The Force (The Kingdom Chronicles)

by Alexandra Swann

  “And you know this because...?”

  “I know this because this same girl turned up dead in an alley on Fifth Avenue last week. She was even wearing the same dress.”

  “You found Forever Marilyn in New York?” Brian asked.

  “Why do you keep calling her ‘Forever Marilyn’?”

  “Because she looks just like that huge statue in Pioneer Court. I drive past it every day, and I always think that it’s just perfect that New York has the Wall Street Bull, and St. Louis has the Gateway Arch, but Chicago has a twenty-six foot tall, forty-thousand pound statue of Marilyn Monroe with her skirt blowing up around her waist standing in the middle of Pioneer Court. It’s kind of embarrassing to drive by and see the tourists standing under her skirt getting their pictures taken.

  “When they unveiled it thirty years ago, it was only supposed to be here for a year. In less time than that they sent it to Palm Springs for another year. I think the whole country thought it was a monstrosity, so after ten years of wandering from city to city Marilyn ended up right back here in Pioneer Court where she started, and it looks like this is going to be her permanent home.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why you keep calling her ‘Forever Marilyn’,” Fred countered.

  Brian was now becoming irritated, “Dad! That’s the name of the statue—‘Forever Marilyn’.”

  Fred was right; the victim’s prints matched those of Marilyn Monroe in the FBI data base, and when the DNA comparisons were made, both victims were an exact match for Marilyn.

  ψ

  On Friday Fred received a call from Charlie Byrd at the FBI building in New York City. Charlie had seen Fred’s name on the report as the first detective on the scene for the victim who was the Marilyn Monroe DNA match. When he called the precinct, he was told that Fred had retired, but since he had known him on a professional basis for several years, he wanted to talk to him. Searching through his Rolodex, he found Fred’s personal communication device number.

  “Hey,” Fred answered when he saw the caller ID, “what’s goin’ on?”

  “I saw your name on the Marilyn Monroe file,” Charlie responded. “Do you have any theories about what’s going on?”

  “Do you know that a second Marilyn was found in Chicago a few days later?” Fred asked.

  “Yeah, I was getting ready to tell you that.”

  “It just so happens,” Fred continued, “that the day I arrived to visit my son, who is a detective in Chicago, the other victim turned up. I went by the morgue with him and saw the body. She’s identical to the New York Marilyn. But, as for theories, I have no idea—this is a real head scratcher.”

  “Well, there’s something else,” Charlie continued. “On Wednesday a stabbing victim was discovered in a posh district of Miami. We ran her prints, and they were a match for Sophia Loren. Then we ran her DNA and got an exact match.

  “On Friday Audrey Hepburn turned up dead in San Francisco. She was even wearing the dress and hairdo from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

  “How did you have Loren and Hepburn in the FBI data base?” Fred inquired.

  “They were both European, and they first came to the U.S. during the hottest part of the cold war—Hepburn in 1951 and Loren in 1957. The FBI kept files on all high-profile foreigners who entered the country at that time. Lucky for us, we never get rid of anything, so we were able to make positive IDs.”

  “Are you going to call in the Sinclairs?” Fred inquired.

  “I called them this afternoon. It takes a lot to shock those boys, but I could tell that they were intrigued. They agreed to consult on all four cases—which we believe are the work of the same perpetrator or perpetrators.

  “Since you saw two of the victims, would it be okay for me to give them your number—just in case they have some questions for you?”

  Fred had been retired for less than two weeks, and he was already involved in the most intriguing case of his career.

  Chapter 4

  Jarrod and Joshua Sinclair were seated with Fred Kowalski and Charlie Byrd at a small conference table in one of the offices of the New York City FBI building. Fred examined the Sinclair brothers carefully. About forty years old, the twins were identical in every respect. He wondered why they had not followed the example of so many other pairs of identical twins and made an effort to establish their own identities. Their identical haircuts showed off their chestnut hair to its fullest advantage, but it seemed odd to Fred that the brothers would not want to separate themselves from each other in some small ways. Although they were not dressed in “matching” outfits, their conservative suits and ties looked as if they had been purchased by the same person. After nearly three hours of going over evidence from the murders with them, Fred had the impression that he was seeing double.

  “Any ideas?” Charlie asked looking at the twins.

  “Actually, yes,” Joshua replied. “Officially, human cloning has never been successfully done. About twenty years ago, it was attempted in some parts of Asia, but the results were so unsatisfactory that after a few years the labs shut down. Both the physical and mental conditions of most of the clones were substandard to the point that they had to be destroyed; less than ten percent were healthy enough to function as factory workers, day laborers, and domestics. And even for those that were, the labs had the problem of being able to sell them. Wide disagreement existed as to whether clones had legal human status. If they were deemed to be legally human, selling them constituted engaging in the slave trade. Because even those with extreme deformities met the criteria of being human in every respect other than birth, the courts would not agree to assign them a sub-human designation that would allow them to be treated as commodities.

  “For about five years human cloning was a hot topic, but during that time it became apparent that, because the rate of successful production was so low, it was not financially feasible to continue. Like so many other things, the cloning debate was settled by financial considerations rather than ethical ones.

