FATAL GREED by Robert Landori Copyright © Robert Landori-Hoffmann, 2003
PROLOGUE At 1:30 on a lazy and humid Toronto summer afternoon, Travis McNiff has less than four hours to get fifteen hundred applicator kits assembled, pasteurized, packed and out the door before the workday ends. Shift foreman at Plasmalab, a manufacturer of Plasmacol, a revolutionary surgical glue made from cowe blood, Travis leads a team that performed flawlessly throughout the first six months of the year. A few more hours on target during this final week before the company's annual summer shutdown will mean a bonus equal to two weeks' pay for each team member. It's one heck of an incentive, but timing is tight because at 5 p.m. all the shift workers are set to close down the line and leave. Travis has another reason to be keen to get away on time: he has a date at seven sharp for cocktails with Tracy Holland, a co-worker and the object of his passionate, but as yet unfulfilled, desires. Travis loves his job. Hardly twenty-eight, he rides herd over thirty-six women on two assembly lines, and counting another twelve staffing the ancillary equipment and the quality control lab, he has a fluttering pool of forty-eight mostly attractive female employees with whom to flirt incessantly, among them Tracy, a beautiful, and fun-loving, twenty-five year old hazel-eyed blonde. An anxious glance along the assembly line tells Travis that the team is running low on components for the applicator kits, each consisting of two vials (one containing Fibrinogen, the other Thrombin) the contents of which, when combined by means of a plunger-equipped spraying device, produce a magic-like sterile glue used in surgery involving tissue too fragile and thin for the more common staples or sutures. Recent demand for PlasmalabÕs patented applicator and magic glue, manufactured through a process in which a cow blood extract is pasteurized, has increased exponentially, and the company is straining to satisfy its customers while respecting its union contract that limits work hours and guarantees the annual shutdown. The company's fortunes ride on its hard-won market share for Plasmacol, its chief moneymaker. It would be unthinkable to surrender any revenue through failure to deliver product on time. If Plasmalab's managers are anxious about making target, Travis is doubly concerned, first because of the possibility of losing the bonus, and second, because of the imminence of making his own target: bedding Tracy. For two months now heÕs been pursuing her with shameless single-mindedness, sharing risquŽ stories, laughing at their bosses' foibles, flirting with gusto and engaging in the occasional fleeting caress, only to have his advances put off, but in a way that seemed to signal Tracy wanted to play him a little longer before giving in. Then, just a week earlier, she suggested that a long weekend at a quiet lodge on a lake in the Laurentian hills near Montreal would be the ideal place to spend time together. ÒQuality time,Ó as she had put it with a wink. And Travis had thought of little else since. ÒJoe, quick, we need at least another three thousand vials Ð fifteen hundred of each kind,Ó Travis yells to his assistant, Giuseppe Bucalo, a second generation working class Toronto Italian, whose Neapolitan family had settled in Canada after World War II because no more U.S. Immigration visas were available that year. Joe nods, jumps into a lift truck and speeds off in the direction of the inventory processing area. HeÕs soon back, face pale, eyes flashing with anger. ÒThereÕs been a screw-up in the production planning departmentÓ, he reports. ÒInstead of producing 5cc vials for us this morning they switched to making 10cc ones. The wrong damn size.Ó ÒJeesus effing Christ, Joe? we canÕt use 10cc vials Ð they wonÕt fit into the applicators we loaded into the system this morning. And we donÕt have larger applicators on hand. What monkey brain is running things over there today?Ó ÒDunno, Travis, but listen, I'm pretty sure I saw some extra boxes of the bigger applicators on a pallet at the Oakville warehouse yesterday when I picked up stock for todayÕs shifts.Ó ÒSave our asses.Ó Travis thinks fast. ÒWe could ship out the larger ones, call it a mistake. I donÕt think the hospitals would care, they'd get more for their money and the bosses upstairs might bitch a little, but they'll be okay with it in the end. Best they know after the deed is done. How long would it take you to go to Oakville and back, seeing as how it's worth two weeks' pay?Ó ÒAn hour, hour and a quarter max, staying out of traffic and using the back roads. You pay the speeding tickets?Ó ÒYeah, I have a little pull in accounting, Cindy up there still has a sweet spot for me. HereÕs what we do. Take my van and, to be on the safe side, get me two thousand large applicators.Ó He throws Joe the keys. ÒTry to be back by three. ThatÕll give us two hours to produce fifteen hundred units. Now step on it.Ó ÒLess the set-up time,Ó Joe reminds him. ÒJoe, move it! WeÕll clear the 5cc applicators out of the system while youÕre gone and IÕll figure out something with the pasteurizing while youÕre away.Ó ÒWhat about the half hour it will take to load the new units into the system after I get back?