Kelly Owen

Village of Las Gaviotas, Columbia, SA Tears streamed down Jorge Manuelo’s cheeks as he stood with head bowed in prayer, listening to his brother’s screams. They had gone on far longer than should have been possible. How could Juan—hanging from the tree, his arms stretched above him as if reaching for heaven, entrails piled below like a pig being readied for Christmas day—live so long? He begged the Madonna to bring his own death more quickly. El Chuchillo—the man with the knife—turned away from Juan’s now silent body and lifted Jorge’s chin with the tip of his blade. “I have your attention?” Jorge wanted to answer but had no voice. The man holding him from behind gave his arm a twist and Jorge nodded, feeling a trickle of blood where the knife touched his throat. “You have disappointed us,” El Chuchillo said, wiping the knife on Jorge’s shirt—his own straw-colored linen suit miraculously free of blood—then slid it into its snakeskin sheath, only the silver handle left visible. “We gave you money, protected you from the police. Were we not kind to you?” Jorge didn’t know if the man wanted an answer but thought it best to show respect. “Yes, Jefe, very kind.” El Chuchillo looked past Jorge at the coca field, row after row of chest high bushes that should have been covered in dark green leaves ready for harvesting. Instead, there was only a carpet of brown, the leaves of the few plants still alive smothered in a white down. He turned back to Jorge. “Why have you placed this plague on your own crops? A thing no true farmer would do.” Jorge looked at the flies gathering on the gaping red hole where his brother’s chest and stomach had been. The man was right. He had betrayed more than the cartel. He had betrayed the land, the disease planted on the coca fields now spreading to the village gardens. “It was a prefect,” he said, his voice soft. “Miguel Tamayo, from Bogota. He came with an American who said they would send men to burn our crops, leave our families, our village with nothing if we did not do as told.” “The man with Tamayo, you are sure he was an American?” “Si. He wore a bright shirt and hair with the rubio color that is not real.” As in the confessional, Jorge found that once started he could not stop. He wanted to tell how the blond man’s belly hung over the too-tight pants, how he wore gold chains around his neck. But El Chuchillo stopped him with another question. “What did this man tell you to do?” “He said bags would be brought. Inside would be leaves, a rich mulch to place around our plants. We were to start at the far edge of our field and mark those plants. For this we would be protected and given money.” “That is all?” El Chuchillo shook his head, the doubt clear on his face. “Nothing more?” “Only that he would return to look at our crops.” “And has he returned?” “Only Señor Tamayo.” “What does he do when he comes?” Jorge made a picture in his mind. “First, he looks at the plants where we placed the mulch. He then sprays something on the plants next to them. After that he collects leaves and puts them in little bags, writing something on each.” “And the American, he never comes? “No. I think he is a man who likes the señoritas of the city more than work.” El Chuchillo looked at the rows of dead plants again. “I think I will speak with Señor Tamayo.” Jorge saw a glimmer of hope. “I can help you, Jefe. I could take you to him. I know where to find him.” “Yes,” El Chuchillo said, drawing the knife. “You will help me.” Jorge felt the grip on his arms tighten and closed his eyes. Father, take me to your breast as you did your son from the cross…. 1 Standing on the back deck, cold rain dripping down her neck, Tracy Hart watched her seven-year-old daughter struggle to unlock the door. With her arms full of groceries, all Tracy wanted to do was get inside where it was dry. But she controlled the urge to tell Melisa to hurry, knowing that the doors of the old Seattle craftsman were tricky and that her daughter was doing her best to help. Built in 1922, the house’s only upgrade was a tiny second bath squeezed into a former pantry. Other than that, the worn hardwood floors, narrow staircase, and slope-ceilinged upstairs bedrooms—an inconvenience when making beds—were pretty much as they had been a hundred years earlier. And Tracy was in no hurry to change that. It was the house’s scars she loved. People had lived here. It was a home. Her home. “Got it,” Melisa said, pushing the door open. “Put the keys in the bowl and hang up your jacket,” Tracy said, following her into the small kitchen with it’s blue-painted cabinets and Formica countertops—one of the few things she did want to change. “Can I put the kitten on the tree?” Melisa