Chapter 18
R afe watched as Allison flicked through the overlapping camera views inside the hotel to track Shannon Connor’s departure from the building. She hadn’t been in a hurry. She didn’t act like someone who had just left behind a man she’d poisoned. She also didn’t act as if she knew a hit team was on its way.
She’d talked on the phone as she went.
As he watched, Rafe’s chest grew tight. Shannon had been missing for hours. He knew how easily people could fall off the radar and become lost. It had happened to him.
“We’re going to have to get a phone dump on her cell,” Rafe said. He knew that would take a while. The courts wouldn’t be open till eight.
“I’ve already been through her cell phone records,” Allison replied. “I used the Homeland Security blanket.”
“Who was she talking to?”
“The number was out of Los Angeles. I tracked it to a movie rental place.”
Rafe checked the time/date stamp in the lower right corner of the monitor. “Two-seventeen in the morning in Washington D.C. is eleven-seventeen at night in L.A.”
“The store was open,” Allison said. “But verifying whether the person who made the call to Shannon was on-site is a different matter.”
“I doubt a movie rental clerk would have made that call.”
“So do I.”
On the monitor, Shannon walked to a car and, after a moment, got inside.
“Were you able to trace the crack into the hotel’s surveillance systems?” Rafe asked.
“Not yet. I’m still working on it.” Allison tapped the keyboard.
The sequence of Shannon at the car door repeated in slow motion. Her hand pulled at the door release, but it didn’t open.
“The door was locked,” Rafe said.
Still in slo-mo, Shannon reached for the door release again. This time it opened.
“Did you see a key?” Allison asked.
“No.”
A small smile curved Allison’s lips. “That’s because whoever Shannon’s source is, she’s also able to crack into telematics systems.”
“Don’t know what that is.”
“Neanderthal,” Allison said. “It’s onboard car services.”
“Not a big fan. I like older cars.” Rafe stared at the screen as Shannon drove out of the parking spot. “Can you get a copy of that license plate?”
“I’m trying.”
The car was tagged on front and back, but somehow the camera angles worked against them. As they watched over and over, the car pulled through the parking area and out onto the street. Within a minute it disappeared.
Then, just as Rafe was about to give up in frustration, the car turned for just an instant and the camera caught the plate.
Allison froze the playback, captured the image, then blew it up. When the number was legible, she accessed another computer screen.
Okay, Rafe thought, give me something I can use.
“The car was a rental,” Allison said as she flipped through computer screens. “A lot of rental cars come equipped with vehicle-tracking systems packed with GPS technology. We got lucky. This one did.”
Rafe watched the screen as a map of the city spread out. Then a single red dot flared to life.
“I’m going to speed up the cycle,” Allison said, “but you have to remember that she could have gotten out anywhere along the way.”
“This has been too direct,” Rafe said. “Whoever her contact is, somebody had an agenda in mind. She wouldn’t have stopped till she got to where she was going. The risk was whether or not Shannon got out of the city fast enough. That’s why a stolen car wasn’t used. If the police pulled it over, Shannon could have gone straight to lockdown.”
“He or she probably also didn’t think I’d streamed the video feeds into a hard-drive dump of my own.” Allison clicked keys. “I’m thorough. Once I get my head up and can look around.”
“She stopped there.”
On-screen, the car was once more in motion.
“Where is that?” Rafe asked.
Allison ran the cursor over the route and a block of text lit up. “Dulles International.”
The hope that Rafe had been harboring in his heart that Shannon would be all right dwindled somewhat.
“Hold on. I should be able to access the airport cameras.”
The NSA, Rafe knew, had blank checks where a lot of government buildings and public transit hubs were concerned.
Allison accessed the airport cam menu, then pulled up the cameras she wanted to check.
Rafe waited tensely. Minutes passed as Allison matched the time/date stamps of the car’s brief stop at the airport. When she had them in sync, she rolled the footage slowly.
“There,” Rafe said, spotting Shannon Connor as she got out of the car and talked briefly with an Asian man.
“I’ve got her.”
On the screen, a square blue graphic formed around Shannon’s head. Allison had to start and stop several times while she learned the flow of the cameras inside the terminal.
Minutes later, Shannon checked in at the Air China desk.
Rafe cursed. Although he’d known from the team that had come to the hotel to kill him and from the man Shannon had met that they were probably looking for an Asian connection, he wasn’t happy about having confirmation.
“We’re not going to get a lot of help at that end,” Rafe grumbled.
“No. But the computer relays I traced came out of Shanghai. This fits with what we already knew.”
“Where’s the plane landing?”
Allison consulted a computer screen. “First stop is Beijing. Seventeen hours from now.”
“Do we have anyone there who can watch for her in case she gets off there?”
“We do.” Allison made a quick call, talked briefly, made and sent a follow-up e-mail that had Shannon’s image and information and turned her attention back to the monitor. “Beijing is covered. The flight’s final destination is Hong Kong.”
“Do you have—”
“Yes,” Allison said. “I do.”
