Miguel was beginning to get a queasy feeling. He opened the envelope and recoiled at the photo of a woman, covered in blood, on the floor, one leg twisted at a terrible angle. “I gave her the choice of watching her child die or having her child see her death. She struggled of course, but, well…” As Miguel looked at the final photograph, the daughter, face down on the carpet, three dark stains on her back, one hand reaching for her parents, Klaus said, “When I killed the child, the mother wilted.”
“Stop it!” Miguel shouted. “Let go of my son!”
Klaus fixed his remorseless eyes on Miguel and shook his head. “I have proved my claim,” he said, nodding at his phone. “I will not leave here alive without the money. And I will not die without taking someone with me.”
“Whatever you want. Just do not hurt the boy.”
“It is up to you.”
Miguel snatched the slip of paper. He turned to his computer and logged on to his bank’s website. He navigated to the fund transfer page. After a few moments he hit the “send” button, then looked at Klaus. “You are inhuman,” he said. “You have the soul of a dog. You are a malignancy on mankind!”
“Yes. And you are the one who hired me,” Klaus said. “So what does that make you?”
Miguel didn’t respond. He just stared at Klaus’ cell phone, waiting to get his son back. There was a long silence as they waited. The only sound came from an animated grasshopper saying something about how it was a bug-eat-bug world out there. When the phone chirped, Miguel flinched. Klaus, still holding Francisco, answered. “Yes?” A pause, then a hint of a smile. “Good.” He flipped the phone shut, tousled Francisco’s hair, and stood. “Sorry to leave so suddenly, but I have a car waiting.” Klaus was halfway across the room when he stopped, turning to face Miguel. “If you announce this to the press, do me a favor. Tell them Klaus has retired. I am through.”
Klaus returned to the waiting car and disappeared into the Bolivian darkness. After that, as far as anyone could tell, Klaus disappeared from the face of the earth.
Chapter Four
Corvallis, Oregon: Six years later
Klaus was hunched over the pool of blood as if to protect it. He glanced up from this vulnerable angle and said, “If you would let me use my gun, I could end this.”
Bob Dillon stood ten feet away, one arm raised overhead, eyes fixed on something in the middle distance. “What makes you think I can’t end this myself?”
“Because you have been waving that ridiculous thing around for the last fifteen minutes to no effect,” Klaus said.
Bob feigned offense. “Ridiculous? This is the Buginator 5000, my friend.” Bob held it out to admire like some sort of sci-fi tennis racket from a cheap aluminum future. “Two thousand volts of insect killing exuberance.” Bob lunged sideways, taking a backhand swing. “Damn.” His eyes followed the black dot as it circled the room, taunting him.
“Musca domestica?” Klaus asked.
Bob held two fingers in a V pointing outward from his face. “Based on those nasty red compound eyes, I’d say it’s a flesh fly. Protodexia hunteri if I had to guess. Probably straight off a decomposing possum, or worse.”
“Why do you think I am covering my plate?” Klaus had reheated leftovers from last night’s lamb. Glancing down he said, “Great, I got blood on my tie.” The lamb, still rare, had left a pool of it on the plate. He dabbed at the stain with his napkin and said, “If you happen to get lucky and hit the thing, I would rather it did not land in my lunch.”
“Shows what you know,” Bob said. “When—not if—but when I hit it, the thing will vaporize.”
“Yes,” Klaus said. “If by ‘vaporize’ you mean that the exploding insect will result in an airborne distribution of bacteria and viruses released from the gut of the fly, showering my lunch with all manner of pathogens. Perhaps this is why they warn against using them around food.”
“Go put on a dress if you’re so worried about it,” Bob said. “I’m not stopping until I’ve killed it.” He understood Klaus’ concern for food safety but Bob’s disgust for anything from the Muscidae and Sarcophagidae families, trumped all logic. He loathed flies. He swatted again and shouted, “Yes!”
Klaus shook his head and said, “No.” He pointed at the target as it continued flying lazy figure-eights.
