Book of Cures (A Thomas McAlister Adventure 2)

by Hunt Kingsbury

  McAlister released the man’s hand and took the phone.

  Undertaker hunched forward, holding his wrist against his belly.

  McAlister pressed the “Talk” button and said, “Hello?”

  Chapter 2

  A tall redhead wearing a tailored brown business suit slid onto an open barstool at the end of the bar at Neptune. With two-inch heels, she didn’t need to step up to reach the stool. To the men already at the bar, she appeared fit and nicely proportioned; nice ass, C-cups. Fitted suit. Conservative blouse.

  Uri Andropov, known among clients as The Clone for his unmatched ability as a disguise artist, could’ve chosen to go Frump. Frumps attract minimal attention and their hair shields their face. Plus, no one looks at a Frump more than once. But a fit, fashionable redhead was so much more fun, and Neptune was dark enough to get away with it.

  Fact was, Neptune was a very good place to assassinate someone. Dark mahogany paneled walls, muted lighting. Private, well-spaced tables. He’d eaten there yesterday dressed as a fat businessman in town for a convention. He’d blended in nicely.

  For Uri, the act of killing someone was cold engineering. The art was in getting close enough to do it without getting caught.

  He’d passed his target when he came in. An older man named Taylor who was sitting at a table for two, with a woman. The woman’s name was Abigail. She was not to be harmed. Uri would pass their table while going from the bar to the restroom. Taylor was facing the bar, as Uri knew he would be. It was customary in New York to face the man toward the bar and the woman toward the door; maitre d’s manipulated it based on which chair they pulled out first.

  The bartender arrived and Uri ordered a vodka tonic using his sexiest voice. The drink was just a prop. He wouldn’t even touch the glass.

  A puffy pink businessman in a suit eating lunch at the bar leaned over and said, “That’s on me.”

  Uri smiled demurely, shook his head and mouthed the words, “No, thank you,” then put a twenty-dollar bill on the bar. He was waiting for Taylor’s hors d’oeuvre to arrive. When people chewed, they unconsciously breathed just a little harder, to get the air past the food, and that’s when Uri liked to strike.

  Uri had solved and perfected the question of how to best deliver death years ago.

  Bullets were archaic. Loud and messy, the worst way. Poison was better, but in food or drink, the target might not eat or drink it. Some poisons were sensitive to temperature. Having to control the temperature made delivery complicated, and usually required access to the kitchen, and kitchen staffs were like families: impossible to infiltrate.

  Pricking someone to embed a small ricin pellet, or using compressed gas to shoot it into them (as the Bulgarian secret police famously did with a modified umbrella to kill dissident Georgi Markov in 1978), was risky. Cotton material was easy to get through, but wool and synthetics were a different story. Injections were too noticeable, even with today’s small-diameter hypodermic needles.

  Uri decided long ago that if you could get close enough, spritzing someone with an ultra-fine, poisonous powder-based mist was a very solid delivery mechanism. People had to breathe, didn’t they? And weapons-grade powder was virtually invisible when sprayed as a mist. The amount could be adjusted based on the person and environment. Best of all, since it was inhaled, it was delivered directly into the bloodstream through the cardiovascular system, so you knew within ten seconds if you had succeeded.

  Taylor’s hors d’oeuvre arrived. He started with a salad. Perfect. Uri crossed his legs and smoothed his skirt. He took a latex glove out of the small purse he had in his lap. After slipping the glove onto his right hand, Uri placed the gloved hand inside the purse.

  Though not an engineer, over time he’d developed his own mist delivery system. He used recycled breath spray canisters. They worked perfectly and aroused no suspicion if detained.

  Uri tried to kill anywhere from fifteen to twenty people per year. On average, one week to plan, one week to execute. It was lucrative, he liked it, and it afforded him a lot of time off. If he was lucky, he’d get to kill two people as part of this assignment. Maybe more, he wasn’t sure yet.

  Taylor was halfway through his salad. Abigail was animated. Uri took a deep breath, slid off the stool, and headed toward the restroom. He couldn’t help himself; he shook his ass as he walked.

