The Doubt Factory

  Alix rummaged through the rest of her beauty products, the blushes and the sparkling washes and the glycerine soap with the fragrance of green tea and rose. She dug into her medicine cabinet, looking at the ingredients. Potassium this, sodium lauryl sulphate, propylene glycol that—she couldn’t really parse most of the chemical names, even with her AP Chem knowledge.

  What the hell was in it? Who tested it? How did they test it? Had her father helped—Alix looked at the label of the small soap packet she was holding—had her father helped Tiptree & Little put some balding guy on an advisory panel somewhere to make sure that soap wasn’t tested too much and didn’t have too many warning labels on it?

  She put the soap down, feeling a little like she’d put down a snake. It’s just soap. Get a grip. She picked up her lipstick again and considered her half-done lips in the mirror. She studied the lipstick once more.

  So? Is this stuff safe or not?

  There was no way of knowing. She had a creepy feeling that if she even started to research this new topic, it would take her places she wouldn’t like.

  “Alix!” Mom called up again. “We’re going to be late!”

  Alix gripped the bathroom sink, staring at herself in the mirror.

  “Alix!”

  She picked up the lipstick again and deliberately finished the job. Smearing color onto her lips. Marking herself with whatever NARS decided to stick in its cosmetics. She dropped the lipstick tube into her clutch. Turned her head this way and that, admiring herself in the mirror.

  Perfect.

  Not a single sign that something was rotten inside her.

  31

  THE LIMO SWEPT SOUTH AND EAST toward the water, carrying Alix and her family toward the Kimball-Geier party. She sat next to Jonah and peered out through the tinted windows as darkness fell. Taillights and traffic, office buildings standing out against the blush of sunset sky. Manhattan rising as they got closer to the water.

  “I don’t even see why we have to do this,” Jonah complained.

  “Because Mr. Geier is your father’s client.”

  “But he’s not my client,” Jonah groused. “It’s not like I’m in business with him.”

  “Maybe you should be,” Alix said. “I hear they’re making a drug for impulse control.”

  Dad glanced over at Alix, his expression surprised and pleased. “I didn’t know you paid that much attention.”

  “You mean they’re going to turn me into a zombie,” Jonah said.

  “It’s actually for appetite suppression,” Alix said, “so you’re safe for now.”

  Dad was looking so approvingly at Alix that she felt ill. She couldn’t look at Dad without experiencing double vision. It felt like she was riding in an alternate, decayed version of the limo, while everyone else lived in the regular world.

  For Jonah and Mom, Dad was still Dad.

  For Alix, he was a sticky note that had become an index card that had become a computer file and then a folder.

  Simon Banks. Born 1962. Graduated from Princeton. Majored in economics and government. Went to work with Hill & Knowlton in the mid-eighties, where it seemed he’d come in contact with its client Philip Morris, the tobacco giant. He moved from Hill & Knowlton to The Weinberg Group and continued to work with Philip Morris. From there, Simon Banks departed Weinberg for a brief and unhappy stint at ChemRisk, another product-defense company. And then, in 2002, he’d started Banks Strategy Partners, with him as the PR lead and George Saamsi as the chief science liaison.

  Alix hazily remembered that period of time. Dad worked more hours, and sometime after that, they’d moved into a newer, bigger house.

  From there, BSP became the story. Banks Strategy Partners. They didn’t list their clients publicly, but they did list industries. Genetically modified crops. Pesticides and herbicides. Pharmaceuticals. Consumer products. Energy and petroleum.

  Dad was on his cell, texting someone, as Jonah continued to complain about the event.

  “It’s on a yacht, Jonah.”

  “I’ve been on yachts.”

  Dad smiled knowingly. “Not one like this, you haven’t.”

  “Who else is going?” Alix asked, staring out the window. She was still thinking about all the things she’d been reading. She couldn’t look at her father. He appeared the same as before: same tall man, same hair receding just a little bit, a tiny bit of gray—but not like George, who had gone round and bald. Dad was vital from CrossFit, tanned from sailing. Alix had his eyes, people said.

