BLIND TRIAL Brian Deer (best novels for beginners TXT) 📖

of a breakthrough infection. We’ll accept that as established.”

“Somewhat less advantaged?”

“Please. And that’s out of the vaccine arm of a little over thirteen thousand. Forget Boston and Florida. They’re both within the threshold of a typical package insert caution. I don’t entirely understand why we didn’t write them up.”

“Better ask your attorney there. You’re gonna need him.”

“So that’s one in thirteen thousand. Quite acceptable. That’s a tremendous safety profile.”

The old girl snorted. “That’s not the figure. If your mind wasn’t so fouled-up, you’d take it from the number who got WernerVac and seroconverted HIV positive. Not the total treatment arm. Most of those folks would never have gotten the virus anyway. How often does the vaccine make folks who do get HIV worse? That’s the attributable risk.”

“Fair enough. That’s a reasonable point. If you want that figure, you can have it too.” Doctorjee tapped his phone.

“I don’t want anything from you.”

“Of our more than thirteen thousand on the vaccine arm, we had 156 who, shall we say, were less than wholly protected by WernerVac in the shape of sterilizing immunity. They became HIV positive, despite inoculation. Yes?”

“Alright, I’ve heard enough of this. Just stop now.”

Doctorjee continued to poke at his phone. “So, as we know, Ms. Glinski was one of those.”

“Just stop.”

“So, to get the percentage, we divide one by 156. Yes?”

Ben ran the numbers in his head. “Point six four and change.”

Hoffman watched the EVP do the math.

1 ÷ 156% = 0.6410

Doctorjee held his phone in the old girl’s face. “You see? Zero point six four one. Just point six four—less than two thirds—of one percent of those actually infected do appreciably less well interacting with your vaccine. And they would, of course, be suitable for appropriate treatment. Just as they are today. That is a phenomenal safety profile.”

“You think?”

“Why, Trudy, that’s excellent. For a retroviral RNA infection? These data tell us not only that those who get the vaccine enjoy a tremendous benefit of more than sixty percent efficacy protection, but they are vanishingly unlikely to come to any harm. The risk-benefit profile is remarkable.”

The old girl didn’t reply.

Doctorjee snapped shut his briefcase. “We’re not keeping anything from you here, I guarantee. Had you been able to spend more time in the office, we might have discussed this months ago.”

Ben shut the door, and the light cut out.

“I’ll be no part of this,” the old girl snarled.

“For goodness sake, four-and-a-half thousand people are infected with HIV every day. Humanity needs a vaccine, just as it did with the coronavirus, measles, polio, smallpox. You have, of course, seen Whitley’s work on herd immunity, comparing the effects on the spread of the virus at a population level of even a modestly successful product now, compared with a highly effective product delayed for years.”

“You’ll never get away with it.”

Doctorjee leaned forward, speaking close to a pillow. “Indeed, it is possible you are, again, correct. There’s a risk. But these are presentational matters, not the science. Presentation is an area for compromise, where perhaps your scientific work is not. The fact we have before us is your vaccine is a stupendous achievement, cutting the spread of infection as nothing else could. The rest is an illusion, a dream, a dance.”

The old girl grunted. “And what happens when there’s more cases? There’s going to be more Helen Glinskis. We only went 102 weeks. What happens after that? We don’t know, do we?”

“All in good time, Trudy. In the end, we value truth. We are a most ethical company, as you know. Once the vaccine is marketed—with all appropriate warnings, of course—the risks and benefits will become very much clearer to us. You yourself could perhaps draft a proposal for more rigorous post-marketing surveillance.”

“It will all come out in the end. You mark my words. You can’t hide something like that forever.”

Doctorjee sighed. “That is a slight risk. We can’t wholly deny that. But I honestly cannot envisage why it should. We’re all colleagues here, Frank’s content, and we appear to have satisfied Dr. Honda about the matters she’s aware of. We were concerned she may become a problem when her friend Murayama turned up on Tuesday. But Ben here has dealt with them both brilliantly. Brilliantly. Sumiko Honda turned out to be nothing but a shameless slut.”

Forty-five

HE WOULDN’T be a hero. But he’d be decisive. He’d deal with this insanity. Now. Ben opened the driver’s door of the white Nissan Sentra and twisted till his sneakers touched asphalt. Any feelings of discovery, curiosity, or wholeness had passed with the mention of Sumiko. Her name seemed to wake him, like she woke him that morning with the first faint light of day.

“Need to relieve my discomfort, what with the coffee and everything. Be back in a second. Okay?”

A half-moon shone through a break in the clouds, casting a creamy glow across the lot. He strolled toward the carwash to the right of the Bottle Shop and stood facing a rough brick wall.

Should he pull out his dick, or go for his phone? Either could be seen from the Sentra. How quick would local cops or deputies respond? He unzipped and loosed a bladderful of urine.

He repacked his pants and returned to the cars. But not to the white sedan. He walked past it to the Camaro, opened the driver’s door, crouched, and drew his Samsung.

The phone hadn’t powered before he heard another door. Then Hoffman’s voice. “What you doing?”

“Lost my Maui Jims.”

“Your what?”

“My shades. Put them down here somewhere. Can’t find them. Be over in a second. Be right with you.”

He heard the Sentra door shut. He hit 9–1–1.

One ring tone… A second… A third…

Then Hoffman stepped round the car.

“Fuck you doing there?”

Ben rose and stepped backward. “Nothing, you know. Was checking the weather. That’s all.”

Hoffman moved forward, right arm swinging, and clamped his paw round the phone. “Gimme that now. Told you, keep it off. Fuck’s the matter with you?”

Ben snatched at empty air. Too late.

Hoffman raised an arm and