Ingrams & Assoc 2: Retreat Ch. 05

While they had yet to confirm it, the idea that Pinkerton and to an extent, Ingrams, was running with, was that the gang was using dual approaches. One was the sexual imagery blackmail, but if that wasn't enough, they were also dosing up variable combinations of partners with the flu virus, then telling them they were 'infected' with some mystery disease, and only they had the cure. Never mind that the symptoms would go away on their own – they used fear against the victims. It was almost certain they would use time as a weapon – "You'd better come through now or you'll be dead in days. Don't waste your time talking to Doctors; you'll be dead before they can do anything. Etc etc etc."

In a way, it was genius. Owning the pictures was not illegal, and if anyone did go to the cops, well, they'd be fine in a few days, and there was no evidence to the contrary. While they'd get a slap on the wrist, no one could prove anything and they'd be free to carry on with someone else.

The secret really was the attendance at the island retreat. The people coming there were ready made for this kind of scam. Normally uptight church going people, who get away to the sun, get drunk, be in a closed secure environment where they were encouraged to explore their sexuality, with laid on entertainment? It was no wonder they had succeeded every year in their attempts to compromise one of the bank managers.

And then April had wandered in, and fucked it all up, removing both the vials of flu and the memory stick in the camera – all materials used to coerce the unwilling were destroyed.

She could quite understand Astrid was pissed, but what did they want with her?

They had obviously figured out she wasn't what she purported to be, but what did they think she actuallywas? Well, there was only one way to find out...

Astrid leaned forward and whispered in a low voice, ensuring April leaned forward to listen, too.

"So, April. By now I'm sure all sorts of scenarios have run through that magnificent head of yours. Here's the deal. You fucked up a perfectly good operation for us, one that was successful for years until you showed up. You are obviously some kind of operative for some agency, there to fuck up our little game. And you did, so kudos to you. But for that, there comes a price. And the price is, you help us make up for the fuck up you caused."

There was silence, and April looked up at Astrid, puzzled.

"Why?" she asked, simply.

Astrid smiled at her.

"That tea you've been nursing. You think its just tea? You've just ingested some of our more...potent mixtures. But don't take my word for it. Go have your blood tested."

This didn't sound so good to April. She knew the stuff they used on the clients at the island would never stand up to that scrutiny. Either this was a huge bluff or she was in real trouble.

"What?" It wasn't difficult for her to appear nervous and upset. "What did you do to me?"

"What do you think? A little something to ensure some cooperation. Don't look so down. It's easily fixable with one of our other concoctions. Just make sure you don't leave it too long dear. It might get a little...messy."

April considered her situation. They could be bluffing – they had in the past – but then they'd know she'd know that, so perhaps they weren't. There were ways to find out, and luckily enough, she had access to them. Either way, it was an alarming situation. She resolved to play along, in a worried fashion.

"What have you given me? Tell me..."

Astrid smiled. "All in good time. Now, we know you are an investigator of some kind. We don't know who for, but I would hazard a guess it's for one of those faceless entities that's made up of letters. What we want is you. Or more to the point, we want access. We want to know a good place to...help redistribute the wealth, shall we say. You denied us a source, so it's up to you to help provide a new one. We figure that you must have access to some juicy information – something going on that we can use to...increase the war chest."

"Like what?" April was genuinely curious about what they thought she knew.

"Oh, I'm sure I don't know. But I have faith that you'll find something. Work as though your life depends on it. Have a look through some old case files, or find some juicy little company that has a lot of cash on hand. It doesn't matter – just be sure that it's somewhere we can visit where there will be very little follow up."

April just sat still, staring at Astrid, unblinking.

Astrid reached out and patted her hand. "It's all going to be ok, April. Just play along, give us a little something and everything will be fine. You'll see. You never know, once this is over, we can plan a repeat of that last night?"

April involuntarily and internally jumped at the touch. It took every ounce of her self-control to not react physically, and the fact that she turned to stone in order to do that was not lost on Astrid, who smiled the content smile of someone who knows they have hit home. Internally, April was mad at herself for losing her composure, even internally. She was the professional here, not Astrid. She was the one who was supposed to be in control.

