by Brad Murray
Then disgust.
Shortly after, it was utter bewilderment that filled their faces.
“I don’t understand,” said a befuddled Lars.
Brumeux bent over, leaning on his cane, and carefully placed the open box on the space on the floor between the Wickers and himself. Jimmy stood to get a better look. The rest of the room craned their necks in their own effort to see. Jimmy peered in and found himself with much the same reaction as the Wickers.
The box was lined with cotton. On top of the cotton lay two seemingly dead mice.
One white. One black.
Jimmy looked at Brumeux as the corners of his mustached lips turned up in a mischievous grin. He had seen that grin several times during the course of the day, and he seen it enough to know that Brumeux was about to reveal something astounding.
32
Today – May 29, 2011
“Allow me to introduce to you a pair of test subjects from our lab,” Brumeux said. “Both rodents the unfortunate recipients of a rather nasty injection, received this morning. They are yet alive, though considering their diminutive mass and the concentration of the injection, they will only endure for another few hours.”
“What’s the meaning of this?” woofed Letta. “Some kind of sick, twisted joke?”
“You’ve heard of Mad Cow Disease I presume?”
Lars and Letta nodded their heads cautiously.
“The subjects were injected with a deadly concoction our scientists contrived as part of our effort to combat the pandemics your Alicante scientists might dream up. The concoction is quite literally destroying these rodents from within. It contains a substance called prions. Now then, a little background on prions - they are named as such because they are essentially protein infections – the “Pr”stands for protein, and the “ion” for infection. Prions are particularly nasty little devils, their mission being to persuade other proteins to misfold and replicate. The replication can occur at an alarming rate, causing all sorts of terrible problems for the host organism.”
Brumeux stooped to check in on the mice while he spoke.
“Your scientists would diagnose this disorder as Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease – CJD for short. CJD, in overly simplistic terms, is a form of Mad Cow Disease that can affect humans. You may recall the news reports of cattle acting strangely – shaking, and contorting in unnatural ways - their brains not working properly. CJD affects humans in much the same manner. Memory loss and hallucinations occur at first. Then anxiety, depression, paranoia. Eventually, speech problems and uncontrollable muscular spasms ensue. The prions continue their unrelenting attack on the brain. Holes begin to develop until, eventually, the brain becomes sponge-like.”
Brumeux reached down and softly stroked the mice.
“There’s no known cure, at least none that anyone outside the Order is aware of. No, contracting CJD is an absolute, unconditional death sentence.”
Brumeux reached again inside his coat. He pulled out a syringe, a tiny amount of gold-colored liquid inside. He winked at Jimmy.
“A death sentence, unless you have some of this,” he said, eyeing the gold liquid. He held the needle over the white mouse, its pink tail flopping in tiny, mouse-sized spasms and one of its red eyes peering out disturbingly. Brumeux moved the needle over the top of the black mouse; it too the victim of tiny, irregular mouse spasms.
“I’ve only got enough for one,” said Brumeux. “Which shall I save?”
He looked up at the Wickers from under the brim of his black fedora and smiled. “I’ll go with the black one. I’ve always had an affinity for black.”
Brumeux pinched the scruff of the mouse’s neck, carefully directing the needle through the fur and into the skin. He pressed the stopper down delicately, the gold liquid exiting from the syringe and into the bloodstream of the dying rodent. Pleased, Brumeux withdrew the needle and placed it back inside his coat. He watched carefully, along with the rest of the room while he stroked the mouse’s back.
“Give him a few minutes,” said Brumeux softly, “and you will begin to notice signs of improvement. Unfortunately, our little white friend will not be so lucky.”
Lars huffed. “I don’t know about you, dear sister, but I feel as though we are judges at a child’s science fair. A very bizarre presentation, Brumeux. A peculiar demonstration indeed. I haven’t a clue as to what this has to do with anything, nor why you would think this…display would convince us to withdraw from the Alicante…”
“Agent Jordan has been injected with CJD,” Brumeux said coldly. “She will die within three months if untreated.”
The collective breath of the room had been sucked away. Letta flopped back into her wheelchair, her posture slumping and her face drooping. In that instant, Letta looked as though she might drop dead at any moment. Lars shook his head in denial.
“It can’t be true,” breathed Lars. “I don’t believe it.”
“It is true,” said Jenny, her voice cracking. “Isn’t it Brumeux? It was last Thursday. I was ordered to receive mandatory innoculations. Immunization procedure required for field agents, I was told.”
Jenny’s voice trailed off. She was dazed. Her life meant nothing to Brumeux. To him she was merely a means to an end; a sacrificial lamb.
“Our particularly aggressive strain of CJD is hard at work at Agent Jordan’s brain, conducting its unrelenting work. It is chipping away, bit by bit. It will not rest until its work is complete, and nothing can stop its progress. Except me.”
Letta kneaded her hands under her white shawl. She nervously chewed the inside of her cheek.
