“I believe your question,” Salinas said, “was what service do I expect Dr. John Vanduyne to perform?” He took another sip of his wine. After he swallowed, his smile was gone. His voice was coldly matter of fact. “I expect Dr. John Vanduyne to remove his old friend Thomas Winston from the White House.” Snake felt the Scotch glass begin to slip from his fingers.
“The P-President?” He’d never stuttered before in his life. “The President of the United States?”
Salinas nodded.
Snake had a strange, floating sensation. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. All along he’d known that the stakes in this job would be high—nobody offered you that kind of money just to put the screws to a doctor bureaucrat in HHS. He’d tried to figure the angle but couldn’t come up with any reason why Vanduyne would be so valuable.
The stakes were high, all right. Too high.
He opened his eyes. “Winston’s legalization thing… that’s what this is all about, right?”
Salinas nodded again. “This coward wants to ruin our business. Fifty billion dollars a year—gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that! You can understand why we cannot allow such a thing.”
“Yeah, sure,” Snake said. Fifty billion a year justified just about anything. What had he got himself into? “But how’s this Vanduyne going to solve your problem?”
Salinas smiled. “Vanduyne is President Winston’s personal physician. We will instruct him to administer a dose of chloramphenicol to his old friend.”
“Chloram—what?‘’
Salinas gestured to the pad on the table to Snake’s right. “Write it down.”
Snake spelled it out phonetically as Salinas repeated it. Klor… aw… PHEN… uh… call, then got the proper spelling from Salinas.
“What’s that? A poison?”
“No. That is the beauty of it. Chloramphenicol is an antibiotic. An old one that is rarely used anymore.”
Snake stared at the word on the sheet of paper in his hand. “I don’t get it.”
“One of the reasons chloramphenicol is rarely used is its effect on the bone marrow of a small percentage of patients.”
“What’s that?” Snake said.
“Like the atomic bomb on Hiroshima: The bone marrow stops producing blood cells. The condition is called aplastic anemia. I have never heard of it, but then, what do I know about medicine? However, I have educated myself over the past few months… ever since a certain source informed me that Thomas Winston almost died from aplastic anemia at age three. The cause was chloramphenicol.”
“So?”
“So, if he gets another dose, the same thing will happen: His bone marrow will go on strike. He will sicken. He may well die.”
“May die? What if he doesn’t?”
Salinas shrugged. “He does not need to die. I would prefer that he did, but at the very least he will be gravely ill, much too sick to attend the drug summit in The Hague. And if he survives, he will have a long recovery. Too long to continue in office. He will have to resign.”
“Which puts Robert Baldwin in the White House. What if he decides to push legalization too?”
Salinas smiled and shook his head. “We know Vice President Baldwin. We have him…” He made an elaborate gesture of slipping his hand into his jacket pocket.
“So why not just plug Winston?” Snake said. “Be a helluva lot easier and more efficient than this’may die‘ crap. Then you know he’s out of office.”
“No-no,” Salinas said, for the first time leaning forward. He explained why la compania had discarded that idea.
Snake nodded, only half listening. Already he could see problems.
“Okay. Whacking him wouldn’t work. But what happens when Vanduyne gets his kid back and tells the world he was forced to give Winston the chlor-whatever it’s-called? Same result: Winston’s a martyr and you’re out of business.” Salinas smiled. “But he will not get his child back. At least not for long. Immediately after their joyous reunion, they will have a terrible accident.”
Snake went cold. “That’s not my thing.”
“I know it is not. I will arrange for that.”
“All right. But won’t whoever’s treating Winston put two and two together and figure he’s been dosed with this stuff?”
“Not unless Vanduyne tells them. The chloramphenicol will be long out of his system, and his doctors will not know about his previous bout of aplastic anemia.”
“Why not?”
“Because he himself removed it from his medical records years ago. Thomas Winston wanted a spotless medical history when he presented himself to the American public.”
“Then how do you—?”
Salinas smiled. “My dear Miguel, should it surprise you that I have excellent sources?”
“No,” he said slowly. “Not at all.” Snake was just beginning to grasp Salinas’s reach. The President’s announcement was only last night, yet he and Salinas had been planning this snatch for two months. Salinas had known all along and had been ready to pounce as soon as Winston publicly committed himself.
And he even knew what Winston had wiped from his medical history years ago. This guy had a dedicated T-3 line into the government—he was connected.
Salinas leaned back again. “So you see? Everything is arranged. It’s a perfect plan.” The reassurances rolled off Snake like a used car salesman’s promises, and the cold within him grew as he took stock.
Alien Gold, who knew all the intricacies of Salinas’s empire, had been sent from the room. That told Snake that Salinas was playing this hand very close to his ample vest. Maybe only he and his bosses in Colombia knew the real target. The only other people who’d know would be Snake and Vanduyne himself. And afterward, they planned to eliminate Vanduyne and his kid.
Which would leave only one loose end: “Miguel” MacLaglen and his two hirelings. How do you measure the lifespan of three people who know enough to bring down the Cali cartel? Nanoseconds sounded generous. And who would be the first to go? The know-nothing hirelings, or the guy who had worked out all the details with Salinas?
Snake tossed off the rest of the Scotch. He needed some antifreeze against the ice forming in his veins.
He glanced down at his shirt-button mike. I hope you’re working today.
First thing tomorrow, he’d be back with a little present for the big man—he hoped. But right now he had to concentrate on his next steps. This gig was going to be a real balancing act. Everything would have to go down by the numbers. If he screwed up, his insurance wouldn’t mean diddly.
He cleared his throat. “All right. What’s the next step?”
“That should be obvious, I think. First thing tomorrow you contact the honorable doctor and tell him that if he wishes to see his precious child again, he must give his friend and patient a hefty dose of chloramphenicol.”
“How’s he supposed to do that?”
“We will leave that up to him. He is a devoted father who wants his child back: He will find a way.”
“And what if—Let’s just say he refuses. What then?”
“You will tell him that if President Winston shows up at the Hague conference next week—”
“What’s so important about this conference?”
“As a symbol, it is of immense importance. It is there that he will place his legalization plan before the world community as U.S. official international policy. That must not happen. And so you will tell the doctor that if Winston arrives at the conference, you will kill his little girl… but not before you do some very nasty things to her. And as proof, you start returning his daughter one piece at a time. I believe you have used that method before.”