by Blake Banner
“Please, Mr. Browne, let’s not waste any more time. The big issue here, which you are carefully trying to ignore, is the fact that I can develop my products a thousand times more quickly than you, because I have experimental resources that you have not. I have the vaccine, and I know, as you know, that it will take you years to develop it to a point where you can get FDA approval and start marketing it. So what you need to be asking yourselves is not how much money will you lose with my licensing agreement, but how much will you lose if you don’t jump on the wagon right now? It is a simple choice. You have to choose between losing fifteen percent and losing one hundred percent.” He gave another one of his parrot shrieks. “We can sit here and pretend to argue, but you know that in the end either you accept my terms, or somebody else does.”
Two waiters approached my table. One carried my salmon and avocado salad, the other a chilled glass and a bottle of Manzanilla. He set down the glass, poured and went away. Meanwhile a gang of waiters had descended on Heilong Li’s table and the conversation had died away.
I carefully set my bookmark in my book, smelled and sipped my wine and set to on the salmon, then returned to reading while I chewed and sipped. By the time I had got halfway down the page there was a pop and a moment later the flock of waiters had left and the table of five was tucking into a bottle of Pol Roger and five dozen oysters. They ate in silence and I phased out everybody else in the dining room until all I could hear was the clatter of shells on china, the desultory slurp of oysters being sucked from those shells and the clink of crystal flutes.
I ate too. If camouflage in the mountains was remaining motionless in the shade and undergrowth, here it was eating and drinking as one of the herd. Eventually, Mr. Browne leaned back in his chair and dabbed his mouth with his handkerchief.
“We are familiar with your…,” he hesitated a moment, then gave a small shrug before picking up his glass, “your exceptional facilities, Li. And I for one am not going to pretend that we have anything comparable on this side of the Pacific. I will say, however, that I am by no means sure the FDA will approve your vaccine…”
Li didn’t let him finish. He restrained a splutter of amusement into his champagne flute and waved his left hand at Browne across the table.
“My dear Browne, please, that is the least of your worries. The FDA will approve it. The president himself will take care of that.”
Browne arched an eyebrow at him. “Yours or ours?”
Li said something to Yang Dizhou in Chinese and they both laughed. Shortly after that three lobsters were brought to the table along with two more bottles of champagne. My plate and glass were cleared away and my T-bone steak was delivered with a bottle of La Fleur de Petrus, Pomerol, 2014, which he had opened earlier to allow it to breathe. He poured me half an inch which I swirled around like I knew what I was doing, sipped, thought about it and nodded. He poured me another two inches, bowed and went away on quick, silent feet.
I stroked the T-bone with my knife and it opened up, succulent and slightly bloody on the plate. It was exquisite and I sat back to savor it and the wine while Li started to talk again.
“It is very rare, Browne, very rare, that a person should find himself completely out of options.” He nodded a few times. “But it happens. The man who falls out of a window twenty stories above the ground is out of options. The woman who is in the path of a high-velocity bullet is out of options. If that asteroid the doomsayers are always talking about ever shows up, we will all be out of options.” He laughed, but nobody else at the table did. “The fact is that sometimes karma catches up with us and becomes fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it. And when that happens, we run out of options. This…” He opened his hands like he was opening a large book and gestured at them all around the table. “This is where you are at right now. You are not completely out of options, not exactly. But you have only two options left. Only two. They are, accept my terms, or walk away.”
Gutermann had been lost in his own fat world of sloppy, oral delight, chewing and sucking on hunks of lobster which he held with short, conical fingers. Now he picked up his napkin and wiped his face with it.
“And if we walk away?”
Li shrugged. “It makes no difference to me. I have cornered the market. Your antitrust legislation does not affect me. You are convenient to me so that I can break into the North American market, but if you do not like my terms somebody else will.” He suddenly leaned back and let out his strange, parrot-like laugh again. “Yesterday Hillary was on the phone to me, begging for a piece of this action.” The laughter faded from his face and he reached for another piece of lobster. “But they are a spent force. I would rather work with you. So I offer you this opportunity. However, if you will not work with me, she will.”
It was the woman, Goldbloom, who answered. She sighed loudly and shook her head. “There’s only one thing I hate more than getting screwed over, and that’s wasting time. That’s what we’re doing here right now. I don’t know if we are out of options, but I am damn clear what our best option is. We will take over distribution of your vaccine in the USA and Canada, on your terms, but there is one condition I will impose, and this is not negotiable.”
Li didn’t answer, but he looked at her with the kind of inscrutable expression that usually precedes a great deal of pain. She held his gaze for a count of three while she sipped her champagne. Then she told him what her condition was.
“We need access to your testing labs.”
“No.”
“Think long term, Li. Make long movies in your head. You have the upper hand today in this negotiation, but you know that down the line, someday, you will need our good will. We need access to your testing fields, and that is the condition. Otherwise I will personally make sure the FDA does not approve your vaccine. Take it or leave it.”
I had to smile. He was quiet for a long while. Finally he said, “Through our agents and supervised by our agents.”
She shrugged. “You got yourself a deal, Li.”
They all raised their glasses and toasted. I read on about the political corruption in America back in the ’20s and ’30s. Their conversation shifted to more mundane subjects like illegal hunting in African nature reserves, the latest shows on Broadway and prostitution in Bangkok. I ordered a black coffee and a Macallan, and sat and thought while I pretended to read.
I hadn’t learned a lot more than I knew already. I had added detail, but not much more than that. Except that there was a deal going down; a deal in which a corporation represented by Gutermann, Goldbloom and Browne would be granted exclusive distribution rights across North America for a vaccine manufactured by the Chinese. The brigadier had asked for information, if I could get it. I wondered if this was the information he was after, and whether I should now focus on the kill. I turned a page and stared unseeing at the print.