"Oh you do remember it. So do I. So does Sam here. We've never had a reaction quite like that. I do wish we'd had camera's rolling for that one. I've never had a woman react like you did, and, to tell you the truth, I've never come quite as hard as I did when you were doing your stuff. I know for a fact that once this...unpleasantness... is past us, I'd quite like to see if we can't recapture that? How do you feel about that April? Hmmm?"

Astrid drifted her fingertips on the top of April's hand and along her bare forearm. She smiled seductively at April while doing so, her tongue flicking out and licking the corner of her lips.

It was all very classic seduction technique, straight out of one of the texts that April had read at the start of her career at Ingrams. She was well aware of what Astrid was doing – a textbook case of carrot and stick. Make April want something, and then give her a reason to not back out. A weaker personality could easily fall for it – the person gets something they want, and internally, they rationalize it as something they had to do anyway, because of the stick part of the 'persuasion'.

"Now, you run along and get your blood tested or whatever it is you want to do, and we'll be in touch. You might want to be a little private about where you get your blood tested – wouldn't want your employers to know, would we? You'd be benched and out of a job almost immediately, so it's not in either your interests or ours to do that. Something to bear in mind. We'll be in touch."

Astrid rose in one fluid motion, and nodded at Sam and the large man behind her, who was still doing his best to look menacing and walked out, still holding her coffee, without looking back.

April released a breath she didn't know she was holding and, giving it a minute, rose herself, picking up her cup carefully, and looking intently at the barristers working in the coffee shop, so she'd recognize them again. If there was anything in her tea, one of them put it there.

Walking out, her thoughts were a whirl. She was pissed at being uncovered – although she really only had herself to blame for that – and also excited. If she took this back to Ingrams, she had no idea what they'd want to do to Sam and Astrid. But Ingrams was a house of subversive therapy, not a spy network. Whatcouldthey do? But on the other hand, April wanted Astrid and Sam to get theirs.

So what to do?

*****
"Are you sure about this?" asked the mousey woman with the large spectacles and white coat. The woman pushed the spectacles back up her nose again, since they were prone to dropping down, and then scratched the top of her head, where her hair was pulled up in a bun, giving her face a dragged up look.

"Yes, I'm sure, Wendy. I need a blood test and some analysis of the tea in that cup."

Wendy pursed her lips and regarded April.

"Is this official? Something I should be making reports about?"

April smiled at her friend wearily and said, "No, just need something checked out. There may or may not be something in the tea, something to give me symptoms of flu or something, and I need you to look at it. It doesn't need to be official; in fact it's better if it's not. Come on, Wendy, you owe me, you know it."

Wendy Slater did in fact owe April. She owed her a lot. They'd met when April had official work from Ingrams to deliver to the company where Wendy worked – she was the head lab tech for an analysis company – the kind that police and FBI use to get details on fibers or blood spatters. Ingrams also contracted for the rare occasions where they needed DNA tests.

Wendy was the contact for Ingrams, and April, while a field officer and not usually the one who was delivering items to be looked at, often was the one picking up the results. They'd hit it off and about three months later, after several after hours drinks and a couple of dinners, Wendy had asked April for help.

Wendy was aware that April was a trained therapist, and had asked her to help intervene in the case of her younger sister, who was on a down ward spiral. Both were orphans, having lost their parents in a car crash several years before, and the lack of an established parent had more impact on her younger sister than it did on Wendy herself. Her sister had started drinking too much, partying all the time, smoking weed and Wendy suspected she was being more than a little loose with her body. When she found an amateur porno starring her little sister, she decided enough was enough.

She didn't know exactly what April did for a living, only that she was a trained therapist – a fact that had come out when April had made some throw away comment about DNA not accounting for mental stability, and whatwasrequired for that.

In the end, Wendy had approached April, not knowing who else to turn to. They'd had coffee, April had listened intently to what Wendy had to say – it all coming out in a tumult, once Wendy found someone willing to listen, and had then assured the upset scientist that she was doing the right thing, and April would help.

