Special Smashwords Edition
A Thomas Briggs Novel
STEVEN H. JACKSON
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
DEATH OF A CURE
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IN MEMORY OF MY BROTHER
Timothy Douglas Jackson
September 16, 1959 to January 11, 2007
An unfortunate side effect of hope is deception.
— Anonymous
PROLOGUE
We know them as humanitarians. Of this we are sure. We are certain; their calling unimpeachable. They have forsaken success in industry and in government that was surely theirs just for the taking. This personal sacrifice is for us but, more importantly, for those we love. They are servants of a greater good. In return, we entrust them with our time, our talents, and our money — all we can give. They move the hearts of our children, our friends, and our coworkers all of whom enlist sponsors who contribute even more money based on miles hiked or biked along traffic-laden thoroughfares. We look to them to lead us from the heartbreak — the overwhelming emotional devastation that cripples us as our lives derail when someone we love is struck down by a cruel and life-robbing disease. We hold them to a higher standard. They are better. We need them to be. They are the caretakers of our hope.
But is our dream of a cure really their mission? Have we been deceived? Could it be a cruel duplicity, a personal deceit, phenomenal in its audacity, yet nothing more to them than an evil means to a selfish end? A falsehood perpetrated against the trusting, abetting positions of power; our hope blinding us from the truth. Have the lifestyles, the position, and the money become their true motivation? Have they come to see the disease, our enemy, as their benefactor? How far would they go to protect the enemy?
Would they kill?
CURE PREVENTION
Just moments before his death, Dr. Ronald Briggs had been alone standing behind his desk, about to call it a night. Someone, once a friend though now an enigma, entered his dimly lit office. The semiautomatic pistol looked menacing in the light cast by a desk lamp. Although the hand that held the weapon was not large, its grip was sure. The gun was steady and its aim unwavering. The two stood motionless as they faced each other.
“I’m not ready for a cure.” It was a simple statement. Briggs waited for more, for the excuses, the rationalizations, but none were offered. Personal agenda had superseded that of the organization, of the mission. A fact suspected was no longer concealed.
Briggs had not been surprised by the sudden appearance in his office and only a little by the gun. He quietly replied in a resigned, uncharacteristically tired voice, “How long has it been since you really cared for those who believe in us? Did you ever?”
Ignoring his question, the intruder gave a quick command. “Give me the backup disk you made this afternoon. I know you have it with you.”
Without looking, Briggs reached slowly into his lab coat pocket and produced a DVD sandwiched inside a scratched yellow plastic case. It contained the new material, pivotal information that would become part of this week’s backup — the documentation of his recent success in the search to find a cure for CID. He laid it on the desk next to him. The light from the oversized lamp captured the pistol and the yellow case in its circle. There was no immediate move to retrieve it, to take from the world this vessel that held the secret to CID’s inner workings and the blueprint to render it impotent.
The voice, icy-cold in its resolve, spoke to Briggs again, “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
His adversary was partially concealed, hidden in the shadow, with only a hand and the gun it held in the direct light of the lamp. Briggs couldn’t see an expression. He couldn’t examine the face for some weakness to exploit. If only Tommy were here. He had no concern that his brother would share his jeopardy; that he too would also be in danger. No, not for a moment because Tommy would know what to do. Their roles would reverse; there would be no jeopardy, no danger. The junior brother would take the lead stepping in front of Briggs as he had done twice before. He would then somehow, with some swift, frighteningly primal action, end this as easily as Briggs knotted his bow tie. Tommy would momentarily expose a part of himself, his true self, to his older brother — a part that Tommy worked hard to keep under control, out of sight, even from Ron. Especially from Ron.
Instead of that hopeful scenario, Briggs floundered for what to say, his emotions selecting simple words in response to the challenge, “You mean you’re not going to kill me?”
“You may have left me no choice, but it’s really up to you. I know your secret. The one you keep from us, all the while thinking that you are so much smarter than everyone else.” In the voice he heard something that he had never heard before. The words not simply spoken but sneered with contempt, with a meanness, a hatred, that seemed strangely to bring pleasure, so unlike the carefully maintained persona. For the first time Briggs was afraid. The evil side was the reality: everything else a facade, a mechanism sufficient to deceive both the naive as well as the sophisticated.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Briggs offered the accusation destroying hope.
