The Cure

by Freddie Villacci Jr

  “Terrorists don’t cure cancer,” Caroline retorted. “And agents follow procedure, unlike you.”

  Mack broke away.

  He stumbled over to Caroline and cradled her in his arms, staring into her eyes in utter amazement and an appreciation unmatched by anything he’d ever felt in his life.

  “I thought I was too late,” he said, eyes gleaming with water.

  “I’m right where I’m supposed to be. You’re a mess, by the way.”

  “Don’t make me cry,” he said. “It hurts.”

  “Okay,” said Rains, “we’re leaving. You all can have your say at the trial when Ms. Green has her due process.”

  “I know men like you,” said Caroline. “Your definition of due process is much different than for the rest of us.”

  “Well, unless anyone wants to commit a federal offense, we are taking the terrorist into custody,” Rains said. He walked towards his vehicle, and the man holding Gracie followed.

  Mack released Caroline, but before he could take a step, the two men who were holding him down got in front of him.

  Mack wasn’t sure what to do, but he was sure that if Rains took Gracie away they’d never see her alive again.

  His heart leaped into full throttle as he prepared to plow through the two men ahead of him as Gracie neared.

  Unexpectedly, a hardened looking Chicago cop with a shotgun stepped into the path of the man dragging Gracie.

  “Out of the way,” the man holding Gracie said.

  “My mother’s dying of cancer,” the cop said, not showing any sign of moving out of the way.

  “My auntie, she has cancer, too,” another cop said as he chambered a bullet and pointed it at Peter Rains.

  “We are federal agents, with the full authority of the United States of America. You will all be facing jail time. Now step aside or face the consequences.”

  Another cop, a Hispanic man, short with a stout build, tears running down both sides of his face, spoke up, “Nobody is taking this lady except us today. If there is even a chance she can save my baby girl, I don’t care who you are, time to throw down or get the hell out of our town.” The man pointed his shotgun at Rains.

  Metal clanked as Rains’ men and the Chicago PD pointed weapons at one another.

  “You have all made the worst move of your careers. There is no cure for cancer.” Rains pointed at Caroline. “I have no idea who this crazy broad is, but you all just fell for the biggest scam in history. There is no cure for cancer and there never will be.”

  Rains walked toward his Suburban. His men followed suit, heading back to their vehicles.

  Gracie ran to Mack and Caroline and embraced them both.

  The Chicago PD formed a protective circle around them. No one was getting near them on this night.

  “How did this happen?” Gracie asked.

  “I’m not sure,” said Caroline. “The man who helped me was one of Bic’s friends. He said Bic gave him the pills he had found on one of the terrorists who had blown up your building.”

  “Unc,” Gracie yelled out.

  “I left him in the bushes,” said Mack and pointed. “He was in pretty bad shape.”

  The Chicago PD escorted them to the bushes.

  96

  The black Suburban headed north on Lake Shore Drive.

  “If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’m going to ruin every person’s life who was there, all of them,” Rains yelled in the direction of his driver. “Don’t they know I will have her in custody by tomorrow morning? Those bottom dwellers have no idea who runs things.”

  He looked over at his driver. “What’s that look for, Parks?”

  “Sir, look at your phone. This thing went viral. I don’t think there’s any chance in hell we’re walking in there with paperwork and walking out.”

  Rains pulled up his phone and looked at his news feeds. It was everywhere. It even had its own hashtag on Twitter. #SaveTheCure had nine hundred thousand followers in a matter of twenty minutes.

  Rains’ phone rang. The caller ID read Colton Nash.

  “Colton,” Rains answered the phone. “Everything will be okay. It’s just going to be a little messier than what we’d like… No… hey! Listen… don’t you threaten me, I’ll make your ass disappear before you go to bed tonight!”

  Rains hung up the phone. “Dammit!”

  The driver stopped at a red light at the intersection of Lake Shore and East Roosevelt Road.

