The Cain Conspiracy (Harvey Bennett Thrillers Book 8) Read online

  The Cain Conspiracy

  Nick Thacker

  Contents

  Wait!

  Prologue

  Prologue

  I. Act 1

  1. Derrick

  2. Ben

  3. Julie

  4. Cisco

  5. Ben

  6. Ben

  7. Garza

  8. Julie

  9. Ben

  10. Edmund

  11. Ben

  12. Garza

  13. Julie

  14. Ben

  II. Act 2

  15. Garza

  16. Edmund

  17. Ben

  18. Edmund

  19. Garza

  20. Ben

  21. Ben

  22. Julie

  23. Ben

  24. Ben

  25. Ben

  26. Julie

  27. Ben

  28. Garza

  29. Julie

  30. Julie

  31. Garza

  32. Ben

  33. Ben

  34. Julie

  35. Ben

  36. Ben

  III. Act 3

  37. Ben

  38. Julie

  39. Ben

  40. Ben

  41. Garza

  42. Ben

  43. Edmund

  44. Julie

  45. Ben

  46. Ben

  47. Edmund

  48. Julie

  49. Ben

  50. Edmund

  51. Julie

  52. Julie

  53. Ben

  54. Julie

  IV. Act 4

  55. Edmund

  56. Ben

  57. Julie

  58. Julie

  59. Garza

  60. Ben

  61. Ben

  62. Ben

  63. Julie

  64. Garza

  65. Julie

  66. Edmund

  67. Garza

  68. Ben

  69. Ben

  70. Julie

  71. Julie

  72. Ben

  73. Julie

  74. Ben

  75. Ben

  76. Ben

  77. Julie

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Also by Nick Thacker

  About the Author

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  Have you read the first book in this series, The Enigma Strain?

  You can certainly enjoy this book even without having read The Enigma Strain, but if you’d like to start from the very beginning and follow along in order, you can get The Enigma Strain FREE: Just visit the link here and sign up!

  Prologue

  Garza

  Twenty-one Years Ago

  He screamed.

  He’d tried his best to stay silent, to not give in to the pressure, the pain.

  He’d failed.

  Vicente Garza’s head hung loosely on his neck. He felt no more need to fight. No more need to pretend that he was strong.

  He felt a tear descending from the corner of his eye, the same corner in which he saw the man working on his wife. In vain. He’d heard the flatline half an hour ago, and only because one of the assistants had turned off the noise had the sinister sin wave stopped.

  The man worked, frantically moving around the bed and touching, tapping, doing whatever he thought might work. A ‘doctor,’ but Vicente was unsure anyone in the United States would call him that.

  The treatment plan had been simple: extract the tumor using traditional surgical methods, then use the new experimental laser therapy to seal off the area, creating a cancer-free cavity. The laser would effectively kill the tissue in that location, but — more importantly — the medication inside would attract the cancerous to it, at which point they would apply more of the laser-extraction technique.

  It was a treatment Vicente didn’t understand. One that wasn’t even close to being an approved treatment back home. But what he did understand is that his wife was dying.

  None of the doctors would help him. The military wanted him to accept the fact that she was going to be taken from him; even his priest wished for him to begin the grief journey. Begin fighting the battle of grief, they had said.

  He wasn’t ready for any of it. His wife was still breathing, still walking and talking and loving. She was still taking care of him and their young daughter, Victoria. His wife was still… alive.

  Why fight a battle that has not begun?

  Grief can wait, he told himself. We will find the solution.

  And then he met the man who’d offered that solution.

  The family had been visiting Guadalajara, Mexico, the city Garza’s parents had been from. His wife was beginning to lose her hair from the chemotherapy treatments that weren’t having any other positive effects, and they were staying in a hotel for a short vacation before they had to be back home for more doctor visits and treatments.

  Garza, after helping his wife into bed and kissing his daughter on the forehead, had snuck down to the bar and overheard a conversation between two men from Mexico City.

  One was some sort of pharmaceutical representative that came across more like a drug dealer, the other some sort of doctor. They were discussing, in low tones, how many more shipments of a special new drug they would need to prove to the doctor’s staff that the treatment was effective. The doctor was sure a positive result would be replicable within a month , the dealer more skeptical — and therefore wanting to artificially boost the price of his drug.

  Garza was listening in without paying much attention until the doctor leaned in close to his friend and said, “I believe the cancer is completely gone. The side effects are minimal, but we can treat for those.”