  “Unfortunately, that was not enough to stop corrupt, ambitious men from doing some pretty horrible stuff. Twenty years ago, a lot of us were concerned that the entire world might end up looking like The Island of Dr. Moreau. Some of these ghoulish experiments with cloning and DNA-splicing led to the creation of GenCEN—the Genetic Crimes Enforcement Network—as an international police force to ensure that all genetic research and innovation meet carefully-established international guidelines. We set up GenTECH at about the same time to provide consulting services and assist GenCEN in investigations.”

  “So these women aren’t clones?” Fred looked surprised.

  “I didn’t say that,” Joshua continued. “I’m saying that the possibilities are limited. Josef Helmick is the only person I know of who might, and I emphasize might, be capable of turning out perfect clones of Hollywood sex symbols.”

  As Joshua talked, Charlie had input information into his government-issued communication device. Looking up he said, “We have a Karl Helmick in our data base; he was killed in 2021; no Josef. Any connection?”

  “Karl was Josef’s father,” Jarrod interjected. “He owned a beef-cloning facility near Santa Fe that was destroyed by an explosion resulting from a malfunction in the system—at least that was the official finding. Everyone on the grounds was killed instantly. Josef was away at the time, and he was the only survivor.”

  Fred noted the sadness and anger that was reflected in Jarrod’s eyes as he spoke. “How do you know so much about this?” he asked. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Our father was a botanist who helped pioneer plant cloning for food production. He owned a facility in Missouri where he had managed to adapt all sorts of plants to grow in any climate. Everyone thought that it would be the future of food production. Plant cloning would eradicate world hunger by making it possible to grow any crop under any climate and soil conditions. Theoretically, pineapple plantations would thrive in Alaska. The problem was that while early results were
spectacular, after a couple of generations the plants reverted to their natural state. The seeds contained in the adapted species produced plants that were identical to those existing in nature. My father did not live to discover that his life’s work in cloning for food production was going to count for nothing, but as we all know, both plant and meat production are now being done the old-fashioned way.

  “Our father was a brilliant man, and he began training Joshua and me in genetics when we were children. We worked with him until he died. After his death, we thought that the best way that we could honor his memory was to take everything he had taught us about genetics and cloning and use it to make the world a better place. “

  “When did your dad die?” Fred inquired.

  “He had a meeting with Karl Helmick on the day the explosion occurred. My mother had gone to New Mexico with him. They were registered in a hotel in Santa Fe; she wasn’t supposed to go to the facility, but for some reason she ended up at Doppelganger with my father. They both died in the explosion.”

  Charlie leaned forward, “What happened to Josef?”

  “We never saw him again, but we always believed that he lured my parents there and then deliberately detonated the explosion. As Karl’s only heir, Josef became a billionaire at his death.”

  Fred looked incredulous, “There was that kind of money in beef cloning?”

  “No,” Jarrod responded. “While working together researching new techniques my father and Karl Helmick discovered a cure for cancer that you know as the Brazilian Extract Treatment. My father was adamant that the price of the drug be kept low enough for everyone to afford, but, even so, he and Helmick both became billionaires.”

  Fred tried to keep the shock from registering on his face. He had met the Sinclair brothers on a couple of occasions when they had been called in to consult on cases, but he had no idea that their father was the world-renowned Alexander Sinclair. He had never imagined that the rock star of the scientific community who had found the cure for cancer was their father, and he had never dreamed that they were so wealthy. They seemed pretty normal.

  Jarrod continued, “Our dad’s success in developing a cancer cure has been a source of great comfort for Josh and me. Even though the food cloning didn’t work out, he ultimately saved millions of lives with his cancer cure.

  “It’s because of the money we inherited from our parents that we’ve been able to devote ourselves to genetic consulting. GenTECH is a non-profit foundation with one hundred percent of the fees we collect going directly to the foundation. The money is used to help families of crime victims. We provide all sorts of services including assistance with mortgages, college educations for the children, job training for surviving spouses—pretty much anything the families need to help with the loss of a loved one. Josh and I know that nothing can make up for losing someone you love, but we can help to some degree by relieving their financial burdens.”

  “There’s another reason why we spend our lives providing genetic consulting for law enforcement agencies,” Joshua added. “Jarrod and I have talked a lot about it over the years. My mother was certain that the beef cloning was just a cover for Karl’s real work of producing human clones, but my father always insisted that successful human cloning was still a long way in the future. Doppelganger underwent all of the usual inspections, but the inspectors had no idea what to look for. If Karl were cloning humans, he was able to get away with it because the inspection teams did not include geneticists. Because the devastation was so great and the heat so intense, the explosion obliterated every trace of evidence that might have proven our mom’s theory correct, but we have never given up hoping that someday we will be able to prove that Karl Helmick was cloning former members of the Third Reich and that Josef was one of his clones.

  “Josh and I met Josef several times, and we even visited Doppelganger when we were teenagers, but we never liked him, and we never trusted him. We’ve always believed that he murdered our parents and used the explosion to destroy the evidence, but we’ve never been able to prove it. I do know this, however: If anyone could pull this off, it’s Josef Helmick.”

