Читать книгу Sweet Talking Money - Harry Bingham - Страница 8

It was eight thirty-five on a chilly Boston evening, and the scientists were beginning to ramble. Enough.

‘Let’s call a halt,’ said Bryn. ‘Who’s writing up?’

He knew the answer. A scraggy scientist, looking like something put together from rags and pipe-cleaners, raised his hand. ‘Dr Lewinson. Excellent.’ Bryn turned on his smile, maximum beam. His show of goodwill was brief and insincere. Of the eighteen people in the room, fourteen would be fired as soon as the deal concluded. Bryn knew that because he was the architect of the whole transaction. The others didn’t, because they weren’t.

The meeting broke up.

As Bryn began to pack away, a further racking cough rumbled painfully from his chest. It was his second trip across the Atlantic that week, so his jet lag, coming at him from both sides, was having an echo effect on his battered system.

‘Dammit, look, I wonder if you can help,’ he said, grabbing one of the departing scientists. ‘I really ought to see a doctor.’

‘A medical doctor? Hey Steve, you’re not a doctor, are you?’

‘No. Why don’t you try what’s-her-face, Dr Dynamite downstairs?’

‘You think that’s safe?’ The scientist laughed. ‘Only kidding, really. She’s great, just … No, really, she’s great.’

As he spoke, the scientist fussed around with pass keys and swipe cards, taking Bryn downstairs, past empty laboratories, silent storage rooms, the hum of computers. They emerged on to a corridor on the ground floor, dark except for the glow of streetlamps spilling in from outside. They raced along until they arrived at a lighted doorway, where a brass plate advertised its owner, Cameron Wilde, MD, PhD. ‘Here you go,’ said the scientist, shaking hands. ‘Good luck.’

Bryn raised his eyebrows in enquiry. ‘Dr Dynamite, huh?’

‘She’s kind of explosive. That’s part of the reason, I guess.’

‘And the other part?’

‘Nobel prizes. Built on the profits old Freddie Nobel made out of dynamite.’ He nodded at Wilde’s door. ‘She’s a future winner, if ever I’ve seen one. And I have, actually. Several.’

Through a frosted pane in the door, lights burned. There was a dark shape, which might or might not have belonged to a future Nobel Prize winner. Bryn put his hand to the door and knocked.