The Leaves in Winter (15 page)

There was nothing left – of what she knew was no longer there.

Chapter 13

Marie-Louise Square

European Quarter,
Brussels

Eugene Mass eased back on the heated leather and waited for his driver to open the black Bentley Mulsanne’s rear door. It was the middle of the afternoon but weather kept traffic light. They had made good time from Mass’ office to the rendezvous site. Buttoning up his topcoat, Mass took a moment to reflect. Looking around, he was dismayed.

A dusting of snow had drained color from the familiar row of Art Nouveau residences. Their elongated windows and ornamental spires reached for a grey sky without inspiration. Once decorative arches and moldings now seemed pallid and excessive in the cold. Across the street, a frozen lake was ringed by frosted trees. Everywhere around him, the bloom of nature was in retreat and the encroaching works of man appeared pitiful.

The skyline was a disheartening contrast of architectural styles. New concrete blockhouses squatted next to 19th century charmers. Looming above the unlikely pairings were the glass and steel monoliths of finance and government. In their false glory they exuded the arrogance and narcissism of global enterprise. Mass knew it all too well. He was a part of it. He was also in the best position to bring it down.

As the heart of the European Union, the once great European Quarter was considered by Mass to be a governmental ghetto. It was a place where neglect and lack of planning met a callous infatuation with anything new. The evidence surrounded him. Bureaucratic expediency and the lust for mindless profit had run roughshod over the lessons of history and civilizing culture.

This street had come to symbolize the world for him.

No wonder he found it so easy to come here in secret to plan its reordering.

The car door opened and Mass stepped into the cold holding his gloves.

“I expect a longer session today but I may have to leave on a moment’s notice.”

The driver doubled as bodyguard. “Yes, sir.” Mass was accompanied to the front door of the residence but not inside. He had a key; there was no need to knock.

Mass headed up the stairs right away. He ignored the elaborate furnishings, the fine paintings and exquisite woodworking. Even though he had supervised their installation, today they seemed out of place for the work at hand. A sterile operating room with scalpels and needles would be more fitting. The patient was dying but in denial; the disease was aggressive. Only drastic amputation would save the body. The burden of being the one who had to do it was a crushing but humbling reminder that without moral conviction, facile chance alone guided individual fate.

At the fourth floor landing, Mass found the door to the room at the front of the house open. He stepped into the scent of fresh-brewed espresso and bathed in the light from slanted windows in the vaulted ceiling. He knew the place from frequent visits but took inventory anyway. What was once a bedroom for children was now an office, a meeting place where surgeons conspired to launch a bloody intervention.

It was time to revisit the tryst.

“I’ve been waiting for you, lover.” It was a voice of inflated machismo reeking of sarcasm. It belonged to the handsome man on the sofa.

“If you mean we’re all fucked, I’m inclined to agree.” Mass shed his topcoat and helped himself to a cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain Peaberry. He stood at the window and wallowed in his disgust.

The voice fell out of character. Its true accent was a blend of far-flung experience. “We don’t have to do this today if you’re not feeling up to it.”

“I know damned well what we need to do. Putting it off won’t make it any easier.” Mass turned to face a lounging man half his age. Years of their private collusion had made Mass as much friend as boss. Sometimes the casualness between them felt too familiar. Other times, Mass was thankful for someone he could interact with man-to-man. Someone who wasn’t afraid to call bullshit to his face.

Javier Francisco was not his birth name but it adorned his American passport. An expat twice removed from
Cordoba
,
Spain
, Javier had run the full spectrum of a colorful life. From male model to drug runner, from soldier to bouncer, from activist to private operative, the man was a caldron of energy and contradictions.

It now seemed a lifetime away. Mass had recruited Javier off the streets of Marseille. Back then, by day he did dirty work for
Friends of the Ocean
. By night he worked at a techno-dance club tending bar and exercising his dick with anything young and willing. In exchange for his loyalty, Mass promised a lucrative income and membership in an exclusive club. Club members did dirty work for
Mass.

Javier had once stood on the deck of the environmental research ship PaxTerra wearing a windbreaker and green ski mask. He had shoved a handmade sign at the camera announcing
Operation Mermaid’s Tears
.

Shadowing André Bolard had been Javier’s first assignment. Since then, he had become an essential resource for coordinating business that by necessity must remain secret. Javier shared Mass’ vision for a stable and ordered future. More importantly, Javier needed to be where the action was, on the inside track, in line to be rewarded.

To protect the final stages of the overall plan, Mass had set him up in this residence as a kept man, the object of Mass’ philandering desires, the secret tryst into bisexual bliss that was sure to be discovered. Once rumored, the salaciousness of it had blinded an orgasmic press to the real motive for their occasional get-togethers. Never substantiated but made guilty as sin by investigative journalists, it provided the perfect cover.

Ironically enough, the ruse had been the suggestion of Mass’ wife, Leah. She felt the future was too important for pride and held no illusions what would work. Both of them were too rich and too old to cling to monogamous fantasies. That would be their story. Racing each other to the bottom, the world’s media would believe it and propagate it. The indoctrinated masses would be teased to distraction.

