Chapter 14: Formula = good?/bad?
Kate was pulled into a room where every drawer had been turned upside down, every door had been opened and all Regina's belongings were spread across the floor. Regina herself was pinned against a wall by a guy. With one hand another guy had Kate pinned against a wall while he was flipping through Regina's diary.
"Be careful with her," Regina said threateningly to which the guy started laughing.
"You mean this or her?" he sniggered showing the diary to Regina.
"I wouldn't hurt you. You're way too good looking and besides you brought something which dear Regina had lost," he said directly to Kate, stroking her cheek. "You may sit on the bed," he continued politely but Kate knew that if she didn't obey him her good looks wouldn't make any difference.
"Let her go!" Regina pleaded. "She brought you the diary now let her go," she urged the man.
Kate didn't know what was happening. She didn't even know what was in the diary that was so important. She looked at the man who was pinning Regina to the wall. Although he was restraining her he made sure he didn't physically harm her. Who were those guys? Did Regina know them? Why would they want her diary, something she had only started writing after the Hammersley had picked her up at sea.
"We're very grateful she brought this back but what is a smart navy chick going to do first after we let her go? Tell us that little Reggie," the man who had pulled Kate inside said.
"Yeah, why don't you sit down next to Kate," the other man said as he pushed Regina towards the bed.
They knew her name! They also seemed to know she was in the navy but Kate had never seen them before in her life. Could Regina have told them about her? That still didn't make sense because for that Regina would have had to show those guys a picture of her. They didn't look that friendly towards each other that they had shared pictures but how did they know things about her?
Regina sat down next to Kate. She had a worried look on her face while one of the guys kept flipping through the diary.
"Who are those guys? Do you know them? How do they know my name?" Kate asked Regina, quickly looking at the two men.
"Shut up!" one of the guys yelled at Kate.
"What do you want?" Kate replied with a raised voice. "Who are you and why are you keeping us here?"
"You ask too many questions," one of the guys said as he came closer threateningly but then the other guy pointed at one of the pages of the diary.
"Thank you Reggie. We knew we could count on you. Look, she wrote it down," he said to his friend.
Regina cringed and sighed. It was very clear she didn't like the fact the guys had found something in her diary.
"We'll take them to the shed," the first guy suggested and the other one nodded in agreement.
Regina slid off the bed and walked up to the men before she pointed at Kate. "I'll go with you but Kate has nothing to do with all of this. She doesn't know anything. Leave her here. She won't know where you're taking me so she won't be able to tell anyone," she pleaded again.
The guy with the diary in his hands looked at her in disbelief. "Is that a fact?" he mockingly said. "I just read a very interesting bit, you want to hear it?" he asked. He flipped back a few pages and read a passage out loud. "Kate has heard me mumbling a lot. If she has any knowledge of science she could figure out the formula," he read before looking at Regina. "How do we know she doesn't know anything about science? She'll be your little assistant so she's coming, no discussion," he finished.
Kate and Regina were guided into a car and were driven to a shed which, surprisingly, looked like a professional lab inside. Kate was allowed inside but Regina was stopped by one of the guys.
"As you can see we arranged a new working space for you. We'll get the ingredients after which you can make the stuff. You better not stuff up or she'll be history," the guy threatened Regina while he looked at Kate.
"Start preparing," the other one added before they closed the door and locked it.
The women heard the car leave but Kate had already started looking for a way out.
"Who are those guys?" she asked, sounding really pissed off.
They hadn't hurt her or hadn't even frightened her that much. She had gone through a lot worse, but she was locked up and it was clear Regina had to make something which wasn't going to be found in any drugstore. "What do they want you to make?" she asked, looking at the walls for a crack or an unblocked window instead of looking at Regina.
"I don't know," Regina said apologetically.
"Bull shit!" Kate replied, walking up to Regina and standing right in front of her. "You've been able to hide the truth for the past twelve weeks but it stops right here. You better tell me why I'm being held hostage," Kate demanded to know.
"I don't know who those guys are Kate, honestly. I've never seen them before in my life. They belong to a group for which I've worked for," Regina answered.
Kate sighed. They didn't have time for twenty questions. Those guys would return soon and Kate wanted to know what and who she was dealing with.
"How do they know my name? How do they know I work for the navy?" she asked.
Regina had started to look at the equipment and picked up several pipettes before she looked at Kate. "Madelaine Cruise," she almost whispered.
Kate stood still, unable to move a muscle. "You better start at the beginning, and quickly, because I don't understand this at all," she ordered.