“Save it for your staff and the summer interns. The great Dr. Briggs, so perfect in every way. I know what you really are, so don’t try and take the moral high ground with me. I know about your little girlfriend. I know your plans to steer development rights to SynapTherapies. I know about your sweet little inside deals with CNEG.” The words, the indictment, should have been spoken with some emotion, but they came in a calm monotone. These words had been rehearsed.
&nbs
p; “The cure is worth more than anyone’s reputation,” he answered back with just the beginnings of defiance in his voice, almost as if he had forgotten the pistol aimed at his heart and his complete belief that it would be used.
The deceiver advanced toward him, the gun projecting a virtual force driving him back to the open window. The familiar and usually comforting sounds of the city street seemed louder than normal, the pavement below somehow closer.
“I guess I was wrong. Exposing you and the ruin that it would cause not only to you and to your new friend won’t be enough. I can erase the data, but I can’t erase your mind.”
The words were practiced, uttered without emotion, a conclusion foregone. Nothing Briggs could have said would have changed the actions about to take place. Others had decided his fate. Even so, his adversaries could take false comfort later that an effort had been made to prevent his death. But in the end, there had been no choice. No other outcome had been acceptable.
Backing up, Briggs felt the windowsill as he moved against it — there was nowhere left to go. He closed his eyes. He waited for the gunshot that never came. His surprise, at what came next, complete.
*
Falling twenty-four stories takes just seconds. Yet in those brief moments, he did not experience fear even though he knew his fate with exacting certainty. Instead, an image quickly filled his mind displacing the outrage that had been his constant companion for more than a year. It was that of a patient, a young girl in Texas named Connie who had CID, the disease that had been his life’s work, a professional and personal passion. The girl was memorable for her character, her courage tested by CID’s painful and deadly progress. Then, the youngster’s comforting presence, surviving for just a moment, quickly faded.
As physically paralyzing as the moment was, the last thoughts of Briggs’s life were those of sad acceptance. He had come to know that his colleague, his sometimes mentor, was capable of amazing treachery. His employer was an institutionalized sham betraying the trust of the innocent. Ignoring the deceit and duplicity around him as he closed in on the cure had seemed the right thing to do — the high road. The route he had always traveled, following without exception to his own words of advice he had given to Tommy when he was young and looked to his big brother for guidance. “Just do what’s right. Let the world work out the rest.” A simple rule.
Tonight his guiding principle had only enabled the enemy, emboldened to greater atrocities culminating in this moment — his death. More significantly, more important than his own life — the death of a cure.
*
The emergency response team was capable and quickly arrived on scene. There was, however, little for them to do. A body falling from over 200 feet has attained almost one-half of the speed of a skydiver at terminal velocity. Dr. Ronald Briggs hit the concrete sidewalk face up at more than 60 miles per hour. The blunt trauma impact to his head, his back, and his torso complete, death was instantaneous. Real life is unlike children’s cartoons — bodies do not bounce. The crumpled form of Dr. Ronald Briggs lay still in the cold Manhattan night as advocacy’s evil benefactor triumphed again.
HOUSE CALL
There had been a collision last night involving a nuclear attack sub traversing the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. She had been on a spy mission, an unseen interloper, silent, deep and watchful among the already suspicious. The USS Hawaii, a very new Virginia class submarine, was damaged yet remained operational. The Hawaii had not collided with another vessel. The top of an uncharted seamount had violently interrupted her at 3 a.m. resulting in multiple injuries. Due to her sensitive location, she remained submerged limping toward the safety of a repair facility.
The Hawaii’s benthic misadventure had been reported up channel from the Commander, Submarine Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet, and then down a different, little known channel to our team not found on any publicly disseminated, military organization chart. We don’t have a fancy acronym identifying our inter-service unit made up of specialists from all of the military branches.
At least one critical injury required emergency surgery beyond the skill set of the onboard talent. The Navy needed me, Lt. Col. (Dr.) L. T. Briggs, USMC, delivered aboard unnoticed, tout de suite. Successful covert insertion providing medical, scientific, or engineering support was our group’s stated mission. Successful extraction, covert or otherwise, was my personal goal.
Prior to this sortie, each of Hawaii’s crewmen had to sign a document that not-so-gently reminded them about the penalties for sharing certain aspects of their Navy life. Penalties pointedly described with words like “treason” and everyone’s personal favorite, “mandatory prison sentence without the possibility of parole.” The sensitivity was due to the Hawaii’s presence in the Spratly’s. She was not an approved visitor by any of the contentious parties claiming sovereignty over the island archipelago and its tremendous, yet mostly untapped resources. I learned this in my briefing — I signed the same papers and, like the crew, I didn’t get a copy either.
