The Cure

by Freddie Villacci Jr

  “Have a seat,” the agent called to him. “You’ll be taken to the back cabin once we’re in the air.”

  “Yes sir, sir, yes sir,” Jaco said under his breath, surveying the finer details of the plane’s interior.

  He fell into one of the captain’s chairs, the young agent beside him. Jaco closed his eyes. He didn’t care to know the kid’s name. To him, names, like the people they were attached to, were unimportant unless they came with some intrinsic value that would benefit Jaco Ivanov. He ran through various scenarios he might encounter once the meeting began, and their outcomes. He hoped it would be something he could take care of alone. He didn’t want to involve more people than necessary. Pies were better whole, not split.

  About 30 minutes after takeoff, he opened his eyes and looked out the nearest window. All he could see was the vast Atlantic Ocean. They were a couple hundred miles offshore by now. The young man sitting next to him had his right index finger on his earpiece. He nodded and stood. “Sir, they’re ready for you in the back room.”

  Jaco stood, then proceeded through the eight-panel door leading to the rear section of the plane. The space was about three times larger than the front cabin, with four captain’s chairs identical to the ones up front occupying a small foyer. Beyond was a massive, walnut oval conference room table with a dozen chairs around it.

  Two men sat at the table, wearing collared shirts. Suitcoats hanging on hooks at the end of the room emphasized the backroom feel of the meeting. One was Colton Nash, the CFO of Vintigen. Colton was one of those guys who had a boyish face that make them look twenty-nine for decades. As long as you didn’t know him when he was twenty-nine. He was tan, short, chubby, blue-eyed, and he had his blond hair like Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor. Tasteful but expensive jewelry shone from wrist, fingers, cuffs, and collar, including a tie pin and a collar pin. Jaco thought maybe that was the rich man’s version of suspenders and a belt.

  The other was Peter Rains, a CIA operative in charge of the black ops assets operations. His look was pretty much the opposite. Dark hair and eyes, tall, trim, dark suit, and no jewelry except a watch, and not an expensive one. Peter was his handler some five years back, before Jaco had gone rogue. Jaco knew that in Peter’s world, when he was going to do something on US soil for the “good of the country,” using hired guns from the criminal world was part of the playbook. And if one gets caught, one merely exterminates the problem, and life goes on.

  Peter stood and extended his hand. “Jaco. Good to see you again.”

  “Likewise.”

  Peter motioned for him to sit at the head of the table.

  Jaco pointed to the 30-year single malt bottle of Glenfiddich at the bar. “That for little old me?”

  Rains smiled. “Thought you might like a drink once the deal is done.”

  Jaco sat, “I’ll admit it’s a nice touch, Peter, but don’t think a fine bottle of scotch is going to get you a discount.”

  Nash cleared his throat. “Now that you mention it, can we get down to business?”

  Jaco glared at the man with a deeply calm smile, “By all means.”

  Nash opened a file folder for Jaco to see. “Mr. Ivanov, I’m going to cut right to the chase. There’s a small biotech company called Greentech. It’s getting in the way. We’d like very much for its founder, its scientists, and all of its research to… not be in the way anymore.”

  Jaco scanned the file, taking his time about it.

  “Our people will take care of the research submitted,” said Rains. “The patents, the FDA crap. We need you to take care of the rest.”

  Jaco clapped the folder shut. “What’s the pay?”

  “Two million.” Rains said.

  Jaco snickered. “I mean in total.”

  Rains and Nash exchanged glances.

  Jaco leaned forward. “Gentlemen, you wouldn’t have hired me if this company wasn’t a really big problem for you. So, tell me, what are they on the verge of curing this time? Diabetes? HIV?”

  “It’s no different than any job in the past,” said Rains.

  “Sure it is. I can tell by the scotch.”

  “The Powers That Be want the company taken out,” said Rains. “Leave it at that, Jaco. Are you in or out?”

  Jaco sat on his thought for a moment, then smiled. “I’ll be damned. It’s cancer, isn’t it?”

