Undeniable

by Tom Grace

  “It’s already on the way. It goes without saying that the CIA does not spy on the purely domestic activities of U.S. citizens, even if those activities are criminal in nature. Also, you may wish to replicate the acquisition of some of our information, but with a search warrant.”

  “I think we can sanitize your efforts sufficiently to pass muster in a court of law,” Hunley said.

  “In the end,” Roxanne said, “both of our agencies want to see justice done.”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  4:10 PM

  Roxanne heard a rap at the door. She glanced through the keyhole and saw an Asian man approximately her age standing in the corridor. She unfastened the lock and opened the door.

  “Peng Shi,” she said in greeting.

  Peng offered a nod.

  “It is good to see you again, Miss Tao, though our last encounter was under better circumstances.”

  “Enjoying a fine meal on the Piazza del Popolo is always a better circumstance. And it was good of you to escort Nolan back to us.”

  “It was my honor to do so.”

  “Please, come in.”

  Roxanne stood aside to allow Peng to pass, then closed the door and joined him in the sitting room. He surveyed the room for a moment, then sat in an upholstered chair.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked politely.

  “Water, please.”

  Roxanne extracted two bottled waters from the minibar and handed one to Peng. She took a seat opposite Peng and waited for him to speak. Peng took a cautious sip of water as he considered what he was about to say.

  “You and I are similar,” Peng began, “but we work for different masters.”

  “Our agencies are rivals, yes,” Roxanne agreed.

  “Under normal circumstances, a conversation such as this would be unthinkable. I believe the circumstances are not normal and require us to seek unusual allies.”

  “You said you had information about Nolan—what is it?”

  “To the point, yes. Kilkenny and a woman have been taken.”

  “By whom?”

  “Members of a criminal organization. I do not know where they have been taken, but I do not believe they are in any immediate danger.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I am responsible for bringing you both to the attention of this organization. We have been observing your movements since Thursday, attempting to determine if your purpose posed any threat to mine. I have not yet been able to answer that question.”

  “Until you called, we had no idea you were even in the country, much less why you’re here,” Roxanne admitted.

  “I observed you in conversation with a man named Jamison, at the home of a woman named Castillo, and at the Hawthorne Fertility Clinic. Last night, the men assigned to assist me in my surveillance intervened in the attack on Kilkenny by an unknown man. We delivered him to the hospital.”

  “Thank you for that. You saved Nolan from a very dangerous man.”

  “Yes. He again crossed paths with this man a few hours ago at a farm in Pennsylvania. The man took a boy and fled. Is this man linked to your inquiry?”

  “Not directly,” Roxanne replied. “His name is Palmer. He and Hawthorne have a troubled history that has unfortunately resurfaced. The boy he took is part of that history.”

  “The men I was with took Kilkenny and Hawthorne under their protection. My surveillance is no longer required. This situation is like a puzzle with many pieces missing, difficult to see the picture in its entirety. I believe that you were unaware of my mission, yet our paths still intersected. Why are Kilkenny and you here?”

  Roxanne considered the question and realized she wouldn’t be revealing any state secrets by confiding in Peng. The Chinese agent had proven himself trustworthy on more than one occasion, and she decided to roll the dice.

  “As the saying goes, I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.” she said.

  “Agreed.”

  “A young boy in Florida died earlier this week from a genetic defect. Some questions arose about how this child came to be, the true nature of his parentage. We believe he was conceived in a new way—biologically engineered—and that something in this new process created the genetic defect that eventually killed him. We also believe that this child was bred deliberately for the purpose of extortion—to use the threat of scandal to extract money from wealthy men.”

  “What role did the woman in the Bronx play?” Peng asked.

  “She gave birth to the boy, but was not his biological mother. Nolan and I believe the boy was fabricated in a laboratory.”

  “The Hawthorne Fertility Clinic.”

  Roxanne nodded. “The clinic specializes in the treatment of infertility.”

