Humpty Dumpty started to lose his balance on the wall.
“And the man you are talking to now, although nameless as yet was murdered over at the Riverside Hotel only a few hours ago.”
When the video was finished, Grant slowly and carefully placed the phone on the desk. Walter continued,
“It seems to me that you are very familiar with people of great interest to this police department. Would you like to explain yourself?”
Grant was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. Everything shown on the video was only circumstantial and a weak suspicion. That was not what started beads of sweat forming. He made the phone call on his personal phone to Warric in the men’s bathroom. When he realized that the call had been recorded, Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall and shattered into a thousand pieces.
After a stern look at a nervous man standing in front of him, a man he had called a friend and trusted for many years, Walter regrettably said,
“You have greatly compromised the integrity of this police force leaving me with no choice but dismissal.”
Shoulders suddenly slouched and a defeated Grant pleaded,
“Please Walter, I ---,
Walter cut in with a very stern,
“You will address me as Sheriff Cornwall.”
Conceding to command, he continued,
“Please Sheriff, I only reported what I thought was minor information that they would have gotten anyway. If I hadn’t accepted the money, somebody else on the force would have. Really, it’s not that serious of a thing.”
Grant now voiced the real reason not to suffer a dishonourable discharge.
“If I am dishonourably discharged I forfeit all benefits as well as my pension. We have been friends too long Walter. Don’t do this to me.”
“You forfeited all those things when you agreed to dishonor this precinct.”
Walter’s second part of the plan now kicked in. He added,
“However, I will show mercy, not so much to you but rather to keep the integrity of this force intact. I will allow you to declare early retirement thereby preserving your pension. For that privilege you will have to make one phone call for me. How you walk out of this office will determine your pension.”
Walter explained what was expected of him and Grant slowly nodded his agreement to the conditions. Walter than handed him a piece of paper and said,
“This is what I want you to say to him.”
Grant read the instructions and again nodded.
All eyes in the precinct lifted and watched as two very sullen men walked out of the office. All were smart enough to say nothing. At the entrance and in front of Edith, Walter took Grant’s ‘in’ peg and angrily threw it on the floor. She, like the others back in the precinct knew something serious was afoot and remained silent.
At the grocery store pay phone, this time there was no need for Grant to wipe his fingerprints off the coin. It was dropped into the slot and he stabbed at the numbers. The Sheriff was standing right beside him. Only a few curious customers gave the strange circumstances a second look. Knowing who was calling from the proper secure location, Warric picked up the phone and Grant started Walter’s well scripted conversation.
“Something bad has happened. The Sheriff was over at the courthouse talking to Judge Clemens. He knows what is going on up there.”
Walter pointed to the paper in Grant’s hand and he continued,
“Hanz is dead and the Sheriff is rallying the police force for a raid of your facility in a few hours. There is no doubt that the Autonomous Financial Collaboration contract has been withdrawn. All government protection has been revoked. If I were you, I’d shut down and get the hell out of there as soon as possible.”
Warric slammed the phone down hard. He knew it! He knew the IIC was looking for any excuse to cancel the financing. Those two meddling kids were the reason for all of this. He had promised to silence them and failure to do so marked the end of everything. Now in full panic mode he could think of only one thing to do.
He called his secretary and ordered his helicopter to be ready in thirty minutes. Against the far wall of his office was a large black and white photograph depicting the early days of the copper mine. Thirty three miners were crowded together in a group shot, all smiling and eager to get to work. The picture was rudely torn off the wall and smashed onto the floor to become broken glass and splintered wood. Revealed behind the picture was a wall safe and in it was one of the many reasons the project had gone over budget. He hurriedly scooped approximately twenty millions dollars in cash into a large duffle bag. He was in such a hurry he didn’t notice one bundle of wrapped hundred dollar bills had fallen to the floor.
As he hurried past his secretary who had no idea what was going on, she looked up and said,
“Security reported that a Mr. Rick Calhoun with a Level Orange Security was at the front gate a few minutes ago demanding to see you.”
Warric knew him but was in a hurry and didn’t want to waste time talking to him. He returned to his hurried pace and said,
“It’s over. Do yourself a favour and get as far away from this godforsaken mountain as fast as you can.”
Both curious and suspicious, she got up from her desk and walked into his office. She saw the broken picture on the floor and the open safe. She may have been hired for other than secretarial skills but she was smart enough to understand what the evidence showed. The rat was deserting the ship. She also saw the bundle of money Warric had dropped on the floor. Picking it up, she was pleasantly surprised at the amount and thought that was compensation enough of a severance package. She hurried to her phone and called a male friend working in the ‘Matter Energy Phase Shift’ laboratory. Word of a sinking ship spread quickly. Most scientists understood their illegal research depended on the protection of Warric and Government indifference but now with that safeguard gone it all exploded. Fear of charges such as unethical and illegal experimentation on children prompted many of the scientists to make a run for it.
