2 CHAPTER 1

April 5, 2014

As soon as the taxi rolled into the empty parking space in front of Logan International Airport, the occupant at the back sprang out. He stood just above six feet but being willowy, he gave the illusion of being taller. The smoky-grey coat, white shirt and dark silk tie he wore was trendy among the business men hustling past him to and from the airport yet the man stood out in the crowd, attracting lots of curious eyes. Something about him associated him with the upper crust, thus even before he became a news item days later, he was burnt on the retinas of those who saw him that day. He was undoubtedly one who took impeccable care of his appearance, but the dark derby hat perched on top of his light brown hair was lopsided as if the gusting wind did a little dance with it and he had been too busy to notice how risibly it hanged around one ear, much less straighten it. As a matter of fact, that was exactly the situation. Time was of essence to Kelvin Mountzgret-Murray. He knew he had to get away before they got him, his time was ticking tick-tock… tick-tock.

He had no idea who they were, but he did know they were after him, and it was his gut feeling the odds of him living or dying wouldn't be left a question if they caught up. Unnerving proof of their brutality and thoroughness had been evident in their victims, his friends. Their death had been too well-strategized to appear as nothing more than two unfortunate accidents and a heartrending suicide that had both the Canadian and U.S police commanders snorting derisively when murder was suggested, but they knew better. The warnings had been driven so well in there had been times, now especially, that Kelvin frantically wished they had heeded them.

David had been killed in a night bar in Montreal where he was to meet Abalone, the man who contacted Jin as Robin Chantey's childhood friend from the old neighbourhood they had been combing for crumps to draw up a picture of Chantey. If Abalone hadn't been just a bait they dangled to draw them out, chances were the two never even met before the club erupted into the battlefield resulting in sixteen casualties, six wheeled out in body bags. Witnesses had pointed David out from a hazy footage of the incidence as the one who started the brawl after having a few drinks. The glitch was David never got drunk, not after downing 'a few drinks'. He was the one setting the records among the four of them as the only man standing in their drinking bouts during their naïve college years even before he underwent the training that made him a federal agent who couldn't be loosened with drinks. But there had been absolutely no means of vindicating him without stating a reasonable explanation how a U.S Federal Agent in a seminar in Toronto ended up in an adult night bar three hundred and thirty-six miles away.

David's murder was a cold slap in their faces. In that hazy period of regret and fury over his passing, they hadn't anticipated a second strike until they were looking down at the broken body of his wife after delivery of their second daughter. Reportedly, she walked out of bed on her own to see her new-born but somehow ended up jumping off the rooftop of the UW Medical Centre. Maybe it was suicide as the police concluded. Perhaps the sudden loss of her husband could be compared to nothing she could bear, not to the thought of orphaning her six-year-old baby girl and the new one; but maybe it was another warning to them. Then maybe her death should have been their wake-up call. But that was when they made the fascinating discovery Cooper-Blay Pharmaceuticals had not only been Chantey's employer at the time he was consumed in flames with his lab but also his sponsor throughout his higher education, and worked it out that one or more of his old research works likely ended up in test-tubes in Cooper-Blay labs, and one of them could be the secret project.

Five days after Jaures accessed MIT's Online Archive Library, going through the research works Chantey carried out at the University, his Porsche skidded off the road, crushed into a tree and caught fire along the Atlantic in Long Island less than an hour after dropping messages into their inboxes to conference him on his secure line because he felt he had an eye on him. Both he and his fiancée suffered third degree burns and neither survived the night. Cause of accident was ruled as DUI by the police, which would have been plausible if their alcohol-abstaining Jewish friend hadn't been captured by several road cameras as the one behind the wheel. Another accident on record, but they couldn't have made it clearer it was anything but. If Jaures found something worth notifying them, they made certain he took it to his grave.

Jaures' accident derailed Jin. Kelvin understood his friend's sudden resolve to slam a lid on the mission; his twin sister had been everything that mattered to him after all. But he had the clear mind to realize it was already too late for them to cut their losses and pull in their guns. That was why, without Jin's knowledge, he made an offer to MIT's Medical School for a voluntary one week seminar, and why, before Jin found out and stopped him, he made the university's library his second hotel room until he fished out clues as to what Jaures might have uncovered. To give up now would be to give up on their friends. Their murders proved they had been sniffing the right people and what better way was there to avenge them than exposing them? After days of searching, he was confident the information he had in hand was what would channel Jin's regret into a seething passion of seeing it to the end.

