Page 25 of The List
“I’m not going to bullshit you, Chris. The tests confirm that the prostate-specific antigen is in your blood at disturbing levels.
The physical exam and X-rays show radical enlargement.
The cancer’s back and it’s spread. Definitely to the bladder, the adjacent bone, lymph nodes, maybe further.
It’s not good. The unconventional approach you took gave it more time to metastasize. ”
“What are the survival odds at my age?”
“Unfortunately, it appears to be fast growing. The prognosis, at best, is no more than a year. Probably more like five or six months. A year ago we could have removed the prostate and testicles, but that won’t help anymore.
Too much spreading. There’s radiation and chemotherapy, but the side effects can be worse than the disease. ”
He absorbed the death sentence. “You’re telling me there’s really nothing to be done.”
“I’m sorry, Chris. Telling someone they’re going to die is the toughest thing I do as a doctor, especially to a friend.”
He’d heard enough. What more was there to say? He slid off the examining table and shook the man’s hand. “I appreciate everything you’ve done. I’ll be in touch if I have any problems.”
Fifteen minutes later, after dressing, he left the office and shuffled toward the floor’s elevator bank.
He pushed the DOWN button and patiently waited for a car to arrive.
He’d heard nothing he hadn’t already suspected.
He was going to die. And there was nothing he could do about it.
Though he could not say the words, he’d chosen his course of treatment with the idea that he would ultimately die from the disease.
And fast.
He visualized the impertinent smirk Hamilton Lee perpetually wore, evidence of the perverse pleasure Lee seemed to get from thinking himself in charge.
And Larry Hughes. That puppy-dog personality that allowed Lee the luxury of consistently outvoting him.
He remembered the beginning. How he found the money while the one, not much more than an okay manager, and the other, only a moderately successful salesman, indiscriminately spent it.
They were both total failures as executives.
If he hadn’t done what he did the whole venture would have bankrupted long ago.
Now, thanks to his failing body, they could reap the full harvest from the seeds he’d so carefully sowed.
That thought bothered him more than dying.
But what could he do about it?
Only De Florio and two associates. Until August.
That meant De Florio was shorthanded. Seemed ideal. He’d been thinking of what to do for weeks. No more.
Time to act.
He turned, reentered the doctor’s office, approached the receptionist window, and asked to speak to the billing clerk.
His name should be familiar, as he was one of the few patients her boss allowed to pay later.
Everyone else either was covered by insurance or paid as they went, a sign tacked to the wall next to the window affirmatively proclaiming PAYMENT FOR SERVICES TO BE SATISFIED WHEN RENDERED.
The woman approached from the other side of the glass and he politely explained that he did not want either the office visit or the hospital time from the previous weekend billed to him.
Instead, for the first time ever, he handed her his Southern Republic insurance card.
8:36 P.M.
T HE L EARJET LIFTED OFF THE RUNWAY AT A TLANTA’S H ARTSFIELD-JACKSON and climbed into the darkening sky. The ride started bumpy, summer thermals playing havoc, but the advantage of jet engines and a pressurized cabin allowed a quick escape above the cloud deck.
Jon settled into one of the comfy seats and enjoyed the flight, content with the luxury of a twin-engine jet that he knew cost millions of dollars.
It was one of Southern Republic’s many toys.
This one particularly impressive. Cordovan leather interior, wraparound stereo system, digital television, and full, in-flight internet access.
Two pilots were employed around-the-clock, the aircraft routinely used by the board and company officers for both business and pleasure.
Hamilton Lee liked it as a way to impress a new mistress.
Larry Hughes appreciated the speed in which he could get to his Smoky Mountain hideaway.
It had proven particularly convenient for quick trips to Concord since the nearest commercial service was seventy miles south in Savannah.
Yet Jon rarely utilized the amenity. His line of work called for a more covert form of travel.
In and out, unnoticed. That was generally by car.
But tonight he needed to get to Concord quickly, and didn’t have time to drive the nearly four hours it took.
Forty minutes later the jet descended.
The Woods County airport was nothing more than two metal buildings and a single concrete runway.
Even so, the facility was a vast improvement over the stretch of open field that had served the area in the years before Southern Republic’s arrival.
He knew that during Hank Reed’s tenure at city hall the company had lobbied hard for the creation of the Concord Airport Authority to finance needed improvements, revenue bonds eventually issued that paid for upgrades, most notably the concrete strip, two hangars, a fuel depot, and lights to allow night use.
The jet’s wheels kissed the asphalt.
Three minutes later the aircraft was nestled inside the hangar Southern Republic leased from the authority, engines whining down.
He stepped from the plane and headed straight for the Ford F-150 the company kept on hand.
He drove six miles east to the mill, Southern Republic Boulevard nearly deserted.
Evening shift wouldn’t end until 11:00 P.M .
Then a procession of mill cars would cruise in and out, graveyard shift arriving for another night’s work to morning.
He passed through the main gate. The night security supervisor was there and quickly provided a status report he cared nothing about.
Ten minutes later he excused himself, ostensibly to take a walk around and observe.
Through the years he’d deliberately fostered a reputation for liking to see his department’s operation firsthand.
Many times he appeared at the mill and bag plant, at all hours of the day and night.
Twice he’d fired a guard caught sleeping.
Tonight’s visit would simply be chalked up to another one of his surprise inspections.
He walked straight to administrative Building A. Beyond, the mill blazed with light and smoke, its intricate combination of concrete and steel unaffected by time or weather.
And it wasn’t a quiet beast.
The roar from three churning paper machines blared even from several hundred yards away.
He’d often thought it akin to working inside an internal combustion engine running at full power.
He stared up at the towering main smokestack piercing the night sky, a dark plume of precipitant rising that, despite multi-million-dollar scrubbers, wafted of sulfur.
Building A loomed quiet. Prior to leaving Atlanta he’d checked the overtime roster and learned that none had been authorized past 6:00 P.M. Which was exactly why he’d waited until now for a visit. He’d brought a master key, so it was easy to enter through the front doors.
Inside, he hopped the granite stairs two at a time.
The third floor was occupied almost exclusively by the industrial relations department.
At the door marked DATA ENTRY he again used his master key.
The shadowy room harbored four desks, computer terminals, and a row of filing cabinets.
He switched on no overhead lights, more than enough illumination spilling in from the mill through the open blinds.
He headed straight to Marlene Rhoden’s workstation and jerked the plastic cover off her monitor.
He switched on the machine and entered the appropriate commands to display the hard drive directory.
The screen lit up with a long list arranged chronologically.
He scrolled down for last week’s dates. On June 6 the directory indicated that an access file had been created at 10:05 P.M. The next entry showed a copy made of UNION from the INTERCORP subdirectory in the central banks.
He recognized UNION as the file containing the memos Hamilton Lee had planted, hoping Rhoden would find them.
The next entry indicated that a copy had been made.
The notation immediately after was the problem.
At 10:11 P.M. , the directory revealed that another access file was created.
But this time from the SECURED FOLDER . He was aware that one of the files in the SECURED FOLDER , tucked deep behind a heavy firewall, was titled PRIORITY .
Most disturbingly, Rhoden had labeled her own access file with the same designation.
Unfortunately, the directory was not detailed enough to indicate if the entire thing had been copied, but the next entry confirmed that a copy of something had been made.
So he assumed at least part, if not all, of the PRIORITY folder had been breached.
He’d seen enough.
Fear just became reality.
Maybe it was what Lee had told him about Hank Reed. Maybe it was just his inbred paranoia. No matter.
They now had a much more serious problem than a nosy union president trying to make a deal.