Counterfeit (The Jim Slater series Book 2) Read online

  You get used to a variety of sounds and smells on the base: the roar of heavy vehicles; the familiar double whine of a Rotofan landing; shouts from the parade ground; the tramp of boots and the reek of sweating bodies as a squad returns from a tab in full kit. I’d learned to shut all these things out but the smell of smoke did penetrate my consciousness. I went outside, then walked down to see what was happening.

  After our losses in Colombia the Force was below strength and we’d taken on some new recruits. Most of them had come from other armed services, which meant they were fit – but not to our standards. The Drill Sergeant, Bill Wicks, had already begun to put them through their paces. It was late morning so I knew they’d have done the assault course once already, wearing body armour and a full pack, then gone off for a ten-mile tab. Now they’d come straight back for another go at the course. I could hear Wicks yelling and cursing long before I got there. I saw one poor guy getting slower as he went arm over arm along a rope; then he stopped, and dropped – into a deep pool of mud below. Another, inching on his elbows under a net, collapsed, exhausted. He found himself on the receiving end of a particularly choice stream of invective from Wicks, who also sent a couple of live rounds over his head to hurry things along.

  It was clear by now where the smoke was coming from. At the very end of the course Wicks had devised a new torture. The guys were going through pipes just large enough to take them. And to make it more interesting Wicks had lit a series of bonfires so that smoke was drifting over and through each one. That explained the smell. It also explained the soldiers who’d just emerged from the tunnels, lying on their backs, coughing and gasping. I frowned. I remembered my own induction. We’d hated the man with a vengeance, but his training had saved my life a couple of times since. All the same he’d gone too far this time.

  I went up to him. “I hope you’ve got some medics and oxygen on hand, Sarn’t,” I said.

  “No oxygen on a battlefield, Colonel,” he grunted.

  “True, but if there is a battle I’d like to have a few men left to send out there. Douse the fires or lay on some oxygen.”

  On my way back my phone buzzed. It was the main gate. I listened for a moment.

  “All right, I’ll be in my office.”

  *

  I’d just got back and sat down behind my desk when there was a loud knock on my door.

  “Come in.”

  The door opened and I looked up.

  She was wearing full uniform. She took two paces into the office, stopped at attention, and saluted smartly. Her voice was a loud bark.

  “Lieutenant Abigail Moore reporting for duty – sir!”

  Her lips were pressed tightly together and her face was glowing with indignation. It was a magnificent sight.

  I had to smother a smile. “At ease, Lieutenant. Have a chair.”

  “Prefer to stand – sir!”

  I got up and moved the chair towards her.

  “Do sit down, Lieutenant,” I said, a little more firmly.

  Her eyes flashed but she took the chair.

  I resumed my seat behind the desk. “Welcome to Fort Piper, Lieutenant.”

  “Why am I here, Colonel?”

  “You’re a PHSCC officer, Lieutenant. The rules allow you to be allocated to another uniformed service. I’ve arranged for you to be allocated to the Special Assignment Force.”

  “I know all that. Why?”

  “I think you know why. When I send eighteen men on a mission I expect them to come back – all of them, not just three. We weren’t aware of the special risks in Colombia. That was a lapse in communication and it’s being dealt with. But there’s a bigger problem: how did we allow this drug resistance to arise in the first place? You’ve been dealing with one condition but I’ve seen reports of others coming in, including AIDS and TB. There are already cases in Mexico and it could spread into the Southern States quite quickly. The Commissioned Corps recognises this as a serious health threat and so do I. You and I are going to do something about it.”

  She was sitting rigidly upright in the chair. “I told you once: I don’t want any part of this… this crusade.”

  I regarded her with interest. We were in the same unit now and she was taking a risk to buck an order from a senior officer. But I’d brought her on board because I needed someone who could think for themselves, and what she was doing simply reinforced me in my choice. In any case I’d be ashamed to admit how much I was enjoying her spirit.

