Plague (10 page)

“Where’s your man?” Conrad said.

“He’ll be here.”

“He’s an hour late.”

“So?”

“So I have places to be.”

“You’re a private contractor, C. Where do you think you gotta be right now?”

“I don’t know, maybe getting drunk with some Thai whore instead of watching you slurp down eel soup.”

“He’ll be here,” Tyrone said, remembering the soup in front of him and taking
a
sip from the bowl before wiping his mouth on his hand.
He fed another piece of chicken to his dog.

It was another ten minutes before either of them spoke again. Tyrone finally said, “He’s here.”

Conrad saw a man in a black suit and
a
black button-down shirt walk into the restaurant. He wore aviator sunglasses and his hair appeared wind-swept
,
like he’d ridden a motorcycle here. The man looked over the restaurant
before finally spotting
Tyrone. He smiled and walked over.

Tyrone stood up and they shook hands. “How you doin’, Robert?”

“Good good.” The man reached down and petted the dog. “
Glorious day, gentlemen.
How’s business?”

“Good. This is the man I was telling you about, Conrad Moore.”

“Pleasure,” the man said, shaking hands
.
“Robert Greyjoy.”

“Nice to meet you,” Conrad said. “I’ve heard a lot of good things.”

“Non
e
of them true, I assure you.”

Conrad gave a forced smile and reached for his water. He took a sip, hoping that Robert wou
ld speak first, but he just stood
there with a pleasant expression on his face
and stared at him. Despite the fact that he was impeccably dressed and perfectly pleasant,
something about him creeped Conrad
out. His calm, Conrad figured. This was a multi
-
million dollar deal; he should at least be a little nervous.

“I was just watching television in the hotel,” Robert said.

“Oh yeah?” Ty
rone
said.
“
I don’t think
this Asian TV
is
too good. All
game shows
.”

“No, I was watching Sesame Street on satellite.”

Conrad looked to Ty
rone
and then back. “The kids show?”

“Oh yes yes yes,” Robert said. “I learn more from Sesame Street than I ever
do
reading
Foreign Affairs
or the
New York Times.
Sesame Street is a kind of
…
cultural barometer. In the sixties, they were using research to educate children. The moon landing had just occurred and science was on the forefront of everybody’s mind. America had been told we need
ed
more scientists. In the seventies, with Vietnam and Watergate and the recession, Sesame Street became more pessimistic and began teaching practical skills for children to enter
into the workfield
. The eighties had more businessmen and celebrities than any other era.
By the end of the eighties, with the Savings & Loan and the stock market crash, businessmen were replaced by civic heroes likes cops and firefighters.

“You could even break it down by year a
nd see the evolution of America
that way
. It, like America, became more and more diverse. Now, however, it’s a different story. They’re teaching extremely basic skills, things that children that age should already know. And the characters are more extravagant but lacking in depth. It’s a reflection of ourselves with all this celebrity worship and a disdain for all things intellectual. I think Sesame Street will predict the fall of our nation much better than any media outlet. They
’
ll begin to have characters, as they’re starting to now, that are homel
ess, or socialists
,
or felons
. Then they’ll give up and begin teaching children just enough to get by. How to be manual laborers or soldiers or whatever else the dominant profession of a declining society
will be
.”

Conrad stared at him without saying anything and was relieved when t
he waitress finally came over and Robert ordered a Tonight or Never
,
one of the strongest mixed drinks there were. Conrad, for whatever reason, felt uneasy with that
too
.

“So,” Conrad began, “Ty was telling me you’re in mergers and acquisitions.”

“Among other things.”

“And you work for who again?”

“I didn’t say.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“You ended that sentence with ‘again’ but I never told you who I work for in the first place.”

Tyrone fed some more chicken to his dog and said, “See, I told you he was all secretive.”

“Secretive I can appreciate,” Conrad said, “but mysterious I can’t. Clearly I’ll need to know a lot more about you before I broker this deal. We’re talking primo government contracts; easily
worth
ten million. I’m not just handing them over to the first schmuck that Ty refers.”

“There’s no need to be rude, C.”

“I’m not being rude. You want me to give the subcontracts to this ‘guy’ that you somehow know but you won’t tell me how and now he’s sitting here telling me he won’t tell me what company he works for.”

“You don’t require the contracts any longer,” Robert said. “Within the year you’ll be banned from bidding on all government contracts due to ethical violations. That’s why you need to get rid of them. It has nothing to do with charity and you’re not doing me any favors. If anything, I am doing you and your company a favor by taking them off your hands while they’re still worth something.”

“How the hell did you know—”

“They say
you’re not a true arms dealer unless you’ve sold weapons to the enemies of your own country. Until your bullets and bombs have killed your kin. How m
any of your kin did your weapon
shipments kill, Mr. Moore? A hundred? Two? A thousand?”

Rage bubbled in Conrad’s gut and his face turned a bright red. He threw his napkin on the table and rose. “I don’t know what kind of information you and this other bastard have, but I never did anything illegal. And I don’t appreciate you inferring that I did.”

