The Cure

by Freddie Villacci Jr

Gracie focused on her target and lunged.

  91

  Gracie, Zhou, and Quinn stood in a triangle.

  Gracie widened her eyes as she pointed the gun at Zhou. She handed it off to Quinn. “You’re better with these things than I am.”

  “You don’t know what you’re doing!” Zhou lunged for the weapon.

  Quinn snatched the gun and pointed it at Zhou’s face. “Hands on your head. Now.”

  Quinn spun Zhou, then grabbed the back of his shirt, walking towards Mack and Zhou’s men on the floor. On the way, he shot Zhou’s man in the back of the head. He then pressed the barrel against Zhou’s temple. “Call your tech boy with the formulas.”

  Gracie went to Bic. She saw the jellyfish’s tentacles wrapped around Bic’s forearm. “Quinn, help me get him out, he’s getting stung.”

  “He’s gone, Gracie, let him go.”

  She ignored him, still trying to help Bic.

  Quinn grabbed Gracie and pulled her up to him. He aimed his gun at Mack.

  “Sorry, bud, can’t trust anyone. Make your way here, leave the weapon on the floor.”

  “Quinn, you’re scaring me,” Gracie said.

  “We can’t trust anyone, darling.”

  He’d never called her ‘darling’ before.

  At point blank range, Mack had no choice but to follow Quinn’s orders. He walked towards Quinn with his hands up. “How’s your niece doing?”

  Quinn smirked, “If I had one, she’d be great.”

  “Quinn, please tell me what’s happening,” Gracie pleaded from within his grasp.

  The young man entered the room from the staircase, opposite side of the explosion.

  “Go ahead and put the computer and the flash drive on the couch.”

  The kid followed the order.

  “Get your phone out and dial 703-552-5752. Put it on speaker.”

  After a moment, they heard, “Rains speaking.”

  “It’s Quinn. I have the target. Jaco’s dead. Need to be extracted ASAP at Navy Pier. You can’t miss it. There’s a 100-foot mega-yacht on fire.”

  “The extraction team will be there in five.”

  “Make it two,” said Quinn, and shot the hacker in the chest.

  Gracie stared at the young man, then Mr. Zhou.

  “I’m sorry I allowed this man to break your heart,” said Zhou. “That was not my intention.”

  “And they say chivalry is dead.” said Quinn. He snapped a round into Zhou’s head. The bullet exited out the back, spraying the white couch in an abstract mist of red bone, brain matter, and blood.

  “There’s going to be a special place in hell for you,” Mack said.

  “It’s not going to be easy, but duty calls.” Quinn took dead aim at Mack.

  Mack had nowhere to go. Quinn had him at point blank range.

  “Listen, Quinn,” Mack said, “even if you don’t have a niece with cancer, at some point—”

  Quinn shot Mack in the chest. He fell to the floor.

  “Good thing that I have a spare bottle of the pills,” Quinn said proudly.

  Gracie couldn’t feel anything except for the unbearable pain of betrayal. It was Quinn all along on the inside playing her. She quickly flashed back. The bad guys had somehow been one step ahead of their every move, using her to find and destroy all remains of her formula.

  She stared at Bic. “Sorry for not trusting you, Unc,” she whispered.

  Mack stirred on the floor.

  Quinn flipped Mack onto his back with his foot, “I forgot about that lame ass vest. Let’s see what happens when I put one in your head.”

  As the hammer snapped forward, Gracie sprung up, knocking Quinn’s arm upward.

  The bullet missed Mack by millimeters, slicing his cheek like a knife.

  “You bitch!” Quinn threw her to the floor. “Okay then, you first. Rains wanted you dead before I was picked up.”

  “Everything about you is revolting,” Gracie snarled.

  “Don’t take it personal, darlin’, you were a nice piece of ass. Under other circumstances, we might have had a go at it.” Quinn took dead aim at Gracie.

  Like a crocodile springing from a river’s edge, Bic exploded towards Quinn.

  With a jelly fish in his hand, he slapped the cube-sized invertebrate onto Quinn’s face.