  The second man nodded, then grunted. “Price is still going up. It has been taking too long, and my suppliers are having more trouble sourcing the ingredients.”

  The doctor put his palms up, feigning retreat. “Okay, okay, I understand. I can… possibly increase the payment by fifteen percent. But if —”

  “Excuse me,” Garza had said. “I — I am terribly sorry to butt in. May I ask what you are talking about?”

  The two men weren’t pleased that a stranger had suddenly entered the conversation, but Garza had quickly learned that the drug was not illegal, merely untested. When he pried a little further, he discovered that “untested” simply meant the treatment had not been sufficiently and authoritatively studied and analyzed by the requisite cadre of doctors.

  In other words, the doctor scoffed, it had not been through the ten-year-long process of being stripped apart only to discover what the doctor already knew: this drug and treatment plan worked. He had the human trials to prove it.

  Prologue

  Garza

  Twenty-one Years Ago

  Garza wanted in. He knew he would do anything to save his wife’s life, but he wanted to see these results first. The doctor and his supplier agreed to meet in Mexico City the next week, and Garza would have the first half of the required cash in hand: $250,000, in US bills. The entirety of their remaining savings.

  The treatments worked… at first. His wife’s strength increased, and her pain had reduced by at least a quarter. Garza was elated, and he sold their home and wired the cash to Mexico, gladly handing it over to the doctor and his team.

  And then, after about six months of regular laser treatment, his wife’s heath failed. She grew weaker than she’d ever been, and her waking hours were filled with screams of agony. The doctor was unsure what the cause was, assuring Garza that the treatment would kick in at any moment.

  Those moments had long passed, and Garza now sat in a chair against a dingy, dimly lit wall in the doctor’s private operating room. His wife lay motionless on a gurney while the doctor and his two assistants worked.

  A fourth man stood in the corner, barely visible in the shadows. If not for his bright-white clerical collar, Garza would have forgotten he was there. The man was furiously working his way through the beads on his rosary.

  In vain, no doubt. Garza sneered in his direction. Useless body, he thought. And I am paying for his presence. It was a mandatory expense on the office’s list of “general hospitality” fees to have a professional clergyman in attendance. A strange, antiquated ritual, shoving the religion of the masses down the throats of the few. Garza was disgusted by the egregious force-feeding of religion, but he was more disgusted by the logistics: during his time in this place he had noticed that the only rooms that featured these on-call clergy were the rooms of patients who had the money to put up for the luxury.

  He knew it was over. He knew there was nothing they could do, nothing the priest could pray that would bring her back. Perhaps the cancer had already metastasized too far throughout her body before the new treatment, perhaps there was a side effect that the doctor hadn’t yet uncovered.

  Whatever the reason, Garza screamed.

  The doctor turned around, shock on his face, while the priest slunk back even further. “Mr. — Mr. Garza, please,” he said. “You must calm down.”

  “You killed her!”

  “Sir, we — I did no such thing. She — she simply… the treatment did not…”

  The two assistants left the room, citing the need to refill some medication or another. But Garza had seen their eyes — they were scared of him. Terrified.

  And rightfully so. Garza’s temper had worsened the last few months, mos
tly because he was no longer sleeping, and his daughter, merely six years old, was unable to fend for herself. He had no time to rest, no time to not be a parent, and he felt guilty whenever he took even a moment for himself.

  I sit, while she’s dying, he would tell himself.

  But they weren’t just afraid of his personality. Besides his building temper and deteriorating attitude, he was built like a tank. Years of special forces service and a post-military career in private security had chiseled his body into a powerful, functional piece of weaponry. He’d killed many men — and some women — and it had long ago ceased to affect him.

  He stood, calming himself down, and approached the doctor. Besides his dead wife, they were alone in the room. Garza and the doctor and his well-paid priest. He knew his wife would wait — he could say goodbye later. Right now the only thing he could see was his own rage. He had been duped, fooled by this idiot doctor and his money-grabbing business partner.

  In a moment of weakness he had agreed to a no-win situation, a con. He could see it all clearly now. The doctor had no intention — or even the means — to save his wife. It was a money grab. Even the local church was in on it. He wondered how much money would be funneled into the coffers of the parish church.

  “How much of the money do you get?” Garza growled.

  The doctor’s eyes widened, two little beady disks behind equally round eyeglasses. “I — I do not know what you are talking —”

  “How much?” he roared.

  “I… I get 60 percent,” he stammered.

