Hearts For Sale

By Joel McCaw

A tropical island version of Squid Game, in which the main characters become involved in deadly and very bloody experiences with wealthy heart patients who urgently need heart transplants. If Squid Game were to be played out on a tropical island, Hearts for Sale would tell that story because it rivals the horror of any real life or

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bent Twig Society
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9798985176933

Book preview

Advanced Praise for Hearts for Sale

A tropical island version of the Squid Game – Hearts for Sale tells a fictional story that rivals the horror of any real life illegal organ harvesting program. It lifts the lid on the scandals now playing out globally, as hundreds of thousands of political dissidents and prisoners are made to give up vital organs against their will…

Bloody Murder…

"Combine Robin Cooks’ Coma with Spielberg’s Jurassic Park – and you get Joel McCaw’s Hearts for Sale, a chilling thriller of medical mayhem."

McCaw’s island has a unique health plan – one that is guaranteed to minimize a patient’s medical expenses. It’s guaranteed to keep you turning the pages – if your heart can stand it.

– Daniel Steven – Author of the Harper Collins’ medical thrillers, Final Remedy and Clinical Trials.

Acknowledgments

Hearts for Sale is in no small part based on personal experience gained while the author was working as a field ecologist in Malaysia, thus, the fauna and flora of the rain forests and the life style of local native and tribal people in the story are close to life.

For the medical backstory, the author enrolled in a ‘MiniMedical School’ Program at Georgetown University, a course designed for interested lay people and nurses. In addition, he was helped by Mark S. Adkins, MD, then Prof. of Cardiothoracic Surgery at George Washington University, now Professor in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Transplantation, University of South Florida/Tampa General Hospital Center. Dr. Adkins provided an entrée into the world of modern transplant medicine. He also reviewed selected portions of this book. His comments and suggestions were invaluable and lend a certain amount of authenticity to an otherwise fictitious story.

Thanks are also due to the participants of two workshops given by Daniel Steven on thrillers and suspense novels at the Writer’s Center, Bethesda, MD, who reviewed early drafts and made suggestions and provided the encouragement that helped shape the final product.

Map

Prologue

Chandra Prasad was old but very fit. He had lived all his life in the foothills of the Himalayas where he had walked every day of his life. During that time he had never ridden a bicycle, nor had he ever been in a car or on a truck, bus or train. He had walked. As a porter he had supported a family of twelve and even into his sixties could normally have walked for days along steep uphill trails. He covered miles in the thin air of his native country carrying heavy loads strapped to his back and head, working every day from sunrise to sunset.

During the week, he carried supplies to and from shops and kiosks. and to houses and depots scattered in the hills above town, places that were often reached only by footpaths. On weekends, as a part-time railway porter, he carried baggage from the train station, and so he knew every tourist hotel scattered throughout the town center. Yet he had rarely set foot inside the front door of any of them. His pride was evident in the fact that no one had ever heard a complaint from him, and he was a man who still held to the Hindu faith of his father and those before him. His two oldest sons were employed and one daughter had married, but they were still too poor for him to stop working, so he vowed to carry on, and he would have, until the day he fell.

It was the same day the pain in his head had become unbearable. The nurse at the health station told him he had a brain tumor, a very expensive thing to cure, something he knew he would never be able to afford, but the pain in his head was unlike anything he had ever experienced, a burning sensation that prevented him from sleeping, the last remaining pleasure of his life. After that he tried pacing the mud floor in the hovel that he shared with his family, or walking on the road outside, the only way to keep his mind off the fact that he was sick.

By then he had lost his balance and had stopped working. Thus, his frantic family encouraged him to take the immediate payment he was offered for signing some papers that transferred his remaining life into the hands of a nice young man, a American who carefully watched as they carried him out of the shack on a litter. He even smiled as they propped him up on a seat in a taxi cab. It was the first time in his life that he had ever not had to walk to the train station. Once there he was carefully escorted into a first class coach on board the train, and then guided to a very comfortable seat.

As the train pulled away, he could barely see through the tears as he waved goodbye to his wife and family, knowing it would be the last time he would ever see them. Then he turned and smiled at his new American friend who spoke Hindustani, and had come all that way to find him and save his family from starvation and disgrace.

He also smiled because the pain had vanished—the young man had given him pills.

Today, many months later, he was again walking, walking in a forest in a reserve on an island, an island where he now lived in a palatial room. With each step he seemed to be floating on air, as if he were treading on the beautiful white pillows in the room that he had just left.