  “Let me tell you something, Lieutenant. I won’t bore you with my life history but it hasn’t been an easy ride. The only reason I’m here at all is that I don’t give up. The fact of the matter is: somebody, somewhere is making a lot of money out of selling substandard drugs. It’s cost thousands of lives, including the lives of twelve men whose friendship and professionalism I valued. Whoever’s responsible has gone unchallenged. I aim to give them one whole heap of trouble.”

  “So do it. You don’t need me.”

  “We’ve been over that before. I can’t do it without you. But by the same token, you can’t do it without me. Together we’re more than the sum of the parts.”

  She was still bristling. “You’re just pulling rank.”

  “Actually I’m trying hard not to. This isn’t going to work if it’s always ‘Colonel’ and ‘Lieutenant’. We need to drop the military formalism. It’s got to be a collaboration of equals.”

  One eyebrow arched. “Jim and Abby?”

  “Something like that. Will you give it a try?”

  She was still breathing hard but I sensed a slight relaxation in her posture. There was a heavy silence. I let it run its course.

  “Purely out of curiosity,” she said testily, “where were you planning to start?”

  “At the Public Health Service in Washington. I want to know what the lab did with your samples.”

  “Suppose they won’t give you access?”

  “Well then I will have to pull rank.”

  “That shouldn’t be necessary. I think I can arrange it.”

  “Good. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “Slow down, all right? I’m not necessarily going along for this ride.”

  “All right, all right.” I stood up. “I’ll show you to your quarters. I’ve arranged for you to stay in the accommodation block for the female soldiers. You should have more privacy there. Most of the people on this base are young, unmarried men. Let me know if anyone pesters you.”

  She glared at me. “I’m being pestered now.”

  “No, you’re being asked for your professional cooperation. That’s different. Now, where did you leave your bags?”

  PART TWO

  15

  The maze of corridors at the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps in Washington reminded me of the academic departments at the University Hospital in Medellín. Abby seemed familiar with the layout and she walked quickly, passing by other personnel dressed in similar uniforms.

  We’d flown to Washington in almost total silence. This, and her stiff demeanor, made for a tense atmosphere. It was proving harder than I’d anticipated.

  Had it been a mistake to recruit her? I dismissed the thought immediately. She was annoyed to find herself hitched to someone else’s wagon, that’s all. It was understandable. I’d have to make up for it by leaving her plenty of slack.

  Partly to engage her in conversation I pointed to a sign.

  “Entomology Division? That’s insects, isn’t it?”

  “Insect vectors. Like the mosquitoes that carry your drug-resistant malaria.”

  “What, you mean they’ve got those damn things here?”

  “Yes, among other nasties. Don’t worry, they’re housed very securely.”

  We’d already gone past, but I looked anxiously over my shoulder. “What for?”

  She turned right, down a corridor marked “Analytical Division”, tossing words over her shoulder without slackening her pace.

  “It’s a complex life cycle. Th
ey want to know if carrying the drug-resistant form of the organism makes it more vulnerable to attack with alternative insecticides.”

  She stopped outside a door and gripped the handle.

  “Remind me: who is it we’re going to see?” I asked. I already knew, but I thought it was good psychology.

  “I told you once, Stefan Dabrowski. He’s the one I sent our samples to. If anyone knows anything about them, it’ll be him.”

  She opened the door and we entered a large, sunlit lab. There were half a dozen people working at the benches, most of them wearing high-fastening white coats, safety goggles, and gloves. Abby spoke to the nearest one, a dark-skinned young man operating a machine that delivered measured amounts of a solution into an array of wells in a plastic dish.

  “Stefan around?”

  “I think he’s in his office.” He pointed, then turned his attention back to the machine.

  “Thanks.”

  The office was a small room off the main lab. Abby knocked and we went in.

  Stefan Dabrowski put down his reading glasses and jumped up from behind a desk littered with paperwork.

  “Abby, hi! Come right in.”

  “Stefan, this is Colonel Jim Slater. He’s with the SAF. He has an interest in the work we were doing in Colombia.”

  “Colonel.”