Not leaving any tell-tale electronic footprint had bought him the time Jaures couldn't have but they were on his scent now. Whether it was poor effort at discretion or a ploy to make him start running like a haunted animal, they had made him sense their presence in the hotel lobby that morning when he was checking out. He had also spied, from the rearview mirror of his rented RAV4, the black Mercedes that had tailed him every turn he made the moment he drove out of the hotel, even when he purposely stopped in front of a snack bar for ten minutes irritating the teenager in the stall with his indecision. Thanks to the smart hints Jin had been sharing with him since he came out of the army cadet, he had managed to lose them at a traffic stop close to the University and he hoped the notion of continuing the seminar at the University he threw out there had instigated a search around the campus which would buy him time to put distance between them. It was only a small bump he had put on their path, he knew, assuming they fall for it at all. They would find him again, only he prayed not too soon.

Because he booked his flight to Florida through the hotel, he thought it necessary to change destinations. A slight slip by a desk clerk would provide them a gateway to Jin. If the information did leak, he was counting on it overlaying his earlier bump and throwing them off his back. Fortunately, there was a straight flight to London leaving within the hour which he could still make if he beat the fourteen minutes left of the reporting time.

Even though leaving the U.S presented the best option at the present, it was not entirely the safest with his identity revealed, but it could stall them while they try to pin him down in England until he decide how best to keep them at bay from himself and his family. If God stood by his side and he took off from the ground alive, he would be giving his wife a call by the eve, arriving home two days earlier than promised and hopefully putting her in a good mood to go along with a spontaneous vacation to Paris or Venice by the next morning.

He stepped onto the pavement, feeling inside his pocket for the piece of paper containing the most important bit of his discovery.

"You forgot your suitcase, mister," the taxi driver called after him, emerging out of the car to lean on the roof. He was wearing the same frown he pulled on when he hastily jumped into the backseat of his cab around MIT.

"Hell's bells and buckets, I did forget." He bent inside and retrieved the little, black suitcase from the taxi. "Thank you, my good man. I would've been lost without it."

"Man, is somebody at your back? You look so unsettled it's unholy."

"Pardon me?"

"You bear a remarkable resemblance to William of England, did I mention that?"

"Throughout the journey."

"There are news all over about the royal's intended visit with his wife and little son, you know. God knows how a baby can drive a man crazy. Aren't you British?"

"I am but once again, I'm not His Royal Highness." Kelvin sighed.

"His Royal Highness," He scoffed. "Now I can tell you don't sound like him, and unless he shrunk down some pounds since last I saw him on T.V, you don't fit the stature either. I was humouring myself with the idea of aiding a badass prince escape from his stern security servants or his shrieking toddler or whatever it is that drives them crazy. You know I've ever had that privilege, got to drive one of them fancy European princesses all around the city with what looked like a thousand cheetahs after us."

"I'm sure you have."

"Have a safe flight and chill out, man. Why are all you Brits so stiff?" With a jovial wave, the driver hooted his way out of the traffic and disappeared down the bend.

Kelvin finally pulled his hat down properly and adjusted his coat, trying to look as relaxed as any traveller on a business trip. At the corners of his eyes, he filtered the crowd floating around him as he made his way to the counter.

A woman with two kids by each side was coming toward him from the right; a man in polo neck shirt and denim trousers stood a few feet to the right also, checking the flights departure time. The screen reflected the entire hall behind him, thus presenting a favoured spot for a hoodlum with a mission but Kelvin dismissed him quickly, finding no threat in his stance or the folded brochure in his hand. From the left came a young lady, flying a suitcase across the hall to one of the counters; college student, no doubt, skipping an entire week's lecture to go have fun. Ahead were rows of cushioned chairs, scantily occupied by travellers waiting to hear their boarding call. Very few people loitered the hall and a total of eleven people on the escalators, no one suspicious.

"Passengers for 10am British Airways flight 3961 to London, please come to gate 3 for boarding. Repeat. Passengers for 10am flight 3961 to London, please come to gate 3 for boarding."

