Whirlwind

by Rick Mofina

  “Just tell me, Garrett!”

  “They found a body.”

  Blake’s eyes widened, his face tightened. “What’re you talking about? Whose body?”

  “A baby. A baby boy. That’s all we know.”

  Blake smashed his fists into the console. “You better be fucking wrong, Garrett! You better be dead fucking wrong!”

  It took about two seconds before the full force of it hit Blake in the gut like a two-by-four.

  “Oh Christ, is it Caleb?”

  “We don’t know for certain. Jen got a call from some official then two Dallas cops came and took her to this high school in southeast Dallas.” Garrett tapped the rental’s GPS. “I put the address in here. That’s where we’re going.”

  “A school?”

  “They’ve set up a morgue in the gym.”

  “A morgue! Jesus.”

  Blake’s knees started bouncing up and down and he held them with his palms. Sensing his anguish was about to detonate, Garrett feared he would smash his way out of the Ford.

  “Blake. You got to hang on. Jen’s in a bad way—she needs you. She’s with Holly, waiting for us at the school. Jen said she’s not doing anything without you.”

  * * *

  Jenna needed to believe that she was dreaming.

  Because if I’m dreaming, none of this is true.

  She shut her eyes for a long moment then opened them again.

  She was not dreaming.

  This is really happening.

  She was with several people waiting in the administration office of a high school. The school had been closed to students, had become a ghost building. Yet everyone was whispering, like they were in church or something.

  Jenna had lost Caleb. It was her fault because she’d failed to hang on to him. But her prayers were answered. Caleb had been found and taken to this high school.

  She was going to hold him one last time.

  I’m so sorry. I didn’t protect you.

  A tiny voice in her heart cried out to her. No. No. It’s not true. My baby boy can’t be dead.

  “Would you like another cup of water, Jen?”

  Jenna’s sister, Holly, stood by the cooler. It glugged as she filled another paper cup. Jenna tasted the cold water, felt it flowing down her parched throat. Then she looked at the trophy case with medals, statues and framed photos of teachers, coaches, basketball and football teams. She searched the pictures of the players and thought of Caleb. Would he ever be on a team? The faces of these young men screamed life to her while her heart cowered at what was waiting for her in the gym.

  The office doors opened. Blake appeared.

  She rushed to him, cleaved to him, nearly sank to her knees before he pulled her up so that they stood together, holding each other and sobbing for what seemed an eternity.

  Then a woman stood and started the procedure.

  “Excuse me— You’re Blake Cooper, Caleb’s father?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I’m Lanna Thomas with the Medical Examiner’s office,” she said.

  Others began to introduce themselves: the two officers, Stroud and Dyer, with the Dallas PD; Wendy DeBello, with trauma counseling services; and Frank Rivera with the Missing Person Emergency Search System.

  “I’m so sorry,” Thomas said to Blake and Jenna, “but we need one of you to make the identification now.”

  Blake nodded to Thomas and cleared his throat.

  “I’ll go.”

  “No.” Jenna crushed him to her. “We’ll go together.”

  “Okay,” Thomas said. “Follow me.”

  The officers followed, as well, their utility belts giving soft leathery squeaks and keys jingling as they approached the gym. There was a faint hum in the air, and Jenna squeezed Blake’s hand harder.

  “Where—” Blake started again. “Where was he found?”

  “A woman with a volunteer search and rescue team found him among some broken tree limbs in a suburb ringing Lincoln Memorial Park Cemetery.”

  The hum grew louder when they entered the gym, which had been partitioned in half with a floor-to-ceiling dividing wall. Thomas led them through the door into the closed section.

  “The drone is from the generators outside for the portable air conditioners, to keep the room cool,” Thomas said, pulling on latex gloves.

  Stepping inside, Jenna stopped.

  The room was cold. On the polished gym floor were several rows of body-sized sheets. The odor in the air was a mix of a hospital and a supermarket deli. The surreal scene of the dead juxtaposed with the banners on the wall.

  Go Tigers Go!

  Jenna imagined basketball games, proms and graduations that had taken place here, as Thomas led them down a row of corpses with the officers following. They stopped at a tiny form. Thomas lowered herself, looked up at Jenna and Blake as she collected the sheet.

  This had to be done.

  “Ready?” Thomas said.

  Blake pulled Jenna tighter but it didn’t stop her trembling.

  He nodded and Thomas drew back the sheet.

  Jenna’s skin numbed, she gasped and her stomach knotted.

  The baby was a few months old and faceup on a plastic mat. It was a boy, wearing only a shirt. Part of his face was shredded into a pulpy stewlike mess. His left hand was gone. Jenna did not recognize his shirt.

  She could barely push the words out. “Can you turn him over?”

  Exercising utmost care, Thomas turned the tiny body. The little legs were muddied.

  “Can you clear the mud from his lower left leg?” Jenna’s voice croaked.

  Thomas gently passed her fingers over the section, cleaning it.

  Relief pierced Jenna. “That’s not my son. That’s not Caleb.”

