by Taylor Smith
Chaney shifted his gaze across the park, frowning thoughtfully. “Rachel Kingman might know.”
“Know…?”
“Whether anyone had come fishing for information on David. She was his doctor. If someone had found out about the accident at the lab, they might have approached her for information on his medical history.”
“You’re probably right. I should have asked when we were in there, but after she dropped that bomb about David’s sterility, I couldn’t bear to hear another word.”
“I know, it was a shock. But we should find out, Mariah. I’ll go back, if you want. You can wait here.”
“No, it’s all right.” She nodded toward a phone booth on the edge of the park. “But I think I’ll call rather than go up. I can’t handle facing her just now.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to do it?”
She shook her head wearily. “Have a seat while I use the phone. I’ll be right back.”
Standing in the phone booth, listening to the ring at the other end, Mariah watched Paul across the park. He was bending down to gather clumps of wet snow, which he packed into balls and pitched at a nearby tree trunk, his expression grim. One after another, they smacked against the bark, exploding in a soggy, white shower. Last night, in the dark, he had told her he loved her. Now, in the harsh light of this day, he must be feeling like a fool, knowing what kind of person she really was. And even though she had never let herself seriously contemplate the possibility of having him in her life, she felt, amidst all the other emotions raging inside, a deep sense of loss that came from knowing he, too, would soon be gone. That sense of loss, she realized, was a measure of the distance they had traveled since that first tense night at the nursing home—and since Vienna.
She turned away from him as the phone was picked up.
“Dr. Kingman’s office.”
“Is this Beth?”
“Yes.”
“Beth, this is Mariah Bolt. I’m the friend who was with Dr. Kingman when you came in this morning. Could I speak with her?”
“Oh, hi. I’m not sure if she’s still here. She was about to leave for the seniors’ center.”
“Can you catch her?”
“I’ll try, but she was running late. Someone else showed up after you left.”
“Please try, Beth. It’s urgent.”
“Hold on.”
As Muzak wafted across the telephone link, Mariah riffled through the pages of the phone book in the booth, looking for the address of the seniors’ center. She had just found it when Beth came back on the line, obviously out of breath.
“Hi,” she said. “I caught her. She was just about to get on the elevator. She’ll be right here.”
“Thanks, Beth.”
“No problem.”
The Muzak returned briefly, and then Mariah heard an extension click followed by Rachel Kingman’s anxious voice. “Mariah? Where are you? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Rachel. I’m sorry I rushed out like that. It was just such a shock.”
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. But when you mentioned your daughter, it took me completely by surprise. I shouldn’t have blurted it out the way I did.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s just that David never told me. I had been briefly involved with someone else before he came back into my life, but for all these years I really believed David was Lindsay’s biological father. I believed it because I wanted—desperately—for it to be true. I think what hurts most is that he knew, but he never let on. He just swallowed his pride and took on another man’s child.”
“All he wanted was to be with you, Mariah. Like most people who have confronted their mortality, David had a clear sense of what was really important to him. If you felt the same way about him, I think that’s all he would have cared about.”
“I did, Rachel. But our secrets undid us in the end. And I need to know who else knew the truth, because I think that person was responsible for the attack on David in Vienna.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’m not, but it’s the only thing I can figure at the moment. How about it, Rachel? Who else would have been aware of his condition?”
“No one here would have known that he was permanently sterile. During the recuperation period in the lab’s medical facility, his sperm count was checked and was initially noted as being very low, which is quite common in these cases. Human beings are about the most radiosensitive creatures on the face of the earth, and no part of the human anatomy is more sensitive than the reproductive organs.”
Mariah felt her stomach flip. “Initially low, you said. You mean maybe the damage wasn’t permanent?”
“Hold on, I’m not finished. There are documented cases where the sperm count has returned to near-normal levels after a trauma like this, but the recovery period is generally a year or two.”
Mariah’s hopes crashed. “So there’s no chance David could have fathered Lindsay?”
“No, I’m afraid not, but not just for that reason.”
“What do you mean?”
Rachel Kingman’s sigh was audible. “David was a scientist, Mariah. He may have had an exuberant personality, but he wasn’t one to kid himself. As a scientist, he knew the risks of gene damage after exposure to radiation. Even if the organism manages to reproduce, there’s a high probability of genetic mutation that could be passed on to offspring. The mutation might not manifest itself for two or three generations, but it would be random and potentially deadly. David wasn’t prepared to take that risk where unborn children were involved.”
“What are you saying, Rachel?”
“I’m saying that David insisted on being sterilized—permanently. I performed the vasectomy myself.”
Mariah put her hand to her forehead and leaned against the wall of the phone booth. “Oh, my God,” she breathed.
“The thing is, Mariah, I didn’t do it at the lab complex, so it’s not in their records. I was just in the process of setting up my practice. David was self-conscious about it and didn’t want the whole lab to know, so he asked me to do it quietly here. Maybe it wasn’t the soundest professional decision I’ve ever made, but after everything he’d been through, I felt he deserved the dignity of a private decision on this.”
