More by luck than judgement, the holiday home that David’s father had built all those years ago, was less than five minutes drive from the proposed new manufacturing plant. David was keen to impress his new business partners. He had put a third of the money upfront from his own stockpiles, with virtually no guarantees. But given who his new business partners were, he supposed that guarantees were not something you came upon easily. And property was not giving the returns it had; time for him to try something new.
‘First things first,’ answered Ben. ‘I took the limited documentation you gave me, and ran it past a couple of specialists; guys we already have on our payroll. Obviously, seeing as the data is mostly blinded, they couldn't synthesise anything, but they could confirm that it would, in their opinion, act on a specific area of the brain.’
‘So, it’s good stuff, right?’ asked David.
‘Well, that remains to be seen,’ said Ben. ‘I don't like talking out of school, boss, but you’re putting an awful lot of your own money into this. Do you really think it's worth it?’
David looked across at Ben.
‘I appreciate what you're saying, Ben,’ he said. ‘But there are two reasons why I’m doing this. The first reason is because I can, and the second reason is because I can potentially screw over that cock-sucker Black Swan; destroy his life the way he’s destroyed mine.’
‘Why not just have him killed and be done with it,’ said Ben.
‘Because it would be too quick and he is too well protected,’ replied David. ‘I want the bastard to suffer.’
‘You're the boss,’ stated Ben, without a hint of irony.
‘Yes I am,’ said David with a smile.
‘So, based on the information in that same set of documentation,’ Ben continued. ‘I selected and engaged a reputable firm of chemical process consultants and engineers. They basically compared the tooling and processes that were left behind in the factory, with what we want to produce. The end result was not as good as we’d hoped.’
He paused.
‘Given they only stopped manufacturing about a year ago, we thought a large percentage of the production equipment would be available for re-use. Unfortunately, it turns out we can’t use a thing. Not a nut or a bolt.’
David scowled.
‘Before you get too downhearted,’ said Ben hastily, ‘it actually accelerates, rather than delays the schedule.’
‘How so?’ asked David, with a puzzled expression.
‘Think about it,’ said Ben. ‘It’s like anything really. If you are trying to fit new stuff in around old stuff, it can be very fiddly and time consuming. This way, all we have to do is rip everything out and build up the production lines from scratch. Okay, on the capital side and the equipment side, it will end up costing us more, but on the manpower side, the project will come in significantly less, which will balance our budget nicely.’
‘So what about the facility itself?’ asked David. ‘You still haven’t answered my original question. Will I be impressed?’
‘You’ll see,’ said Ben.
They made the rest of the short journey in silence. The BMW M5 slipped through the front gates. David was amused to see the sign.
G&E Chemicals, in partnership with ADXR Corporation.
They glided into the spot marked managing director.
David waited for Tony to open his door as he always did. They walked through the automatic revolving entrance, and into a plush and opulent reception area.
David nodded his approval.
‘This is a big change since last time,’ he said, acknowledging the transformation.
It had been an empty shell when they had first viewed the building.
‘A bit of a reversal really,’ agreed Ben.
‘What do you mean?’ asked David.
‘Come with me,’ said Ben, and led the way down a small corridor.
A security ID system with a corresponding pin code now existed on all of the main doors within the facility. Ben wordlessly handed his boss a proximity card which also had his name and photograph on it.
‘Can I?’ asked David eagerly, indicating the reader.
He loved gadgets and technology.
‘Sure,’ said Ben.
‘What’s my pin?’ asked David.
‘See if you can guess,’ replied Ben with a smile.
David smiled in return. Ben knew him too well. There was only one pin number he ever used. He was lucky it was so memorable. He flashed his badge and punched in the digits 8384. The door clicked open. He thought of John a little sadly. Even though they were twins, they didn't share a birthday. He’d been born at two minutes to midnight on the eighth of March; John at seven minutes after, so John's pin would have been 9384; much more difficult to remember.
Ben had walked ahead of him into the main production area, so David didn’t get a clear view until he was well inside. As the igniters started firing up the rows of fluorescent strip lights, he whistled quietly under his breath.
‘Jesus, you weren’t joking, were you?’ he said.
The last time he had visited the site, it had been full of equipment. Now, there were dismantled machines and industrial skips dotted across the expanse. David was just about to ask a question, when Ben started talking.
‘I know it doesn't look like we've done much,’ said Ben. ‘But....’
He started curling over his fingers, one by one.
‘We’ve ripped out all of the old machinery. We have ripped out all of the wiring and electrics, and completely reinstalled all the cabling with all the requisite ancillaries, including battery backup, generator and multiple incoming supplies. An air conditioning system has been installed, and we have fully insulated the building, which is also fully re-clad, redecorated and painted. All the office blocks, toilets, everything else has been done, down to fresh concrete paint on the floor.’
They walked over to a pillar with cables sticking out, in a neat labelled bundle.
‘All we need to do literally,’ he said, ‘is to drop the machines into place, screw them into the ground, cable them up and we are golden.’
