Undeniable

by Tom Grace

  The sequencer delivered a low voltage charge across the tiny chip, attracting the DNA molecules. Material flowed through the chip one way, entering at any one of several relatively wide channels. Within the chip, each path branched into several narrower channels, forcing the coiled molecules to unravel a bit to accommodate the reduced width. After several branching iterations, DNA molecules flowed in single, elongated strands down the tens of thousands of nanometer-wide channels. In this form, the sequence of chemicals in each chromosome could now be read.

  Hawthorne watched on the monitor as the first chemical base pairs appeared. As expected, the first letters she saw were a repeating sequence of TTAGGG. Like aglets on a shoelace, each chromosome strand started and ended with this repeating nucleotide sequence—a structure known as a telomere. Telomeres act as buffer regions to protect the crucial genetic coding of the chromosome from erosion each time a cell divides and the DNA is replicated. The repeating sequence ended, replaced by an irregular arrangement of As, Ts, Cs, and Gs.

  “The father must be an older fellow,” Hawthorne surmised. “His telomeres are practically eroded down to the nub.”

  As genetic sequences common to all humans were read and recognized, labels appeared on the monitor identifying each chromosome by number. Twenty minutes into the process, the screen displayed lines for all forty-six chromosomes. Multiple copies of each chromosome would eventually be read and the results compared to provide Hawthorne with a crucial error check and a 99.999% accurate reading of the prospective father’s genome.

  First through the sequencing process were the shortest of the chromosomes: Pair 23, the sex chromosomes. Since the parents had no reported gender preference, Hawthorne would provide both paternal chromosomes and allow nature to take its course when the embryos were implanted. She reviewed the report on the sex chromosomes and found no defects or abnormalities that might result in miscarriage or a congenital defect. She would review each of the remaining chromosomes as well and discard any known to result in genetic disorders.

  “Happy and healthy,” Hawthorne mused.

  She transferred the confirmed sequences to the second half of her custom-built scientific miracle—her DNA assembler. In the computer wedded to the assembler, she edited the genetic data file, lengthening the telomere ends of the X and Y chromosomes to a length more typical of a newborn child. The rest of the genome she left as she found it. She would repeat the process with the rest of the chromosomes and, overnight, the assembler would prepare a series of paternal packages consisting of a random selection from each of the chromosome pairs. That was the way nature did it, and who was she to argue?

  Hawthorne entered a calm, almost meditative state as she watched the stream of letter codes for the longer chromosomes flow across the screen. The data display made her think of The Matrix, and she smiled recalling how sexy Laurence Fishburne was in the film. Her reverie ended when the radio station switched to its top of the hour newsbreak.

  “Just in,” the reporter announced, “authorities in Tennessee confirm that a child found outside of Knoxville is Jesse Mersino, who was taken from her home in Savannah, Georgia, earlier this week. The child is reported in good health and unharmed. Mersino is the eighth child abducted and released in this manner since the December kidnapping of Jacob Beck. All of these child abductions are believed to be the work of a same kidnapper, dubbed the Sandman by the media. The FBI continues to investigate this baffling case that, for the families involved, has once again ended with the return of the kidnapped child. On the scene is . . . ”

  Hawthorne switched off the station and wondered what kind of sick monster derived a thrill from tormenting families by stealing their children.

  THIRTY-THREE

  KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE

  FRIDAY, MARCH 20; 9:30 AM

  Patrick Hunley caught the first flight from Savannah upon hearing of the safe return of the Sandman’s latest victim. He had been tasked by the FBI director to consult with the lead investigative team after the seventh victim of this bizarre spree was safely returned to his parents in Louisiana. Hunley had worked numerous kidnappings throughout his career, but this was the first lacking a ransom demand or even an apparent motive. The children were simply spirited out of their beds during the night, only to reappear unharmed a few days later in another state as if they’d just woken from a strange dream.