There were two stools which Regina put together at the working table. She motioned Kate to sit down on one of them as she sat down on the other. While she started telling her story she kept on working with distilled water, pipettes and other products she would have to use later.
"I don't know these guys but they work for a group that fights against Australia," Regina started.
"But you're Australian. How can you fight against your own people?" Kate interrupted.
"Do you honestly believe Australia is the most wonderful place in the world? Come on, you're not that naïve," Regina said, shaking her head. "My parents have a pharmacy and as a kid I was allowed to help out at the counter, restocking tubes and boxes, those kind of things. I saw sick people come into the store and I would see them a while later being healthy again. From that moment on I knew I wanted to work in a pharmacy as well," Regina explained.
Kate nodded. She could understand the reason behind her choice of job, but Regina should speed up her story if she wanted to tell the end of it before the guys came back.
"After high school I went to university and started studying chemistry. I really liked it and I was good at it, but when I did my work experience I realised I was going to work for the rich. Rich people can buy anything they like while the poor suffer. It's as if they think they have more right to good health than the poor. It's so unfair. That's why I joined a socialistic movement," Regina continued.
"You're name isn't Regina, isn't it?" Kate asked. Things fell into place. This person had to be the missing uni student.
"It has been for the past five years but you're right. It's not the name I was given at birth," she answered.
"Alicia," Kate said, letting Regina know she had heard the name before.
Regina sighed. "What else do you know about me?" she asked.
Kate shrugged. "Not much. We know you didn't kill five people at the Eliki islands, but I still believe you're linked to them," she answered.
"You really thought I had killed them? I fled the country because I didn't want to kill," Regina exclaimed.
Kate didn't know how to react to that. Which country had Regina fled from? Why did she think she had to kill anyone? She gave Regina a questioning look, hoping she would explain some more.
"I went on a trip to Bali with a couple of friends from the socialistic movement. There I saw what poverty does to people. My friends and I met a man who wanted to fight that poverty just as much as I wanted to. He offered me a job, even when I hadn't even graduated yet. I took it because it meant I was going to work for the group of people that deserved it the most," Regina explained.
Kate quickly nodded.
"I moved to the Eliki islands and worked there, making medicine. The first few years were great but living there made me realise how unfair the world is. People there try to survive as best they can but countries like Australia treat them like criminals," Regina said without looking at Kate.
"How do we do that?" Kate wanted to know.
"By picking them up at sea when they're only fishing or by treating them like terrorists just because they believe in a different God," Regina answered seriously.
Kate shrugged. Of course there were people who fit that description but it was unfair to judge every Australian in that way. "There are laws in this world for a reason. I've picked up illegal fishermen but I've never treated them inhumane and I always try to respect others," Kate defended.
"Maybe not you, but I've seen a lot of men returning with nothing. No fish, no boat, no illusions anymore. When, one day, I met a man who said he could do something about it I was interested. He needed a powder or a liquid to scare the Australian government. With a couple of colleagues I started working on it. We created a powder but all the rats we used to test it on died. That wasn't what I wanted. I didn't study chemistry to kill people. We toned down the formula and as a result the rats got ill but after a few days were back to normal. The man who had hired us didn't like that and ordered us to recreate the first formula. He threatened to kill us if we didn't. That's why we recreated it, that's the only reason," Regina spoke vehemently.
She had stopped preparing and seemed to be lost in thought. Kate didn't dare to say anything, scared Regina would stop talking.
"We showed the powder to the man and he went away to get us the right amount of ingredients. During that time I was able to escape, taking the formula with me. I found a boat and fled the Eliki islands. My colleagues must have been killed because they didn't have the formula anymore and they didn't know where I was," Regina finished.
Kate felt sorry for her but then realised they were in a similar situation right now. "The formula in your diary…" she started, looking questioningly at Regina.
"I don't know which one it is. It could be the lethal formula or the one that only makes you sick," she answered before Kate could finish her sentence.
"What happens if you adjust the formula?" Kate asked, trying to find a way to fool the guys. The last thing she wanted was to be helping someone making a deadly powder and be responsible for killing innocent people.
"I'm not going to do that Kate," Regina apologised. "The difference between something good or bad is very thin. If this is the, let's say 'good version' then I could make it bad by changing it. I don't know what the powder will do if I change it. If it's the 'bad version' I could make it even worse. The only thing I can do is follow the written formula and hope it's the right one," she stated.
Kate thought for a second. Regina had a point but it was like Russian roulette. There were more questions she wanted to ask before the men came back.
