Beyond Eden

by Sherer, B. K. ; Linnea, Sharon

  Eric responded, asking the man if he would call his dad and ask him to meet on this radio frequency. The other man signed off, and Eric sat and fidgeted while he waited.

  After ten nerve-racking minutes, he heard a faint signal. He grabbed his headphones, hoping he could block out other noises and focus on the code.

  “AA7ZU, DE WZ5JNT, AA7ZU DE WZ5JNT BK.” [To AA7ZU from WZ5JNT, break.]

  “WZ5JNT, DE AA7ZU. HW COPY DAD? BK.” [To WZ5JNT from AA7ZU. How do you read me, Dad? Break.]

  “GD CPY ERIC. UR RST 548. HW R U? BK.” [I read you fine. Your signal is pretty strong. How are you? Break.]

  “DAD NEED HLP. MET TEEN FROM DC. NAME IS DANIEL DERRY. RPT DANIEL DERRY. SAYS HE WAS KIDNAPPED. MAYBE 5 OTHERS. I BELIEVE HIM. BK.”

  “QTH? BK.” [Location? Break.]

  “HR ON LILLISTRA. IN FENCED COMPOUND. BK.”

  “HAVE U TOLD UR MOM? WZ5JNT BK.”

  “N. AA7ZU BK.” [No. Break.]

  “Y? BK.” [Why? Break.]

  “DONT THNK SHE WUD BELIEVE. ALSO VY WORRIED. DANIEL SAID MED EXPERIMENTS. BK.”

  “AS.” [Stand by.]

  Five excruciatingly long minutes passed as Eric waited for another message from his father. Did he believe him? Would he call Mom and alert her to Eric’s activities? Finally he heard the message continue.

  “AA7ZU DE WZ5JNT. ERIC, DESCRIBE DANIEL.”

  “ABT 15 YR, LITTLE TALLER THAN ME, SLIM, BLACK. ROCKNROLL TSHRT. BK.”

  “WEB ARTICLE. 13 FEB 06. BOY DISAPPEARS IN ALEXANDRIA VA. NAME DANIEL DERRY. FITS YOUR DESCRIPTION. BK.”

  “U BELIEVE ME THEN. BK.”

  “NEVER DOUBTED U. BE VRY CAREFUL. SAY NOTHING TO MOM. I WLL CALL POLICE.”

  Suddenly Eric realized his mother was standing there, tapping on his shoulder. With his headphones on, he had not heard her enter the room.

  “Eric, it’s late,” she said with concern. “You really need to shut off your radio and go to bed.”

  “But Mom, I’m in the middle of a contact!” As he spoke to her, he continued to work the electronic key. “GOTTA GO. CUL.” [See you later.]

  “No arguments. Get ready for bed now.”

  As he removed his headphones he heard the last of his father’s call.

  “88. SK.” [I love you. End of transmission.]

  Under his mother’s watchful eye, the young boy flipped all the switches on his radio and neatly placed the key and headphones in their storage spaces. He purposefully avoided meeting her gaze, not wanting to take any chance that her mother’s intuition would sense that something was up.

  Britta walked up and wrapped her arms around her son from behind, leaning her chin on top of his head.

  “I know you want to make as many contacts as possible, filling up that silly map of yours with hundreds of pins… but there will be other days.”

  She hugged him tightly to her. “I promise, there will be many more days.”

  February 26, 2006, 6:00 p.m.

  Derry family quarters

  Fort Belvoir, Virginia

  * * *

  Abe Derry sat in the study of his two-story brick residence in the general officer housing area of Fort Belvoir. Piled before him on a massive desk were the files he had requested from the office, hoping to find a distraction in his work. But they sat untouched as he stared out his second-story window at the light snowfall visible in the twilight sky.

  He had returned from Germany the previous afternoon to find his wife secluded in her studio, taking solace in working with her hands. Eirene had discovered that sculpting was an excellent way to focus her thoughts and emotions, and her meditative artistry had helped to calm her while she waited for news of her missing son.

