by Dale Mayer
“But I needed it fresh,” the man explained. “Within hours of curating it. And preferably not preserved with the chemicals that are usually administered.”
“So, when Hinkleman gets one, is it airlifted to you?”
He nodded. “Absolutely.”
“And how many do you order?”
He shrugged. “A couple a week maybe?”
She nodded again. “It’d be interesting to see where they came from. Don’t you agree?”
His face paled. “I sure hope you’re not implying that he killed people to bring me pancreatic tissue,” he said, his voice faint. “That goes against everything I believe in.”
Kerrick spoke up. “All we need is a tissue sample from all your Scion purchases, and a DNA match can be run. I’m guessing all your donors have been murdered.”
A collective round of gasps could be heard about the room.
“And you each paid Scion Labs to attend this conference?” Kerrick continued.
“Yes, we all do. Even the employees at Scion, I understand, pay a conference fee as usual,” the pancreatic customer stated. “Scion Labs puts it on every year, but this year they said they had some great announcements for customers and employees alike, so we should all attend. Plus, they had new supply lines of various products that are needed by us and others. And we can only get through the company.”
“Such as the pancreatic tissue?” Kerrick asked.
He and several other men nodded.
“I need adrenal glands,” one said. “And that’s just part of it. We need fresh tissue samples in order to accurately determine the effects of our testing.”
“You don’t know what it’s like trying to get the permissions to do human trials,” one of the men said. “The red tape is notorious. And we’re all applying, but, in the meantime, we’re working on a limited amount of testing material.”
“So you’ve expanded into working on human volunteers? People who are past the point of being cured, so that you have some test data?” Kerrick asked.
He shrugged.
“Willing volunteers who have nothing to lose and have lost all hope otherwise? But the sample size is still too small, right?” Kerrick asked.
“What most of you need to understand, both employees and customers, is that the Scion Labs itself has become diseased,” Amanda said. “Yes, I’m a majority shareholder, but Hinkleman, who is the chairman of the board, has been leading Scion Labs down an ugly path.”
“It still doesn’t explain why all these people have been kidnapped and imprisoned, and yet, haven’t been killed and harvested for body parts already,” Griffin said, straightening up in front of her.
“I think it’s for blackmail money, another source of steady income to add to the funds collected through the fake sanitorium project,” she said. “I think it’s pure and simple all about money, power, and greed. Because someone has to fund all this research. You who are customers of Scion all have received grant monies from the company, didn’t you? That’s why, when they called, you jumped?”
At once, many of the men looked around to the group and then said, “Yes. That’s exactly right.”
Amanda nodded. “I presume an audit of the company will find that an accurate accounting will not cover all the grants given out to customers, like those gathered here today. Hinkleman was working many angles here, even both sides against the middle—like kidnapping people for blackmail money, to hand out as grants to customers, who then buy body parts from Hinkleman, which he freshly provides from people he’s murdered, all while charging you to attend conferences such as this one. I believe Hinkleman may even be surgically removing the organs at the sanitarium where I was jailed. We will set out to prove that as well.”
The sounds coming from their audience grew louder.
Amanda turned to Kerrick. “Where is Hinkleman?”
“He’s got a bit of a headache,” Kerrick said with a grin.
“Can he answer questions?”
“Maybe,” he said to Amanda, “but we need to make sure we have everybody rounded up, so nobody is left to cause trouble when we aren’t looking.” Turning to the crowd, he asked, “Where is the real security team?”
“And sharing all we know with all gathered here today,” Amanda said.
Kerrick grinned. Inciting a riot … directed at Hinkleman. He liked how this woman thought.
Several gunshots were fired into the air behind the collection of men gathered in the lab. Several cries of alarm followed as everyone turned to face a new threat. Brandon clutched Griffin’s waist and stood behind him, while Amanda was tight against Kerrick, his arm wrapped around her shoulders.
She whispered, “You were right. I should have figured Hinkleman had more security around here somewhere.”
Kerrick glanced around, moving her farther behind him. A large refrigerator-freezer cooler was off to the side, to hold working samples, Kerrick imagined. He glanced at it, wondering if she could be safe from gunfire inside it.
She firmly shook her head and said, “Not a chance.” However, a letter opener was off to the side of a nearby table. She quickly grabbed it and slipped it up her sleeve.
He grinned. He admired her quick wit. Although he had two weapons on him, it wasn’t the right time to show his hand. He needed a distraction first. Seems Amanda was preparing for that.
As the scientists were urged to crowd in closer, four more gunmen stepped forward, their faces grim as they surveyed the group.
“We were hoping to not have to do this,” one of the men said.
“Head of security, I presume?” Kerrick asked.
He shrugged. “And a shareholder in the company.”
“If I had kept my mouth shut,” Amanda said cheerfully, “you wouldn’t be in the position of having to kill all these scientists and researchers now, would you?”
He glared at her. But the gasps from the people around them rose in horror.
“There’s no need to kill anybody,” another security guard said in a soothing tone. “Nobody here will talk. They’re all involved.”
At that, there was a dead silence. Yes, the scientists, the researchers, the customers, the employees would all soon realize just how much their involvement now meant.
