Dues of Mortality (20 page)

“
Yeah,
well, it wasn't so much 'the cause' that Maguire threw it away for.”

Brisby
raised an eyebrow. “Then why?”

McCutcheon
sighed openly. “Thaddeus Maguire had some
serious
issues. You know who his father is, right?”

“
Chad
Maguire, MagNanomus Therapeutics. Guy makes like 30 billion dollars a
year making wheelchairs, prosthetics, exoskeletons, stuff like that.
I got members of my family walking around on his hardware.”

“
Maybe
so, but chances are they don't have Maguire to thank for it. He was
never as good at inventing exoskeletons as he was at industrial
espionage.”

“
Is
that so?”

“
Oh
yeah. He spent years building a library of top secret information on
his competitors: R & D., employee histories, security protocols,
bank records, the whole nine. He also had a lawyer: old-school mob
type named Miles Gabriel, real scum-bucket.”

“
Gabriel
used to work for the father,” Brisby said lighting up. “Now,
I remember.”

“
Yep,
long time ago. That is until a biotech baron named Jerome Wallace
blew into town. Wallace was looking for a good attorney to help draw
up his contracts and shit like that, as he went about sucking up
every biotech firm on the east coast like a fat kid on a milkshake.
He was also looking for somebody with an inside track on any possible
competition. Wallace is already worth five times what Maguire is so
it's a no-brainer for Gabriel to quit his employ with Maguire so he
can work for Wallace. Skip to many years later—we got nut after
nut blowing up any business with a double-helix in its logo. Enter
Ross and PHANTOM. We discover Ross has been recruiting on some of the
more popular campus sites around Columbia University. That's where a
student named Beth Sullivan fell under Ross's spell during her
sophomore year. Pretty young thing—energetic, outgoing and
exactly the type to sweep Thaddeus Maguire right off his feet.”

“
Maguire
was involved with her?”

“
Maguire
was in
love
with her. You see, old-man Chad
had pulled some expensive strings to get his only son into an ivy
league school. He forced Thaddeus to major in business so he'd have
an heir to the fortune and so the kid wouldn't go through his entire
life as a complete idiot. Unfortunately, Chad was about twenty years
too late.”

Brisby
snickered.

“
Anyhow,
six months into his freshman year, Thaddeus hooks up with Beth, who
proceeds to edify him on the struggles of the common man and how
people like his father and the biotechs rape and plunder under the
banner of economic growth. She does it all with a big smile and an
even bigger rack, charming Maguire right out of his Chinos. Classic
brainwashing at its best.”

“
But
MagNanomus Therapeutics wasn't a biotech firm.”

“
That
didn't matter. Not to Beth
or
to
Thaddeus. And Chad owned enough
biotech stock to blur the lines pretty good...especially for Ross,
who, once he gets wind of the relationship, convinces his protege to
bring Maguire in, mostly as a source of cash. But Ross gets a bonus
when he finds out that Maguire has a searing hatred for his father.
That, along with his undying love for Beth Sullivan, motivates
Thaddeus to go the extra mile. He tells Ross about his father's
spying on his competitors, a lot of them biotech firms. At which
point, Ross's deranged ass practically ejaculates with joy. With the
prospect of having such inside information, knowing what the biotechs
are up to and how they protect themselves? Now he can really take the
fight to them. That's how Ross picks his targets: goes after the ones
whose research he deems anti-human or down right crooked.”

“
Because
Ross sees himself as a vigilante, someone whose willing to get his
hands dirty in the cause of righteousness.”

“
Textbook
terrorist fanatic. Nothing original about him whatsoever.”

“
Including
the eventual slip-up.”

