could be rudely plucked from this environment at whim, especially now that he was making such progress.
His eye fell on the culture he’d set up with Michelle’s leukemia cells. With great effort he went over to the incubator, peering in at the rows of carefully arranged glass tubes. It appeared to be progressing well, and Charles felt a much-needed sense of satisfaction. As far as he could tell, his progress of isolating and augmenting a cancer antigen seemed to work as well with human cells as it did with animal cells. Since it was already time for the next step, Charles rolled up his sleeves and tucked his tie inside his shirt. Work was Charles’s anesthetic and he bent to the task. After all, he had twenty-four hours before he’d have to bow to the demands of the administration. He knew but did not want to admit to himself that he had to give in for Michelle’s sake. He really had no choice.