“Yeah. Let’s talk soon,” she answers.
“When?” he asks a bit impatiently, having made the not-insignificant trek to Crossroads Farm to impart his revelations to her.
“I’ll text you, probably tomorrow. Thanks for coming, really.”
Abruptly changing the subject, she asks, “Are you disgusted with me?” as she lights an incense candle.
“About what?”
“Acting like a slut.”
“Hardly. Just surprised and confused.”
“Don’t be. It was time. Let’s not analyze it.”
Chapter 68
Glow Bugs
Whoosh.
* * *
"Daddy, why are you keeping those lightning bugs inside there?"
"They’re not lightning bugs, honey."
"They glow like lightning bugs, Daddy."
"They're painted to light up."
"You paint bugs, Daddy?"
"Sometimes."
* * *
Whoosh.
* * *
Amanda slowly wakes up in Kent's bedroom. She groggily gets up, drags herself into the bathroom and looks at her sleepy eyes in the mirror. It is then that she remembers a flash from her dream. Or was it the NDE? Something about glow in the dark? She remembers being on the dance floor with Kent at the rave. Yes. She caught a glimpse then. It’s the same scene. She struggles to remember. Painting a bug. Lightning bug? Glowing bugs! She walks to the kitchen, grabs a green apple and takes a bite, struggling to reach back into her semi-consciousness.
@Part V
Chapter 69
Report to Solarez
Two train crew members, trainmaster Williams, and the two FBI agents sit around a table in the sparse CXT conference room. After introductions are made, the first field agent begins.
“So there was no damage to your engines or any other railroad property?”
“None that we could find. We found this bag on the walkway by the tracks, but we couldn’t find a person or a body. We’re pretty sure it was a female based on the colors.” The conductor says, pointing to the fabric backpack on the table.
“Did you find anything else besides this backpack?” the lead FBI agent asks.
“I thought I saw a little scratch or two on the lead locomotive, but no real damage.”
“This incident may involve national security, so we’re asking you to keep it confidential. We’ll hold onto the bag as evidence, and we ask that you not report this to the media, or to the Federal Railroad Administration. Everything about this incident stays in this room. Do you understand?”
“But we’re required to file all trespassing accidents with…” the CXT trainmaster begins.
“That could jeopardize our operation. Don’t file anything. Keep my card, and if anyone has questions, call me. There are no reports to be made.”
Looking at the engineer and conductor now, the lead agent adds: “No war stories to any other crew or friends, understood?” The crew members both nod in agreement.
The FBI agent places his card in front of the trainmaster, and then hands one to the crew members also.
“Well, then, uh, are we free to go?” The engineer asks, looking at both agents nervously.
“Absolutely, thank you for your time.”
Once the two agents are back in the unmarked SUV, the lead agent calls Solarez.
“We’ve taken care of things with CXT. We have the only physical evidence, a backpack presumably left by Amanda Michaels on the trestle with no identification. They assume she drowned after the train sideswiped her.”
“Sideswiped?? She was almost killed! Where the hell was the protection I requested? No, I demanded! This operation must be perfect from this point forward. The director will explode when he finds out about this. Yeah, I know she survived, but I still want to know what the hell went wrong!”
“Sir, we’ve been following her 24/7. We had five agents around her. An agent in a Jon boat, two in the woods nearby, and two in their vehicles. They were in place before she even arrived. We knew she planned to go there because we intercepted her text message to her friend. How were we to guess she’d suddenly walk out on the trestle and dare a train? No way one of our agents could foresee that, or risk running out after her.”
“No way to foresee? You knew she was borderline suicidal. So she fell into the river, and then what?”
“We put agents into an ambulance and responded because she needed medical attention. They concluded her injuries were minor enough that she didn’t need to go to the ER. Her uncle came and took her away, and we continued our surveillance.”
“And?”
“He took her to one of the doctors treating her, Dr. Peter Lucent.” In an attempt to point to some better news, the agent adds, “On the plus side, we have a blood sample that our EMT took during her treatment, so we can run a full blood panel.”
“Report the results to me ASAP. I also want to fully review all operations immediately—especially those in place to protect Amanda Michaels. I’m setting a meeting for all agents assigned to this project at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow.”
“We have a plan in place already, sir. It’s not foolproof, but we think it’ll work.”
“It better work. And, it had better prevent anything like this from happening again. We’ll review it in the morning.”
“Sir, are you still against sweeping her up and detaining her or any of the others? That would guarantee their safety.”
“Absolutely. That would blow the entire op. We’re getting closer, I know it. We can and will protect her, and we’ll and win this. Over.” Solarez abruptly ends the call.
Chapter 70
Another Task
The airline has always paid the litigation support vendors that Paul Franklin’s law firm has needed to engage in previous cases. This includes Litigation Support Associates, Ryan’s innocuous billing entity, which has carried out special projects for Franklin. Franklin decides that if the airline is going to cost his law firm $100,000.00 or more in reduced fees, he’s going to use some of their money to find out who will be contributing $100 million to the Hemispheres settlement fund.