Ó The assembly lines at Plasmalab had been set to produce five finished kits per minute per line this week, but the equipment could turn out three times that much were it not for the pasteurizing section where the standby unit is under repair. If there were a way Travis could circumvent the pasteurizing problem and bribe a skeleton staff to stay on he could still make his quota and leave the plant by six. ÒOK, OK, so weÕll speed up the line a little.Ó ÒWith both pasteurizing units working we could do it, Travis. But with the standby unit on the fritz...?Ó ÒFor ChristÕs sake, get the bloody hell out of here and leave the pasteurizing problem for me to solve.Ó Travis waits until the last 5cc vial is used up then gets his staff to clear out the applicators remaining in the system. By three p.m. they are ready for Joe, but he is an infuriating half hour late. Joe forestalls the outburst he knows is coming. ÒFriday afternoon, man, what can you expect?Ó he shouts, ÒTraffic is brutal. So lay off of me and letÕs do what we can to save the situation.Ó It takes Travis until four to get production rolling again. Tracy sees him struggling and sneaks up to him on her way to the restroom. ÒDon't sweat it, babe, weÕll meet an hour later than planned Ð at eight,Ó she whispers. Ò I think we're both worth waiting a little more for, don'cha think?Ó Travis turns with his trademark smile on full jets. ÓThanks, honÕ, I'm primed. IÕll make it up to you, youÕll see!Ó Watching Tracy's rear end and very attractive legs disappearing up the metal staircase, Travis reviews what he knows about pasteurizing, which, in truth, isnÕt much. The process is what kills the microorganisms that ÔspoilÕ beer, wine, milk, fruit juice and other kinds of liquids intended for human consumption. To kill them you have to heat the liquid in which they reside to fifty-five degrees Celsius for several minutes. The cavities in each of PlasmalabÕs two pasteurizing tunnels, one of which is always kept on standby in case the other fails, measure two meters by one meter and can accommodate only 250 kits at a time. Therefore, since the pasteurizing process requires 30 minutes, including preheating, pasteurizing, cooling and unloading, the installation limits the plantÕs capacity to 500 kits per hour. ÒFace it, man,Ó Travis mutters to himself under his breath. ÒYou need three hours to produce the fifteen hundred units we need to meet quota, and you can't squeeze it. Our goose is cooked.Ó He laughs out loud, getting a sudden brainstorm. ÒIÕll be buggered if it isnÕt cooking that this whole damned mess is all about.Ó He takes a deep breath and waves at Joe to join him in his foremanÕs cubicle. ÒIncrease the two assembly linesÕ speeds gradually so that by six,Ó Ñ he glances at the clock Ñ Òwe have fifteen hundred units ready for pasteurizing.Ó ÒThatÕs about eight units per minute per line, boss, we're pushing it, no?Ó ÒBut still, Joe, you're well within the maximum capabilities of the system.Ó ÒTrue? and so?Ó ÒIf we start pasteurizing the first batch of kits an hour from now?Ó ÒAround five. ButÑÓ ÒI hear you.Ó Travis gives Joe a wide grin. ÒWeÕll cut down on the cooking time so we can do three batches an hour Ð not two.Ó ÒHow do you think we can do that?Ó ÒWe increase the temperature?Ó ÒHow high?Ó ÒWeÕll go as high as 90o Celsius. Have you ever heard of flash pasteurization?Ó ÒVaguely.Ó Joe is mystified. ÒItÕs the same as regular pasteurization except at higher temperatures Ð as high as what weÕre going to use: just below 100o Celsius Ð but only for a very short time.Ó ÒHow short?Ó Joe asks. ÒThirty seconds. We can do this, man. And the beauty of it is that no one but us will ever need to know.Ó Joe leaves to reset the assembly-line speed controls. Travis grabs an instruction manual and heads for the rheostat regulating the heat within the tunnelÕs cavity and the timer that opens and closes it. The staffÕs work is complete by seven and everyone leaves on the run, heading for vacation city; everyone, that is, except for Joe and five stalwarts who help extract the last batch of kits, which they box, shrink wrap and stack on pallets ready to fork lift into the shipper's eighteen-wheel van parked at the loading dock. While Joe and his assistants shut down the assembly line, Travis takes a lightening-fast shower, changes into street clothes, then completes the dayÕs production report at his terminal, switches off the lights and locks up. But in his haste to fall into Tracy's open arms, he fails to return the temperature controls to their original settings. ÒTime enough for that when we start up again in two weeks,Ó he thinks as he turns the ignition key of his Yamaha R1 motorcycle. The work problem already behind him, concentrating on how Tracy will look with nothing on and how fast he can accomplish that, he takes off in the direction of the Meadowvale Inn on Mississagua Road and fails to see the semi, now full of his flash-cooked glue, come roaring around the corner of the plant building, the trucker thinking to himself that the weekend was starting much too damn late. Travis never feels a thing after the initial millisecond of shock. The impact of the collision throws him for forty-five feet, and despite his three hundred dollar crash helmet, his neck breaks on landing. Death is instantaneous.
