“So we won’t know ‘til we get there,” Hill spoke around his chicken.
“This just keeps getting better and better,” Caiphus spoke with phony merriment as he wiped down the grill.
“Have you made contact with any of the sources in Mick’s notes?” Bill asked.
“A couple,” Hill shared, “but only to be told they weren’t in.”
“You think any of them still work for Shannon?” Caiphus asked.
Hill nodded. “I thought about that, so I’m only making contact with the ones no longer in the area. Mick’s notes indicate Shannon had a falling out with his chief architect. I’m hoping the bad blood’s still alive there.”
“So who do you guys have coming tomorrow?” Persephone asked.
“Our captains,” Caiphus said. “So far only Dreck Eamon and Bashir Cannon know the most about what’s been going on up ‘til this point.”
Persephone frowned a bit. “Cannon? Did I meet him when we were all here before?”
“Probably,” Bill swigged down a little more of her beer.
Persephone was still frowning. “Does he have any siblings?”
“Not sure. Bash has always been real careful with his privacy.”
“Yeah,” Caiphus agreed with his wife’s outlook. “But I always got the sense that there was something personal for him in this one-family personal.”
Quiet settled as everyone considered that phrase ‘family personal.’
“When I left,” Persephone looked to Bill, “After we got you back, I took a meeting with Eva. Stupid yes,” she glanced over at Hill. “But I’m a slave to my curiosity. She wants Shannon’s chair and his power, but given all the losses she’s suffered, she knows she might not live long enough to enjoy that payoff. If she can’t have it, she doesn’t want anyone else to. I think we all know her well enough to know she’d do anything to make that happen.” Persephone studied her audience closely.
“That includes making sure we all have a vested interest in seeing Shannon’s labs destroyed, For her, killing him would be enough as it’d leave the research and its product intact.”
“What are you sayin’, P?” Caiphus left the grill to lean against the deck railing.
Persephone waited until the faint sense of nausea had passed. “According to Eva, her recon of certain research facilities led her to believe Shannon had cooked up a serum in his lab. It not only enhanced physical capabilities, but...re-wired psychological aspects of the human mind.
For instance, the area that controls empathy-compassion-what Eva considered a woman’s greatest weakness. She told me that ‘a man without compassion is just another muscle-packed idiot, but a woman without it…’” She thought the potential there was endless. Who knows what she was planning if she could’ve gotten her hands on a product like that and it worked. But if she couldn’t-if she died- she wanted to ensure it’d all be destroyed. As much as I hate her, I believed her when she said there were things inside that place even she wanted no part of.”
“A code among the psychotic. Who knew,” Bill mused and swigged down the last of her beer.
“So what’s bad enough to make Eva do something so selfless?” Caiphus asked.
Once more, Persephone tamped down the urge to be sick. “Shannon in his...brilliance discovered a lot of things in his pursuit of a cure for his wife- a lot of it good like whatever he did for you Bill. But Bill wasn’t the only one who benefitted. If, and that’s based on a huge assumption, but if we’re to take Eva’s word on this, many of Shannon’s...cures are available on the black market. There’re a lot of people diagnosed with fatal diseases and other afflictions who are walking around healthy because of that man.”
“And now for the but?” Hill prompted. He’d lost interest in his food and was watching Persephone as intently as everyone else.
Persephone was ready to make her point as well. “But...in spite of all the wealth he’s accumulated by doing good- he’s made an even more obscene fortune from the products that weren’t meant to heal.”
“Such as?” Caiphus did the prompting that time.
“The kids involved in all this served three purposes-there was the breeding and skin research. Shannon preferred using black and Asian girls for his skin research. He believed that skin had greater resistance to the ravages of aging and what might hold the key to reversing what happened to his wife. As for the breeding,” she looked to Hill and Caiphus then. “Your uncle Humphrey decided that was a chore best put on the backs of those he deemed lesser.”
“In other words, anyone who wasn’t white.” Caiphus said.
Persephone nodded. “With the advances Jasper Stone made in ovarian research-Humphrey Tesano was able to provide his customers with their own customized baby. Didn’t matter what the birth mother looked like or the donor parents for that matter-there was plenty of knowhow to create the perfect blonde, blue-eyed baby for everyone.”
“This woman’s knowledge defies belief,” Bill snorted.
“Eva used her time on the island well. Shannon spent many years there as did Humphrey Tesano. Eva made a point of gathering information and those men made no secret of their philosophies.”
“And prostitution,” Hill noted, “it was the third purpose, right?”
Persephone tilted her head in affirmation. “It was and, as you all know, the success of any business relies on the demand of its product above all others.”
“But Shannon and my uncles weren’t the only ones dealing in kids.” Caiphus pointed out.
“No...but they were the only ones capable of satisfying certain unique tastes that craved youth who were,” she coughed as bile suddenly pressured the back of her throat.
“Tastes that craved youth who were developed to make them more alluring.” She finished.
“Son of a bitch!” Hill left his chair with enough force to send it skidding back across the deck.
Caiphus remained against the deck railing, rubbing his temples while Bill had both hands pressed over her mouth.
“Those twisted pigs,” Bill moaned when her hands slipped down into her lap. She gaped at Persephone. “Did you really believe her?”
Persephone’s smile was haunted and knowing. “It’s hard to take anything that bitch says as truth, but there are times when you know she’s giving it to you straight.” She risked a look at Hill and knew he understood what she meant.
“Given all I know of this whole mess,” Persephone continued, “what I’ve seen with my own eyes, I’m willing to take it on faith,” she laughed harshly. “You guys know about the testing, the ovary studies, the prostitution- that’s real and Shannon should be blown to hell for that alone.”
