Lost Identity Page 25

  ‘You can’t think like that,’ she whispered. ‘If you hadn’t taken this thing on, they’d have found someone else to do it. Look how they had a replacement lined up when you dropped out.’

  He was savouring the closeness of her body, and he felt an almost-overwhelming urge to pull her to him – immerse himself in her completely. But this just wasn’t right; he pulled gently away from her, suppressing the desire which had erupted within him.

  ‘But I did take it on, Carla,’ he whispered.

  ‘OK … you did, but once you realised what was happening, you did everything you could to stop it.’

  ‘But I failed, and what’s more I dragged you into the whole goddam mess.’

  ‘You also saved me from being raped,’ she reminded him, ‘or possibly even killed. You are not the terrible person you believe you are.’

  He shook his head, giving a wry smile. ‘I was prepared to kill innocent people and deprive the world of a major medical breakthrough which could save countless lives … all just for money. What does that say about what kind of person I am?’

  She cupped his chin in her hands, lifting his head until she could look directly into his eyes. ‘OK, you made some bad choices … really bad choices … but that’s in the past. I didn’t know you then, but I know you now. You are just not that person anymore.’

  He appreciated the faith that Carla was placing in him, but he knew he had done terrible things, and no words of condolence could change that. He sank into an even deeper pit of despair.

  ‘You’re a lovely person Carla, and I know you really mean what you’re saying, but I know what I’ve done, and what I’m responsible for. Several people are dead because of me, including the most brilliant medical research scientist of modern times, and his discovery is now in the hands of criminals who will use it for their own evil purposes.’

  He put his head in his hands and began to weep.

  Chapter 41

  Responsibility for the bomb blast at the Palm Grove was claimed by ISIS, citing one of their ‘soldiers’ as the perpetrator. The police refused to either confirm or refute this claim, leading to increased speculation that the explosion was not, in fact, the work of Islamist terrorists, but was somehow linked to Professor Mandelson’s death.

  The murder of Professor Mandelson made front page news throughout the entire country. Although the police gave no official statement about the motive for the murder, the media lost little time in constructing their own interpretations.

  ‘World Famous Medical Researcher Murdered to Suppress his Ground-Breaking, New Discovery,’ proclaimed one headline. The articles beneath the numerous sensational headlines outlined various theories as to who was behind the murder: big pharma, mafia, drug barons – even rival researchers. In truth, though, all such theories were based on nothing more than informed – or, in some cases misinformed – speculation.

  Astonishingly, no-one, other than Ethan, had actually died as a result of the blast itself. The evacuation warning had come just in time to get everyone out of the function room before the bomb detonated. Several of the conference attendees had received serious injuries but, mercifully, none of them had proved fatal.

  The medical research community showed remarkable resilience and defiance in the face of this vicious attack, and vowed to go ahead with the conference at a later date. It wouldn’t be the same without the keynote speaker and his much-anticipated announcement, of course, but there was still plenty of other business to discuss and, moreover, they wanted to demonstrate that the march of medical science could not be halted by such malicious tactics.

  And so, just two weeks after the horrendous attack at the Palm Grove, the conference was reconvened, amid much-heightened security, at the nearby Miami Marriott Biscayne Bay Hotel.

  ***

  Bob Gench made the opening address.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, it would hardly be fitting to introduce these proceedings without referring back to the terrible events which curtailed the original conference.

  ‘One can only wonder at the twisted motivation of the people who planted the bomb at the Palm Grove Hotel, but we must thank God that the evacuation warning came in time to save many lives.

  ‘The fact that so many of you are in attendance today testifies to the determination of this community to go on furthering the cause of fighting drug addiction and its devastating impact on so many young people’s lives.

  ‘This tremendous turnout also demonstrates that you courageous folk in the scientific community will never, ever, be bowed by the threat of violence – you know that your work is too important to let that happen.’

  He paused for a moment to an enthusiastic round of applause from his audience.

  When the applause died down, he continued, ‘You should all have the new programs, laying out the revised agenda for the conference, but before we embark on the official program, I would like to introduce a special guest.’

  He turned to his left and extended his hand to invite his guest onto the stage. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen … Professor Richard Mandelson.’

  The room fell into a stunned silence as Gench stood aside to allow the slightly-stooped figure who had shuffled onto the stage to approach the podium. After a few seconds, a solitary handclap in the audience broke the silence, then another, and within a few more seconds the entire room erupted in thunderous applause. It was, indeed, Professor Mandelson.

  The professor held up his hand, palm-outward, and patted the air. Gradually the applause died down.

  Mandelson cleared his throat, fiddling with the microphone until a faint whistle of feedback had faded away. ‘As you can see,’ he began, ‘I’m not actually dead.’

  Another ripple of applause flowed through the room.

  ‘This,’ said the professor, reaching into his inside jacket pocket, withdrawing and holding up a small book, ‘was what saved my life.’ It was his precious diary. ‘For those of you nearer the back of the room, here’s a better view.’

