by Steve Shear
As he approached his hotel, Hitch was no closer to solving the mystery he called Janine Rousseau. Early in his career he met her in Paris, where she was a translator by day and an operative at night, using seduction and charm where necessary. She had been recruited by an operative friend of his. It didn’t take her long to seduce Hitch, and thereafter their relationship became tumultuous to say the least. That lasted for almost a year. But then Rousseau blew her cover in one too many ventures and pissed off some higher ups, landing her on the streets of France, where she disappeared. At the time, Hitch was relieved considering the extra-marital relationship had begun boiling in a pot too hot to keep the lid on—a pot he was afraid might spill over into his private life. The next time he saw her she was wearing a black leather jacket with VAMA in yellow down one sleeve.
It was well after midnight when he reached his hotel and brought out the booze. After packing up for the morning flight and pumping out a hundred pushups on his knuckles, he found himself wandering in and out of the hall while listening on his scud to the other end of a conversation. A half-empty bottle of whisky sat on the coffee table along with an empty glass.
“No, not to kill me. I believe the shit was out to scare me… Yes, damn it, I know this is Janine’s work and she knows I know it. The question is for whom and why?”
Hitch walked out on the balcony and thought he got a glimpse of a VAMA shit, one of those ubiquitous black hearses. “Julian, I’m going to need your help on this. I’ll be home tomorrow morning.”
The following day, after arriving at Washington Regis and passing through customs, he was once again on the phone with Julian Iscar. He raced through the airport, dodging the crowd of travelers. “What? You’ll see what you can do?” Hitch became more incredulous as he listened. “Rousseau and VAMA! I already told you that. So what… Yes I know what I’m getting into, damn it… No! Just find out what it is they’re getting into, and what an old fart who claims to be from some mysterious fucking village in the jungles of India has to do with anything.”
Hitch clicked off, still steaming. He decided to skip the people mover, but practically trotted alongside, hoping to calm himself down.
Upon arriving home, he passed a VAMA hearse across the street and then from the driveway saw his front door ajar. He reached for his laser gun and opened the garage door at the same time. After pulling in and closing the garage door behind him, he jumped from his car and crept through the door in the back. Hitch dashed down the brick steps and under the overhanging deck. He peeked through a basement window and saw nothing but his own reflection. The rushing river below carried away with it suspicious sounds, if any, including possible footsteps overhead. Taking advantage of the river’s roar, he unlocked the basement door and tiptoed through the dark to the head of the stairs. Inching his way up, step by step, with one hand gripping the handle of his laser gun, he no longer heard the river. The only sounds he could detect were the squeals under his shoes. Then a crash when he reached the top of the stairs. He raced through the door into the kitchen, ready to fire, then into the living room where the front door was wide open. Gusts of wind blew sheets of paper everywhere. A glass vase had fallen from an entry hall table to the tile floor below and shattered.
Hitch looked around dismayed, at first thinking the chaos was merely the work of nature. Then he noticed all the open drawers in his den and possessions thrown everywhere. “What the hell?” He raced for the door and looked out briefly. The VAMA hearse had vanished. He locked up and spent a good deal of time looking for video cameras and hidden mics. If they were there he’d find them. The place was clean. He took a deep breath, then turned and surveyed the mess that surrounded him.
It took several hours to put the house in order. When Hitch finally finished, he faced piles of printouts covering most of the counter space in the kitchen, the kitchen table, and much of his study. He checked the clock, 3:55 p.m. He sat at his desk and tapped on his computation shell. Ring, ring, ring. A hologram of Rajiv appeared. He was in his bed making love. “Oliver?”
“Rajiv, are you free?” The hologram disappeared.
“Oops! Oliver. What did you ask?”
“I asked if you were free, but now I’m not seeing you.”
“Better that way. Am I free? Not exactly, but I am available, but just for a moment.”
“You were supposed to check in on Nagasi.”
“I did. I’m afraid he disappeared.”
“What?”
“Discharged in the middle of the night. I checked all the hospitals. No record of a newly admitted patient named Nagasi.”
“Shit!” Hitch swiped his hand across the desk causing papers to fly once again.
“Do not worry my friend. When the school opens, I will let you know. Early appointment in the morning. Must go.”
“In that case, I hope she doesn’t keep you up all night.”
“She is twenty-two and gorgeous. I’m afraid she might just do that.”
Hitch watched the signal disappear on the screen of his computation shell only to be replaced by silence. He jumped up from his desk chair and kicked the papers on the floor, then remembered The First Coming, still in his suitcase. Five minutes later, he sat on the living room couch with a bottle of beer in one hand and the book in the other hand, the green dot still on its spine. An hour in and he was convinced it was a book of fiction. Something about the Queen of Sheba in the Old Testament visiting King Solomon. The king supposedly seduced her, and that seduction resulted in the Tribe of Dan, one of the lost tribes of Israel defeated by the Assyrians and exiled from the land of Canaan. They eventually settled in Ethiopia, but generations later found their way to an idyllic meadow in the underbelly of India where, according to the True and Rightful Prophesy, they were to settle. Settle and wait for the Messiah. Jesus! This is lunacy, Hitch thought. Who were these people who read this stuff? By the time Hitch finished the book, he wasn’t sure whether or not the Messiah ever came or who those people really were.