  Inside his purse, his right hand found the canister and felt for the dot on top of the bottle that told him which way to point it. In a well-practiced motion, he slid the canister through the false bottom of the purse, index finger on top, thumb on bottom.

  As he reached the table, Taylor was leaning in for a bite. People don’t exhale when they take a bite of food; they’re usually inhaling. Perfectly timed.

  As Taylor brought a bite of his salad up, Uri raised his purse, turned his wrist, aimed the nozzle toward Taylor’s face and pressed the nozzle as he walked by the table. He felt the discharge. It was calming. He kept walking straight into the women’s bathroom and into a stall.

  He counted inwardly, “One, two.”

  Rather than pull his hand back through the purse, he pushed his hand further through it. With his left hand he removed a Ziploc bag from a pocket. He put the bag on the back of the toilet. Still holding the canister, he pulled the latex glove off inside out, over the canister.

  “Three, four.”

  He quickly tied the opening of the glove in a knot, put it in the Ziploc bag, sealed it and flushed it down the toilet.

  “Five, six.”

  He exited the stall, took a small container of bleach from his inside suit coat pocket, dumped the bleach on his hands and then washed them with soap and water.

  “Seven, eight.”

  He threw the empty container in the toilet and flushed it again.

  “Nine, ten.”

  He leaned against the wall by the door and relaxed.

  Through the door he heard a crash instantly followed by a woman screaming. Abigail.

  He smiled, took a deep breath and held it, opened the bathroom door and walked briskly out of the restaurant onto the sidewalk outside. He let the breath out. It was a nice day. He started walking east, in the opposite direction from which the first responders would come, toward a store that sold exotic flowers. From there, he would walk down to Chelsea.

  One down, one to go.

  Chapter 3

  “Hello?”

  Frantic screaming in the foreground, yelling from farther back.

  Louder. “Hello? Who is this?”

  “Thomas, is that you? Oh my God, Thomas, something has happened to Taylor, oh my God, Thomas, I just don’t know what to do. We were having lunch and it was all so sudden, I just don’t know . . .”

  “Abigail, Abigail, slow down so I can understand you. Now slow down, take a deep breath, and tell me what happened.”

  McAlister heard her take the breath. “We were sitting here at the Neptune having lunch, and suddenly Taylor just slumped forward--no, he fell forward, it was like he collapsed or something, and now he’s lying on the floor and they’re working on him . . . and . . .” she started to sob.

  McAlister imagined she’d retold the story a few times to restaurant employees and the paramedics. She’d held together well, but was starting to lose control.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, Undertaker said, “They should treat him as if he has a virulent strain of the flu. The natural progression is fever, cough, body aches, muscle cramps, breathing problems, and in the case of an old man like Taylor, probably pneumonia.”

  Thomas looked at his visitor, digesting what he’d said, and the realization crashed over him. Everything that had happened since he had walked in the door, possibly before, was being choreographed.

  It explained why Undertaker had been checking his watch. Why he’d demanded McAlister answer the phone. McAlister was in the middle of something that was unfolding around him. Blind to it. Helpless.

  He could hear Abigail sobbing.

  “Abigail, li
sten to me. Listen closely, okay?”

  She began crying harder, “They’re putting him on a stretcher. He looks so . . . so frail.”

  “Listen!” Thomas yelled.

  “Yes, okay...”

  “Tell the paramedics to treat him as if he has a very strong flu virus, okay? They should do whatever they do for older sick people who have the flu. It’s likely he’ll get pneumonia. Tell them that now, okay?”

  “Okay, wait.”

  Undertaker was looking at his watch again. It made McAlister nervous. For the first time he noticed the man had also positioned the TV remote in front of where he was sitting.

  McAlister was pacing. He could hear Abigail explaining to someone what he’d told her to say. The conversation was muted, but he could tell she was doing it.

  McAlister covered the receiver, “What else was it you told me?” he asked.

  “They’ll need to quarantine him. Right away.”