  That evening, as they lay in bed together, Abe had held her tight and told her all he had learned from his meeting with Jaime. Could they find hope in her words? Did the fact that there were other gardeners from Eden whose children had been abducted provide comfort or make the situation seem even more horrible?

  They had agreed that hope was not something to be found in the facts. Hope did not hinge upon little scraps of information they could sweep up and cling to. Hope sprung from the certainty that life is good, the world is ultimately good, and we are in good hands. So here he sat, seeking signs of hope in the evening snowfall.

  The phone rang. Abe let it go for three rings before picking up, as the FBI agents, sitting downstairs preparing to monitor the call, had requested.

  “Hello,” he said with the cautious tone he had adopted over the past two weeks.

  “Is this Abraham Derry?” The voice on the other end of the line was unfamiliar, male, but there was no sound of electronic muffling, which could have been used to disguise a voice. Probably not the kidnapper, Abe thought.

  “Yes, who’s calling?” He found it hard to remain calm through these calls. There had been many false leads over the last few weeks.

  “My name is David Carlson. I live in Oklahoma, and think I may possibly have information about the location of your son.”

  Abe’s heart stopped beating. Was this another crackpot? There seemed to be many people who wanted so desperately to be noticed that they made up the craziest things to get attention.

  “Go on.…”

  “My ex-wife lives with my son in Sweden. Let’s just say she and I don’t get along very well, and I haven’t seen my son, Eric, for a year. But he and I maintain contact by radio. Today he told me he had stumbled upon a fenced compound and saw a young teen inside the fence, who seems to match your son’s description. The teen said his name was Daniel Derry, and when I looked it up on the Internet, I found the article about your son’s kidnapping.”

  “How did he describe the boy?”

  “Eric said about fifteen years old, slim, black, and wearing a parka and a T-shirt that said something about rock and roll.”

  Abe resisted the temptation to jump out of his chair. The T-shirt his son was wearing had not been in the news. But Sweden?

  “Where exactly is this compound?” Abe could hardly contain himself.

  “Eric told me they had moved to an estate on an island north of Stockholm. He called it Tranholmen Island.”

  “Do you know anything else about the location or the situation?” Abe found it natural to kick into “commander” mode, drawing all pertinent information from the briefer and preparing to give orders and make things happen.

  “Not much, I’m sorry. I can’t say I’ve been invited to visit! But I get the impression it is a very small island. I looked it up on MapQuest and found it in a waterway called the Lilla Värtan Strait, just off the shore from a town called Danderyd.”

  “Anything else you can tell me?” He heard the man hesitate, as if there was something he wished to say and just couldn’t.

  “No,” he said finally. “I tried calling the local police here, and they were very wary about acting on information from an eleven-year-old boy. They said they would ‘pass on the tip’ but didn’t sound too enthused. But look, Mr. Derry—”

  “Abe, please, it’s Abe.”

  “Abe. I know my son. He does not make up things like this. So I got your number myself off the Internet. I thought if I could talk with you directly, maybe you would want to pass on the information to the FBI.”

  “Consider it done,” said Abe with a slight smile, for he knew they were recording every word of this conversation. “And would you mind leaving me your phone and address? They’ll undoubtedly want to contact you for follow-up questions.”

  “Certainly.” And as the man rattled off his contact info, Abe sat marveling at two very important bits of information. One, his son was alive. Two, in Sweden?

  “David,” he said as they were closing. “Many people would not want to get involved. They never would have called. Thank you for your efforts.”

  “I hope it helps. Good-bye.” And he hung up.

  “Yes. Hope. That is what this is all about,” Abe said to himself as he pushed back from his desk, preparing to go
downstairs and discuss the implications of this new information with the FBI.

  February 26, 2006, 10:14 p.m.

  Tranholmen Island

  Stockholm, Sweden

  * * *

  “Here we go, girl; are you ready?” said Daniel Derry to his little friend as he noted the time on his wristwatch. Daniel had spent the last half an hour wondering if he could really do this. But he remembered what his dad always asked when he had to make a choice: What’s the downside?

