Chapter Nine
Retribution
It was late morning before I got away and even then it was with reluctance on my part. It was like denying oneself oxygen needed to breathe being away from her. Anna had rightly chosen a suitor that could keep her safe. I dealt with the John Lazak’s of the world all the time.
This case was going to have to play out a little differently, which left a bitter taste in my mouth. The man deserved to die but him dying wasn’t going to keep Anna and Kevin safe.
Several hours later I let myself into the handsome private country estate of John Lazak located just outside Bristol Connecticut. I’d already hacked into John’s accounts. He’d be arriving home soon after an early afternoon golf outing. All I had to do was wait. I settled into a leather study chair and did just that, as the sounds of the grandfather clock’s ticking sounded loudly within the still room.
It was an hour before the study door opened and John went by me. He hadn’t even bothered to take his muddy shoes off and was even now leaving footprints across the expensive Persian rug.
I stood up and he reacted in surprise, “What the…?”
Was all he had time to ask before the needle plunged into his neck injecting its load into his bloodstream. I kicked his legs out from under him and he fell to the floor looking stunned.
He looked up at me in horror, “What did you do to me?”
“Oh I think you know. It’s quite something to experience for yourself how so many of your victims have died isn’t it?”
He stared up at me as pain began to set into his face and he clutched at his chest even as his breathing became erratic. This is what he had done to my Anna. Cold fury washed throughout me as I observed him.
“Please!” He gasped out breathlessly.
Coldly I began to walk around him dropping photos to the floor as I walked.
“Please didn’t get any of these people very far did it?” I spit out in anger. “Why should it be any different for you?”
“I have money!” He gasped out, but I held up one hand forestalling him.
“Money doesn’t hold any interest to me much the same as it didn’t for Anna Courtman. You remember her right?”
His face turned ashen as he whispered, “You’re that man!”
“Yes I’m that man. I broke up your little shindig didn’t I?”
I saw hope fade from his eyes. It was time. I pulled out the second syringe and watched his dying hope light up again.
“Now this can make all your current difficulties go away so to speak, but it comes with a price.”
“Anything!” He begged piteously, his eyes looking glassy, as if he was about to pass out.
“Call the dogs off Anna Courtman and make sure that each of the families represented by the pictures that are lying on the floor around you get the sum of money you offered Anna the second time.”
“I swear! Now just inject me please!”
I stabbed his neck with the needle and let him have it. After a few minutes it was obvious that he was beginning to feel better and breathe easier. I watched him as I rested against the side arm of the overstuffed leather chair with my arms crossed before me.
“Feeling better?” I asked.
He nodded, “Yes, thank you!”
“Oh I wouldn’t thank me yet.” I said coldly.
“What?” As he asked the question I shoved a rag into his mouth and jerked him up to his feet only to cuff his hands behind his back.
I shoved him over the arm of the chair I had been leaning against and pulled the chair closer to the desk. I opened a small cloth satchel that rested on the desk. I turned back to John and flipped him around in the chair slinging his upper body over the chair arm so that his head was hanging near the floor.
He was still too weak to protest much as I sat down across the back of his legs. I leaned forward and rolled the satchel out flat on the desktop and he caught a glimpse of its contents and freaked out. He lunged upward with his torso, his screams muffled by the gag. I shoved him back down with a hand to the back of his head as I reached for the first syringe with the other hand.
“Time for a little quality control testing I think. As the CEO of a large multinational vaccine company, I know that you want to ensure that only the finest quality product is given to your patrons right?”
He screamed against the rag in his mouth. “I’ll take that as an emphatic yes. Let’s start with the MMR shot shall we.”
I jabbed it savagely into his rear and injected the syringes pay load. I tossed the spent needle to the side and grabbed another as I began to work my way through the lineup of thirty some odd needles.
“You know this reminds me of what we do to our boys and girls in the military. On the way over here I was reading about the alarmingly high incidence of multiple sclerosis and other disorders and strange new diseases that are popping up everywhere in our returning vets and current military personnel. You don’t suppose you could get MS from doing a mass grouping of shots like this do you?”