“You will inform the Alicante of your withdrawal from their ranks. With your departure, I’m confident their efforts to develop deadly global infections will fade, yes? After all, it is you who’ve championed this cause. Granted, Alicante meetings and its agenda are very secretive, but it is my understanding that there is a significant amount of disagreement amongst its members around the cause of creating a pandemic. The Alicante members, it seems, have their own self-interests and agendas to push. There’s truly no passion amongst the others for your cause, is there?”
Lars and Letta sat in silence, which only served to confirm Brumeux’s premise.
“From this outsider’s perspective,” continued Brumeux, “if it weren’t for the Wicker’s pushing the topic of population control, the appetite of the Alicante to command such a controversial endeavor would not exist at all.”
“We withdraw our membership, and you’ll give Jenny the antidote,” said Letta. “Do we have your word?”
“My word is my bond,” smiled Brumeux.
“Look!” said Emma in a half-whisper. She pointed to the tiny black box still lying on the floor. Inside, the black mouse had come to life. It sat on its back haunches, sniffing the air. It flicked at its whiskers with one paw, as if nothing had ever been wrong. Next to it, the white mouse appeared worse than ever, writhing in sharp side-to-side convulsions.
“The elixir of life,” Brumeux said proudly to Jimmy and Andy. “Perhaps you can see now why I’ve gone to such great lengths to protect you.”
Brumeux turned to Lars and Letta. “And to think, your father almost ended their line.”
Lars loosened his collar, a bead of sweat trickled down his red face.
“Don’t underestimate the Alicante, Mr. Brumeux,” Lars said through his teeth. “If the Alicante become aware, they will come to possess Mr. Porter for themselves and…”
“It won’t come to that, will it Lars? You’ll make certain they don’t become aware, won’t you? After all, the only members of the Alicante who are aware of Mr. Porter’s existence are in this room. Oh, we will be watching very closely, Lars. And if we get the slightest hint of the Alicante’s interest in the Porter family, you will be sorry. We’ll inject every member of your family, your friends, and the families of your friends with concoctions your scientists have never dreamed of.”
“The Alicante will protect them,” started Letta.
“Fine, Brumeux,” said Letta. “You have made your point. We will no longer participate in Alicante activities. You have our word…”
“Hold on Letta,” Lars cut in. “I have to ask, Brumeux. Why go through all of this trouble? You could have had one of your people inject me and my sister with one of your horrific laboratory creations long ago. Could have killed us both and put an end to our participation in the Alicante. Why go through all the difficulty and risk of getting us here tonight when you could have accomplished what you wanted by simply killing us?”
Brumeux grinned slyly.
“First of all,” he said, “you and your sister are very cunning. You do not often leave the protective curtain of the Alicante. You do not go out in public. Further, it would raise red flags within the Alicante if you both were to die at the same time of such conspicuous circumstances. Yes, I contemplated such a notion on countless occasions over the years. And I suppose we could have achieved such a goal had we put our minds to it. But, truth be told, the overriding reason I didn’t kill you was that there’s no civility in being so…sneaky. What fun would it have been to kill you in such a manner?”
Brumeux locked eyes with La’Roi and winked.
“After all, there are very few joys in life more utterly satisfying than defeating your adversary, and together sharing in the incontrovertible truth that I have bested you.”
La’Roi recalled Brumeux’s Spy vs. Spy framed comic in his study from earlier in the day; the one in which the black spy had been victorious over the white by deceiving him with an electrified yo-yo. La’Roi looked over Brumeux, dressed head-to-toe in black. And then he looked at the elderly couple, adorned head-to-toe in white.
“Oh damn!” gasped La’Roi, his eyes wide.
Brumeux winked at him.
Lars’ contempt and irritation were building; he’d inherited his father’s temper, and it was beginning to boil over. He was not accustomed to defeat, and the fact it was Brumeux who had defeated him was all the more maddening.
“You act as if you are as pure as the driven snow,” said Lars, the vein his forehead bulging more than ever. “But let us not forget some of your exploits, shall we? Just this morning, you condemned dozens of innocent people to their deaths on that interstate by spraying a cloud of poison over them…”
“Lars - enough,” started Letta, concern for Jenny’s safety still paramount in her mind.
“An accident,” Brumeux casually replied. “Unfortunate human error.”
“Not sure I’m buying that,” said Jimmy. “Why have a crop duster filled with poison flying over the interstate in the first place? And if it were inadvertent, why did Uncle Ram already have an oxygen mask on before he flew into it? No, I think you planned this. I think you had decided the most convincing way to demonstrate my uniqueness was to poison everyone around me and when I was the only one left standing, I would see there was something special about me and - I don’t know - be converted to your side or something? You didn’t have a lot of time for show, so you just said ‘screw it’ and you killed everybody, didn’t you?”
Jimmy words stung Brumeux. He stammered for a moment, searching for a response. Either he was an excellent actor or Jimmy’s accusation had actually wounded the man.
