Deadly Phine

by Darrell King

  Just then, a late-model Trans Am eased up beside the car on the driver’s side. A black and metallic copper-toned beauty, likely an ’81 or ’82, the car purred like a kitten as the giggling girls in the back seat chatted non-stop amongst themselves. There was a brief discussion of price between the Trans Am’s driver and Valentino, and then the driver, a portly man, left mumbling angrily to himself, speeding off into the dark distance.

  The going price for Rosaria was apparently a little steep for the middle-aged lech to afford, and he failed to secure the Latin beauty for the lower rate he’d been hoping for. It didn’t matter to Valentino, as he’d made plenty form the illicit services of his pretty companion during the past few weeks. One cheap sale denied would not cost him much. Besides, he thought, he was drowsy and really only wanted his warm bed as he drove away toward their modest hideaway a few miles up the highway.

  Chapter 14

  August 29, 2001

  Wilhelm Von Strecker, M.D., stared intently at a glass vial filled with tainted blood marked BVV/SVV hemoblobin #2. It contained a carefully mixed byproduct of Bovine Visna virus and Sheep Visna virus, which would be used to mass-produce the lethal HIV5X. Strecker peered at a sample of the mixture under a lab microscope. There, as expected, the man-made mixture joined with the healthy human blood and began rapidly mutating. It infected the healthy blood with its own tainted antibodies, adding HIV5X proteins into the hemoglobin’s cellular makeup and soon transformed the bright red blood spot on the clear petri dish to a deep indigo. Streckler voiced his anger just as two fellow members of the Sentinels of the Illuminati entered the brightly lit laboratory.

  “You’ve been working at perfecting that one serum for the last three days, Wil. What’s the problem now?” Rueben Mintz, a senior member of hate group, asked.

  Wilhelm frowned with the frustration wrought from untold hours of tedious research. Seth Johnson, the lone member of the World Health Organization who was present at the time, stroked his heavy gray beard while observing the vials of the HIV5X lining the countertop next to a small flowchart of human blood types.

  “That’s enough of the virus to wipe out more than half of the undesirables in San Diego alone . . . Excellent.” Seth smiled slow and evil as he walked past the bottles of lab-created death. “Adolf Hitler would have been pleased...yes, very, very pleased, der Fuhrer would’ve been.”

  “Where’s Meredith?” asked Wilhelm.

  At this point he’d need a veteran molecular biologist to assist him with the more advanced stages of the experiment.

  “I’m already on it, Wil,” Meredith called while double testing a sample of HIV5X-tainted hemoglobin.

  “Don’t worry, Wil, we’ll get both the perfect disease for the masses of undesirables, as well as the perfect cure for the all-important carriers.”

  “Have you already tested the new serum on any human or animal hosts?

  “I used rodent and primate test subjects in ’99. I finally got a chance to use the new serum on a human subject six months ago. It was the same heroin scumbag who was willing to be my guinea pig for drug money. He developed HIV after two injections. He’s now ill with full-blown AIDS and will surely be a goner by November. However, it’s the same old HIV5X that we’ve been recycling since 1987. So, I’m still hard at work trying to perfect the strain to churn out a virus that has a greater kill rate than what we’re used to . . . HIV10X, if you will.”

  Wilhelm and Meredith stared at each other, briefly considering the course in which they’d go in search of upgrading the current AIDS culture. Meredith Nader was never one to quite find satisfaction with the first few results of clinical trials anyway, and this was just another stark example of her perfectionist behavior.

  “You know what? What type of data did you get from the blood samples you took from the chimps you tested a few months ago?” she asked with curiosity.

  “Chimps? What chimps? Do you mean the ones from the western part of Central Africa?” Wilhelm asked.

  “Yes, Wil,” Meredith continued, “the P.T. troglodyte chimps, remember?”

  The slim German grinned at his own forgetfulness. He’d recently been binge drinking, as well as working well into the early morning hours, and it had started to show.

