Emily shook her head in disagreement. "I do not believe you. Your little experiment has killed thousand around the world. Why would you not kill one more person." Emily's voice was rising slowly. She was trying hard to hide her anger.
"It was no coincidence that Dr. Chung died the night I met him. You knew I would take him back to Canada. He would help us develop the same vaccine. It would derail your plan of monopoly in the market. You killed the man who knew your secret."
Mr. Lee stood up fast. His face was red. Pleading his case, he said, "Dr. Rogers, I know my experimentation caused the deaths of thousands. But I assure you that was not my intention. I was promised very few casualties. I have been betrayed myself."
"How so?" Emily asked, dismissing Mr. Lee's claims.
"Mr. Ghazi came to me with this project. He called it Robin Hood. I found the name funny, but he was adamant on the title. I did not argue, as the name of the project was irrelevant. He promised me if we were to succeed in creating this virus, the outbreaks would be small. Only a few and ailing people would die. He assured that the virus would be exposed to only older people who were already dying."
Emily looked doubtful, "Then, how would that make you a global icon?"
Mr. Lee replied, smirking, "I am known as a fool around here, Dr. Rogers. I am considered a lucky dimwit who inherited great wealth and power. And Mr. Ghazi proved it. He told me, the small outbreaks would spread only fear globally. The vaccine that I create would be used as a prevention of VD-19. It will achieve the significance of the vaccine for polio. And I believed him. I disregarded my knowledge of contagious diseases. I neglected the scale of mobility around the globe. I ignored the high transmissivity viruses possess."
Emily leaned forward in her seat. She knew she was getting close. Pushing Mr. Lee more, she said, "Mr. Lee, did Dr. Chung not warn you during the project?"
"Ignorance Dr. Rogers. I was so consumed by the idea of global recognition, I ignored all the warnings. I was also very much afraid of Mr. Ghazi. I could not go to my government, I do not have the same hold as my father."
"Mr. Lee, this does not explain to me why you had Dr. Chung and his little lover, Chen killed," Emily said, trying to make Mr. Lee confess about the murder of her father.
Mr. Lee, confused, "Who is Chen? I am hearing that name for the first time."
Emily stood up. She walked towards Wang, who was still looking out of the window, utterly disinterested in the conversation happening in the room.
Neither Mr. Lee or Wang expected it. Emily slowly walked behind Wang, before he could react, she pushed him hard on the ground. Emily swiftly picked up the gun, Wang dropped as he fell down.
Pointing the gun at Mr. Lee, she said, "Mr. Lee, tell your assistant to stay on the ground, or your children will become fatherless." Mr. Lee gestured Wang to stay put.
"Well, Mr. Lee, I want the truth now. I want the facts about why you killed Dr. Chung and Chen," Emily said in a firm voice.
In a trembling voice, Mr. Lee replied, "Dr. Rogers, please. Put the gun down. We are civilized people."
"You lost the right to call yourself civil after you murdered thousands."
"Please. I beg you. I have two small kids. You misunderstand me. Why would I not confess to one murder, when I confess to killing thousands."
"You killed thousands with a virus, invisible to people. You are expecting to bribe the authorities and get away with it. But with Dr. Chung and Chen, you can be charged with first-degree murder."
"I am telling you again I have not heard of any Chen before today. And believe me, Dr. Chung was a great friend of mine. We had a deal. I knew he was not a snitch. Even if he had developed a vaccine for Canada, we would have gained from it. We would have won the battle of intellectual property in court," Mr. Lee said, begging Emily to calm down.
With no mercy in her voice, Emily said, "Mr. Lee, do you know why I am in China? Why do you think I am all the way around the world when I could be helping my country to tackle the crisis?"
Mr. Lee did not reply. He simply shook his head. Emily laughed. "I thought so. You see, I recently found out that Dr. Chung was my father. I found out in the worst possible way, in a letter from my dead adoptive father. I planned the whole trip to meet Dr. Chung. I wanted to meet him. I had read about his work all my life. Imagine my happiness when I found out he is my father. I wanted to work with him. I wanted to get to know him more."
Emily was shaking with anger. She was determined to do whatever necessary to get Mr. Lee's admission.
"But you denied me, Mr. Lee. All for some wealth and fame. Confess, and all this goes away. I go away quietly."
Mr. Lee kneeled down, joined his hands and begged Emily, "Dr. Rogers, please. I am telling you the truth. I did not kill your father. I liked your father. I would never do that. I am not a brave person. I am just a stupid businessman, unworthy of running a huge corporation."
"Very well then, I underestimated your love for your family."
As Emily prepared to pull the trigger, Jack threw a statue of buddha towards her. The statue hit her hand, and the gun flew out of her hand. Neil ran towards Wang, who was getting up and signalled him to stay down, pointing his gun at him. Jack picked up the gun, Emily lost and pointed it at Emily.