“I know I hit it.” Bob looked at the face of the Buginator. “Maybe the batteries are dead.”
“Maybe you should let me get my gun.” Klaus sat up and resumed his lunch, confident Bob would never hit his target.
“You don’t see any possible downside to discharging a weapon in a room filled with insanely expensive lab equipment that we’re still paying for?”
“That’s why we have insurance,” Klaus said. Even after living in the U.S. for six years, his accent remained Terminator-like, though he had finally started to use contractions. “Besides,” he said. “I would need only one shot.”
“Do me a favor?” Bob said, as he continued stalking his prey. “Don’t say things like that when Mr. Treadwell gets here.” He looked at his watch. “Which should be soon. Knowing that our vice president prefers to solve problems with unlicensed firearms is not the sort of thing that inspires an investor’s confidence.”
Klaus shrugged. “Depends on the investor,” he said. “Besides, I would not shoot the equipment. I would simply wait until the fly lit on the wall.”
“And then what? Blast it with a shotgun?”
Klaus took a bite of the lamb and said, “My friend, I once shot an olive from the branch of its tree and plugged it before it hit the ground.”
“Uh huh.”
“With a 9mm from twenty yards.” Klaus pointed at the fly, tracking it as it flew around the room. When it landed on some lab equipment, Klaus steadied his finger and said, “Bang. Dead fly.”
“No,” Bob said. “Ka-ching. Dead ceramic electrophoresis cooling tank.”
“I would need only one shot.”
Bob wagged the Buginator at Klaus, saying, “Okay, I’m thinking of a word that starts with the letter ‘b’, two syllables, rhymes with ‘bullshit.’ No wait, that’s actually the word.”
Klaus shrugged and looked over the top of his bifocals. “Call my friend Basil, he will tell you. He saw it.”
When the fly took off again, Bob lunged around the scalable process chromatography columns that were next to, and hiding, the helium pulse regulator. Focused on the fly, Bob didn’t see the regulator’s hose assembly over which he tripped. “Whoa!” The Buginator crashed to the floor and shattered, revealing shoddy Chinese manufacturing. Bob ended up in a heap by the DNA electrophoresis workstation.
He lay there laughing as he reflected on how he’d ended up in the elaborate circumstance that his life had become.
Chapter Five
It all started with Bob’s attempts to cross breed various members of the assassin bug family in an attempt to create a “green” alternative to chemical pest control.
A few years later, as the technologies from the Human Genome Project moved into the private sector, the world changed in strange and enduring ways. The field of transgenics guaranteed that nothing would ever be the same.
Bob and Klaus enrolled at the University of Oregon, shifting their studies to bioengineering, gene transfer techniques, molecular biology, and technical computing in molecular entomology. Using DNA mapping systems and the possibilities of genetic manipulation, they began to create transgenic assassin bugs instead of old-fashioned hybrids.
As with most entrepreneurial ventures, there were a few snags along the way, primary among which was a cash flow problem. It turned out that the lab equipment was as expensive as the science was fantastic. A quarter million dollars for a single suspension array system with performance validation tools, conversion kits, software, and the various parts and accessorie
s to make it work. By the time they’d assembled a viable lab and hired a few qualified researchers, they’d burned through a fair chunk of their savings.
This explained why they had made inquiries with several venture capital outfits, among which was Blue Sky Capital Partners, LLC, whose president, Joshua Treadwell, was scheduled to arrive this afternoon to visit the laboratory for a demonstration of the current strains of transgenic assassin bugs.
The flesh fly landed on Bob’s arm, tickling the hair and bringing Bob back from his reverie. He made a move to catch it but wasn’t quick enough. “Damn.” The fly was across the room now, circling near the micro-injection station. As Bob studied its orbit, a new idea formed. He looked up at Klaus and said, “Hey, do you think we could make an assassin that flies?”
