Authors: Richard Parry
“I — of course.”
“Sam?”
Barnes stepped forward.
“Sam, I’d like you to fast track Mr. Smythe’s proposal for the core upgrade.”
“I’ll need your signature.”
He pushed forward paper in front of her, laying a pen beside it.
She scrawled a signature at the bottom, then handed both items back to Barnes.
“Thank you Sam.
Mr. Smythe, the reason why I agreed to this meeting at all is because I need your help.”
From desperation to salvation, that was the secret.
Kick them in the balls, then offer them a way out.
No drowning man resisted the thrown rope.
Smythe was no different.
His smile — God, it was ghastly; the man had children too, what woman could marry that? — brightened.
“I’d be delighted.
Anything I can do.
My office is at your disposal.”
Elsie nodded to Barnes.
“Sam will furnish you with a list of projects.
I want these scrutinised.
No stone left unturned, do you understand?”
Sam, efficient as always, was already holding a memo out to Smythe.
The man took it, scanning the text on it.
“These are — I mean.
There’s.
Ah.”
“Yes.
They’re projects of significant capital expense.
Some instigated by the board.”
“Ah.”
“Mr. Smythe, do you understand what I’m offering you?”
Smythe blinked.
Elsie sighed; the man was intellectually brilliant, but as emotionally aware as a stone.
“I need a hero.”
“A hero, Ms. Morgan?”
“A hero.
Something’s going on in those projects, I can feel it.
But I need numbers, Smythe — hard facts.
I need to know where the money’s going.
I want to know if those projects are delivering.
You have the full support of my office.
Sam will make whatever you need available.”
“I — of course, Ms. Morgan.
At once.”
Smythe walked towards the door, his chest puffed out with artificial importance.
After the door had closed behind him, Elsie let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.
Sam nodded at her.
“You played a good hand, ma’am.”
“I played a bad hand well, Sam.
You know that.”
She tapped the desk again.
“Still, it had the desired result.
Smythe will leave us alone, and he will cause merry havoc amongst the VPs for the next few months.
They’ll be so busy hiding things and fighting each other that they’ll ignore us.
A word here, a touch there, and we’ll have a clear run at this thing.”
“I’ve booked in the head of HR for a meeting this afternoon.”
“Perfect.”
Elsie looked up at Sam.
“I’ll need a list of staff.
It doesn’t matter who.
People we can throw under the bus, just like the list of projects.
People need to be afraid of the money drying up, and then I need them afraid of losing their jobs.”
“It’ll impact company performance.”
Elsie leaned back in her chair.
“I know.
Sam, don’t I know.”
The silence sat, comfortable between them.
Sam broke it first.
“Ma’am, it’s going to be worth it.”
Elsie looked at him.
“You can still say that?
You could…
Well, we’ve talked about it.
You could lose your job over this.”
“I could go to jail for this.”
She allowed herself a chuckle.
“Only after me, Sam.
I’ll be first.
But I’ll save you a seat on the bus.”
Sam smiled at her.
“How is your daughter?”
Elsie’s smiled faded.
“She’s…”
“I’m sorry I asked.”
“No, Sam, it’s alright.
You’ve earned the right.”
Elsie looked down at the table.
“She’s not good.”
Sam stepped forward a pace, then stopped.
“I see.
I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok.”
Sam thought for a moment.
“There’s one piece of good news.”
“Thank God.
What is it?”
“I’ve been looking into Mr. Everard.
You remember, our second possible host.”
“I remember.”
Elsie waved her hand.
“What about him?”
“Biomne conducts blood testing through one of our subsidiaries.”
“Yes.
The Sanscreen acquisition.
Last year, wasn’t it?”
“The year before.
I put out feelers through our contacts.
The usual channels.
A doctor, Barnaby Phillips, issued some blood work.”
“Why is this significant?”
“The good Dr. Phillips is Valentine Everard’s personal physician.”
Sam held out a piece of paper to Elsie.
It was full of numbers with some charts.
“The preliminary blood work.”
She scanned the page.
“My God.
It’s true.
Has this gone back to the doctor?”
“Ms. Morgan — Elsie.”
Sam sighed.
“It’s going to be hard to keep a lid on this.
It hasn’t gone back to Phillips, but we can’t be sure what he knows.
You know what this means.”
“Can we get the blood work?”
“It’s done.
It’s in the lab downstairs.”
“What do they say?”
“Mr. Everard is an otherwise healthy man.
Perfect health, I’d say.
Which is odd — his results are good for someone with an alcohol problem.
Exceptional, even.”
“That’s promising.
Can we use it?”
“We’ve identified a retrovirus in the blood work.”
Sam looked down.
“It matches the original sample we extracted from Russia.
But it’s completely inactive.”
“Inactive?
What do you mean?”
“It’s dead.”
Sam rocked back on his feet.
“It gives us another channel of acquisition though.”
“How so?”
“We can try to clone the virus, but that path has been a bit unreliable to date.”
Sam turned towards the window.