It had taken almost a week, but April got Janie Slater into a rehab facility. Wendy still had no idea how April had actually achieved it – when she'd tried talking to Janie, she'd been laughed at. What she didn't know what that April had taken her on a day trip – to skid row, to a mental institution, to a morgue and to a rehab facility, to show her the long term affects of the path she was taking. She had, quite literally, scared her into wanting to change.

This had all happened a year before, and since then, April was one of Wendy's favorite people. She'd even taught April to cook. They'd spent some drunken evenings out, people watching and Wendy felt comfortable with her friend.

April had inquired, delicately, about Wendy's single status one night, when they'd both had a bottle of wine each, and Wendy had confessed that the two relationships she'd had – or tried to have – had ended disastrously, and she was too uncertain and not confident enough to "put herself out there". April had laughed easily with her, and spent the rest of the night laughing at some of the frat boys attempting to pick them up in the bar they were in.

So when April came to ask for a favor, Wendy was there to perform. It was one thing she could offer.

"Leave me the blood vial and I'll run every test I can think of. I'll let you know tomorrow, since it'll take that time to grow some tests."

April smiled and kissed Wendy on the cheek. "You are a life saver, you know that?"

Then she turned and left, and Wendy was left wondering what was going on, since April had seemed far more tense than Wendy had ever seen her before.

*****
"Derrrrrrrmoooooootttt," said April, hanging around the door of Dermot's office, and attempting to look seductive, in an exaggerated way.

Dermot, sitting at his desk, with his feet up on it, franticly prodding at his Ipad, looked up at April, who wandered into the room holding two glasses and a bottle of expensive Brandy.

He put his Ipad down – not before April got a good look at the screen, which revealed Dermot was on level 176 of Candy Crush Saga – and pushed his bi-focal glasses back up his nose.

Dermot was white haired, and had a relatively large nose, and looked slightly unshaven. April had noticed that his facial hair grew at a ferocious rate – clean-shaven in the morning still gave Dermot five o'clock shadow, or at least would have if the facial hair hadn't been white, too.

"April!" exclaimed Dermot, taking his feet off his desk. "To what do I owe this salacious pleasure?"

April plonked herself down in the easy chair on the other side of Dermot's desk, put down the brandy and the glasses and busied herself pouring out two measures.

"Can't a girl just want to have a drink with an old friend once in a while?" she asked, glowing innocence at Dermot, as she looked at the two snifters and added a touch to one, so they were equal in amount.

Dermot gave her a penetrating stare and replied, "Lassie, the day you want to have an 'innocent drink' with me is the day I quit and take up market gardening. Some girls can have a drink with an old friend. You are not one of those girls."

April laughed and handed over the brandy glass. Dermot glanced at the clock and saw it was past nine o'clock – another rare occurrence for April to still be in the office at that hour when she wasn't actively on a case.

He swished it around in the glass and sniffed it. "Ahh, Courvoisier Napolean, n'est pas?" he said, in a questioning tone.

Wordlessly, April leaned forward and rotated the bottle around so he could see the label.

"Hmm. Good to know I still know my brandies." He said, taking a long sip.

"Oh so good. Right, come on then. Spill. What do you want? I already know it's not my body."

April picked up her glass and took a drink herself. "How do you know? I might have a thing for older men."

Dermot put down his glass and said sarcastically, "Oh be still my beating heart. Gimme a break. What. Do. You. Want?"

"Weeeeeellllll....."

April was having fun with this. She didn't often get to needle Dermot in a fun way, and she was taking full advantage now.

Dermot tilted his head.

"So that last case..."

Dermot groaned and sat back, the glass forgotten. "I might have bloody known. Doesn't sit well, does it lassie?" he said, the Scottish burr in his voice making an appearance.

April made a face back at him.

"No, didn't think it would. It didn't with me, either."

"Soooooooo.. I was wondering. Do we have a Pinkerton contact for this?"

Dermot was immediately suspicious. "Why? Why would you want to know that?"

"Just curious...."