  So it was a problem after all. Over 75 percent of Vintigen’s revenue came from cancer treatment drugs. “Which type of cancer we talking about?”

  “According to our guy at the FDA, all of them,” said Nash.

  “You don’t need me,” said Jaco. “Seems like you could buy this startup company for two million. Sorry, gentlemen, but you wasted your scotch money.”

  “We’ve made an offer,” said Nash. “They’re not for sale.”

  “Everybody’s for sale,” said Jaco.

  “Not this broad,” said Nash. He pulled out the second page in the packet.

  “And who’s this?”

  “This is Grace E. Green, known as Gracie,” said Rains. “She’s the founder, head scientist, and private owner of the company.”

  “And your chief target,” added Nash.

  The picture of the young woman made him smile. Her skin, her cheeks, her full lips, her brown eyes kind and intense at the same time. She reminded him of the first time he’d seen Halle Berry on the big screen. He tapped the photo. “I don’t kill kids, it’s bad business.”

  “She’s no kid,” Nash sneered. “She’s 31 years old. A Ph.D. and M.D.”

  Jaco looked at Rains, and then back at Nash, distracted for a moment by the chunky ring on Nash’s right hand.

  “What’s with this guy and his silence?” Nash said.

  “Relax Colton. Jaco, we’re prepared to erase your debt on that failed hotel you dumped your life savings into in Miami. We’ll buy it for one million more than you owe.”

  “The swimming pool is worth more than that. Speaking of money, who’s backing the company? Family? Hedge fund?”

  “She doesn’t have any family,” said Rains. “She was orphaned at the age of five when her mother died. She comes from nothing. Common as dirt.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.” Jaco enunciated, “Where’s the money coming from?”

  “She’s scrounged up a couple of grants here and there, plus a minority female business loan.”

  “Uh huh,” said Jaco. “Mr. Nash, to answer your question earlier, my silence means I like to mull over the facts. That’s how I am. I treat every problem in life the same way. Traffic jams, papercuts, and your little rodent problem.” He jabbed a finger at the man. “You’re here risking everything because if this drug hits the market, your company would be bankrupt in a month, the hospitals in 5, the States in 10 from Medicaid, and the government in 20 from Social Security and Medicare.”

  Rains took a deep breath and nodded his head.

  Jaco continued. “As a professional staying in my lane, I’m going to go light. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered, right?” He made deep eye contact with Rains, then landed on Nash. “Gentlemen, forget the hotel. Add another 19 million to my contract. I assure you, when I’m done, Miss Green and her company will stink so much that people will think they’re selling fertilizer.”

  After a moment, Nash nodded to Rains.

  Rains put a flat palm on the table. “Let’s drink some scotch.”

  4

  Two Months Later

  The Slutty Dragon was filled with the finest elements of the New Orleans populace that three AM had to offer. Bic could only guess what smells the overwhelming Febreze scent covered as he scanned the patrons. Half of them were C-level street thugs barking all sorts of degrading slurs at the strippers—acting like they owned the place. The other half were men in dirty work clothes, still there nine hours after the job was over. The only difference between the two types was the costume; nasty behavior was universal.

  B
ehind his sunglasses, Bic scoped out the drug element. These were the fixtures of the place. They matched the carpet, the scarred furniture, and the cigarette burns in the upholstery, and the tattered soul of the place.

  He spotted Hawk cheering along with the rest of the crowd as a drab stripper with silver chains hooked to bondage rings on her g-string and a red bra studded with rhinestones swung her bleach-blonde hair, working the pole to Warrant’s Cherry Pie. Bic locked eyes with his best friend, a man he’d known since Vietnam. Hawk fit this environment, still dressing like it was 1980, when he rode with a Texas biker gang, hanging onto his greasy steel-gray locks with their business up front, party in the back style.

  “What, I’m not allowed to enjoy myself?” Hawk smiled, then pulled out a fiver and contributed to the spray of bills raining down at the dancer’s feet.

  Bic turned and spotted the group he was looking for deep in the corner of the club. Two high-level scumbags that had four girls, all of a type, blonde and extra buxom, giving them lap dances. That wasn’t unusual. The cocaine being snorted out in the open? That was unusual.