  “Damn it! Abigail, Abigail?” he yelled.

  Suddenly she was back on the line. “I told them. They want to know how I know that.” She paused, realizing how odd it was. “How do you know that, Thomas?”

  The Undertaker pushed the power button on the remote control, and the TV came on.

  “Abigail, listen, they’re going to need to quarantine Taylor, okay? You need to tell them that too, okay?”

  “Yes, but why? They’re going to ask why, and how I know.”

  “I don’t know right now, Abigail, just tell them that.”

  He heard Abigail telling someone. At first they didn’t understand her, so she said it again. He heard her say, “It’s his best friend, Thomas McAlister.”

  McAlister rolled his eyes. Damn it, why’d she have to use his name?

  Undertaker began changing the channels.

  Abigail was back on the line. “They’re taking Taylor outside. They said I shouldn’t ride with him...wait, the fire chief wants to talk to you, Thomas. I think he wants to know how you know what’s wrong with Taylor and why he needs to be quarantined.”

  McAlister had been watching Undertaker. He was still switching channels. He landed on Channel 3’s midday news program and put the remote control down. McAlister watched the screen as a red breaking news banner went across. What now?

  An image appeared on the screen and McAlister involuntarily said, “Oh my God, I don’t believe it.”

  Undertaker nodded, and a sinister smile crept over his face.

  McAlister’s knees became weak. He felt sick. He dropped his cell phone and sat back into a chair.

  The image on the television screen was his face. He recognized it as his file photo from the University of Arizona. The words “Wanted by Police” were above his face.

  Under his breath he said, “What?”

  Undertaker shrugged.

  “But I wasn’t anywhere near Taylor.”

  “Thomas, this is not about Taylor. Not directly, no. What you’re wanted for is far worse. Much bigger, much more serious.”

  McAlister gazed at the screen, still not believing.

  Without looking at Undertaker, he said, softly, “But how do you know that?”

  An excited newscaster began, “And now a breaking news story. News Three has learned that this man, Dr. Thomas McAlister, is charged with breaking into the New York Biomedical Research Center earlier this morning, overpowering two guards, and stealing an undisclosed amount of a highly contagious and deadly Level Four virus, officially known as H5N1, more commonly referred to as Bird Flu Virus. . .”

  Chapter 4

  “Do you solemnly swear you will not repeat, or divulge in any way, any of the information discussed or reviewed in the meeting you are about to enter?”

  “I do. I swear.”

  “Speak into the microphone and repeat the phrase back, please.”

  “I solemnly swear I will not repeat, or divulge in any way, any of the information discussed or reviewed in the meeting I am about to enter.”

  “Do you understand that if you do divulge any of the information discussed therein, your job and your life as you know it are at risk?”

  A pause. Joel nodded.

  “You must answer verbally.”

  “Okay.”

  “The answer must be yes.”

  “Okay. Yes.”

  “Good. Take your hand off the Bible and strip.”

  “What?”

  “Strip down. Completely. It’s time for your cavity search.”

  Joel Wassermann, newly-appointed CEO of Cabbot Pharmaceuticals, paused again. He wanted to keep this job as badly as he’d ever wanted anything in his life.

  He had a wife, Sabrina, whom he loved, and three beautiful children. He thought of all the soccer games he’d missed, of the crises Sabrina dealt with every day without ever calling him at work--so he could focus, concentrate, and above all continue to climb the corporate ladder.

  He’d come too far. There was no turning back. He’d sacrificed, his family had sacrificed, and he’d finally attained his goal: CEO. No way was a cavity search going to deter him.

  His former boss and Cabbot’s previous CEO, Ed Waxel, had attended these meetings quarterly. They were shrouded in secrecy, always held in upstate New York, at an ultra-secure corporate compound. Now Joel was finding out firsthand what made them so secure.

  Waxel had never divulged the subject of the meetings or hinted at what you had to do to gain entry. He only divulged that attending them was a requirement of the job, and that one day, if Joel became CEO, he’d find out.