April took another salubrious drag on her drink, pretending to be fascinated by what was in the glass.

Dermot just sat there, staring at her. There was silence for a moment.

"Oh, if you must know," pouted April, "I just feel like I should be in that loop. These guys need to be warned off in a specific fashion. I should be a part of this, not just the writer of some report they read. I mean come on, I've met these people. I know them, more than they do, anyway."

Dermot considered the request, and April saw him doing it. She pressed her advantage.

"Dermot, these people destroyed marriages, robbed banks. They are going to get a slap on the wrist and pretty much nothing more. We need to scare them. I can help – my insights of what to go for will help. Youknowit will."

Dermot pursed his lips. He knew there was more to this than met the eye. There always was when April was involved. Different levels of machinations. "Wheels within wheels", as the writer of his favorite Sci-Fi series, Dune, had put it. April was the very definition of that.

On the other hand, what she said did ring true.

"April. I'll give you the name. Don't make any promises with Ingrams name on it. But before I do, let me tell you a story."

He picked up the glass regarded the amber liquid in it for a moment, before taking another drag on it, and then holding the glass close to his chest.

"Many years ago, I had this friend. He was a field agent for the DEA. He was a great guy. Very smart, knew his stuff. Very successful. Anyway, he had one deal go bad, the bad guys got away and he was pissed. He spent alotof time trying to track them down and even took one promotion purely for the access to some databases it gave him. Turns out he spent pretty much every moment of that promotion on this. He didn't care – he got what he needed, found them and took them in. But it cost him. It cost him the job, the promotion and while he got the respect of his people for sticking with it, it prevented him from basically ever being able to do it again. His need for completion cost him the ability to carry on doing it. Are you listening April?"

Dermot stared hard and unblinking at April over the top of his glass.

She took another sip, smiled sweetly at Dermot and said, "Absolutely Dermot. I'm just glad we don't have any other databases around here."

Dermot sighed, knowing his message was heard and understood and then completely ignored. So be it. It was April's funeral.

*****
April's phone buzzed as she was power walking along the Washington Mall. She hadn't had time to run that morning, so instead she was taking a long lunch and doing her best to avoid all the tourists and other assorted power brokers, intent on enjoying the all too brief sun shine in Washington DC that day.

She stopped, found an unoccupied bench and sat down and answered.

"Hey April, it's Wendy, can you talk?"

"Wendy! Thanks for getting back to me so soon. So, what's the scoop?"

"This blood sample is...pretty wack. There's some stuff in it that I had to look up."

"Really? What kind of stuff?"

"Well, if I read this right, it's a modified version of a flu vaccine, that's been tripled in density. To start with, I thought this was some kind of exotic disease or virus. I mean, that's what it looks like. Then I started to chase down which one it was and it just didn't fit any of the obvious ones. So I started casting around and in the end, aftermany hours," – April couldn't help but notice the extra emphasis on this; she was sure Wendy had worked all night on this – "I tracked it down to this experimental flu vaccine thing from the research labs at John Hopkins. I mean, I was lucky. I have a friend I went to college with who works there, and I talked to her, and she put me onto this vaccine thing. This matches up, although it's boosted all to hell."

"So, it's not deadly is it?"

"Well, anything is deadly in a large enough dose, even oxygen. But no, what I'm seeing here is that the recipient would have some flu like symptoms, that would persist a bit, some aching in the bones, a fever, some gastric distress and so on. It would be over in about a week, maybe ten days. What's the most interesting about it though is the way it looks through a microscope. It honestly looks like some kind of man made virus that could be almost anything. All gnarly and scary looking. It's very Doctor Frankenstein."

"But not deadly. And it'll work itself out by itself."

"Oh for sure. Not nice in the interim though."

"Wendy, you just made my day. Thank you for this."

"You are welcome. Drinks sometime?"

"Ohhhh, for sure girlfriend. For sure."

That was a weight off April's mind. She'd been pretty sure that the little gang had just extended their original approach of basic infection with something a bit more aggressive, and she'd been proven right. Now to stop worrying about that, and actually make some of the planning happen.