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

been masterful—a tour de fucking force—taking nearly all Sunday evening. Luke had sloped off to a bar across the mall, leaving him covering Kurt Cobain tracks. But he promptly quit the Gibson for a more serious project: more serious than anything in his life.

First, he scanned the typescript he’d Xeroxed in Gelding’s office and converted it to Word for Windows. Then after an interruption—the phone call from Hoffman—he’d redrafted the tables, adding “Deaths, 1; Undisclosed serious adverse events, 2,” and summarized the explanation in the text. Finally, this morning, driving to Hartsfield-Jackson airport, he’d stopped at a Fedex Office Print & Ship Center and run off two hundred copies.

Someone tapped a microphone—a resonant booming—then Gelding’s voice squawked above the noise. “Ladies and gentlemen, doctors, everybody. Please. If you’ll bear with us a moment. Please. We appear to be the victims of an unfortunate prank. We appear to be the victims of a hoax.”

As he listened, he saw a shadow on the jazzy mauve carpet, then Hoffman appeared in the doorway. The general counsel raised a fist, as if to say, “I’ll break it again,” but didn’t say anything in words. He turned to a fire alarm panel by the door, raised an elbow, and fractured the glass.

THE ALARM stabbed the air like a kamikaze pilot, dragging the hotel into frenzy. Hoffman turned back into the brilliance of the ballroom. He’d no time now for Ben Louviere. He’d looked out for that kid, that cute little boy, and tried to help anyway he could.

Now this in return. Like father like son? How fucking, fucking wrong can you get?

Half the assembly was standing, flapping papers and folders. This thing was out of control. Kwong was screaming about “the meaning” of something. Wang Lei Wu yapped, “Marcia, Marcia.” Darlene Ruffin paced in circles, like a dog chasing its tail. Simone Thomas clamped a palm to her forehead.

The platform party split as if someone tossed a grenade and it rolled somewhere hidden among the tulips. Marcia shoved Hendricksen past a video monitor. Wilson spun and scooted down the ramp. Doctorjee forced a bundle of papers into a rucksack, threw it across his shoulder, and limped away.

Thank Christ we’re not live on CNN.

A hotel manager in owl-sized glasses entered to make an announcement. “Ladies, gentlemen,” she called. “We have a security alert. Would you please make your way upstairs as quickly as possible? Could we please clear the building? Thank you, please.”

Hoffman grabbed her shoulder and produced a clip of banknotes. “Look, you need to tell ’em now, leave every damn thing right here. Bags, folders, papers, everything. Especially the papers. We don’t want anything taken from this room. Nothing. We don’t want them taking the papers. You get me?”

The manager took the money and pressed it into her cleavage. “Ladies, gentlemen, please make your way to the front exits upstairs. Please leave all your property here. This is important safety information. You should not take anything at all in your hands, for security reasons. No bags, or papers, whatsoever. This is important security information, for your safety.”

A camera operator shouted, “Mr. Hoffman. You want this?”

“No. Shut it off. Get out.”

What he most needed now were folks he could trust: his scholarship kids. At least the women. “Start collecting up the papers,” he told Dominique and Sarah-Jane. “Pat them down if you gotta. Just get them.”

He spotted Janice Hughes and gave the same instruction. “Slap their damn faces if you must.”

Kwong edged toward the doors, hiding a folder under his coat. Hoffman snatched it and yanked out the typescript. “Don’t need this, so I’ll take it, thank you, please. Thing’s a set-up. Hoax. Thank you, please.”

Three pairs of doors to the foyer were shut, and a crowd backed up at a fourth. “So sorry about this.” Hoffman elbowed through. “This is damn serious. Gimme that.”

Simone Thomas protested. “But I still want to read it.”

He wrenched it from her fingers. “Please.”

As the last of the gathering headed up the stairs, he figured he’d gotten most. But not all. He wouldn’t count on the motherfuckers to give the right time of day. Trust me, I’m a doctor? Yeah, right. Dr. Honda pushed past him, and two plain refused. He’d be lucky to return this genie to the bottle.

Now a knot of sales guys hung back on the stairs, but otherwise the foyer was empty. He looked in the module and walked right round it.

That son of a bitch had run.

SUMIKO SPUN through the door, stepped onto Twelfth Street, and stopped in the shade of a ginkgo tree. Ben’s name on the typescript was the first thing she’d noticed during the silent tribute to Trudy. As Hendricksen droned about serologic responses, she’d wondered about the role a lawyer might play to warrant the last authorship credit. He’d no qualifications in medicine or science. Then she skipped through the text. And was stunned.

Now ringed in a chattering, jostling, huddle, she pulled the typescript from her blouse. What she read was incredible, impossible to grasp. And yet it made perfect sense.

She galloped through the tables, back and forth through the text, and skimmed through the references. Astounding.

At last, she understood. She could see what happened. But, still, this was extraordinary. Staggering. Here was a thirty-three-year-old woman: it had to be Helen Glinski. A retail manager. It was her.

Of course, enhanced progression, perhaps deceptive imprinting. There’d been a paper on that at a conference in Samoa, but everyone went to the beach.

Hiroshi, behind her, read over her shoulder. “That says what I think it says, yes?”

“It’s true, what it’s saying. It’s true. These cases… One of them… This one… They killed her.”

“So desu ne.” Hiroshi chuckled. “Bye bye, BerneWerner. Bye bye.”

Sixty-one

THE TWELVE-by-nine-foot, clinical white module B felt smaller without its customary contents. It was trucked back to Washington in a stripped-down edition, without the desk, swivel chair, or monitor. Its LED display panels were left leaning inside, and its floorspace given over to storage. Marketing materials,