  Rains watched the traffic from Roosevelt come out into the intersection, turning left to head north on Lake Shore Drive in front of them. His mind was spinning, trying to gain clarity on his next move. He knew it would be big, but it had to be the right one.

  His driver turned on the radio. Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, 4th movement.

  Rains sat in stillness, waiting for the light to change. The perfect run of notes started to give him some clarity on his next move.

  The light on Roosevelt turned yellow, then red.

  In that frozen second between the lights changing, two massive arms sprung from the back seat, snapping the driver’s neck in a motion as fluid as the arrangement of instruments in the classical masterpiece.

  The glowing eyes from the back seat, drowned in a sea of darkness, flicked from his driver to Rains. Rains hadn’t thought he would be afraid of the devil when he met him, but now he knew he was wrong.

  Bic snatched Rains from the front seat into the back.

  “It’s pork chop eatin’ time.”

  He put Rains to sleep with a quick right to the chin.

  97

  24 hours later

  Between the chopper blades sweeping through the air, thwup, thwup, thwup, and his teeth chattering uncontrollably from the cold, Peter Rains couldn’t hear much.

  He sat with his arms tied behind his back, peering out onto a giant white page of nothing, a wasteland of white for as far as the eye could see in every direction.

  His breath turned to vapor with each exhale. The tip of his nose had been numb seemingly minutes after he was taken from a jet onto the chopper. It had been 24 hours since being knocked out cold in his car.

  Bic sat across from him in brittle silence, heavily dressed, a thick jacket with a hood outlined in brown fur over his head.

  Bic had not answered any of his other questions yet, but he figured he’d ask him again. “Why are we in the Arctic?”

  Bic didn’t even look in his direction. He continued to peer out the windows on his side of the chopper. Occasionally, he lifted a pair of binoculars to his face, lowering them with a satisfied look.

  Rains would have paid big money to know what was inside the two large Yeti coolers. He was pretty sure they weren’t bringing booze to an Eskimo party.

  The chopper’s forward momentum stopped for the first time. Hovering over the area, Rains still couldn’t see anything other than a whiteout.

  Bic stood and pulled Rains to his feet. He then grabbed the long line of rope. At its end, he took the carabiner and attached it to Rains’ harness.

  “If you’re going to hang me from a helicopter in this icebox, spare us all the antics. I’ll freeze to death in seconds. Just throw me from the chopper and get it over with.”

  “Your blood will be pumping plenty hard to keep you from freezing,” Bic said.

  “What do you want?” Rains asked.

  “Names,” Bic replied.

  “I can give you a lot of things, but I can’t give you that,” Rains replied.

  Bic opened the cooler. Immediately the cabin filled with a pungent gasoline smell. He reached in with both hands and pulled out a four-foot plump dark gray seal. At first glance, Rains thought it was dead, but when he looked closer to see cables coming out of both sides, he realized it was fake.

  Bic put the seal on Rains’ back, and, with three sets of cables, high, mid, and low, he secured the seal tightly. Bic gave a tug. The seal didn’t budge.

  The choppe
r descended.

  Rains looked out the window, and in the sea of white, he saw an off-white mass with a long neck and black snout.

  “You’re going to feed me to a polar bear?” His voice cracked.

  Bic pulled out a knife. Rains’ heart jackhammered as Bic cut the zip ties around his legs.

  Bic opened the door. The frigid cold howled into the cabin, stinging any skin exposed to it.

  “Colton Nash will sing like a bird,” Rains said, not because he thought this would change his fate one bit, but because in his final move, he wanted everyone to get taken down with him.

  “I know,” said Bic, and pushed Rains out of the chopper.

  Rains hung suspended in the air with a seal strapped to his back. As luck would have it, he faced the direction of the polar bear. Fifty yards away, the large mammal watched with curiosity.

  Rains began to scream. Warmth spread down both legs.