He walked as fast as he could manage because he knew he was being chased, not by the hospital guards, he had easily outwitted them, neither was he being chased by any of the ward keepers from the Residency, they would not discover his escape until later today. No, he was being chased by pain, or, at least the thought of pain, which he knew was bound to catch up with him as soon as the pills wore off. He had swallowed several, and then placed two into the pocket of his pajamas, but now they were gone, and the sense that he was floating as he walked had begun to taper off. Now every time his foot touched the ground he felt a twinge of pain in his head, and he had begun lurching from tree to tree.

His path was erratic but he knew in general where he was going, and made an effort to keep clear of the coast road. The forest reminded him of the open woodland near the village at his home in India. Shaded and cool. But it was no longer as easy for him to walk as it used to be. And he knew if he stopped he would suddenly feel very tired and very thirsty. The marvelous pills were helping him to a new life, but he would have no other resource when they were gone. This was all that kept him going.

As he slowed his pace, he notice that even the animals of the forest had gathered to help him, a fitting tribute he thought to his devotion to God. The shrubbery rustled and then parted and he saw them, the animals that had followed him for some time. As he halted at the forest edge he saw they were large hairy pigs.

Strange, yet perhaps appropriate, he thought, because he never ate pork in deference to his Muslim friends. They in turn never ate beef. Which was why, he had decided, his family and many of their neighbors were vegetarians.

He knew he had never willingly harmed any animal, so he had little to fear from them and was surprised by their attack. He had just reached the point where he could see the research station of the Nature Reserve and, he thought, freedom, when the lead animal leapt forward and bit his hand.

As he fought to free himself, several of the larger pigs grasped his feet in their snarling jaws. His lightweight hospital shoes fell off as they bit savagely at his bare feet until he fell screaming under their onslaught. They seemed intent on dragging him back into the woods.

He resisted as well as he could, yelling at the top of his voice for help as he grabbed onto a slim tree with a free hand, to no avail. Another pig bit viciously into that hand until he had to let go, and the remainder of the pack, mostly younger animals, fell on his legs, chewing lustily at the flesh of his calves and thighs.

The last thing he saw before he fainted was the snout of the lead pig covered with blood, his blood. The animal stood crunching away on one of his fingers, which it had bitten off. Its slavering jaws covered with flies reminded him of the face of his young American friend, the man who had escorted him onto the train in India, the man who had guided him back here to this island of hell.

Hearts for Sale

Chapter One

Garrison Campbell had spent his whole life looking forward to this moment. He stood in a clearing, sweating, bare-chested, hatless and bloody, his work finished for the day. He still held in his hand a slick, heavy parang, a bush knife made from the leaf of a car spring by a native ironmonger in Micronesia. Honed to the sharpness of a razor, it was a formidable weapon. As he reached for a plastic water bottle to douse his blood-smeared, sweaty chest, he heard a rustling of leaves and bushes at the edge of the forest.

You son of a bitch! said a female voice. He turned and stared at a young woman. Her white face and her short, dark, wild-looking hair startled him. Her tossed hair was sprinkled with bits of twigs and leaves.

She was holding something at her waist that looked like an assault machine pistol with a wire-frame stock, a mean-looking weapon.

Put it down! she said in a loud but quavering voice.

He looked around to see if she was talking to someone else, but they were alone in the quiet, steamy clearing. The only sound came from the incessant buzzing and droning of the insects and the chirping of the tree frogs in the nearby forest.

"I said, drop the knife!"

I can’t believe it, he said. An insane American female in the middle of nowhere.

You filthy animal, she screamed and flipped something that looked like a safety on the weapon before she aimed it at his stomach. When she did that, the smirk vanished from his face.

Look, lady… he began.

How can you stand there after doing something like that!

I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. But, to be on the safe side, see, he dropped the heavy knife, raised his hands high and stepped back. I’m not looking for trouble.

You bastard, where is he?

He was at a loss to know how to respond, he had thought this was a joke, or a mistake, but he realized she was dead serious. Her face, white as a sheet, was smeared with dirt and stained with tears.

He had briefly thought about distracting her and knocking the weapon from her hands, but her eyes held him motionless, a rock-steady gaze that told him she would kill him if he moved an inch.

"He? he asked, playing for time. You mean Prof. Ali or the Captain?"

You know who I mean, she said in a trembling, hate-filled voice. She had not calmed one iota since bursting through the bush to confront him. She seemed to take his obvious confusion as confirmation of his guilt rather than signifying his innocence.

