by David Archer
“Okay,” Noah said as he drove toward his office. “Any idea how long before you get a response?”
“Yeah, well, I already got one,” Neil said. “I got up to a response this morning saying that Doctor Ghoulie is looking for one and will let me know as soon as it’s available. That made me a little nervous, so I went into the database and compiled a list of all the potential donors that match the criteria I put in. There are over four thousand of them altogether, and more than thirty within a hundred miles of Galveston. The odds aren’t very good that Jenny will be the one they pick, so I set up a routine to scan for all of those names. If one of them turns up missing, I should know it within a few hours.”
“That’s good thinking, Neil,” Noah said. “Let me know immediately if one of those names pops up.”
“Will do,” Neil said. “Neil out.”
It was a few minutes later when Noah arrived at his office, and there was a message for him to see Conley immediately. He went to his boss’s office and was told to go in. Conley was alone this time. He looked up when Noah entered and smiled, motioning for him to close the door and take a seat.
“Robert, how’s it going?” Conley asked.
“Pretty smoothly so far,” Noah said. “I notice we only had three specials this week. Is that about the norm?”
Conley looked at him for a moment, then leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk. “Not always,” he said. “Sometimes it gets pretty busy. In fact, I think it’s going to get a lot busier this week.” He stopped and looked at Noah for a few more seconds, then pursed his lips before he began to speak again. “Robert,” he said slowly, “when somebody comes to work here, they automatically run a background check. I just got the results of yours, because it takes a little time.”
Noah gave him a sideways grin. “I was acquitted,” he said.
Conley returned the grin without thinking. “Yes, you were,” he said. “However, it appears that you might actually have committed a murder.”
Noah shrugged. “That’s what they say,” he said. “But I was acquitted.”
Conley sat quietly for a few more seconds, then slowly nodded his head. “Robert, I know you were acquitted. Says so in your background investigation, very clearly, but it also says you were acquitted on a technicality. However,” he said, pausing for a couple of seconds, “let me say that I found it quite interesting that you are the kind of man who can take a life.”
Noah started to protest his innocence again, but Conley held up a hand to stop him.
“Don’t worry, this is not going to negatively affect your job here, because you were acquitted, regardless of how. We can’t hold it against you officially, so there’s no problem. Oh, there might be a few people who hear about it and look at you funny, but they’ll probably just try to stay on your good side. I’m more interested in your bad side, at the moment.”
Noah cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “Go on,” he said. “What do you mean by that?”
“You know, Robert, there is often a shortage of organs available for those who truly need them. The way the system works, people on the transplant list have to wait until somebody who could be a match has the good grace to get themselves killed in such a way that the organs are viable. Unfortunately, many, many people die before that happens, and a lot of organs go to waste because accident victims don’t make it to the hospital in time.”
Noah stared into his eyes. “That’s the way it works, yes,” he said. “Are you saying there might be an alternative?”
“Would it trouble you if there were?”
Noah sat quietly and stared into his eyes for another five seconds. “That would depend,” he said. “It would depend on how it affected me.”
Conley fell back in his chair and let out a laugh. “And what if it affected you positively, in a financial sense?”
Noah grinned, but didn’t answer for a few seconds. “Well,” he said after the pause, “if I understand what you’re saying, I’d prefer not to be too directly involved. However, I also wouldn’t be asking a lot of questions. The bigger my paycheck, the happier I’m going to be, and I don’t really care a whole lot where the money comes from before I get it.”
Conley laughed again. “Son of a bitch, I knew you were my kind of guy. I think you understand exactly what I’m saying, but if you have any questions, let me hear them now.”
Noah looked around to make sure the door was closed firmly, then turned back to Conley. “Are we talking about procuring organs in a somewhat unethical manner? Perhaps from unwilling donors?”
“Let’s just say that we have access to donors who might not expect to be donors so soon. Most of them are young and very healthy, but they haven’t made any great contribution to society. By ensuring that those who truly need their organs are given the chance at a long and healthy life, they make the most powerful contribution they can.”
Noah nodded. “So, these donors can be acquired, their organs harvested quietly?”
“That seems to be the case, yes.”
Noah continued to look him in the eye. “Seems a waste,” he said. “I mean, if somebody just wants a liver, for example, what happens to the heart, lungs, the kidneys, the pancreas? What about all the other organs that could be sold? They just go to waste?”
“Oh, not at all,” Conley said. “The donor can be kept alive and well until such time as more of their organs are needed. That’s just common business sense, not to waste potential inventory. Of course, occasionally we end up with a need to market the other organs as quickly as we can, but we have the means of doing that. If, for instance, we have to procure a donor for a heart, we have a system that allows us to make the remaining organs available. In most cases, we can find buyers for several of them, at least. Kidneys go pretty fast, and livers. Corneas, too.”
Noah nodded. “And just how lucrative could this be?” he asked.