I picked up another syringe, “Meningococcal meningitis, I’m told this is a fun one! This will bring back all those good college memories of yours I’ll bet. Now this one I have to admit, is entirely unnecessary, considering you’re a boy and not a girl, but in the spirit of discovery let’s see what it does to boys, because that’s what’s being done anyway in Texas. It’s good for the girls because it targets cervical cancer so why not give it to boys to prevent……do boys have cervixes anyway? No matter let’s give it to them anyway, maybe it’ll cure facial acne. You know, which vaccine I’m referring to don’t you. I’m not sure I understand the theory behind this one. There’s too much illicit teen sex going on in our schools and girls are getting infected with diseases like gonorrhea and others leading to cervical cancer. Who knew simple cause-and-effect wouldn’t you say? So the government thought up a brilliant idea. Let’s create a vaccine that will keep the girls disease-free and allow them to have all the unprotected underage sex their little bodies can stand. After all we wouldn’t want to curb their right to free self-expression now would we? Disease problem all taken care of. It’s going to work so well that were going to mandate that all the girls in the public school system have to receive it. Even those girls whose parents have instilled enough of a moral structure in their child for the girl to decide for herself, ‘You know what I’m going to respect my body and save it for the man that will win my heart and gain my parents approval and put two rings on my finger and pledge himself to me for forever.’ The government’s response, ‘Oh we’re sorry, but it’s a one-size-fits-all policy and we don’t care what your moral objection may be. You wouldn’t want everyone taking the vaccine to feel prejudiced against; because you’re not taking it would you?’ Stupid idea right? Well, they thought it was a good one, so they didn’t bother to wait for long-term study results, but instead rushed the vaccine into immediate implementation. I bet you made a lot of money on that one. Didn’t work out so well for the girls though did it? What’s the death total up to now? I’m thinking several hundred sounds like a conservative guess. Well at least that’s a few hundred girls, who won’t be giving birth to anyone right. Oh and if you were worried about your ability to father a child don’t be. I already took care of that problem for you with that smallpox shot I gave you a couple shots back. You know the one they give those kids in Africa to ensure that their the last little kids to ever roam their village. You can have all the unprotected sex you want with your mistresses and coworker’s wives without any fear of little juniors now. That is of course if you can still manage to get your unit pumped up. Ahhh at last we’ve reached the end! Last but not least we have the flu shot. It’s not the regular dosage of course because I know a dutiful CEO like you wants to know what the double potency shot you’re giving the old folks feels like. I have to ask, John, are you trying to get rid of the old folks sooner rather than later?”
I got up and moved around to his head. I gripped his hair and pulled his head up. His eyes reflected sheer misery at me.
“Justice is a tricky concept. If I had just turned you over to the authorities a man of your wealth and powerful connections would have been able to wrangle a soft jail term with three catered meals a day and a weekly membership at the prison spa. This way is better I think. Your own body’s reactions have now become your life sentence and your body’s poor health from now on is the cell that you’ll wake up to each day in the diminishing years left to you. You can buy people’s murders, but you will never be able to buy your own health back. Anything to say in regard to your sentencing?” I asked as I pulled the rag out.
“You’re a monster!” He whimpered out.
I laughed for a moment, but then grew serious again.
“Why, yes I am, but you know what they say, ‘Takes one to know one’. Now about our earlier agreement, if I even so much as hear a whisper about any involvement by you in regards to continuing your vendetta against Anna Courtman and her son I’ll be back to pay you a visit and you don’t want, that trust me! You may think your bad off now, but death by a thousand small cuts will be eminently more painful for you, understand?”
He nodded weakly completely cowed and I let his head drop back towards the floor.
“Well I think that about finishes us up here. Oh wait I almost forgot. What good would a vaccination self-study be without testing the effectiveness of your shots?”
I pulled a pair of latex gloves on with two loud snaps and his whimpering increased. I picked up a petri dish from off the desk and pulled his head back up.
“Consider this a test, but don’t contact me with the results, because I’m pretty certain how it will turn out.”