There was twelve minutes left to board the plane. He handed his passport to the lady behind the counter and returned to screening the crowd. The baseball capped gentleman who had been at the adjacent slot left, leaving him and hotpant student the only ones in front of the row of counters. She was jumbling out to a service agent in a fake French accent about needing to be on board the next flight to Paris. All travellers in the waiting area were also quite engrossed with their various businesses and seemed unconcerned about the next person beside them so he was startled when he felt a sharp prick at the back of his neck and his fingers swiped blood. He found no one within two meters from him. As unlikely as it seemed, he assumed he'd been bitten by a fly.

"Dr. Mountzgret-Murray?"

"Yes?" he whispered, warily eyeing the lady behind the thin glass partition.

"Dr. Kelvin Jacob Mountzgret-Murray from Oxford University?" she asked again.

Cheery face, doll-like blue eyes, smiling red-coated lips, tight-fitting uniform, pinned name tag that read 'Jessie Camp'. His narrowed eyes carefully travelled from her curly blond wig as far down as they could go, fishing. How could a bright-eyed airport check-point staff know more about him than his passport revealed?

"MIT phoned to send their gratitude to you. This is your passport, and this box is from the University. Have a safe trip back home, sir."

Unless MIT possessed a satellite they had spotlighted on him, they were not aware of his leaving the city.

"Thank you." He took back his passport and ticket but his fingers lingered around the small wrapped box. "If this box is from the University, they're likely complimentary cupcakes. Take it as a treat from me, Miss Camp." He pushed the box back to her, wincing with enormous regret as her long finger eagerly closed around it.

What was inside it? Poisoned sweets… a bomb ready to be detonated by a passer-by once it got into the right hands?

"Thanks." Jessie Camp smiled.

"On the off-chance that they're not cupcakes, throw them away at once. Cupcakes are bad enough for you considering your current weight, which I believe is 70, 80 kg? You have pretty round cheeks; pretty, yes, but still quite rounded for a face like yours."

Her smiling face squeezed into a scowl and the box she had picked up was slapped back down. Alright, in that offended state its new owner had been left, its destiny could only be the trash-can, where it belonged.

He turned toward the escalator. So, they found him. And they could be anywhere, could be anyone among the people. He stepped off the escalator and headed for gate 3.

Then he saw it, the ridiculous star-shaped, plum sunglasses that had stared fixedly at him in the hotel lobby. The bat eyes watched him openly as they had done before. There was a man who didn't see it as a disadvantage to let his prey know he was after him because he was confident he would catch him whenever; a notion that no doubt drove fear, desperation and rashness in his victims and make the game more stimulating for him. He figured he would not get far if he jumped back on the escalator, but by moving forward, he was consciously sliding into his grave.

Time flew back with each wooden step he took across the concourse: the soft, shy giggles of his wife over the phone, relating her plans for his homecoming in rousing specifics that had left him aching for her all night; his mother's impassive smiles that had never really concealed her loneliness; Jin, after the burial service of his twin, dead-drunk in the bar where all four of them had last held up their bottles – to his victory over death after two surgeries, David's expectancy of a new daughter, Jaures' engagement to Britney – and alongside, discussing William Cooper's assignment. He would have to save them, even on his last breath, he would have to make sure none of them become their next victim.

The announcement came for first class to begin boarding. He stepped behind a burly man in the short queue, nodded a greeting when he glanced back.

The man initiated, "Fine weather for a flight, yeah? We're lucky. The weather hasn't been too good recently, damn crappy weather in summer. Has a message for us." he cupped his ears. "Are you hearing it?"

"What does it say?" he asked out of a need to be courteous.

"Says the scenes are changing."

"True that." He nodded in accordance.

"Heading for England?"

He forced a tiny smile. "Heading home."

"I'm leaving mine." The man gave his George Michael moustache a sweep with his index finger as he grinned. "Can't say I regret it much with this downpour and winds when we should be roasting in brilliant sunlight. I'm hoping London would be brighter and dryer."

"Not on any account, I'm afraid. You will come back awfully disappointed with my homeland."

"The words of an Englishman are not to be taken lightly. Duty calls though. Must go." He lifted a shoulder in a fettered shrug. "Some thuds are making trouble for my boss and he wants me addressing them."

