The Cure

AUDREY BLACK WAS NEVER THE KIND of person who liked to be kept waiting. When she wasn’t given the results she wanted, people were immediately fired and replaced with those who were capable of doing the job right. With the situation concerning Xavier Carter, this case wasn’t so simple. She couldn’t fire people because the fewer people who knew about Xavier Carter, the better. Ms. Black did her best to move along with company business as much as she could, but the matter was always nagging her, like a migraine that just refused to go away. These days that migraine was really getting on her nerves more than it usually did. When she got the FBI more involved than before she anticipated quick results, but all it got instead was more exposure and no real substance to show for it. Audrey was losing her patience with not only the feds, but with her own people as well. Jones had gone off the grid and had been completely out of contact since their last meeting. Was he upset that she had gone around him to get more help from the authorities? Perhaps, but she didn’t give a shit about Jones nor his inflated ego. All she wanted was Carter back in custody or dead. Preferably dead, but with all his work back in her company’s hands and with no chance of any of it seeing the light of day.

No one had anticipated the doctor to be so good at hiding and avoiding capture, but the guy clearly had a good head on his shoulders. Usually that was a requirement to make it through medical school, right? Just out of corporate conferences and back in her office for the afternoon Audrey did have reports to go over, but she was still distracted and not in the mood to do her mainstream work knowing there was a crisis out there waiting to drive her company and possible the entire industry they work for into the ground. It was hard to concentrate on the regular, mundane workings of the company when stuff like that was going on. It was like trying to work a regular job right beside an active volcano that has been rumbling for a while. It was just too distracting, and she wanted it over as soon as possible because it was preventing her from doing her actual job. She was canceling meetings, not paying attention during board conferences, and unable to care about what happened to the shareholders. It was hard for her to get into things that should matter to her, not with something so huge threatening their livelihood.

When the FBI arrived to take away some information about Dr. Carter, she was unable to get in touch with Mr. Jones to update him on the situation. Once he left her office, Jones was virtually untraceable. Whatever or wherever he went was a mystery until he came back to let her know what he had been doing. Then again sometimes it was good that she didn’t know what he was up to. A part of her didn’t have a problem with this as deniability was an effective tool for someone in her position to possess. Yet someone in her position and power never liked being left in the dark for too long and it was only a matter of time before she would ask for details or demand a status report to find out how things were going. Ms. Black wanted to be the one making the big decisions, but it was clear to her that Mr. Jones didn’t work that way. He was in charge, and merely kept Audrey occasionally apprised of what was going on. She didn’t exactly like that, but a man of his specialization had the ability to dictate his own terms given the circumstances. Since Jones was failing to capture the subject, this matter was making the professional thug look like a complete ass on a regular basis. Ms. Black was starting to get the feeling that drastic measures had to be taken to assist Jones in any way she could. This was the reason why she used her very huge contacts in law enforcement to get the FBI not only involved but to elevate Carter to the prestigious top ten list which would have everyone looking for his face. Jones was against this, for obvious reasons. He was afraid that the wrong people, such as the police, were to get their hands on the fugitive first, then Carter would have a chance to tell his story and try to convince people what he was really doing. Jones was also afraid that the added attention would only drive him further underground, which was very possible considering all the money he had made while working as a mob doctor for a little over half a year. If Jones was right, then Carter had the cash necessary for him to hide under a rock while the FBI spent all that time chasing their tail. There was no telling how much he learned from the mob about how to do that successfully too.

What Jones didn’t know is that Audrey had a plan, one that would bring Carter out into the open for both him and the FBI to nab him. Something so huge that he would have no choice but to stick his head out and risk exposure. Unlike the fake victims they had been feeding the FBI, she had been keeping tabs on the people they knew Carter had treated. This gave her an idea of how far his research had been going, and it was the reason why she had been pushing Jones so hard to find him now. Carter was getting close, too close to being ready. That time with the mob gave him the peace he needed to get a lot of work done and there was a good chance he cleared a lot of hurdles when he was working there. The ugly work he did for those thugs was a small price to pay for access to a top funded lab, the technology and all the resources he got in return for his illegal expertise, but it was all worth it.

Worried that Carter was getting too close to finishing his cure, the time had come for Ms. Black to put one of her more diabolical plans into action. A plan that was so diabolical that it would force the good doctor to come out of hiding and try to save the world. This plan also carried a heavy price, as she was slowly approaching an ethical line in the sane that most people would ever dare to cross. The survival of her company was at stake, and it was time to make the call.

Ms. Black picked up her cell, dialed a number and waited for someone on the other end to pick up.

“Can you assure me that this plan will go ahead as you explained it to me?” Audrey asked with a sense of apprehension in her voice.

“It will,” the voice on the other end answered.

“How will I know you won’t turn on me if everything goes wrong?” she inquired.

“I won’t,” the man on the other end replied, “I’m the only one who knows of your involvement, and I never talk.”

“So when will this go down?” She asked.

“In about a week’s time,” he replied, “Once we have the sample in our possession.”

“Alright,” Audrey said, her voice still shaking a bit. “You’ll have it delivered to our agreed location tomorrow morning at ten.”

“This is for the betterment of our nation.” The man on the other line added, “Our nation has grown soft, and badly need to be made aware of just how unprepared they are for another attack. They’ll have to learn this lesson the hard way, and what we have will do it in spades.”

“Just make sure it’s delivered to the target we agreed to,” Audrey sternly added, “If I see it go anywhere else, I’ll turn you into the feds myself. Are we clear?”

“I understand,” He replied, as he believed her. “Ten A.M. tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Audrey confirmed, as she closed the phone and sat back in her chair, allowing the weight of what she had just agreed to sink into to her head. She had just committed a horrific crime, but since going after Xavier Carter it was just one of many. She had made the call to have his boss killed for trying to have human testing legally approved for Carter’s serum, and then had the entire building burned down to cover up the existence of the serum from the public. When they had opened that pork project, the worst-case scenario was they would find a cure for the common cold, not a cure for AIDS, Cancer, and gaud knows what else if Carter had a chance to test it on. Her company alone made billions selling treatments for HIV and AIDS treatments to Africa, and they would lose all of that if this cure were to make the market. While it was possible to charge for this cure, it would crush their income as no one would require any more than one treatment. No more customers would mean no more business, and every pharmaceutical company would go under.

That wasn’t something Audrey wanted to see happen and that was why she was willing to do anything to see this through, even work with evil people like the man she just got off the phone with. Jones would freak out if he knew what Audrey was up to, but it was for the best that he wasn’t involved, which would make things easier for everyone. She felt the need for a drink but thought better of it for the time being. She didn’t feel like getting up to get it, and just wanted to sit there and ponder the events she was about to set forth. There was no doubt in her mind this would get Carter out into the open. If his cure was as far along as she thought it was, there was no way he was going to stay in hiding while thousands of lives were at risk. He was a real doctor, and his serum was someone’s only hope, then Carter would do whatever he could to save them. When he did, Audrey would make sure Mr. Jones and his people were waiting.