  He tapped a couple of keys on the tablet mounted on the podium and the screen behind him lit up with a closeup image of the diary. Slightly away from the centre of the front cover of the diary was a small, circular hole, blackened around the edges. A collective gasp swept around the room.

  ‘The person who tried to kill me had only a tiny handbag-type gun. I’m told these weapons are not terribly powerful and are only effective at close range. Well the range was close … very close, but fortunately my diary was in the path of the bullet. The bullet did pass right though the diary, as you can see’ – he gestured towards the image on the screen – ‘but so much of its velocity was sapped by so doing that it only penetrated a relatively short way into my chest. I am still nursing a cracked rib, but the bullet stopped well short of my heart.’ He paused and looked up: dead silence, and a sea of stunned-looking faces. ‘So, here I am,’ he concluded.

  A further second or so of silence ensued, followed by a rapturous round of applause.

  ‘I think many of you are aware that I was planning to make an announcement about a very significant discovery at the conference; it seems that certain parties were prepared to go to any lengths to prevent my doing so. They even made sure that they destroyed or deleted all of my research data and every legitimate copy or backup of that data so that, after my supposed death, no other scientists could reproduce that discovery.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Or at least they thought they had …

  ‘Fortunately, they didn’t know about this.’ He held up a black, rectangular, plastic object, not much larger than a cigarette packet. ‘It’s the hard drive which I keep in my own home in order to back up my laptop every evening. I like to have complete control of my data, so I never was entirely happy to rely solely on the backup on the University’s main system.’

  A stunned silence soon gave way to murmurs of delight.

  ‘My research data is all here,’ he said, moving his hand slowly from left to right in order to display the hard drive to all sections of the aud
ience.

  Once again, the room was filled with enthusiastic applause.

  ‘The police advised that, until my research findings had been made public, my life was still in danger, so the fact that I survived the attack, and my research had not been destroyed, has been kept secret, until now.

  ‘So now, if you will forgive me for the alteration to the published program, I would like to share with all of you the full details of what I believe is the most effective treatment for cocaine addiction which has ever been developed.’

  For the next fifty minutes, Professor Mandelson laid out the details of his research and the addiction cure which it had led to.

  ‘And so,’ concluded the professor, as he began to wind up his speech, ‘it is my fervent hope, that this new treatment will soon be approved for general usage and will ultimately end this hideous trade in human misery.

  ‘The fact that vested interests in the illegal drugs trade were prepared to commit murder to ensure that such a treatment never became widely available bears testament to just how important it is.

  ‘I seek no personal financial reward for my contribution to the war against this insidious affliction. I just hope that my discovery will save lives that would otherwise have been lost.’

  The thunderous applause which greeted his final words said far more than any speech or acknowledgement could ever have done.

  Chapter 42

  Madison didn’t know the name of the man who had contracted her for the assignment; all communication had previously been via intermediaries, and she had never met him face to face. Now though, for the first time, he had arranged to meet her in person. The venue was a seedy-looking office at the back of an out-of-town car workshop. The two men who had brought her there stood either side of, and a little behind her, while the man she had come to see sat opposite her, behind an old and battered wooden desk. He was short, and rather overweight, his swarthy complexion marred by an ugly-looking scar on his left cheek, which ran from the corner of his mouth right up to his eye. The glassy, expressionless stare from said eye left no doubt that it was an artificial replacement. Madison knew this was going to be a difficult meeting, and the intimidating appearance of her employer did little to quell the growing unease in her stomach.

  ‘So,’ said the man, his voice a gravelly growl, ‘it seems you have not fulfilled the terms of our contract.’

  ‘Look,’ said Madison, determined not to be cowed by his menacing manner, ‘I’ll admit that it didn’t go according to plan, but there were mitigating circumstances.’

  ‘And what would they be?’ he said, taking a cigar from the box on the desk, twirling it between his fingers as he held it beneath his nose to savour the aroma.

  ‘We thought the original guy on the Colombian team was dead,’ replied Madison. ‘How were we to know he would show up out of the blue? And he was damned good … managed to get the drop on my partner for Christ’s sake.’

  The man did not immediately reply: he cut a small piece off one end of the cigar and placed it between his lips, lighting up and taking several deep draws, causing the tip to glow brightly. He turned his face upwards, expelling a plume of smoke, illuminated by a shaft of sunlight from the single, grubby window in the room. Still he did not speak. Madison was already getting irritated by the man’s theatrics – she wanted to get down to business. She was about to elaborate on her explanation when the man finally responded.

  ‘But you were supposed to be professionals … able to deal with a few unexpected glitches.’

  A surge of anger flared within her, but she didn’t let it show; she kept her voice calm and level as she replied. ‘I’d say that the sounding of the evacuation alarm before the bomb detonated was more than a “glitch”. And having to leave my partner to die was rather more than a glitch, too. I did the best I could under the circumstances.’

