The Cure Conspirators

By Clayton Jones

Much of today's advanced research could lead to cures for major illnesses but it goes into a black hole.
Some medications that have been in use for years suddenly become prohibitively expensive.
How and why does this happen?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clayton Jones
• Release date: Sep 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370144655

Clayton Jones

As of May, 2018 Ebooks Box shows 1,453 reader reviews of WMD Redux Weapons Missing Detection, 4.9 out of 5. Here is link: https://dearbook.gq/db/ebooks-box-wmd-redux-weapons-missing-detection-pdf-by-clayton-jones.html (as of July 4, 2016) Clayton Jones was born in Philadelphia, PA. He grew up in the suburb of Abington where he was active in Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and Explorers and earned a varsity letter in soccer at Abington Senior High. While in high school, for two years he was a counselor at Delmont Boy Scout camp in Greenlane, PA where he taught Scout Crafts and Archery. He was a member of the NRA during junior and senior high school. He was in the Marine Corps Reserves from 1964 to 1970. At Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot Parris Island, he earned the classification of Rifleman Sharpshooter. Assigned to Willow Grove Naval Air Station, his MOS was 7051 Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting. Married in 1966, over the next several years, working alongside his sister-in-law's husband, they assisted their father-in-law in building four houses, by hand, from the ground up. The last house was built on a notch they jack hammered out of solid stone on the side of a steep, wooded, ravine overlooking a tree-shaded, meandering creek about 60 feet below. When his children were of age, starting at elementary and progressing through the junior high school level, he coached boys and girls soccer teams for almost ten years in Boyertown, PA. He and his wife participated in the New York City Fresh Air Fund and for nine years had an inner city boy and girl, of like ages to their own children, come stay with them for two weeks every summer. He accumulated six hours solo flight time in a Piper Cherokee 180, received a four year BS/BA degree from Thomas Edison State College, and, based upon a need identified by his R.N. wife, working together, they conceived, created, applied for, and were granted a patent for a medical walker. Clayton retired from a career spanning forty-eight years in Information Technology that included Director of Systems and Programming and then Director of Computer Operations for a Fortune Five-hundred company in Pennsylvania along with stints with several small software companies in Naples, Florida. His last position was running a County Government I.T. Department for fourteen years. Clayton and his family moved to Naples, Florida in 1991 where he lives with his wife of fifty years. His interests include computers, soccer, sailing, power boating, kayaking, sports cars, growing orchids, gardening, beach time, and writing fiction. He and his wife have a daughter and son and four grandchildren.

Book preview

The Cure Conspirators

Published by Clayton Jones at Smashwords

Text Copyright 2016

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Dawn

Chapter 2 Building Relationships

Chapter 3 The Call

Chapter 4 The Office Visit

Chapter 5 Finding Wayne

Chapter 6 The Conference Call

Chapter 7 Vincent and Daryl

Chapter 8 Personal Disasters

Chapter 9 Wrapping up Loose Ends

Chapter 10 Meeting Arranged and Arranging for the Meeting

Chapter 11 EPA Decision

Chapter 12 For Others

Chapter 13 Findings

Chapter 14 Reassessment

Chapter 15 Step One

Chapter 16 Global Health Care Meeting

Chapter 17 The Special Conference Call

About the Author

INTRODUCTION

Much of today's advanced research could lead to cures for major illnesses but it goes into a black hole.

Some medications that have been in use for years suddenly become prohibitively expensive.

How and why does this happen?

return to T0C

Chapter 1 Dawn

Dawn comes slowly from the East. The first rays of sun burn through the cool mists of morning. They light the high-spots in the foothills and touch the guardrail of the casual, winding two-lane blacktop. Onward they come, onto the rooftops of the wall-to-wall houses stuck into the side of the cliff at the edge of the road. Finally, they reach the wide, white deserted beach that provides a psychological barrier between the dwellings and the momentarily placid Pacific Ocean.

In a cool, dark bedroom of one of the houses, a metallic click breaks the silence. In mid-song, a girl group from the sixties is singing someday, we'll be together… a man's scarred weather-beaten hand reaches out from the left side of the bed and hovers over the alarm now displaying 5:01A.M. Realization sets in and the hand withdraws. No reprieve today.

Out of bed as if doused with a bucket of ice water, the half-naked man moves like a stiff cat just evicted from a favorite chair. He crosses the cold, light tan tile floor toward the balcony and flips a wall switch. Silently, dark blue drapes slide apart to reveal twenty feet of glass wall. Beyond the teak deck and railing, as far as the eye can see to the South, West and North, lies the ocean, sparkling thanks to the sun blazing through a cloudless sky.

The beach is hemmed in by a horseshoe-shaped cliff about fifty feet high. This little pocket of man-made civilization is crammed with houses. Separated by only a few feet, each house clings for dear life to the side of the cliff lest it fall onto the sand and into the ocean. Sane people would not build here, but this is California, sanity is not a prerequisite. Meanwhile, the ocean bides its time.

