Chad Blackstone shuffled papers around on his desk and ran his fingers through his unkept white-blonde hair, making more of a mess of it than it had been before. He had already finished the final reports on all of the clinical trials he’d worked on for the past several months. All of the studies that were still in progress had been turned over to the Clinical Research Associate who would handle the case from this point forward.
Friday would be his final day with the Houston office of Lone Star Medical. At first the transfer to the Arlington office had been unwelcome; moving back to the area he had grown up, being around all of the people who had tormented him, felt like a punishment. Now it was a blessing. Smiling at the people who would pay dearly for their sins…that made all of his sacrifices worthwhile.
All of his possessions were already sealed in boxes, waiting for the movers who were set to arrive first thing on Saturday. He kept out only what he would need for the next few days and an overnight bag. The company had taken care of all of the details for him, including the matter of the bill. Chad enjoyed that his employer would be paying for him to stay in corporate housing on the Fort Worth/Arlington border until he found a comparable home to the one he was now renting. He was also getting three paid weeks to get ‘acquainted with his new surroundings.’
Three weeks would be more than enough time for Chad to carry out his revenge. His high school reunion was two weeks from Saturday, which gave him ample time to set everything in motion. It would also provide adequate time for his plans with Jenna. Even without the new revenge scenario, what they planned had him so excited he could barely contain it.
Chad tried to suppress the fiendish glint in his cold, grey eyes when he thought about the event that had changed his life four short weeks ago. He was at work late the night he found out about his transfer; eleven thirty-six, to be exact. Two shadowy figures had approached him in the parking lot. They claimed that a mutual friend with sympathies similar to their own had suggested that they speak with him about their cause.
They wanted a bomb that could pass through airport security undetected.
He had, of course, told them that he could not be of any help. He was just a biochemist and did not feel that he had the specialized knowledge needed to construct such a device. It had been a risky move on his part. If they decided that he was a liability to them if left alive then he would have been powerless to stop them. They looked like the kind of guys who spent all of their time building muscle. Since the only muscle Chad worked was his brain and he had a physique that made that abundantly clear, his problem was obvious and immediate.
After a tense moment that Chad had known would be his last, they told him that they respected that. They also told him that they were confident that he was smart enough to know that telling anyone about this visit would mean the end of his life. As though he had a choice. Did they really think anyone would have believed him if he was dumb enough to talk?
Shaken, Chad had driven home slowly that night. He could not imagine which of the few friends he had would believe that he was devious enough to build a bomb. It was then that a rush of adrenaline shot through his body, causing his heart to palpitate with wild abandon. Somebody thought that he was clever, not devious, enough to do something of this magnitude.
At that instant the idea was born. There was enough money in his hidden reserves to fund this operation. After that, he could trade on this to get future jobs. Why hadn’t he thought of this sort of thing sooner? Chad was confident that he’d be able to pull in enough from one well selected job to equal what he made in an entire year running clinical trials. Of course the threat of potential jail time existed for him to overcome, but he hardly concerned himself about that. With his superior intellect, there would be no stopping him once he set his eyes on the prize.
Step one: put this plan into action. Step two: rendezvous with Jenna to complete the plan. And step three: do whatever he wanted. The world would be his playground and anyone who got in his way would regret making that mistake.
© 2009, Sydney Katt. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use of content will result in dragon attacks.
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