  Garza seethed, his fists clenching and unclenching by his sides. Victoria is out there, he reminded himself. She had been coming to every treatment, waiting in the lobby. There was nowhere else for her, but Garza hadn’t wanted her inside the room. She can hear you.

  He shook his head. No, she can’t.

  “60 percent of my money, to kill my wife.”

  “It’s not… it’s not like that,” the doctor said. “I swear!”

  Garza attacked before the doctor even knew it was coming. A quick flat-fingered jab to the man’s throat, and he stumbled backward and hit the bed. Garza pounced, grabbing the man’s shoulders and sending a knee to the doctor’s groin.

  The priest darted for the door. Garza reached out to stop him, to catch him and make him pay for his taking advantage of his family as well, but the thinner man slid through his grasp. Garza let him run, turning his attention back to the doctor.

  The doctor gasped, the sound coming out like a throaty growl, and Garza let him fall. He sat there on the floor, on his knees, watching Garza with pleading eyes.

  Garza reached for the first thing he could find: the tiny handheld laser. He examined it for a moment. A single button turned the device on and off, and a knob on the side increased the power. It was running through a power adaptor that was plugged into the nearby wall.

  The doctor’s eyes once again widened and he tried to get back to his feet, but Garza was there first.

  He grabbed the man’s arms and fed his own behind them, locking the smaller doctor in place. Garza easily held his weight as he struggled and kicked. He started to call for help.

  Garza stuffed the laser into the man’s open mouth, then hit the button.

  At first, nothing happened.

  Garza used his thumb and forefinger to turn the laser’s power up to the maximum amount, and he felt the doctor beginning to choke. Smoke poured from his mouth, and Garza was suddenly hit by a disgusting wave of odor.

  Burning flesh.

  Vicente Garza stood there, crying, the doctor silently screaming into the laser that was protruding out of his mouth.

  He would stand here as long as it took. He was done feeling out of control. He was done feeling like he had failed.

  He would do anything for his wife in life, and now, in her death, he was doing something.

  I

  Act 1

  1

  Derrick

  “Pull over.”

  The soldier, dressed in black, complete with a black skullcap, looked over at his commanding officer.

  “Sir?”

  “Pull over,” the man said again. His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, his own head sporting a similar black skullcap. The driver hadn’t even realized the man had seen the police lights. He was stoic, unmoving, and the driver was almost sorry he’d volunteered to drive under his command.

  Some of the other privates would have at least talked, he thought. Or at least let us listen to music.

  But Briggs was a statue, a singular piece of muscle that, to Private Jerrick Derrick, was incapable of human emotion. Jerrick Derrick, the man who had spent his life running from slights poking fun at his name, had found a relatively peaceful fit in the ranks of Ravenshadow, a private military contractor run by a man he looked up to as a mentor.

  But he felt he had a long way to go before he understood the inner workings of the group — what was appropriate, what was not, and just how far they would go to achieve their goals. It was a new form of politics Jerrick hadn’t experienced before.

  “But sir, if they see the —”

  “That’s an order, private.”

  The young driver nodded once, gritted his teeth, and slowed the vehicle. The brakes squealed a bit, the humid, damp air no doubt a factor. The massive troop transport truck veered right, its passenger-side tires finding a dip just off the side of the asphalt and melting into it. The truck’s frame creaked in protest, and he felt some of their payload shifting in the back.

  They came to a complete stop, a hiss emanating from somewhere in the depths of the engine compartment, and the driver looked again at his commanding officer. Now what? Derrick wondered.

  The police cruiser kept its siren lights on as the officer stepped out. He was doughy, fat around the waist, and looked as though he’d be better served driving a desk chair than a police cruiser.

  Derrick watched the man from his side mirror. He checked his belt, pushed in a bit of shirt that had popped free, then sauntered toward the truck. He had his hand on his pistol.

  The officer strode up to the side of the massive truck, squinting in the noonday sun, and made a motion to roll the window down.

  “Si?” Derrick asked. He hoped the policeman knew English — ‘si’ was about the extent of his Spanish.

  The officer mumbled something in Spanish. Derrick shook his head.

  “Get out,” Briggs mumbled.

  “What?”

  “He said get out. So get out.”

  Derrick was confused. “But we can’t —”

  “Get out, private. Take him around back. He wants to see what we’re hauling.”

  Derrick flashed a glance down at the assault rifle leaning against the truck’s front seat between him and Briggs. Briggs’ own rifle was in his hand. Neither was visible to the police officer.

  Derrick flicked the handle open and put a leg down on the rail. “Should I show him?”