  “You’re both certain?” Thomas asked.

  “Caleb has a small rocket-shaped birthmark on the back of his left calf,” Jenna said. “The mud covered that area, but there’s no birthmark underneath. This baby’s hair is not the same shade as Caleb’s, either.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Blake said. “This is not our son.”

  Thomas nodded to the officers and replaced the sheet. Then they all returned to the office where the others were informed that the deceased baby was not Caleb Cooper.

  “Thank you. We know this was agonizing,” Thomas said.

  Jenna nodded, but despite her relief, she mourned for the tiny dead angel and another mother’s pain.

  “There’s some paperwork we need you to sign,” Thomas said.

  As Jenna and Blake took care of the paperwork, the officials huddled out of earshot to talk briefly before Thomas addressed the couple again on behalf of the group.

  “Jenna, Blake,” Thomas started, “as horrible as this was, and as anguishing as it is facing what you’re facing, you have to keep the facts in mind and prepare yourselves.”

  “Prepare ourselves?”

  “Rescuers are finding fewer survivors,” Thomas said. “The chances of anyone, let alone a baby, enduring three-hundred-mile-an-hour winds, injury, then more than forty-eight hours of exposure without water or food, are remote.”

  “Are you telling me to give up hope?” Jenna said.

  “No, no, not at all. We’re only advising you to bear in mind that we’re running out of time.”

  “I’m well aware of that,” Jenna snapped. “Please don’t try to tell me my son is dead! Until I see him, Caleb is not dead! In my heart he’ll never be dead!”

  “We’re not suggesting that, Jenna.”

  “We will find him. I swear we’ll find him.”

  23

  London

  The Boeing 767 departed London’s Heathrow Airport and cut westward across the nigh
t sky toward the southern tip of Greenland.

  Destination: Lester B. Pearson International Airport, Toronto, Canada.

  From his upholstered leather seat in executive class, Pavel Gromov studied the constellations. Like an ancient soldier, he divined purpose from the stars, vowing to his dead wife and sons that he would achieve his goal.

  I will return to Russia with my grandson.

  Gromov sipped his vodka and glanced at Yanna Petrova next to him in the window seat. Her face was in her eReader, but more often it was turned to the window. Her attempt to flee from him before their departure in Moscow had been bold but thwarted when the airport security people on Gromov’s payroll alerted him.

  “Need I remind you of the consequences if you do not cooperate, Yanna,” he’d warned her when they were alone.

  “You’re vile!” she’d spat at him.

  She’d barely spoken to him on their Aeroflot flight from Moscow to London. It was the same now, bound for Canada before they entered the United States.

  Gromov contemplated the ice in his glass, pleased that he’d moved fast on his plan to find his grandchild. He’d used his connections to secure expertly forged travel documents for both of them. Made from stolen official security papers, they were flawless. They’d come at great speed and great expense. He’d used key sources to ensure corresponding information supporting the counterfeit papers would be found in all the necessary databases.

  Matters didn’t go as smoothly with Yanna.

  She’d been startled then furious to arrive home and find him waiting alone in her apartment.

  “Why are you here? Get out!”

  “Fyodor fathered a child.”

  “It can’t be true.”

  “I learned this from the clinic. Without you I never would’ve known I have a grandchild.”

  “But how did this happen?”

  “My police sources had informed me that the clinic is involved with a black market network. They used his sperm to impregnate an American woman who gave birth to a baby boy in Texas. You are going with me now to get him.”

  “Impossible. You’re insane.”

  “Call your office and inform your boss that a relative of yours in the Urals has died and you must travel immediately to Yekaterinburg. Say that you will be away for two weeks. Our flight to London leaves in four hours. Make the call and pack now. It’s hot in Texas.”

  Yanna stared at him then looked around her apartment, probably for some way to escape her situation. “You’re a criminal and I refuse to help you!”

  Gromov showed her photos on his phone of her parents’ home and her little sister’s apartment. “It is not a decision you are free to make.”

  He’d made it clear her family would be killed if she didn’t help him. Overwhelmed with rage and fear Yanna had reassessed her situation, bit back on her anger then made the call and packed.

  Now she put down her eReader, buried her face in her hands and began to cry.

  “Why? Why are you doing this to me?” she asked Gromov in Russian.

  Subduing his voice, he ordered her to keep her voice low.

  Yanna turned and bristled at him. “I still cannot accept this. I demand to go home, now!”

  Gromov did not respond.

  “I could go to prison for what you’re forcing me into,” she said.

  “Do as I say and you won’t be arrested.”

  “You’ve practically abducted me and are threatening my family if I don’t help you steal someone’s child.”

  “No,” Gromov growled through gritted teeth. “I am rescuing the baby stolen from me, from Fyodor, and you! You, Yanna, will be the mother of this child.”

  “I do not want this child! It’s not mine!”

  “It’s Fyodor’s child. You yearned to have his child. Accept that this is fate. I will provide for you. You will be wealthy beyond anything you could imagine. And with the time I have left, I will help raise the baby.”