Neil, in disbelief, yelled, "Jack, what the hell are you doing?"
Emily looked at Jack, completely horrified. Her eyes were wide. She timidly said, "Jack, have you lost it? What are you doing?"
Jack calmly said, "I am getting the confession you wanted."
Chapter 25
"Jack, have you lost it?" Emily snarled at Jack, confused about his actions.
Mr. Lee crawled and held Jack's legs. "Sir, good Sir, please save me from this woman. She is crazy."
Jack shook off Lee from his leg, "I will deal with you later, you bastard."
Jack looked at Emily. Her beautiful face made this conversation more difficult.
"Emily, I think the confession you are looking for should come from you."
The room was silent. Nobody moved. Emily's expression turned bitter. She sat slowly down on the chair. She looked at Jack, with no remorse in her eyes, she said, "How did you know?"
Jack calmly replied, "I never told you about the murder of Chen. You were locked up at the consulate. There was no way you could have known. That was my clue. Then your persistence in getting Lee to confess about the killings helped solidify the suspicion. I do not know why, though. Care to explain?"
Emily took a deep breath. "Jack, I have not told you the complete details about the letter I received from my father. It was not a happy letter. You see, I had admired Dr. Chung since my college days. I had spoken about his work during our dinners. My father, well, my adoptive father, in his letter, told me that Dr. Chung was my birth father. But there was more. He wrote about Dr. Chung's brief marriage to my mother and how Dr. Chung was an abusive husband. He used to beat my mother, come home drunk. One night, he pushed her so hard, she hit her head on the kitchen platform. This abuse and the injury caused my mother to have suicidal ideation. She made three attempts in six months while she was married to Dr. Chung. My mother started visiting my adoptive father's pharmacy for medication on her thoughts. She opened up to him. He fell in love with her. He encouraged my mother to leave Dr. Chung and marry him. But just before my mother divorced Dr. Chung, she got pregnant. That did not affect my father to change his mind. He was an ideal husband and best father anyone could have, unlike Dr. Chung, who did not even know I existed."
Emily started sobbing. Jack was sympathetic towards her but did not move or lower his gun.
Emily continued, "Things were going so well for about two years when something happened. My mother started relapsing in her suicidal tendencies. One day, when she was driving to pick my father from his pharmacy, close to the shop, she deliberately hit an electric pole and died. My father was across the road, witnessing the accident."
Emily's face turned red in anger, in a high voice, she said, "So I had to kill
Dr. Chung. He ruined my father's love. He took away my mother from me."
Jack took a deep breath. He was disappointed to look at Emily's face as she was showing no remorse about her actions.
"How did you kill him? I saw you leave Dr. Chung's room in the CCTV camera," Jack asked.
"You remember Jack, I told you I have been to China previously. I met Wang during the party, Mr. Lee organized for my group, DisCoVi, after our project was complete. We started dating. For the last two years, we have been secretly meeting around the world. Wang travelled with Mr. Lee to different countries, and I followed him there. It was easy for me to schedule official visits, in my position," said Emily, emphasizing the word -official.
"You do not know how many fake diseases I have discovered in the last two years in every corner of the world," Emily said, smirking. "When I told Wang I want to revenge my mother, he took care of everything."
Mr. Lee looked at Wang in disgust. "Wang, you traitor."
Jack kicked Mr. Lee in the thigh and said, "Shut up."
Jack took a look at Wang for the first time since entering the room. He saw the tattoo on his neck and realized who Wang was. Looking at Wang, Jack said, "It was you who were keeping an eye on us in Tokyo and in the restaurant in Wuhan. You killed Chen. I fought you in front of the storage locker."
Wang puffed his chest and said, "Anything for Emily."
"How can you betray Lee family, Wang. Your father would have killed you," Mr. Lee said, spitting on the floor.
Wang sneered at Mr. Lee and said, "You do not talk about making fathers proud, stupid fellow. If I betrayed you, that is because you betrayed the legacy of your family."
Jack interrupted, "Okay, that is enough." He did not want to move focus away from Emily's actions. He was still not convinced of how Emily pulled this off. He asked, "Tell me one thing, Emily. Why did you bring me to China if you wanted to kill Dr. Chung? I mean, why bring a police officer with you? You should have considered the possibility that I would investigate."
"But see Jack, I wanted you to investigate," Emily replied with a narcissistic smile, showing off her manipulative skills.
Jack stood in front of Emily in silence. He now realized how he was used. He now understood how Emily has taken everyone for a ride to fulfil her agenda. "I now understand. You wanted to pin the murder on Mr. Lee. You wanted me to prove that the deal between Mr. Lee and Dr. Chung had gone south, and that is why he was killed."
