“Those are some of the best people in the company.” Haldane was aghast. “All of them head departments, and McGraw’s security. No wonder they could get away with so much for so long.”
Major stockholders were listed: Mal. Gen. Nelson Caspar and Lt. Gen. Einar Salonen (Ret.). “There’s your army connection,” Randi told Jon. She shook her head with disgust.
“Also the government,” Haldane said furiously. “Nancy Petrelli. She’s Health and Human Services. And there’s Congressman Ben Sloat.”
Marty was still searching. “These seem to be year-by-year statistics of progress on the project. Reports of operations, I guess.” He paused. “Here are data about antibiotic shipments.”
Jon and Haldane leaned closer.
Haldane was surprised. “Those are Blanchard antibiotics. All of them. And the figures appear to be our total shipments for each year.”
Puzzled, they read on until Smith suddenly inhaled sharply. He stood up, radiating rage. “That’s it!” His face was tight, his high cheekbones prominent under the harsh overhead fluorescent lights. His dark blue eyes had blackened into bottomless pits. He seemed to be fighting disbelief, violence, and grief.
Mercer Haldane looked up, and Randi turned to stare.
“What is it, my boy?” Peter had been sitting off to the side, weary and in pain, but the look on Jon’s face had snapped him out of his exhaustion.
Jon’s voice was arctic. “Marty, print it out. All of it. Start with the corporate progress reports. And do it fast!”
“Jon?” Randi was watching his drawn face and empty eyes. He was worrying her. “What does it mean?”
Everyone focused on him. The lab was silent as his gaze slowly took in the test tubes, microscopes, and benches where so much despicable work had been done over the past decade. His chest burned, and his stomach felt as if a Mack truck had just slammed into it. He began to talk.
___________________
CHAPTER
FORTY SIX
___________________
Jon’s voice was hoarse, and he spoke slowly, as if he had to make certain he was precise in each word. “Those antibiotic shipments of Blanchard’s tell the story. Remember when I explained that the virus isn’t very contagious? So that led me to the question of how so many millions of people could get so terribly sick and die at about the same time. The answer is what we guessed— Victor Tremont.” He hesitated. His hands balled into fists at his sides. He growled, “The bastard shipped the virus across the world in all of Blanchard’s antibiotics. Antibiotics that were meant to cure people were also infecting them with an untreatable, deadly illness.” His eyes were haunted. “Tremont and his gang set it all in motion ten years ago. The Hades Project. For a decade he’s been contaminating Blanchard’s antibiotics to infect millions even though he knew he might never have a cure when the virus went into its fatal stages!”
“Bloody hell,” Peter said, his voice unbelieving.
Jon went on as if he had not heard. “They sent the virus out to create an epidemic that’d start ten years later, working to change the virus so that every year it would mutate into its lethal stage earlier and earlier. All so it would turn lethal to millions and millions this year, and they could cure it and make billions of dollars in profit. That was before they could know whether they’d ever have a serum, or that it’d be effective enough, or that it’d be stable and could be even shipped. They condemned millions of people to certain death on the gamble they could make them pay to save their lives.”
Randi shook her head, shocked. “It was all so Blanchard and Tremont could make billions of dollars. Get rich. Live well.” Her voice broke. “That’s why Sophia died. She was in Peru and must’ve met Tremont there. That’s the missing phone call. When she started studying the unknown virus, she remembered something, and she called Tremont. No wonder he had to stop her investigation.”
Jon looked at Randi as tears slid down her cheeks. His eyes grew moist and his throat thickened. She reached out and took his hand. He nodded and squeezed hers.
Haldane stood up, trembling with the horror of it. “Great Lord. I never imagined anything so obscene. All those poor sick people who needed our antibiotics. Trusting science and medicine to ease their suffering. Trusting Blanchard.”
Jon turned on the former CEO in fury. “How much were you going to make, Haldane, before your sudden change of heart?”