  Bic walked up to the table. The bald white dude had arm sleeve tattoos on both arms and a sleeveless black shirt that showed them off. The smaller black dude had a tight fade, sunglasses that looked like Neo from The Matrix had loaned them to him, and a crisp, white designer shirt with subtle texture and white buttons. These guys were working really hard to look a level of cool they weren’t.

  Bic stood over the men for a long moment.

  Mr. Matrix caught his eye. “Yo, get your own, man.” He waved his fingers. “Run along, bro.”

  “I’m looking for the priest,” Bic replied.

  "You what?”

  “You wanna buy?” said Mr. Sleeve Tattoos. “An eight ball’s $150.”

  “I don’t wanna buy,” Bic said flatly.

  “Then it’s best you run along boy,” said Mr. Matrix, “before someone gets hurt.”

  “I don’t want any trouble,” said Bic.

  “Oh good,” returned the man. “Then you’ll understand that I’m a little busy here.”

  Bic stepped forward and gently swung aside the ladies entertaining Mr. Matrix like a pair of western doors. “I said I don’t want trouble.”

  “Oh,” he pulled down his sunglasses, “you see, that’s funny, because you just found trouble.”

  Mr. Sleeve Tattoos tossed his two strippers aside and stood up. He was roughly the same build as Bic. Before he could make it fully upright, Bic landed a punch to the throat. The guy dropped, gasping for air. One of the strippers screamed as the other dealer pulled a 9-millimeter out from behind his back. The ladies ran for cover.

  A shiny silver .357 Magnum came up from behind the man. It was Hawk, who stuck the barrel into the dude’s ear before he could do anything else. “Hand over the hardware, Bobby Brown,” he purred, as he cocked the hammer, “unless you want me to blow a hole as big as the Belle Chasse tunnel through your head.”

  “You don’t know who you messin’ with,” Mr. Matrix spat as he handed Hawk his gun.

  “I think I’m messing with,” Hawk half-sang in a high-pitched voice, following the tune with a laugh to himself. “the idiot with a .357 acting like it’s a Q-tip in his ear.”

  Bic stepped up to the man. “The priest. Where is he?”

  “Oh boy, someone better call 911 for little Bobby,” Hawk sang out.

  The man on the floor attempted to get to his knees, but Bic threw a ferocious forearm into the man’s jaw. He dropped back down to the floor unconscious. Bic then grabbed the man sitting by his shirt and pulled him to his feet.

  “Where’s the priest?” he roared holding the man off the floor.

  “Please don’t kill me.”

  “Where?” Bic shook him like a rag doll.

  Urine soaked the front of the drug dealer’s pants as he stammered, “he’s in the VIP room.”

  “This here room is taken,” an older black man wearing the familiar tab collar priest shirt said, as he snorted a line of cocaine through a rolled-up 100 off an Asian girl’s stomach. She ran her fingers through the back of her hair and moaned as the priest snorted.

  The priest glanced up in annoyance and saw Bic. Even though he was high as a kite, seeing the big man sobered him right up. “I—I can explain!”

  Bic clenched his jaw and his nostrils flared as he repeated his performance and grabbed the priest by the throat, fighting back his instincts to crush his windpipe. The stripper’s eyes went wide and she bounced up, sending white powder flying as she fled the room.

  “Where is Clarence Green?” Bic growled.

  The man gasped by way of reply.

  Bic relaxed his grip.

  “There must be some mistake, I swear in front of God Himself.”

  Bic put a vice grip on the man’s throat. The man’s eyes bulged.

  “Your life depends on your next words.”

  The man panted for his life. “I’ll take you to him!”

  Bic released his grip.

  The priest fell to his hands and knees, gasping in a full breath of air until Bic blasted him with a haymaker to the jaw. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.

  “That’s what you get for lying, Pinocchio,” said Hawk, coming up behind him. He had given Bic a moment alone while slipping the bouncers and management a stack of hundreds to ignore them. “Think this douche really knows where your old man is?”

