Diversion 2 - Collusion by Eden Winters Read Free Book Online Page A

more ways than one. Six-six by sixsix. But he’d been one hell of a field agent in his day, and wasn’t too bad as a boss, though Lucky would die before admitting respect for the man out loud.
“Happy Birthday, Lucky…I mean, Simon,” Walter paused between bites long enough to say.
Lucky placed his untouched piece of cake on the edge of Walter’s desk and slumped down into one of two adjacent chairs on the other side of the desk. Bo sat beside him.
“You should try it.” Walter gestured to the neglected plate with a plastic fork. “Caramel mocha. Amazing!” He moaned and inhaled another forkful.
If left up to Lucky, “Simon” wouldn’t get a cake either. What the fuck was it with some people and birthdays? Who needed reminding about growing a year older? Or another snubbing by parents and brothers? Not that they could acknowledge the day now if they wanted to—they believed him dead. Only Charlotte deserved the truth, truth rewarded with a card and pictures.
“You wanted us,” Lucky prodded, eyeing the clock on Walter’s desk. He’d better things to do with his time than watch the boss eat.
“Ah, yes. I know you keep up with the latest news, and are likely fully aware of the current drug shortage situation.”
He’d seen the headlines at the FDA and Board of Pharmacy websites, more and more products joining the shorted list each week. And he’d heard enough out of Charlotte about the hospital where she worked begging, borrowing, and ready to resort to stealing to keep their pharmacy shelves stocked. A series of unlucky events crippled several large US drug manufacturers, cutting production by as much as seventy-five percent, while demand grew. The problem seemed to happen overnight. Digging out of the hole might take years. Opportunists like Goose, Ferret, and Christy added to the problem.
“Some headway’s being made, ain’t it?” Lucky asked.
“Yes, but a few critical cancer drugs are nearly unobtainable, which leads to your next assignment. Are you familiar with the Rosario Children’s Cancer Center in Anderson, South Carolina?”
Bo piped up, “They’ve got ads on TV. They’re pretty famous.”
Walter nodded. “Yes, they’re the leading pediatric cancer facility in the southeastern US, which is the primary reason they’re being targeted by unscrupulous wholesalers.”
Lucky sipped his coffee, now cold, before adding his voice. “The drugs’re in short supply and buzzards are circling, offering what they need at inflated prices. Am I right?”
“In a nutshell.” Walter polished off the last of his cake and ran a fingertip across the plate to gather remaining frosting. Lucky would happily have gone to his grave without a visual of Walter sucking on a fleshy digit.
“But gray markets aren’t illegal. Unethical, but not illegal.” At one time Bo quoting textbooks pissed Lucky off. Now that passionate conviction inspired urges to the grab the man and haul him off somewhere private. Bo leaned forward in his chair, looking ready to do battle with the bastards who’d dare make a profit from someone else’s suffering.
“At the moment, you’re correct.” Walter gave his finger a final lick. “Recent legislation hopes to challenge the practice. Until the bill passes into law, reselling is legal. However deeply the moral issue may affect us as people, as agents, we’re restricted to finding who sources these entities and ensuring the necessary drugs remain within the legitimate supply chain. Failing our primary goal, we determine if the products are safe for human consumption.”
Lucky’s resume included working for an outfit nestled deep in the heart of the gray market, and he’d diverted his share of meds from the “legitimate supply chain.” He’d also served time for that, mostly under Walter’s supervision. Now he kept others from succeeding where he’d fucked up. A dirty job, but one Lucky took to like a duck to water. If you wanted to catch a thief, you had to think like