  Quinn screamed in agony as Bic pulled him into the tank, body-slamming him into the water, pushing his body under.

  As quick as Bic came to life, his battery quickly ran out of juice. He staggered back to the tank’s edge.

  Mack ran up to help pull Bic out of the tank.

  “We have to get out of here!” he said to Gracie. “I got Bic, you grab the formulas!”

  92

  The speedboat bounced at high speed, smacking down on the waves with a steady, rhythmic clap. As luck would have it, the super yacht had a speedboat for a dinghy. Mack and Gracie had to carry Bic into the boat. By the time they’d made it to the lower deck launch area, Bic was falling in and out of consciousness. They’d sat him in the back of the speedboat, and he hadn’t moved from there since.

  Gracie had instructed Mack to head south to Jackson Park harbor. About ten miles south, the University of Chicago hospital was a couple of blocks from the lake. There Bic could get world-class medical care. It was getting dark. Mack hugged the shoreline, using the streetlights on Lake Shore Drive as a guide.

  “Anna’s mom, you did it.” Mack hollered over the sound of the motor and waves.

  “How do you know Diana?” Gracie yelled as the wind blew in their faces.

  “I met her a couple of weeks ago. You cured her, she was cancer free!”

  “I had suspected Anna would try, but I didn’t want to know if she did, since it would jeopardize the company. She’s such a great lady. I can’t wait to see her.”

  Gracie looked out at the skyline, where the lights outlined hundreds of different buildings, all shapes and sizes. She sucked in the cool lake air in appreciation of the moment of confirmation. She had cured cancer.

  “Did she have any side effects?”

  “No, she was perfect.”

  “You keep saying was.”

  “How fast do you think you can make more pills?”

  “I don’t know, why?”

  “My wife, Caroline. She’s on hospice, fighting for her life. She is being driven here to meet with us and I need you to save her.”

  “There’s a research lab about a block away from the hospital. With all my formulas, depending on what they have in the lab, I can come pretty close, maybe.”

  “I hope so. See if Bic’s phone still works. If it does, he should have a contact named Tony Parelli in there. I want you to text him where we are going to be.”

  Gracie went to the back of the boat. She rubbed Bic’s head. His eyes seemed lifeless, his pupils filling them. Gracie wanted him to blink or focus on her. She was sick to her stomach thinking about the number of things that could be wrong with Bic, including severe brain damage.

  “Unc, you still with me?”

  Bic did not respond.

  “It’s okay, you rest. We’re going to the hospital.”

  Gracie reached into his inside jacket pocket, grabbed his phone. It seemed to be working fine. She used his thumb to unlock the iPhone and went to texts, Tony was the last one. She texted him a quick recap of what had happened, where she was taking Bic and where they’d be.

  Gracie gave Bic a big hug and kiss on the forehead.

  Gracie stood next to Mack, her black hair blowing in the wind, “Do you have anyone you can call to help us?”

  “After what happened with Quinn, I have no idea who to trust.” Mack kept the steering wheel steady.

  “I can’t believe I fell for him. He played me.”

  “You and me both, sister. Don’t beat yourself up about it. He got what he deserved.”

  “Karma has a funny way of paying you back,” Gracie said, then p
ointed, “There’s the harbor, pull under Lake Shore Drive.”

  Mack turned the boat, slowing down to coast under the bridge into the lagoon.

  Off to the north about 3 miles, in the sea of darkness over Lake Michigan, lights from multiple helicopters shone as they glided toward them.

  “They’re coming,” Gracie said.

  “I count four of them. They notified the cavalry.” Mack reaccelerated the boat. “Our only chance is to get to land and become invisible.”

  93

  Mack raced past several rows of docked boats. At high speed, he entered a small canal that led to the oval-shaped lagoon, and after a sharp turn he headed directly west for the bank.

  He throttled the boat wide open. The bow jumped into the air high enough to clear the bank of rocks lining the lagoon edge. The hull smacked into the rocky shoreline, and its forward momentum launched the boat onto the grass. Dirt was thrown everywhere at impact, the front end stopping feet from S. Cornell Drive, a north and south road that hugged the lagoon.