asked, holding up the Christmas ornament picked up at the store. Tracy dropped the bags on the countertop and slipped out of her own coat. “Homework first, then you can turn on the tree lights and we’ll hang it up together.” Melisa pushed her lips into a pout. “Can we do it now, please?” With her short, straight, dark hair—so unlike her mother’s thick brown wave—she looked more like an elf concentrating on toy making than the begging child she was trying to portray. “Homework,” Tracy said. Melisa held the pose for another two seconds, then shrugged. “Okay.” Tracy listened to her climb the stairs, wondering if she was too hard on her daughter, trying to compensate for her own mother’s view of women and education. “Are you sure a doctorate in science is a good idea, dear? Most men don’t want to marry a woman smarter than they are.” “Then I won’t marry most men,” she had replied. While she had not married most men—Dan had graduated from West Point—her mother had been, to a degree, right. Dan was bothered by Tracy’s career. Particularly when she refused to give up her dream job—heading up her own lab—and leave Seattle when he was transferred. Taking out the groceries, she glanced at the receipt, surprised by how much she had spent. The price of vegetables seemed to have jumped an inordinate amount in just the last week. She might need to adjust her budget. Closing the refrigerator door, she put on the teakettle, then went into the living room to check emails. With her desk trapped behind the Christmas tree, there was no place to work except the couch. There’s a room in the basement, her inner voice reminded her. She looked at the cellar door next to the staircase. Dan’s mancave was down there. She should turn it into the office her work deserved. But each time she entered the room, it came back. Their argument. The last time she had seen her husband alive. She stared at the door another moment, then sat down on the couch and opened her laptop. The first email was from her friend Perla Mendez, head of the Tropical Plant Center in Rio de Janeiro. Expecting a holiday greeting, she was halfway through the first paragraph before she realized what she was reading. A new fungus had appeared in South America, spreading to a variety of plants, including some food crops. Perla wanted to send Tracy samples to see if she could identify the pathogen and suggest ways to control it. She should say no. She was under pressure from her boss, James Lathmore, to finish the special project he had assigned her. She didn’t have time for much else. She decided to say yes anyway. Perla was a friend. Besides, it probably wouldn’t take long. Unlike Lathmore’s unknown pathogen, anything as virulent as Perla described had likely been discovered long ago. It was probably something familiar that had mutated just enough to seem like a different species. She started typing her answer, then stopped, realizing Perla would have already thought of that. So, whatever the fungus was, it couldn’t be common. A rare one then, but still a mutation turning it more virulent. Like the one in her lab. She paused, staring at the screen. Was it possible? No. Lathmore’s fungus was so unique there wasn’t anything like it in the literature. A connection to what Perla had found was impossible. Wasn’t it?

Assignment 1. Story Statement: A scientist must choose between protecting her daughter or stopping the disease destroying America’s food supply. Assignment 2. Antagonists: Primary protagonist Tracy Hart’s antagonist. Senator Ransom Stone (primary antagonist) has an undiagnosed form of Derealization Disorder where he takes on the personality of characters from novels—the condition brought on by a radical, unlicensed addiction cure used on him by the CIA. Rather than a hinderance, the ability to be whoever he wants or needs to be, helps him become wealthy and get elected to the Senate. Using information from his days in the CIA and his position on the Senate Intel Committee, he has his private bioresearch company illegally resurrect a cancelled government program to develop a fungus genetically engineered to attack coca (cocaine) plants. He releases the fugus into the South American fields intending to extort the cartels for the cure which the protagonist, Dr. Tracy Hart—who is completely unaware of the disease’s origin or Stone’s plans—has developed. But someone has altered the disease. No longer susceptible to Tracy’s cure, it is spreading to food crops. The cartels learn the disease was lab created, and believing Tracy does have a cure, send their most lethal killer (secondary antagonist) Rojas Gordillo after her. Needing to satisfy his cartel overlords, Gordillo kills everyone who worked on creating