Chapter 37
37
V iper remained seated beside Lina as the Caine siblings entered the room, followed by Craig Sonnenberg and Ashley Mayer, the company lawyer. As they filed in, the siblings each glanced at them, then each other, before taking seats in a row, the two older siblings flanking the youngest. Sonnenberg eyed them but kept his thoughts to himself as he pulled out a chair for Ashley. Once she sat, he took the last seat in the row, giving the appearance of a united front. The five of them together against whatever the two FBI agents and the two stragglers—him and Lina—might be bringing to their doorstep.
Viper shifted to more easily study Lina. After Leo found the golden thread, it didn’t take long for the mystery to unravel. Five days. Five days to discover who had killed Dr. Kato. Five days to discover why the killer had been so desperate to keep him silent. Five days to have enough evidence to bring them to Navios today.
For her part, Lina gave nothing away, wearing an expression probably instilled in her by her mother and grandfather—inviting and open, but devoid of any indication as to what she was thinking. Only he knew. She was assessing every move each of the five made, every shared glance, every awkward adjustment in their seat, every move of their eyes, and every breath they took.
To a certain extent, he was doing the same. Only his experience didn’t lend itself to subtleties. He’d interrogated his fair share of people, but never with the intent that they appear before a court of law. Not that that gave him license to do whatever he wanted, but he’d been after information, not evidence.
After the Navios contingent settled in, Callie and her colleague, Nathan Erickson, took their seats on the other side of Lina. Callie studied the quintet, then pulled a photo from a file, keeping it face down.
“Before we start, let me introduce everyone,” she said. “I’m Special Agent in Charge Callie Parks, and this is Special Agent Nathan Erikson from the FBI. With me today are Lina Stratford and Jackson Bond, both of whom are helping us with our investigation.” They’d agreed Lina would use her mother’s maiden name so as not to alert the others of her connection to her father.
“And what exactly are you investigating?” Craig asked.
“We’ll get to that shortly, but I do want to thank you all for being here today. It’s a voluntary interview, and we appreciate your time.” When they all nodded, Callie held the picture up, showing it to the siblings and Craig. Craig’s head cocked a fraction, Jennifer’s brows dropped, Andrea leaned forward, and Christopher frowned.
“Do any of you know this man?” Callie asked.
Andrea shook her head. Before the others could respond, Christopher spoke. “I do.”
Viper flickered his gaze to the man whose attention remained locked on the photo.
“Before we follow up on that, Mr. Sonnenberg or Dr. Caine—Dr. Jennifer Caine?” Callie prompted.
“He looks familiar, but I’m not sure from where,” Jennifer replied. “And you can call me Jennifer. It’s too confusing with two Drs. Caine in the room,” she added with a smile for her youngest sibling, who grinned back.
Craig shook his head and shrugged.
Lina’s eyes lingered first on Jennifer, then Craig, before sliding back to Christopher.
“Could you tell us how you know him, Mr. Caine?” Callie asked.
“I met Dr. Kato a couple of years ago at a conference. Maybe a year and a half year ago,” Christopher replied.
“What conference was this?” Callie asked.
He rattled off the name of an event that sounded important, but Viper had never heard of.
“Oh, that’s right,” Jennifer chimed in. “He gave that talk on the long-term effects on the vascular system of the Zika virus.”
Christopher nodded.
“And was that the only time you met him?” Callie asked.
Christopher’s lips turned down as he shook his head. “No, about nine months ago, he asked to meet with me. We met here. For an hour. He’s renowned for his work in hematology, but he’s also a brilliant virologist. I tried to hire him, but he prefers his position at the university.”
Viper didn’t miss the use of present tense.
“What did he come here to speak with you about?” Agent Erickson asked.
Christopher wagged his head. “It was an odd conversation, actually. He asked several questions about a project we killed five years ago—Project 62. I wasn’t here at the time, so didn’t have a lot of information, but I wouldn’t have shared anything anyway. We might have shut the program down, but the science is still proprietary.”