“And you never told anyone? Not even Larry?”
“Aside from the fact that I respect patient confidentiality, my husband was David’s boss, and David had asked me not to tell anyone at the lab. So, no, I didn’t tell Larry. But I did tell someone, I’m afraid, Mariah. Afterward, I regretted it, but at the time, I still had the lab security ethic deeply ingrained.”
“Security? What do you mean?”
“It was not long after David left Los Alamos. I had a visit from a CIA officer. David had confided to me that you’d gone to work there. Apparently, the two of you had decided to get married and the CIA man said he was doing a routine security check.”
“That’s normal when employees marry,” Mariah said, nodding.
“Well, he had already been to the lab. He knew about the fire and he knew that I had been David’s physician. For a security man, he seemed to know a great deal about the effects of radiation. He kept asking questions and in the end, I’m afraid, I told him everything.”
“And?”
“It was strange, his reaction. He seemed stunned. And then he told me never to tell anyone else what I had told him, that I should treat the information as top secret. Destroy any written record, in fact. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“Very,” Mariah said, frowning. Alarm bells were ringing furiously in her brain. “Do you remember the name of this security man, Rachel?”
“No, I’m afraid not. It was such a long time ago. But I do remember what he looked like. You don’t forget a character like that.”
“What did he look like?”
“Very big—tall and broad. And completely bald, except for these great dark eyebrows. Quite a fearsome fellow, actually.”
“Frank.”
“What?”
“Frank Tucker,” Mariah said dully. “Was that the name, Rachel?”
“I’m not sure, Mariah, but that rings a bell. Tucker—yes, I think that was it.”
Mariah pounded the wall of the booth. “Did anyone else make inquiries, Rachel? More recently, maybe, a year or so ago? Or could someone have seen David’s medical file?”
“His file is locked away in a safe. I couldn’t bring myself to destroy it, but it’s been sitting on the bottom of that safe for fourteen years. I just noticed it there the other day, in fact. Until this morning, I’d never discussed his case with anyone but that Tucker character. But—”
“What?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this.” Rachel sounded hesitant, but then she plunged ahead. “Oh, look, I know you and I know you wouldn’t be up to anything you shouldn’t be.”
“What is it?”
“A man came up here not long after you left. Knew you had been to see me. Wanted to know what you were after.”
“Did he give his name?”
“He said his name was George Sanders.”
“Sanders? What did he look like?”
“In his fifties, well dressed, silver hair. Very smooth.”
George Neville, Mariah thought, her heart pounding. “And? What else did he ask?”
“Mariah, he knew—about your daughter. Wanted to know about the lab accident and who else might have been aware of it.”
“Did you mention Tucker’s visit?”
“No, I’m not sure why. I just didn’t like his style. I told this Sanders fellow that you and I were old friends and were just having an ‘old friends’ kind of chat. He didn’t buy it, though. He wanted to know if you’d asked about Larry. I said you’d just expressed condolences. Mariah,” Rachel asked anxiously, “what on earth is going on?”
“God only knows, Rachel. Look, I have to run, but I’ll be in touch again, I promise.”
“Mariah, wait—”
But Mariah had already dropped the phone. Turning around, she spotted Paul across the park just as he was jumped by two men. One was a stranger, but the other, she realized as she struggled to get the door of the phone booth open, was the hawk-faced man in the Newsweek photo of Angus McCord in Russia—the man Chaney had identified as Dieter Pflanz.
When she finally managed to wrestle the door open, Mariah ran, plunging her hand into her coat pocket as she went. But as her fingers wrapped around the butt of Frank’s gun, a voice from behind stopped her in her tracks.
“Hold it, Mariah!”
She withdrew the weapon and wheeled around to confront George Neville emerging from behind a tree on the other side of the telephone booth. He stopped when he saw the gun in her hand.
“Is that really necessary?”
“Yes, it is. Tell those goons to let him go, Neville.”
“My, my, your little stint with our side of the shop certainly toughened you up, didn’t it?” Neville shook his head in mock dismay. “Another angel falls.”
“I’m not kidding! Tell them to let him go, now!”
Her eyes followed Neville’s glance across the park, where Pflanz and the other man were working to subdue a struggling Chaney. Neville turned back to face her. “Calm down, Mariah. We need to talk.”
“I’m losing patience.”
“No doubt. But you’re not going to shoot me. We both know it, so why don’t you just give me that gun before someone gets hurt?”
“Don’t count on it, buster! I’m sick of lies and deceit. Tell them to leave Chaney alone and then maybe we’ll talk. You’ll talk, I should say. You’ll tell me exactly what the hell you and Tucker and Pflanz and his boss have been up to.”
Neville seemed taken aback. He cocked his thumb in Pflanz’s direction. “How do you know who he is?”
“Tell them to release Paul. Now!”