  He opened up a small silver flash drive and placed it quickly into the hard drive of his desktop computer. Meredith looked on, anxiously awaiting an answer. He glanced at his computer screen and began tapping away at the keyboard or a few short minutes.

  “There . . . I’ve forwarded my findings on that experiment to you in its entirety. I found a type of Simian immuno-deficiency virus that was very similar to HIV-1, found primarily in humans. I identified this one strain in June from a few samples which I’d cryogenetically preserved.”

  Wilhelm smiled as he relayed his scientific findings to his fellow researcher, while steadily moving his slender, pale fingers upon the keys below. Wilhelm was sure that with his latest find the already virulent HIV5X could be rendered even more deadly.

  “What do you think?” Wilhelm asked as he leaned back in his swivel chair, watching Meredith reader her email.

  “I think that you’re a freakin’ genius! Way to go, Wil!” Meredith manipulated the mouse across the pad, scrolling down the pages of scientific formulas and typed summaries, positively beaming with delight. “Now all we have to do is finish up successfully and we’ll be millionaires!”

  “Sure,” Wilhelm said, “if we ever get the fucking microbes to act right then we’re in business, however it’s been a crapshoot so far.”

  “Well, then we just have to try harder, Wil! The Sentinels are entrusting us with this population control venture. Do you know what that means?! We not only become overnight tycoons, but we’ll go down in history as perhaps the greatest scientists since the Nazi party’s, Josef Mengale, the angel of death himself. We are gods, Wil...gods! We hold the very secrets of life and death within our grasp. We have both the microbes to wipe out half of the earth’s population, and the cure to prevent the disease from killing its host!

  “This work,” she continued, flushed red as she spoke with passion, “ must be completed. There is no other way. With international threats such as red China and India growing economically stronger, not to mention populating the planet by vast numbers year in and year out, we must develop a source of population control to reduce this threat as much as possible.”

  Rueben spoke up from across the room, saying, “I think what we have goin’ with the HIV5X is working well for now.”

  “You might be satisfied with it, Reuben,” Meredith answered, “but I’m not. I’m not and neither are the elders of the Illuminati. Right now HIV5X kills within a span of two to three months, and that’s way too much time to let pass. Besides, our test subjects must take Biomax-O injections for the rest of their lives. It’s too expensive and takes too long to kill the host. What I’m working on is a much more improved virus, one which will be more cost effective in that our selected carriers will only have to be subjected to a Biomax-O shot twice in a calendar year. And the tainted body fluids of that carrier would kill any sex partner of theirs within a thirty-day period. Now that’s what I’m shooting for!”

  It was obvious that this work meant everything to Meredith, and Wilhelm respectfully kept any further comments to himself. As members of the Sentinels of the Illuminati, their one and only job was to develop a biological agent which would wipe out so-called “free-eaters” from society to make way for the privileged, wealthy, and mostly Anglo-Saxon citizenship of the world, and nothing more.

  Meredith secretly desired the slim, good-looking German—his square jaw line, strong white teeth and perfectly combed blonde hair, his neatly trimmed mustache and beard. Most of all, though, it was his piercing, gorgeous, deep-set blue eyes, which made her weak in the knees whenever he stared at her. She had loved their one sultry tryst together and, despite the fact that he was married with three kids, she wanted to fuck him just one more time. He was oh-so-good in bed, Mered
ith thought, but also married—and his wife was a total bitch. Meredith could not, however, pull him away from him.

  They had only made love that one time—it hardly constituted any semblance of a full-fledged love affair—but she wanted more from him just the same. Meredith knew that they would never be anything more than fellow scientists and that realization alone sucked.

  Wilhelm, meanwhile, was obviously not happy at home, casually mentioning now and again his sexually frigid wife and three college students to support. His work at the lab kept him sane most days, and he was now drinking more heavily than usual, which made him at times distant and aloof, even with his closest coworkers. However, it was the hatred of America’s minorities and gays that drew them together in a bond that seemed unearthly. The thrill of scientific discovery, coupled with the fruition of the group’s malicious goals made them an inseparable pair, in both the laboratory and the board room, a connection Meredith hoped would lead them again to her bed.