Franklin closes his office door before returning to his desk. He taps in Ryan’s phone number and reaches him without having to play phone tag.
“I’ve got a new investigation for you,” Franklin tells him. “Find out what airline supplier or vendor is contributing the $100 million. Handle this with complete confidentiality and discretion — no one can know who…”
“Franklin stop. I understand the sensitivity. Give me a week.”
Chapter 71
Two Judges
The judicial seminar of the D.C. Bar Conference is an annual event held at the Willard, an ornate old-line hotel at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue, just over a block from the White House.
At the end of each of the two days, many of the judges retire to the reception area on the fourth floor of the hotel. The Peacock Room offers a breathtaking southern-facing veranda. The view in the foreground is the White House. In the distance the jets landing and taking off from Washington National Reagan Airport dot the skyline, and the Washington Monument juts skyward.
"A vodka gimlet, please." Judge Easton requests of the bartender, who’s dressed in his white modified tuxedo.
Several other judges stand in the queue for drinks. Turning from the bartender, Judge Easton greets a few of them.
Hovering nearby, Judge Lisa Bondakopf sips her wine. As soon as Judge Easton approaches, she greets her.
"Rhonda, how are you?"
"Lisa, how the hell have you been?" Easton asks her. The two met more than a decade before at a judicial conference when Judge Bondakopf was still a state court judge and Easton had just been appointed to the D.C. Superior Court Bench. They bonded at “judge school,” as they fondly called it
"Talk about high profile. You've got your hands full with the Hemispheres cases don't you? Let's get a better view of the White House. It's so pretty in the evening."
Bondakopf leads Easton away from the other judges to the balcony rail affording the best view of the White House. The sun has set behind the buildings of Washington, and in the dusk the White House has been illuminated.
"I never get tired of looking at this view." Bondakopf says.
"It’s amazing," Easton agrees.
"How's Andy Michaels doing on the Hemispheres cases?" Bondakopf asks, taking a sip of her wine and glancing over at Easton.
"He's got a tough job on his hands. It's a tightrope walk for him I imagine, given his niece’s case. I feel for him every time he's in court."
"We never had this conversation, right? I never should have said anything, but I couldn’t help myself…" the federal judge says to Rhonda who quickly turns her head and narrows her eyes toward her friend Lisa. A moment later Lisa leans toward Rhonda's ear and begins to whisper. Rhonda's eyes open wide and she turns toward Lisa. Then Lisa leans in and whispers more. Rhonda now stares out toward the White House again, expressionless.
Both of them stare straight ahead for a few seconds and each take sips of their drinks.
"Be careful, and wait and see how things unfold." Lisa tells her. "I'm going to find my husband. He's on the other side of the veranda. Great seeing you."
Chapter 72
Mediating
Angie had been working on contacting each family for information on funeral expenses, lost earnings, and other expenses. Andy set a 3:00 meeting on the third day to review every case and determine a settlement demand figure to give to Franklin. Andy then called each client.
Andy suggested an opening settlement demand between $6 and $10 million dollars for each of the cases in the crash. The one exception was Amanda. He was going to demand $13 million dollars for her because she would have a lifetime of issues to deal with. Angie and Myra prepared a settlement binder on each case, and Andy reviewed them and suggested a few changes. They were hand-delivered to Franklin’s office on Thursday, but not a word was heard from Franklin that Friday.
The following Monday, mid-morning, Myra buzzes Andy and says Franklin is on the line.
“Andy, Franklin here. I got all of your demands. We’d like to set up mediation in the next ten days. We’re willing to agree to Judge Harris.”
Andy has settled cases with Harris in the past, so he agrees, not letting on to Franklin how shocked he is. Franklin suggests that they mediate no less than three cases per day, spread out between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.
“If you’re ready to mediate that quickly, we’ll make ourselves ready,” Andy tells Franklin. Andy knows these are huge cases and the obstacle to mediating is often the defense attorney, especially since they get paid by the hour. Everything about this situation runs contrary to Franklin’s usual operational mode, and Andy ends the call shaking his head in disbelief. The next day, Angie sets up every mediation over the course of five days.
Chapter 73
Money Scent
Ryan has studied the information carefully before arranging to meet Franklin at Dumbarton Oaks Café, just north of Georgetown. Ryan knows he has stumbled on tantalizing information and plans to reflect it in a premium on his invoice. As soon as he and Franklin close their menus and the waitress has left the table, Ryan begins.
“Here’s what we’ve got. A $110 million payment received by the airline from ‘Embracer-USA, LLC,’ which is great information, right?”
“Damn right it is. The airline manufacturer must have some really big problems to pay that kind of money to Hemispheres on a confidential basis. Excellent stuff.”