  The guard waited patiently. New entrants always paused at the threat of their job and life being at risk, and there was always a longer pause after the cavity search request. But they always acquiesced. Pay someone ten million dollars a year plus options and they’ll do almost anything.

  Once Joel was fully dressed again, the guard escorted him to a large steel door on the opposite side of the room. Joel had no idea who, or what, was behind the door.

  Directly above the door was a small camera, and to the left of the door knob was an electronic key pad and a hand shaped pattern recognition sensor. The guard quickly punched in a code, put his hand on the sensor, and the door clicked open. Joel stepped into a large, windowless conference room. The door clicked shut behind him.

  There were four men seated at a polished black conference table. They all looked up when he entered. He felt embarrassed for no reason. He was early, yet their looks made him feel shamefully late.

  He quickly glanced from face to face. He instantly recognized William Casey, the white-haired man sitting closest to where he stood. He’d met Casey at an industry function the previous year. Casey, who resembled Eddie Albert, was President and CEO of Parker Medical Devices, the second-largest medical device company in the world.

  Sitting next to Casey was a large, heavily-built man whom Joel vaguely recognized, through annual report pictures, as Charles Wheaton. Wheaton was president of Galaxy Medical. Galaxy was the world’s fourth-largest healthcare company, just behind Cabbot. Across from Wheaton sat a stern-faced man Joel had never seen before. At the head of the table was another man Joel did not recognize.

  “Please have a seat, Mr. Wasserman,” snapped the man at the head of the table, badly slurring the s’s in his last name. Joel walked across the room and sat in the only open chair, across from Casey and Wheaton, next to the stern-faced man.

  Once seated, Joel looked down at the man at the head of the table, the one who’d asked him to sit. When he’d come in, the man’s face had been partly obscured by William Casey’s head, but now that Joel had a full view, the sight jolted him.

  The right side of the man’s face had been burned away; his upper and lower eyelids were both gone, leaving his eye socket open, eyeball exposed. Additionally, the part of his cheek that would have normally covered his teeth from the incisors back was missing, so the entire side of his mouth was open. Half of his face looked like a skeletal model covered with red muscle. Only this was no model. It was rea
l.

  The exposed eyeball’s glare was piercing. Frightening. As he sat there, Joel realized he could become used to it being exposed; that was anatomical. However, he felt he would never get used to the maniacal intensity of the glare: a chilling mix of anger combined with the sickening pleasure of getting to watch people’s reactions to seeing his mangled face for the first time.

  He wore an impeccably tailored suit that Joel recognized as coming from Savile Row in London. The buttons were bone, the button holes on the sleeves real. His shirt was thick textured cotton, probably Egyptian, Joel thought, and shiny gold cuff links protruded neatly from under his jacket. He wore a light blue tie, silk, no pattern.

  “Welcome, Mr. Wasserman. We’ve been looking forward to meeting with you.” The man’s voice was shrill, a full octave higher than average. The missing section of his cheek caused him to slur his s’s, so he pronounced Joel’s last name Washerman.

  “Thank you.”

  “How did you take the little search outside?” A wry smile formed on the unburned side of the man’s face.

  “I took it for the team.” The mouth smiled wider, like an out-of-breath dog.

  “I imagine you’re wondering who we are, and why you’re here.”

  “I know Mr. Casey, and I recognize Mr. Wheaton.” Joel motioned toward Casey and Wheaton.

  “Then the process of deduction should tell you that the five men in this room represent the CEOs of the five largest healthcare companies in the world.”

  It sank in. Of course. Casey, Joel himself, and Wheaton were two, three, and four. Then it hit him. The man at the end of the table had to be Sam Mortimar, the reclusive genius who ran Trans-Continental, the largest of all healthcare companies.

  Few people had ever seen Mortimar. He ran the company from his New Jersey mansion, rarely holding face-to-face meetings.

  Every year or so, rumors swept through the industry as to how Mortimar’s disfigurement had happened, and how severe it actually was. But no one really knew the answer. There were constant rumors he was dead and that his lifelong secretary, Dirk, was secretly running the company.