  “Our friend Dr. Harrington of the World Health Organization,” Meredith explained, “who has pretty much financed the Operation Inner City Virus venture from day one, has graciously allotted us a stipend of an additional three million dollars for the continuation of our program. He’s going to forward it to our account by noon tomorrow, right after we speak via video conference.”

  Pausing, she lit up a cigarette from a pack of Virginia Slims. Cigarettes always seemed to relax her after a stressful day. The tedious push to obtain the perfect storm of virus had indeed taken its toll on her during the past few weeks.

  “Wil,” she said, breathing in the smoke, filling her lungs deeply with its cool, menthol essence before exhaling a cloud of grayish white mist into the atmosphere. It quickly dissipated by the overhead ceiling fans. Her follow scientists scolded her as they always did about smoking in the lab. Wilhelm especially found her occasional habit of lighting up in their work area both inconsiderate and disgusting, and gave her an earful more than anyone else in a white smock. However, Meredith was always the rebel, and would carefully finish her cigarette while gracing her irritable peers with a middle finger salute and a smirk, saying, “Fuck off.” She took several slow drags before squashing it down into a small teacup sitting beside her flat screen computer and going right back to her e-mail messages with an arrogant display of nonchalance. She would need only one more week and the latest version of Biomaximus Officinalis would be finalized. It would then yield the ultra-lethal virus she’d already pre-named HIV10X.

  ***

  December 5, 2001, 12:48 a.m.

  While the majority of the nation’s populace attempted to cope with the painful aftermath of the devastating 9-11 terror attacks, a mere two months later Rosaria roamed the midnight streets of Lariat desperately seeking cash to support her cocaine addiction, which had now taken her over almost completely. She flitted about the gas lamp-illuminated sidewalks of Mego Avenue soliciting the various men who came there in search of cheap thrills, yet she made few sales on this night, much like the other nights she’d flaunted herself upon the seedy ho stroll. She no longer appealed to sex-seeking customers as she had before. Gone were the beautiful legs that had brought wolf whistles and cat calls; now, knobby-kneed stilts had replaced them. Her hair was disheveled and dull looking, her eyes glassy and jaundice-like in their sunken sockets. She looked deathly pale and ungainly as the miniskirt she wore literally hung from her emaciated frame as if it was attached to a hanger. Her breath stank and she constantly wiped a skeletal hand across her running nose, smearing snot against the back of it.

  Shivering from the chill of the night air, she wrapped her spindly arms around her narrow body as she was rebuffed by one repulsed john after another. She was even avoided by the other streetwalkers sharing the stroll with her. Prostitutes who’d once shared drinks and laughter with her now crossed over to the opposite side of the avenue whenever she drew near. She felt feverish and weak as the urge for coke surged through her insides like a firestorm.

  She sniffled and coughed, dry and hacking. Still, she walked the stroll, peeking into car windows or approaching men on foot, only to be denied each time. The coke jones was kicking her ass something awful now, she thought. She felt herself giving in to a swoon as the night sky above her gave way to a swirling mass of vertigo-induced illusion. The street came up fast to meet her as she stumbled into a cluster of garbage cans beside a desolate and dark alley. Fortunately for her, she collapsed onto a heap of stuffed trash bags, which softened a potentially bone-breaking fall to the cold, hard pavement below.

  She suddenly felt nauseous, but fought back the urge to puke. Her breathing was labored and raspy like that of air escaping a clogged vent. Rats, hairy and plump, scuttled around her within the filth where she laid, semiconscious and oblivious to their presence.

  She reached about clawing at the plastic of the rubbish-filled bags to steady herself enough to stand or, at the very least, sit. She drew enough willpower to raise herself up from the smelly trash and stagger about, not unlike a newborn fawn on unsteady legs.

  She quickly began focusing on the garbage-littered pavement at her feet for any evidence of cocaine or crack vials. She’d found drugs like this many times before, lying amidst the trash. Just last week she’d shared a full-stuffed crack pipe with a homeless woman who’d found it abandoned in the alley, along with various other refuse. The woman had allowed Rosaria to smoke with her because the Latina possessed a cigarette lighter.