“One of these days,” Rafe said, “I’m going to have to get a look at this Rolodex of yours.”
“If you ever saw my Rolodex,” Allison said, “I’d have to kill you.”
Rafe thought she was only half kidding.
Less than thirty minutes later, Rafe was packed and ready to go. He stood beside the military Hummer assigned to take him to Dulles.
The sun had dawned in the east and beat back the night from the city. A gentle wind slid through streets already choked with traffic.
“You don’t have to do this.”
Rafe turned to look at Allison. He gave her a crooked grin.
“Who else could you possibly send that Shannon’s going to trust?”
“You don’t know that she’s going to trust you.” Allison stood there with red-rimmed eyes and her arms folded.
“No, but at least she knows me.”
“She thinks you’re the enemy.”
“I can’t just walk away from this thing either, Allison.”
“China is a dangerous place right now,” Allison said. “We don’t have a really good spy swap program. And the NSA can’t own you on this. If you get caught over there, this may be North Korea all over again.”
For a moment nausea twisted and churned inside Rafe’s stomach. He knew that. He didn’t need her to tell him. The whole time he’d packed clothes that she’d sent out for him, he’d thought of nothing but that.
He didn’t want to be captured. He didn’t want his freedom stripped from him again. With everything he’d lost the first time, he didn’t know if he could survive that.
“I won’t be able to help you,” Allison said.
“I know. But Shannon’s over there and she thinks she’s doing the right thing. She doesn’t know she’s being used and set up.” Rafe paused. “You brought me into this thing because you knew I’d stick. And I accepted because I needed to kn
ow I would. Well, I am. I think maybe I’m the only one who’s surprised here.”
“All right.” Allison stepped forward and gave him a hug. “Be careful out there, Rafe. And don’t trust her any more than you have to. You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”
“I know. But I can’t leave her to hang. I’ve got to try to bring her home.” That was his job. That was what he’d signed on to do with the Rangers, and that was part of what he’d done while working with the NSA.
If he gave up that part of himself, if he let fear of all those long, torturous months in that North Korean prison stop him, then he’d never escaped.
He turned and stepped into the Hummer. He didn’t look back. Instead he focused on what lay ahead of him. That was the only way he could get the job done.
Chapter 19
A t Hong Kong International Airport, Shannon finally got through the long line to Customs in Terminal 1 after waiting as patiently as she could to be processed. She pulled her carry-on behind her and tried to reflect on what she’d learned about genetics research.
She’d covered the topic several times before. It was one of those interests that occasionally burned white-hot, then ebbed but never truly went away. Too many people believed that genetics research would ultimately end up creating soulless creatures, Frankenstein’s monsters, a slave race or a line of enhanced men and women that might take over the rest of humanity. Or be their saviors.
Either way, there was a lot of emotion involved on all sides. Science was at the threshold of one of the greatest mysteries ever, and efforts to see what was there were being hamstrung.
Shannon hadn’t thought about genetic tampering too much because it had always seemed like science fiction to her. But all the information she’d read about Dr. Aldritch Peters and Lab 33 had been real. And it had been amazing.
In addition to the information Kwan-Sook had given her, Shannon had also searched for the man on the Internet. She’d gotten thousands of hits.
The problem was that there was so much information it was hard to decipher what was pertinent—or even the truth. Some of the genetics pages she’d landed on had praised Peters’s research as some of the most forward thinking of his time and said he should have been allowed to continue his work.
Other Web sites blasted the geneticist as being more interested in the pure science of the possible than in the ramifications such ability would engender.
It was all exciting, and Shannon had no doubt that she would turn it into an equally fascinating story. The bonus was getting to lambaste the Athena Academy, Allison Gracelyn and all those others who had looked down their noses at her for so long.
The iPhone rang. She hadn’t noticed it at first. She was seriously jet-lagged from over twenty hours of nonstop flight. The quick layover in Beijing had been nothing more than a bump in the road.
“Shannon,” she answered. Then hoped that no one paid too much attention to her. The ID she was traveling with listed her under another name.
“Where are you?” Randall Bellamy demanded. He was her main producer. He’d grumbled about giving her a couple days off to deal with the business in Washington, D.C.
Shannon looked around at the crowded terminal. “I’m in Hong Kong.”
“What?” All the wind in Bellamy’s sails seemed to leave at once. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“Not. Joking.” Shannon kept walking and skirted people slower than she was.
“What are you doing in Hong Kong?”
“Chasing the story of my life,” she replied. And if it didn’t turn out that way, she was going to be really upset.
That got Bellamy’s attention. “What story?”
No matter how upset he was, he was still a newsman.
“Genetic experimentation on humans.”
“Why are you wasting your time with that? Unless you can show people a two-headed goat or one hundred and one Dalmatians all cloned from one dog, viewers aren’t going to care. Did you know you’re still wanted for questioning by the D.C. cops?”
“It would be kind of hard to forget that, don’t you think?”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing. They’ll sort that out there. I didn’t have anything to do with that.” Shannon was certain Allison and Rafe would have to make that problem go away if they were going to have any peace in their lives.