"You said Madelaine Cruise told them about me, but how are we all linked?" she asked.
Regina contemplated the answer before she took a deep breath. "The man who hired us knew a lot about the Australian defence. We didn't know how until one day I met a woman, Madelaine. I only met her once because she didn't want to be seen with us or with the man," she said.
"This man. What's his name?" Kate asked.
"Moshir, although that wasn't his real name," Regina answered.
"Oh God," Kate exhaled.
"Well, Madelaine said we had to hurry up with the powder. They would create panic in the meantime. Now I know they meant using a dirty bomb, but I didn't know that back then," Regina continued.
"OK, I believe you," Kate said. "What I don't understand is why you wrote down the formula again."
"Because, like I said, the line between good and bad is very thin. If I keep working on it I could change it into something good. I didn't want to throw all my hard work away. I had escaped and was on a warship on my way home. I didn't know they were waiting for me. When you and Mike told me about the customs picking me up I started to get scared. I thought I had put my diary in Bird's bag. We would meet up after a while and I would ask for it back. If you hadn't brought it back today the worst thing that would have happened. was that they would kill me, but then they wouldn't have a formula to use for their bad intentions," Regina sighed.
"So this is my fault?" Kate wondered.
"No, no, you couldn't know this. You managed to link my mumbling to a formula but I don't believe you knew what it was for. If so, you wouldn't have brought the diary back to me," Regina shrugged.
Kate wanted to say something else but the lock on the door was opened and the guys came back inside.
"I hope you two are finished preparing," one of them said.
"Mehmet, we don't care. Now help me get these boxes inside," the other one said.
"Keep your shirt on Phil," Mehmet replied.
When all the boxes were inside Mehmet pulled the page with the formula out of the diary and handed it to Regina. "Don't screw up," he threatened.
Regina sighed but kitted up and started working, once in a while asking Kate to assist her. After a few hours the powder was finished. Kate was exhausted. She had been awake for almost twenty-four hours and hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast. She looked at her watch and saw it was almost 8 pm. Her body was tired but she knew she couldn't slack off right now.
"What do we do now?" Kate asked Regina.
Regina shrugged. "Sit? Wait? I don't know," she answered.
They hadn't said much during the process of making the powder and the men had been playing cards in a corner of the shed but now they came towards them and picked up the final product.
"You did good Reggie," Phil said.
"How do we know if she made it right?" Mehmet asked his friend.
"We test it," Phil answered smugly.
Regina looked around, alarmed. "I haven't seen any test rats," she said anxiously.
"I see one," Mehmet said as he came closer to Kate.
Kate couldn't breathe. He wasn't serious. He wasn't going to use her as a test case, was he? Regina must have been thinking the same and stepped in front of Kate before she picked up the page with the formula.
"I'll destroy it," she threatened. She held the page above a burner, still high enough for the paper not to set fire.
"Don't," Mehmet said while he came closer quickly.
Kate was so fixated on Mehmet that she didn't see Phil coming from behind. He pulled her by surprise and she almost lost balance as he dragged her away from Regina.
"I'm serious!" Regina said, holding the piece of paper a bit lower.
Kate looked at the situation in disgust. Regina was about to burn the paper when Phil pulled out a gun from the back of his jeans.
"Regina!" Kate screamed.
"Don't do it," Phil threatened with his weapon pointed at Regina.
Regina shook her head and dropped the paper into the flame. The same second Phil pulled the trigger and shot Regina.
"You drongo," Mehmet said. "We don't know if the powder works."
Kate started fighting to get away and Phil had the hardest time keeping her restrained. Mehmet quickly checked Regina but realised they had killed her so he got the powder from the work bench and walked towards Kate.
"Keep her still," he ordered Phil.
Kate was kicking, screaming and wriggling but Phil was a lot stronger.
"Open her mouth," Mehmet urged.
Kate had her lips pressed together now, but when Phil pressed her nostrils together she knew she would open her mouth eventually. They were going to feed her the powder and Kate still didn't know what it was going to do to her.
Mehmet poured a bit of the powder in the back of her mouth and shut it. To make sure she would swallow he pressed her nostrils together again.
Kate didn't want to see the guys who were doing this to her. Not if this could be her final moment. She closed her eyes and thought back on the ultrasound she had only hours ago. She could taste the powder, which to her surprise wasn't that bad. She didn't know if it was the fatigue or he powder, or a combination of the two but she started to feel limp. She was slowly losing consciousness.