  His handshake was firm. He was short and chubby, and looked to be in his mid-forties. He’d already lost much of his hair, although what was left at the sides was dark. He pulled out a couple of chairs for us.

  “Have a seat. When did you get back?”

  “I was summoned a few days ago,” Abby replied, shooting an acid look in my direction. “The rest of the team will be pulling out in a couple of weeks. Eduardo will have to supervise the move.”

  We all sat down.

  “And how was Medellín?”

  “Interesting, at first. The attraction wears thin when you’ve been out there almost a year.”

  “I guess they’ll put you on another assignment now. What are you doing here?”

  “I was hoping you could tell us something about the samples I sent you.”

  He frowned and scratched the back of his neck. “I sent you a report on the first batch. Didn’t you get it?”

  “Yes. Were they all like that?”

  “Come on, Abby, you know we couldn’t possible analyse all of them – it would take months! They’re probably the same, though. Dopranamid and Quinoxocarb, wasn’t it? All the samples we looked at were counterfeit.”

  As he was speaking he tapped at a touch screen and scanned an upright display. The arrangement was similar to Howard’s. I liked it; you could view the display even though you had papers strewn on every horizontal surface. Whoever invented desk screens like the ones at Fort Piper must have thought we’d have no further need for printouts. We were all government-funded, so I wondered how people like Howard and Stefan had managed to get ahead of us.

  “Here we are,” Stefan said. “Anything in particular you wanted to know?”

  “Start with the packaging.”

  “The packaging, yes. I remember that, all right.” He turned to me to explain. “We’re pretty good at picking up counterfeit packages these days. There’ll be minute differences: shades, dots, lines, or inappropriate illustrations. The holograms will have slightly fuzzy edges or they’ll be the wrong way round. These weren’t. They looked normal. I’ve got the report here for Quinoxocarb. The drug's made by Kappa Pharmaceuticals and we compared it with the genuine product. Text – correct. Stock – that’s the material it’s printed on – correct weight and finish. Colorimetry – that’s the precise colour of the printed elements – correct. Hologram – correct. We even used Energy Dispersive X-ray Diffraction to get the composition of the inks and the stock and the varnish; no difference. Same for the internal packaging and the label – that’s the piece of paper inside that tells you the side effects and contra-indications.”

  I nodded. “So they’re getting better at faking it?”

  He shook his head. “It would cost the earth to do work of that quality. You have to remember, these guys want to keep the costs down; that way they increase their profit margins.”

  “Then maybe they’ve persuaded the packaging firm to supply them as well as the legitimate manufacturers.”

  “It’s a risk a packaging firm just wouldn’t take. These contracts are worth a lot of money. If it ever came to light they were doing that sort of thing, no genuine pharma would ever touch them again.”

  Abby interrupted. “What about the tablets?”

  “Oh, they contain the drug, all right. About ten per cent of the effective dose. The rest is excipient.”

  I could follow most of what he was saying; I badly wanted to understand all of it.

  “What’s excipient?”

  “Essentially it’s the vehicle for the active ingredient. We found traces of stearic acid – that would be there to facilitate release from the tablet press. There’s also a cellulose coating, because both these drugs have an unbelievably foul taste. The rest is filler.”

  “Sorry—?”

  “Filler is what they use to bulk up the tablet. Sometimes it’s a synthetic substance, like hydroxypropyl cellulose. In this case it’s simpler: calcium carbonate. I could drop one of those tablets into dilute acid and it would fizz merrily until nothing was left. Except, of course, the small amount of drug that would go into solution.”

  Abby sighed. “It would be so much better if they didn’t put in any drug at all.”

  I frowned. “Well why do they bother? I thought they were trying to keep costs down.”

  “Spot checks,” Stefan replied. “There are some controls, you see, but it would take far too long to do a quantitative analysis like we do here,” he pointed towards the lab. “The inspectors are dealing with too many so they just do a qualitative analysis. That tells them the drug is there. What it doesn’t tell them is how much.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You’ve got fake tablets inside a pack that looks identical to the manufacturer’s own. Have you confronted the company with this, seen what they have to say?”

