Limitless

By the time I got back to the conference room, a lot of people had arrived and the atmosphere was fairly frenetic. I wandered up to the front, where some of the MCL people had gathered in a group and were talking animatedly.

Suddenly, I heard Van Loon approaching me from behind.

‘Eddie, where have you been?’

I turned around. There was a look of genuine surprise on his face.

‘Jesus, Eddie, what happened? You … you look like you’ve seen—’

‘A ghost?’

‘Well, yeah.’

‘I’m a little stressed out here, Carl, that’s all. I just need some time.’

‘Look, Eddie, take it easy. If anyone’s earned a break around here, it’s you.’ He clenched his fist and held it out in a gesture of solidarity. ‘Anyway, we’ve done our work. For the moment. Am I right?’

I nodded.

Van Loon was then whisked off by one of his people to talk to somebody on the far side of the podium.

I floated through the next couple of hours in a kind of semiconscious daze. I moved around and mingled and talked to people, but I don’t remember specific conversations. It all felt choreographed, and automatic.

When the actual press conference started, I found myself at the top of the room, standing behind the Abraxas people, who were seated at the table to the right of the podium. At the back of the room – and over a sea of about 300 heads – there was a phalanx of reporters, photographers and camera-men. The event was going out live on several channels, and there was also a webcast and a satellite feed. When Hank Atwood took the podium, there was an immediate barrage of sound from the cameras at the back – clicking, whirring, popping flashbulbs – and this din continued uninterrupted throughout the whole press conference, and even intermittently during the question-and-answer session that followed. I didn’t listen carefully to any of the speeches, some of which I had helped to write, but I did recognize occasional phrases and expressions – even though the relentless repetition of words such as ‘future’, ‘transform’ and ‘opportunity’ only added to the sense of unreality I now felt about everything that was happening around me.

Just as Dan Bloom was finishing at the podium, my cellphone rang. I quickly took it out of my jacket pocket and answered it.

‘Hello, is this … Eddie Spinola?’

I could barely hear.

‘Yes.’

‘This is Dave Morgenthaler in Boston. I got your message from this morning.’

I covered my other ear.

‘Listen … hang on a second.’

I moved to the left, along the side of the room and through a door about half-way down that led into a quiet section off the atrium lounge.

‘Mr Morgenthaler?’

‘Yeah.’

‘When can we meet?’

‘Look, who are you? I’m busy – why should I take the time out to see you?’

As briefly as I could, I pitched him the story – a powerful, untested and potentially lethal drug from the labs of the company he was about to go up against in court. I kept it unspecific and didn’t describe the effects of the drug.

‘You haven’t said anything to convince me,’ he said. ‘How do I know you’re not some nut? How do I know you’re not making this shit up?’

The lights were low in this section of the lounge and the only other people nearby were two old guys engrossed in conversation. They were sitting at a table next to some huge potted palm trees. Behind me, I could hear voices resounding from the conference room.

‘You couldn’t make MDT up, Mr Morgenthaler. This shit is real, believe me.’

There was a pause, quite a long one, and then he said, ‘What?’

‘I said you couldn’t—’

‘No, the name. What name did you say?’

Shit – I shouldn’t have said the name.

‘Well, that’s—’

‘MDT … you said MDT.’ There was an urgency in his voice now. ‘What is this, a smart drug?’

I hesitated before I said anything else. He knew about it, or at least knew something about it. And he clearly wanted to know more.

I said, ‘When can we meet?’

He didn’t pause this time.

‘I can get an early flight tomorrow morning. Let’s meet, say … ten?’

‘OK.’

‘Somewhere outside. Fifty-ninth Street? In front of the Plaza?’

‘OK.’

‘I’m tall and—’

‘I’ve seen your photo on the Internet.’

‘Fine. OK. I’ll see you tomorrow morning then.’

I put the phone away and wandered slowly back into the conference room. Atwood and Bloom were together at the podium now, answering questions. I still found it hard to focus on what was going on, because that little incident up on the fifteenth floor – hallucination, vision, whatever – was still fresh in my mind and was blocking everything else out. I didn’t know what had happened between me and Donatella Alvarez that night, but I suspected now that as a manifestation of guilt and uncertainty, this was only the tip of a very large iceberg.