Mass took a seat in a favorite overstuffed chair. “Where are we?”

“Where would you like to begin?”

“Tell me about Malcolm.”

Javier lifted a leg off a coffee table and straightened up. “We can’t be sure if he discovered more than Riya. Whatever he knew, Janis has to know. She never showed up for the deposition. Indian police can’t locate her.”

“And the laptop?”

“Gone.”

“We have to get to her first.”

“Just like Malcolm?”

“No! We can’t afford that kind of sacrifice if we can help it. Not again.” An agony discharged through
Mass.
“She’s too valuable in the lab. There’s more to do on simplifying the delivery of
GenLET
. There’s still a chance she’ll come around. We need her to finish her work on the rapid therapy method.”

“That’s a huge gamble. If anything leaks out…”

“I know. Prepare countermeasures just in case.”

“This sucks. So much exposure over one fucking memo! We don’t even know if she has the damned thing!”

“We have to assume she does. I’ll have Indian police coordinate with Interpol. Wherever she’s running, we’ll bring her back. NovoSenectus will press charges. We’ll make it about intellectual capital.”

Javier pulled on his upper lip and nodded.

Mass felt a prodding sixth sense. “I’m surprised she hasn’t gone public already. What is she waiting for?” A silent gap filled with concern. “We’ve been acting on the assumption we know more than she does. What if she knows something else? What if she’s
been told
something else?”

“What can she know?”

“You tell me. That’s your job.”

“There’s nothing. Riya had good reasons to keep her in the dark.”

“Don’t avoid the fucking issue. Somebody kidnapped the daughter. Alyssa is leverage but for what? Did Janis run out of
India
or was she taken out? If she was taken out, was it willingly or by force? Does somebody want
GenLET
secrets as ransom? What could we be missing?”

“Isn’t
GenLET
too complicated? She can’t have it all in her head.”

“She knows enough.”

“She has no access to NovoSenectus to give anybody the details.”

Mass felt the weight of holding the prize everyone wanted. “If you locked Robert Oppenheimer in a room, you wouldn’t have the atomic bomb. But you’d have the next best thing.”

“We’ll find her.”

Mass was all boss as he stared at Javier. “We better. She can hurt us two ways.”

“So what if we get into a situation.”

“Say what you mean.”

“If it comes down to it, when does she become expendable?”

“You already know the answer. Tell me.”

Javier hesitated. “To preserve the plan, we’re
all
expendable…” He looked up at Mass with a wry smile. “…at least down to 500 million.”

Mass had a second cup of espresso. He let Javier’s affirmation of 3rd Protocol linger in the room undisturbed. It was a good reminder for both of them. Cup in hand, Mass stood at the window. His gaze saw nothing in particular. He was tired of looking upon a troubled world. With that in mind, he grew intensely serious.

“What about Goodwin Diye. Have we set up the necessary financial accounts?”

“Everything’s in order. Finances and legal instruments.”

“Double check it. Goodwin Diye must be in place; it’s imperative. It’s the only insurance I have that things will get done. Anything new going on with vaccines?”

“The 3rd Protocol extension to MIOVAC is ready.”

“Does that include halal inoculations?”

“Of course.”

“Good. We can’t overlook any detail. One-fifth of humanity is Muslim. Devout Muslims will not permit themselves to be injected with vaccines grown in pig cells or alcohol. When something is permissible by Islamic law, it’s halal. We must provision accordingly.”

“It’s being done.”

“Do you have anything else for me?”

Javier thought a second. “You wanted me to keep an eye on The Center for Earth Awareness – one of Curtis Labon’s think tanks.”

Mass squinted and snickered. “Imagine that. He has more than one.”

“He’s lobbying all nations to sign the Population Neutral Policy Treaty.”

“In a revised state no doubt. He’s tried that before.”

“This one is more aggressive.”

“Give an example.”

“The new treaty would make all foreign aid contingent upon the receiving country’s government adopting certain Population Neutral Policies.”

“Such as?”

“It requires all women of child-bearing age implanted with a treaty-approved birth control device. Governments would issue permits when women can get pregnant. Permits would be decided by lottery. To be eligible for the lottery, certain criteria would need to be met.”

Mass looked down on the snowy street below.

“A remarkably old idea. And I imagine a spectacular failure.”

“It’s applauded at all the international conferences…”

“And ignored in the legislatures.”

“It’s gotten a lot of attention. Their newsletter has twelve million subscribers.”

“No doubt. Everybody likes to hear what someone else is doing to solve the problem. It makes them feel so much better about doing nothing at all themselves.” Mass strolled back to his seat. “It’s an odd state of affairs. Progress nowadays only defines how bad the problem is. Did you know that
Iran
is the only country where contraceptive classes are required for men and women before a marriage license can be obtained? In
India
, only people with two or fewer children are eligible to run for election to local government.
China
is the only country with a one-child policy – that alone has prevented 400 million births, a massive weight on the planet.”

Javier sat in reverential silence. He had seen Eugene Mass like this before. It was often at his lowest point that his loftiest idea came forth.