Lawrence Alaimain was extremely unhappy as he was escorted from the prison visitors' room back to his cell. Hardly any of the news was good. The ISA was tracking their new project; the new facilities were still struggling to get operational; preliminary reports on the new project were showing the agent was not nearly as powerful as it needed to be; and Steve Johnson had returned to Salem. The only good news was that Lawrence would soon have his parole hearing.
He reached his cell, took a seat on his bunk, and ignored his gorilla of a cellmate, a man named Bentley. The man had learned early in Lawrence's imprisonment not to mess with him. After stealing Lawrence's watch, four inmates, fueled by Lawrence's contribution to their canteen allowances, gave Bentley a beating he would never forget. Since then, he had given Lawrence a very wide berth.
Lying down, Lawrence began organizing his thoughts and planning his next steps. Obviously, Johnson had revealed enough about the project that the ISA had some idea about what was coming. The ISA agent his men had caught at the facility in Qatar had died before revealing anything, but the very fact the ISA had known about that facility spoke volumes.
He could not let them stop him. This project was his future, the way he would restore the Alamain name to the glory it had under his father. When he was done, the world would not only respect him; it would fear him and what he could unleash.
Now he needed to find a way to keep the ISA at bay. He had to assume that Donovan would be in charge of the investigation; his background with Lawrence made him the obvious choice. And that made it even more worrisome that Donovan had not yet surfaced since disappearing from his home in London a week earlier.
And Johnson was back. Maybe it would just be better if Lawrence just took the man out of the picture now. There were dozens of small-time hoods in Salem who would accept a contract on Johnson. But that might invite questions and let the ISA know Lawrence was aware of their surveillance.
Such a tough decision.
For now, Johnson could live. When the time came . . . Maybe at the same time Lawrence got rid of Donovan for good . . . That's when he could eliminate Johnson. It might even be enjoyable to make one of them watch the other die.
It was too bad that he could not fit Bo Brady into his plans. However, Lawrence had miscalculated on that already. Victor Kiriakis had not been pleased with Lawrence's attempts to kill his son and, for the time being, Lawrence did not want to engage in open warfare with the Kiriakis family. Revenge on Bo would have to come later.
Lawrence let his mind turn to the other problems. It was nearly September and the facilities were running slow. Marchand had reported that the production had been stalled by the need for new background checks to ensure that more ISA agents had not infiltrated their operations.
And what they had was not working well enough. The test subjects were getting ill, like they had for months, but they were all still alive. That was just unacceptable.
He had told Marchand the same thing. The agent had to be ready by December. That meant he had to keep the ISA at bay, and maybe that meant keeping Donovan off-balance once again. Lawrence had done that before by bringing Kimberly back to Salem. Maybe he could do it again.
Of course. Why didn't I think of that before?
Lawrence got up from the bunk and headed out of his cell toward the telephone. He pulled out some change, fed the phone, dialed and waited until Marchand answered.
"Maurice, it's Lawrence. I've been thinking of our little problem and I have an idea. Who do you know in Alaska that can do us a little favor?"