  The downside of trying to escape was that they risked being caught and killed. Admittedly, a potentially bad downside.

  On the other hand, the downside of not trying to escape was that they’d definitely be killed. That certainly put the first downside in perspective.

  Daniel pulled the pack of gum out of his pocket and one by one unwrapped each of the four pieces, sticking them ceremoniously into his mouth. As he stuffed in the final one, he found it a bit tough to chew but worked hard to make sure the glob in his mouth was wet and squishy.

  The toddler was watching all of this with curiosity and reached up toward Daniel’s mouth to try to get some of the gum from him.

  “Nope. Sorry. This is working gum.”

  As he continued to chew, he pulled the toddler onto his lap and rubbed one hand across the baby’s forehead. He tried to push hard enough to make the skin turn pink without hurting the little girl. She squirmed and batted at his hand, not so much out of pain but because he was holding her very tightly and she wanted to be up and moving around.

  Just as she started to really fuss he stood up and carried her to the door. He began to pound, hard, and to yell.

  “Somebody come. Please! I think the baby is sick.” He continued to make as much racket as he could until, finally, one of the goons opened the door.

  The man was half-dressed, shirttail hanging out, no socks, and he needed a shave. He looked as if he had been lounging in his room before going to bed.

  “What is it?” he growled testily.

  With the baby in his arms, Daniel stepped right into the doorway. “I think this kid is sick. She got really hot, and has some sort of rash on her forehead. She needs to see a doctor or something.”

  The baby was still squirming and seemed very unhappy.

  “We don’t have a medical doctor here, kid, and we’re not gonna send for one.”

  “Please, there has to be something, someone who could help? What if it is something really bad… or contagious?”

  The goon took a step back from the two captives, suddenly aware that he might be standing too close to a sick child. He thought for a moment, then, never taking his eyes off Daniel, stepped to the door of the next cell and opened it.

  “Hey, lady. You’re some sort of nurse, right?”

  “Yes, I am a nurse,” came a calm, musical voice from inside the cell.

  “Well, come out here and check out this baby. See if you can do anything for it.”

  A lithe young woman, the one who said her name was Inaba, emerged from the next cell. She had beautiful dark brown skin and wore a brightly colored dress of orange, brown, green, and yellow. The dress flared at the bottom, and she had matching pants. But the outfit must have been made for warmer weather—it looked possibly African?—because someone had given her a green short zipper jacket to wear over the top half. Daniel did not move from where he stood in the doorway to his cell but let her come to him as the goon watched them closely.

  The young woman reached toward the baby and felt her forehead. “Oh, you poor little thing. You’re so warm! I’d better have a look at you.”

  As Daniel handed the baby to her, she stood directly between him and the guard, who did not see Daniel slip the wad of gum out of his mouth and stuff it into the hole for the bolt lock.

  He nodded to the woman, who stepped back, saying, “I’ll take her and see what I can do.”

  Without one glance at the guard, she walked calmly back to her cell with the infant. The guard closed the door behind her, then turned to Daniel.

  “OK, kid. Enough excitement for one night. Back inside. Go to sleep.”

  As the door closed behind him, Daniel held his breath, hoping the man did not notice the lack of a telltale click of the bolt lock falling into place. When it was apparent the man would not return, Daniel sat back on his bed and stared at his watch as he waited to begin phase two of the escape plan.

  Monday

  February 27, 2006, 12:20 a.m.

  Tranholmen Island

  Stockholm, Sweden

  * * *

  It was when they got to the other side of the ice bridge that led from the town of Danderyd that the “what-ifs” started for Jaime. What if the captives were being held at another, more remote, location? What if Britta was not involved with them at all, she was doing research of a completely different kind? What if the kids had already been murdered? What if there were guards with guns?

  On the other hand, Jaime had heard Constantine talk to Britta and warn her that she was to lose her subjects a day earlier than expected. Certainly that was the link that tied it all together? As for the dangers ahead, Jaime had been well trained, and she was with one of the most experienced Operatives in the entire world. She prayed again for wisdom, justice, and a positive outcome.