“I’m sorry your perception of me is so negative,” Brumeux said. “I had hoped that by now you would have seen the basis for my actions – the greater good. Protecting you trumps everything else in the grand scheme of things.”
“We can have these discussions later, for now let’s discuss Jenny’s cure…”started Letta before getting cut off by a deep voice from across the room.
“You set me up,” said Minkowski, his rumbling, thickly accented voice croaking dryly in anguish. His lips were swollen, bruised and bloodied. Like his boss, Minkowski had been reduced to one good eye, the other swollen shut and purple.
“I gave you everything,” he continued. “You sent them to my house. You released my identity to the Alicante. And then you sent Tatiana, knowing I would only talk if she was held captive too.”
“I couldn’t take any chances,” admitted Brumeux. “The story had to believable – it had to come from you, my most trusted associate. I’m sorry, old friend. I only ask you to bear in mind our mission. All our efforts reach their zenith today.”
“They could have killed me.”
“They wouldn’t. They wouldn’t have risked it. You were too valuable; as the Order’s second in command, you possess so much valuable knowledge, they wouldn’t dare kill you. You did your job, Dr. Minkowski. And you did it well. Your service to our initiatives…”
“Our initiatives?” bellowed Minkowski. “Your initiatives! Listening to you just now, I came to the realization that all of this is a farce. You manipulated people, killed people…you did all of this because you were obsessed with the Wickers. Because their father killed yours.”
“No, Dmitri,” Brumeux replied, unease in his tone. “You’re not thinking clearly. I know you’ve endured a lot…”
“You know nothing! You have never experienced torture. You’ve never sat helplessly wondering if you or the woman you love would survive it. You’ve never experienced a decade of imprisonment, leaving your friends and family to think you dead. You’ve never had a brother taken from you, and left you to think it was you who caused his demise. You know nothing of pain. You know nothing of suffering…”
“Wait,” said Jimmy. “What do you mean? The brother part – what are you talking about?”
“Dr. Minkowski,” Brumeux interrupted. “Let us not say things that might be misconstrued…”
“Cooper,” said Minkowski blankly. “Cooper’s fall that put him in the hospital…”
Emma gasped. Andy released his grip on Emma’s shoulder and stood. He turned to confront Brumeux, Jimmy stood alongside him, shoulder to shoulder with his father.
“What did you do?” Andy demanded.
Brumeux appeared in absolute anguish. His shoulders slumped and his face drooped. As he removed his fedora from atop of his head, long strands of wispy white hair were exposed. He held the hat over his heart, cane dangling from one hand. It appeared as if he were asking for an absolution, and in a manner of speaking, he was.
“James,” pleaded Brumeux. “Listen to me. We had nothing to do with Cooper’s injuries. It was, as you’ve always known, a terrible accident.”
“You caused it, didn’t you?” Jimmy puffed. “Somehow you caused him to fall from that rappel line, didn’t you? You sonofabitch –“
“Calm down, James,” Brumeux implored. “Your brother’s accident and subsequent paralysis happened naturally. Just an unfortunate roll of the dice in life’s game of chance. Please believe me…”
“He could have cured his paralysis,” Minkowski’s droning, unemotional voice cut in. “Could have done so at any time over the last few m
onths since the injury. But Brumeux held back, allowing your brother to rot away in that putrid V.A. hospital -”
“Cure him? You mean with my blood?” asked Jimmy excitedly. “My blood could cure him just like the mouse? Just like La’Roi earlier?”
The words came out so fast they were nearly on top of each other.
Brumeux nodded hesitantly.
All the breath from Jimmy’s lungs seemed to exit at once and he had trouble filling them up again. He interlocked his fingers behind his head and inhaled as deeply as he could, pacing back and forth with an abundance of new-found energy. His little brother would walk again. Cooper would get a healthy dose of that gold stuff – the stuff made from his blood – and he would walk again. The terrible burden Jimmy had been carrying would be removed with the simple release of a syringe’s stopper. The guilt he’d felt for not being there – for not protecting his little brother – would be gone forever.
I am my brother’s keeper.
“Cooper will be healed?” cried Emma. “My baby will walk?”
She rose from the sofa and threw her arms around her son.
“My boys,” Emma blubbered into Jimmy’s chest. Her streaked mascara ran in grey tracks down Jimmy’s t-shirt, but he could not have cared less at that moment. As for Andy, he wouldn’t have missed the chance to join in; the three locked their arms around each other and clinched tightly together.
Thoughts whirled through Jimmy’s head at a dizzying pace. He couldn’t wait to see his brother’s face, to let him know of the miracle that would occur. He would pull his brother out of the darkness and into the light, through the miracle that flowed in his veins. He would single-handedly free his brother from the bonds of the miserable gloom of that hospital. And, as the icing on the cake, he would bring along with him their long lost father – Jimmy having heroically knocked down the prison walls that kept Dad away for so long.