It didn’t take security guards long to understand it either. When a wave of scientists and researchers started running for cars many guards concluded that they were not paid enough to go down with the ship and therefore joined the great exodus. Many security posts were now deserted, including the main security gate.
Chapter 54
After making his phone call, Grant Lloyd and Walter marched back toward the precinct. Walter followed Grant as if he were a prisoner led to the gallows. At the counter, in front of Edith, he was ordered to stop. Walter’s stern voice was commanding.
“You know what to do.”
Without looking at Edith, Grant removed the badge from his uniform and placed it on the counter. His sidearm was unlatched and placed next to it. When the humiliation was over, Walter said,
“Return your uniform by courier. I don’t want to see your face in this precinct ever again.”
Edith’s eyes bulged. She had seen her husband mad before but this was different. It looked as if anger was dancing with disgrace. Without a word, Grant turned and walked out the door and never seen again.
She watched her husband stand like a statue and knew he was in deep thought. A moment later, he slowly turned to her and tried to smile but it didn’t work. A soft voice practically whispered to her,
“Will you come into my office please?”
From his desk, Isaac watched as she followed Walter into the office. He didn’t know what was up but knew it had something to do with police work and his wife. Once again, his office door closed.
When Edith sat in the chair across from the desk, surprisingly Walter ignored his desk, sat beside her in the other chair, and faced her. She saw a shroud of gloom around her husband, one never seen before and it expanded to encompass her as well. It was not his duty or responsibility to report secret police plans to his receptionist and under normal circumstances would never think to do so. However this was not an ordinary receptionist, this was his wife. He took her hand in his and said
,
“Honey, I have something to tell you that affects both of us and our marriage.”
Perhaps that was how a husband starts when telling his wife he wants a divorce but Edith knew her husband too well to be shocked by such a suspicion. She was shaken because he would only start that way if it involved danger and harm.
She sat frozen while he related his suspicion of the real function of the Factory and what he intended to do about saving three children held prisoner up there. She heard how Judge Clemens was taking bribes to protect illegal government involvement concerning human experimenting and gasped when hearing those experiments were on the three missing children. She heard how the Judge threatened to fire him and he would lose his pension if he charged up there looking for the children.
After the initial shock had somewhat subsided she despondently said,
“We have worked so hard for a good retirement. I just hate to see us lose it over only circumstantial evidence. I know you have to do this, it’s in your nature that come hell or high water the people of Twin Rivers depends on you for protection.”
Then with deep concern and furls in her forehead getting deeper she leaned forward and sadly said,
“We both know the pain and suffering of losing a child. Yes, by all means go and get those children but do it with some concrete evidence, something that justifies the raid.”
He then told her about forcing Grant to make a bogus phone call to the Factory. He hoped that when learning a raid was imminent, panic would set in and weaken their resolve for security. She heard how he destroyed Grant’s insistence of innocence by saying that he had a phone recording of his conversation with Warric. Surprised, she said,
“But we don’t record those calls.”
With a sly grin he admitted,
“But he didn’t know that.”
He then pointed to his cell phone on the desk and with great gratification said,
“I also secretly recorded my conversation with Judge Clemens.”
Although feeling better about the legality of the raid, there was still the issue of high level government officials and their adeptness in, as she put it, covering their ass. She understood the effect of flushing a toilet and what flows downhill. Although she was not going to stop her husband from the raid for she knew she couldn’t anyway, she just wished there was more evidence than recordings and the word of the two children, Sam and Gary.
Just then, there was a knock on the office door and Walter cringed with annoyance. Whenever the door was closed, privacy was implied, indeed insisted on. Isaac knew that and opened it just a bit to announce through the gap,
“You wanted to know the second she arrived. She is here.”
Annoyance was quickly erased. He got up and moved over to his office chair while saying,
“Good work Isaac. Bring her in.”
The door opened wide and in walked an obviously haggard and nervous woman. Her long black hair was pinched tight at the back by an elastic band. Expensive black designer glasses were missing, now only store bought frames. Her once immaculate and expensive appearance had been traded down to clothes that didn’t fit. As she hesitantly entered the office, Walter pointed to the vacated chair. She was told she would be talking to Sheriff Walter Cornwall but did not know whom the woman sitting in the other chair was. Walter corrected that.
“Thank you for coming Doctor Jorden. I know it must have been a difficult decision for you. Please feel free to talk openly in front of my wife.”
A cordial smile and nod was exchanged between the women.
