Project: Evil – The Coronavirus Meeting

‘Why are we all sat two metres apart?’ asked O’Feld, fiddling impatiently with his revolver.  Daw sighed.

‘It’s the Government directive.  To slow down the spread of Coronavirus everybody has to keep a social distance between themselves and everyone else.  It’s playing havoc with the Thugs, grade three on kill missions,’ he said.

‘Sod the Government directive, I want a group hug,’ said O’Feld, holding his arms up, not securing any enthusiasm.  Everybody remembered the last time he’d offered a group hug and it turned out to be a body double wearing a suicide vest.

‘I’ll pass,’ said Daw, tapping his notepad with his pen.  Silence hung in the air as everyone watched O’Feld’s reaction, relaxing when he merely shot a henchman delivering sandwiches to the boardroom.

‘He looked like he hadn’t washed his hands properly,’ explained O’Feld, tucking into the beef and horseradish.  ‘Brown bread, my favourite,’ he added.  ‘So, why the emergency?’ he asked.  Brian sat up as he’d been detailed by Daw to present the technical briefing, which consisted of five minutes on Wikipedia and ten on the BBC website.

‘It’s a pandemic, sweeping across the world, killing people left, right and centre,’ said Brian.  O’Feld looked interested, then a cloud crossed his face.  ‘It is one of ours, isn’t it?’ he asked in his Irish brogue, levelling the revolver at Brian.  Brian flushed, then washed his hands.  As he always did whenever he shit himself.

‘Well, yes, I’m working on a biological weapon, but you always said you wanted it deployed from space and since we lost our rocket capability it’s been on hold.  I’ve been concentrating on a simpler pocket-sized thermo-nuclear weapon system recently, tapping his breast pocket.  ‘Oops,’ he said, pulling the device out and stopping the countdown timer.  O’Feld sneered.

‘So, which one is responsible?’ he asked.  ‘Brass Digit?’

‘Gold Digit,’ sighed Daw scribbling on his pad.

‘Or that nippleless bastard Scaramouche?’ asked O’Feld, reeling off his direct competitors, not that anyone in the room would suggest any of them was competition for O’Feld.  Not waiting for Brian to answer he added, ‘Or is it Doktor Negativ up to his old tricks again?’   Brian shook his head.  

‘It started in China,’ he explained.

‘Who did it?’ asked O’Feld, only to be interrupted by the Diversity Officer.

‘Mr O’Feld, that’s a terrible racial stereotype,’ she said.  ‘You’re capable of much better racial stereotypes.’  O’Feld shrugged his shoulders and looked back at Brian, who continued his explanation.

‘It appears it is just a random mutation of an existing coronavirus existing in the animal kingdom that has crossed the species line and is infecting humans,’ he said, breathing in for the big spiel.

‘Enough of the science talk already,’ said O’Feld, ‘how does this affect our business?’  The catering manager looked up eagerly.

‘Half of the staff are self isolating, so my budget is going to look pretty good next month,’ he said.  The finance manager looked at Brian.


‘How is this affecting our staff levels?’ he asked.

‘Well, here in Basildon there is a lot of absenteeism at the moment,’ he confirmed, adding, ‘and the hookers and the thugs have agreed to work from home for the foreseeable.  There’s no reports that it has reached our uninhabited island in the South Seas yet, but I’m concerned that if it does it’ll sweep through the uninhabitants like a dose of salts,’ said Brian.  The meeting fell silent as the members considered the slave labour uninhabitant population for approximately three seconds.

‘Can they be replaced?’ asked O’Feld. Daw nodded.

‘That’s why you pay me the big bucks to be your HR director,’ he said.  O’Feld glowered.

‘I pay you?’ he asked.  The finance director leaned across the table.

‘Don’t worry, his salary is tax deductable.’

‘I pay tax?’ asked O’Feld, panic rising in everyone downwind of his revolver barrel.

‘Not so much pay as claim State benefits,’ explained the finance director, defusing the situation and, critically, the C4 bomb O’Feld had brought out of his bag.  He put the detonator to one side while O’Feld turned his attention back to Brian.

‘So, what’s the impact on the business?’ he asked Brian.

‘Well, it’s pretty much business as usual.  The protection racket’s going well, especially as we take PayPal now.  We’ve just issued social distancing guidance for thugs smashing up premises behind on their payments,’ he explained, ‘although the hookers are struggling to comply.  

‘And everyone is washing their hands,’ he added.

‘To eradicate the virus?’ asked O’Feld.

‘Oh, er, yes, that as well.  But mainly for corporate plausible deniability,’ he explained.

‘What about the people who work here?’ O’Feld asked.  The finance director was all over this.

‘We can claim 80% of our employees’ salaries from the Government if we furlough them,’ he said.

‘We pay employees? This gets worse by the minute,’ said O’Feld, his head in his hands while he contemplated whose head he’d prefer to be holding.  The finance director’s head looked favourite for leaving his shoulders.

‘Of course not, we feed them, clothe them, kill them when we’ve had enough of them.  But we’ve got a wonderful forgery department that can produce any amount of documents pretending to pay them,’ said the finance director, feeling his head was a little more secure.  Brian pitched in, if only to ensure his head didn’t replace the finance director’s.

‘But, the best bit is, we now know how much they’re prepared to pay.’  O’Feld looked up, questioningly.  Brian continued.  ‘Up until now, when we’ve decided to hold the planet to ransom getting the amount to ask for has always been the hardest.  Pitch too low and you’re the laughing stock of the megalomaniac underworld, too high and you’ve got a brace of nukes on your hands,’ he said, popping the pocket-sized thermo-nuclear device back in his pocket.

‘But now we know the UK are prepared to pay £350 billion, the Yanks up to $2 trillion and the Italians 25 pizzas.  It’s easier to make our demands,’ he said.  The finance director pulled a sheet of paper from under his notepad that had ‘pay us £2.3 trillion in used notes or the planet gets it, signed B L O’Feld’ using letters cut out from daily newspapers.

‘I’ve had this awhile, I only had to insert the amount,’ he crowed.  O’Feld was impressed.

‘I hope that typeface isn’t from the Daily Mail,’ he said, standing, indicating that the meeting was over.  ‘Hateful newspaper’, he said.

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I hope you enjoyed this topical extra Project: Evil instalment.  If you have and you missed Project: Evil first time around then catch up on Brian, Daw and, of course, Barry Liam O'Feld, the famous Irish Megalomaniac in the original book.

You can catch up on any or all of my books in ebook and paperback format on the links provided on this page.  If you are a Kindle Unlimited member then these books can be downloaded for free.