David nodded; he was actually very impressed.
‘Do you want to see your office?’ asked Ben suddenly.
‘Is it ready?’ asked David.
‘The first thing I worked on,’ said Ben, with a straight face.
David didn't know whether he was trying to be funny or deadly serious.
They went back out the way they had come. Ben directed them through the lobby, and up a modern steel and glass spiral staircase. There was only one door facing ahead of them, and David chuckled. It already had his name on it.
David walked in. He’d always based himself at home. It sounded stupid, but he’d always felt more at home, at home. This was a huge departure for him. To base his business out of an office, was something he had never done before. It was also a big gamble, moving the control of his operation to West Cork, when the majority of his action was in the city centre. It was a calculated risk. David prided himself on his balls of steel; all or nothing was his motto.
As he settled himself into the high backed leather chair, he realised that all the important items from his study had been relocated. He needed to revisit Ben's salary again; he really was priceless.
#
It was well and truly dark, as the car pulled out of the car park on the return journey. David was contented, and at times like this, he liked to go back and talk to them.
Ben had stayed at the facility; he’d cried off with the excuse that he had a lot of things to organise. Truth was, he found it uncomfortable being there and David understood that, promising to send the car back for him later.
People had been surprised at the time, but David could never understand why. For him, it had seemed a natural thing. As a family, this is where they had enjoyed their most intimate moments. It was the only place he would have dreamed of interring them, and he had already given Ben a discrete envelope containing his own instructions.
Tony dropped him at the entrance to the graveyard; it was the only time he never opened the door. David stepped out and the car moved off and stopped a polite distance away; near enough to be summoned, yet far enough away to give him a little bit of privacy.
It was a wild night; David did not feel the cold, and relished the rain as it drove horizontally into his face. He struggled through the old stone gates, and made his way slowly to his first stop. He was literally dripping wet, when he made it over to the other side.
The monument was without doubt the biggest in the cemetery, by at least a factor of two. His old man did not do things by halves, and he and John had wanted something to stand-out in death, the way she had in life.
The tears formed, and on these visits, he never stopped them; never tried to suppress the emotions. That’s why he always came alone.
His mother had died when he was very young. She had been a force of nature, but she remained to David like a dream; an ideal of what a parent should be. He didn’t remember her in harsh reality. It was like looking at something with your eyes almost closed; blurry and indistinct. She was perfect, because he couldn’t remember her not being that way.
The temperature was dropping rapidly, and the wind was tracking the tears all over his face. He moved on from the relative perfection of the ostentatious monument, to the simple plot that lay next to it. There were three spaces, three small and simple black granite headstones. The middle one was his father, the one to the left was John, and he had reserved the other side for himself; at the right hand of the father.
He supposed it was a bit macabre, erecting your own gravestone before you were dead, but he had experienced his father being shot dead and his brother knifed to death. He lived in a dog eat dog world, and he fully expected to get eaten one day very soon. He had never seen himself living beyond thirty. He didn’t know why, maybe he just couldn’t see that far ahead. He had the arrogance of youth, but some part of him was already dead.
Twins have a rarely understood and very close bond, especially identical twins. He saw it very clearly in black and white, that they came from the same genetic blend. As far as he was concerned, he was half dead already. He knelt at the foot of John, the indistinct mound in front of the black granite, and imagined his brother’s skeleton lying just below the surface. He kissed the peaty earth, tasting the darkness and remembering the inscription.
John, brother, rest peacefully for soon you will.
He moved on to the middle space; he could almost feel the plot swell, as he stood in front of it. He remembered every defect, every line and mole on his father’s face, as his emotions took physical form. Nose to nose, they would scream abuse at each other, neither backing down. And then, on the sofa in the living room at night, he would snuggle up to his father, praying for the moment that the arm would come around, feeling the warmth of the fire and his father’s embrace.
He had not been an easy man to love; respect yes, love no. But he and John had earned both. His father had respected few men and loved none; not even his own father. But the twins had got under his skin, and broken down the barriers early, especially after his wife had passed away.
He was never violent; he was vigorous and forthright in his views, but so were the boys and it led to some furious rows. But in all those years, they never once ended the day on harsh words. They always made up, and if he was wrong he would admit it; a big step for such a powerful and opinionated man.
David made the sign of the cross and blessed himself, just as an icy gust of wind made him shudder. If he felt it, it must be really cold.
He’d heard it said that revenge was a dish best served cold. He was going to ensure it was sub zero.
The Bullock had come of age; had come full circle and become The Bull.
Chapter 24 – Quest
16th May 2011 – Six days after the Storm.
The terrible thing about the quest for truth is that you find it. – Remy de Gourmont.
Dale stretched his legs as far as the economy seat would allow. He wouldn't like to be any taller. As he shifted his position, he smiled at the recollection of Dodd’s scowling face, as he’d looked sourly across the desk at Dale.
‘Do you have your tickets?’ he’d asked.
