Paul lay next to his father’s body, exhausted but relieved that the ordeal was over for his mother. Then he watched as she fell on her husband’s body, sobbing and holding him. Paul stared, amazed at her grief. Was she sorry this monster had finally been stopped? His mother looked at him and screamed, “Why? Why? You’ll die in prison for this. They’ll kill you. You murdered your own father. How are we going to live? Get out! Get out! I never want to see you again. Get out of here!”
And eleven-year-old Paul Emerson did exactly that.
Paul had several things going for him. He was smart and crafty, could work well with his hands, and was a surprisingly good communicator. He was also tall, lean and handsome. The best thing was that he looked much older than he was. Nobody who saw him had a clue this boy wasn’t even a teenager.
He hitchhiked or walked, spending the nights in barns and under bridges as he made his way north. He didn’t have a plan and had no idea where he was going. All he knew was he couldn’t stay in Texas. He didn’t know if the authorities would arrest an eleven-year-old for murder. He didn’t know if they would put him on death row and execute him once he turned eighteen. He also didn’t care. He was glad he had done what he did.
The first thing Paul Emerson did was to shed the name his father and mother had given him. He picked Cory Spencer – there was nothing special about it. He just wanted a new name and that one sounded ok.
He made his way northeast to Dallas then Tulsa and onwards, doing odd jobs and taking his pay in cash. He didn’t have a Social Security number or a bank account so the employment options were few. He washed dishes, joined a roofing crew, helped serve at a Salvation Army soup kitchen – whatever there was to do, he did it.
When he finally ended up on the streets of New York, Cory discovered another way to make money. There he figured out that women – and men too, for that matter – would buy his youthful body for an hour of pleasure. It was easy money. All he had to do was perform well and he could make two or three hundred dollars quickly. It wasn’t what he preferred but it bought a place to stay and food to eat. That beat sleeping under a bridge like he had done at first.
One of his patrons was quite wealthy, thirty-something and divorced. Caroline Tipton met Cory as he delivered pizza to her Upper East Side home one evening. Playing out a fantasy she had done many times before, Caroline had answered the door in a see-through negligee. She invited him in and they spent the night together. That started a long relationship. As they got more comfortable with each other, she began to peel away the secrets and learn about Cory’s past. Not about Paul Emerson – that person no longer existed. Cory Spencer had his own story and she bought it hook, line and sinker.
He was fifteen years old when he met Caroline Tipton but his appearance allowed him to tell her he was nineteen. He said his mother and father had been killed in a car accident in California and he was sent to live with an aunt who didn’t want him, so he took off. He had missed several years of school and had lived on his own, doing whatever he could.
Caroline’s interest in the boy went further than the sexual escapades they shared. She saw his potential and she had the money to help him. Cory couldn’t have hoped for a luckier break than meeting Caroline Tipton. She set him up in an efficiency apartment in Chelsea and paid a small fortune to create a birth certificate for him. That allowed Cory Spencer to get a Social Security card and a driver’s license.
Caroline put him in an academy with both a remedial and an accelerated learning program. The curriculum was designed to bring along those who were behind and allow those who could push ahead to do so. It was perfect. He learned so quickly that he advanced two grades in less than nine months.
By this time Cory was becoming less interesting to Caroline Tipton as a sex toy – she thrived on new things and she found one boy after another to satisfy her desires. But there was something different about Cory Spencer. She felt something for him she didn’t know existed in her psyche. Maybe it was love. Or maybe compassion. She was surprised to discover a new feeling – she actually cared for the boy she had rescued. So Caroline Tipton stuck with Cory. She paid his exorbitant tuition and his rent and helped him every way she could.
Cory graduated with a high school diploma and Caroline got him a job with an acquaintance of hers. She had made several expensive purchases from a Fifth Avenue antiquities gallery called Bijan Rarities over the past few years and became friends with its owner, Brian Sadler. Sadler needed a general backroom guy. He was pleased to fill the position and accommodate a good client at the same time.
Because the gallery had millions of dollars in rarities in house, potential employees were subjected to a background check including a fingerprint search through the New York Police Department’s database. Cory held his breath for ten days – this would be the most likely chance in his life that the truth about his past would be revealed.
He relaxed when Collette Conning, Brian Sadler’s assistant, called at last to confirm the job was his. He had successfully transformed himself from Paul Emerson into Cory Spencer. His future was now secure.
Cory worked at Bijan Rarities for four years while he pursued a bachelor’s degree at NYU. He was a fast learner and soon had risen from glorified janitor to a valuable post. He was put in charge of cataloging items the gallery received on consignment. He had a particular interest in the ancient pieces from Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Americas. Because of his work at Bijan, Cory chose archaeology as his major and graduated with honors.
Brian Sadler was sorry to lose Cory when he was accepted at Sussex University in Pennsylvania as a graduate student in archaeological studies. Cory had been a good employee and Brian was certain he had a great future ahead of him given the young man’s intense interest in antiquities.
