Dying to Live Read Online Free PDF Page B

silence. Behind him, Bao heard a small group of women start whispering, questioning in disbelief the order to destroy any files related to the outbreak. As he listened, one of the women voiced the exact thought that had already crossed his own mind.
    “Surely, if all the research is all destroyed, the hopes of curing these people are destroyed with it? Nobody will know what it is or where it came from and anyone infected will die.”
    Bao turned to her.
    “Don’t you see? They don’t care; they don’t want anyone to know that they are to blame. Their first priority is drawing the blame away from themselves. They’d rather let those people die than have to face the consequences of their own actions.”
    She looked at him. He could tell that she didn’t want to believe what he had said, but she was starting to see that he was right.
    “Surely they wouldn’t...” she began in reply, but let the sentence trail off.
    “Well, that’s certainly what it looks like to me.” He shook his head and ran a hand quickly through his hair. “Excuse me.”
    Bao approached Dr Hitsu, who was now trying to turn off the projector and the computer that it was hooked up to.
    “Ah, Dr Yuan...” Dr Hitsu began.
    “Please, spare me,” Bao said, cutting him off before he could start with his usual condescending bullshit. He carried on before Hitsu could protest. “Are we free to leave now?”
    “Of course, but...”
    “Alright, then I bid you goodnight.” And with that Dr Bao-Zhi Yuan walked out of the conference suite, right down the stairs and out of the glass doors of the building.
    For a while Bao just sat in his car, out in the parking lot with his elbows rested on the steering wheel and his face in his hands, thinking. Going over the things he had seen and heard. Considering what his course of action should be. He admired Xin for her decision to head straight out into the centre of things, without even a thought for her own safety. However, he was not the man he wished he was. He had to think about things. He didn’t just DO things without being prepared. Although he was not selfish, he wasn’t reckless either. He had a good instinct for self-preservation.
    After so long, he began to tell himself that it was time to push some of his old self to the side and go and make himself useful. Xin was good at what she did but so was he. The two of them working together could get more done and faster. When Xin had been the new girl, it had been he who had mentored her. He had helped her become accustomed to the work and helped her collect samples and analyse them. His way of nudging her thought process in the right direction, without giving her the answers, had been just what she needed. He couldn’t help but think that somewhere along the way, she may need him again.
    Bao sat up and wiped his eyes with one hand. When he opened them he saw his briefcase on the passenger seat beside him. Remembering the now forbidden files on the memory stick, he smiled. He still had a knack for being one step ahead. The knowledge that these files would soon be the only kind of record anyone had of ALS, gave him the push he needed and he pulled out his mobile phone.
     
    It took a lot of convincing and he had to call in a favour or two but Bao had a plan. He managed to book, not only a flight to Nevada, but a private plane. His reason for not just using a commercial plane was simple; he needed to keep safe at all costs so that the memory stick arrived safely with him. This meant that he needed no possible run-ins with infected people. He doubted that it had yet left the USA, but he figured he’d rather be safe than sorry. It was probable that all of the staff working for the government research areas involved in the Nevada Project were being tracked. He may still get caught out, but going by private plane was a little less obvious. One of the pharmaceutical companies that he had worked for had a plane that was used for transporting things that they