  “Your friends should be there. I know Tim and Maya are coming, so Denise should be there. The Patels should be there. I know you like Ritika and Mona.”

  “Sounds like half of Seitz is going to be there,” Jonah groaned.

  “Oh, stop it,” Mom said. “I don’t think you hate the school nearly as much as you say. I even heard from your biology teacher that you’re doing well all of a sudden.”

  Jonah smiled. “We’re cutting open cow hearts.”

  Mom made a face. “Then why not say you’re enjoying it? It’s okay to enjoy things once in a while, Jonah.”

  The coastline came into view, and then the marina. “Wow,” Alix said, surprised. “That’s a big boat.”

  Jonah crowded beside her, peering out. “What is that thing?”

  “State of the art,” Dad said. “It’s the new design from Merseir Group.”

  “That thing is insane!”

  Alix couldn’t help but feel a little surprised at how beautiful it looked. The yacht was huge and sleek, and with party lights strung on it, it looked festive and welcoming.

  “Are those sails?” she asked.

  Her father nodded. “Fixed wing sails. She’s a hybrid. Very efficient. She can sail, or she can run on three Rolls-Royce gas turbines and two MAN diesel engines. She’s green when she wants to be, and she’s one of the fastest things on the ocean when she decides she wants that. The only other person who has one is a prince in Dubai.” He had his own face pressed to the glass, looking almost as wonderstruck as Jonah. “I spoke with Mr. Geier. He said he’ll have the captain give you a tour, Jonah.”

  For once, Jonah was completely silent. Looking at the two of them, staring out at the boat, Alix was struck at how similar they were. Two kids delighted by the sight of a high-tech toy.

  The limo dropped them off, and they joined the line of people being checked against security lists as they boarded the ship.

  Alix spied Sophie and Kala waving at her from the starboard rail.

  Mr. and Mrs. Geier were welcoming people aboard. Alix smiled on cue and shook their hands while her hijacked brain tagged Geier with all the information she’d dug up before she went to the party.

  Kimball-Geier Pharmaceuticals, trading publicly on the NYSE, stock price around 20…

  Kimball-Geier’s last blockbuster drug had been Ventipren, another asthma medication. Azicort was the follow-up, a slight chemical variation that passed through FDA approvals without comment and replaced Ventipren after clinical trials showed it worked better. Kimball-Geier was a survivor. It had had one class action about Ventipren settled and sealed. But Kimball-Geier outright won another lawsuit related to its plant emissions’ impact on a neighboring town. Yet another lawsuit had been thrown out by a lower court for lack of scientific evidence. That was the one Tank had apparently been part of. The one that claimed Azicort caused comas and sometimes death, depending on the dosage.

  But that case got thrown out.

  She realized Mr. Geier had said something to her. Alix smiled and nodded.

  “I love it,” she gushed, and walked off, wondering what he’d been talking to her about.

  She made her way to the upper deck, snagging a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter. She leaned against the rail, taking in the view of the city. Below her, she glimpsed Mr. Geier and her father and Jonah walking away from the main group, gesturing and laughing and pointing at features on the boat. They looked so comfortable and normal that Alix felt uncha
ritable for entertaining doubts about them.

  Sophie interrupted her thoughts. “You’ve been scarce.” She jostled Alix affectionately as she leaned against the rail. She had a glass of champagne of her own.

  “Yeah. It’s been busy.”

  They both sipped their champagne. Sophie tried again. “You’ve been a little off, ever since…” She trailed off uncomfortably.

  “Since Cynthia?” Alix supplied.

  “Yeah. And that whole kidnapping thing.” She shook her head. “You’re lucky they didn’t murder you or something.”

  “Or something,” Alix agreed.

  Sophie’s father was a partner in a big law firm. Galen & Tate. Alix tried to remember if the firm was one that had shown up in her research. The name sounded familiar, but it was probably a coincidence. They can’t all be rotten, she thought. Sometimes a law firm is a just a law firm.

  “So how come you’re here?” Sophie asked.

