Like his hero, Milton William Cooper (no relation to Sandy), he knew he must watch his back. He was safest close to the nest, which he was now. Even the heavies in dark clobber hadn’t worked out who he was, but they were just mindless thugs, not paid to think. It reminded him of a story Angie had told him. Jamie had told her when she was walking through London alone at night to walk with purpose, do something familiar, stride confidently or talk to an imaginary caller on her phone. People are less likely to suspect somebody who belongs.
Hunters seek the vulnerable.
Bodyguards weren’t employed to figure out the danger, just eliminate it.
Sandy’s trials had just been the beginning.
He’d dug, like his podcast handle suggested, until he’d struck gold. He’d proven beyond doubt that Sandy was employed to test Neurohydroxy-14 and what it did to lab animals. By following the data, he’d proved she was paid to smudge the outcomes by Hampton-Dent. He’d thought he was going crazy on some days, as he spent months in dark rooms, rented in anonymity, for short-term leases until it was time to move on again.
But the problem hadn’t been finding the evidence, it was finding people to listen. In the end, they didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t.
They were too scared.
Too rich already. Too far into the Great Lie.
His name was in tatters. He was dismissed as a quack. Once an investigative journalist or podcaster found the truth, even if they had compelling evidence that damned a whole sector of corruption, it was up to the mainstream media to get the wordout. And they were owned by the same people who controlled the funds behind the politicians. It was one oversized club for gods who toyed with people’s lives. Real lives. Real people who paid taxes and struggled to make a living, never knowing they were trapped in the same kind of slavery they thought civilisation had eradicated.
Milton Cooper knew it and had paid the ultimate price.
If Joe thought about it too much, it depressed the hell out of him, and he was tempted to sink several shots of brandy, not just the one to warm his senses and give him the courage he needed to move forward in the direction he’d chosen to.
It blotted out the memory of Jamie’s face. And the memories of Angelina and her paintings.
He heard a sound behind him and turned to see Sandy standing at the wide-open entrance to the ballroom bar. She walked towards him and placed an empty glass on the bar.
‘Let’s walk,’ she said.
It was an order. One he’d grown used to.
He knew he was in trouble, but he needed time to explain that he’d done everything they asked. He’d slipped into the conference unnoticed and had coached Jamie and recorded his testimony loyally. And sent it to Angie for insurance.
Nobody else knew Jamie was a whistleblower. Just the three of them. And that was his last card to play. He’d hidden the USB in a place so safe it would never be found without him.
They walked across the vast lawn and Sandy stared into the distance. They stopped next to a huge rhododendron bush. She poked her nose in to smell and she was virtually covered by it.
She took a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one, offering him one. He took it. They smoked together. Clandestine opposites of the same partnership. Bonded by the death of a man who was about to do the right thing. Not the thing that made him more money than his wildest dreams. Not the thing that wouldbring him fortune and financial freedom for the rest of his life. Not the thing that was easiest. But the thing that would ensure the end of his life as he knew it.
‘He was ready to tell me the truth,’ he said.
‘I know, and it had implications for the rest of us,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘You made the right decision, Joe.’ She sucked hard on her cigarette.
‘Just answer me yes or no,’ he said. ‘The trials were halted because the rats killed each other in rage.’
‘Yes.’
‘Neurohydroxy-14 was never declared.’
‘Yes.’
‘Hank Hampton bought the patent for it to use in military contracts.’
‘Yes.’
‘Bioweapons are being developed offshore in Nigeria in labs funded by the Whalley foundation.’