McCutcheon
nodded. “We're still not sure how much information Thaddeus
passed along to Ross, but when Ross overextended himself—putting
out feelers on how to get inside Millenitech—we finally got an
inroad. We raided a PHANTOM safehouse and nabbed over a dozen
members. Beth Sullivan was killed in the raid along with a couple
others. We found guns, bomb-making materials, blueprints and even
some email addresses and phone numbers that led us to several other
members out-of-state. They were apparently planning a string of
attacks that were going to culminate with a massive hit on
Millenitech and the Great Lakes BioCore. Over-ambitious to be sure,
but not impossible. Ross wanted to use his new source of funding to
go extremely high tech, using the latest in micro-demolitions to
circumvent security.”

Brisby
squinted, looking puzzled. “I don't remember hearing some of
these details during Thaddeus Maguire's trial.”

McCutcheon
shrugged.
“
That's
Miles Gabriel for you. After the bust went down Chad Maguire rehired
his old buddy, to defend his son. They’d parted on fairly good
terms and Chad knows that Gabriel's built up quite a list of
'influences’, both political and financial since he's been
working for Wallace—who, by the way, initially
objects
to Gabriel defending an alleged
anti-biotech terrorist. But Gabriel takes the job, anyway; even going
so far as to
wave
much of his fee. And totally
proving Chad Maguire right about those influences by getting the
majority of evidence against his son suppressed. Some months later
the trial ends in a hung jury. And some months after that, an
interesting development occurs out the back end of Wall Street:
Jerome Wallace starts buying out some of the very same businesses
that Chad Maguire was keeping all those top-secret records on.”

Brisby
toiled a second and then said, “Shit. Chad is using the
pilfered information as payment for Gabriel!”

McCutcheon
raised a finger. “Not Chad,
Thaddeus
. Chad Maguire would
have never risked that kind of exposure or losing that much
money...even for his son.”

Brisby
exhaled, with a whistle. “What the hell is it with rich people?
They actually sit up nights plotting this shit? What makes them think
they can get away with it?”

“
The
fact that they get away with it.”

Cleveland,
Ohio, August 28, 12:14 a.m
.

A
heavy rain pelted the windshield as Glenda enforced a rhythmic
breathing technique to reestablish her senses. It wasn't working.
It
was raining cats-and-dogs and she wanted it to stop.
She
imagined the chunky droplets as bullets trying to penetrate the
glass. She might as well be on H-ball, so unrelenting was the
imagery.
What’s going
on?
s
he wanted to
scream. Why did someone, all of a sudden, want her dead? What had she
done that would make someone want to
kill
her?

“
God,
help me,” she implored. “God, help me! God, help me! Ah!”
She jerked the wheel, momentarily veering off into the opposing lane.
She was so distracted, she nearly hit a pair of deer that had trotted
out across the headlights. It was the only real danger, she figured,
about taking the Metropark scenic route. The park’s two-lane
road was an arduous winding of peaks and valleys, yet continuous and
fluid. No lights to stop at, giving time for some hitman to make it
look like a carjacking. According to Glenda's math, she was
completely safe as long as she kept moving.

The
passenger rose slowly and quietly from the back seat. He soaked in
Glenda’s wired countenance reflecting from the rearview mirror.
Her windy breath was fogging the windows and she rocked back and
forth in the seat uncontrollably. She was losing it. His clawed hand
clenched her shoulder, and he murmured, “You’re going to
die.”

Glenda
shrill screams blasted off like dynamite inside the car. An octave
higher and the windows would have been history. “What! What did
you say?”

“
I
said you’re gonna die if you keep driving like a lunatic,”
Xavier groaned. “And you’re gonna take me with you. Not
that I have anything to live for, mind you. It’s just that it
could be a bit embarrassing being shoveled off the street in not-so
clean underwear.”

“
Well,
excuse the hell out of me! I’ve got a lot on my mind, okay!
It’s a bit disabling having to deal with the fact that someone
actually wants you dead! So if you think you can do better, be my
guest! That is, if you can stay sober long enough to remember which
side of the road to drive on!”

Xavier
met her eyes for a moment in the rearview mirror.

“
No,
I don’t,” he said, “but, I do remember which side
to walk on. Pull over.”