Neville looked at the others. “Well, I’d like to, Mariah, really I would. That does look painful, doesn’t it?” He winced and turned to her again. “But we have a small problem, I’m afraid. You see, Pflanz there would like nothing better than to break that reporter’s neck, and whether or not you shoot me is immaterial. I think the only chance we have to save the amorous Mr. Chaney is to hustle over there and try to convince Pflanz that the two of you will listen to reason.”
“Reason? What are you talking about?”
“We made a mistake, Mariah. We should have brought you up to speed long before now, but Tucker didn’t think you could handle it. I think he’s wrong. I think you not only have a need to know but a right to know. Chaney presents something of a problem, but maybe if we had brought you in sooner, things never would have gotten to this point. So why don’t we just go and rein in those fellows before that reporter loses an arm—or worse.”
From the corner of her eye, Mariah noticed at least two other men approaching cautiously from the edges of the park, watching her and Neville, their hands hidden deep in pockets that no doubt held more than handkerchiefs. Somehow, she didn’t think they were there to rescue her and Paul.
“You’re going to have to hand over the gun, Mariah,” Neville said, confirming it. “There are some jumpy people here this morning and they frown on this sort of bravado, I’m afraid.”
Still she hesitated. Frank had given her the weapon for self-defense after Burton’s attack, despite Neville’s promise of protective surveillance. Tucker, it had been apparent, didn’t altogether trust Neville, and neither did Mariah. But at the same time, she realized, she had been living a lie for fourteen years, a lie that Frank had helped to perpetrate and that had destroyed her family in the end. Worse yet, Frank had been the only person who knew how the lie had made David vulnerable to blackmail—the only person who could have used the secret to betray them. She couldn’t begin to understand why Frank would have wanted to do that, but the evidence of his involvement was unavoidable.
All she really knew for certain, Mariah thought as she saw Pflanz slam Chaney to the ground, was that Paul had landed in trouble because he cared for her and David. He had become entangled in the consequences of their past deceptions, and she couldn’t stand by now and watch him be injured—or worse—for it. She dropped her arm and reluctantly handed the gun to Neville.
“Attagirl,” he said, slipping the weapon into his coat pocket and taking her firmly by the elbow. “Let’s go rescue your friend.”
A few minutes later, Mariah and Chaney were hustled into the back seat of a dark sedan, locked in while Neville and Pflanz launched into an obviously tense debate a short distance away.
“Looks like they aren’t entirely agreed about what to do with us,” Chaney noted as he rubbed his upper arms.
“Neville’s playing good cop to Pflanz’s bad,” Mariah said, “but I wouldn’t trust either one as far as I could throw them. Are you all right?”
“Fine, aside from having my arms nearly ripped out of their sockets.”
Mariah massaged his shoulder. “Oh, Paul, I’m sorry you got dragged into this mess.”
“No one dragged me. I walked in with my eyes wide open. I cared too much for you, and for David, to let it drop when I knew the attack in Vienna was deliberate.”
Mariah turned and stared out the window. “Oh, David,” she said softly. “What did I do to you? What did I get you into?”
Chaney took her hand in his. “Mariah, listen to me. I know how much this hurts. But you’re just as sinned against as sinning. David should have told you about his injuries.”
“Why did we do it, Paul? How could two people who loved each other so much keep secrets like that?” She exhaled deeply. “I never even considered telling David about what had happened with Frank that time. It was such a mistake, I just wanted to pretend it never happened.”
“And I’m sure that once he had you back, David didn’t want to risk losing you again. He let you believe the baby was his, knowing it would bind the two of you together even more tightly.”
> “That’s more or less what Rachel said, too. But Paul, she also told me that Frank Tucker was here asking questions after David and I got back together. He knew. And Neville was just up to see her and he knows, too. No one else did. Do you know what that means?”
Chaney nodded. “This doesn’t look good at all.” He glanced out the window at Neville and Pflanz, who had evidently come to an agreement and were heading for the car. “Moreover,” Chaney added, “I think that Pflanz fellow has a very personal dislike for me, for some reason.”
“When did you begin to suspect?” she asked wryly.
A rear door opened and Neville slipped in beside Mariah. Pflanz dropped into the front passenger seat, while the second man who had jumped Chaney got behind the wheel and started the engine.
“Where are we going?” Mariah asked.
“Back to work. Holiday’s over,” Neville replied.
“Some holiday. Now how about telling us what’s going on, as you promised?”
“In the fullness of time, my dear,” Neville said, nodding in the direction of the driver. “Little pitchers have big ears, as they say.”
They drove in silence to a government airfield on the outskirts of town, where a Learjet stood parked on the tarmac. Mariah recognized it as the latest thing in corporate jets, another example of military technology going civilian. Nicknamed “the Hummingbird,” the plane could take off and land almost vertically and could hover nearly as well as a helicopter. Its price tag put it out of the reach of anyone but the Gus McCords of this world, however.
The driver of the car left as soon as they got out. As they walked across the tarmac, Mariah could see the pilot in the cockpit. He had evidently been alerted to their arrival because the engines were running and he seemed to be making final preparations for takeoff. Sure enough, the plane began to taxi as soon as they were inside and Pflanz pulled the door shut.