"Boston Herald?" Kelvin leaned forward to read the newspapers over his shoulder. "By my wife's words, I'm too cheap to get my own papers." Slowly he fished out his cell phone to continue the message he began in the taxi. His mind photographed the addresses on the paper he had in his pocket long enough for his fingers to find the buttons on the keypad and word them onto the screen, encrypting every word meticulously. Then he typed Jin's email address and hit send, after which he stuck the paper into his mouth. "Any headlines worth reading?"

"There is one which may interest you if tango-dancing with guys in bed is your form of nude pleasure," he replied, holding up the front page to him.

Kelvin smiled and laid off his hat, revealing a thinning hairline at the early stage of baldness. "Fancy that, America is indeed the people's country, allowing homosexual marriages with just a bang of a judge's anvil."

Message sent. He deleted the record, signed out of his account, and ejected his SIM card and memory chip by the side of the phone. Jin would most definitely call back as soon as he read the email. His best friend's scolding wasn't the last thing he wanted to hear, and it could be potentially disastrous if a different ear other than his own hear him mention anything about the investigation.

"It would take God knows how many government sittings with The Queen before permission is granted in England."

"Tell me you're gay," the man drawled, chuckling.

He launched the software to flush the phone. "God no. My beautiful wife made it a repellent option for me this lifetime but I do have a few Boston friends who are bloody homosexuals. I'm sure they're ecstatic at the turn of tables in their favour." To a very strictly observing onlooker, all the fiddling with the phone might seem suspicious so when the progress bar indicated the start of the phone wipe, he said to the man, "Excuse me. I have to return this call. He's my student", brought the phone to his ear and had gave short instructions on a resident doctor he called.

He stepped forward and submitted his boarding pass to the ticket agent.

"Have a pleasant trip, Mr. Mountzgret-Murray," the agent said as he handed back his document.

"I'd be sure to," he returned with a smile. In the two seconds it took to pass by him, he slipped the two chips into his pocket. If his phone wound up in their hands, and there was every possibility it would once they got him, he would at least be protecting Jin, and with him, Kate and his mother, if no trace of his friend's involvement was detected. By the time a search for his memory card turned up, bored Mr. Ticket Agent would either still be holding it in safety or would have disposed of it conveniently in a place away from his trail in Boston City.

The urgency of a possible escape now that all was standing between him and home was the tunnel passing to the plane sizzled within him as he lifted his suitcase onto the bridge. Was escape really possible? Perhaps as a result of the immense shock of seeing the hooded figure again, he felt bodily drained of energy. His strides became a drag try as he did not to fall behind the other passengers. A hot sensation started down his body and steadily crept up along his limbs and up his spine as if he was standing on burning coal gradually intensifying in heat. He still did his best to double up.

The pistol muzzle pushing into his spine was the first thing he registered before he felt the heavy breathing down his neck.

"You must want Kaitlyn, your beautiful wife, to be safe, doc?"

He looked back, expecting to look into plum sunglasses, however it was the friendly newspaper man from the queue he stared at. How he got from the front to the back, he would very much want to know but given he had a gun to his back and he sounded as if he intended to use it, he refrained from asking.

"Keep moving, Kelvin. We don't want to attract attention, do we?" He shoved him forward with the butt of the gun.

"Jesus Christ, there are two of you?"

"Oh pity, sir, you brought a knife to a gun fight." He put on the pleasant, broad smile that supplied an easy flow to their friendly discussion, but his cold, dark eyes mirrored the threat he could crush his trachea without a blink. The eyes, Kelvin thought regretfully, he should have spotted the dead set glare in them.

"I am not dying with a plane full of innocent lives to help you mask a murder." He staggered forward with another shove as the last of the people, a woman in pencil heels, disappeared down the curve. "We're alone now. Kill me right here. Blow me up."

"How noble! You think about saving innocent lives when the angel of death stands before you. Who is to say the plane doesn't already have a bomb in one of its compartment? Anyway, you weren't destined to take the plane, sir. I am Jamison Bruce, the last name you'd learn. Call me Jamie."

They stood eyeing each other mere inches apart. He would have made a run for it if he hadn't been certain the bullet would hit him faster than his quivering limbs would know what to do.