  “He showed me his grave, gave me a letter from him, trying to make amends for what happened.” Bic looked into his friend’s eyes, feeling the sour burn in his own. “Somehow, that letter gave me a sense of inner peace; it made it so I was able to let go of all of it.”

  “Sorry brother, I hate the man and I never met him.”

  Logic took a backseat to rage as the repeated thumps of his father smashing his mother’s skull with a black iron pan stuck in Bic’s head like an earworm.

  Bic muttered to himself the last words his father ever spoke to him after he jammed a raw pork chop into his mouth, choking him unconscious, It’s pork chop-eatin’ time.

  He dragged the priest out of the room by one foot, the head dragging and thumping along the floor. He said nothing. Action was going to be the only words spoken from here on out.

  5

  Today’s the day, Dr. Gracie Green thought to herself, tossing the latest research report in the center of her desk next to her oversized flat screen monitor. She smiled at the only other item on her desktop: her favorite childhood picture with her mother. The rest of her office was clean, simply furnished, with the kind of store-bought furniture that comes in pieces you have to assemble yourself. The desk had a hutch and small wardrobe closet where she could keep her lab gear. She turned to her conference table, a small, square table pushed up against the wall, where the blueprints of her grand plans were on display.

  Gracie smiled as she thumbed through them, thinking fondly of how she came from nothing—like so many in her neighborhood. And now, here she was on the brink of something that could help revitalize her community while impacting lives around the world. What a long journey it had been since her mother died of ovarian cancer, when Gracie, aged seven, vowed she’d find a cure.

  So far, she’d renovated only a small fraction of the building: a reception area in the front that led to a work area serving as a research lab. All the lab equipment was top of the line and was where virtually all her sole investor’s money had gone. Behind the laboratory were four offices, one of which was her own. Once she received FDA approval and started the march through the human trial phases, she was going to turn her abandoned 450,000-square-foot auto-parts factory into a state-of-the-art drug production facility.

  The data from her latest series of experiments had confirmed it. Greentech, her two-year-old biotech company, really did have a cure for all types of cancer—and a quick one at that. Even though they had met every single criterion to begin Phase I human trials, the FDA had not ap
proved their applications. Once again, bureaucracy and innovation were proving to be deadly enemies.

  After her third try with data showing that lab mice previously loaded with cancer cells were cancer-free within two weeks with no side effects, the FDA sent her a letter stating their concern that her drug compounds may actually do more harm than good, citing the potential that the cure may create toxins in the blood stream that would likely result in brain damage. It was complete speculation, of course, and backed by no empirical evidence. The rest of the letter recommended she spend a ridiculous amount of money on new experiments to meet these fabricated toxicity requirements and reapply after trials were independently verified. Best case, they were costing her a year.

  With a cure she believed was going to be as much of a game changer as penicillin, Gracie had taken matters into her own hands. In a couple of hours, the mayor of Chicago would be visiting. It was a natural solution. The mayor would get his press footage showing he cared about the South Side of Chicago for the up and coming election. After all, what better photo-op than a young black female starting a biotech business right in the heart of what others deemed a war zone? Yes, she knew why he was there, but if she impressed him enough and converted him to a true believer in her company, she’d have a powerful ally with enough political clout to cut through all that FDA red tape with one phone call.

  She went over to the hutch wardrobe, opened the door, and looked at herself in the mirror. Across the bottom of the frame the word BELIEVE was etched.

  She took a deep breath, then said to herself, “You got this.”

  Her hair was long, full, and dark, with tight curls, her face accented with just the right touches of makeup. She approved. Clean and simple. No visible jewelry, though underneath her blouse she wore an emerald heart pendant Unc had given her for her high school graduation.

  She’d treated herself to a shopping trip the week before. The dark navy suit pants felt tight now for some reason. The vibrant but conservative blue silk blouse was sticking to her. Thank God she got her tailored lab coat pressed, professionally covering it all up. She ran her finger along the stitched name: Grace E. Green, Ph.D., M.D.