Cory Spencer had totally buried Paul Emerson, the juvenile who had murdered his own father. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, a new person had emerged in the killer’s stead. He no longer had to live with the underlying fear he would be found out and imprisoned. And no one was the wiser.
Almost no one.
Chapter Sixteen
Several years ago, Thomas Newton Torrance, already a successful corporate raider, had heard the rumors of what might lie deep inside the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque. For decades people had speculated on King Pakal’s mysterious sarcophagus lid with the strange drawings that looked to many like the Mayan monarch was piloting a spacecraft.
Once he had the money and the power to make things happen TNT could afford to indulge his curiosity and his interests. He wanted to know more about the legends of Palenque. First he researched which universities were pursuing archaeological efforts in the state of Chiapas and at Palenque itself. The results of that research yielded only one name – Sussex University in Pennsylvania.
Sussex’s archaeological department was on the forefront of exploration in Central and South America. Over the past ten years the school had been granted more licenses to carry out digs in that area than any other institution. Their teams had achieved notable success more than once, making important discoveries that advanced knowledge of the Maya, Aztec and Olmec peoples.
Having found the institution he needed to approach, Torrance went to step two. He used a tactic he normally reserved for his hostile takeovers in the corporate world. He made a call to the major New York law firm that handled millions of dollars a year in legal work for him and requested a background check.
TNT discovered long ago that knowledge was the ultimate power. If he knew things others didn’t, he could prevail against an opponent. Before he publicly disclosed his interest in buying a corporation’s stock, before the takeover began, Torrance hired his lawyers to gather every piece of information they could unearth about the people he would be up against. He wanted to know secrets. The darker the better. Knowledge was power.
He did things a little differently with the Sussex investigation. He narrowed the scope of the background check to encompass just those people and things t
hat were germane to the university’s archaeological work at Palenque. It took only an hour for Torrance to scan news reports and magazine articles and create a list of names. These were the people he wanted to know about – the Sussex-sponsored archaeological teams that were working in the state of Chiapas.
The university’s archaeologists had just completed two small projects at Palenque that consisted of opening previously unexcavated buildings. Nothing of importance was found in either but Torrance noted the names of the students who were part of the team. The dig supervisor on both projects was the same graduate student – Cory Spencer.
Ten days after he requested the background check his attorney called. “As you know, sometimes when you order these reports our people find bits and pieces. Other times they don’t find anything. Mr. Torrance, this time we hit the jackpot.”
The attorney explained that Cory Spencer, the graduate student at Sussex, was actually Paul Emerson of El Paso, Texas. When he was only eleven, the lawyer said, Emerson had savagely murdered his father and then disappeared. For the past fifteen years his whereabouts had been unknown.
The lawyer said that the discovery had been made by fingerprint comparison. The boy’s fingerprints were at the crime scene. Years later when Bijan Rarities did a background check on Cory Spencer he had been fingerprinted. Bijan’s check had been limited to New York Police Department records. The match linking Cory Spencer to a youthful murderer from El Paso wasn’t made. But those same fingerprints, matched this time to a national database, revealed the answer to where Paul Emerson had gone.
“Mr. Torrance, ordinarily we’re obligated to notify the authorities…”
Torrance cut him off with a polite, “Of course, of course, but it’s been a long time and this man was just a boy when it happened. It is critical to a project I’m working on that this information remains confidential. And I appreciate that you’ll do that as a personal favor. Thank you so much for everything your firm does for me and my companies.”
And that was that. Torrance had a secret on someone who was an archaeologist with Sussex University. And what a secret. This was even better than he could have hoped for.
Chapter Seventeen
Tuesday
Twelve days after the disappearance
It took less than an hour for President Harry Harrison to find out that Thomas Newton Torrance and Cory Spencer had been alone with the artifact for nearly thirty minutes. It infuriated him that these two might be destroying clues and evidence that might have given information as to Chapman’s whereabouts. But he was powerless to act since they were in Mexico.
Brian Sadler had been sequestered in his office all morning. There were a lot of loose ends to tie up before he could be away in Palenque for three or four days. Since he planned to leave tomorrow there was very little time to get things done. He had instructed his assistant to hold his calls and was irritated when a quiet ring interrupted his work.
There was one call he wanted – from Nicole Farber. Brian had awakened missing her even more than usual. He had called her cellphone early this morning but it went straight to voicemail. He glanced up, saw his private line blinking and touched the speaker button. His heart pounded at the anticipation of hearing her voice.
“Hi, babe.”
The same professional female voice he’d heard once before said, “Mr. Sadler, this is the White House. May I transfer a call from the President?”
“Certainly.” Brian’s disappointment was mixed with a tinge of exhilaration. I’m on a call with the President of the United States. No other person on earth can make that statement right now. Even if it’s old Harry Harrison it still makes you a little tingly.
After a pause he heard Harry’s voice. “Good morning, Brian. Where are you?”
“Good morning, Mr. Pres…er, Harry. I’m at the gallery in New York wrapping things up before the trip tomorrow.”