Something told me the brigadier would not be satisfied. He would want more. He would want to know, a vaccine against what? Either way I would need to get into the suite. Whether it was to collect intel or kill these bastards, I would have to get inside. Like Li had said, sometimes you run out of options. Killing him inside the UN was out of the question—security was too tight and getting away would be almost impossible. That left the route from the hotel to the UN complex, and on that route the risk of collateral damage was unacceptably high. That left the hotel and the suite. As there was no way to predict his and Yang Dizhou’s movements within the hotel, my only realistic option was to break into the suite. Whether I did that to get information on the deal, or to kill them, at this stage made little difference. I had to get in, and then I had to get out.
I sipped some coffee and followed up with a slug of whisky which I rolled around my mouth for a while, enjoying the thought of how much Cobra would be paying for that sip.
There were six possible points of access to the suite, and most of those could be eliminated straight away. I could enter through the floor, through the ceiling or through one of
the side walls from a neighboring room. All those four options would entail some form of demolition and could therefore be eliminated immediately. That left just two points of access: the front door and the window.
Going in through the front door would mean avoiding hotel security, which I had already been told was cutting edge, neutralizing the guards on the outside, opening the door, then neutralizing the guards on the inside. That would leave the bodyguard and the chauffeur, and May Ling. Though they would have to be faced sooner or later whatever my point of entry was.
Which left the window. Entering through the window, if done correctly, could mean getting direct access to Heilong Li and Yang Dizhou without having to tackle the guards on the door. But it would also mean approaching up, or down, a sheer steel and glass wall, fifty-four floors above ground level.
An interesting prospect.
I called the waiter, signed my bill and took my book up to my room. There I tossed it on the bed and dialed a secure number on my cell. It rang twice, then the brigadier’s voice spoke.
“Harry, tell me.”
“I’m at the Mandarin. I followed Heilong Li and Yang Dizhou to the UN this morning and I’ve just had drinks and dinner about fifteen feet away from them.”
“I hope you’re being discreet. This is not Afghanistan.”
“Yes, sir. I will also remember to brush my teeth before I go to bed.”
“What have you learned?”
“He had dinner with three people aside from Yang Dizhou. A big slob called Gutermann, a woman in her forties name of Goldbloom and a guy in his sixties, name of Browne. They discussed a licensing contract for a vaccine…”
I reported the content of their conversation and he was quiet for a while. Finally he said, “There was no mention of what this vaccine was for.”
“None. I know you said you wanted intel, now I’m wondering whether this was the intel you were after, or whether you want more. You stressed to me once that we are not an intelligence gathering agency. Our job is to execute people.”
“That’s quite true, Harry.” He said it like he’d never thought of it that way before.
“So you want me to execute these bastards or you want me to find out what color panties they wear?”
“Let me ask you a question. In your honest opinion, do you think they have electronic files in their suite relevant to this vaccine?”
“Of course.”
“Then I think we have little choice but to collect it. But don’t let that take precedence over your primary mission. Execute them and collect whatever intel you can find in the form of documents, paper or electronic.”
“OK.”
“Have you a plan yet?”
“Yes.”
“When do you plan to execute it?”
“Tomorrow night, when I’m not weighed down by a T-bone steak and half a bottle of 2014 Pomerol.”
“I see you’re making good use of the company expense account.”
There was no trace of sarcasm in his voice and that made me smile. I let the smile show in my voice. “Camouflage, Brigadier.”
“All right, I’ll be waiting for your report. Be careful.”
He hung up and I stood looking out at the night, with the constellations of New York City lights scattered against the black sky. I’d be careful. I had no other option. I was out of karma and in the hands of fate, climbing down the sheer face of a glass and steel building, fifty-four floors above Columbus Circus.
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Also By Blake Banner
Up to date books can be found on my website: www.blakebanner.com
DEAD COLD MYSTERY SERIES
An Ace and a Pair (Book 1)
Two Bare Arms (Book 2)
Garden of the Damned (Book 3)
Let Us Prey (Book 4)
The Sins of the Father (Book 5)
Strange and Sinister Path (Book 6)
The Heart to Kill (Book 7)
Unnatural Murder (Book 8)
Fire from Heaven (Book 9)
To Kill Upon A Kiss (Book 10)
Murder Most Scottish (Book 11)
The Butcher of Whitechapel (Book 12)
Little Dead Riding Hood (Book 13)
Trick or Treat (Book 14)
Blood Into Win (Book 15)
Jack In The Box (Book 16)
The Fall Moon (Book 17)
Blood in Babylon (Book 18)
Death in Dexter (Book 19)
Mustang Sally (Book 20)
A Christmas Killing (Book 21)
Mommy's Little Killer (Book 22)
Dead Cold Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (SAVE 40%)
Dead Cold Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (SAVE 25%)
Dead Cold Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (SAVE 25%)
Dead Cold Box Set #4: Books 13-16 (SAVE 25%)
Dead Cold Box Set #5: Books 17-20 (SAVE 25%)
THE OMEGA SERIES
Dawn of the Hunter (Book 1)
Double Edged Blade (Book 2)
The Storm (Book 3)
The Hand of War (Book 4)
A Harvest of Blood (Book 5)
To Rule in Hell (Book 6)
Kill: One (Book 7)
Powder Burn (Book 8)
Kill: Two (Book 9)
Unleashed (Book 10)
The Omicron Kill (Book 11)
9mm Justice (Book 12)
Kill: Four (Book 13)
Death In Freedom (Book 14)
Endgame (Book 15)
Omega Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (SAVE 25%)
Omega Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (SAVE 25%)
Omega Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (SAVE 25%)
Omega Box Set #4: Books 13-15 (SAVE 33%)