Another member of our team rotating with me through Yokosuka on Tokyo Bay, Major William Sanchez, U.S. Army, assisted me with the next step of my assignment. Billy’s specialty was weapons of mass destruction, or more correctly, the destruction of weapons of mass destruction. He joined me at our office and helped me gather equipment that our group had cached at Yokosuka. Billy made careful note of what was being removed from storage and would email his list back to our replenishment team. While this was yet another example of the mighty military paperwork monster, it was a necessary one due to the nature of our assignments. When we take equipment on a mission, it almost never makes it back and one of us might need to requisition the same stuff again next week.
My jump gear for this mission was a standard low-altitude airborne issue round canopy and harness. I looked sadly at the fancier parafoil wing chutes in the adjoining locker.
“No parafoil?” Billy asked. They were much more fun, but the jump wouldn’t keep me in the air long enough to make the steerable rig worthwhile. Not to mention the fact that there would not be any point of reference to steer to.
“Maybe next time,” I replied.
The assembled SCUBA gear was fairly standard, open-circuit dive equipment that any sport diver would have recognized. Being a somewhat responsible steward of the taxpayer’s money, the fancier re-breather would remain behind.
“No re-breather?” Billy asked with an even greater look of pain on his face. It wasn’t needed. No one would see my bubbles in the dark, and I wasn’t going to need the extended time underwater offered by the more expensive toy.
“Maybe next time,” I again replied, rather lamely.
“You wouldn’t impress a Kabukicho b-girl with this shit,” he said disgustedly, referencing the local red light district and the fact that the tools that had been selected were less than futuristic.
“Maybe I can get by on my good looks,” I offered hopefully.
Giving me a lopsided grin, Billy shot back, “Not likely, Marine.”
Getting the jump and dive gear together had taken us less than twenty minutes. The surgical tools and meds would take longer. As a military doc, I travel with a fairly complete collection of diagnostic tools and medical supplies. For this trip with anticipated abdominal surgery, more would be needed. I was probably taking four times the surgical instruments and pharmaceuticals than would be required, but there would not be the luxury of sending out for more after getting aboard the sub. Better to err on the safe side. Billy was no help assembling the medical gear, but it didn’t stop the stream of sarcasm as he noted my removals from the cache. From my personal locker, I grabbed a couple of fatigues without any markings that would identify who I was or what country I was from and a small bag holding a razor, toothbrush, and such.
On rare occasion to help with an insertion, we have Special Forces, or an overwhelming regular military presence, escort us into enemy country. Given the fact that we are typically without operational support, everyo
ne in my group takes personal safety seriously, and like all of my peers, in my previous life I was one of the gunslingers. There has been more than one occasion where, if I wanted to live through the mission, I had to become one more member of the fire team and not just the doc along for the ride like so much freight. Most everyone in my group has had similar experiences. Because of this hypersensitivity about my personal safety, the next thing to be packed was a Beretta Model 96FS de-cocker chambered in .40 S&W carrying eleven rounds, ten in the clip and one in the pipe. Billy added four spare clips holding ten more rounds each. The weapon did not come from storage — I already had it on me. In addition to the pistol, I slipped in a couple of other surprises. Sharp ones.
Billy nodded approvingly as if finally some good decisions were being made. “I don’t trust the bubbleheads either,” he joked. “All that time at sea might make your skinny ass look way too mermaid-like!”
I wasn’t so much worried about defending myself in the sub although some strange things have happened to me in friendly places, as I was about an unplanned emergency diversion interrupting the insertion. Of course, if I did end up in a hostile environment, the sidearm might not be enough, but it was all that could reasonably be packed. I was certain that once aboard the sub everything brought in with me would become visible to others and a shotgun would raise eyebrows. Submariners could be an overly sensitive bunch. Must be the weeks on end without seeing the sun. I wasn’t going to share Billy’s mermaid comment with the crew.
We packed it all in one of our standard, olive drab canisters. The canisters were cylindrical, almost five feet long and about a foot in diameter. They were sealed when closed and would keep out ocean water or desert sand. They also had a pointed end and could penetrate a jungle canopy or the roof of any third-world hut — we had had a couple of embarrassing incidents to prove that. If you weren’t careful, you could over-pack, making them incredibly heavy. The one feature they did not have was built-in luggage wheels.
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