  “Kimball-Geier is my dad’s client.”

  “Same here,” Sophie said.

  “Oh.”

  Alix suddenly remembered where she’d seen the name. Galen & Tate was the law firm that had gotten the Azicort class action suit thrown out for lack of scientific evidence. Alix’s skin crawled.

  Maybe there really wasn’t any evidence.

  The yacht cast off, easing away from the dock. The skyline of Manhattan slowly revealed itself as they slipped toward open ocean. It was warmer than she’d expected, considering the season. As the yacht picked up speed and pulled away from shore, she leaned into the wind. It was beautiful.

  She looked down on the lower deck, where most of the adults were gathered. Her father was still talking to Mr. Geier. What are you two talking about? Alix felt dirty and uncharitable, thinking it, but she couldn’t scrub the question out of her head.

  She didn’t fit here. Everyone was drinking and laughing and having a good time, and yet to her, it all felt somehow claustrophobic. As if her world had become an impossibly tight straitjacket. She couldn’t escape, she couldn’t breathe, and the more she watched the party, the worse it got. Alix forced herself to grip the rail and sip her champagne and exchange small talk with Sophie.

  This is what normal people do. Why can’t you just be normal?

  A couple of men Alix didn’t recognize joined her dad and Mr. Geier, and they all shook hands. Dad talked a moment longer, and then he was on the move, working his way through the crowd. Shaking hands with men, giving women hugs, clapping the occasional close friend on the back, exchanging words with lawyers and CEOs, inheritors of old corporate money.

  Alix was surrounded by the cream of her society, living the good life with a champagne glass and a phenomenal view of the Manhattan skyline, and yet all she wanted to do was unzip the straitjacket of her unclean skin and leap off the yacht into the water. Anything to get away from this feeling.

  George Saamsi was working his way through the crowd, making his own rounds of handshakes and back slaps.

  George Saamsi. BA in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Chicago. Hired by the tobacco company Philip Morris, eventually rising to the title of senior researcher. She’d read an actual transcript of George being deposed on the topic of secondhand smoke, where she’d first seen the term “environmental tobacco smoke” used.

  It had been interesting to read George’s deposition transcripts because he was always careful to never make any conclusions. He only spoke of unknowns and uncertainties that needed more study. He’d spent time researching how people felt about their smoking habits and how that might skew data when they reported whether or not they had been harmed by secondhand smoke. He spent time trying to decide how much secondhand smoke affected SIDS deaths versus how much smoking during pregnancy affected it. Even back in the nineties, he’d been focused on always finding as many questions as possible, while avoiding coming up with answers. Anything that might lead to more doubt, more research, more delay.

  Alix assumed that the secondhand smoke work was where her father and George had met. There were overlaps with Philip Morris and The Weinberg Group around that subject, so it made sense. In the years following, George left Philip Morris but kept up the doubt work. He showed up in a lot of testimony at a lot of trials. He showed up in cases related to asbestos and beryllium. He testified regarding a chemical called diacetyl, which had been used in butter flavoring for microwave popcorn until it turned out it was destroying workers’ lungs and was phased out, at least from popcorn, around 2007. And as 2.0 had said, he showed up testifying for Kimball-Geier Pharmaceuticals, saying that no definitive study had concluded that Azicort could be traced to any instance of sudden coma. According to George, a number of other factors were likely to blame and required additional study.

  In George’s work outside the courtroom, he showed up as a science advisor on the board of the Household Products Safety Advisory Board, an organization that appeared to get its funding from companies that manufactured cleaning supplies. He made regular appearances in Congress, testifying on the dangers of overzealous regulation. He was senior research fellow at the Center for Study of Indoor Air Quality.

  The chief science liaison at Banks Strategy Partners was everywhere. Nice, Santa-like Uncle George seemed to pop up whenever a new chemical or substance needed defending. As Alix watched him work the crowd, she wondered if he could really be as amoral as the circumstantial evidence indicated. He looked way too nice to actually be that awful.