“Implying,” Robert said. “I
implied
that you did and you
inferred
that I have inside information about you.”

Conrad looked to Tyrone, bewildered. “Who the hell is this guy?”

Tyrone sat
,
looking from one man to the next. “I’ve clearly lost control of this meeting so I’d like to start again.”

“Tyrone,” Robert said, a slight smile on his lips, “you’ve done well in setting up this little party. But you’ve no more use to me. I suggest you keep quiet while I calm your friend down.”

“He
y,” Tyrone said, his brow furrow
ing in frustration
.
“I’ve done everything you ask
ed
and not asked a lot in return
.”

“Oh, right,” Robert said, looking to Conrad. “You see, Ty here was going to get a percentage of the contracts. That’s why he’s pushing so hard for me to receive them. But we weren’t supposed to tell you that.”

Conrad looked to him, unable to hold back the disgust. “You son of a bitch! I trust
ed
you.”

“C, it’s me, man. Calm down, all right. That’s not how it played out.”

“You’ve been to my house
,
you cocksucker! You ate my wife’s dinner.”

“C, I’m telling you, that’s not how it played out. Sit down and let me explain.”

Robert took a piece of chicken off Conrad’s plate and placed it gently in his mouth. “I’d love to stay and see how this plays out but I simply have to be going. I’m catching a flight in thirty minutes and the police will be looking for me.”

“Police?” Tyrone said
.
“For what?”

“Murder.”

The spit of
the
silenced Ruger .22 caliber could barely be heard over the din of the restaurant, even
by
the men at the table.
When Conrad saw the blood pouring from a small wound on Tyrone’s chest, he knew what had happened. He thought it odd that it wasn’t like in the movies
—
a ping with a waft of smoke rising in the air. There was no sound, no drama. It
had
sucked Tyrone’s life
away
quietly and without fuss.

“Oh sh
—”

Conrad felt his lung
s
tighten as if a fist had grabbed them and squeezed. He couldn’t
speak
and he couldn’t suck in air. There was just this horrible nothingness as his mind raced and he stared wide-eyed into the face of the man who had just shot him.

He watched as Robert stood up, calmly put on his glasses,
and
looked to
the dog under the table. He bent down to where Conrad couldn’t see and
after
a yelp from the dog
followed by
silence, Robert stood
and walked out of the restaurant.

Conrad looked over to his waitress
who was helping another table. H
e tried to gasp, but nothing came. Instead, he fell to the floor, pulling the tablecloth and all their dishes with them. As the floor rushed toward his face, he felt the sweet release of his soul lifting from his body
and
he wished he’d had time to tell his wife goodbye.

CHAPTER 13

Samantha sat in the corridor of Queen’s Medical and watched journalists from every newspaper, magazine, blog
,
and website stream into the hospital and go straight to the media room that had been set up in another building just behind the ER. The hospital’s main floor had been cleared with the exception of the staff. They had been asked, politely, to remain on hospital premises for a short period of time to see if any of them had been infected. When they were asked, national guardsmen with rifles stood behind their supervisors. There wasn’t a lot of room for debate.

Samantha was on
e
of the few people allowed to move freely. Technically, she would by right be under observation as well. But in an emergency situation when they faced a hot agent as deadly as black pox, it was all hands on deck.

She noticed the man from the prior meeting in the Depeche Mode
T
-shirt walking by with a
Diet C
oke in his hand and he smiled to her and came over.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“Are you going to the press conference?”

“Yes.”

“So what lab are you with again?”

“I’m with the CDC.”

“Oh, man. So this is your press conference. Are you going to be sitting up there?”

“They like to fill the long tables during these things so if there’s space they’ll ask me.”

“That’s so cool.”

“Not really.”

He shrugged. “It is to me. I’m stuck in a
nine-
by
-
nine room twelve hours a day and when I do anything important my supervisor takes the credit.”

“
The
CDC can always use good field agents.”

“Maybe I’ll take you up on that.” He took a sip of his drink and she could tell he was thinking of what to say next. “If that guy
you mentioned, the index patient
, if he did pick it up in South America, that probably means someone’s going to have to go down there and snoop around, right?”

“It’ll take time to clear it with our two governments, but yes. We’ll send down a team to all the locations
he
visited.”

“And try and hunt down a virus. Man, I’m telling you, your job puts mine to shame.”

“It’s rewarding work. But it’s hard to have time for everything that you want. I travel so much I sometimes feel like a stranger in my home town.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing if your home town sucks.” He sat next to her on a chair, removing an old issue of
Sports Illustrated
that was open on the cushion. “So what does somebody need to do to be on that expedition to South America?”

“You wouldn’t want to go, trust me.”

“Why?”

“It’s government travel. That means charters and the cheapest lodging and food available. They’re rarely fun.”

“Well if I wanted to, what would I have to do?”