You’ve hidden his carcass, she concluded, and raised the weapon to eye level as she sighted straight down the barrel at a spot between his eyes. Her finger wrapped around the trigger as she tightened her grip and he felt a large bead of perspiration trickle down the inside of his thigh. His knees began to shiver as the blood and sweat that covered his arms and chest dried and a chill swept over him. He felt completely helpless, he could see no way out. She was going to execute him on the spot.

Jesus, lady, he said in desperation, as he tried to resolve himself to the thought of death but could think of nothing except her blue eyes. Here he was, Garrison Campbell, a grown man, someone who had faced many other difficulties during a very active life, all of which he had obviously somehow survived, but now had come to the end of the line. At this point he thought of dropping to his knees and begging, but he couldn’t do it. Something to do with my Scots’ heritage, he thought, so he stood there and said, If you’re going to do it, do it quick!

Chapter Two

A job at last, thought Todd as he glanced at a mirror in the lobby of an office building in downtown Washington, D.C.

He brushed some of his thinning grey hair back into place and straightened his tie before he pressed the ‘up’ button. At sixty-two he was fit and mentally alert and still reading the current journals in his field, environmental management. He thought at the time his last job would really be just that, his last. A secure, undemanding, low profile position in a government office at EPA. It was exactly what he had been looking for most of his life. But, after only three years, he was the first one to be let go when the RIF came through.

A Reduction in Force, someone kindly explained to him the day he received the notice.

It’s a great mechanism, a colleague continued. Relieves government managers of any responsibility.

What his informant did not explain, however, was that it would also bring out incredible levels of anxiety in everyone around him. The office staff from managers down to file clerks was angry and apprehensive because they were afraid he’d challenge the process, as in fact he had thought about doing.

Why me? he asked himself.

Last one in, first one out, said the contract officer to whom he went for help. It’s a simple process, almost impossible to challenge.

Not long after this he noticed that his colleagues became even more unfriendly when they heard he had gone to see the contracts officer. They were suspicious because they knew that if somehow or other he wrangled his way out of being RIF’d, one of them would get the axe.

He’s the only one at that grade who doesn’t have a family, one workmate rationalized.

Todd, I really wish I could help, said his boss, Carl Landers, but my hands are tied, old buddy.

While he waited helplessly for the day to arrive when he would find himself on the street, the only important decision taken in his case was not about whether a new job could be opened up in order to keep him onboard, or whether he could be placed in a branch office. No, the big question was whether or not they should hold an office party!

I mean, said Carl, it’s not like a retirement or a promotion.

Ah, uh… said a colleague. It’s like… well, kind of like… getting fired.

I agree, said Carl. So maybe we shouldn’t make a big deal out of it. Just a wine and cheese thing, Friday afternoon, late.

Carl’s decision to hold it late meant no one could leave too early for the weekend, which they would do given half a chance. Still it didn’t prevent many from disappearing at the appropriate moment, which was by common agreement in Washington that point when everyone’s attention was diverted, as Carl placed his arm on Todd’s shoulder and raised his glass. It was a fact of life in Washington that before the laudatory words of his toast finished echoing through the room, before he even put down his plastic glass, half the people in the room would have vanished as they slipped out to get to their car pools or the Metro station.

Todd was sad at giving up that job, but he was resolved to adapt. After all, as several people at the party pointed out, he had no kids, and his brief but quarrelsome marriage twenty years earlier had ended in divorce.

He soon realized it wasn’t an easy thing to be without a job and he found himself on the street depressed and with nobody to talk to about his next step in life. He then asked himself whether there would even be a next step, and the other question was, Does anyone really care?

Topping off his depression was the fact that every job he applied for seemed to fizzle before his eyes. He had employed all the recommended techniques suggested by the departmental job counselors, but began to suspect that he must have contracted leprosy or the plague, because the rejections came through with surprising speed. Within no time at all he had reached the point when his unemployment compensation was about to run out, when the phone rang.

Yes, Todd Weyman here, he said, and a very positive secretarial voice from a company called GreenPath, told him to bring along a copy of his past pay record, they had an opening.

That’s odd, he thought later. Did I even apply to them?

He had sent out so many résumés he had lost track. Now he was told there wasn’t even a question about when or how, just get on board, fast. Which was why, even though his bank balance was negative and his shoes were worn down at the heels, he had a little bounce in his step as he knocked on the door of, ‘Mr. Jerry Simms, Field Manager, GreenPath, Inc.,’ and walked in at exactly nine fifteen, as instructed.

Mr. Simms? he asked of the man behind the desk who had risen from his chair.

An open-faced, clean-shaven person of forty or so years, a sparse-haired, ‘shirt and tie’ portrait, thought Todd. It almost seemed as if Mr. Simms had been designed so you’d forget him one minute after meeting him.