“You weren’t here?” Callie asked. They knew that, of course—they’d learned a lot about Craig Sonnenberg and the Caine siblings since Leo made the connection that brought them here today. But the reason for Christopher’s sabbatical from Navios several years earlier was still a mystery.
Christopher and his older sister shared a look that made both smile and shake their heads. “Dad was thrilled when both Jen and I wanted to join the company,” he said. “He founded it forty years ago and ran it until he died four years ago. No matter how pleased he was to make it a family affair, though, he was clear from the beginning that there’d be no nepotism—not after our first job, anyway,” he added with a fond smile.
“He was willing to give us the opportunity, but what we did with it was our responsibility. He was adamant about that,” Jennifer added.
Christopher nodded. “I started in the operations group, eventually moving into finance. I worked my way up, but I wasn’t ready to be the CFO, so I took a role at a smaller biotech company in Boston and moved away for about four years. We grew that business, took a couple of drugs to the market, went public. It was a good ride and gave me the experience I needed to come back and run an organization the size of Navios. I had to wait for the current CFO to step down, which was another couple of years, but I interviewed for the position when it came open and managed to convince the powers that be that I was the right candidate?—”
“And you are,” Craig said.
Christopher nodded his thanks to the man. “I’ve been back three years.”
“I was CEO by then, as Arthur had passed away the year before. There was no question Christopher was the right candidate,” Craig added.
Lina’s eyes darted from person to person as they spoke—her only movement. Callie and Agent Erickson paused, as if to see whether she’d jump in. When she didn’t, Callie continued.
“Dr. Kato came to speak with you about a project that no longer existed?” she prompted.
Christopher nodded. “He understood I couldn’t talk about the science, but he asked about the employees.” His gaze landed somewhere over everyone’s head, and his brow furrowed. “Like I said, it was kind of an odd conversation.”
“What did he ask?” Agent Erickson said.
“Should we be answering these questions?” Jennifer asked, leaning forward to look at Ashley Mayer.
“We have nothing to hide,” Christopher said. “I didn’t give him any specifics. I know better than to give out current or past employee information. The only thing I told him was that we had twenty-five scientists on it and fifteen lab techs and managers.”
“Do you have any information about why Navios shut the program down?” Callie asked, directing the question to Craig and Jennifer, who both worked at the company during that time.
Jennifer shook her head. “I worked in a different group, and for trade secret reasons, we’re discouraged from sharing information across projects.”
Craig nodded. “We do host learning sessions, though, so the scientists get updates and such. It’s always a balance between ensuring our research stays confidential and leveraging the talent we have across the organization.” Both Jennifer and Christopher nodded. “As to your question, the company was going through a tight spot. We’d had a delay on one of our go-to-market products. The science of Project 62 wasn’t promising, so we made the decision to shut it down.” He looked out the window beside the door as he spoke, his voice somber. “It wasn’t a great time. We had to lay off ten percent of the company. We’ve recovered, but many of those people had been with us for a while.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but can you tell us what this is all about?” Andrea, the youngest Caine, asked. “I was in residency at the time and don’t usually get involved in the business anyway, but why are you interested in Dr. Kato’s visit?”
Callie checked with Lina, who nodded. “Dr. Kato died two weeks ago,” she said. “He was murdered in his own home.”
Andrea was the first to recover. “We have nothing to do with that if that’s why you’re here.”
“All we talked about was the number of employees on that project. I haven’t seen him since,” Christopher said.
“And I’ve never met him, personally,” Jennifer added. “I saw him speak, of course, but it was in a room with three hundred other people.”
“I’ve heard of him. Most people have in this industry. But I’ve never met him,” Craig said.
Lina and Callie shared another look. Despite having met only five days earlier, the two women were definitely having a silent conversation. After a beat, Callie nodded.
Lina sat forward in her seat, setting her forearms on the table, interlocking her fingers. Zeroing her gaze in on the end of the line, she spoke. “You may not have ever met him in person, Mr. Sonnenberg, but you had him killed.”