  The man took another deep draw from his cigar, holding the smoke for several seconds before turning his head to the side to exhale. ‘The fact remains that Mandelson is alive and his discovery has been announced to the world. For the amount we were paying you that is hardly a satisfactory outcome …wouldn’t you agree?’

  Madison knew that there was no point in persisting with trying to justify the failure of the mission. Since the man had brought up the subject of the fee, this seemed like the right moment to press ahead with her prepared negotiating strategy.

  ‘OK, so we failed to suppress Mandelson’s research data, but before it can result in a freely available medication, there will have to be extensive trials, FDA approval … the whole nine yards. That will take years. You have the entire research details in your possession – your experts can produce a drug in a fraction of that time, with no need for all that testing and certification. You have a window of opportunity when you are the only ones who will be able to supply the new drug. That’s got to be worth a truckload of money.’

  The Mexican laid his cigar in an ashtray and leaned forward, placing both elbows on the desk and steepling his hands. ‘And why are you telling me something which I obviously already know?’

  This clearly wasn’t going to be easy, but then Madison hadn’t expected it to be.

  ‘Just making sure we’re on the same page,’ she said. ‘So … we’re agreed that, although I have been unable to give you everything you wanted from this project, what I have provided still has considerable value.’

  ‘Ah … so you wish to negotiate.’

  It wasn’t a question, and Madison did not waste time answering in the affirmative.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘the originally-agreed fee was twenty million dollars. My partner, whose share would have been ten million, is now, unfortunately, dead; I’m not expecting to get any of his share of the money.’

  ‘Very generous of you,’ said the man, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

  She ignored the barbed comment. ‘I also accept that I did not deliver everything we were contracted to, although as you have already agreed, what I have delivered has very considerable value to you.’

  The man picked up and inspected his cigar, which looked to be in danger of going out. He placed it between his lips and took a long, slow drag, restoring the tip to a bright glow. He held the smoke for several seconds – all the time keeping his eyes locked on hers – before expelling it to the side.

  ‘So, what are you proposing?’

  Madison was tensed for this very moment. She did her best to sound calm and confident. ‘I believe five million would be a fair figure.’

  His response was to dissolve into a coughing fit. She couldn’t figure out whether it was due to inhaling too much cigar smoke or a reaction to her demand. It soon became clear that it was the latter. He laid his cigar – now almost finished – in the ashtray and leaned forward, piercing her with a stare like a gimlet.

  ‘Obviously you cannot be serious. You have manifestly failed to fulfil the objectives of the mission, yet you still expect to be paid half of the original fee.’

  ‘Actually, a quarter,’ she said, trying to sound much more confident than she felt.

  He let out a gravelly chuckle. ‘Well your dead partner can’t spend his half, can he?’

  She did not respond to the rhetorical question. ‘Look, in order to keep things civil and avoid any unpleasantness, I’d be prepared to accept four million.’

  He shook his head, casting his gaze downward. After a few seconds, he looked up and held her eyes. ‘I’ll tell you what I think is a reasonable figure … zilch, zero, nothing.’

  She sprang to her feet, placing both hands, palm downwards, on the desk. ‘Why you—’

  Before she could even begin to remonstrate, one of the goons behind her had his hands on her shoulders, gently but forcefully encouraging her to sit back down.

  ‘Furthermore,’ the man continued, ‘I have grave concerns that, following this discussion – the outcome of which I imagine you are not entirely happy with – you might seek to undermine what little advantage we are able to glean from you
r feeble offering. Perhaps you might even be considering some act of revenge?’

  With a sickening certainty, she knew where this was going. She had come completely unarmed; she knew she would be frisked before the meeting anyway, and she hadn’t wanted to give the impression that she had come prepared for a showdown. She was, however, expert in unarmed combat, so when the Mexican looked past her and gave an almost-imperceptible nod to the man behind her, she was ready.

  She whirled around to confront the man, who was still only halfway towards levelling his gun. A lightning-fast, high kick knocked the weapon from his grasp and the sharp, jabbing punch she delivered to his throat sent him reeling.

  Before she could spin around to face the other man, however, she felt a cold, hard force, biting into her neck; in an instant, she realised the other man had slung a garrotte around her neck. The chances of escaping such a hold were slim indeed, but staring death in the face, all her survival instincts kicked in. She drove her elbow back into the man’s stomach with all the force she could muster. His grip slackened for a moment, sufficient to allow her to get the fingers of her right hand between the wire and her neck. Desperately, she sought to pull the lethal wire away, but the man had only been temporarily disabled; now he tightened his grip once more, trapping her fingers against her neck. As he pulled, harder and harder, she felt the wire begin to bite into her fingers. She felt the warm flow of blood down her hand, and then, unimaginable pain as the wire found the joints in the bones of her fingers. Still her instinct to survive forced her to fight back … until suddenly she had nothing to pull against. Her hand fell away as the wire sliced clean through all four fingers.

  The last thing that Madison ever saw was her own hand, held before her, spurting blood freely from the four severed stumps. Mercifully, she lost consciousness before the wire sliced fully into her throat.