"I could understand the FBI nosing around affairs that weren't his business and to some extent that silly Jewish Chemist but you came as a big surprise. You have free time to play detective. Too bad." He tsked

"Leave my wife out of this, I beg you," Kelvin implored.

"C'mon, Kelvin, you know that's not our game. Keep loose ropes and they turn round to trip you. Who knows how much you've whispered to her on your pillows after fireworks?"

"Dear Lord, you did kill the women," he whispered in disbelief.

Jamison jerked his head to the side in frank admission, denoting how trivial he deemed the murders.

"You killed them on the sheer assumption they know things they shouldn't?" Bile swelled up so high up he tasted the bitterness on his tongue. "One had gone through premature labour because of her husband's tragic death, you son-of-a-dog."

"Yeah, that was truly pitiful." It was tossed out as if he was discussing a minor correctable accident. "She was a collateral damage, the lesser evil in a grand plan that would mark a milestone in world's history. Let me assure you her girls will be well cared for. The orphanage will receive generous charities until the baby comes of age and our favours to her won't end there. The old woman would also have some lucky turns on the gambling table every now and then. They'd be sponsorship for their education; they'd lack nothing. After all, we don't set out to destroy lives; rather the opposite. Blame her death on her husband."

"You have some nerve."

"Larson may have intended not to keep any secret from his wife like any idiotic suburbia husband. He blabbed a little here, a little there. He called her when he was waiting in that bar. What reason will he have to let his wife know he's in a bar watching a party of naked girls dance on poles? After we got rid of him, we couldn't risk her connecting his death to the tales she listened to over her shoulders in the kitchen. Grief can make the mind go wild pulling up memories, some of which may not be too far from the truth. And as for that Jewish boy, he put that pretty girl at risk. When he dodged the first bullet, he should have continued to keep his trap shut as he had been doing but what did he do? Blab about everything. I listened in. Knowing the girl knew nothing, she was going to walk away with her life until he did the stupid thing. Killing her was the last thing I wanted to do. I don't enjoy taking lives, doctor. I'm not a monster."

"And you're assuming I told my wife?" He adapted a softer, reasoning tone. "You must have done your research to know she's harmless. Even if she's smart to draw any meaningful conclusions, what harm can she possibly do you on her own? My two friends and I couldn't solve you. You win. So please, leave her alone. She's no threat to you, you know that very well."

"Your two friends and you?" He wrinkled his nose with scepticism. "Making you the last of the riff-ruff?"

"My two friends and I." He nodded resolutely

"You're Jin?"

"What?" Jin. Jin? They knew about Jin. How in God's name?

"It's a simple question, Kelvin. Are you Jin or not?" Each word in that demanding query was punctuated by a clout with the gun that rammed him back until he was hard pressed against the soft wall. The pain weaken his arm from his shoulder down and made his grasp on the wall quivery but he was much too shocked to feel.

How much have they dug on Jin to call him by that name? Had he been their main target all along, knowing he is the engineer behind it? His friend was the only hope he held that even if he wasn't around, his Kate wouldn't end up like Eve Larson or Britany Steele. His mind worked fast to come up with the best answer to cover up his momentary display of alarm he knew had not gone unnoticed by the critically-assessing, cold, dark eyes and find out what they knew.

"You know the name only two people in this world know me by, both of them dead. Very well, Jamie, you did your homework." He ensured he maintained direct eye-contact until his adversary blinked first. Unknown to his adversary, he was sweating through his shirt.

Jamie snarled, a little amused. "Ahh. Hello there, Secret Agent, pleased to meet you finally. Do you have any idea how many ropes I've jumped to find you?"

"Wait. Secret Agent?"

Only a few had known Jin's actual line of work and that counted his correspondents in the agency he had had direct contact with, him – because he was his closest friend and he could never keep a secret from him, and when he run into trouble and needed rescuing, his father came in. David and Jaures never fully bridged his relationship with Bill Cooper and for years, not even his own twin sister understood the real reason he would chase a girl to Germany when she decided she needed to be more than a high-school graduate and long-distance relationship wouldn't work with her college curricula.

Drawn in a fast tightening net, he guffawed as if he had lost his mind. Crazy as it looked with a gun to his chest, it was the only way he could react. The gen they had on Jin was so startlingly profound that at some point, the strain of camouflaging his shock and his fear would push him off the edge for sure.