Klaus eyed him skeptically. “Perhaps,” he said. “But first we should…”
Bob didn’t hear the objection. “No, wait a second.” He slapped his hand on the floor. “Yes!” Bob scrambled to his feet, his mind fixed on new possibilities. “I mean one that actually catches insects in mid-air.” He snatched at the air in front of him to demonstrate.
“Bob,” Klaus said, gesturing with his fork. “You have that look on your face again.” The first time he saw it was when Bob had the idea that saved their lives and led to the ten-million-dollar con. In the years since, Klaus had seen it many times, though without the subsequent profits.
“This is fantastic,” Bob said as he began to calculate the potential millions of his latest idea. “Think about it!”
“Bob?”
“Something that kills flies and mosquitoes, indoors or out. And wasps! Be a huge seller during the summer.” Bob crossed the room to a shelf filled with textbooks. “But what do we use?” He tilted his head to the side to read the titles.
“I think we should perfect our current bugs first,” Klaus said. “What’s the expression? You must learn to walk before you can run?”
“This is fantastic,” Bob said. He ran a finger along the spines of the books, his head still cocked at an angle. “Got to be something with strong flight skills. Dragonflies? Ommigod, no.” He snatched a book from the shelf and said, “Promachus fitchii!” He tossed the book to Klaus. “The giant robber fly! I can’t believe we didn’t think of this before. We can pitch Treadwell this afternoon.”
“Bob? We don’t have time to work up another presentation.” Still, he looked up the insect in question.
Bob was shaking his head, deflecting Klaus’ negativity. “We’ve got to think big! That’s what venture capital’s all about, right? Funding big ideas. Big buggy ideas! These guys respond to that sort of thinking. That’s why he’s coming here in the first place, right? Big ideas yield big returns.” He pointed at the textbook as Klaus scrolled through the index. “Whaddya think? Sacken’s bee hunter, what is it, Laphria sackeni? No, it’s too small. What about Efferia pogonias?”
Klaus looked up the bearded robber fly. He said, “Well, it does catch prey on the wing. But the adults fly only during the summer.”
“That’s when you need them!” Bob grabbed a legal pad and began sketching ideas for a demonstration as he paced the room. “We’ll need something big, maybe a wind tunnel, where we can test them in flight. I think the biggest problem will be keeping them in a specific area. Maybe there’s a pheromone solution to that.” He was passing by the lab door when it opened abruptly and whacked him in the head. “Ow!”
“Oops, sorry.” Mary peered behind the door where Bob stood with a stunned expression. “You okay?” She was dressed for business in a navy blue mid-length jacket, matching skirt, and subdued floral patterned shirt with a bumblebee pin on her lapel.
Bob rubbed his head, still wide-eyed with enthusiasm. He said, “Honey, we just had a great idea. We’re working on a new…”
“No time,” Mary said, holding up a hand.
“What’s up?”
“He’s here.”
Chapter Six
Bob, Klaus, and Mary walked to the small parking area outside the lab to meet their savior as he parked his rented Escalade.
Joshua Treadwell flashed a confidence-inducing smile and waved as he got out, looking like the prince of Wall Street. Starched white shirt, red tie, dark Brooks Brothers suit with a flag pin in the lapel and pants creased so sharply you could slice meat with them.
After introductions, they went into the small conference room adjacent to the lab. Bob was still thinking about how to pitch his idea for flying assassins. Klaus played the silent partner, letting Bob and Mary speak for the company while he sat there taking notes and looking like a team player. They sat at the conference table discussing the goals of their respective companies.
“My associates and I review over a hundred business plans each week and we reject at least ninety-nine of them,” Mr. Treadwell said. “A few are, admittedly, hare-brained but most are submitted by serious people with serious ideas. What they lack, as far as we’re concerned, is a certain…daring.” He gave a squinty grimace as if to indicate the difficulty of articulating his position. “We’re looking for people possessed of a willingness to consider ideas on the outskirts of reason, ideas that some might consider fantastic or beyond science fiction.”