As she sat, she placed the briefcase on her lap. The Doctor sounded crushed of life and purpose. She slowly said,
“I suppose it all comes down to living with myself and looking my boys in the eye. I want to stress what I said earlier to Deputy Rutherford. I will not deny what I did in a court of law. However, I will confess that I did it in ignorance. When I heard the truth of what they were doing with the children I identified to the Factory, I grabbed my twin boys and ran. Then, when learning that there was an attempt on my life at the trailer in Valley North, I knew there was no place to hide. When your Deputy called and told me the only way out of this was to destroy the Factory, naturally I accepted his offer.”
When Walter lowered his eyes to the briefcase on her lap she patted it and said,
“May I just confirm Sheriff, that if I hand these files over to you I will be given immunity from all charges?”
Walter knew that he was not able to guarantee immunity for abetting kidnapping charges but he did know something else. Nobody was going to come forward to charge her with anything. He certainly wasn’t going to waste time and money arresting somebody only later to be released by what Judge Clemens would declare never happened. As far as he was concerned, the long arm of the law had been handcuffed by bribery and treason.
Judge Clemens and the others involved in protecting the experiment would be too busy protecting themselves. He assured her that if she cooperated, this office would not pursue the matter further. She lowered her head to the briefcase, slowly placed it on the desk, and slid it toward him. He did not need to open it. He knew what was in there. Dates, times, account numbers and as assured, Demetri Warric’s signatures on cheques. As far as Walter was concerned, immunity from prosecution was a fair trade. Without another word, Doctor Fran Jorden got up and walked out of the office.
After the Doctor left, Walter looked to Edith, beamed a reassuring smile and said,
“I’m willing to ignore defiance of an order to stay away from the Factory but as you just heard, with these files and my recording of Judge Clemens, our pension is not only secured but perhaps if all goes well even greatly augmented.”
As both stood and walked to the door, she said,
“You are a conniving man Mister Cornwall.”
He relished the compliment, produced a sly grin and said,
“I convinced you to marry me didn’t I?”
In the open doorway she stopped, turned to him and in all sincerity said,
“Thank you for trusting me with your plan and relieving a lot of my stress.”
He was about to say that marriage means trust when she quickly added,
“I only wish that this close to retirement you will not be a member of the attack team on the Factory. Would you stay with me here and let your deputies do it?”
He understood her fear. Every time he went on a call-out, he saw her deep concern for his safety. It pained him as much as it did her but it came with the job. He looked deep into concerned eyes and softly said,
“Last one, I promise. What kind of a Sheriff would sit in a rocking chair while his Deputies did all the work?”
She understood that it was a futile request, not falling on deaf ears so much as bouncing off a proud man. She then did something she vowed she would never do in his office again.
With the door wide open and knowing that all the deputy’s eyes were on her, she leaned forward and kissed her startled husband square on the lips. The hell with protocol. With eyes straight ahead, she briskly walked past the men and down the hall to her desk. After taking his eyes off his wife sauntering down the hall, Walter saw the smiles on his men. Laced with the indignity of it all, he barked,
“All right. Never mind. Get your asses over to the conference table. It’s time for the battle plan.”
Chapter 55
There was no doubt that it was going to be a Biblical battle of David and Goliath, a small town sheriff battling long tentacles of bribery and corruption. With all his deputies except one sitting at the conference table, Walter stood and spoke.
“First of all, let me make something perfectly clear. I have been informed that I will be the only one to suffer the consequences of this raid, if any. You are bound by protocol to follow orders. Therefore, I want to make this clear, simply for your protection I’ll make it official, I am ordering you to do this. I will not deny that there is a personal agenda to this risk. Before retiring, I will not have
the last thing on my record showing that I did nothing to save three children. I have to do this or I will never be able to live contentedly in retirement. You however do not have to do this. My order to you is simply your legal defense should it come to charges. However, I do not expect you to follow me blindly. If you do not wish to participate in this illegal raid then now is the time to speak up. I will hold no animosity toward you.”
Collin Ellsworth spoke up,
“One of those missing kids is Robert Ellsworth, my brother’s boy. I’ve seen and felt his pain. If there is even the slightest chance that Robert is up there, I’m with you all the way Sheriff.”
Everybody else nodded his approval. Walter was glad that nobody asked why Grant Lloyd was not at the meeting. If interoffice rumours were as fast as anywhere else, he reasoned everybody already knew anyway.
Walter continued,
“I don’t necessarily want arrests. It would take years of court time and millions to prosecute the scientists and the security staff. Half would get off claiming they had no idea of the project and the government would only protect the rest anyway. When we charge in there I just want a few of them held and questioned as to the whereabouts of the three missing children.”
He then laid out a map of the main Factory building. Putting his finger on the map, he added,
The Factory Page 29