"You think I'm a joke, Agent?"

"Pardon me. I'd be stupid to not take you seriously. Though I couldn't help but wonder who lost his mind and made me a secret agent? Have you seen how I howl when I see a gun that pops out real bullets?"

"Alright, let's play your game. Agent Jin is a CIA agent who executed assignments in Berlin with the pharmacy's president. Ever joined U.S Intelligence, sir?"

"No, Jamie. I haven't." He began to relax. What they knew about Jin was only what they had sniffed from his ties with William Cooper, titbits they would not be able to prove, much less work with, because such information no longer existed in any intelligent database. "Even without being very English, a profile such as you have described will never match me. If, as you're making out, you got into CIA and retrieved information about an agent, then trust me, you have your facts wrong. My nickname, Jin, is short for Jacob, my middle name. My friends gave me the name because it sounds girlish, which they believed I can be at times. Americans, name-calling won't be your first crime. I met William in Germany, yes. I got in his way once during one of his executions at which point he had to risk his life saving mine. It's not an uncommon situation for bonds to forge in the heat of battle. Often times after the incidence, we had communicated. He had had to rely on my medical skill when he can't deal with hospitals because of the nature of his job."

"Makes sense." Jamie concurred with a curt nod and a deep exhalation that gave him hope the matter would end with him. "What doesn't is why you're talking a lot, doc."

"I'm protecting my wife." He pulled himself up. Releasing his hold on the wall made him realise how quickly he was burning out, but no way was he going to let him know he was getting to him. If the demon got whiff of his fear, the lives he was trying to save were as good as lost. He needed to make him – them – give up the hunt; the desperation and resolution was evident in his plea, "It's over for us, I accept it but my wife is clean. I don't want her to die of my doing. I love her. I'm telling you everything so you won't feel the need to harm her. There is no one else out there to get you. I will not beg for my life but I beg for hers. If you really have no motive of destroying lives, let one person live."

Jamie's lips curled in an angular sneer which didn't do as good a job of concealing the flicker of doubts that wavered underneath his brows as he hoped. "Okay. I give you my word I'd give it serious thought what I tell the boss. It's my gift to you. But to leave her completely alone or not depends on her actions. If she stays quiet, we leave her alone. If not…" He shrugged.

"Thank you."

"Giving normal circumstances, I'd have offered you a smoke. You're a decent man. Not many will place someone's life above their own. You must understand though, some doormats are best left alone, otherwise dust clouds taken years of hard work to get settled kick up. At least with these few recent operations by you and your pals, the board is finally setting the table to launch the firm's newest product without fear of incurring any unwanted side loses or a complete loss of control. Your good friend, the president, is really proud and excited about this product. It would begin a new era and a fascinating breakthrough in pharmaceutical discoveries', he's said."

His heart plummeted as his words sank in. Slowly, he met his eyes. "William Cooper believes the product is dangerous."

"Every invention is potentially dangerous, doc. To another faction, the majority, it can be godsend, and in this case, it will be." The smile widened into a grin. "Do you believe his intention was to stop its production? You're a damn smart guy, doc. Think! Why would the president ask for a private investigation into issues under his own nose?"

…without incurring any unwanted side loses or a complete loss of control.

"Was this product generated from Robin Chantey's research?" he asked faintly.

If Chantey conducted even a part of that research whilst in MIT, then with his death, its claim of ownership remained with the University. Surely William wouldn't develop a product he has no claims to.

"You and your friends have made outstanding contributions in bringing about a new era. I would've voted you receive rewards equalling your achievements but it wasn't left to me. It's too bad it's been decided for you to become more useful, you'd have to be kept silent, like all the others who became threats."

He took a cigarette from his back pocket and stuck it between his teeth. "Yeah, I'm sure you've figured out by now Dr. Chantey's supervising professor, Stanley Warden didn't die of heart attack. You know how slowly little volumes of arsenic fed at a time can kill a man, one who wouldn't shut up about going public."

He found a lighter in the same pocket, bumped up a thin flame and held it up, watching its gentle, ballerina-like twirls with the air. "The doctor's friend your friend Larson arranged to meet with in the bar was one we've been tracking down for years. Chantey employed him as his assistant and he ended up biting the bigger hand that feeds him. The drugs probably gave him that boldness."

