Code of Blood

by George C. Chesbro

  “Chant, who is this R. Edgar Blake? I’ve never heard of him.”

  “You’re not supposed to have heard of him; he spends a lot of time and money keeping his name out of the newspapers. But he’s arguably the richest man in the world—he at least ranks in the top five, along with a few members of the Saudi royal family He’s also among the most powerful men in the world. He lives as a recluse in a castle overlooking Lake Geneva, in Switzerland, but his influence reaches around the globe. He’s a peculiarly evil man—evil and peculiar in the sense that he doesn’t have to corrupt or kill to keep his wealth growing and his power intact; he simply enjoys it.”

  “The kind of man who’d keep this Hammerhead as a kind of pet.”

  “Ah, now you’re getting a good picture of R. Edgar. Crushing or twisting other people’s lives out of shape is apparently what keeps his juices going He has to be pushing eighty. Also, he has a pretty good hate on for me, and I’m sure that keeps him hopping around his castle.”

  “Why does he hate you?”

  Chant smiled “I once stole two million dollars from him.”

  Jan laughed. “That sounds like a pretty good reason.”

  “Actually, two million dollars is like pocket change to Blake. But Blake is used to stealing money from other people; he doesn’t like people stealing it from him. It’s a matter of principle.”

  “How did you steal it from him?”

  “One of thousands of little companies he owns manufactures powdered milk, in this country. Something went wrong with the equipment. It wasn’t detected right away, and for a week or so the company was running batches of contaminated product. The problem was discovered by one of the company’s chemists, and the executives dutifully notified the FDA. The bad product was recalled from around the country, the equipment was fixed and inspected, and business went on as usual. It resulted in the loss of a few million dollars, but in terms of the overall worth and revenues of the company it was nothing more than a quarterly writeoff on taxes. Well, somehow R. Edgar got wind of what had happened, and decided that a tax writeoff wasn’t enough. He fired the chemist, who happens to be a friend of mine, and all the management, then put in other people who proceeded to make arrangements for selling the contaminated product to various third-world countries. Actually, what they were doing was perfectly legal—but it meant that the bad batches were going to wind up in the stomachs of a lot of children who were already sick or starving.

  “I arranged to set myself up as a commodities exchange dealer for that bit of business. R. Edgar’s powdered milk disappeared into thin air, and I managed to relieve him of two million dollars in the process It was really a very simple operation, but I happen to know that he’s spent more than two million just paying men to search for me. I don’t mind that. But in the process, he’s also managed to find out a good deal about me, that I do mind.”

  “I’ll bet he even knows why they call you ‘Chant.’”

  Jan’s words had been delivered in a light, coquettish tone; Chant’s reply was deadly serious. “He may. In any case, his men can stop looking for me. I’m going to destroy his operation, and then I’m going to kill him.”

  Jan stared at the man with the iron-colored eyes some time before speaking again. “It doesn’t bother you at all that so many men are hunting you, does it?” she asked quietly.

  Chant’s features softened, and he laughed. “Bother me? Of course, it bothers me. Sometimes—like last night, for example—it can be a major distraction.”

  Jan didn’t smile. “But you’re not afraid.”

  “I’ve been hunted for many years, Jan,” Chant said seriously, “by many different men and organizations, for many different reasons. I look on it as a cost of doing business.”

  “Business?”

  “Trying to relieve men like R. Edgar Blake of some of their hard-earned money is what I do for a living, Jan.” Chant paused, smiled thinly. “I thought you’d read about me.”

  Jan shook her head slightly. “What I’ve read and heard isn’t what you’re all about at all, John Sinclair. From the first time I saw you, I knew you were a good and gentle man, a man who could be trusted.” Now Jan paused, brushed her silky blonde hair back from her face. “But you don’t really need anybody’s help, do you?”

  “I don’t understand what you’re really asking or saying,” Chant replied quietly.

  “I mean, here you are in an area filled with men hunting you, and you blithely continue to plan your own hunt. Talk about cool!”

  “I told you it’s my business, Jan. The key to success always lies in the gathering of sufficient information and proper planning for an operation, which can take months. In this instance I stumbled into something blindly, without proper intelligence or time to prepare. My carelessness cost a friend and her husband their lives, as well as the life of a man who believed the lies I told him. I must do what I can to make up for these things.”

  Jan cocked her head, studied the man sitting across from her. “You operate just like the general everyone said you’d be before you walked away from the war; except now you’re your own one-man army.”

  “I’m afraid the war is something I don’t discuss,” Chant said evenly.

  “There are a lot of things you don’t discuss, but that’s fine with me Chant, will you make love to me?”

  Chant raised his eyebrows slightly. “Not if it’s because you’re thinking that’s a way to repay me for saving your life.”

  Jan shook her head “That isn’t the reason.”

  “You’re trembling. Are you still afraid?”

  “No; I’m not afraid because I’m with you. But I am troubled about something which I don’t care to talk about—at least not at the moment. I’m not trying to meet your needs, only my own. Will you make love to me? It would make a lovely morning even lovelier.”