  The special agent from the FBI’s Knoxville office, who collected Hunley from the airport, brought him directly to the East Tennessee Children’s Hospital where the Sandman’s latest victim had been kept overnight for observation. The agent guided him to a room guarded by a uniformed police officer. Inside, he found Jesse Mersino sitting on a hospital bed devouring a plate of scrambled eggs. She was a twig of a girl, tall and thin like she had had a recent growth spurt. She had light brown skin, a mass of unruly black hair and beautiful eyes.

  Karen Mersino sat on the bed beside her daughter. Dark, swollen circles under her eyes were evidence of the sleepless hours and tears shed since Jesse’s disappearance. Ed Mersino rose from his seat beside the bed as Hunley entered. Both parents were in their late thirties. The mother was of African descent, the father’s features hinted at a mixed European ancestry.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Mersino, I’m Special Agent Patrick Hunley from the D.C. FBI office,” Hunley flashed his credentials and extended his hand to Jesse’s father. “I am sorry for your ordeal these past few days, but I share your relief at the safe return of your child.”

  Karen Mersino embraced her daughter tightly as if to reconfirm her nightmare had indeed ended.

  “Have you found who took our little girl?” Ed Mersino asked.

  “We’re following a number of leads, but no, we don’t know who abducted your daughter. If you don’t mind, and assuming Jesse’s up to it, I’d like a moment alone with her to ask a few questions.”

  “She spoke with the police and the FBI last night,” Karen Mersino said, reluctant to leave her child.

  “I understand, but I’m searching for any recollection at all Jesse may have that would help us save any more families from the hell you were just put through. You’re welcome to wait just outside the door, or to stretch your legs and get a cup of coffee—I’ll be right here with her. Afterward, I’d like to talk with you as well.”

  Ed Mersino looked at his wife and nodded. Karen kissed Jesse’s forehead and accompanied her husband into the hallway. Jesse drew her legs up close to her body as her parents left. She then watched warily as Hunley sat on a corner at the foot of the bed. Her eyes widened as his jacket draped open, revealing the butt of his holstered service pistol. He noticed her apprehension and adjusted the fold of the cloth to conceal the weapon.

  “Your father is a builder, right?” Hunley asked.

  “He builds houses.”

  “Does he use tools to build houses?”

  Jesse nodded. “Hammers and saws and stuff.”

  “My service pistol is like that—it’s just a tool I use for my job. I don’t use it very often, but sometimes I have to.”

  “Bad guys?”

  “Yes. Most of the time I just talk to people and try to solve puzzles about things that some people do. I’m working on a very hard puzzle right now that maybe you can help me with. Can I ask you some questions?”

  “About what happened?”

  “Mostly. First, tell me about your family.”

  “I got a mom and dad, my older sister Jody, and my little brother Josh—he’s a real pain sometimes.”

  “Little brothers can be that way, but they usually grow up okay. Any pets?”

  “A cat and some fish. Josh has a tarantula—it’s so gross.”

  “On the night you were taken, was everybody home?”

  “Uh-huh. It was a school night.”

  “What time did you go to bed?”

  “Nine o’clock,” Jesse replied. “I read a little, then I went to sleep.”

  “What are you reading?”

  “A book about this boy S
amuel and his dog Boswell and a funny demon named Nurd. It’s called The Infernals.”

  “Do you like to read?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember anything after you went to sleep? Like did you get up to go to the bathroom or get a drink? Or did anything wake you up?”

  Jesse shook her head.

  “What do you remember?”

  “I remember going to sleep in my bed, and I woke up in a car. I don’t know how I got there.”

  “How did you feel when you woke up?”

  “Kind of loopy, and I had a weird yucky taste in my mouth. Later I was real hungry.”

  “I’ll bet. Were you sore or hurt?”

  “There’s a bruise on my leg, but I got that from soccer.”

  “That’s all the questions I have for now. If I think of anything else, can I talk to you again?”