“I have an idea, but we’ll need to talk it through with Captain Spencer.
There must be some kind of cofactor involved.”
“I’ve thought the same thing.
It’s why we need Volk — we need to biopsy living tissue.”
Elsie thought for a moment. “You want a tactical mix of Ebonlake and Sanscreen.
How?”
“I’ve taken the liberty of calling in Captain Spencer.
He’s waiting outside.”
“His operation is finished?”
“Finished?
That’s a good word for it.”
Sam gestured towards the door.
“If I may?”
Elsie waved her hand at the door.
“Of course.”
Barnes opened the door, leaning out.
Spencer followed him back in, walking with a limp.
“Captain Spencer.”
“Ma’am.”
Spencer stood with his back straight.
“Ma’am, our mission was unsuccessful.”
“Captain, I’d like us to put that aside for the moment.
Sam wants to talk something through.”
Spencer’s eyes shifted sideways to look at Barnes.
“Of course, ma’am.”
Barnes walked up to the table, leaning a hand on the back of one of the chairs.
“Captain, I have an idea for a potentially lower risk scenario, but I need to talk it through with you.
Military tactics are not my speciality.”
“I’ll help where I can.
Sir.”
“Excellent.
Mr. Everard has a family doctor, and he recently had blood drawn.
No, please don’t interrupt.
What I’m thinking is that we tell the doctor that the blood turned up extremely poor liver function.
That should pull Mr. Everard in for a biopsy.
After Mr. Everard leaves, your team moves in and extracts the, ahem, fresh sample.”
Spencer thought this through for a few moments.
“The plan is sound.
If I can suggest just a few amendments?”
“It’s your ball game.”
“Sir.”
Spencer nodded at him, then winced and rubbed his neck.
“Rough day?”
“Sir.”
Spencer thought for a moment.
“So far, the targets have proven most resilient to normal means of acquisition.
Having said that, I don’t think we should abandon traditional approaches just yet. In our most recent operation, I witnessed the efficacy of silver against our targets.”
Elsie’s breath hissed in.
“Captain!
Silver is —”
Spencer held up a hand.
“Ma’am.
It wasn’t one of our team — a civilian was caught up in the ruckus.
As we hoped, both Everard and Volk were at the hospital.
There were two companions with Mr. Everard.
These two friends of his are unknown to us at this time.
However, one of them managed to temporarily acquire the use of one of our weapons and silver rounds.
He executed an assault against Volk, and to my eye scored a number of direct hits.”
Elsie leaned forward.
“Was Volk killed?”
“No ma’am.
However, the silver rounds caused him considerable pain.
I believe that silver is a viable suppressant method.”
“Suppressant?”
Barnes rubbed his chin.
“How so?”
“Sir.
Silver appears to work on them as ordinary bullets do on us.
The use of silver weapons should be sufficient to…
I believe they can be weakened.
And then captured.
My recommendations are to split the team into two.
One team extracts the sample.
The other team — with silver rounds — acquires the target outside, after he’s given his sample.”
Sam nodded.
“It sounds robust to me.
Doubles our chances.”
He looked to Elsie.
She turned her chair to look back out the window.
“He won’t be killed?”
There was a pause from Spencer.
“Ma’am.
No.”
“You’re certain of this?”
“Ma’am.
No.”
She could hear Spencer’s wheezing.
Was the man motivated by more than the money now?
“But I believe it’s the best solution for a successful acquisition.
Ma’am.”
She turned her chair back around.
“Captain.
Your judgement hasn’t been clouded in this matter?”
Spencer’s expression didn’t change, staring at her with those dead eyes.
“No.
I just want to get the job done, ma’am.”
Elsie studied his face, then looked back at Barnes.
“See to it.”
Barnes nodded at Spencer.
“Of course.
Captain, if I can take this offline with you?
Firm up the details?
It would be most useful to get Sanscreen correctly aligned on this.”
Spencer looked at him, then back to Elsie.
“Ma’am.
Sir.
I have just one question.”
Elsie nodded.
“What is it?”
“How are we handling information leaks?”
“Leaks?”
“The operation is going to be in daylight.
Our team will be seen.
There will be witnesses.”
Elsie leaned forward.
“Captain.
I trust to your discretion.
I don’t need the details.
But I need silence.”
The captain nodded.
“I’ll arrange it.”
Elsie looked at the door after the two of them had left.
She checked her phone, looking for her appointment with the head of HR.
She still had a few hours.
She could fit in a light lunch.
And some essential maintenance — she hadn’t had time for her facial this week.
She nodded to herself — it was important to make time for the little things.
This was going to be a busy week.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It was the smell of bacon that brought her around.
It wasn’t the charred smell of bacon cooked too quickly in a greasy spoon place, but the gentler smell of honeyed bacon cooked slow and steady.
She wasn’t ready to open her eyes yet, but the images of that bacon — served with eggs, toast, and a good strong coffee — brought her around faster than she would have wanted.
It was Sunday, after all.
Sundays were for sleeping in.
Max always made her bacon and eggs on a Sunday.