Chapter 16
Amanda watched as the group was quickly separated. Scientists, Kerrick, Griffin, Brandon and herself were off to the other side. She hoped that Hinkleman’s security team would at least let a child live. But she wasn’t so sure. She heard a pounding on the door behind her. She glanced over when the head security gunman motioned at one of his men to open the door.
Hinkleman struggled to get out, blood flowing from an injury to his temple. He tried to remain steady on his feet, but he was clearly woozy. “Shoot them,” he screamed uncontrollably. “Shoot them dead.” He spun toward the head of security. “Drayden, you promised me that you’d take care of everyone. Shoot them, damn it.”
Drayden? Something was familiar about the large man’s bearded face. She frowned. “Were you the one who kidnapped me off the street?”
He sneered at her. “No.”
“Are you sure?” she insisted. “You look very familiar.”
“It wasn’t him,” Hinkleman cried out, almost dancing in place. “It was his brother, Haron. He worked on your father’s secret security detail.” And he laughed as though crazed. “You were so easy.”
Shocked, she had the puzzle pieces falling in place now. “No wonder we never could get in touch with Father’s security detail to figure out why they lost track of me. Because they were silenced or were part of my kidnapping,” she cried out in outrage.
Just then another man stepped forward, who she hadn’t seen yet in the background. His features were immediately recognizable. “Haron, I presume?”
He grinned. “Absolutely.”
“Why?” She shook her head, dazed. “Why would you be a part of this?”
“For the oldest reason in the world,” he said in a smug tone. “Money.”
“And my ex? Is he a part of this?”
An odd light lit up Haron’s gaze as he glanced over at Hinkleman. “That was Father’s idea.”
Father? Stunned, she spun to Hinkleman. The shocks just wouldn’t quit. “You had your sons kidnap me?” she asked him, but little sanity remained in that gaze. She pivoted back to Haron. “What role did my ex play in my imprisonment?”
He laughed. “Not much but the one meal and one bottle of water a day was his request …”
“That slimy little bastard! It’s been five years. What’s his beef with me now?”
“Something about how that’s all you left him with—enough money for one meal a day.”
“But he won’t get even that now, will he?” Kerrick asked shrewdly, an arm tucked around Amanda. She curled in closer.
The smile disappeared from Haron’s face. “What do you know about it?”
“Well, if you took out the three delivery guys from the Dover side of the ferry, I highly doubt you planned to leave Amanda’s ex-husband alive to talk either. Once you charged him as much money as you could get from him—and it wouldn’t have been much, I imagine—then you took him out.”
“It’s none of your business,” Drayden said. “That’s enough talking.”
“Not quite,” Amanda snapped, turning to Hinkleman. “What about those other people you imprisoned? What were you doing with them?”
Hinkleman glared at her at first. Yet, when he finally spoke, his tone was placating, as if talking to a child. “I can hardly let them go, can I? They are a great source of income, month after month after month. Rich people will pay an incredible amount of money to remove a problem.”
“Like Cynthia and Peter?” Brandon shouted. “They didn’t want to be there any more than I did.”
“Kids may be seen but not heard,” Drayden snapped.
“It’s all right, Brandon,” Kerrick said. “A full sweep was carried out, and they’ve been found. They are in a proper hospital, getting treated even now.”
Amanda looked at Kerrick, catching his smile, and felt her heart lighten as he explained, “I only heard a few minutes ago. I just hadn’t had a chance to tell you.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Hinkleman snapped. “We’ll start again.”
“Not from prison, you won’t,” Amanda stated.
He stopped, stared at her, and said, “You can’t stop me. Besides, how did you get here?”
“They were in the boat that came with the supplies,” the head of security said. “We told you when we left port that nothing else was to get on board exactly because of shit like this happening.” He motioned in disgust at Kerrick and Griffin.
Hinkleman saw Kerrick and pointed a finger at him. “That man attacked me,” he roared. “Shoot him right now.”
Seeing the confused yet horrified looks on all the scientists’ faces as they witnessed this unfolding drama meant more and more of them were now Team Amanda, abandoning Team Hinkleman like a sinking ship. Kerrick grinned at Hinkleman. “What’s the matter, Doc? Everybody now knows that you’re behind all this nastiness. That you’re getting paid by families to keep certain relatives, who they don’t want to deal with, in a drugged-out state in a fake sanitarium that is really a jail cell. That you’re keeping a little boy prisoner so his father continues to remain silent and will still provide all those lovely special-order body parts that you want at low prices and at speedy time frames.
“But here’s some further bad news for you. I only heard about it five minutes after I stepped inside this lab. Did you know that the rest of the board wants to remove you as the chairman? That they want to open a full and complete investigation into your dealings?”
Spittle formed at the doctor’s lips. His face turned bloodred, and his hands were fisted and shaking with rage. He turned to the head of security and reached for his rifle, but the gunman lifted it up and out of his way. “No killing, Dad. That’s up to us.”
“You kill him right now!” Hinkleman screamed, his voice dead hard, his eyes wild. “I don’t want to see that man take one more step.”
Kerrick smiled, took two steps toward Hinkleman, and watched him back away, his eyes wide and afraid.
