Chapter 62 Gennadiy
GENNADIY
Mikhail recalled his dogs and, as we walked out of the hotel, Alison laid it all out for us.
“We were wrong, right from the start,” she said.
“We assumed Grushin’s clinic was just a front, a way of laundering money from his business.
But it is his business. There aren’t enough organs legally donated to even cover all the people who really need one.
No one’s giving you a heart if you’re already in your seventies.
..unless you buy one. If you’re a billionaire, paying five, ten million dollars for more life is nothing.
” She pulled out Bronwyn’s medication. “Immunosuppressants. They had them at the clinic to stop people rejecting their new organs.”
I shook my head slowly. It had been right in front of us, but it had taken Alison’s FBI brain to figure it out. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it, insanely proud of her, and she gave me an embarrassed smile.
“And if you’re powerful,” said Mikhail, “Grushin steps in and saves your life for free. Cliburn, the District Attorney, is an alcoholic. What’s the betting Grushin got him a new liver?”
“Or if the person’s got a relative that needs a transplant,” I said, remembering something. “The head of the gaming board: his wife was ill.”
“And once the operation’s done, you’re an accessory to murder,” said Alison.
“Grushin owns you. That’s how he’s amassed so much power, so quickly.
Jesus, he must have done this for hundreds of people across the state.
Most people rich enough to afford it are going to have some sort of power he can use.
He’s not doing it for the money, he’s doing it for the influence. ”
I fell silent as we reached the minivan and climbed in.
Innocent people who’d done nothing wrong being smuggled into the US, killed, and their organs stripped out.
Just so some elderly rich guy could live a few more years.
The rich, eating the poor. “Blyat’.” I felt the rage slowly building, taking hold of me.
I am not a good man. But some things are wrong, even to me.
“We have to stop him.” I looked at Alison, took a deep breath, and said something I thought I’d never say. “We need to go to the police.”
But Alison shook her head. “Grushin controls the DA. Plus, those people who came off the submarine, the next batch of donors: Grushin will kill them to cover things up if the authorities get close. We have to get them out first. And then we have to take Grushin alive so he can testify.”
I rubbed my stubble. “Someone at the clinic might know where they’re being held. Let’s go.”