“I’m not done yet. I looked high and low for that entity, and it doesn’t exist. Embracer is a manufacturer based in South America that sells jets worldwide, but there is no company named ‘Embracer-USA, LLC.’ So I did more digging, and I tracked down the bank the electronic transfer came from. According to the bank’s ABA code, $110 million traces back to an account connected to the U.S. Treasury, Washington D.C.”
Franklin stares back at Ryan, trying to fathom what he has just heard.
“What?” is all he can muster.
“Draw whatever conclusions you want. There is no Embracer-USA and the $110 million was paid from a well-masked account originating from the U.S. Treasury. No question. You may already know what it means, but I don’t.”
“Totally baffling. But, it may explain how the settlement pot was created.”
“Settlement pot?” Ryan asks.
“Oh, yeah, I haven’t told you. The airline wants me to try to get every case settled within 30 days. They cobbled together a large settlement fund. It’s bizarre.”
They switch to small talk and eat their lunch. Franklin asks Ryan to give him a bill for the services rendered to date.
“Given my marching orders, we’re going to need to end this operation until further notice. I appreciate you coming through on this last request. I’m sure we’ll have some work for you on other cases down the road.”
Chapter 74
Patent Search
The moment David Owlsley learned that Kent died, his hunch grew into an obsession. He had first believed that Kent secretly recorded Amanda to further his fame or fortune. But the moment Kent died, he had an epiphany. Maybe Kent was on to something. What if there was a connection between Amanda’s amazing recovery and her dad’s research?
David knew Amanda had told Kent about her dad getting a patent on his cancer tumor invention right out of graduate school, gaining him immediate credibility as a biologist. But he learns some other very interesting things buried in the deleted history on Kent’s laptop.
A scan of his recent web activity reveals that Kent had been searching for information about Amanda’s dad, cancer tumor research, and especially Biological Blood Services. He had also been searching the United States Patent Office’s website, which allows anyone to view the details of U.S. patents.
To determine Kent’s acumen in all things relating to surveillance, including bugs, David scours the laptop for any software familiar to even a novice in surveillance. None. Not one program on the laptop associated with the typical off-the-shelf stuff. That seals the deal for David. Kent never bugged Amanda’s room. He had been completely wrong.
That being settled, his curiosity turns back to the patent searches. A few words entered in Google, and he locates the U.S. Patent Office search site and Ron Michaels’ cancer tumor patent.
* * *
Inventor Name: Michaels, Ron
United States Patent: 8,164,789
Title:
Cancer diagnosis and tumor control techniques involving analysis and manipulation of telomerase characteristics
Abstract:
The invention concerns a method for the analysis of cancer cells in a sample of blood, and for attacking the cancer cells through analysis of the RNA components of the telomerase enzyme present in the plasma or serum of the blood, and by manipulating the telomerase in cancer tumors.
Inventors: Michaels, Ron (Reston, VA)
Assigned to: Biological Blood Services LLC (Great Falls, VA)
Primary U.S Patent Examiner: Frankel, Arthur
* * *
David then continues reading the claims, which state the specific parts that the U.S. Patent Office agreed was innovative.
“A method of detecting human telomerase reverse transcriptase enzyme (hTERT) RNA extracted from plasma or serum from a human comprising….”
First, David concludes he has no idea what this stuff means, except that it has to do with analyzing blood for cancer cells. RNA is like DNA he assumes. He’s never heard of telomerase, so he decides to research it more. David jots down a note:
* * *
Arthur Frankel, patent examiner?
BBS?
telomerase enzyme?
* * *
Within minutes he determines Frankel is still working as a U.S. patent examiner, that BBS is definitely the company that Amanda’s dad worked for, and that a human telomere is a cell enzyme that is a repeating DNA sequence at the end of the body'
s chromosomes. Biological research on human cancer cells has been focusing on both telomeres and telomerase.
To begin the serious investigative work, he logs into the Wayback Machine website. The Wayback Machine started out as an altruistic non-profit site created to preserve portions of the internet for posterity. The idea was to trawl the internet and randomly save website pages to capture historical snapshots, showing the evolution of individual websites over time. Since web pages are not static and may be constantly updated, the Wayback Machine was used by forensic types and attorneys out to prove what information was on a website at various times over many years. Eventually, its name changed to archive.org – a far more mundane name for the website.
David types in the search box: “Michaels, Ron” and “Inventor Name.” This search results in a very interesting two-line reference to a more recent Ron Michaels patent, but despite numerous attempts, David can find no further information about it. The one reference on the page captured by Wayback is:
* * *
United States Patent Application Serial No. 10/896,321
Michaels, Ron
Suppression & Manipulation of mTOR activity to inhibit or exhibit cell replication
[Application Withdrawn & Sealed]
* * *
Being unfamiliar with patent law, or how a patent application could be “withdrawn,” David decides he and Amanda should try to meet this Examiner Frankel, who reviewed the published Ron Michaels patent. Maybe he can explain what the technological innovation means too.
Taming the Telomeres, a Thriller Page 23