“What?” Haldane blinked at him. His wrinkled face became as angry as Jon’s. “Victor forged my name. He tricked me! He made it look as if I’d approved everything. What was I supposed to do? He had me cornered, powerless. He was going to take my company. I deserved something! I—” He stopped as if hearing his own words, and he fell back down onto the stool. His voice dropped in shame. “I didn’t know then what he’d done, how horrible the consequences would be. When I saw what it meant, I couldn’t stay silent.” He laughed a derisive laugh at himself. “Too little, too late. That’s what they’ll say. As greedy as the rest, he found too little conscience, too late.”
“Sounds about right,” Jon said in revulsion. He turned his back on Haldane to face Peter and Randi. “We’ve got to—”
“Jon!” The cry was so loud and appalled that everyone whirled to its source. All but forgotten in the horror of the revelation, Marty had continued working the keyboard and peering at the screen. “They never stopped. Oh, no, no, no. They’ve not only put the virus in the antibiotics every year since, they’re still doing it! It says here a shipment of contaminated medicine will go out today at the same time as the first antiviral serum shipment!”
A thunderous silence filled the room. They looked at one anotherJon, Randi, Marty, Peter, and Mercer Haldane—as if they had not heard correctly. Could not have.
Jon’s voice was stunned. “He’s creating a pandemic that will go on and on.”
Randi added, “And make a nuclear bomb seem like a child’s toy.”
Peter’s pale blue eyes pierced the lab. He gripped his injured arm as if the pain had suddenly increased. “Then we must mess up the arsehole’s plans.”
“We’d better hurry.” Marty was still reading from the computer screen. “Blanchard will have a little over two billion dollars in payments wired electronically from many countries as well as America the instant the first shipment leaves the plant.” He swiveled around. His eyes snapped with outrage. “And your Victor Tremont appears to have recently opened a bank account in the Bahamas. Probably in case of an unexpected emergency, wouldn’t you think?”
“So if we don’t stop him today,” Randi said, “another shipment of the virus goes out, and Tremont probably flies the coop with a billion dollars or so.”
“But how?” Mercer Haldane groaned, seeing any chance for redemption in the pages of history vanishing. “Victor gets the medal, and the shipment goes out in an hour! And the president will be at Blanchard with the secret service and FBI and every policeman the state and village can spare.”
Jon nodded. “The president!” A plan was forming in his mind. “That’s how we stop Tremont. We show the president what he’s done.”
“If we can get to him,” Randi said.
“With the proof on paper,” Peter added.
“And someone whom he’ll believe,” Jon finished. “Not a discredited scientist like me, AWOL from the army and wanted for questioning.”
“Or a CIA agent who’s probably been branded as rogue by now, too,” Randi agreed glumly.
Marty, who was still printing out the records of the Hades Project, said over his shoulder, “May I suggest Mr. Mercer Haldane, former chairman of Blanchard Pharmaceuticals, who, at least on paper, appears to be one of the heinous conspirators?”
Everyone stared at the white-haired executive. He nodded enthusiastically, seeing a chance to reclaim his self-respect. “Yes. I like that. I want to tell the president everything.” Then his eagerness faded. “But Victor would never let me get close.”
“I’m not sure anyone could personally reach the president today,” Randi agreed.
Jon pursed his lips, thinking. “Which leaves us back where we started. But we’ve got to stop Tremont some damn way.”
“And very soon,” Peter warned. “That bloody al-Hassan and his troops could show up here any second. Then where are we?”
“Who else will be at the ceremony?” Randi wondered. “The surgeon general? Secretary of state? The president’s chief of staff?”
“They’ll be just as well guarded,” Smith knew. “Besides, Tremont’s people will see to it we don’t get close. Tremont’s security uses violence as their tool of choice. In some ways, they’re a worse obstacle than the secret service.”
Randi ruminated, “I wish some of those foreign leaders were going to be there in person. We might have a chance to—”
“Wait.” Jon suddenly had another idea. He sat on the stool next to Marty. “Mart, can you break into a closed-circuit TV transmission?”