by Frank Perry
sealed chambers, and then robots moved the triple-sealed crates to the standard loading dock after undergoing several decontamination steps. The prospect of any pathogen being present in the open atmosphere inside the storage facility was, essentially, zero, and there was equally small risk of something breaking or opening accidentally during packaging; yet, everything had to go through a decontamination sequence and certification before the containers were safe for commercial transportation. All the paperwork went to Matt Hanson and then to Marie for record keeping and billing.
Negotiation
He didn’t wake his wife before leaving the house and driving a few miles away to a vista point along the Chesapeake. It was too early for tourists, so he was alone. His only worry was that some park police officer would get suspicious about a car parked on a perch with a single person watching the sunrise. It was Saturday, and most people would still be sleeping. Even if someone was near enough to hear his voice through the soft top, they wouldn’t understand the discussion. Hell, he told himself that he was being paranoid. He could see in all directions, and nobody was near him, not even morning joggers or dog walkers. He was alone waiting for the call. Then it buzzed.
He answered, “What took you so long?”
The male voice had a distinct Middle-Eastern accent. “I am not some peasant you can be ordering around. I will call you when I am ready. Not before.”
“Look, I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m not risking going to prison for you.”
The voice continued. “No. You risk for money, is this not right?” It was rhetorical. “You have some news for me?”
“First off, are you using a disposable phone? If Interpol or some other world law agency decides to cooperate with the FBI, I don’t want them finding you, which could lead to me!” He never liked talking to this man. He’d hated their first discussion. He couldn’t be trusted. The only reason for dealing with him at all was the money. He’d proven that he could pay after their first arrangement. He had simply wired the money as a “down payment” with no collateral required.
“Is not to worry, my friend. Is all safe. Believe me; no police come into this country. They lose head too easily … hah!” The man was chuckling to himself.
“Okay, we don’t have much time. I have news of a shipment that is coming your way. I will give it to you when you send the rest of the money to my island account.”
“What news is it? How can I trust you? You could be sending nothing, and I am to pay you one million dollar. You are thinking me a fool?”
“Look, I’m not crazy. I know that you have people in this country, in this area, who would kill me if I lied to you.”
“You think I do not know you can fly away and never be found!”
“Look, pal, a million may be a lot where you come from, but it’s not enough to skip town around here. Besides, I have proof.”
“What proof do you speak of?”
“Check with your friends in Western Africa. Tell them to go to Kambia, Sierra Leone. As I promised, you will see.”
“So, we will do so. And now tell me of the shipment.”
He gave the details then drove home for breakfast with his wife and kids.
Perplexed
“So why does an inventory get connected to murder, attempted murder in this case?”
Kelly gave a slight shrug. “John, how could we know? It goes back at least a couple years from what I can see. Look how big the file is. What is it, about fifty pages?”
He studied the data. “Yeah, the date codes show it. Each time there’s an addition or vials are used, the entire inventory gets updated. It’s like years of repeated results, nothing changes that much.”
“What are we going to do, John, if we can’t figure anything out? I get this awful feeling that someone could be out there, pointing a gun at us again, only this time he’ll be a real assassin.”
He thought for a moment, then started manipulating the mouse and typing. “I’m sending this to Mary for safe keeping. If anything happens to us, she can send it to the police and explain that it’s linked to us. We don’t know why, but it needs to go somewhere that nobody will find it, and no one knows about Mary. She was only listed as a minor in the news report. She’s not a relative, and there’s no way for anyone to know we’re friends. I’m telling her not to open it, but to send it to the Baltimore PD if I get hurt.” He didn’t want to say “killed.”
Pressure
Investment bankers work around the clock. They never sleep. Jules was on the phone with Jim Osborne at Hawk as soon as he felt it was a halfway decent hour. “Look, Jim. I know it’s their holy day this week (Saturday), but they need to know this. If they see it happen just as we predicted, they’ll want GHI for sure.”
“I agree, Jules. I’ll try, but I can’t promise anything; I’ll try.” Actually, he knew exactly what this was worth to GHI, the Saudi government, to Hawk, and to himself. Hawk, Goodwin, and Manchzec was a leading global investment banking company located on Wall Street, hiring the best talent that American “B” schools could produce, and Jim Osborne was one of their top producers.
Jules went back to the lab. There wasn’t anything to be accomplished by his suiting up and going inside the containment area. Charlie’s people had done it all. He just wanted to see the truck pull away and then see the final manifest. He was already thinking ahead about how to get the maximum publicity when GHI, again, saves the world from Ebola. In the past, the news did it all, but now, after two prior outbreaks, maybe there was something he could do to speed up the publicity.
He called Kathy Dittami, the reporter who interviewed him the week before.
Error
“Gort, believe me, I wouldn’t want Mary to get hurt either.”
“Well, John, I ain’t no high flyin’ scientist, but my little girl was around gun play ‘cuzza you.”
John knew exactly how Gort felt; he was entitled. “Gort, you can think anything you want about me, but I would never want Mary hurt. Do you think I knew some yahoo with the gun was coming after us, me in particular? I would never have let Mary be around anything like that.”
Gort was trying to remain calm; after all, John had called him. But in the back of his mind, he knew John had come to their island, hiding from something. Maybe he was not telling everything. “Okay, yeah, well, you know I had to say my piece. So that’s that.” After a pause, he added, “She said you charged at the guy, John. Are you crazy or somethin’?”
“I can’t answer that, Gort. Maybe I am crazy. After two years with the Marines in Afghanistan, I didn’t know how else to act. I could be nuts, but there was something about it all, it happened so fast, that I just thought the guy would panic when I came at him and run. He tried.”
“Yeah, Mary said you got him down and held him. You got some balls, John.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, well I’d rather keep them to myself.”
“Okay, enough said. Mary said you sent her a weird document; said there was a couple errors in it.”
“Errors? Did she say what it was?”
“Nope, she just said she was gonna call you when she got through it. You know she used to do all my bookkeepin’. She’s a smart gal with numbers. Wouldn’t know it to talk to her, but she’s real good.”
John couldn’t wait. What had Mary found? She wasn’t supposed to open the file! He had hoped that she wouldn’t open the file, but she had ignored him. In reality, he’d figured she would. He ended the call with Gort and called her.
Mary had still been shaking when the train pulled into the Portland station. A girl friend had picked her up, and they talked for hours about her experience. Her friend didn’t understand at first – “You were in a gunfight?”
“No, not exactly. I was with my friend John and his girlfriend when some old guy tried to shoot us. It was wicked weird. We were just walking to get in John’s car to go to the lab where he and his girl
, Kelly, work. They’re both scientists, and they were going to show me where they worked. Anyway, all of a sudden, John smashes me and Kelly between some cars.
“I didn’t know what was happening, except he ran, and I heard an awful loud boom, a gun. It was all kind of a blur, and me and Kelly were both scared to death. Then we heard something and looked up and saw John tackle this big, dirty old guy. John yelled for us to call nine-one-one.
“I mean, I was so scared. Not at first; I didn’t know what was happening at first, it was only after I learned what happened, then I got real scared. John and Kelly, they took me to the train station right after that and gave me a ticket back home, to here. All I could think about was the sound of the gun. It’s not like you think; it’s real loud and scary. My head was ringing. I kept trying to sleep on the train, but it was like a nightmare. I keep seeing this guy in my head with his gun coming up and shooting us. I’m gonna have nightmares!”
They relived the trauma several times that evening. When Mary called her father and explained it, Gort went ballistic. She had to reassure him over and over again that she was all right.
