alterations in the drug composition used on the dermal patches that killed all but one of the Atlantis crew and nearly brought down MedSys.
âAs you know, he set up a false ID, false bank accounts, false names, and more. What he did took a lot of planning, and unlike most people of his ilk, he planned a nearly foolproof escape plan.â
âBut you kept telling us that you could find him.â Diane leaned forward.
âIndeed, I did.â Garret adjusted his glasses. He knew he looked like a dot-com geek. He cultivated the image. Corporate security involved more electronic work than muscle these days. âIâm confident to the point of cocky and Iâm highly motivated.â
âFive million should be motivation for anyone,â she said. âYou still must locate him â down to the address.â
âI understand. Weâve been over this.â Garret regretted the words as soon as he spoke them.
âAnd weâll go over it every day if I so choose. One man almost ruined fifty years of pharmaceutical business.â Dianeâs words were as hard as ice cubes. âMy father put his life in this company and so have I. Millions of people are better off because of what we do here. I will not let one mistake doom us.â
âWith all due respect, itâs more than one mistake. Your personnel department hired a man who used a false identity. A better background check might have saved you a lot of money.â
âAll old news.â Linearâs jaw tightened. âYou can be replaced.â
âYup, you could do that.â Garret didnât flinch. He never showed weakness. Bad for business. âIn fact, feel free to do so.â He closed the laptop and rose. âIf you want to bring in one of my competitors, then just tell me. Iâll disappear and let you explain to the new guy how youâve covered up a crime committed on your premises, how that crime led to the death of some really good people who Americans consider heroes, and how you managed to cover it up. Oh, donât forget to tell them the man responsible has been running free for the last year.â
âYou want more money, is that it?â Dianeâs frown deepened, something Garret thought was physically impossible.
âNo. The retainer you pay every month is adequate and the five-million-dollar carrot you keep dangling keeps me interested.â
âIt also keeps you from milking the 50K retainer we pay, not to mention the massive expenses.â
âIf I could have nabbed this guy the first week, I would have. Now, do I leave or stay?â
Silence hung heavy in the room. âSit down, Mr. Alderman. We donât want to bring in anyone else.â Diane leaned back. âIt wouldnât be prudent.â
Garret returned to his seat and reopened the laptop. âI know itâs been a rough year for you. Frankly, itâs never taken me this long to pin anyone down. Your man is smart. Worse, heâs clever and apparently has monetary resources. No one can hide for long without a way of sustaining themselves.â
Garret already knew a lot about his target. The man had been a troubled teenager but showed enough promise to make it into a four-year college, finishing in only two years. He had spent three years in the Navy before his superiors booted him out. Free of the military, he returned to school. Several misdemeanors later, he left with a BS degree in biochemistry.
Alderman had yet to understand what drove the man. For years, he seemed a model citizen working at some of the best research facilities and companies in the country â not as a scientist, his credentials didnât allow that, but as a master technician. He knew how to make the machinery and electronics do what was demanded of it.
Something in the man drove him to do more, and that âmoreâ puzzled Alderman. He had become a âbiohackerâ â a term that didnât exist
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