  Peng considered all that he had heard and added the information to what he knew and what he had surmised.

  “My purpose here is more of an errand—my standing within the ministry is not as good as it once was. This is my first field mission since Rome,” Peng explained. “I was tasked with retrieving some medical samples from a clinic in Hong Kong, transporting them here for processing, and returning them to Hong Kong. I was not informed of the medical samples’ nature, what would be done with them here or upon their return to China. I assumed the samples were taken from a high party official—a medical matter requiring utmost secrecy. My contact here delivered what I brought from China to Hawthorne’s clinic.”

  “Most upper-level party officials are old enough to be grandparents,” Roxanne mused. “Perhaps the son or daughter of someone in power is having trouble providing a grandson. But there are excellent infertility clinics in China—why send a ministry agent to New York?”

  “When I retrieved the samples from the clinic in Hong Kong, I noticed two items that struck me as odd. The first was a suitcase that had recently arrived in Hong Kong from Rome. The second was a freshly laundered uniform of a Catholic nun. If what we are dealing with is infertility, why would a woman sworn to celibacy be involved? Also, my contact delivered a second set of samples to Hawthorne’s clinic, samples brought to New York by an Italian man.”

  “I don’t think I like where this is heading,” Roxanne said.

  “A nun from Rome in a Hong Kong clinic. Two samples—one from Hong Kong, the other presumably from Italy—delivered to a clinic with possible links to paternity extortion.”

  “Like I said, I don’t like where this is heading.”

  “Agreed, but we are now speculating. Our immediate task is locating Kilkenny. The vehicle he was in was heading east on I-95, at the north end of this island.”

  Roxanne went to the desk and brought up a map of the area on Nolan’s laptop.

  “Around here?” she pointed to a spot around Washington Heights.

  “Yes.”

  Roxanne followed the highway as it crossed the Bronx and intersected with other routes that led to New England and Long Island. She zoomed out to the approximate distance a car could travel in the time since Peng last saw the convoy and quickly realized that Nolan could be anywhere, including an aircraft or a ship. She picked up her cell phone and dialed Grin in Ann Arbor.

  “Just getting ready to call you,” Grin said. “The handoff to the FBI went well and hopefully Palmer is one step closer to a long stay in the gray bar hotel.”

  “Nolan is missing.”

  “Again? You have to keep better track of him.”

  “I’m not kidding. He was taken. And if I had to guess, the blackmail scheme and his disappearance are both mob related. Please see if you can get a location on his cell phone.”

  “On it. By the by, I dug a little deeper into Heartland’s adoption records and found a lawyer code—a number identifying the lawyers involved in closed adoptions. Zeke Oakley and Kirk Young both had the same lawyer handling their cases.”

  “Have you identified the lawyer?”

  “Not yet, but I’d lay money on Walter Jamison. He sits on Heartland’s board of directors and is a major investor in the Hawthorne F
ertility Clinic. The police procedurals I like to read would say the man has means, motive and opportunity.” Grin paused. “Okay, I got it. Nolan’s cell phone is moving east on I-495, about halfway across Long Island.”

  “Keep tabs on him,” Roxanne said. “I’ll let you know when I’m on the road.”

  “Will do.”

  Grin rang off and Tao pocketed her phone.

  “I can’t ask you to come with me,” Tao said.

  “You also cannot order me to stay. Since your inquiry has nothing to do with my assignment, I am free to do what I will until my samples are ready for transport back to Hong Kong. Given the doctor who is working on my samples is with Kilkenny, it makes sense that I accompany you.”

  FIFTY-SIX

  QUEENS, NEW YORK

  5:10 PM

  Roxanne piloted a CIA-requisitioned Mustang GT through the Manhattan grid and took the Queens-Midtown Tunnel under the East River to Long Island. The car’s five-liter V-8 provided more than ample power to negotiate the Saturday afternoon traffic, and her expert handling of the six-speed gear box kept them moving. Her cell phone chimed with an incoming text message. She handed the phone to Peng who was sitting beside her.