  “It looks like there’s a large estate this way,” Yani said, holding the satellite photo of the island and pointing at the large building near the center of the island on the southern shore. They had studied the satellite image on the plane, gotten readouts that told them the island was not owned by a single corporate entity such as Villella’s; it was divided into various plots. “We’re looking for something large enough to hide five people.”

  A small road in front of them ran about 20 meters and forked. Yani gestured to the right-hand fork. Jaime nodded.

  It was cold, windy, and dark, so they moved silently toward their destination. Yani had followed the doctor’s orders and rested for the whole flight, and now he seemed up and ready to rock and roll. Jaime suspected he’d collapse tomorrow or whenever the mission was successfully completed. But for now, he was Yani in mission mode, the Yani she knew best.

  They came to a place where the road forked again. Yani stopped. His handheld was flashing. “Perfect,” he said, “perfect. Someone is using Constantine’s phone to call someone on this island. Bring us home, Brother Timothy, bring us home.” Jaime was grateful they’d taken the time to find the information from Constantine’s phone back at the University of Athens. Yani touched the earpiece in his ear to activate it and waited as the connection was made to someone on Tranholmen.

  The global positioning function of the phone lit up in flashing red on Yani’s island map.

  “We’ve got her,” he said victoriously. “We’ve got her.”

  Together they agreed that the road that made a hard left off their current path was a quicker route, and they hurriedly turned down it. Yani continued to listen to the conversation. Both Operatives wore black coats and all-terrain boots, which had inserts that used tiny pinpoints of light to illuminate the path just before them. The island was pitch-black, which Jaime found comforting.

  Tranholmen Island was not large; it was 1.2 kilometers from end to end. The conversation between Constantine and Britta ended, but the lighted location of the scientist kept flashing, a beacon on Yani’s handheld.

  “He was checking in to make sure she was all right,” Yani reported, “which leads me to believe we’ve come to the right place, the center of the action.”

  Both Operatives were athletic, and Yani had recovered enough that he could keep up as Jaime moved quickly down the path, which joined up with another, and another.

  “I think there’s a more direct route,” Yani breathed, “but it’s perhaps good to come upon the site from the side.”

  No sooner had he said that than a house appeared before them, light shining from most windows—at least from those they could see above the 10-foot-high stone walls.

  Jaime smiled a
nd shook her head. “I could’ve told you,” she said.

  Yani smiled, too, his last of the night. “OK. Primary directive: Find the captives. This place is certainly big enough that they could be well hidden inside.”

  “I take it this is where we split up,” Jaime said.

  “Yeah,” said Yani. “You still comfortable being seen?”

  That meant if they ran into someone such as Britta, Jaime would reveal herself in an attempt to get information. Yani would remain invisible. Both of them had listening devices sewn into their jeans, which were made to look like the other silver studs sewn into the seams.

  “Yep,” Jaime replied. “Let’s get going. Should we at least check the front gate, to make sure it’s not standing wide open?”

  “Even if it is, I’d advise against strolling through.”

  “I agree.”

  Yani put his back against the wall and cupped his palms. Jaime stepped into them and up onto his shoulders. From there, she was able to hoist herself to the top of the wall.

  “Godspeed,” was all Yani said. Then he was gone.

  She stayed still and prone on the top of the wall, surveying the inner yard. There were several tall trees and, in past them, a large, square manor house. Even though it was very late, many rooms had the lights blazing. Something was indeed happening here tonight.

  She swung her legs, let herself down as far as possible, and dropped the rest of the way.

  It looked as if the house was made from the same stone as was the wall. Jaime decided to scope the perimeter of the house to see if there were any clues as to where five captives might be hidden.

  Around the back of the house were two doors at an angle to the ground, which she assumed used to be the coal chute into the basement. The basement seemed like it might be a feasible prison, certainly. The wooden doors were held together by a padlock. She got out her lock pick and had the padlock off in under a minute.