Chapter Fourteen
Yennie Tawahada stood at the open door to the oval office talking while President Wainwright sat on the edge of her desk listening. Dillon Burber sat in a chair in the corner watching.
“It’s only a matter of time until they discover DanSheba. Oliver Hitchcock found our man Nagasi thanks to our mutual connection,” Yennie attempted to say matter-of-factly. He was conflicted. DanSheba was his home, the home of his family and ancestors for so many generations he couldn’t count that far back. He also agreed with Meta. The time was right to do what had to be done.
The president chuckled. “Knowing Oliver Hitchcock, it will be sooner rather than later. We can’t have him discovering DanSheba without the public on our side. No, we’ll need to speed things up.”
“What do you suggest?” Dillon piped in.
“Something to shake up the public. Make them think for themselves. Something that will make headlines.”
“Like?” Yennie asked. Each additional day he worked for Andrea Wainwright was a day he realized more fully how cunning she could be.
“Let’s just say that Dillon here, our beloved Press Secretary, will have something juicy to feed to the press corps, yes, juicy enough to make the faithful want to burn me at the stake.” She smiled a very wicked smile.
****
Janine Rousseau stood in the living room in front of her opened wall safe, filling it with bundles of hundred-dollar debit notes she took from a briefcase on the credenza below the safe. She listened to General Rosewall on her scud while admiring the photo of the child on the wall.
“Rousseau, are you there?”
“Yes. Yes. You were saying?”
“I was saying that I had someone check out the hospital in Mumbai and that’s as much as I know. Nagasi somebody or somebody Nagasi. So just stay close to Hitchcock. We need to know more.”
****
Minister McGivney sat against the arm and back of a red and blue sofa elegantly beaded in pink pearls, listening on his
scud. He became so agitated he began picking at the pearls. “I see. Very interesting, and bothersome. Nagasi you say and the Indian jungle.” He hesitated, deciding whether or not to verbalize his thoughts. “For years we’ve heard rumors about a tribe of wild black people in the jungles of India who could never be found and were never vaccinated. We always put that down as active imaginations running amuck.”
McGivney started to end the conversation when another matter occurred to him. “Do you remember me mentioning a professor last week… Yes, Bloom, he’s the one. He is part of a group of deniers; actually, he’s the leader. We’ve been keeping an eye on him ever since his father won the Nobel Prize. I’m thinking that he might be interested in Mr. Nagasi and his so-called connection with India if your friend Hitchcock is… Yes, right away. I think that could be to our advantage. And one more thing, find out if that bitch Rousseau knows about Nagasi.”
The Minister clicked off and looked across the room at the smotec, who appeared angry.
“You didn’t mention the Smotecal Decretum, Robert. That must be our priority.”
Chapter Fifteen
The morning after learning about Nagasi’s disappearance, the papers from Hitch’s desk remained on the floor, reminding him of the setback. As he passed his office before exercising, he noticed the mail icon on his computation shell blinking. He trampled across all those papers to reach it. A note from Julian appeared across the screen along with three attachments. The note merely told him the attachments might be of interest and wished him luck.
He opened the first one, which contained the CV of Dr. Elana Wu, Professor of Immunology at American University. She had been a Senior Associate under Professor Emeritus Barnaby Bloom before he retired. Elana Wu came from mainland China to attend George Washington University at the age of fifteen and was considered one of the rising stars in the biotech world. Her CV briefly described her as the chair of a program in which recombinant DNA techniques, cell fusion, and bioprocessing techniques were used to alter organisms for specific purposes. A footnote to her CV boasted that she and other researchers successfully increased crop yields, developed more efficient biofuels, and improved medical diagnoses through genetic testing. It also mentioned her expertise on the interplay between DNA and vaccinated cells in the human body, which Hitchcock highlighted in yellow.
That attachment also included a photo of Dr. Wu. “Humm,” Hitch said to no one in particular, “this should be interesting.” Hopefully she still looks like that, he thought to himself, assuming the photo was probably taken in college.
He opened the second attachment, an article on Professor Barnaby Bloom. According to the article, Professor Bloom was the leading expert in the world on vaccine chemistry and came from a rather famous family. Both his father and grandfather were Nobel Laureates in the field of Bio-Science.
The third attachment started with a note. For your eyes only―Julian. It was more like a dossier on Dr. Wu, clearly not something easily available to the public. After leaving China to attend George Washington University, she remained a citizen of China and became a converted Ecclesian since arriving to America. Like most religious converts, any and all criticism directed to “her church” she considered blasphemous, even though she had taught human evolution to graduate students. She was even more insistent in her conviction that questioning the government was something one didn’t do, certainly not in mainland China where she grew up and knew better, and not in her foster country either. Doing something wrong and being deported always danced at the edge of her thoughts, and she made that clear to anyone who would listen. She also claimed that one day she would return to China to teach and take care of her parents, but then they died in an automobile accident.