Dale had nodded.
‘Do you have your passport?’
Dale had nodded again.
‘Do you have your phone?’ he’d asked.
Dale had nodded a third time.
‘Then what the fuck else do you need?’
Dale had thought about it, and realised that Dodds was right; the time was now.
Dodds had driven to JFK as though his trousers were on fire. Dale had hung on grimly. He had been deposited at set-down; literally ejected, as the car was still moving. Dodds had shouted a salutation and then Dale had been left alone with his journey.
The girl at check-in had eyed him suspiciously, as had the Department of Homeland Security officials, especially when he’d said he was going for pleasure. They had eyed his lack of luggage with jaundiced eyes, and he had been about to show this DEA identification, when for some reason, a small voice inside his head had stopped him. He’d had a strong feeling that his anonymity might be an advantage; he’d also been fairly certain that the Department of Homeland Security knew exactly who he was.
‘Can I get you anything, sir?’ asked the Stewardess, interrupting his reminiscence. ‘Tea, Coffee, Beer?’
‘Coffee,’ he said automatically, and then changed his mind. ‘No, I’ll have a beer actually, if I could?’
He smiled at her.
‘Here you go, sir,’ she said, handing him a very small can, and a plastic cup. ‘Enjoy.’
As she turned to go, she winked at him, and he recognised something in her expression. Maybe Dale was mistaken, but it wasn’t the normal, painted on, have a nice day facade that stewardesses normally presented to the world. Maybe a working holiday was exactly what he needed.
He closed his eyes, and as he drifted off to sleep, his investigators mind kept subliminally reminding him that the stewardess had worn no engagement or wedding ring. His subsequent dream had been all the more pleasurable for that information.
Fifteen rows back in one of the standby seats, a man was furiously typing on his laptop. The battery indicator had already told him that he only had twelve and a half minutes left. He was also a government employee, but unlike Dale, he was aware of the existence of his fellow federal agent. In fact he knew a huge amount about DEA Special Agent 2897.
Dale slept soundly until landing. The captain, who was an old Delta veteran, kissed the plane onto the tarmac at Dublin airport with barely a judder. The stewardess had to shake him awake. She handed him his coat and his bag, and he was halfway down the steps into the terminal building, when he realised she had slipped him a piece of paper, too. He was astonished to find her number written on it in neat handwriting, and a single simple exhortation; call me! He patted the thankfully tri-band phone in his pocket; maybe later he would, he said to himself.
As his leather heels clicked a steady beat off the marble floor of the newly completed terminal two, he silently marvelled at his newfound personal spontaneity. Even Dodds had been secretly impressed; Dale could tell.
Dodds had also promised to provide any backup or information that Dale might require, via local access to the official DEA and other federal systems. It would look suspicious if his ID was discovered to be live while he was away on vacation. Any time, day or night, Dodds had said. He was probably going to regret that statement.
Dale encountered his first delay in the passport hall. The Irish customs officials had decided to only open two kiosks, to cope with a large planeload of American business people and tourists. It was over an hour and a half before he was able to step through the green channel and into relative freedom.
At that point, he walked to the nearest cafe. One black coffee later, he was sitting at a table for two with his notepad open. For the previous ten hours, he had
been running on hunches and adrenalin, now he needed to regroup. He was in a foreign country; one he had never visited before, and he was unsure of where it was he needed to be going. His first priority had to be transport.
He contemplated going to the information desk and asking them what was the best way to get to Cork, but rightly or wrongly, he felt it would have portrayed him as a stupid American tourist. He reasoned to himself that he could fly to Cork, but then he would have the same problem with transport when he got there. Ditto the train and ditto the coach. He drove everywhere in the US, so why not here.
Twenty minutes later, and with his wallet five hundred dollars lighter, he was the proud owner of the smallest automatic transmission that Hertz could rent him. He could cope with the wrong side of the road, but not a stick shift on the wrong side too.
In the US, he had continually kept his phone up-to-date with all the new GPS maps and releases. He’d always felt he would need them eventually; now he was glad he’d done it.
The journey from Dublin airport to Cork city took him about three hours. He could summarise it as two and three quarter hours of boredom, and fifteen minutes of sheer terror.
American freeways were all pretty lawless places, but the motorway ring road around Dublin, with cars flying in all directions, doing at least seventy miles an hour, was not a happy place to be learning to drive on the wrong side. It was like driving through downtown Manhattan at speed. The other thing that struck him, as he entered the outskirts of Cork, was how small Ireland actually was. He had driven across literally half the country in three hours; some folks in America would regard that as a commute. He’d heard the differences between America and the English-speaking countries in Europe, described as being divided by a common language; having now seen some of it at first hand, he suspected there was slightly more to it than that.
As he drove into Cork city, he ignored the entrance to the port tunnel. Pulling into the car park of the first large hotel he saw, the Silver Springs, he got out and stretched his legs. He needed somewhere to base himself and get his bearings.
The Storm Protocol Page 22