Todd? said Jerry as he came out from around his desk to shake hands and guide him to a table where he invited him to sit while he turned to a coffee machine and set out two mugs and some cookies. Coffee? It’s gourmet.

Yes, please, said Todd, with cream. He was awash in a feeling of justification and righteousness as he reached for a cookie. He had wondered until today how he would ever be able to face his old colleagues at EPA. Now it looked very much like he would not only be able to look them straight in the eye, but also comfort them in a voice which pitied because they were locked into civil service jobs, while he was very much a part of the more lucrative private sector.

I hope my secretary told you, said Simms. As far as GreenPath is concerned, you’re already on board. He glanced at Todd, though it was obvious that he could be looking anywhere. We set your salary at fifteen percent above your last job, unless you disagree.

Sounds good to me.

She’ll give you the details about benefits, health insurance and the paperwork, and she’s got an advance check already made out, he sipped his coffee betraying not a whit of what he had in mind. Just one thing, you said in your résumé that you’d be willing to work overseas.

Correct, said Todd, taking another cookie from the plate he shared with his new boss as he waited for a second shoe to drop. His confidence in his professional ability had remained high throughout the past year, and he had been miraculously pulled back from the brink of a steep cliff, the very edge of which had almost collapsed under his feet, as it did in a dream he had had every night for the past few weeks.

The next thing, he assumed, would be for GreenPath to lay out a new and exciting task, a job of work that he felt he would accept even if it wasn’t new and exciting.

We’ve been awarded a contract in competition with seven other firms, said Jerry who was still standing, he pointed at Todd as he added, "And we want you to be our key man out there. It’s in a small overseas country."

Sounds very attractive, said Todd. What’s involved?

Before we go into that, I should tell you up front, we like you. We know about your work with EPA, he stood directly across from him. Your skills, grasp of basic environmental management and knowledge of the new technologies, those are all qualities we need here. That being said, your new job may seem a bit of a come-down.

Why?

First, said Simms, Where? He held up a finger, the first of three as he explained what he considered the most important points.

Ujung Jalan, that’s where. By the way, it means ‘the end of the road’ in the local language. Second, the next finger shot up. What? What will you do there? Our Singapore associates have assembled a team to carry out the work under the contract, which is for recycling all the refuse on the island.

But, he said, as he paced, they’ve sent us an urgent request for ‘one, healthy, single, unattached, Western male, with environmental mentality,’ who’s supposed to be the supervisor for the team. All the others speak English, so there’s no language requirement.

Third, Why? he continued as the third digit rose. Why, why do they need an international team… He paused and looked directly at Todd.

I think at this point… he hesitated then looked away. I’d better let my colleague join us. He pressed a button on a console on the side of the table and a door to their right opened as another man entered the room. Tall, lanky, he had a white-haired buzz cut.

Hi, Todd.

Carl! He could hardly believe his eyes. His old boss, the man whose last words to him had been, If you need anything, old buddy, and I mean anything, anything at all, give me a ring.

Todd had called him on five occasions, each time his call had been routed to a secretary who said she’d get back to him and she didn’t. And since Carl never answered his e-mail, he had no idea if he’d even gotten through.

Carl is on the Board of Trustees here at GreenPath. He’s the one who recommended you for the job.

I think you’re going to like it here, old buddy.

Chapter Three

Jangan! yelled Professor Ali Amar, in Malay. Stop! Don’t!

Don’t shoot, said Capt. Kingsbury, as the two of them emerged from the bush leading an orangutan, a young animal, its thin, orange-brown hair waving as it walked forward, swinging and skipping while hanging onto the hands of the two men, one of whom was a short, heavy-set Malaysian medical man, an amateur naturalist with a black goatee, the other was a tall, retired British military man with a grey Guards’ mustache.

The orang looked like a child between two parents. They let it go and it lunged forward running past Garrison who still stood with his bloody arms upraised. The orang jumped into the arms of the woman who dropped her weapon.

We found him wandering along the path.

It’s obvious he’s used to humans, said the Captain, and he was looking for someone.

But, you’re covered with blood, she said apologetically to Garrison. I thought you had butchered him!

Blood? said Garrison. "That’s my blood."

Yours? she said holding onto the animal as to a long-lost child.

It’s the plant he’s collecting, said Professor Amar. Pandanus.

Wretched thing, said Kingsbury. This species has recurved thorns along the leaf edge, along with spines and sharp spikes on the end of each blade.

The Dayaks use them as fish hooks, explained Professor Amar.

"Probably the first time you could truthfully call something a ‘bloody plant,’ eh