Final Challenge
Page 22
Harold looked very worried. Kelly told him that Clerigan could have gotten an organic moiety of the President four years ago, possibly taking advantage of his presence at any public event, presumably a campaign rally. It would then be sufficient that any person of the teams of cleaning had collected a hair, only one, to get their DNA, which after referral to the genetic disturbance that caused the acceleration of the aging process, lead to the achievement of a clone, an older brother of Tommy that looked of his own age. Then Harold would have been kidnapped to be supplanted by that clone. If the assumption f Kelly was correct, probably the country was being ruled by a being like him physically but with a mental age of no more than twelve, and, worse still, he would share the bed with Carol. How would his wife react? Had she noticed it?... Harold didn't hesitate, the answer could only be affirmative, and not because his clone did not have the scar of that operation for appendicitis that he had suffered when he was a child. Most likely she would think that he had a dementia syndrome or simply that he had gone mad.
Harold was only partly right. Carol, despite the changes suffered by person that she thought that was her husband, had never doubted that man was really Harold, physically looked like to be his twin, and thinking of another possibility was ridiculous. And althought Dr. O'Connor barely allowed her to be by his side, she had had a chance to see, in more than one occasion, that scar. Clerigan and his people had so thoroughly researched his past as his every detail of his character. They had made definitely an almost perfect work.
What Harold did not know was that, almost coinciding with his arrival at Kennedy Airport in New York from Manaus, his clone had died accompanied in his last moments by O'Connor, who had remained faithful to him during the last few days, in fact barely had separated from him, and Carol, who was plunged into grief and was victim of an incipient depression.
Kelly and Hanson brought the facts to the attention of the FBI that in concert with the CIA decided to enable a private plane to pick them up in Manaus and moving them to New York. Thence Kelly, Hanson and the President went to Memphis, where he was admitted to a health center surrounded by the more consistent and strict security measures. The media were invited to notify them that the president hadn't dead, that someone should have leaked this news maliciously, a persistent rumor that was about to be published in newspapers. Instead they were told that the president was recovering miraculously thanks to a new treatment, a cutting edge gene therapy that he had accepted as a last resort. This last idea, which did not lack credibility and had some parallelism with the ordeal suffered by Harold, had been proposed by Hanson and applauded by Kelly, who in turn managed to convince his superiors. Shortly before the unexpected announcement to the media, Hanson and Kelly met with Carol to explain in detail all the events and preparing her for the big news, that her husband was alive and looking forward by her visit at a hospital in Memphis, where he was recovering.
Carol received the greatest joy of his life. Really at the bottom of her heart always had harbored the hope that that individual was not her husband, for the simple reason that, sick or not, he was very different of his Harold, though that rationality had finally prevailed on her mind.
The next morning the newspapers published the scoop on the front page, with a huge photo of Harold smiling, relaxed, kissing his wife. Treatment was booming and promising results predicted a quick recovery. But Harold also said that in any case he had decided to give up for election to enjoy what remained of his life with his wife.
For the vast majority of readers there were two news in the obituary section that went unnoticed, because they barely seemed to be relevant. One of them echoed that Dr. O'Connor, the private physician of former president in recent months, had suffered a sudden heart attack. It was so strange for the unexpected, since, despite its hefty weight, he enjoyed excellent health. The other news was related to Edwards, previously head of Marvin and Hanson. He had suffered a car accident. He apparently had run out of brakes when coming down from his house on the hill to his favorite golf course.
Newspapers had to make many prints that day, and most, a second edition at noon, with another story that was a real hit. Peter Feaks, candidate of the Party for the elections following the resignation of Harold, had been killed by three accurate bullets during a rally in a public park. It opened a mystery about his successor, but Harold had advanced that his decision was irrevocable.
Kelly, and Marvin Hanson were the only ones who could connect the dots. O'Connor, Edwards and Feaks had been killed by the plot that had financed the activities of Clerigan. The same that had ended with the life of Owen. They only didn't understand as they had got to know out the final outcome in the Amazon and of their private flight from Manaus to the U.S., since it was confidential information. It could have been Olsen, the scientist enrolled in the ranks of Clerigan who was out buying some supplies, who had sounded the alarm. Other possibility, that they preferred to ignore, was they could have influential people able to find out state secrets that were held by only a few privileged of FBI and CIA.
O'Connor had been appointed by the plot to monitor the activities and reactions of the clone of the President, infusing him confidence about his final recovery and trying that he spoke only the essential and with the least people possible in order to avoid suspicion, especially by Carol.
About their boss, his death under mysterious circumstances confirmed the suspicions of Marvin. When their investigations had begun to bear fruit, pointing in the right direction, someone had forced Edwards to let them out of the way and, above all, to falsify the report. Nor it should have cost so much of convincing him, Hanson thought, because he had persecuted them from the beginning trying to relegate them to ostracism.
They had no doubt that Clerigan was right when he said that there were people with a lot of weight supporting him. Kelly had a feeling of insecurity that she transmitted to Hanson. They could be the subject of their persecution, his life was in danger. She was reassured by her beloved one. They had put all the information held by the FBI and this in turn of the CIA, so their hypothetical death would lead to more headaches than advantages to their executioners. The murder of O'Connor, Edwards and Feaks cut in the bud any possible line of research, so that those involved could breathe easy. Their crimes and their inordinate thirst for power would go unpunished, at least for this once.
But they also thought that, from that time, nobody could be sure that those atrocities would not be committed again. A dangerous door had been opened, a path into the abyss, because always there would be power-hungry and unscrupulous people able to take advantage of that technology put at their disposal to achieve their dark goals. They just would need to bribe someone who could put the mechanism in motion, or support a madman, as Clerigan, who had lost the course of his life by realizing an obsession.
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