Glenda
sighed, instantly wondering if Guinness had a slot for the world’s
most ungrateful bitch. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Xavier
just repeated forwardly, “Pull...over.”

Disobliged
by herself, Glenda turned onto the unpaved stalling lane. She threw
the car into park and did a one-eighty in her seat. “Really,
I’m sorry. It was just a stress reflex; I didn't mean it.”

Xavier
shrugged and went to open the door closest to the road.

“
Look,
really, I...”

“
Please,
don’t say it again,” he pleaded. “I’m already
trying to pretend I didn’t hear it the first time. I can take
being insulted, but apologies give me angina. Besides, you’ve
got a point: I make a better pedestrian than a backseat driver.”

Xavier
slogged out of the car, grunting from his bowels at the stiffness. He
stood and looked down at the snaking, double lines dividing the
darkened road. It must have been a good quarter-mile before they hung
a hard right and became consumed by the park’s carnivorous
shadows. He lifted his chin. The rain was letting up. He closed his
eyes and allowed the abating shower to wash over his face.

Glenda
got out of the driver’s seat, mentally berating herself. How
many houses needed to fall on her before she knew when to shut up?
Me
and my big mouth.

“
Get
back in the car and get out of here,” Xavier directed. The
sight of someone else’s guilt bearing down him was more than he
could stomach. If he had the strength, he would run like his ass was
on fire.

“
Come
on, cut me some slack. I’ve had a really rough day with people
trying to kill me and all,” Glenda said jokingly. “Besides,
what am I supposed to do, just leave you here? What kind of person
would that make me?”

“
Lady,
if you’re not a different person after everything that’s
happened, then you deserve to get shot.”

Glenda
clutched her elbows
.
Oh
boy
. She
had
hurt his feelings. She stared at the ground, acquiescing, thinking it
best to let Xavier's battered ego have its requital.

Xavier
just shook his head.
What is
it with women?
Of the two of them, clearly, she was the
better person and she was just going to stand there and allow his
sass? Why? Did she really give a frog's fat ass what he thought?

Glenda
finally looked back at him. “So you’re saying if you were
in my position, you’d just walk away, and leave someone who
saved your life stranded in the middle of the road?”

“
Yes!”
Xavier answered, his eyes all over the place.

She
gave it a second. “You’re wasting your breath. You’ve
already proven you’re not that kind of person. You’re
just saying all this now because you’re angry. I’d bet
your last bottle of bad booze on it.”

A
lippy scowl crept up Xavier’s cheek. He sauntered up to Glenda
until he could see his own reflection in her eyes.

“
You’d
lose,” he said jaggedly.

Glenda
buckled somewhat, then stared back respectively. “Then why did
you help me?”

“
Because...I’m...
stupid
,”
Xavier shouted with a hoot. “I was stupid for getting involved
in the alley! I was stupid for coming back to the motel! And I was
soooooo damn stupid for letting that naïve kid convince me to
protect you! Look at me? Do I look like a bodyguard to you?”

“
I
didn't ask for your protection!”

Xavier
opened his mouth to say something then realized...Glenda was right.
He wasn't angry with her; he was angry with
Bowen
. That blithe
little punk had used his dying wish to...Then it hit him. He hadn’t
said yes. The kid died before Xavier had a chance to answer him. He
hadn't promised Bowen or anyone else a frigging thing.
Screw
this!

“Thanks
for reminding me
,” Xavier
said, relieved. “Now get in the car and get out of here.”

Glenda
hesitated. “At least let me...”

“
What?”
Xavier yelled. “What? You want to give me money? No thanks!
Take your money and shove it! You didn't ask for
my
help and I'm not asking
for yours! I don’t need your charity and I, sure as shit, don't
want your sympathy!” He steeled himself. The only thing left,
now, was a solid, sarcastic coup de grace. “Just knowing the
smiles that people like me give people like you every day is thanks
enough.”