  “I guess so,” Jesse replied.

  “Thanks. I’m just going to go talk with your parents.”

  Hunley stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind him. Jesse’s parents looked at him expectantly.

  “A very nice young lady you have there,” Hunley said.

  “Jesse’s a good kid,” Ed Mersino concurred.

  “What she told me is consistent with what we’ve learned from the other children and their families. We’re still waiting on your daughter’s blood work, but I’m pretty sure it’ll line up as well.”

  “What kind of freak would do this?” Karen asked.

  “I won’t really be able to answer that until we catch the person or persons responsible. I do have a couple questions for you both—is Jesse your biological child?”

  “We adopted her when she was a baby,” Karen replied.

  “And your other children?”

  “Also adopted. We couldn’t have our own.”

  “Were all the other kidnapped children adopted, too?” Ed asked.

  Hunley shook his head. “Some, but not all.”

  Hunley stared absently through the passenger window of the government sedan. His driver, a young field agent, knew well enough not to speak unless spoken to during the short drive back to the Knoxville field office. As the car merged into traffic on I-40/I-75, Hunley’s phone buzzed in his coat pocket. He glanced at the touch screen and saw it was FBI Director Robert Metcalf.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “Morning, Pat. Did you interview the Sandman’s latest victim?”

  “I did, and it’s pretty much what we’ve seen in all of the previous abductions. It’s frightening how cleanly this guy gets in and out without leaving so much as a hair in the homes or on the kids.”

  “You’ve had a few days to review all the files—anything jump out at you?”

  “There’s always a rhyme and reason to child abductions. Most of the time it’s over custody in a bad divorce or opportunistic pedophiles. Occasionally, it’s for ransom. Our kidnapper’s got to have a motive, but I admit I’m stumped at the moment.”

  “How’s the investigation gone so far?” Metcalf asked.

  “By the book. Each of the field offices involved in the various jurisdictions has done a good job with the crime scenes and interviews. There’s just not a lot to go on. The kids are cleanly taken from their homes and reappear a few days later without a scratch on ‘em. Seven were found sound asleep in the back seat of a rental car parked in a hospital lot within minutes of hospital security receiving a tip with their exact location. The only anomaly in the MO is the first drop off.”

  “Jacob Beck in Nevada.”

  “Yes. In that instance the child was left on a desolate stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere, which could have ended badly were it not for an apparent Good Samaritan. Only the local sheriff interviewed the guy who claimed to have found Jacob Beck.”

  “As I recall, our attempts to follow up hit a dead end.”

  “The information the sheriff got from the Samaritan matched up to a real guy, just not the guy who showed up with the kid. A slick case of identity theft. For my money, that faux Samaritan was the Sandman and his first drop was a bit of ballsy bravado. The rest have been meticulously careful. The security cameras at the truck stop, where he dropped the Beck boy, and the cameras at all the hospitals simply stopped recording during those drops. All we have is a physical description based on eyewitness accounts, but nothing about this guy would stand out in a crowd. He’s white, average height and build. He had brown hair and eyes in Nevada, but that could just be contacts and a good wig. No visible scars or tattoos. I know our lab has run through the blood work on the kids, but I’ve asked that all the samples be sent down to the CDC for a thorough analysis. Admittedly, I’m grasping at straws, but maybe there’s a chemical signature that we can tie back to our kidnapper.”

  “Good thinking,” Metcalf said. “What about the victims—any common denominators?”

  “Nothing other than they are all children. There’s a two-year age range from oldest to youngest. It’s a roughly even mix of boys and girls. Most live with one or both of their biological parents, but a few were adopted. Most are white, but a few are either of mixed race or other ethnicities. None of the families know any of the others, and we’ve found no personal, professional, social, or ethnic links.”

  “Weird. Serial child kidnappers almost always have a type.”