I held his head still as I popped the lid off with my thumb and pressed the dish into his face. I let go of him and the dish as I stepped back peeling the gloves off tossing them at him.
“What was in that?” He asked fearfully.
“Oh just a little concoction of the flu and mononucleosis, but don’t worry you have the vaccinations for both. Oh wait, there is something you should be worried about, I’m sure you know as you do make the vaccines that the live viruses that are cultivated for the vaccines are grown on human cancer tissue not to mention aborted fetuses. You don’t think the viruses picked up any of that cancer cell programming do you? They don’t have a vaccine for AIDS yet, but don’t you think it’s weird that they’ve been able to determine the precursors for AIDS’s are present in both the flu shot and the Rotavirus shot? I guess that supports the idea that AIDS was created by man intentionally. Maybe you’ll find out now given your poor autoimmune system capabilities. It’s been fun John, but I really do have to go now. I have a wedding to plan. Enjoy the fruits of your labor and remember you don’t ever want to see me again, so behave.”
I left the mansion in the country as unobtrusively as I had come. Anna was safe and at least a little justice had been done. I got back to Philadelphia in the early evening and to my surprise I found both Anna and Kevin fast asleep.
It was tempting to just sit and watch her sleep, but my curiosity about something else wouldn’t let me miss this opportunity. I went back out into the main room and approached the Jurassic monolith of a computer that dominated the top of a stylish end table. I pulled a screwdriver out and undid the screws on the side of the CPU. That done I slid an entire side panel off the computer.
I backed up a step still holding the panel and simply stared at the maze of wiring and I don’t know what else inside the body of the old computer.
“What is all that?”
I hadn’t even heard Anna walk up. Her question was a good one.
“I don’t know, but I know what it’s not. It’s not Windows 95. Do you buy stuff, mechanical type stuff for Kevin?”
“Yes it’s his favorite thing to do. He’s always dragging me into hardware stores and auto part stores. Is that part of my toaster?” She asked pointing at an object.
I nodded.
The boy was MacGyver on steroids! We looked at each other in unison and then back at the packed contents of the CPU.
“What does it do?” Anna asked softly.
“I’m not sure, but I’ll bet there are no patents pending for anything like it. Anna I think Kevin has created an entirely different computer platform that doesn’t rely on ones and zeros.”
“What does that mean?”
“Again I’m not sure, but I think it would be a good thing if we didn’t tell anyone yet.”
Anna nodded and in a tone of wonder said, “My son is a genius!” As if she was just now realizing it.
I glanced at her, “I’m sure his mother had a lot to do with that.”
She smiled, “Words spoken like that will get you a lot in return Nikolai.”
“Anna.”
She looked at me, “You’re safe.” I said.
Her lip quivered a little and she nodded as her hand found mine and held it tightly.
“Anna are you sure you still want me?”
She stepped around in front of me and her fingers interlaced behind my neck.
“More than ever Nikolai!”
I looked deeply into your eyes and could discern no lie to be found there.
“Would you like to go out for dinner and a movie?” I asked a little unsure of myself.
The corners of her mouth turned up into one of her infectious smiles, “I would love that!” A look of sudden concern came over her features. “Is the movie something I can take Kevin to?”
“Yes it’s animated and rated PG. Nothing bad in it that I know of. The reviews say it’s pretty funny for kids and adults.”
Her face crinkled up in surprise, “You watch animated kid movies?”
Somewhat defensively I responded, “Sure, why not?”
She shook her head and looked like she was holding in laughter. She hugged me, “Will I ever understand you Tyre?”
In some ways I hoped not.
It was a very good evening. It was so nice to share something that I enjoyed with someone else. Anna had seemed to just enjoy being with me, which was hard for me to comprehend even yet. Kevin had seemed content and had been utterly engrossed with the movie.
It had kind of felt like a family outing in some ways. I had never hoped for so much. It was late when I left Anna’s apartment for mine. Tomorrow I wouldn’t be leaving. Tomorrow Anna would be mine for forever.