the fungus, then kidnaps Tracy’s daughter to force Tracy to cooperate and provide the cure. With his plans falling apart, Stone covers up his connection to the lab and sends his own hitman, Earl Tinmen (another secondary antagonists) to eliminate anyone left, including Tracy. Secondary protagonist Michael LaCroix’s antagonist. Earl Tinmen—Michael’s handler when he worked as a government field agent—is one of Ransom Stone’s operatives. Unknown to Michael, acting on Stone’s orders Tinmen was responsible for the death of his daughter, the distraction intended to cause Michael to fail on a mission Stone wanted ended. But when the cartels begin killing people at the lab, Stone tasks Tinmen with finding Tracy Hart a bodyguard who won’t—or can’t—ask questions. Tinmen approaches Michael and threatens to destroy the lives if Michael’s friends if he doesn’t take the job. When Stone decides to bury his connection to the lab, it is Tinmen who takes on the job of eliminating both Tracy and Michael. Assignment 3. Titles: White Plague Open Wound The Meaning of Anything Assignment 4. Comparable Thrillers: Whiteout, Ken Follett Contagion, Robbin Cook Bloodstream, Tess Gerritsen The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton Clear and Present Danger, Tom Clancy Assignment 5. Hook Line/Conflict and Core Wound: A scientist who lost her military husband because she chose the career she loves over moving when he was transferred must now choose again, this time between protecting her daughter or staying on the job to stop a disease destroying America’s food supply. Assignment 6. Inner and Secondary Conflict: Inner Conflicts. Mycologist Tracy Hart (primary protagonist) has spent her life working to reach the top of her field, overcoming prejudice about women in science from nearly everyone, even her mother. Determined to keep her dream job, her last conversation with her military husband before he was killed is an argument because she chose to stay in Seattle with their daughter rather move when he is transferred. But now her lab is ground zero for stopping an unknown disease destroying America’s food supply and she must again choose. Stay on the job at which she excels or leave it to protect her daughter from the danger posed by killers hunting her research team. Tracy’s internal wounds and struggles are shown in scenes with her laboratory boss, her daughter, Michael, and flashback memories of conversations and arguments with her mother and husband. Former government agent Michael LaCroix’s (secondary protagonist) inability to save his daughter drove him to give up violence for life as a jazz musician. But when his former handler, Earl Tinmen forces him back into the field as Tracy Hart’s bodyguard, Michael must decide how deeply to immerse himself in the world of brutality he renounced. He is forced to ask himself what he is capable of to protect Tracy and her daughter, Melisa—who reminds him of his own child—and what will it cost him if he fails. Michael’s inner struggles are shown in scenes with Tinmen, Tracy and Melisa, a flashback, and a climax confrontation with the primary antagonist, Stone. Secondary/Social Conflict. Tracy and Michael struggle to work together. Their old wounds and prejudices line up to ignite each other’s hot button issues. Tracy doesn’t like taking direction and is appalled by Michael’s underlying anger and automatic recourse to violence at the slightest hint of danger. For his part, Michael is frustrated by Tracy’s inability to comprehend that the people after her—the same kind of people who killed his daughter—are far more violent than anything she can imagine. When Malisa is kidnapped, they struggle to find a way to work together if they are going to save her. Assignment 7. Setting: Primary setting: Seattle and Western Washington, Christmas time, the cold dark skies and rain contrasting with the holiday lights. Specific Washington Settings: Two Seattle craftsman style homes, Tracy’s with a ‘lived in” look, Michael’s immaculate, with pristine restoration details, the difference between the houses a metaphor for the inherent conflict arising from their disparate personalities and lifestyles while hinting at where on a deeper level they overlap. Research Lab on a university campus/Tracy’s safe place, until it isn’t. Downtown Seattle jazz club/Michael’s safe place, until it isn’t. Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park Friday Harbor, San Juan Island Various locations around the city, including ferry docks, music venues, a sleazy motel, an apartment, and the airport. Secondary Settings: Ransom Stone’s private/isolated Minnesota lake mansion White House and Camp David Mexico City and South American coca fields