  Chant, who had been studying the woman closely while she spoke, said quietly, “Those words were extremely difficult for you, weren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Jan murmured, lowering her gaze. “I’ve never asked a man to make love to me before. The problem is. I’ve never wanted a man to make love to me before.” She paused, laughed nervously. “What a bigmouth I am! I said I didn’t want to talk about it, and there I just went ahead and talked about it.”

  Chant rose, walked around the table, and gently wrapped her in his arms.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Chant leaned back in his chair in the study carrel, rubbed his eyes, then reached out and shut off the computer terminal. Working from what knowledge he had of R. Edgar Blake’s holdings, he had rapidly scanned the indexes of dozens of back issues of Fortune, Business Week, and a number of foreign business journals looking for more leads. He had come up empty. If R. Edgar Blake had holdings in Texas, Chant thought, it was going to take a considerable number of hours to find out what they were.

  He sensed Jan come up behind him, felt her gently touch his shoulder. “I have something here I think may interest you, mysterious sir,” the woman said, her voice rich with pride and happiness. “Your friend Blake may not like to see his name in the newspapers, but he doesn’t seem to mind putting it—or, in this case, his initials—on things he owns.”

  Jan reached over Chant’s shoulder, placed a photocopy of an article in the carrel. Chant scanned the article, then turned in his chair, smiled at Jan, and gave her a thumbs-up sign.

  “What do you think?” Jan continued, grinning broadly. “Am I earning my keep?”

  “I think you look great as a redhead in horn-rimmed glasses.” Chant folded the paper and put it in his pocket, then rose and led Jan by the arm toward the exit of the Forty-Second Street Library. “I also think you’ve earned yourself a first-class meal, and I believe I know just the restaurant.”

  “Very fine work, Jan,” Chant said quietly as the waiter at the French restaurant took their order and departed. “I couldn’t find anything in the places I was looking. What made you think of looking in medical journals?”

&
nbsp; “I thought you weren’t supposed to talk about anything important in public places,” Jan whispered.

  “Our table is far enough away from the others for us to speak freely, as long as we keep our voices low—and I’m glad to see how sensitive you are to the problem. Just don’t ever slip and call me ‘Chant’ in public.”

  Jan nodded. “Are you ever going to tell me how you got that nickname?”

  “It’s a long story, Jan.”

  “It probably has to do with things you did in the war, which means you’ll never tell me,” Jan said, drawing the corners of her mouth down in a playful pout.

  “I may,” Chant replied evenly. “But not now.”

  “Fair enough,” Jan said, and smiled. “As to your question, I knew you were trying to track this Blake through business publications, so I didn’t think it made much sense for me to duplicate your efforts. I remembered the blank look on that man’s face, and your comment that you thought he and others like him were probably programmed in some way; so I told the librarian I was interested in medical or pharmaceutical journals dealing specifically with hypnotic and psychotropic drugs, and she helped me find them. I found that piece in the third pharmaceutical journal I looked in—gluteathin, GTN, which is the most powerful of the new hypnotic drugs; it’s strictly controlled, and currently used only in a few licensed psychiatric research centers. There were a few other candidates for a drug that could induce a trance and make the subject highly suggestible, but GTN was the only one licensed for manufacture in only one place in the world—R.E.B. Pharmaceuticals, in Houston, Texas.”

  “My dear, why don’t you pick out the most expensive wine on that list?”

  “I can’t drink worth a damn, and you’re the only intoxicant I need. Will we go to Houston now?”

  “I’ll be going to Houston, Jan,” Chant said gently “But not for a week or so. There’s other information I want to get on Blake and R.E.B. Pharmaceuticals, and New York libraries are the best place to do the research. Thanks to you, I know now where to look.”

  “But I won’t be going with you to Houston?” Jan asked carefully.

  “No, Jan.”

  “I thought you said—”

  “It would be a needless risk for you to travel with me to Houston. I’m sending you to England for a while.”

  “England?”

  “Arrangements will be made to get you a false passport, and somebody who works for me in England will come to escort you back with him. When you meet him, you’ll use the code words, ‘Cooked Goose’ The man’s name is Alistair.”

  “‘Cooked Goose’? What on earth does that mean?”

  “They’re just code words It will assure Alistair that you come from me and can be completely trusted; he’ll know he won’t have to be guarded with you.”

  “You won’t be with me when I meet this man?”

  “Probably not. Alistair’s a rather elderly gentleman, so traveling with him will be a good disguise in addition to the one you’re wearing. He’s a very good man, and he’ll take good care of you.”

  “Will I ever see you again?”

  “A hard question to answer at this point, Jan. The most important thing is that I’ll know you’ll be safe until this thing is over.”

  Or until he was dead, Chant thought. Either way, he knew Alistair would do everything in his power, even give his life, to keep the woman from harm. And his English estate was certainly safer than the streets of Houston.

  “I haven’t been useful to you?”

  Chant smiled. “You’ve been invaluable.”

