Chapter 79. Theft
Agent Jimmy Pond had received his directions directly from the CIA Director Hank Armstrong. This mission was critical. The President’s patent lawyers had come up empty-handed. There was no way around it. This new Boyuca, Inc. had full control over the patents to the snakes, their oil, and any synthetic developed. The President was not going to stand by and let one company own the entire rights to what would be a miracle cure for multiple different diseases. So, with some reluctance, she settled on a simpler idea proposed to her in secret by Hank Armstrong—they were just going to steal the snakes. Technically, the CIA had no jurisdiction to operate within the United States, and theft was still very illegal, so getting caught was not an option, and could lead to a scandal bigger than Watergate. Jimmy knew the President was depending on him.
But the CIA had overlooked some important information in Jimmy Pond’s file. Jimmy Pond had grown up in Uganda, during the brutal reign of Idi Amin. When he was only fourteen, his entire village was hit by yellow fever, a rare tropical illness. His mother and father were both killed by the disease. Pond later learned from a Red Cross volunteer that a truck from the World Health Organization containing yellow fever vaccines, a medication which had been available in developed countries for decades, was only ten miles from the village when it ran into a military blockade. The militants had demanded money to allow the truck to proceed. When the volunteers could not come up with the bribe money, the truck was not allowed through the blockade. Young Jimmy Pond was outraged that someone would stand in the way of potential life-saving cures only for their own greed. After his parents died, Jimmy Pond had subsequently gone into foster care, where he was luckily adopted by American missionaries. Once he arrived in America, he had thrived, and he had decided to dedicate his life to the country which had given him a second chance. However, he had a special place in his heart for those suffering from illnesses, especially in undeveloped regions of the world.
Jimmy Pond was particularly disgusted by the Mackinac Ebola Virus affair. He could not believe that terrorists would purposely try to infect innocent people and then demand a cure as a ransom. And he was also irritated that this actor in California would try and make money off this new life-saving cure. The snake oil found on Boyuca could save millions of people, including thousands of poor people in his home country of Uganda. But that did not mean that he was excited about the President’s agenda either. If the plan was to steal the snakes, then obviously the President could never reveal that the United States had taken them. In all likelihood, the snake oil would be secretly militarized, with the oil being used exclusively by soldiers on the battlefield and agents working dangerous missions overseas. And given the greed of Congressmen, there is no question that somehow some greedy friend of a Congressman would be making money off this cure. Jimmy Pond reflected fondly on the World Health Organization which had tried to save his birth parents. Pond believed that the WHO was the only organization which could be trusted with this new life-saving discovery. So he planned to carry out the President’s order to steal the snakes, but he would be double-crossing the President, and turning the snakes over to WHO.
He had re-conned the Drame home for a week now. After some investigation, he determined that the snakes were contained in a six foot by three foot metal water tank in the basement of Skip Drame’s home. He had two retired police officers guarding the grounds, and a fairly rudimentary security system. This would be a very soft target.
He waited until Drame went off to work in the morning. Dressed as a Coca-cola truck driver, with a red and white striped shirt and black trousers, and a red hat which said Coke, Drame pushed the Coke hat far down on his head so that his face could not be seen. On the front porch of Drame’s home, he sprayed black paint into the security monitor and then went up to the doorbell and rang it. The first off-duty policeman answered the door and Pond hit him with a Taser, pushing him back into the house on the ground. Grabbing a syringe out of his pocket, he quickly plunged the needle into the man’s arm, shooting him with a tranquilizer. One guard down. Moments later, the second off-duty police officer walked down the hallway, and Pond shot him quickly with a volley of rubber bullets. The President had been clear in her instructions that no lives were to be lost. Pond dove on the second guard and hit him with a syringe. Pond went through the house and found a butler, a maid, and a valet, none of whom spoke any English. He pointed a gun and directed all of them to go into the laundry room, where he tied them up and put gags in their mouths. He also hit them with tranquilizers. He went into the small security office near the kitchen and erased all of the security tapes for the morning. Then he turned off the system. Satisfied, he took a few minutes to survey the rest of the interior. No one else was here. He went back to his Coke truck, parked in the driveway, and brought in on a large two-wheeled dolly a stack of ten cases of Coca-cola cans. He parked the dolly at the top of the stairs to the basement. Pressing a button, he unlocked a lid on the load, which looked liked a stack of soda cans, but was, in reality, a cleverly disguised rectangular tank of water. The lid swung open, showing the clear water contained in the container. Going into the basement, he tried to open the steel water tank containing the purple snakes, but was surprised to learn that it had a comination lock on it. Running back upstairs, he went into the upstairs hall. Taking out a canister, he sprayed a light film onto the keypad of Drame’s security system. Wearing special goggles, he was able to pick out pink smudges on the buttons regularly hit by Drame. 4554 was the combination. Chances are it would be the same combination on the snake tank. Running back downstairs, he tried the four numbers and the snake tank opened. Reaching his hand in, he grabbed four of the purple snakes in his arms and brought them upstairs, placing them into the fake Coca-cola water tank. He made ten trips until all forty snakes were inside the container. Then he locked down the fake Coca-cola water tank and carried the load on the dolly out the front door. It took him only moments to load the tank next to dozens of other packs of Coca-cola stacked in the back of his soda truck. With a tip of his hat to the Drame residence, Jimmy Pond was on the road.