  “Me? No. We just look after the analysis. We send a report higher up the line and leave it to others to follow it up.”

  I resisted the temptation to cast a meaningful look at Abby. She’d said something very similar back in Medellín.

  “And do you think they’ve followed it up?”

  “Probably not. Not yet, anyway. There’s a lot of this sort of thing. At the moment they’re really worried about resistance to drugs for HIV and TB.”

  “So you’ve provided the ammunition but nobody’s fired the gun.”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.” He laughed. “I suppose I should expect a metaphor like that from you.”

  I smiled. “Stefan,” I said slowly. “How would you like to fire the gun?”

  His eyebrows went up.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Abby and I are going to take one of these counterfeit packs to Kappa Pharmaceuticals. They make Quinoxocarb so it’ll be interesting to see what they have to say about it. It would be very helpful if you could come with us.”

  I could feel Abby’s eyes drilling holes into me. I turned to her and smiled amiably. Her lips tightened. I was quite enjoying this.

  Stefan frowned. “It would have to be unofficial, wouldn’t it? Me being there.”

  “Yes. I think it’s simpler that way.”

  He looked, a little desperately, at the mountain of paper on his desk, then back at me. A smile spread slowly across his face and he began to nod.

  “Hey, I like it. We’ve been beavering away in this lab for years and I’ve never really seen what happens to the results.”

  “Great.”

  He sucked his lip. “You know, we’d have more clout if we took someone from the FDA.”

  “The Federal Drugs Administration?”

  “Yeah, they license the drug for use. The company may not be responsi
ble for the counterfeiting but they’d still want to stay on the right side of the FDA. May make them sit up and take notice. You know.”

  “Sounds good. Do you know someone at the FDA?”

  “Sure do. I’ll give Norman Harries a buzz. When do you want to do this?”

  16

  We sat on deep sofas in the heavily carpeted reception area of Kappa Pharmaceuticals. Norman Harries had flown to Newark Liberty International Airport and we’d joined him in Terminal C, the domestic air terminal. He was probably about the same age as Stefan but a full head taller and a lot slimmer. Where Stefan was cheerful and outgoing, Harries was gaunt and tight-lipped, and a certain air of tension around him discouraged light conversation. Abby was equally uncommunicative, thanks to my spectacularly unsuccessful attempts to engage her in what I was trying to do, so we waited in silence.

  The girl on the reception desk put down her phone and dazzled us with a smile.

  “Mr. Quilter will be with you shortly,” she trilled.

  A few minutes later a man walked briskly into reception wearing a white coat over an open-necked shirt and slacks. He crossed straight to us.

  “Craig Quilter, Quality Control Manager. Which one is Dr. Dabrowski?”

  We stood. Stefan introduced himself, then turned to us.

  “This is Norman Harries of the FDA. This is Jim Slater, and this is Abby Moore, PHS Commissioned Corps.”

  I’d asked to be introduced in this way, simply to avoid awkward questions. As I was out of uniform it would be assumed that I was from the Commissioned Corps, too.

  “We’ll go upstairs in a bit,” Quilter said. “Would you like to take a quick look at our production facility first?”

  Stefan looked at us. Abby and Harries didn’t react but I nodded, so Stefan said, “Sure, why not?”

  Quilter led the way, maintaining what looked to me like an easy conversation with Stefan; Harries was behind them and Abby and I brought up the rear.

  We passed through a covered way into another building and as we walked down the corridor I became aware of a distant hum of machinery. It grew louder. We paused at a pair of steel doors. Quilter touched his I.D. card to a reader on one side and the doors slid back, accompanied by a massive hike in volume. Beyond was a room the size of a hangar, crammed with machinery, moving belts, and thumping presses. Quilter conducted us to a central point, from which it was possible to see that this was actually one continuous conveyer, snaking back and forth as the materials progressed through the various stages of production. By raising his voice and using gestures he managed to describe the process.