  “They’ve taken Exit 68 onto the William Floyd Parkway,” he read, “heading south toward Route 27.”

  “Got it.”

  Using the Mustang’s SYNC voice commands, Roxanne reset the GPS destination with the intersection closest to Nolan’s cell phone. The GPS quickly updated their trip, including real-time input on traffic conditions to determine the fastest route. Roxanne tapped the accelerator, and the Mustang roared around a lumbering cube truck hauling plumbing supplies.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  LONG ISLAND SOUND, NEW YORK-CONNECTICUT

  6:45 PM

  Palmer sat alone in the main cabin of the car ferry, gazing out at the placid waters that flowed between Connecticut’s southern shore and Long Island. The sky had grown overcast throughout the day, the uniform expanse of clouds a gunmetal gray as sunset approached. He sipped at a cup of coffee, his mind churning through the possibilities of where Deena might be heading. Her father, he knew, owned a vacation home in Riverhead, but the GPS track placed her well east of that on the island’s south fork.

  In the distance, Palmer saw the mist-shrouded outlines of Plum Island and Orient Point. Each throb of the ship’s engines, each turn of the propellers moved him that much closer to his goal. He’d be back on the road again in about fifty minutes.

  Monitors ran a program of current news headlines. He read with interest the closed caption crawl about the Kirk Young kidnapping. Authorities had no information regarding the identity of the kidnapper and requested help from anyone with information about the crime. The distraught parents—former parents, Palmer thought—pleaded for the safe return of their son. He noted that the report made no link between this abduction and the work of the Sandman—an unimaginative nickname that he despised.

  Palmer’s smartphone chimed with an incoming message. Unlike most similar phones, his did not share its location or reveal its secrets. It was also not linked to Palmer in any easily discoverable way. Secrecy was crucial to his quest. It kept him safe. It kept him free. Palmer understood technology and leveraged that understanding to his advantage.

  He checked the phone and saw he had received a text message from the automated testing equipment in his van, which was parked below deck. The comparison of Kirk Young’s DNA with his own resulted in a combined paternity index in excess of one hundred thousand, elevating the statistical probability he was Kirk Young’s biological father to a near-total certainty.

  Palmer smiled the way a father smiles when he sees his child for the first time.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  STONEHAMPTON, NEW YORK

  7:05 PM

  Nolan was bound hand and foot for the long journey east. That he had not been blindfolded or laid on the cargo area floor led him to conclude it was not necessary for them to conceal the location of their destination from him. Unfortunately, that left open the possibility that he was not intended to return alive. His four travel companions did not converse with him at all. And they barely talked amongst themselves except to agree or disagree with sports talk hosts’ opinions of the city’s various professional teams and celebrity athletes, or to complain about traffic problems that extended their travel time.

  Deena was in the lead SUV just ahead. He saw its brake lights glow for a moment as both vehicles slowed to a relative crawl on the Montauk Highway. They passed through towns and villages whose founding predated the American Revolution.

  After passing a sign announcing their arrival in the village of Stonehampton, established in 1680, the SUVs turned onto a narrow, winding strip of asphalt south of the highway. The homes that Nolan could see ranged from modest, older cottages to larger, more elaborate structures. Most favored the traditional mix of brick and weathered cedar shingles, though he did notice a few sleek, modernist dwellings in the mix. Those on the north side of the lane sat on small lots divided by quaint wooden fences. The homes on the south side sprawled on wide, deep lots that spanned the half-mile distance from the lane to the beach. Most of these beachfront estates were bordered on three sides by towering, dense hedges with access controlled by security gates.

  The two-vehicle convoy turned into the crushed seashell driveway of a secluded estate. They paused as a pair of guards emerged from a gatehouse. Both men were armed. One cradling a machine pistol stood watch while his partner surveyed the undersides of the SUVs with a convex mirror mounted on the end of a telescoping pole and a LED flashlight.