Big Pacific swells advance slowly, relentlessly toward the beach. As they approach, in their last seconds of life, their personality changes, some rear up in a brief show of force seconds before slamming onto the beach and disappearing forever. The ocean bottom near the shore determines whether a swell becomes a wave or merely laps at the sand submissively. Many people are the same way, unless prodded by an outside force, most live their lives in relative tranquility. They never have to draw upon the dormant fury within.

Any other time, this would be the start of just another beautiful day. As I turn away, the thought crosses my mind might never see it again. I turn back for a second look. Funny how many things in life are taken for granted when assumed they will always be there, yet take on such significance when perceived to be coming to an end. I turn again and see the bed, more specifically the unoccupied right side, picturing my wife there, laughing, vibrant, loving. No words can describe the feelings of loneliness and despair that wash over me, like being under one of those big, cold, dark Pacific rollers that come crashing onto the beach during a storm. I feel overpowered, short of breath, and drowning. It would have been so easy to succumb to the temptation to give in, crawl back under the covers, or into a bottle and hide from life for a while, maybe forever. But there are people counting on me, people I love. Besides, every fiber of my being, everything I have ever been leading up to this moment would not let me take the easy way out.

The Chinese say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I believe each person's life is that journey, each breath we draw, and the good or evil we extract from it, adds to the sum total of our being. At any instant, for better or worse, we can be called upon by God, fate, or whatever name you want to use, to demonstrate to ourselves, and to the world, who we are at that point in time. Some people live and die and are never challenged; others are, and wish they hadn't been. Still, others pass the test to varying degrees. Some are like fireworks that soar into the night sky and, at the apex of their flight, burst into a wonderful, awesome display of sound and fury. Some sustain the flight and never look back. Others have their moment and fade. The important thing is that when the situation demanded, they delivered. For the rest of their lives, if they are never tested again, they can look back and know they came through when they had to. Today, I'll find out how well I do.

I cross the room to the master bath. The pain in my left leg reminding me it hadn't been that long since the 'accident.' Turn on the lights and look in the mirror. Forty, light brown hair starting to gray, blue eyes with circles as a result of too many sleepless nights, a day's growth of beard, and a look of determination, desperation, anger and fear. Nice way to start the day.

Shave and take a shower. Stepping out of the stall, without thinking, get on the scale. At five-eleven, one-seventy-five wasn't bad but today wish I were a lot bigger.

Go to the closet and contemplate what to wear, even though I already know every item by heart. Jockey shorts; being uptight is my nature. Levis because they're tough and, next to leather, more protection for your legs than anything else you can wear. White athletic socks and high-top sneakers, great traction and ankle support while looking benign. Would have preferred combat boots, but then I might as well wear a sign.

From the nightstand on my side of the bed, I retrieve a package brought home the night before. Taking care to remain away from any windows. I unwrap a military Colt 45, five full clips, and a shoulder holster. The leather is cold across my back and under my left arm. Could have gotten something smaller and more accurate but I'm used to a 45 from the service and any confrontation is expected to be up close and personal with massive stopping power a priority. With a muzzle velocity of only 950 feet per second, being on the receiving end of a 45 caliber slug is like being hit with a sledgehammer. Insert a clip, pull the slide back to chamber a round, gently let the hammer down, holster the 45. Put on a short sleeve sweatshirt and hope I don't have to draw the weapon in a hurry.

Pull up the left leg of my jeans and use black electrical tape to secure my diving knife, handle down, to the outside of my calf, so the bottom is about five inches above my ankle. Pull my trouser leg back down and put on my socks and sneakers. Having completed dressing, stand in front of the mirror and look for obvious bulges.

Damn fool, you'll probably screw everything up and only succeed in pissing them off. What else can I do? No choice, they had seen to that by making all the right moves with the precision of a chess Grand Master. I was one step away from being checkmated, and I knew it.

Go to the bureau and put on my divers watch.

Remember getting it when we were in Jamaica on vacation over Father's Day. Shawn was nine and Samantha ten. We had a great time, renting a car and driving to Dunns River Falls, Ocho Rios. The island is beautiful and the people warm and friendly. On first contact, you can be taken aback by the aggressiveness of some vendors, but if you realize how desperate the situation is for many of them you can understand and accept their forwardness. Given similar circumstances many of us would be as bad, or worse.

Walk out of the bedroom and up the open teak and chrome spiral staircase to the living room. The all white room has a glass wall and deck similar to the bedroom. The light blue drapes are open. I walk over and look outside.

It is now 5:30 A.M. and the beach is coming to life, gulls are circling overhead, making their shrill sounds in a futile effort to extract some morsel of food from the people arriving on the beach below.

Surfers, a few having already caught their first ride, paddle out searching for the perfect wave. Two joggers running side by side a few feet from the water's edge.