“You’re right,” Bill said, balancing on his stick. He adjusted his cap again. “I don’t think they want to alarm anyone. We’ve been through enough already, haven’t we?”
“And what about LasoTech?” Shy continued. The questions were just flowing out of him now. “You work for them, right? What do you guys do?”
“We produce pharmaceuticals,” the man answered. “Well, I don’t personally. I’m only a member of the security team.”
Shy knew it. There had never been any hospital equipment. He wondered if Addie had straight-up lied to him, or if she really didn’t know. “And what do you know about a brown and blue duffel bag with vaccinations?” Shy found himself shouting now. He could feel the heat rising in his face as he pointed out toward the ocean. “And how about two scientists who got shot on a motorboat out there?”
Bill nodded at him for a few seconds; then he glanced at his watch. “Listen, there’s still a little over an hour before we need to be on the beach. Let me show you something, Shy. It won’t take long, I promise.”
Shy scoffed at the guy. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” he said. “All I’m saying is I know your company is shady as shit. And sooner or later, everyone’s gonna find out.” He turned and started back down the path, pissed off but scared now, too. Because maybe he’d said too much.
“It involves the loss of your grandmother!” Bill called after him.
Shy stopped in his tracks and spun around. “What are you talking about?”
“Your grandmother,” Bill said. “Or more specifically, the disease that killed her.”
Shy stared at the guy, breathing hard, trying to make himself think straight.
“I’m only telling you this because of what you did for me on the ship.” Bill waved with his stick for Shy to follow him. “Trust me, you’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
The man turned and started limping up the path.
47
The Roles We Play
Shy followed Bill up the hill, to a lookout point just off the path where he pointed to an even better angle of the submerged lab. “You see that building down there?”
Shy nodded. “I already know, it’s your company’s lab.”
“It was the lab,” Bill said. “Before the ocean surge destroyed it. Do you know what took place inside those walls?”
Shy shrugged. He’d come to hear about his grandma, not to listen to some long, drawn-out story.
“The most important drug research and development in the country,” Bill continued. “But it turns out that’s not all LasoTech developed. The man you saw jump off the ship—”
“David Williamson,” Shy said.
“Yes, Mr. Williamson. He left a letter in a cave that’s a few hundred feet away from the lab. We used the cave as a second dock for our boats. The scientists also used it as a storage facility. The day my lifeboat landed here, I learned that a scientist had discovered this letter. I then read the letter with my own eyes. It was long—seven typed pages—and it revealed some very disturbing information.”
Shy vaguely remembered the comb-over man mentioning a letter before he jumped. “So what does all this have to do with my grandma?”
“Everything,” Bill answered. “This letter explained exactly how Romero Disease originated. I believe Mr. Williamson had what people call a crisis of conscience. Kind of ironic that the information I was seeking this whole time was printed on lined pages, isn’t it?” The man limped a few steps toward a small boulder on his left. “God, this leg is killing me.”
Shy watched him sit down and take off his backpack, set it between his feet.
Bill looked up, said: “Mr. Williamson had been part of the company from the beginning. He developed many original medications that helped a lot of people and made the company a lot of money. But according to his letter, he wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to do something no scientist had ever done before. That’s when he and Mr. Miller came up with a novel idea. Instead of always reacting to the environment, they wanted to create the environment. So they worked backward.”
“I don’t get it,” Shy said.
“Instead of developing a drug to treat a disease, they set out to develop a disease that would need a drug. And that’s exactly what they did.”
When it hit Shy what the guy was saying, his whole body went numb. “They created Romero Disease in a fucking lab?”
“According to the letter we read,” the man said, nodding. “Trust me, we were all as blindsided by this information as you are.”
Shy could feel his anger rising as he stared at the man. “So how’d people get infected?”
“That’s where Mr. Miller came in—your friend’s father. According to the letter, Mr. Miller opened a free clinic in Mexico—under a different name, of course. For two years they treated poor border communities for everything from the common cold to breast cancer. But they also secretly infected the first few patients with their deadly disease.”
Shy stared at the man, horrified.
“They knew it would eventually make its way across the border, into America. And they knew the fear it caused would drive up demand for treatment. When reports first started surfacing, they sat on it for a while, knowing it wouldn’t look right if they had a treatment too soon. A few weeks ago their medicine that treats the disease was approved by the FDA. Their plan was to submit their vaccine by the end of the year. But the earthquakes changed all that, of course. We’ve received word that the disease is ravaging the entire West Coast now. It was determined that the best course of action was for the company to distance themselves from the situation completely.”
Shy couldn’t believe what he was hearing. They hadn’t committed insurance fraud, they’d made up a disease that killed people. His grandma. Carmen’s dad. Rodney. Shy felt so light-headed he had to squat down and put his hand on the ground for balance.
“It’s beyond comprehension,” Bill said. “I know. According to the letter, Mr. Williamson claimed he never really thought about what might happen once the disease was introduced to the public. He’d been focused on the science of the thing. Only Mr. Miller understood how much of a profit it would bring them.”
Shy was so pissed his whole body started shaking. Addie’s dad was responsible for everything. How could Addie not know herself? Shy lost his shit and stood back up. He marched right up to Bill and shoved him off the boulder, shouting: “You killed people, man!” He stood over the guy, breathing hard and trying to think. “You killed my family!”
Bill got back up slowly and brushed himself off. “I didn’t do anything, Shy,” he said calmly. “I didn’t even know about this until a few days ago.”
“You were part of it,” Shy said. “Why else would you be following me all over the ship? Why’d you ask me what that guy said before he jumped?”
Bill sat back on the boulder. “Those were Mr. Miller’s instructions. He wanted to know what Mr. Williamson said to everyone he spoke to that night. He was worried his partner had leaked top-secret information. But I had no idea what he was looking for, I swear to you.”
Shy was so confused. He thought about being stranded on the broken lifeboat with Addie. Back then he’d had no clue he was stuck with the daughter of the guy who killed his grandma. It made him sick. She made him sick.
“I agree, Shy, it’s horrible.” Bill unzipped his backpack, still looking at Shy. “But judgment isn’t my profession. Protection is.”