“Tell Jason what you told me,” Claude said in English for the benefit of Jason.
“Last week we received a shipment — two trucks actually — full of non-human primates. Rhesus monkeys. There were 196 in all.”
“Who supplied them?” Jason asked.
“I don’t know, but I can find out. They came on two GEFCO trucks,” Odette said as Jason took notes.
“If they shipped them, then they’re going down. We’ll put so much public pressure on them they won’t know what hit them. Go on.” Jason seemed excited to Odette. Claude had told her that his British friend loved to wreak financial havoc on companies who supplied animals to biomedical researchers.
“The first 24 were separated and taken to what we call ‘the pilot house.’ Only a few employees have badge access to that area.”
“Do you?” Claude asked as he peered though his red-framed eyeglasses. He was still wearing his black leather jacket.
“No, but my best friend does. The first four monkeys were exposed to some sort of mist.” Odette started to cry.
“It’s okay, what happened?” Jason asked with a soft tenor of empathy.
“They got sick, real fast. The monkeys were coughing, choking… my friend said they were suffering… and then they died. He pulled out his iPhone — he wasn’t supposed to take it into the pilot house — but he did it anyways… here’s the video of them dying.”
Jason and Claude watched the 23-second video in horror.
“Bastards! Did they even try to save the damn monkeys?” Claude demanded.
“No. Nothing. They did nothing. But that’s not all… they repeated the same test five more times. My friend said each time they gave them a different vaccine, a few times they gave the monkeys antibiotics as soon as they got infected. But nothing worked. Twenty-four… all 24 died. After the scientists did the necropsy on each of them, they were incinerated … as medical waste.”
Odette wept uncontrollably as Claude tried to comfort her. Nothing seemed to help or calm her down.
“Odette, one more question… are they planning to murder the rest of the monkeys, too?” Jason asked as Odette’s tears and anguish subsided.
“I don’t know. That’s why I called Claude.”
Claude’s face was filled with rage.
“Public pressure has worked well in the UK. Claude, it can work here, too,” Jason said.
“Screw public pressure,” Claude said with barely restrained anger. “Odette, who runs LyonBio?”
“Gaudin… Thierry Gaudin.”
“Odette… thank you for letting me know. You did the right thing. This insanity will stop, I assure you. Jason and I need to talk.”
Odette got the hint. Her mission was accomplished. She wiped her face and kissed Claude on the cheek and touched Jason’s hand as she stood.
“What are you thinking?” Jason asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Claude answered as he wiped a tear from Odette’s cheek.
“Listen, we’ll blog about these atrocities the rest of the week, no doubt about that. The people of France will not stand for this. This will be a fundraising coup d’état,” Jason said with great pleasure.
“We don’t have the rest of the week. These monkeys will be dead by then.” Claude got up and put 15 Euros down on the table. “That should cover my portion with a little bit left over for your fundraising coup,” Claude said as he stormed past Odette and out of the restaurant.
Odette offered a sad smile to Jason and walked out of the Rue Café and down the narrow cobblestone walkway that separated the facing buildings, shops and restaurants.
Sainte-Consorce Suburb
Lyon, France
Rochelle Gaudin kissed each of her children good-bye as they marched out of the house to wait for the school bus. They were dressed in standard parochial uniforms for a traditional Catholic education. The Gaudins could have easily afforded prestigious private schools for Bernard, Marie and Philippe, but Rochelle wanted to keep the family well-grounded in the community. Thierry did whatever Rochelle wanted.
The bus pulled up on schedule, and the children got on for the 15-minute ride to Sainte-Luc’s Catholic Church and school, a sprawling campus on 12-acres that served K-12 families in Sainte-Consorce.
Rochelle waived from the front steps of the home as six-year-old Philippe waved back from a window seat toward the back of the bus. Rochelle turned back into the house and never noticed the Volkswagen van that pulled out and followed the bus from a distance.
The school day ended promptly at 3:30pm, and the children were marched out to the circle drive where the buses were lined up for the afternoon drive home.
The Volkswagen van waited as well, from across the street.
Philippe and Marie got on the bus and waved to Bernard who had just started walking with two friends, each carrying a backpack full of school books, folders and papers. The boys walked off Sainte-Luc’s campus, crossed the street and over to the center of town that was filled with small shops, cafes and restaurants.
Bernard never noticed the Volkswagen van that followed them for a short distance, stopped and let one passenger out, then drove past Bernard and his friends and parked in the back alley behind a bookstore.
Bernard stopped on the sidewalk in front of his favorite after-school café and called his mother. The man walking behind Bernard and his friends moved in closer and pretended to be looking at a sign in the café window as Bernard placed the call.
“Maman, je suis au café avec mes amis. Puvrez-vouse me chercher dans une heure?”
Smiling after gaining his mother’s permission and promised pick-up, Bernard closed his phone and walked into the café with his friends.
Bernard and his friends were ordering their cappuccinos as a man approached from behind and joined their conversation.
He told Bernard that he was an engineering student at the University of Lyon in Saint Etienne working on his PhD. He asked the boys if they attended Sainte-Luc’s and told them it was the same school he attended as a boy.
One of Bernard’s friends asked the man what type of engineering he was studying, and the man said he was designing fighter jets. The young boys were enthralled with his story as he pulled out 10 Euros and told the waitress that coffees and sweets were his treat.
The boys were delighted.
The man sat down at the table with Bernard and his two friends as they all shared some dreams and tall-tailed stories about teachers at Sainte-Luc’s until the back door of the café opened and a stranger ran in shouting.
“Does anyone in here know a six-year-old boy named Philippe? He’s outside crying. Says he got off the bus to follow his brother and got lost.”
Bernard and his friends swapped looks of disbelief.
“Il ma suivi? Il va avoir des ennuis avec ma mere,” Bernard complained to his friends about the trouble Philippe would be in when they got home. Bernard followed the man out the back door as he prepared the words of scolding he was about to deliver to his little brother.
Bernard’s friends kept talking with the engineering student.
As Bernard walked through the back door, the stranger pointed inside the Volkswagen van. Bernard looked inside then felt a huge shove on his back that pushed him into the rolling van as the driver took off and the sliding door slid shut behind him. Bernard’s mouth was quickly taped, and his hands were bound.