  She remembered how badly Moses and his crew wanted to see what files Banks Strategy Partners held.

  Alix remembered the USB stick that Kook had given her with the virus.

  “Stuxnet, baby. DoD-certified, badass wormtastic. You just plug it in, and I’ll do the rest.”

  Alix suddenly wished she had it now.

  Is that really what I’m thinking about doing? Hacking my own dad’s company?

  But it was a fantasy. She didn’t have the virus. Williams & Crowe had taken the thing away, and she’d never seen it again.

  She did have one thing, though, and it made Alix feel traitorous to realize that she might take advantage of it.

  She had her father’s complete trust.

  You’re the good girl. The responsible girl. The levelheaded girl.

  The levelheaded girl knocked back her champagne glass and headed down to the lower deck. She wove through the press of cocktail dresses and suits, zeroing in on George Saamsi, snagging another champagne on the way.

  “George!”

  BSP’s chief science liaison turned at her call, looking surprised, but when he saw it was Alix, he smiled warmly. “Alix! I wasn’t sure you’d come.” He looked around. “Where are your friends?”

  “Oh, they’re around.”

  How to change the topic?

  Alix tried to look troubled and let her smile slip a little. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “It’s not…” She hesitated. “It’s not the same hanging out with them… since…” She made a show of searching for words. “You know. Since the 2.0 thing.”

  George’s expression immediately became concerned and sympathetic. “I’m so sorry to hear that. It must have been horrible.”

  Alix tried to look like someone who was bravely hiding her pain. “The doctor says I’ll get over it, eventually. It’s like PTSD, I guess. Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers mostly get over it, too. And they had it so much worse than I did. 2.0 didn’t do anything to me.…” She shook her head. “But still, it bothers me. I know it’s a small thing, but I hate it. That cage—” She broke off.

  “Don’t minimize it, Alix. You went through something terrible. They took away your freedom. They made you feel powerless. That’s not easy for anyone to take. Just because you weren’t physically hurt doesn’t mean there wasn’t trauma.”

  Alix took a long hard swig from her champagne and peered at George from over the rim of the glass, making sure he saw her doing it.

  He bit, just
like she knew he would. Good old Uncle George, keeping an eye out for his best friend’s child.

  “That’s…” He paused. “That’s a lot of alcohol, Alix.”

  Alix drained the glass and handed the empty off to a waiter. “What? This?” She snagged another fresh glass before the waiter could escape. “Chill, Uncle George. It’s just to relax.” It was some kind of sparkling rosé that looked gross and tasted worse when she lifted it to her lips.

  George gripped her arm, stopping her from taking another drink. “Alix. Seriously. I think you’ve had enough.”

  Alix yanked her arm away and raised her voice. “Why? Because I’m such a good girl?” A couple of people glanced over at them now. Perfect. A scene. Except she really was getting drunk.

  George held up his hands, soothing. “What’s going on, Alix? What do you want me to say?”

  “Nothing,” Alix snapped. “I don’t want you to say anything. Some kind of crazy terrorists put me in a cage because of your business, and you and Dad don’t have anything to say.”

  “We didn’t do that to you, Alix.”

  “You know I hurt him?” Alix said sharply.

  “Your father?”

  “No. The jackass who grabbed me.” Moses. “He stuck his hand into my cage, and I grabbed him. I almost broke his arm.”

  “That was incredibly brave.”

  “No. I was pissed. He was saying all kinds of things about you and Dad.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yeah.” She took another swig of rosé. “You wouldn’t believe all the things he was saying. All about you and Dad killing families and fooling people into taking drugs and s-selling lies.” Her words were slurring now, but she kept her eyes on George’s expression. “He wanted me to write things. To say you were doing those things. He wanted me to write down everything that they were saying and put my name on it.”

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that. The Chinese in Korea did something similar with American GIs. It’s a form of brainwashing—”

  Brainwashing? Alix felt sick with the new thought, and she didn’t think it was the liquor. Am I brainwashed? Is that why I’m taking all this so seriously now? Because 2.0 got inside my head and brainwashed me?