| General Fiction posted January 15, 2025 | Chapters: |
...22 23 -24- 25... 
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Dana's plan takes shape
A chapter in the book The Devil Fights Back
The Devil Fights Back - Ch. 24
by Jim Wile
| Background Three intrepid women team up to conquer medical challenges. |
Recap of Chapter 23: Marie flies down to North Carolina to spend Christmas with her family. The trip causes one delay after another, and her luggage fails to arrive and must be brought to Julia’s house the following day. She is in a foul mood until she realizes Johnny is in the back seat, and her mood instantly changes.
Fran gets an update from the group about their progress in developing the anti-Dipraxa spray. It is nearly ready for manufacture, and Brian gives her a materials list to begin acquiring the necessary component materials. He also tells Fran he will be coming with her on the mission to the island.
Chapter 24
Dana
My plan was to call Barry Degner to be my corroborating witness. I wanted to catch Leonard Merra in an actual crime with the goal of justifying a wiretap on his phone to possibly catch him in something more nefarious later on. I will eventually tell Fran what I’m doing, but here’s a case where asking forgiveness might be better than asking permission.
Barry is a friend who is the husband of one of my regular golfing partners at the country club where I belong. He’s retired now, but he actually did work in collections—as the owner of a collections agency. He wasn’t the ‘leg-breaker’ I implied to Leonard, but he’s a big, tough-looking guy, which belies his teddy bear tendencies. He’s an amusing guy too, and I was sure he’d get a big charge out of acting in the proposed role.
I got him on the phone, and after a bit of chit-chat, I said, “Barry, I’ve got a proposition for you that I think you may enjoy. I want you to know that this is purely an acting job, and we won’t have any intention of following through with what I’ll be proposing that you do. It isn’t a practical joke or anything like that but is something I hope will provoke an FBI investigation of my company’s illegal practices.”
“Brother, Dana, with that introduction, you’ve really got me intrigued. This sounds serious. Have you become a whistleblower against your company?”
I told him he was exactly right and gave him a brief rundown of the situation with Glyptophan and how it threatened the financial stability of my company. Barry has always kidded me about working for the pharmaceutical industry. I told him about what they’ve done so far with the social media blitz and what my plan was to try to get a wiretap of Merra’s phone. He said he was happy to help. I promised to set up a meeting with him and Leonard Merra, in which I was hoping Leonard would take the bait and assign Barry a task. I also told him we wouldn’t use his real name at the meeting.
This morning, I called Merra and said, “Leonard, I’ve got an agreement from my collections friend who would be willing to meet with you. Shall we set something up?”
“That was fast, Dana. Could we possibly meet as soon as this afternoon?”
“I’ll call him and find out. Shall we say 2:00 PM in your office?”
“Perfect.”
I called Barry back, and he agreed to meet here at 2:00. I reminded him once again of the details of the situation with tips on how to act. I didn’t tell him of everything I had planned, though.
I went home over lunch and changed into a form-fitting pencil dress for our 2:00 PM meeting. Barry Degner met me at my office a few minutes before 2:00. He was wearing a black suit with black shirt and deep burgundy tie. He made me nervous looking at him, and I know him well. We went up to see Leonard Merra together, and I introduced him as Tony Faiella.
After introductions, we got right down to business. Merra said, “I assume, Tony, Dana has told you about our efforts so far and that she and I decided together to expand our efforts to multiple fronts. She assured me you are the right person for the job, and from all appearances, she was right. I don’t have much experience with this kind of persuasion, so perhaps you could tell me what you could do to dissuade Brian Kendrick from continuing with his drug trials and give up.”
“Well, I could do whatever extent youse felt comfortable wid. Bedda gimme a little guidance here. Are we considerin’ just verbal trets, or you wanna see some leg-breakin’?”
“A little more like the latter than the former. Maybe no broken bones yet, but perhaps you could rough him up some?”
“And whadda you want me to say to him?”
“Say something like, ‘It might be a good idea to discontinue his human trials before something worse were to happen.’ You get the picture.”
“Okay, my fee for dis would be, say, $4,000.”
“Hmm, that seems a little steep.”
“Hey, I gotta fly down dere. Too far to drive. Dat’ll cost me nearly a grand right dere.”