  Bic’s body had been flung to the floor. Gracie tried in vain to lift him up. “There’s no way we can carry him.”

  “We got him here, didn’t we?” Mack growled like an Olympic weightlifter as he grabbed Bic and clean jerked him to his feet then dragged him out of the boat.

  Gracie grabbed the laptop.

  Holding Bic under his arms, Mack backpedaled, dragging him towards the street.

  From the north, a set of headlights came down Cornell Drive.

  “We need to stop that car,” Mack said, panting. “There’s no way I’ll be able to drag him to the hospital.”

  Gracie leaped out onto the road, flagging the car down.

  The car stopped, and she yelled out, “We need your help, our friend is sick.”

  The headlights were high and bright. It wasn’t just any car, it was a black Suburban.

  Two men got out of the car while a second black Suburban pulled up to the parked car’s passenger side, its light casting the shadow of a man in a dark suit, white shirt, black tie.

  “At last we meet.” The man approached Gracie and extended his hand. “Peter Rains.”

  Gracie took a step back, holding onto the laptop as if she were protecting her baby.

  “Don’t worry, I don’t bite.”

  A chopper from above lit up the whole street to reveal two additional Suburbans, with men pouring out of them like army ants. Before she could think to run, they had her pinned down in every direction.

  Mack watched in terror, still in the concealment of the bushes. He had to do something and now.

  He pulled out the EpiPen Bic had given him and he stabbed it into Bic’s thigh.

  Seconds later, no response from Bic.

  Mack pleaded as he tried to shake him awake. “Come on Bic, No ma la den, no ma la den,” he said, repeating the phrase he’d heard from Bic’s days in Vietnam. “We need the Black Ghost. We need him now.”

  Still no response. Mack placed Bic on the ground at the base of a large tree. He knew this was all on him. Caroline, Gracie, and the cure that could save millions would either stay alive or be killed forever, right here, right now.

  He went north, concealed by the heavy brush dividing the lagoon and the street. By his count, there were nine men he would have to deal with, using only a handgun. They were more than likely heavily armed. I am so going to die. He thought, but didn’t slow down.

  His only chance was to snatch Gracie out of there, and to do that he needed to take out one guy, the driver of Peter Rains’ vehicle. He could then take the vehicle and speed off, assuming he could also get Gracie in there with him.

  He crawled as close as possible to the edge of the bush cover. Like a leopard, his success would rest on the element of surprise.

  Apparently, there was a better leopard in the forest. Before Mack was able to spring his plan into action, he felt the cold hard steel of an assault rifle press up against his temple.

  “Shit.”

  “I’d say more like deep shit,” the man said with a smirk.

  94

  The man was dressed in all black, with a strong jawline. He prodded Mack in the back with the barrel of his rifle, pushing him out onto the road towards Gracie.

  “Quinn said you were like a harmless puppy, but I guess he was wrong.” Rains said when he saw him.

  “Overconfidence leaves a huge blind spot, especially when it comes to harmless puppies.”

  Rains considered Mack for a moment. “I usually don’t take things personally, but he was my number one asset. The kid was like a damn vampire, a stone-cold killer concealed by a beautiful inviting shell.”

  The man raised his rifle to point blank at Mack’s head. “Should I take him out?”

  “Not until I find out what the hell these news choppers are doing here,” said Rains.

  Mack looked up. Four choppers were circling. He had assumed they were with Rains when he first saw them from the speedboat, but in fact they were all the major news networks circling, taping them right now.

  Rains made a call. “I’ve got news choppers above us; I need someone to get them out of here now!”

  As Rains listened to his phone, Mack thought he heard something—a branch, maybe? —back in the direction he’d left Bic.

  “The media, we own them. Don’t they know that?” Rains hung up his phone. “Party’s over. We’re on live TV right now. We need to load them up.”

  “We’re not going anywhere. If you’re going to shoot us, you’ll have to do it right here,” Mack said.