  “To be a soulless criminal like you?” Yanna stared at him, breathing hard with disgust.

  Gromov said nothing.

  “Fyodor was right to sever his life from yours,” Yanna said.

  Gromov clenched his jaw then he sipped vodka. His Adam’s apple lifted then settled and he blinked several times.

  “No,” he said. “Not like me. I’m leaving the vory way behind me. Look at all it has cost me. I have paid a price for my sins.”

  “So now you seek absolution? You’re an old vor trying to slither his way into Heaven through some desperate criminal act of insanity.”

  Gromov felt the beginnings of a smile before he sipped more vodka and decided that he liked Yanna Petrova and her moxie.

  “Something like that,” he said.

  “Suppose you locate this child,” she said, “and suppose through your methods you take custody of him. How are we going to leave the United States and enter Russia with a baby without raising any suspicions?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m arranging everything.”

  Yanna turned to the window, withdrew into herself and said nothing for the remainder of the flight.

  * * *

  After Gromov and Yanna’s plane landed at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, they proceeded to the checkpoint for passport control and immigration. As Canadian citizens they entered the country easily, collected their bags then proceeded to the ground transportation section where they were met by a driver holding a small cardboard sign bearing the handwritten name Popovich.

  Inside the luxury sedan, the driver took all of Gromov’s and Yanna’s counterfeit documents and gave them each a large envelope with new Canadian documents, passports, airline tickets and plastic ID cards under new names.

  Reviewing her new Canadian identity, Yanna gave up trying to gauge just how connected Gromov actually was. It frightened her, for he seemed to have friends in very high levels of security around the world.

  The city’s skyline, dominated by the needlelike CN Tower, rose before them as their car sped along Toronto’s expressways. They traveled some fourteen miles southeast to the heart of the city and a central airport known as the Toronto Island Airport.

  They boarded a twin-engine turboprop operated by a small commercial airline for a ninety-minute direct flight to Newark.

  Walking through the terminal, they got in line for U.S. Customs. Yanna went first. For a fleeting moment while standing at the desk, she wanted to divulge everything to the Americans, plead for mercy and a return flight to Moscow. Glancing over her shoulder, she felt the heat of Gromov’s eyes on her and the full force of his threat.

  If I make it home, it will be to mourn my family.

  Yanna proceeded as normal and was cleared for entry. Upon entering the United States, she resigned herself to enduring her ordeal until the end, praying that she would return home to her ordinary life.

  When Gromov got to the desk, the agent took his Canadian passport, cracked the spine and inserted it into the passport reader. He checked the photo to ensure Gromov matched it. Then he looked at Gromov’s customs card.

  “Where’re you headed, sir?”

  “New York City.”

  “What’s the purpose of your visit?”

  “I am taking a holiday, to visit the museums, maybe see a show on Broadway.”

  “Where were you born?”

  “Moscow, Russia.”

  “Russia?”

  “I moved to Canada as a young man to study and became a citizen.”

  “Did you live in Canada’s capital, Toronto?”

  Gromov looked at the agent. He was being tested. “Apologies, but I must correct you. Canada’s capital is Ottawa. That is where I live.”

  “That’s right, I forgot. And what do you do in Canada?”

  “I�
�m a semiretired professor of eastern European studies at Carleton University.”

  The agent stamped Gromov’s passport and returned it with the customs card.

  “Welcome to the United States.”

  * * *

  As was the case in Toronto, a driver holding a sign—this time the name was Budarin—met them at baggage claim at the Newark Airport, collected their luggage and led them to a new Lincoln.

  When they pulled away from the airport, Yanna turned to Gromov.

  “Where did you learn English?”

  He looked at the horizon.

  “Here.”

  Their car gathered speed and merged into the rivers of traffic flowing along the New Jersey expressways as they headed for New York City. Soon the span of the majestic George Washington Bridge emerged with Manhattan’s glorious skyline, pulling Gromov back in time.

  He was seventeen when he’d left home to journey across Europe and found work in Rotterdam on a freighter that sailed the world. When they’d docked in New York Gromov jumped ship. He worked illegally on the waterfront, learning English and every aspect of importing, exporting, smuggling and illicit global trafficking. He stayed for eight years, making lifelong friends and establishing business networks worldwide, before returning to Russia. He ran into some trouble, landed in prison for several years where he enriched members of the Brotherhood with his expertise on America. When he got out, he built his empire in Moscow while he maintained his alliances in the United States.

  The Lincoln worked its way through Midtown traffic until it reached the Grand Hyatt next to Grand Central Terminal. They checked into a suite with separate rooms, showered, then met a man for dinner in the hotel’s restaurant.

  His name was Yuri Korzun.

  He was about the same age as Gromov, a barrel-chested man with short white hair and sharp black eyes. He took Gromov’s hand in both of his and shook it warmly.

  “Welcome back to New York, Pavel. It does my soul good to see you, old friend,” Korzun said. “My condolences for your losses.”

  “Thank you. Good to see you, Yuri.”