  Rosaria bent down low, going through the trash meticulously, picking at empty milk cartons and soda pop bottles until at last she came across a small bag of blow—probably a $50-bag, she thought—with a little more than half the original amount of cocaine left.

  Her gaunt face lit up with joy and she danced a jig of delight. She reached her bony fingers down into the handbag at her side to withdraw a small, circular vanity mirror on which to divide the powder into two short, thin lines to snort. First, though, she would have to conceal herself from the other dope fiends who roamed the night streets looking to cop a quick buzz, so she ducked into the nearest alleyway. There, in the pitch darkness, she used her little lighter to prepare her lines. The first line disappeared down her nose almost instantaneously, bringing about that familiar tingling rush, followed by an intense tidal wave of pleasure, energy and a sense of general well being. Mucus drained down her already runny nose from the potent coke. She snorted it back down her throat and leaned in toward the flame-illuminated mirror in order to polish off the second line. Rats ran all around her, she saw, up ahead at the opening of the alley. The shadowy forms of the numerous ladies of the night passed by with the occasional john in tow for a back alley blow job or other lewd act. Yet, she couldn’t have cared less. As long as she had the means to feed her monstrous addiction, she was loving life.

  The sounds of laughter, profanity and honking car horns made for an eclectic street symphony just outside of Rosaria’s filthy, makeshift dope den. Now wired and feeling frisky from the cocaine-driven euphoria, she exited the dark alley and began her hunt for potential customers anew, finally landing an old, grizzled, overweight trucker who hired her for a $50 blow job. It wasn’t much, but at least she’d be able to cop another coke fix before sunrise.

  ***

  December 28, 2001

  Coventry Laboratories, 6886 East Street, Lariat, California

  The morning sun peeked out above the palm tree-lined horizon of Lariat’s coastline. Valentino was leaving the township of Beach Lake, where he managed two very busy brothels by the ocean. He’d stayed up nearly all night supervising the Madames he’d placed in charge of the seedy cathouses, and now after over ten-and-a-half hours, he was tired and hungry for some breakfast, but he was $3,000 richer.

  He took to the Rock Hudson Parkway at approximately 8:25 a.m. in a polished Saturn Aura Greenline. He had used up the last of his Biomax-O and was now in need of a refill ASAP. He pulled into the parking lot of the Coventry Laboratory twenty minutes later. He’d already phoned Dr.
Wilhelm Von Strecker while commuting on the freeway, so they were expecting him.

  Coventry Laboratories needed him; their very careers depended upon his active participation in their program. As a result, regardless of what they personally thought about the flashy, arrogant, drug-dealing pimp, they’d continue to reat him with the utmost respect and honor. Lucien Valentino knew this and gladly took full advantage of their hospitality. Arriving at the lab, he gathered a few pieces of important documentation, placing the papers into a leather-bound briefcase before smoothly exiting the car.

  “Aiight, I’m ‘bout to handle some business right quick, but I’m gonna be up and around yo’ area in about two hours, so have that money ready fa me, aiight?” he said into his cell as he pressed the car alarm on his way through the great double-glass doors of the government-funded facility.

  He was becoming somewhat lethargic, as well as feverish, a sure sign that he’d gone at least a week too long without a Biomax-O injection. He ended his call and walked past a huge cedar wood desk in the grand lobby, flashing his official Coventry Laboratory pass to a stone-faced security guard manning the post and he breezed down the long, white-tiled hallway. One of the cleaning women smiled coyly at him as he walked by. The young Mexican woman had taken a liking to him, however, he paid her only scant attention. Most often when he arrived at the lab it was all about the shots and his T-cell count readings—and nothing more.

  As he moved down the hallway toward the research room he literally bumped into a scientist coming around a corner. It was Dennis Brooks, a brilliant microbiologist and one of the few black scientists actively involved in the Operation Inner City program.