  Chapter 5

  Fred slipped out of bed, being careful not to awaken Annie. He couldn’t sleep, and he wanted to pray, but he was not a man who could bow his head, close his eyes, and pray silently. Fred was a “walker and a talker” who walked as he prayed and spoke in conversational tones. As he stepped through the French doors that led to the backyard he glanced up at the night sky and was immediately overcome by the multitude of stars that filled the heavens above him.

  As he began to traverse the yard, he remembered a favorite Psalm, He counts the stars and calls them all by name. “Oh, dear Jesus,” he said aloud, “when I think about your power, I am completely overwhelmed. No one has any idea how many stars are in your heaven. We think there are billions, but we don’t really know. But you know. You know everything. You see every one of them, and you have given each a pet name so that you can call them to you. Yet, even though you own the universe and direct the wind and the seas, you take time to notice someone like me. I know it’s true, but I can hardly take it in.

  “Thank you for everything. Thank you for taking care of my retirement. You know how worried I’ve been about what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I’ve never had any hobbies, and I’m not going to start playing golf or building furniture or doing any of the things other guys my age do. I’ve always been a cop, and I’ll die a cop—even if I am retired. It’s the only work that I’ve ever really understood. I’m good at it, and I thank you for that because I know that you have given me the ability to solve cases that I would never have been able to crack on my own.”

  As Fred continued to pray, his eyes filled with tears that were beginning to run down his cheeks. “I’m so ashamed that I spent so much time worrying about what I was going to do; I didn’t trust that you had a plan for me. But you did. You sent me out on that case the last week that I was on the force. I know they should have sent another detective because they knew I wouldn’t be there to complete the investigation, but that was your doing. You had already provided my retirement plan. I believe that this is the most important case I’ve ever been part of, and if I hadn’t been the first detective on the scene, I wouldn’t be part of it at all.

  “Lord, please help me to do exactly what I need to do to catch this killer. We know that these women are clones, but that’s all we know. Show me how all of this fits together. Please show me who is cloning these women, and show me who is killing them. None of it makes any sense to any of us working the case, but you know exactly what’s going on.

  “Please, Lord, keep me off rabbit trails. I pray that everything I do in connection with this case will be time well spent. I pray that you will direct me and Joshua and Jarrod Sinclair and Charlie Byrd. I have a feeling that this is something much more terrible than anything I’ve ever been involved in, and I thank you for the opportunity to help stop whoever is doing this. Help me, Jesus, to hear your voice in all of this and to do the best work I have ever done.”

  Fred spent the next half hour pacing and talking to God—thanking Him and telling Him that he loved Him. When he had finished pouring out his heart, he went inside and crawled into bed where he immediately fell asleep.

  Chapter 6

  Fred was sitting in the Sinclairs’ offices drinking a cup of coffee while he waited for them to join him in the conference room. It was a man’s room—leather and polished wood, big, comfortable chairs, a stone fireplace dominating the wall at one end. He did not have to wait long. The twins were punctual, and at exactly 10:30 A.M. the door opened and they entered.

  Fred placed the mug of steaming brew on the long mahogany table and rose to shake hands. The twins had not told him why they wanted to meet with him, and since their call the previous week Fred had imagined every possible scenario.

  Jarrod motioned for him to be seated, and the twins took chairs at the table near him. “Thank you for coming,”
Jarrod began. “We asked you to come here today because we want to offer you a job.”

  “A job?” Fred’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

  “Yes,” Jarrod continued. “We want you to try to solve the Hollywood clone murders. Josh and I know as much about genetics as anyone living. Here at GenTECH we have the world’s best crime lab. We employ some of the top minds in genetic research; we work daily to stay on top of new breakthroughs in genetics so that we can anticipate both the philanthropic uses of those breakthroughs and the dangerous ones. We have helped GenCEN stop a lot of really sick people who were trying to do a lot of really sick things. But, what we know about crime investigations you could put in a thimble. We’re convinced that Josef Helmick produced the clones, but we don’t know how to prove it. Besides, if this is Helmick’s work, there are other clones out there. Who knows to what extent he’s involved in human trafficking? We can tie him to this if we can find his lab.”

  “The FBI is already investigating,” Fred responded. “They have the resources to do all sorts of things that I can’t. I would love to do this, but since I’m retired, I don’t think that I can be of much help.”

  “That’s exactly why we want you,” Joshua interrupted. “You can devote as much time as necessary to this investigation. There are no conflicts of interest, and you happen to be the best police investigator we’ve ever worked with.

  “We’ll pay you fifteen thousand dollars per month plus expenses. Is that agreeable?”

  “Yes. No. I mean, it’s too much. I can’t take that kind of money when it should be going to the victims’ families.”

  “You won’t be paid by GenTECH. All consulting fees go exclusively to help the families. You’ll be paid by us personally. If we tried, we couldn’t spend all of our money in our lifetimes. We’ll take care of all the expenses connected to this investigation, but it’s really important to us that you agree to do it.