“OK. Brian, I just have a minute but I have some news for you. We talked about Thomas Newton Torrance when you were in my office. Turns out he gets around. You know they tried to bring up the artifact yesterday. TNT flew from London and was at the temple in Palenque for the aborted attempt. Then he took your old employee Cory Spencer down into the chamber with him. For some reason Dr. Ortiz, the government’s archaeological director, granted Torrance and Cory permission to go alone – without any of the government people along. They were down inside the temple for about thirty minutes.
“Ortiz sent people down the minute those guys got out of the tomb and nothing seemed out of place, at least as far as we’ve heard. I’d like you to meet up with this Thomas Torrance. Find out what he’s up to. There’s something going on with him. I want to know what he’s doing and if he had anything to do with John Chapman’s disappearance.”
Harry Harrison promised that the FBI agent at the Palenque airport would hand Brian a briefing file. It would be a current synopsis of everything they knew about Torrance’s activities in Chiapas state, his mode of travel and anything else that might be helpful to Brian. It would also contain letters of introduction that might help smooth the way for Brian to get things done. He might not need them but then again they might come in handy.
“The Foreign Secretary of Mexico and our Ambassador know you’re coming at my request,” the President said. “There was no way to keep your visit quiet – you’re flying on a government jet with a flight plan filed to Palenque. But I asked the Ambassador to let you work unhindered unless you request assistance. His contact information will be in the briefing sheet you’ll get. Use it if you get in a jam or need something urgently.”
After the call ended Brian stared at the phone, thinking. He picked up the receiver and entered a number. He was disappointed as a voice answered, “Miss Farber’s office. This is Ryan Coleman. How may I help you?”
“Ryan, this is Brian. Is she around?”
“She is, Mr. Sadler, but she’s in one of the conference rooms taking a deposition. I don’t expect her back for a couple of hours. May I ask her to call you?”
“Tell her it’s nothing urgent but please call me when she has a few minutes. Tell her everything’s OK. I just felt like we didn’t finish things last night…” He immediately regretted having said so much to Nicole’s assistant. “Never mind, Ryan. Just ask her to call if she gets a chance sometime.”
He looked at the pile of paperwork on his desk awaiting his attention. But all he could think about was Nicole. He felt as though his personal life was falling apart right in front of him. All because of a girl. All because of Nicole damned Farber.
Chapter Eighteen
Wednesday
Thirteen days after the disappearance
The same sleek Gulfstream G650 that had transported President John Chapman to Mexico nearly two weeks ago now sat at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, not far from Manhattan. The plane was fueled, the pilots and crew were standing by, awaiting the arrival of Brian Sadler. He would be delivered to the tiny Palenque airport, just as the President had been. He would be met by a representative of the United States government, just as Chapman had. But Brian’s escort to the ruins would be the FBI, not the Ambassador. Brian had awakened several times last night hoping that’s where the similarity ended since Chapman’s fate was still unknown.
Brian had been picked up at his apartment and now was in another of the government’s black Ford sedans, this one equipped with flashing lights and a siren. They moved quickly through traffic down 9th Avenue toward the Lincoln Tunnel. The trip was only fifteen miles but New York driving was measured in time, not in distance. At this time of morning the driver had estimated about half an hour not counting any potential traffic delays.
The entire workday yesterday had passed without a word from Nicole. He had reached for the phone a dozen times, almost calling her number, almost making the first move. But it was her turn. He had left a message and she hadn’t responded. His heart ached like he was sixteen again.
At seven p.m. Brian called it a day, packed the s
tuff he wanted to take on his trip and left the gallery. As he walked to his apartment he had heard a ding on his phone. Excitedly grabbing it he saw a text from Nicole.
“Hey there. Sorry about the crazy day today and not getting to talk to you. Off to a late dinner tonight – no hanky panky, all business! I know you leave tomorrow so I’ll call when I can. Love you baby.”
Brian hadn’t slept much the rest of the night.
I feel like shit, Brian thought as he sat in the back seat of the government sedan rubbing his eyes. He had lain in bed awake, struggling over his relationship with her for hours. He wasn’t interested in seeing other women. He just wanted to see a lot more of her. Was he wrong for not making that happen? It seemed even when he did make the effort to go to Dallas she was usually so busy she had to almost fit him into her calendar. He felt like he needed an appointment to be with the girl he loved. Why was she so damned good at her job? Why couldn’t she live where he lived, in New York? Or London? Was he more to blame than she for the sorry state of things? And so it went all night long. When his alarm went off at six a.m. he had groggily forced himself out of bed and into the shower.
Soon the sedan was through the tunnel and on Route 3 heading northeast towards Teterboro Airport while Brian thought about Nicole and idly watched the industrial scenery along the route. He had packed light – he had his iPad, a Kindle and some material from the gallery to work on during the trip. A duffel held some clothes; the President had asked Brian to stay two or three days, long enough to interview everyone at the site. Harrison had also authorized the Gulfstream to take him to Mexico City if Brian thought it necessary to meet with governmental officials there.
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