  He suddenly dropped to about four feet off the ground. He could just see Bic, and the flash of the knife, and the line was cut. He fell, slamming belly down onto the frozen snow.

  He tried to will himself to die as he heard the chopper fly away. Instinct kicked in a moment later, and he hopped to his feet.

  Hot, primal fear coursed through him. The bear was walking towards him then stopped still, its nostrils chuffing thick gouts of steam.

  Rains turned and ran, making sounds he’d never made before.

  After 25 yards of sprinting with the seal on his back, his chest started to feel like a block of ice. With each breath, the pain in his chest increased.

  He looked back, his sprint now a struggling jog.

  The massive bear was running straight at him.

  Rains stopped running. No use, he thought. Maybe it won’t be… that bad.

  Standing his ground, the massive white-furred locomotive kicked into high gear.

  The clumsiness suddenly turned fluid as the largest land carnivore on earth sprung to its hind legs, at ten feet tall. The bear dropped its claw-filled hands, smashing Rains to the icy ground.

  Claws embedded into his flesh. With a thousand pounds holding him down, the bear’s elongated muzzle with its slightly arched snout reared up. The bear growled, flashing its dagger-like canines, and chomped down onto Rains’ head.

  Epilogue

  Two Months Later

  Gracie and Bic again stood in the impressive atrium at UChicago Medicine’s DCAM research facility to celebrate the green light from the FDA for Phase 1 human trials. Caroline and Mack were also there with them, also accepting public recognition of the accomplishment. After Colton Nash, the CEO of Vintigen, had been arrested, he did indeed sing like a bird, turning everyone in for a deal and clearing Gracie Green’s name. The university gave its full support and use of its lab facilities to Gracie until Greentech could rebuild its research lab. Mack and Caroline had become Greentech’s first official investors.

  The day Colton Nash was arrested and the cure was validated, Vintigen’s stock crashed from 127 dollars to 14 dollars a share. Mack had shorted Vintigen and two other major cancer drug companies using put options after seeing proof that Diana Graham, Anna’s mother had been cured. He bought 4,500 Vintigen options contracts with a strike price of 80 dollars. In one day his 36,000-dollar investment turned into almost 30 million.

  Gracie raised her glass. “I want to thank everyone for making this possible. You all are responsible for this day.”

  Mack leaned over and kissed Caroline on the cheek.

  “I’m still not sure how exactly you got your hands on the pills,” Gracie said to Bic.

  “Dumb luck,” Bic said with a smile. “I had thrown one of the terrorists to the ground and it sounded like he had a box of Tic-Tacs in his front pocket. Curiosity got the best of me and I had to have a look. Then, as God would have it, I wound up in the same hospital as Caroline a couple of days later.”

  Bic’s phone pinged. He looked at it and his face changed.

  “What is it?” Gracie asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “No secrets, Unc. You promised.”

  “It’s Hawk.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He’s doing better every day.”

  “Tell him I said hi and I wish he were here.”

  Bic texted the message.

  Bic read his reply. “He says he’s livin’ on a prayer. He’s half way to recovery and he’ll make it he swears.”

  “That sounds just like Hawk,” she said.

  “Just like him,” Bic said.

  She stared at him a moment.

  “What?” he said.

  “I know that face. I’ve seen it before. You get that look and then you disappear. Not this time!”

  “I need to take care of some unfinished business,” Bic said.

  “No,” Gracie said.

  “He’s killing me. I have to.”

  “Who’s killing you?”

  “My father.”

  Bic hugged everyone.

  Mack looked at Caroline for a long moment, eyes locked, then she nodded yes.

  “I’m coming with you,” Mack said.

  “Not your fight,” Bic said as he turned to walk away.

  “I owe you everything, so it is my fight,” Mack said.

  “Mine too,” Caroline added.

  The dark and shadowy corridor of trees was illuminated by slivers of the moonlight cutting through the canopy. Men, hunched and loping, hurried towards the African voodoo drum music coming from the end of the tunnel.

