Jakarta Pandemic, The (19 page)

Jeff nodded and pushed the button on the bottom hydraulic closer with his foot. He let go of the door, and it stayed open for Ted and Carl.

“You know, it was Michelle’s idea to hire these guys. She was pretty pissed at you. I told her it wasn’t necessary, but she insisted,” Ted told him smugly.

“Then you’re both fucking idiots, Ted,” Alex said.

Both Carl and Ted exited the house and started walking down the walkway, toward the driveway. Jeff was well ahead of them, almost at Ted’s car. Carl was walking away, still watching Alex, his hand still on the pepper spray case. Alex placed the shotgun against the wall on the inside of the house and stepped out onto the rough granite block steps. Carl covertly flipped open the cap on the pepper spray, staring at Alex and slowing his walk.

“Bad idea, Carl. Bad idea. Ted, I want you to pull your car into the street. I don’t want these guys on my property. Carl here has a death wish. I’ll start loading the gear onto the porch when these two are off my property,” Alex said, stepping halfway into the house and keeping his eyes fixed on Carl’s enraged face.

“We’ll just have ourselves a nice talk with the cops about your shotgun,” Carl yelled.

“Oh, I didn’t bother to call the police, Carl,” Alex said.

“What the...you said…?”

“That I was calling 911? Nope. Keep moving or the next town official on the scene will be the coroner.”

Alex watched as Ted moved both cars onto the street. Carl took a seat on the hood of Alex’s former company car and lit a cigarette from a pack he pulled from his back pocket. Jeff stood behind Ted’s car, keeping an eye on the front door of the house. Momentarily satisfied that Carl didn’t plan to charge the house, Alex stepped back inside to grab the gear off the kitchen island.

He called up the stairs to Kate. “Hey, hon?”

“Yeah? Are those jackasses gone?” she yelled from the bedroom.

“Yeah, they’re outside waiting,” he said. He could hear her walking down the upstairs hallway, saw her appear at the top of the stairs, and shiver.

“Wow, that’s a chilly breeze. No more T-shirts, huh?” she said.

“Hey, the guys are out of the house. What’s Emily up to?” he asked.

“She’s watching the Disney Channel in our room.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. She got really worried when I was downstairs alone with those assholes.”

He glanced back outside. Carl looked relaxed on the hood of the car. Ted was standing next to Jeff, looking over some paperwork on the hood of Ted’s car.

“Let’s get Ryan inside and upstairs. I’m gonna carry all of the computer stuff outside and sign whatever papers I need to sign to get them out of here. I’m really sorry about all this. I had no idea this would happen. Unreal.”

“Unreal is right,” she whispered, walking down the stairs to call Ryan inside. She walked to the sliding screen door and called him into the house.

Alex checked on the guys again.

All in the same places. Good.

He walked into the kitchen and picked up the laser printer, walked it over to the open door, and placed it on the walkway in front of the granite steps.

I’m really going to miss that printer.

Ryan walked up to him as he returned for the rest of the gear.

“Everything okay, Dad?” he asked before he spotted the shotgun leaning against the wall next to the front door. “Whoa, what’s that for? Is it real?” he said, pushing past Alex to get a closer look.

He grabbed Ryan by the shoulder. “Don’t touch that, just head upstairs. We’ll talk about it later,” he said, putting himself between the shotgun and Ryan.

“I didn’t know we had a shotgun. What is that, a Mossberg?” he asked, peeking around Alex while backing up to the stairs.

“How do you know what a Mossberg is?”

“Modern Warfare. Whenever I use a shotgun, I like to use the Benelli because—”

“Yeah, I know, semi-automatic instead of pump,” he said, ruffling Ryan’s hair. “Get out of here. We can talk guns later.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Kate added from the kitchen. She poured a glass of water from the sink and walked past Alex by the island.

“Why don’t you all stay upstairs until these bozos are out of sight,” he suggested.

“Sounds good to me,” she said, heading for the stairs.

“Come on, does he have to sit there smoking in front of our house?” she asked, standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking out at Carl.

“I’m just glad he’s sitting out there where he won’t make any trouble. That guy looked unstable, and he’s not in the least bit happy that I got the better of him,” he said, walking by Kate with a large stack of promotional material that Ted had dug out of his office closet. “He has a bad look to him,” he whispered back to her as he placed the material on the walkway.