“It can be very lucrative, for someone who can move those organs quietly and quickly. Up until now, we had to rely on your predecessor, but he was an idiot. I don’t think he ever even noticed that we were shipping out more organs than the morgue was taking in. He knew we were selling them, but he wasn’t privy to the things I’m telling you about now.”
“Okay. So why are you telling me?”
“Because, with your connections and experience, I think we can expand our operations drastically.” He leaned forward again. “Robert, how hard would it be to set up a separate office to ship from? Someplace away from the medical center?”
Noah pretended to think about it for a moment. “It really shouldn’t be that hard,” he said. “We could set up something quietly, somewhere out of the way. But what if we take it a step further?”
“A step further? What have you got in mind?”
Noah leaned forward in the chair, forcing his body language to look excited. “What if we set up our own organ transport company? It would look completely legitimate and none of the employees would have any idea what was going on. It doesn’t take any special skills on their end, all they have to do is pick up the organ in its preservation container and drive to the airport, get into a plane and then turn it over to somebody on the recipient’s end. All we would need is a small office somewhere and a supply of containers. Those are reusable, so they’ll be coming back to us. That means we’ll need a place where they can be cleaned and sterilized before they are used again.”
Conley chewed the inside of his cheek for a couple of seconds. “Okay, and how many organs could such an operation move without drawing any unwanted attention?”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Noah said. “We would contract with hospitals around the area to handle transporting theirs, and that’s what would show up on the paperwork. Our special ones don’t end up in the books. As long as we pay our employees in cash, there won’t be any paper trail that could blow up in our faces.”
“Wouldn’t the employees want a regular paycheck? Employee benefits, that sort of thing?”
Noah
grinned. “We give those to them,” he said. “Here’s the way I would set it up. We put everybody on a small salary with the basic benefits package, but then they get a cash bonus whenever they have to actually transport an organ. That way, their pay doesn’t reflect the actual transports they make, and we can record only those we want to show up on our books.”
Conley’s face lit up in a smile. “And we could deliver just about anywhere, couldn’t we?”
“Anywhere within about ten hours of here. The preservation cases can keep an organ viable for twelve hours, so allow an hour on this end to remove it and pack it, then another hour on the destination end to get it to the hospital and into the recipient. If we use charter air services, we could reach anywhere in North or South America, Hawaii, maybe more.”
Conley sat and stared at him for several seconds, then began nodding his head. “Tell me what we need to get this started,” he said. “I need to run this up the flagpole, but once I get approval, then I want you on this immediately. And Robert? Get ready to be very, very busy.”
SEVEN
Noah left Conley’s office a few minutes later, returning to his own. As soon as he was in his office with the door shut, he whispered, “Activate all. Noah to team, everybody there?”
“Neil here.”
“Jenny on the line.”
“Sarah is here.”
“Renée here.”
There was a pause of a few seconds, and then they heard, “Marco here.”
“I’ve just been given confirmation that Conley is involved in the target operation. I’ve been recruited into it as the organ transportation operator. Sarah, contact Allison and let her know. I will likely be setting up a private company to operate in organ transportation, and Conley has warned me that we are going to be very busy. I do not have information about where victims are being held, but Conley has confirmed that organs are being harvested from living, unwilling donors.”
“Holy shit,” Neil said. “I wonder if he is Doctor Ghoulie?”
“Negative,” Neil said. “Conley has to go to someone higher for approval on this project, but he’s confident of getting it. We need to start watching his communications, see if we can get a lead on who it is he is going to.”
“I’m on it,” Neil said. “I’ll be getting his phone records here shortly, both from his office phone and his cell. By the time I see you this evening, I’ll have names for all the numbers I can possibly identify.”
“Excellent. Sarah, keep me in the loop while you call Allison.”
“Yes, sir,” Sarah said. “Calling her now.”
* * * * *
Sarah took out her phone and dialed the number for their headquarters.
“Brigadoon Investments,” came the receptionist’s voice. “How may I direct your call?”
“Allison Peterson, please, Sarah Wolf calling.”
“One moment.”
Sarah listened to hold music for about seven seconds.
“Report,” Allison said as she came on the line.
“This is Sarah,” Sarah said. “Noah wanted me to call and tell you that he has confirmed that the target organization is here, and that he has been recruited into it. His boss at the medical center, Harold Conley, is the one who recruited him. He said he’s probably going to be setting up a private company for organ transportation, and that Conley is asking someone above him for approval.”
“Excellent,” Allison said. “Do we have any idea who he’s going to for that approval?”
“No, but Neil is working on getting his phone records and identifying the numbers he calls. I’ve got Noah on subcom, if you have any questions.”
“Yes, ask him about the current victims. Do we have any idea where they are being held?”
“Not just yet,” Sarah said. “Sorry, I should’ve told you that already.”
“Tell her,” Sarah heard Noah say through the subcom, “that I’m deliberately playing it as if I don’t want to know. I want it to be obvious that I’m not asking too many questions just yet, so that they won’t get nervous about me.”
