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Authors: Marcia Muller
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“Okay, come with me,” and started for the door.
I got up and followed. “Where’re we going?”
“Downstairs. There’s a lot of material I need to familiarize you with. Afterward we’ll discuss your price.”
* * *
Five minutes later I was seated in the front row of a projection room off the building’s lobby. Renshaw pressed a switch on
a console between us; the lights dimmed. He pushed another button, and a man’s picture appeared on the screen.
“Timothy Mourning,” Renshaw said. “CEO and chairman of the board of Phoenix Labs.”
Phoenix Labs. Where had I …? Oh, yes—the company whose initial public offering of stock had abruptly been canceled; I’d tried
to read the article about it in the business section this morning, and damned near fallen asleep. I studied the man’s face.
He was young for a CEO and board chairman, perhaps in his mid-thirties. On the plump side and mustached, he had a slightly
receding hairline topped by a wild mop of dark blond curls. I was willing to bet that in high school his classmates had labeled
him a nerd; now, while many of them remembered those brief years as their only time of glory, Mourning was head of a corporation.
His unabashed grin and the gleam behind his wire-rimmed glasses told me he possessed both a sharp intellect and a zest for
living.
Renshaw pressed the button, and the picture changed. “Diane Mourning,” he said. “Tim’s wife of eighteen years, and chief financial
officer of the labs.”
Diane Mourning’s face was thin, with high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and wide-set hazel eyes. Her shoulder-length blond
hair also curled, but in a more disciplined fashion than her husband’s. Unlike Timothy, she apparently considered posing for
a photograph a serious matter: she stared uncompromisingly at the camera, her small mouth set in a firm, straight line. Not
much humor there, I thought, and wondered how they got along.
Again Renshaw changed slides, to a sprawling one-story stucco building surrounded by a chain-link fence topped by barbed wire.
Open fields lay on either side, and an oak-dotted hillside rose in the background. A guard shack sat next to the gate, and
a sign on it said: Phoenix Labs, Inc.
“The company’s facility in Novato,” Renshaw explained. “Basic utilitarian plant, but someday there’ll be an office tower next
to it. Phoenix is one of the hot firms in the biotech industry. You know anything about biotech?”
“Not a great deal.”
“I’ll give you a background file; you read up on it. Basically it’s the wave of the future—genetic engineering, disease prevention
and cure. Real growth industry here in the Bay Area. Nine months ago Phoenix announced they were developing a drug called
Enterferon-One that can retard the growth of the HIV virus. They’ve planned an IPO of stock to finance the final stages of
development.”
“I read in the
Chronicle
that the IPO was withdrawn. Why?”
In answer, a new picture appeared: a narrow road with wild vegetation on either side; a red Mazda sports car sat nose down
in the right-hand ditch.
Renshaw said, “This is where Timothy Mourning was kidnapped. At approximately seven-ten A.M. , Tuesday, June first. On the road leading from his home outside Novato.”
So Phoenix Labs was an RKI client. “Was there anti-terrorism policy on Mourning?”
“No. He was extremely wary of that kind of coverage.”
“Why?”
“Because, much as the existence of such policies is supposed to be confidential, leaks occur. And a leak is a direct invitation
to violent fringe groups. Mourning believes in good security and contingency planning rather than insurance. Doesn’t like
insurance much, isn’t even covered by keyman or any other kind of life policy. Apparently, though, he operated on the mistaken
assumption that nothing could ever happen to him, because he ignored the advice we gave him.”
“And that was
I got up and followed. “Where’re we going?”
“Downstairs. There’s a lot of material I need to familiarize you with. Afterward we’ll discuss your price.”
* * *
Five minutes later I was seated in the front row of a projection room off the building’s lobby. Renshaw pressed a switch on
a console between us; the lights dimmed. He pushed another button, and a man’s picture appeared on the screen.
“Timothy Mourning,” Renshaw said. “CEO and chairman of the board of Phoenix Labs.”
Phoenix Labs. Where had I …? Oh, yes—the company whose initial public offering of stock had abruptly been canceled; I’d tried
to read the article about it in the business section this morning, and damned near fallen asleep. I studied the man’s face.
He was young for a CEO and board chairman, perhaps in his mid-thirties. On the plump side and mustached, he had a slightly
receding hairline topped by a wild mop of dark blond curls. I was willing to bet that in high school his classmates had labeled
him a nerd; now, while many of them remembered those brief years as their only time of glory, Mourning was head of a corporation.
His unabashed grin and the gleam behind his wire-rimmed glasses told me he possessed both a sharp intellect and a zest for
living.
Renshaw pressed the button, and the picture changed. “Diane Mourning,” he said. “Tim’s wife of eighteen years, and chief financial
officer of the labs.”
Diane Mourning’s face was thin, with high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and wide-set hazel eyes. Her shoulder-length blond
hair also curled, but in a more disciplined fashion than her husband’s. Unlike Timothy, she apparently considered posing for
a photograph a serious matter: she stared uncompromisingly at the camera, her small mouth set in a firm, straight line. Not
much humor there, I thought, and wondered how they got along.
Again Renshaw changed slides, to a sprawling one-story stucco building surrounded by a chain-link fence topped by barbed wire.
Open fields lay on either side, and an oak-dotted hillside rose in the background. A guard shack sat next to the gate, and
a sign on it said: Phoenix Labs, Inc.
“The company’s facility in Novato,” Renshaw explained. “Basic utilitarian plant, but someday there’ll be an office tower next
to it. Phoenix is one of the hot firms in the biotech industry. You know anything about biotech?”
“Not a great deal.”
“I’ll give you a background file; you read up on it. Basically it’s the wave of the future—genetic engineering, disease prevention
and cure. Real growth industry here in the Bay Area. Nine months ago Phoenix announced they were developing a drug called
Enterferon-One that can retard the growth of the HIV virus. They’ve planned an IPO of stock to finance the final stages of
development.”
“I read in the
Chronicle
that the IPO was withdrawn. Why?”
In answer, a new picture appeared: a narrow road with wild vegetation on either side; a red Mazda sports car sat nose down
in the right-hand ditch.
Renshaw said, “This is where Timothy Mourning was kidnapped. At approximately seven-ten A.M. , Tuesday, June first. On the road leading from his home outside Novato.”
So Phoenix Labs was an RKI client. “Was there anti-terrorism policy on Mourning?”
“No. He was extremely wary of that kind of coverage.”
“Why?”
“Because, much as the existence of such policies is supposed to be confidential, leaks occur. And a leak is a direct invitation
to violent fringe groups. Mourning believes in good security and contingency planning rather than insurance. Doesn’t like
insurance much, isn’t even covered by keyman or any other kind of life policy. Apparently, though, he operated on the mistaken
assumption that nothing could ever happen to him, because he ignored the advice we gave him.”
“And that was
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