  Torches surrounded the altar made from a large tree stump covered in white painted symbols.

  Clarence Green stood in front of 30 men, their eyes burning with religious fervor. The music stopped, and the men waited in pin drop silence.

  “The dark horse is coming,” Clarence Green announced, raising his hands high into the air. His eyes glared bright. “Whosoever takes the head of this man… will receive the gift of eternal life!”

  THE BEGINNING…

  Acknowledgments

  The positive feedback and support of the Black Ghost series has been tremendous. Much appreciation to my great family and amazing friends. Each time someone embraces the journey of these characters I am truly inspired — this feeling never gets old.

  To my wife, Jennifer, thank you for being such an integral part of this journey. Without you it would not be the same. We’ll do it all. Everything. On our own.

  To my children, Sofia, Freddie and Charlie, for helping me mail the signed copies. So far, we’ve only sent a couple of books to the wrong person. ☺

  To my mom, you are still the smartest person I know. That is pretty good since I’ve been blessed with knowing a lot of smart and talented people. Like Einstein, you too have challenges with the simplest things, like figuring out how to end a facetime call.

  To my sister Nina Hunter for always helping with your amazing graphic design talents. The Black Ghost deleted scenes pdf you created is awesome, thank you!

  To my brother-in-law Dr. Tim Hughes for always being a great resource with your medical knowledge.

  To my family and friends, again thank you for being the foundation to help share this series with the world of thriller readers.

  To Linda Harris, thank you for the timely beta read and great feedback.

  To all the gifted professionals who contributed to making this novel its best version of itself. Keith Olexa, Paul Lorello and Peter J. Wacks. Thank you for your care and expertise with this novel.

  Thanks Dane Low for the great cover art, you nailed it again.

  Much gratitude to Erik Gevers, you are so much more to this book than just the impeccable formatting.

  Special recognition to Peter J. Wacks for continuing to help me in so many ways with this series. I appreciate your friendship.

  “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies…”

  George R.R. Martin

  I’m eternally gratefu
l to YOU for reading THE CURE. I hope you had an amazing journey reading it. I’d love to hear about it!

  If you haven’t got your free deleted/altered chapter PDF from the first BLACK GHOST novel, readers have been giving great feedback and are loving the extra material. You can either reach out to me directly at freddie@freddievillacci.com or go to my website at freddievillacci.com and sign up for the newsletter. I will be excited to send these fifty-one pages of extra scenes for your enjoyment.

  Signed copies of BLACK GHOST and THE CURE in paperback or hardcover are available at the website, freddievillacci.com.

  Any feedback or questions feel free to email me at freddie@freddievillacci.com, It would be an honor to hear from you.

  I am forever thankful you lived another life through reading the second book, THE CURE, in the BLACK GHOST THRILLER SERIES.

  Also, please review the book on Amazon, if you liked it ☺, that would be greatly appreciated!

  REVENGE

  The third book in the BLACK GHOST THRILLER SERIES

  Coming soon…

  I know Bic still hasn’t confronted his father…

  Readers have been dying for resolution…

  But I promise…

  The wait will be worth it…

  In the third book, REVENGE, in the Black Ghost Series…

  It is on like Donkey Kong between Bic and his father!

  Currently the name of the Third book is REVENGE. It is simple and it is what the book is about, Bic seeking revenge with his father Clarence for killing his mother and ultimately changing Bic’s life’s path to eventually become a highly functioning serial killer. I am not 100% sold on the name, I like it, but I’m wondering if there is something better. I would encourage anyone who has read the first two BLACK GHOST books to email me at freddie@freddievillacci.com with your ideas for the title options instead of REVENGE. If your idea is used instead of REVENGE, I will give you props in the acknowledgement and also send you first edition signed copies of the first three hardcover books in the BLACK GHOST THRILLER series.