Kate looked out at Carl again and shook her head before walking up the stairs. Alex made three more trips, offloading the computer tablet and the rest of the peripheral equipment associated with the computer. The last item he handled was Ted’s brown leather briefcase. He assembled the paperwork sitting on the island and stuffed it into the briefcase. He picked up Ted’s cell phone from the island and started to put it into a side pouch on the briefcase, when a better idea came to mind.

He scrolled through the BlackBerry’s contacts and found the regional manager’s contact information. He selected her cell phone number and pressed send. Michelle answered on the first ring.

Perfect.

“Hey, Ted, I assume the deed is done. Did you recover the samples?” Michelle asked.

“Actually, it’s Alex. I just killed Ted and the two thugs you hired. Shot them dead in my basement and beheaded them. I’m about to bury their heads in the backyard,” he said and paused. A few seconds went by. “Are you still there, Michelle?”

“Alex? Is this some kind of a joke?” she said.

He could tell she was unsure.

“Yes, this is a joke, Michelle. I didn’t kill Ted. Or the two criminals you hired. I did have to eject them from my house, after they broke in and roughhoused my wife and daughter. You might want to schedule a little HR review session for Ted. Somehow, he got it into his head that he could bust into my house when I wasn’t here, have his thugs restrain my wife, and ransack my house. This could have ended very badly, Michelle,” he said and motioned for Ted to come retrieve his gear.

Ted hesitated and started to edge around the front of the car.

“Come on, man, I don’t have all day! Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. Sorry about that, Michelle. It seems that I gave Ted quite a fright. He looks a little scared,” Alex said, stepping forward from the doorway and away from the hidden shotgun.

“We should have this wrapped up in a few minutes, Michelle, then you and Ted can chat. Unless you’d like to talk with him right now?”

“No, that’s all right,” she said blankly.

“As for the samples, you can contact Dr. Wright at Maine Coast Internal Med, and see if he’d be willing to return them. Or even better, you could hire ten more meatheads like the two here and bust some heads over at Dr. Wright’s office. Hey, Ted, Michelle wants to talk to you,” he said and threw the phone to Ted, who was standing about ten feet away from him.

Ted barely caught the phone, juggling it a few times before gaining control. He put the phone to his ear.

“Michelle?” he asked and started nodding his head.

Alex could hear her yelling over the phone.

“I know, I know. No, no, everything was done by the book…look, the policy isn’t exactly clear about the verification process…no, I didn’t touch his wife…I don’t know. No, I didn’t see the….can we talk about this when I’m done here? He’s standing right here watching…yes, I’ll call you as soon as I’m on the road.” He disconnected the call and closed the phone, cursing under his breath.

“That didn’t sound like a career enhancing phone call,” Alex said, standing with his hands on his hips in front of the pile.

“Fuck you,” Ted muttered, barely making eye contact with Alex.

“This is everything, so let’s get this over with. Where do I sign?”

Ted took the paperwork out of his briefcase, located the inventory sheet, and matched the listed items with the array of equipment sitting on the red concrete pavers.

“Looks like it’s all here,” he said, “except for the samples you stole.”

Alex walked over to sign the inventory sheet. As he started to enter the date, he caught movement in his peripheral vision and spotted Carl halfway across the front lawn, heading directly for the two of them.

Alex froze for a few seconds, unable to react, giving Carl enough ground to make it impossible for him to retreat into the house.
Shit.
Carl’s face was deep red, snarled in a malicious glare. His intentions were clear, so Alex pushed Ted directly into Carl’s path. Ted’s stiffened body collided with Carl, causing Carl to stumble forward, off balance. As he pitched forward, he desperately aimed the pepper spray canister in his right hand in Alex’s direction and activated the canister. Carl trampled Ted’s body as he staggered.

The direction of the spray was not accurate, and the unit shot a thick fog in his general direction, which, if better aimed, would have enveloped Alex’s entire upper body in a caustic pepper spray cloud. Instead, the majority of the blast saturated the air to Alex’s left, getting caught in the strong breeze flowing through the front door. The wind dispersed the pepper spray fog over all three of them.