  Evidently the owner of this estate has to worry about car bombs, Nolan noted.

  “Clear,” the guard with the mirror announced.

  The man with the machine pistol nodded and disappeared into the guardhouse. A moment later, the wall of stained wood and steel blocking the driveway parted. Separated from the SUV by acres of tasteful landscaping over a thousand feet deep, Nolan saw a stately Georgian manse clad in gray cedar shakes and shingles. Wings sprawled from the main house, and columned porticos created airy links to detached structures. The two vehicles rolled up the drive and turned into the forecourt before stopping.

  “Hold still,” the man seated beside Nolan said, brandishing a box cutter.

  He expertly cut the zip ties on Nolan’s ankles. Then he and his companions exited the SUV and indicated that Nolan should do the same.

  Nolan’s legs felt stiff from the long drive. He glanced at Deena as she exited the lead SUV—she nodded that she was all right. The eightman team escorted Nolan and Deena through the front door into a large foyer that opened onto a great room with a spectacular view of a long, rectangular pool and patio, a rolling expanse of grassy, windswept dunes and the ocean beyond.

  “Welcome to my home,” Dante Toccare said as he entered the foyer. “I apologize for the abrupt manner with which you were brought here, but circumstances being what they were—you understand.”

  “Not especially,” Nolan replied.

  Toccare’s smiled at the remark with the same warmth of a wolf baring its teeth. He turned to his men.

  “We have dinner set up for you in the kitchen. Get a bite to eat and then hole up in the guard house.”

  The eight men nodded their thanks to Toccare and headed down a hallway, their noses following the aroma of Sicilian cooking. One of the men handed Toccare the confiscated cell phones. He looked at Nolan and Deena as he slipped the phones into his coat pocket.

  “Don’t worry,” Toccare said. “You’ll get fed, too.”

  “Nice place,” Nolan offered.

  “I like it,” Toccare admitted. “And if you’re thinking about making a run for it, I wouldn’t. Even for the off-season, my security is plenty good. Now, please follow me so we can get all of the introductions out of the way at once. Then we’ll see where we go from there.”

  Toccare led them into a wood paneled room that was both a library and office. Even at dusk, the room
seemed bright with warm tinted walls and a glossy white trim. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, containing books, small sculptures, and framed photographs. The room had cushioned window seats, deep leather club chairs, and a massive oak and leather top desk. In the center of the room stood Walter Jamison.

  “Daddy!”

  Nolan gaped as Deena slipped past him and Toccare and into Jamison’s open arms. Jamison embraced his daughter and kissed her on the cheek, grateful she was safe and unharmed. Jamison looked up from his daughter’s shoulder and his eyes narrowed.

  “This man is your patient?” Jamison asked.

  “Yes,” Deena replied, turning to stand beside her father. “Grant, this is my father, Walter Jamison.”

  “I’d shake your hand, but,” Nolan said, offering his bound wrists.

  “Can you please untie him?” Deena asked.

  “Not until we know what his game is,” Toccare said.

  “Is his alleged wife an Asian woman, very attractive with shoulder length hair?” Jamison asked.

  “Yes, but how did you know?”

  “When I met the happy couple on Thursday morning. They introduced themselves then as Nolan Kilkenny and Roxanne Tao. So are you Egan or Kilkenny?”

  “Kilkenny,” Nolan replied.

  Deena looked stunned at Nolan’s admission that he’d lied to her.

  “To complete this pleasant exchange, my name is Dante Toccare and I welcome you all into the safety of my home.”

  Toccare went to the desk and retrieved a sharp letter opener from the top right drawer. Then he approached Kilkenny and exposed the cutter’s razor blade.

  “Your wrists, please.”

  Nolan held up his hands, stretching the plastic tie taut. Toccare cut the tie with a practiced flick of his wrist.

  “You came clean and you protected Dr. Hawthorne. Take this as a sign of good faith,” Toccare said. “But don’t abuse my hospitality.”