Warshond Qusbecq withdrew the last needle from the patient's spleen channel.
"You're all set, Lady Cengiz."
"It's Dila!" Jolting herself up from the leather-slung exam table, Dila Cengiz latched at his sleeve. "You can call me babe, you know? I don't mind."
Warshond disposed of the needles in a sharps container and flipped down the lid. Plastering a smile to his face as he tucked away a lock of his jet-black hair, he swiveled back to the young lady. "I do."
"Warshond!" She pouted those claret lips painted in the latest fashion, her false lashes fanning upon those doe eyes. Her clutch tightened around his sleeve.
"Looks like you're in fine health, my lady. I see no point for a follow-up any time soon."
"Then, will you come to my party?"
Miffed by her haywire train of thought, he let a chuckle drown out his sigh. "I'd love to. But you know how things are here. Something always turns up, and I can't give you my word."
"Do you know how much I've done for your sister so she'd help me book the appointment with you? I…" A loud rapping on the door cut her short.
Warshond glanced at her grip. "My lady?"
She grunted, throwing her arm as she let go of him.
"Come in!"
The doorknob turned. Erdem Aktas leaned in, big gray eyes blinking behind thick glasses. "Sir, it's the Minister of Health."
Warshond frowned at his head apprentice. "I don't have an appointment with him today."
"He just dropped in." The young man shrugged, his hands facing up, a headful of tight curls rumpled like wheat ears ripe in the autumn breeze. "Said it's urgent."
Who knows – thought Warshond, stifling a scoff – the unexpected might just work in my favor. He turned to Lady Dila Cengiz. "See what I mean? Something always turns up."
She snorted, her eyes probably rolling, but he couldn't care less. Turning on his heel, he glanced at Erdem. "See the lady out, will you?" He peeled off the vinyl gloves with a snap and cast them to a bin at the door.
"Yes, Casanova," Erdem grumbled under his breath. "I mean boss."
Warshond wagged a forefinger at his apprentice on his exit and thrust the other hand in the pocket of his white cloak. The clacking of leather soles caromed off the marbled floored corridor. His eyes narrowed, his mind going over the possible purposes of this visit.
Must it be the suspected virus outbreak on the cargo ship.
A scoff escaped from his throat.
"Mr. Dinc!" Miming a grin the moment he turned into the reception hall, he reached out his hand at a man clad in a suit of gray plaid.
"Doctor Qusbecq!" Taylan Dinc reciprocated the grip with his baby soft hand. Small in stature, he could pass for a teenage boy had it not been for the grizzle and wrinkles spreading like tracery from the corners of his honey-colored eyes. "Thank you for seeing me on such a short notice."
"Anything for you, my friend." Warshond tipped his head and swung an arm at his office. "After you."
When the man took his seat on the couch before a bay window facing Phonix Square, Warshond turned to the cabinet. "Straight or on the rock?"
"Oh, I wouldn't trouble you!"
"No trouble at all." Knowing that the man liked his rye whisky straight, Warshond looked over his shoulder and waited to be told. The crystal tumbler clinked against the alabaster coffee table as he put it down before Dinc.
"Smoky!" The Minister smacked his lips in approval. "And very good year, I take?"
Warshond smiled in reply. Sitting across from the other, he propped his knuckles against his cheek. "So, what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Well, I wouldn't have dropped in had I not come to my wit's end." Taylan Dinc cackled and opened a brown briefcase on his lap. "Lord Qusbecq would have me jailed should he find out that I want his son involved in the virus outbreak! Which is why I won't! For the life of me, I'll never risk your health and trouble you with a trip to the Port, of course. But like I've said, I'm at my wit's end, and would really appreciate a chance to pick your brain on the matter. May I?"
Warshond nodded and took the files from Dinc. His eyes skimmed through the lines, the crook of his thumb about his lips. "So they've all been inoculated." He stopped at the page of the sailors' vaccine proofs. "Except this boy, Evan Ginsberg?"
"And he's the only one who shows no symptoms!" Dinc crossed his hands, his brows drawing close. "Curious, eh?"
"Has he not been inoculated, or has the captain not included his vaccine proofs? From the files you provide, he's the only one on board traveling with a temporary document. Where's his passport? How come they let him on in the first place?"
"I wish I could answer every query you have." Dinc shook his head, a long sigh hissing from his nose. "From what the Customs has gathered, the boy's home fell victim to an arson, and he lost his passport in the fire."
Warshond chuckled. "And you believe that?"
The Minister puckered his mouth and shrugged. "He's not really my problem, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt."
"You're a good man, Mr. Dinc."
"And good men always take the blame," Dinc whipped up a short laugh in resignation that, like a mayfly, ceased to exist before anyone could remember it. "Could it be a new virus?" he raised his suspicion, his voice strained, his head hanging forward, subduing the panic that flashed in his eyes.
Warshond favored him with a half smile. His thumb twiddled the ring on his forefinger. For nine years, he had been wholesaling Ice to the Commonwealth, poisoning the minds of their people that fattened the pockets of their rich. As more fell prey to the blandishment that the right to narcotics is freedom, causing a surplus in demand, greed inflated. The money that should have been for the vaccines was put to finance the Phantom Lord – a monicker Warshond much disliked for himself. While the vaccines remained effective, they were cheap and high-risk. From what he had gathered, those vaccinated were prone to allergies, which could be fatal if not treated properly.