"Correct," Emily said.
"You forced Dr. Chung to record a video mentioning his daughter. You deliberately kept your coat with the cab receipts in my room. You knew I would look at the CCTV footage and determine your visit to Dr. Chung's room after our dinner. You knew I would find out about your relation to him. Once I conclude you were Dr. Chung's daughter, I would clear you. Then you have a clear path to misdirect me to Mr. Lee."
"And it worked, did not?" Emily said grinning.
"Yes, it did. Tell me how you found out about Chen."
"Chung told me in our brief meeting about project Robin Hood. He told me that his so-called partner, Chen, would know about the plan. I mentioned Chen to you. I was confident you would contact her. Wang was monitoring your investigation. He sent me a message through his contact in the consulate kitchen. She was not part of my original plan, but I told him to kill her. Well, collateral damage."
Jack felt outraged towards Emily. "You found out from the documents I retrieved from Wuhan lab, that the virus was created using one of your discovery. If I were to investigate that I would be able to connect you to Wang. You could not let that happen, so you proposed to meet Mr. Lee to coerce a confession out of him. Your plan was to kill him. You assumed we would cover it up to save you. It makes sense, who would indict someone who killed a terrorist? In excitement, you mentioned Chen's murder. That was your first mistake, and it will be your last."
"No, Jack, you still do not have enough evidence to indict Mr. Lee or me. I killed Dr. Chung because he was a monster. A monster who killed my mother, created a virus knowing very well the damage it could do. He was responsible for the death of your grandfather."
Jack banged his gun on the table at the mention of his grandfather. Enraged, he said, "Do not bring my family in this twisted logic of yours. You have used me a lot. You are going to face the consequences of your actions. Do you know Chen has a daughter who is now an orphan because of you? As for the evidence, you forget the specialty of your shoes."
He looked at Neil, "Call our backup team. We are taking all three of them in."
Mr. Lee begged, "Sir, I will make you rich. I will do whatever you want. Please let me go. I have a family."
Jack punched Mr. Lee hard in the face. "You wanted global recognition? You are going to get one. You will be known as the person who caused a pandemic."
Epilogue
One Month Later
Jack called Sarah, hoping to find out an answer to the lingering question. "Sarah, did you find Lee? What is happening?"
"I am sorry, Jack. Lee has disappeared from the radar," Sarah replied in disappointment.
"How is that possible? I handed him to Shanghai police myself," Jack questioned with his non-existent authority.
"You know the commissioner's office does not have jurisdiction over Shanghai. We are working tirelessly with Ambassador Thompson and others at Shanghai consulate to get an answer."
"Well, keep me posted," said Jack, keeping positive on better news on the next call.
He turned on the news channel. The news anchor, excitingly said, "Canada, we have a groundbreaking news update on the vaccine for you. The Communist Party of China has cracked the deal with Canada and the US to share the vaccine for VD-19. We are learning that Canada has brokered this historic deal with China. The Chinese government has taken control over the local company, Wuhan Lab and ready to roll out vaccines as early as this week. The most important detail of this deal is, the vaccine know-how is going to be shared, free of cost."
Jack turned to Julie, who was sitting next to him, "Looks like they traded the life of Lee with the vaccine. Bloody diplomats. This means Mr. Lee will go unpunished, at least in the public eye. Now, no one will know that this pandemic was forced upon us."
Julie looked at the sadness in Jack's eyes. "You did well. We know why we lost grandpa. Your actions honoured his memory," said Julie, trying hard to convince Jack.
Jack changed the news channel. He wanted to check on the news from the United States. The US president was addressing the nation,
"My dear Americans, today at 4:30 AM eastern, on my command, the US army killed the Iranian general, Mr. Ahmed Ghazi, in a drone strike. He was second in command to the supreme leader of Iran. The US had gathered evidence, with the help of its allies, Mr. Ghazi was accountable for many terrorist attacks in the past. He was also planning more attacks in the future."
Jack turned off the television. "One more cover-up," he said, frustrated. Jack got up and opened his computer. He had been thinking of doing this for a while now. Julie came to him and asked, "What are you doing?"
"I am going to resign from RCMP. I will reopen grandpa's restaurant. I will restart the Sunday parties. I think we will be happy in our small town. I cannot handle the lies and politics anymore," Jack said, smiling at Julie.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AJINKYA SATISH DHARANE
Ajinkya Satish Dharane is an engineer by education, an entrepreneur by profession. He has worked in the automotive industry for a long time, before following his dream to run an entertainment company.
After the pandemic shut the world down, and his business in March 2020, he had a lot of time on hand, so he took on writing.
Read more at www.ajinkyadharane.com
Follow me on social media @ajinkyadharane
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