“Is what he said true, Hinkleman?” asked one of the scientists. “Did you get us all involved in something so despicable?”
Hinkleman stood up straight, gathering his courage again maybe. “You had no problems getting involved. All you cared about was getting your grant money. Well, we gave you the grant money,” he sneered. “So, you owe us, and we own you.”
Then he turned, stared at his son, the head of security, and pointed at Kerrick, saying, “And I trust that that man does not get off this boat alive.”
As Hinkleman took several steps past the head of security, Amanda called out, “If he doesn’t get out alive, I’ll publish my research under my own name while you rot in jail—that is, if you make it off this ship alive.”
Hinkleman turned, stared at her with an ugly twisted expression, and said, “What is he, your lover? I’m sure these gunmen will take care of you, so you won’t need him further. That’s all you’re good for anyway. Goddamn females.”
Amanda laughed, making him angrier. “What you really mean is, isn’t it too bad that a woman found the cancer cure, which you’ve been looking for after all these decades. You didn’t even have the brainpower to figure out my research notes.” Her tone bordered on insolence, hoping to push him over the edge. She’d seen it happen once before, and it was a scary sight. But she needed him to lose it right now because it was the diversion they needed.
“You’re old. Washed-up,” she taunted. “Never did have the brains for this. Just another strutting rooster. Useless.” Then she added the coup de grâce. “No wonder the board wants to get rid of you.”
He stared at her as a scream of pure rage let loose from his mouth. “Shut up! Shut up!” Spittle flew from his mouth as he backed up a step, his head shaking, as if incapable of seeing anything but her.
Definitely, he did not see reason.
“No, Dad, stop!”
But he was beyond hearing anyone.
He screamed a second time, but this was a cry of that evil rage from deep inside him as he raced toward her. “Bitch! Stupid cunt! You don’t know anything!”
Drayden tried to grab his father to hold him back, but Hinkleman launched himself into the air, his fingers out like claws.
Amanda stepped to the side as he stumbled to the ground. Then she kicked him as hard as she could in the temple. He didn’t move. She turned and looked at the curly-haired gunman, still pointing his weapon at her, and asked, “Really? Even now, hearing all we’ve said, this is the kind of man you choose to work for?”
Curly shrugged. “A paycheck’s a paycheck.”
“So nobody in your family has died of cancer or lost a breast because of breast cancer?” she asked gently. Curly stiffened. Her gaze zeroed in on him. She nodded. “That’s the research I’m doing. I’ve turned a corner on perfecting my cure, and this guy wanted to steal it from me. He’s the true pirate here. And yet, he can’t even read my notes. He’s not smart enough to do the science. Is that what you want to stand for?”
His stared at her, trying not to reveal his thoughts.
Then Drayden, Hinkelman’s son and the head of security, said, “It doesn’t matter if anybody in his family has cancer or not. They’ll probably be dead before your medicine gets out there.”
“Maybe,” she said. “I mean, after all, Hinkleman kept me as a prisoner for days, with barely enough food to stay alive and only one bottle of water a day. Hard for me to work on a cure in that condition.”
More of the gunmen frowned, and she nodded. “Yeah, didn’t you know that was the evil you were working for? That people like me, the brains in this world, are being drugged, yet who were trying to find answers, but who stood in Hinkleman’s way of getting his name declared as the one who found the cure
for cancer or the next big breakthrough. Then there’s the boy, … and those of us who didn’t even know that we were crossing a line, and yet, we got thrown in Hinkleman’s fake sanitorium, which is nothing but a prison.”
“I don’t know anything about kids,” Curly said defiantly.
“Well, you’re hearing about it right now,” she said. “Hinkleman had his goons kidnap Brandon here,” she motioned to where he stood watching the scenario intently, “a ten-year-old boy and locked him up all alone in a cell with little food and water and a chamber pot and a cot with one threadbare blanket for nine days. Just like they did to me, but I only had to endure a couple days in his jail. You know why? Fear is a great carrot to force people to do something they wouldn’t want to do. I can’t even imagine how many other people they’ve done this to before killing them.
“Of course some misguided family members or plain evil people are paying Hinkleman to hide away problem family members, while some people Hinkleman has targeted to be kidnapped simply because their family is rich or because Hinkleman wants fresher body parts.”
She sauntered closer to where the good doctor lay unconscious on the floor and gave him a shove with her foot. “If you’ve got a spare bullet, you should put it in his head. He’s the lunatic mastermind behind all this shit. Just what the world needs. Another guy who takes money to lock up innocent people and then to throw away the key. Who has people killed for money. Who has people kidnapped when his supply of illegal body parts runs low.”
She reached down, but the gunman said, “Don’t touch him.”
She straightened and looked at Curly. “Or what?”
He immediately lowered the rifle and pointed it at her chest.
She smiled and walked right up to the rifle until it touched her. “Then pull the trigger, and you can kiss that cancer cure goodbye.”
Curly stared at her, his gaze hard. “My mother,” he said, “she died of breast cancer.”
“And she probably carried the gene too,” she said gently. “I’m sorry for that, but, if any other females were born into your family, they’re in trouble too.”