He glanced down at the mugshot of Evan Ginsberg. The only one without the vaccine proof was also the one spared of all symptoms. Warshond could almost conclude that other than a new virus unbeknownst to all, the sailors had been exposed to allergic agents.
"It could be," he replied instead, steepling his hands, his voice unhurried.
"Oh God," Dinc panted, clapping his forehead.
"No need to panic yet, Minister, so long as the men are quarantined," Warshond added, his cheeks sore from smiling. "I can take a look at the sailors."
"But your father…"
"He won't mind," he snorted. Lord Qusbecq might end the world for his children with Lady Chiara Effendi, but Warshond didn't make the cut, and Dinc knew it.
"Thank you, Doctor! Will it be possible for you to make it there this week? Any day at your convenience!"
"I'll hit you up and confirm the time and date this week." Rising to his feet, he shook the files in his hand. "Mind if I keep them?"
"Of course!" Dinc, too, got up from the couch. "Anything else you need, please don't hesitate to call my office!"
"I won't." Warshond swung the door open.
The moment he was left alone again, his smile shattered like a flurry of snow. He tossed the files on his desk and stood astride next to the window overlooking the spectacle of Phonix Square seethed with vehicles and lights. On a bank of digital billboards that lined the glass towers across from his office, news flashed about the Republican nominating caucus held in Enkera the day before. Lord Qusbecq was there, among the attendees somewhere behind the drapes, hidden from the public while pulling the strings attached to the puppets on stage.
Warshond nibbled his bottom lip, his head low, arms folding. Many floors below him, throngs moved like buzzing bees, convinced of their worth to the hive that only needed them as a number but never for who they were. Like waves, one generation would always come after another, clapping the shores impervious to their hope or rage.
He turned away from the window; his gaze fell on the files.
Harvey Gray and his Sealion Cargo had been his courier for years. Despite their mutual distaste for one another, all their entangled interests had insured against betrayal from him. Nothing he could benefit from the chaos.
Warshond flipped open the files and stopped on the page of the sailors' mugshots. His knuckles rapped at the one of Evan Ginsberg.
Sporting a wedgy crew cut as if by dog bites, the boy had an oval face dusted with freckles. His features seemed too elegant for a boy, with a small nose straddled by big almond-shaped green eyes brimming with spunk. Yet something fragile about this face Warshond couldn't put into words, almost lovely.
His gaze narrowed.
But what would his angle be if he were indeed the one behind it all? Did the Commonwealth send him to stir up a commotion? For what end? Or was he implanted by Mustafa Agca?
He shook his head. Both were too savvy to make so rookie a mistake that would have themselves exposed on his first guess.
The phone rang, pulling him out of his thoughts.
"Yes?"
"Line Zero, boss," Erdem reported, his voice tense despite the dismissive tone as was his wont.
Warshond picked up the receiver. Perching on the edge of his vast desk, he looked again at the news flashing on those billboards. "Speaking."
"We've got a problem at the refinery," Argun Ozal's gruff voice came over the phone. A laconic man, Ozal ran a smooth operation on the product line. He wouldn't have called had it not been serious. "The phenyl," he continued. "It's been diluted with glycerin."
The more concentrated phenylacetone, the purer the Ice. But to dilute it with glycerin? That's a cheap trick.
Warshond scoffed; his grip tightened around the receiver.
Lord Qusbecq stipulated the shipment to arrive in the Commonwealth two months before the election. He needed the narcotic problem to appear out of control under the watch of the current Commonwealth administration, so it'd be smooth sailing when the time came for Ayub Zaman, his running mate, to enter the final election for the First World Premier.
"Is it just the phenyl at the refinery, or all our locations?" he asked.
"Just the refinery."
He skipped a breath. If only all the phenylacetone had been diluted, that'd mean the attack came from the outside, by an adversary. But no, only the refinery, where he had built a new facility he had kept a secret from even his lord father. Someone had been tracking his logistics. Someone on the inside. Among the few trusted members of the House Qusbecq privy to his other identity, only two knew about his upcoming deadline, and it couldn't be Lord Qusbecq himself.
A sneer tilted his lips.
"The chemists here can't purify the phenyl to such high concentration. You need to come."
Knowing it was a trap, he glimpsed his watch. "Three hours."
At a click, the line was cut. Ozal never inquired of him, so long as he got paid on time with the right number, a quality Warshond appreciated. He called Erdem in his office.
"I need a trip to the refinery later."
The young man clucked his tongue, standing on one leg against a wall by the cabinet. "Guess you didn't ask me here to seek my counsel," he deadpanned.
"Nope."
"What do you need?"
"Take my car out for a drive." He threw his key. "Give it a wash. Buy coffee. Whatever errands, I don't care. Just don't step out or show your face."
Erdem snatched with a swing of an arm. "How long you need?"
"About an hour and a half, so I can finish the treatment for Mrs. Cevdet and coax a lift home from the old girl."
"That's why you gave your patients our best underground parking hidden from all views." The young man chuckled, those big gray eyes rolling like marbles.
"Call off your date and stand by for the night once you come back. Wait for me to call."
"You don't want me to come with?"
He shook his head.
"Be careful," Erdem grunted when he came by the door, a flippant look in his eyes as he looked away, his arms tight around his chest.
Warshond smiled, patting the young apprentice on his arm, and stalked out across the reception hall. Before one of those many treatment rooms, he summoned his diplomatic mien and turned the knob.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Cevdet. You look beautiful! Are those new nails?"