  “Then—”

  She stopped speaking when Chant abruptly put a finger to his lips, and a moment later a waiter appeared at the table with their appetizers. Jan was thankful for the interruption, for she had been about to blurt out things that would have made her seem foolish—and perhaps have pushed John Sinclair away from her forever. She ate the appetizer and the rest of her meal in silence, which the man sitting across from her seemed content not to break When the coffee was served, she stirred in a single spoonful of sugar, sipped at the dark, rich brew, then looked up at Chant.

  “Last night was wonderful, John,” she said in a voice she was gratified to find did not tremble “You’re an incredible lover. I was afraid I was frigid; now I know I’m not.”

  “That’s an understatement, if ever I’ve heard one.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank you”

  Jan shook her head slightly. “There’s no way for you to understand and appreciate how much I have to thank you for. Two and a half years ago I tried to kill myself.”

  Jan paused, searching Chant’s face anxiously for signs of shock, pity, or embarrassment, but found in his eyes only concern and compassion.

  “Now I look upon what I did as an act of stupidity, self-pity, and cowardice,” Jan continued in a voice just above a whisper. “But at the time I didn’t know how else to deal with despair and depression that just wouldn’t go away I didn’t seem to be able to love like other people, and I certainly didn’t find any satisfaction in sex; sex was just something that disgusted me. My career was a devastating disappointment; when you saw me on Christmas Eve, you found me in one of my better moods. I took my degree in social work because I so badly wanted to help people who needed it You can say I was naive, but I truly believed I could change a little piece of the world. Well, I quickly found out I couldn’t; there are so many people who need help, who just can’t cope, and I ended up just pushing papers at them. I have—had—a caseload of almost a hundred people, which made it impossible for me to really do anything for any of them. I felt so useless. I still wanted so badly to help, to make a difference, but I knew I never would I figured I was going to have to spend the rest of my life feeling like … like.

  “Then a man by the name of Neil Alter came along, and I found myself terribly attracted to him—or maybe to some quality in him, if it’s not the same thing. Then all of this happened. Neil Alter turned out to be someone else entirely, and this someone else brought meaning and excitement into my life and made me want to live again.

  “And then I did something incredibly selfish; I demanded that this man take me along with him, to personally protect me. I lied to you, John. I wasn’t afraid of being killed; I was afraid that an opportunity to escape from what I felt was a useless life was slipping away. Suddenly, you were my lifeline. I wanted to go with you because it gave me an excuse to turn my back on everything I had come to loathe.

  “I’m not a giddy schoolgirl, John—even if I sound like one at times. I’m not saying I love you, and I certainly don’t entertain any thought of you loving me. I’m just trying to be totally upfront with you now in the hope that maybe. I’m saying, I guess, that this experience is probably the best thing that ever happened to me; I’ve never felt so alive as I have the past two days.

  “But that isn’t the point I’m not asking you to give me anything more than you’ve already given me, and I’m certainly not asking you to feel responsible for me. I’m saying that, no matter what happens, I won’t be going back to the life I had; it wasn’t a life. On the other hand, I think I’ve already proven that I can be useful to you I’m smart, John, and I’d work hard for you. I know you have people working for you, like this Alistair you want me to go away with. Let me work for you, in whatever capacity. What you do has an impact. No matter what others say about you, you are an incredibly decent man who helps many people others can’t, or won’t, help. I think I’m a decent person, and I know I’ve always wanted to help I understand that there’s great danger in the things that you do, and that I could easily be killed one of these days. I take total responsibility for that.”

  “Would you like dessert?” Chant asked quietly.

  “No,” Jan said, raising her chin defiantly. “What I want is a job—with you. Let me stay with you. You can trust me, I won’t betray you, ever.”

  “I know I can trust you,” Chant said evenly as he signaled for the waiter.

/>   Jan waited, head held high, while Chant paid the bill and got their coats. She had, Jan thought, made her case the best she could, and would say no more. She had lied about only one thing; she believed she was in love with John Sinclair.

  “You have a job,” Chant said at last as they walked back to the car Chant had rented with a credit card matched to his present false identity.

  “Thank you, mysterious sir,” Jan said, tears misting her eyes.

  “Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t go back to your old life until this is over, so I may as well put you on the payroll. But you’re still going to England.”

  “Oh,” Jan said, making no effort to hide her disappointment.

  “I always work alone in the field, Jan; it has nothing to do with you However, I still have to contact Alistair, and it will take at least two or three days for him to make the necessary arrangements. During that time, working only from libraries in Rockland County, I want you to see if you can find out anything about the R.E.B. complex itself—size, number of employees, range of products, anything at all. Information, Jan, is the most potent weapon. Since you like to think of me as a general, you may now think of yourself as my chief of intelligence-gathering. No detail is unimportant.”

  “I understand.”

  “In any writing or note-taking you do, make sure you never link your name with mine. It would be a good idea for you to construct a code to write your notes in—even better if you can commit what you learn to memory.”

  “I understand.”

  “It’s very important, when you research for an operation, to understand the precise objectives of that operation. In Houston, my objective will be to penetrate the complex in order to gather written records, or some other kind of proof, of what’s being done with these men. Also, to find—”