In fact, the story about Vincent Drago and the four men killed at the hotel had already fallen off the radar.
“You were identified there. I’ve seen YouTube videos of you running through the streets with some guy with a gun after you. Some of those clips even show the car that ran the guy down just before it looked like he was going to shoot you.”
YouTube, Shannon thought. That would be one area that Allison couldn’t control.
“Would you listen to yourself?” Shannon asked. “I’d think those are perfectly good reasons for me not to be there.”
“They were trying to kill you in D.C.,” the producer pleaded.
“The fans in New York still love you.”
“There are people there,” Shannon said in an icy tone, “who are not fans.”
“The point is,” Bellamy said in exasperation, “that the whole world has footage of ABS’s star news reporter running for her life while being chased by an armed madman, then saved by a guy who brought a car to a gunfight—but we don’t!”
Star news reporter sounds good. Shannon smiled to herself.
“The next time I’ve got getting chased by a madman on my schedule, I’ll make sure I’ve got a cameraman scheduled,” she said.
“This is the first time I’ve gotten through to you in the last twenty-four hours.”
“I’ve been busy.” And I’ve been avoiding this call because I knew this was exactly what I was going to get.
“Busy?” Bellamy cursed.
“Did I mention the illegal genetics experimentation?”
“In Hong Kong?”
“The experimentation was done in Phoenix, Arizona. Senator Marion Gracelyn knew about it.”
Bellamy cursed, then got hold of himself. “Shannon,” he said in a voice that sounded forced and artificially calm. “Do you realize how many stories you’ve tried to do about the Athena Academy and Marion Gracelyn?”
“More than the network has let me run.”
Bellamy was quiet for a moment. “This feud you’ve had going with Tory Patton is approaching irrational.”
“That’s because you don’t take it personally enough.” Shannon looked around and found the signage advertising ground transportation.
“This story isn’t something we want to do.”
Shannon felt a little threatened by that. Her world lurched. But she felt a spark of anger and she nourished it. This was her vindication against Marion Gracelyn, Allison and Athena. She wasn’t going to be deprived of it.
“This story is exactly what we should want to do,” she said calmly. “It’s smart. It’s sexy. And it’s cutting-edge. More than that, it’s got so much controversy surrounding it that people can’t help but take notice.”
“You need to come back, Shannon.”
Shannon went down the steps and looked out at the skyline of Hong Kong. She’d been to the city before, but it was always breathtaking.
Hong Kong International Airport had been built on land reclaimed from the sea and had opened for business in 1998. The locals knew it as Chek Lep Kok Airport, named after the island it was built on. A hotbed of activity, the airport was the main passenger and cargo hub of the area. It operated twenty-four hours a day. Every time Shannon had been there, the airport had been noisy and crowded.
“I need to do this story,” Shannon stated firmly.
Bellamy paused. “Corporate is talking about suspending your pay until you get back here.”
That angered Shannon even more. Threats didn’t sit well with her. “Tell corporate I’ve got vacation time coming.”
She’d worked years without
taking vacation or sick days. Trying to beat Tory Patton had been demanding. It was hard for Shannon not to be in front of a camera. That was the only time she was making points in the competition.
“They’re not going to be happy with that,” he warned.
“I’m not happy now.”
“You’re putting your job on the line, Shannon. I have to tell you that.”
“All right.” Shannon couldn’t believe she said that so calmly. Her job meant everything to her. It was the only thing she had that was truly hers.
“Don’t tell me that you—”
“There are YouTube video clips of me out there running for my life,” Shannon interrupted. “That was part of this. Those people tried to kill me. An agent of the National Security Agency took me hostage tonight. I’m tracking a geneticist who is believed by some to be the second coming of science, who ended up getting shut down by the federal government—with all his research being locked down. And you think this is a career buster?”
Bellamy didn’t say anything. She knew she had him thinking.
“Personally,” Shannon said, “I think if I bring this story in, I’ll be able to write my own ticket for anywhere I want to go.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “You tell corporate that. And you remind them that I’ve been a team player all these years. If they want to change that and not respect that relationship, then I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Shannon.” Bellamy’s voice softened. “Don’t be hasty. Let me talk to corporate and lay this out for them. You know that I’ve always valued your work.”
Sucking up so does not become you, Shannon thought. She wanted to tell him that. She was sorely tempted. But those words could be a stumbling block later.
“Give me a day or two,” Shannon said. “Long enough to run down the leads I’ve got. If something comes of this, you’ll be the first to know.”
“All right. This story sounds really big.”
Amazing how quickly the tune can change when you get on board. Of course, if this blew up in her face, things at the network would be difficult for a while. But her life hadn’t been anything without adversity.
“Miss Connor?”
Startled by the man that seemingly appeared out of nowhere at her side, Shannon said, “I’ve got to go.” She closed the phone before Bellamy could protest. She looked at the man. “Do I know you?”
Beneath the Surface Page 15