  “Grab them,” said Rains. “We’ll lose the choppers, then take care of business.”

  Three of the men approached Gracie and Mack.

  Mack prepared himself to fight for Caroline’s life. He wasn’t sure what was up with the news choppers, but his instincts told him not to let them take them away from this site.

  Mack stepped in front of Gracie, corralling her behind him with his arm. He took a quick glance in the direction he had left Bic, thinking to himself, Okay, big guy, now would be a nice time to jump into this fight.

  “Let’s do this,” he said.

  The first man stepped forward to throw a right cross. Mack ducked then came back with an uppercut, connecting with the man’s jaw and snapping his head back.

  Fully engaged with the man he’d just punched, Mack didn’t pay attention to the other two men who had come up behind him. They grabbed him by his arms, one on each side, and the man he’d just punched returned the favor as he put all of his weight behind a shot to Mack’s stomach. Mack gasped as he felt like his guts had been smashed together.

  “Mack!” Gracie yelled out as another man grabbed her.

  The next shot was a right cross. The man’s fist smashed into Mack’s jaw. Blood sprayed from Mack’s mouth.

  Mack tried to break free, but the two men holding him were locked on.

  The man holding Gracie dragged her over next to Rains. He snatched the laptop from her and handed it to his boss.

  “You ready to get into the SUV now?” Rains asked.

  Mack looked toward the lagoon, blood trickling down his lip, praying with all his might that Bic would erupt onto the scene like hellfire.

  “Not unless it’s in a body bag,” Mack slurred.

  One of the men kicked down on Mack’s knee, chopping him to the floor.

  Feeling as if his leg had been just snapped in two, a pain greater than his physical wounds overtook him.

  He cried out in agony as he realized he had failed his soulmate.

  The men holding Mack raised him up a little, just the right angle as the third man slammed his fist across Mack’s jaw again. His head snapped sideways, blood sprayed from his mouth, his face numbed with pain.

  Discombobulated from the blow, he slurred, “I’m—”

  “Knock that punk out already,” said Rains.

  The man wound up for the final blow.

  “I’
m sorry, Caroline,” Mack mumbled through a mouthful of blood.

  “I’m right here,” A familiar female voice called out.

  95

  A bright light beamed into Mack’s face.

  He peered into the persistent light and saw the outline of a woman. She came closer. He wasn’t sure if the light was coming from a separate source or the figure itself was emitting it. Was this real?

  The figure grew closer still, then at her side, another figure, also female, and dressed in a red suit, appeared, holding a microphone.

  “Caroline?”

  A sudden clarity came to Mack. It was Caroline, and she was alive, and standing with an anchor woman for a local Chicago news station. The light was from the camera crew behind Caroline and the other woman, and the red light on the news camera was running live.

  She was alive, and she’d brought the news with her.

  “This is homeland security business,” Peter Rains barked, flashing his badge. “Turn the camera off and vacate the premises immediately as we apprehend this terrorist.”

  His shiny badge was as ineffectual as a rubber knife. Chicago PD swarmed in like wasps. Dozens of men in uniform came onto the scene, heavily armed, far outweighing the manpower of Rains and his team.

  The anchorwoman, her voice confident and strong, began the interview. “I’m here with F.B.I. Agent Caroline Foxx Maddox, who just days ago was on hospice care and unconscious, at the final days of her life from her losing battle with cancer. Can you tell me what happened?”

  Mack could see Caroline was still frail, but when he saw the green sparkle that had returned to her eyes, he knew that the impossible had happened. Where had it come from? How had it happened?

  “Yes, Dr. Gracie Green, the young lady right there, cured me of stage four terminal cancer. I’m here today as living proof that she has found a cure for cancer. The accusations against her and her company being a front for terrorists are absolutely false. Peter Rains was hired to make her look like a terrorist so they could wipe her and her company off the face of this earth.”

  Rains walked closer to the camera as he addressed everyone, “This woman is a terrorist who is responsible for the biggest attack in Chicago’s history—killing your mayor and several officers in the process.”