He instantly felt burning in his eyes and nose as he rushed to neutralize Carl. He knew that he had to move quickly, before Jeff reinforced the group.

Carl whirled around, still unsteady, trying to aim the canister at Alex again as he slid alongside Carl’s right. Carl was still focused on using the spray, which gave Alex an advantage. He slid his own right arm under Carl’s right arm and reached up across his massive chest. Simultaneously, he placed his right leg behind Carl’s legs and twisted his own core to the left, toppling Carl onto his back.

Alex quickly put Carl’s pepper spray arm into an extended lock and pushed down on the elbow, creating an unbearable pressure on Carl’s shoulder. Despite the size and strength of Carl’s arm, he immediately dropped the canister.

“All right, that’s enough!” he yelled through the grass, coughing and rubbing his eyes with his other hand.

Alex coughed as the pepper spray made breathing more painful. His eyes were burning and nearly closed. He kept Carl’s arm under pressure with one hand and picked up the pepper spray canister with the other. His hands, neck and face felt like they were on fire.

Pissed off and in pain, Alex aimed the pepper spray canister at Carl’s face near the ground and released a point blank blast of pepper spray fog. The effects were immediate, as Carl groaned and started to scream. He aimed casually at Ted, who was on the ground behind Carl, and dispensed the rest of the canister. The fog enveloped Ted’s body and caused his former manager to start pounding the grass while squealing.

Alex disengaged the arm lock and ran toward the open front door, tossing the canister behind him. He looked back and saw Jeff walk slowly over to Carl and Ted, his hands in the air.

Alex closed the door and watched the scene unfold, barely able to keep his own eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time. Jeff helped Carl back to Alex’s old Forrester, having to restrain him a few times from charging the house again. Ted continued to cry out in pain and barely rose to his knees. His hands appeared glued to his eyes. He looked pathetic on his knees in a crumpled navy blue suit, hunched over, coughing.

I hope he doesn’t have asthma.
Alex could see grass stains on the chest of Ted’s blue shirt.
Maybe I shouldn’t have done that to him. Now how am I going to get all of this junk off my property?

He opened the front door and yelled out to Ted. “Ted, I’d like all of this trash out of here immediately,” he said, coughing.

He shut the front door and locked it, doing the same in the mudroom, and closed the garage door. He then ran over to the sink to get a drink of water and to try and flush the pepper spray out of his eyes. He was fortunate that he had really only gotten just a dusting of it. He walked over to the door with the glass of water and saw Jeff picking up all of the equipment and loading Ted’s car. Alex bet they’d all have to sit there for a while before Ted could drive again. He’d keep a close eye on them until they were gone.

Chapter Fifteen

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Alex and Kate snuggled together on the couch to watch a recording of the
FBC Evening News
. The anchor, Kerrie Connor, appeared on the screen alongside a large flat-screen monitor. The studio monitor showed an image of an American aircraft carrier plowing through rough seas. Alex stifled a cough and shook his head.

“Good evening. Tonight’s top stories: Tensions with China increase as the fate of several hundred World Health Organization health workers remains unknown. At least two more U.S. aircraft carriers and an additional battle group are dispatched to the region.

“In Jakarta, the death toll rises as the killer flu burns unhindered throughout Java Island and spreads to Sumatra. The first reporters on scene describe the sight as cataclysmic.

“Worldwide, the Jakarta flu continues to spread. Reports of large flu outbreaks in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa have world health officials concerned that the pandemic cannot be contained.

“Here at home, the number of flu cases continues to rise, as the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services race to stay one step ahead of the pandemic. Earlier this afternoon, the CDC reported that the number of lab-confirmed cases in the U.S. reached thirteen thousand yesterday, only six days into the crisis. Several hundred deaths have been associated with the Jakarta flu, mostly due to acute respiratory distress syndrome. The high incidence of acute respiratory distress syndrome has raised serious concerns that the Jakarta flu may have characteristics similar to the 1918 Spanish flu, where apparently healthy young adults died of massive respiratory complications shortly after developing symptoms of the flu. Health officials are keeping a close eye on this potentially devastating characteristic, given the surprising fact that no treatment has ever been shown to be effective in halting or reversing the effects of the syndrome.