Sarah relayed the message to Allison, who said it was a good idea.
“Tell him not to wait too long, though,” she said. “The sooner we can locate them, the better. If nothing else, we can put people on watching the place to see who goes in and out. That would give us another avenue to explore in tracking down the people behind it.”
“Noah says he agrees,” Sarah said. “I got the phone on my right ear, so he can actually hear you. The subcom is picking up your voice from the phone.”
“Good. Noah, good work. Now, go find out who is in charge so you can kill the bastards and get out of there.”
Sarah chuckled. “He says he’s working on it,” she said. “Anything else?”
“Not at the moment,” Allison said, “but this is a good system. You being able to call, and having him on subcom means faster communication. I like it.”
The phone went dead and Sarah set it on the table. “She’s gone,” she said to Noah. “Did you hear that last part?”
“Yes, I did. I agree, the subcoms are the best thing Wally has come up with yet. I’m going to get to work and wait for Conley to get back to me. I’ll let you know as soon as there are any developments.”
“Okay, babe,” Sarah said. “Love you.”
“I love you, too,” Noah said. “Noah out.”
* * * * *
Noah spent the next couple of hours concentrating on doing his job, preparing paperwork for a liver and a pair of kidneys from an overnight fatality. All three organs had quickly been matched by the authorities involved and were ready to ship. The liver was going to Vancouver, one kidney to Los Angeles and the other to Louisville, Kentucky. The victim had died of blunt force trauma to the head, suffered in an automobile accident. He was only nineteen years old, another college student.
Despite the fact he was often the cause of it, Noah didn’t think about death very often. Sitting at that desk, however, preparing to distribute organs from a young victim of a tragic accident, he suddenly found himself considering his own mortality. He wasn’t worried about what might happen after his death; his grandfather had been a minister, and he had learned things about the Bible that his logical mind interpreted as evidence of its veracity, and he considered himself a believer. On the other hand, he knew that his death would have a substantial impact on those around him.
Sarah, of course, would be devastated if he died, and he knew that the rest of his team considered him to be part of their family, as well. They would also suffer grief, but Noah knew enough about human nature to realize that grief would pass. While they would hurt, they would get over it and move on with their lives for as long as they lived.
However, his logical mind also realized that he was of great value in the job that he performed. He had been instrumental in saving many lives, and he was forced to realize that his death would mean that other lives in the future might be lost without him. This had nothing to do with conceit; Noah was not capable of pride in that sense. It was simply a matter of logical deduction to him, that he was probably the very best that E & E had to offer. There had been a few situations that he felt the other teams could not have handled as well as Team Camelot had done.
Therefore, he concluded, it was incumbent upon him to do the best he could to remain alive. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind, but didn’t shut it down.
It was almost 11 when the phone on his desk rang and Conley’s secretary asked him to report to the office once more. Noah finished the final document he was working on and headed upstairs again.
Once more, he was told to go right in, and he closed the door behind him automatically. Conley was smiling and continued as Noah took the chair in front of his desk.
“Robert,” he said, “we need to talk. I’ve bounced your idea upstairs and they just got back to me. They have a couple of questions, and I need you to give me the most honest answers you possibly can, okay?”
No
ah grinned and shrugged. “That’s all you’re going to get out of me,” he said. “What did they want to know?”
“Well, first off, are you going to have to run this operation personally? I mean, are you going to have to leave this job in order to do it?”
Noah put a contemplative expression on his face. “Well, I would say probably. Unless you’ve got somebody else that we can trust completely, I think I would prefer to be the one setting up all the paperwork and arranging the transports. It can’t be an actual employee, because they might start to question why so many of them were off the books.”
Conley nodded. “That’s how I felt, too,” he said. “I don’t want to put somebody else in charge of it, and especially not somebody who wasn’t in my inner circle, if you know what I mean. Now, the second question is just blunt. How much money are we talking about spending to get this set up?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that this morning,” Noah said. “Just getting a location won’t be that expensive, probably a few thousand a month for rent and utilities. We’ll need to set up a room specifically for cleaning and sterilizing the containers, and then they can be kept on hand wherever the organs are harvested. We’ll need—how many organs do you think we will move in a week?”
Conley thought for a moment. “Let’s say forty, maybe fifty, just to be safe. Won’t be that many, at least not at first.”
“Then we’ll need at least fifty containers. I can get the ones I want to use for about ten thousand each, so there’s half a million dollars. I would suggest having some vehicles, maybe two or three, like those little mini vans that locksmiths use. Those would be ideal for local deliveries that can be reached on the ground within a few hours. They can be designated as ambulances, emergency vehicles, with lights and sirens and such so that they can exceed posted speed limits. Scholes Airport, here on the island, can handle charter jets we’ll use for air transport to anywhere else. That’s crucial when we’re trying to get an organ delivered on time.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked directly into Conley’s. “I’d say we’re looking at about a million dollars.”