The lighter touched the tip of the cigarette. He sucked in the smoke and let it come out in stunted puffs as he continued, "The junkie disappeared along with all of the doctor's works after his death. He evaded us for six years until we finally located him and relieved him of the burden. He set the birth of the new era six years back, very disturbing, isn't it? To rub salt to the injury, he slipped through our fingers again and managed to contact Professor Warden. The stupid boy got it into his head he could be rich overnight selling the research off to the world. Who knew whom he might have enticed next? Fortunately that critical loose end was successfully tied in that stripper club, thanks to Larson's meeting with him. If it's any consolation, I did mutter our thanks before I slit his throat. Kelvin, you should understand the product would save millions of lives and can even be the ground work for what would be developed for man to attain immortality. The few casualties are necessary."

If William had indeed orchestrated the investigation, then he had likely known every single character involved, and what they had been about. It only meant he was striking them down as and when they became useless or dangerous, and that was after they have found a piece of his puzzle for him. He killed David and Jaures and soon him because they came close to viewing the bigger picture. Was it merely an issue of patent right, something an international pharmaceutical giant couldn't secure with a stroke of ink on a bank draft? Sponsoring MIT's Chemical Department in exchange for sole rights to their research could have sufficed, so why, why would they create such complications and be willing to create more to cover up?

"And there remains only one loose end now; you, Jin. No one likes it that you in particular have been snooping around."

"Wait a minute." Kelvin frowned. Something didn't tally up. William wouldn't send his man on a goose chase after Jin when he was the one character he himself placed and his whereabouts at any time had been no secret to him. "I'm curious. What is this about the pharmacy's breakthrough."

"Must I tell you?"

"I might live and if I do, I will want the world to know about it and what its production cost. But if you're certain about killing me, then have the decency to satisfy the last wish of a dying man."

Jamie shrugged and stepped forward to whisper into his ear. Shock replaced fear which was replaced by fury very quickly. His hands clenched into fists beside him as he learnt deeper into the heart of their monstrous plan.

"In conclusion, Dr. Mountzgret-Murray, the issue of Jin's identity is not a big problem. The last to be dispensed off remains Jin and Jin is whoever shows up with his nose too long for his face, like you. Thus if after you, someone else shows up inquisitive in the affairs of the pharmacy, well, you know how it'd go for that brainless SOB. Now, quietly do as you're told if you love your wife as much as you claim. The drug must have worked its way up by now. You'd soon be completely under its spell. There won't be much you can do anyway."

"What do you mean?" Kelvin gasped, half-afraid he knew exactly what he meant. He thought of the slight itch at the side of his neck where he had been stung.

"Looks like no explanation is necessary, doc," Jeremy pressed his sneering face closer. "How do you feel? Too weak to stand upright without holding the wall? Are your limbs growing limp? You see, you were, earlier on, shot with a poisonous solution mixed at the pharmacy. We call it the Anaconda Paralysis. It won't kill you for a very long time but meanwhile, it paralyses the body completely; has been a tremendous help taking care of the likes of you. In just about right now, you'd be limp and there won't be much you can do. The antidote is only prepared in our labs."

Just as said, when he bent to pick up his suitcase, he almost keeled over. His reaction time had slackened about ten times in the last few minutes. Within seconds, he crumpled down on his knees, his legs submitting completely to the bound. He glared, helplessly at the man at whose mercy it appeared he was.

"Your end will be the most painless, I assure you. Do you do drugs, Kelvin? Never mind. You soon will find it hell to live without, or so people will think of you. Heard of Dylan Gordon? He's a drug trafficker across the European continent as at now. He'd be meeting one of his most important clients in one of his hideout. Make a wild guess who. Think about the things that can happen to you on your way to meet him. Say, the road can cave in. When you're cleared, we would hand Gordon over to his hunters as a cheer. Yeah, we're that generous. There, there, sir, let me give you a hand up. There's a luxurious private jet awaiting, stacked full with chilled champagne and super-hot hostesses who have the bodies of pole divers and we don't want to keep them waiting, do we? That's what the company gives us for every successful execution although I don't know how I'm going to share my prize with you. The only pleasure you may derive is watching me take the hostesses." He chortled as he threw one of his limp arms over his shoulder and half dragged him away, his suitcase in other hand.