“Why don’t we say $3,000 with a promise of more work? But you’ll need to record the exchange so I can verify he got the threat. I don’t really expect this first warning to be successful, but you never know. In the future, there will be more in it for you, but then we’ll step it up, and I’ll expect some photographic evidence of your activities.”
“Okay, tree grand it is—dis time.”
“Why don’t we continue to communicate through Dana here, and you can call her when the job is done and give her a report of what you did and the recording? Hopefully, that will be soon after the New Year. She will also see that you get paid.”
“You got it, Mr. Merra. Nice meetin’ ya and doin’ bidness wid ya.”
“Nice meeting you too, Tony.”
So, I could see I was to be Merra’s fall guy should anything go wrong in this, but that’s okay. Nothing will go wrong, because nothing will happen—at least for now.
“Well, that went well,” I said to Barry later in my office.”
“Yeah, I don’t really want to take his money for this, Dana, especially since I’m not going to do anything.”
“No, take it and donate it to a good charity, especially one that has a beef with Big Pharma. You did a great job, Barry. Loved the Philly accent you hammed up, and you definitely look the part.”
“So, what happens now?”
“The only thing I’ll probably need from you is to write down what transpired at this meeting, the same as I will do. Of course, we’ll make it clear this was all a ruse and that you were contracting to perform a felony that you had no intention of committing. I’ll let you know if my FBI contact requires it.”
“Look, Dana, I know what we’re doing here has some potential for blowback on us if your company gets wind of what we did. They could file conspiracy charges against us. I just hope your friend in the FBI will have our back.”
“I’m sure she will,” I said, although I wasn’t 100% positive of that. I still don’t know exactly how Fran will see this, but I’m banking on her supporting us in the end. “Hey, I understand your hesitation, but I know I’m willing to accept a little risk if it means we can bring down my company in the more than likely event this will escalate. I also don’t expect you to do any more than you’ve already done, unless you want to take it to the next level.”
“Fair enough. I’m not too thrilled with the pharmaceutical industry either. They’ve been covering up the addictive potential of opioids for years. And how about all the Covid vaccine hype—trying to convince us how effective the vaccines were and getting billions from the government to keep telling us we need to get revaccinated when they didn’t appear to do shit to stop us from getting Covid? And all those heart-related deaths in young people they tried to diminish. The whole thing was a lot of overblown nonsense with huge profits to those vaccine makers.”
“Many people do feel that way. At any rate, thanks again for your help in this.”
I decided I would give Fran a call later tonight and tell her all about what I’ve done. I hope she will view this as a nice Christmas present, especially the secret recording I made of the meeting.
 Recognized |
Fran Pekarsky: One of three narrators of the story. She is an FBI agent from the North Carolina field office in Charlotte.
Dana Padgett: One of three narrators of the story. She is the assistant marketing director for a Big Pharma company.
Brian Kendrick: Fran's younger brother. He is the inventor of Dipraxa and Glyptophan.
Julia Kendrick: Brian's wife. She is a world-class violinist who now plays in a bluegrass band.
Johnny Kendrick: Brian and Julia's baby boy and Marie's grandson.
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother. She is the third narrator of the story.
Cedric (aka Cecil): The doorman at the apartment house where Marie lives.
Lou D'Onofrio: Fran's boss at the FBI.
Patty Mattson: A hacker friend of Fran's. The programmer on Brian's project.
Abby Payne (nee St. Claire): A girl from Dana's past, who she used to bully but has befriended during their adulthood. The mathematician on Brian's project.
Mike Pekarsky: Fran's husband. He is a DHS agent.
Willy Stubblefield: The leader of Julia's bluegrass band.
Shannon Stubblefield: Willy's wife and the drummer in the bluegrass band.
Leonard Merra: A vice president at the Big Pharma company where Dana works. He is in charge of stopping Glyptophan.
Steve Griffin: Dana's husband.
Alphonse: A Dip-addicted, homeless man who Brian and Julia met in rehab 17 years earlier.
Barry Degner (aka Tony Faiella): Dana's friend who will act the part of a leg-breaker to attack Brian.
Picture courtesy of Playground-v3
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