Treadwell made a sweeping gesture with one hand which he held aloft as he said, “We’re looking for leaps of imagination, a willingness to visualize farther into the future than others are willing or able.” He brought his hand down, balled into a fist. “We’re looking for people with the vision to see the world as it will be, not as it is. People who can prophesy, if you will.” He raised his eyebrows as if to indicate he believed he was looking at such people. “My partners and I think we know potential when we see it. And that is what we like about your company. Its potential.”
Everyone exchanged optimistic glances and there was much nodding of heads before Treadwell said, “We foresee applications that go far beyond domestic pest management. We see large scale agricultural and industrial uses as well. And much more.”
The comment hung in the air for a moment before Bob said, “What else is there?”
Treadwell brushed the question aside with a wave of his hand, saying, “Well, I’m getting ahead of myself.” He turned to Mary. “Right now I’d like to address your concerns about our proposed convertible bridge financing and the rights and preferences of a proposed senior class of preferred stock.”
As Mary and Treadwell discussed the financials, Bob kept thinking about the idea of flying assassins. He didn’t want to distract from the bugs they were about to demonstrate, but after Treadwell’s speech about leaps of imagination and the ability to think beyond the cusp of reason, Bob figured his new idea would demonstrate precisely how unconstrained he was by conventional thinking. “You know, just before you got here,” Bob said, “we were talking about a great new idea.”
Klaus shot him a look as if to say ‘don’t muddy the water,’ but it was too late.
Bob continued, “We were thinking summer time and flying insects and the feasibility of creating airborne assassins.”
Klaus mouthed the words in disbelief. Airborne assassins.
Treadwell looked down at his hands which were now folded on the table in front of him. He shook his head just slightly for a moment before he looked up and pointed at Bob. “See, now that’s the sort of imaginative thinking we’re looking for.”
Bob cocked an eyebrow at Klaus, then added a little smirk. Like a pair of ten-year-olds.
After pondering it for a moment Treadwell touched his chin and said, “I take it you’d have to work with some other species?”
Figuring he’d better help to sell the idea now that it was on the table, Klaus said, “Yes. We were talking about the bearded robber fly and Sacken’s bee hunter.”
“And we’d want to look at some species of dragonflies as well,” Bob added.
“How about your terrestrial assassins? You working with anything new there?”
“No, still using the transgenic versions of our hybrids,” Bob said. “But we’ve put a few new species on the drawing board, like the blue-black spider wasp and the steele-blue cricket hunter.” Bob cast a knowing glance at Klaus and said, “And we’d sure like to get our hands on a few African white-eyed assassin bugs, but the Department of Agriculture has turned down all requests for import permits.”
“Well, that’s something we might be able to help with,” Treadwell said, making a note on his legal pad.
Bob and Klaus exchanged a curious glance. It seemed like a strange thing for a venture capitalist to say. They both knew that money talked, and that government officials were for sale at reasonable prices, but neither thought this was the sort of situation where that might apply.
Klaus said, “Your company has influence with federal regulatory agencies?”
Joshua Treadwell ducked his head, smiling modestly. “Well, I’m getting ahead of myself again. But, yes, that’s something we could look into.” He gestured toward the lab. “What do you say we go on in? I’m eager to see the demonstration.”
Chapter Seven
The new lab lacked the charm of Bob’s original bug room. Granted, it was fully equipped and built to code with lots of counter space but it lacked the je ne sais quoi that had infused the dark, cramped, rickety basement room that Bob had built with scrap lumber and garage sale shelving.
One thing the two places had in common was the smell, a vague scent that Bob thought of as his own brand of jitterbug perfume. It was an array of pheromones, insect excreta, and the tang of the assassin’s digestive saliva floating on the airy essence of several thousand insects, all capped with a top note of pine disinfectant. The rooms also had a similar sound; like the sections of an orchestra, the vibes of stridulating organs, buzzing wings, and the rasping of all those curved feeding tubes resulted in a sort of new-age insect symphonia.
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