Hitch finished reading this last attachment, then looked back at the first one including the photo of Dr. Wu. He shook his head and wondered how Julian was able to get all that information on her, but then remembered who Julian Iscar was. He reached for his scud to call Dr. Elana Wu.
Dr. Wu agreed to meet with Hitch, but the only time she had free was lunch on Thursday, her secretary informed him. If that worked, Dr. Wu would meet him at The Imperial Garden in Georgetown at one o’clock. He agreed. To even get that far, Hitch had to explain that his grandson was a Preemie and that he hoped Dr. Wu’s expertise would shed some light on the situation. Even that didn’t seem to work. Then Hitch mentioned that Edna had worked as a research assistant in the Biotech department at American University some years earlier. Bingo!
Hitch was early, as usual, but more so on that particular occasion considering the importance of the meeting, or so he hoped, and possibly because he was looking forward to matching the real with the photo. Upon arriving, he discovered a reservation had already been made in Dr. Wu’s name, clearly a regular in the very upscale Chinese restaurant. The hostess, an older Chinese woman, led him to a table in the back, away from most of the lunch crowd. Dr. Wu had not arrived yet, but it was only 12:50. Just when he began checking his scud for messages, an approaching figure caught his eye. Her looks jolted him out of any other thoughts he might have had at that moment. She was stunning. Thin, but well built, taller than he had imagined. Absolutely beautiful. Combining that with her obvious intelligence caused Hitch to remain spellbound as he heard her voice, soft but self-assured.
“Mr. Hitchcock?” She offered both hands, feminine but firm, her nails polished high gloss magenta, her lips a somewhat lighter shade.
“Everyone calls me Hitch or Oliver.” He stood to greet her.
“All right, Oliver. I am Elana, so please, let us both sit, eat, and talk.”
“It was very nice of you to meet, especially considering you don’t know me.” Hitch loved looking at her smile. It seemed so pure and cunning at the same time.
“But I do know you, or at least of you, and I have always wanted to meet a real CIA spy. I’m afraid many of your exploits are public knowledge, Mr. Hitchcock, I mean, Oliver.”
“Retired CIA.”
“Really? You look too young to be retired.”
Was she flirting? Hitch sat up tall and smiled. “And you look too young to be a full professor and expert on the interplay between DNA and vaccinated cells in the human body.”
“Touché,” she countered.
Just as they seemed to be trading flirts, the server, a young girl who looked very much like the hostess’s daughter, approached with two menus.
“I don’t think we’ll need those, SuLynn. Just a double order of the regular. Oh and bring us each a Naale.”
“A Naale?” Hitch asked as SuLynn left them alone.
Elana laughed. “A very strong Chinese beer from my home, Shanghai, and by the way this is my treat.”
By the time they finished lunch, six emptied Naale bottles sat on the table. Earlier formalities gone, there were periods of comfortable silence, as Hitch evaluated Elana, as Elana evaluated Hitch, or so he thought.
“As I said earlier, I am awfully sorry for your situation. I mean, about Christopher, but I’m not sure how I can be of much help other than to let you know what to expect.”
“Well, considering your expertise, what can you tell me about the ERAM-V vaccine, not just its makeup but like how it came about, into existence that is, and why there were people way back who believed…”
In midsentence, Hitch watched Elana stiffen as her eyes turned to the entrance of the restaurant. He followed her gaze and saw Oedipus and another thug even larger than him. Both wore VAMA leather jackets. Oedipus pointed to the back where they were, and the two of them followed the hostess to a table between them and the front door. Elana looked back at Hitch.
“I’m sorry, Oliver. What were you saying?”
“The virus. How it…”
Elana began to quiver and the pitch in her voice increased, as if she wanted to be heard from a distance. “I’m sorry Mr. Hitchcock. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“But…”
“No. I can’t.” She quickly stood, stared at Oedipus
and his friend, started for the front door, then quickly did a hundred and eighty and rushed out through the Exit Only behind them. Oedipus’s companion jumped up from his table and started to follow her out. As he passed Hitch’s table, Hitch stuck out his foot and the bruiser tripped and fell. He rose quickly and started for Hitchcock when Oedipus, through a hand gesture, signaled him to follow Elana, at least that’s what Hitch guessed. In the meantime, their server left him the check. He picked it up and walked over to Oedipus, who still sat, watching, and dropped the check on his table.
“Give this to Janine. It’s the least she can do.” He started to leave but turned back after only a few steps. “The next time you want to run someone off the road, you might try autopilot. And given what I observed between your legs forget about ever putting the move on your boss.”
Oedipus started to rise. Hitchcock broke an empty glass on the table, pushed Oedipus back down, and put the broken glass to his throat. Their eyes met, anger in Oedipus’s, amusement in Hitch’s, which he hoped showed. After a few seconds, he dropped the broken glass in Oedipus’s lap and walked out as nonchalantly as someone fully satisfied with a great meal.
Chapter Sixteen