THE VILLA AT SAITON – 8 JUNE
‘Gentlemen, we may have a perfect launch,’ said the silver-haired Lumo Kinotoa as he, almost absentmindedly, moved a pawn on the chessboard at the centre of the table forward one space. There were broad smiles all round at the weekly meeting of the Chess Club. Unusually, this meeting had been moved to a Friday night, as Tsan Yohoto had suggested that it would be most useful to review the first full week of their plan.
‘And Tsan,’ asked Kinotoa, ‘you are not too concerned about this detective you met at the dinner with Dynamic?’
‘No, not really, Lumo.’ Tsan Yohoto took Detective Wyse’s Fifth Precinct card out of his pocket and frowned at it. ‘I mean, it can’t be ideal, to have a detective so close to our marketing team. But the beautiful Miss Milani has no clue about the real strategy behind our marketing, so I can’t see what difference it makes if her boyfriend is a cop.’
Lumo Kinotoa nodded and looked at the others.
Kazuhiro Saito grinned. ‘I’m sure Detective Wyse has more than enough on his plate, keeping Miss Milani satisfied, in between catching muggers.’
‘I’m not so sure about all this,’ said Dr Naga, frowning. It wasn’t often that he disagreed with the majority view and his colleagues paid attention when he did.
‘Obviously, you met him, and I didn’t,’ Naga continued, ‘but it all seems too close for comfort to me. Sometimes, when one puts enormous effort into devising a plan, it can be a little loose end, which seemed innocuous, that causes everything to unravel. I think we should at least keep a close eye on him, so that if he needs to be eliminated at short notice, our homework will be done.’
There was a pause while everyone took this in. Then, after discussing options for another ten minutes or so, Tsan Yohoto summarised their conclusion.
‘Very good. We will ask our al-Qaeda friends if they can have Detective Wyse watched, and gather information on him: where he lives, his routine, his friends, etc.’
All those around the table nodded solemnly.
‘Lumo, you will please send a message?’
‘Of course, Tsan.’
‘Thank you. And so, back to the main agenda.’
‘Okay, gentlemen, let’s summarise the state of play after one week,’ said Lumo Kinotoa.
He and his fellow conspirators moved closer together around the top of the table – Dr Naga, Kazuhiro Saito, who was tucking into a sandwich, and, of course, Tsan Yohoto. All four had files and writing pads in front of them.
‘Kazuhiro, your marketing campaigns – can you summarise the launch?’
‘Of course.’ Saito nodded, swallowed quickly and looked down at his notes. ‘Firstly, the BurgerFantastic launch has gone exactly according to plan. All two hundred and fifty-two restaurants were rebranded in time and the newspaper and radio advertising is underway. The “buy one get one free” promotion is a big success. Apparently, all the restaurants were about fifty per cent busier than usual. Twenty-four of them ran out of burgers on the Sunday, but that’s been corrected.’ He looked up and they all nodded.
He continued, ‘The information from our friends in Afghanistan is that the restaurant owner, el Sayden, is fully compliant and reliable.’ Saito raised his eyebrows. ‘Not surprising, given that they killed his uncle in order to focus his attention. Anyway,’ he said, ‘he puts the cephalosporin in the sauce vats every night. As we requested, every week or so, Tsan, you will receive a letter from al-Qaeda’s man in New York. Inside will be some leaflet or other. In the centrefold, will be a small scoop of sauce taken from a BurgerFantastic. Enough, Tsan, I’m sure, for you to test that our restaurant owner continues to add the antibiotic.’
‘Yes.’ Tsan nodded. ‘Thank you. I need only a small amount.’
‘What about consumption numbers?’ asked Kinotoa.
‘Well,’ Saito said. ‘These are popular and busy restaurants. Say, two hundred and fifty of them, each serving an average of one and a half thousand people every twenty-four hours. As there’s a variety of food on the menus, let’s say, conservatively, that one thousand of those customers have a burger. That’s quarter of a million customers per day. That’s one and three-quarter million burgers every week.’
‘Excellent, excellent.’ All nodded their appreciation.
‘And, Tsan, on the medical side?’ queried Kinotoa.
‘Yes, all is going according to plan. Our logistics facility near La Guardia is well stocked with cephalosporin – tablets for the drugstores, tablets and intravenous fluids for the hospitals and supplies for our al-Qaeda friend. All supplies are double the labelled strength and every fourth tablet or IV bag is a placebo or dummy. This will help to provoke the erratic consumption patterns that will accelerate the build-up of resistance to the antibiotic.’
‘And how about sales?’ asked Kazuhiro Saito.
‘Going very well,’ responded Tsan Yohoto. ‘In response to the TV, radio and newspaper advertising, our sales of SuperVerve cephalosporin tablets are up almost fifty per cent already. I expect that to increase steadily as the later phases of the marketing campaign are rolled out.’
‘And numbers?’ queried Kinotoa again.
‘Well, we’re only at the start, but if the evidence from other advertising campaigns holds true, I believe we can get seven or eight per cent of New Yorkers buying SuperVerve tablets.’
‘My goodness, that seems a lot,’ said Dr Naga, looking slightly surprised.
Tsan Yohoto smiled. ‘Have faith in the God of advertising, Juro,’ he said and Dr Naga returned the smile.
Lumo Kinotoa was drawing a margin down the right-hand side of his page and beginning to write in figures. ‘Any other numbers, Juro?’ he asked.
‘Well, thirty-two hospitals with an average of four hundred patients per hospital, that makes twelve thousand eight hundred patients. If, say, five per cent are prescribed cephalosporin, that gives us another six hundred and fifty people consuming our cephalosporin products.’
‘Excellent work,’ said Kinotoa, writing the number in the margin.
‘By the way,’ continued Dr Naga, ‘cephalosporin is also the standard antibiotic given to any patient undergoing surgery. So, because we’re supplying our antibiotic to the hospitals at the lowest price, every single New Yorker having an operation is getting a nice strong dose of our product.’ He looked around proudly at his companions.
‘Excellent. Excellent,’ said Kinotoa. ‘And we understand the al-Qaeda man is making progress with our strategy of dumping tablets around New York?’ he asked.
‘That’s right,’ Kazuhiro Saito responded. ‘Information from Afghanistan is that the dumping is well underway. Apparently, their man is dropping about twenty boxes in ten or so of our selected locations, every night.’
‘Numbers?’
‘Harder to be exact on this, as we don’t know how they’ll be dispersed, but with one thousand tablets per box, by twenty boxes, by ten locations each night, that’s another two hundred thousand tablets every day. I don’t know, maybe another four thousand consumers? The main thing is that they’re out there, and someone’s taking them.
‘Okay, gentlemen,’ said Kinotoa, totting up the figures in the margin. ‘So, from BurgerFantastic we have already one point seven five million new consumers of cephalosporin. From prescriptions, already over one hundred thousand and set to rise rapidly, seven- or eight-fold. In the hospitals, six hundred and fifty, and perhaps another four thousand consumers each week from the van drops. Gentlemen,’ he said again, as he sat back in his chair, ‘we have already achieved an extra two million regular consumers of cephalosporin antibiotic in New York.’
There was a satisfied silence and they each looked from one to another in delight.
Tsan Yohoto broke the pause, with his low, quiet voice.
‘My friends, we have done well. We are tipping the balance. I’ll go back to New York soon and keep an eye on things.’ Dinner with Miss Anna Milani would be a nice bonus. ‘I’m looking forward to watching the Americans dig their graves with their own medicine.’