  “And their victims almost always end up brutalized and dead. None of the children show any sign of rape or physical abuse of any kind.”

  “Then we’ll count our blessings. Anything else?”

  “We are now three months into this spree, and our teams are digging through some of the nastiest pedophile web sites imaginable with eyes and facial recognition software,” Hunley said. “So far, nothing has surfaced. If he’s taking pictures or making movies, he’s not going public with the images.”

  “What’s your gut telling you?”

  “We’re dealing with one guy. He has a reason for what he’s doing and a method for choosing his victims that’s different from anything we’ve encountered before. And from what he’s shown us so far, he is very intelligent.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

  4:45 PM

  Nolan and Roxanne took a cab from their hotel to the Upper West Side office of the Hawthorne Fertility Clinic.

  “Good afternoon,” Roxanne said as they reached the reception desk. “We’re the Egans. We have an appointment.”

  “Yes,” the blonde receptionist replied. “I spoke with you on the phone. As we discussed, I have some paperwork—medical history, insurance and so on—for you and your husband to fill out. Please have a seat and work your way through the forms. I’ll let you know when the doctor is ready to see you.”

  “Thank you,” Roxanne replied as she accepted a pair of clipboards and pens.

  Nolan scanned the room; it was almost five and there were no other patients waiting to be seen. It glowed with a warm, indirect light that softened shadows. The carpet was thick and padded. The chairs were well upholstered and shaped with curved lines. If not for the building’s rectilinear design, he suspected that even the walls of the room might have been rounded to avoid angles and edges. The effect was decidedly feminine and comfortingly maternal.

  “This has to be the nicest waiting room I’ve ever been in,” Nolan opined as they selected a pair of chairs near a corner of the room. “Though I guess for a fertility clinic you wouldn’t want a sterile environment.”

  Roxanne shot Nolan a withering glance. “I expect that kind of remark from Grin.”

  “And you’d get it.”

  Roxanne jabbed Nolan with one of the clipboards. “Just fill these out.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  For this meeting, they adopted the aliases of Grant and Maggie Egan, a childless married couple from Seattle. The CIA quickly constructed these identities with just enough depth to pass a cursory review. They quietly filled in the medical forms, occasionally consulting notes stored on their smartphones.


  “Mr. and Mrs. Egan, the doctor will see you now,” the receptionist announced from the doorway.

  The receptionist escorted them past several examination rooms to an office at the end of the hall. Nolan followed Roxanne through the door, which the receptionist closed behind them before returning to her station. Like the reception area, Hawthorne’s office was stylish and feminine but the aim of soothing anxious anticipation was replaced with a sense of calm, professional expertise. Nolan noted Hawthorne’s diplomas from prestigious institutions, including MIT.

  Hawthorne rose from behind her desk to greet them. She wore a crisp white lab coat over blue surgical scrubs and her wavy brunette tresses were restrained by an elegant hair clip. Nolan studied Hawthorne as she approached, her gaze steady and confident. She had an oval face lightly accented with makeup and beaming with a pleasant smile.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Egan, it’s a pleasure to meet you, “Hawthorne said warmly. “Please, have a seat.”

  Hawthorne indicated they should sit on the leather couch as she moved to the chair. Nolan plucked a business card from the holder on the doctor’s desk and appraised it briefly before slipping it into his jacket pocket.

  “Dr. Hawthorne, my husband and I really appreciate your taking the time to meet with us on such short notice,” Roxanne gushed.

  “I normally don’t schedule appointments this late in the day,” Dr. Hawthorne said, “but I understand that you’re only in town for a short stay, and this is only a consultation.”

  Roxanne continued, “A friend of mine has a sister—I can’t believe I don’t remember the woman’s name. Anyway, you helped my friend’s sister and her husband have a baby and we’re hoping maybe you can do the same for us.”

  “We’re not expecting any miracles,” Nolan said, “but given what we’ve been told about our situation, I guess we are hoping for one.”