“No, boss. Of course not.”
“But you left him alone to come and get me? Are you crazy?” Cooper didn’t wait for an answer. He rushed down the corridor to Cameron’s room, where he found the youngster grinning from ear to ear, his arm handcuffed to a bracket on the wall behind him. Two orderlies stood in the corner of the room, looking quite perplexed.
“Who authorised you to move this patient?” Cooper asked them.
“We got a transfer notice, here,” said the older of the two, holding out a piece of paper. Cooper took it and had a quick look, passing it to Quinn.
“Find out who authorised this, and why,” he said to Quinn. Then he turned back to the orderlies. “Go with this detective, and show him exactly where you got this from.”
“What about me?” asked Cameron, still grinning.
“You’re going nowhere, kiddo. Not without my say so.” Cooper unlocked the handcuffs and shook his head, but couldn’t hide his own smile once the others had left the room. “And not a word about that to anyone, either.”
51
Back in the visitor’s lounge, Beth was still trying to wrap her head around the idea that David would hurt either of her children. He’d always been so good with them. Surely he couldn’t possibly be planning to have one of their kidneys removed? It was so far-fetched. Then again, so was the idea that he’d kept his mother and brother a secret from the rest of the family for fifteen years, and that was now an indisputable fact.
“He’s not a monster,” said Annette.
“Of course he’s not, why would you even say something like that?”
“I don’t know. Those detectives seem pretty adamant that David’s going to do something drastic. You do, too.”
“Maybe they’ve got it wrong,” said Beth. “Maybe this plan B they keep talking about is something completely different. He’d never hurt Emily or Jacob. They love him to bits.” Oh, God. Beth couldn’t help but think of how innocently her children would have gone with David. How they’d do anything he told them to, because he was Uncle David. He was family, and they’d spent their entire lives trusting him implicitly. She’d been ringing his mobile number ever since Louis had called, but it kept going straight to voicemail. She tried again, and this time was surprised to hear it ring.
“Hello?”
“David? Where are you?” It sounded like he was driving, she could hear the kids in the background.
“We’re just going for a drive, aren’t we kids? Say hi to Mum.”
“Hi, Mum! Uncle David bought us ice cream!” said Emily.
“Aren’t you lucky?” Beth tried to keep her voice upbeat, the last thing she wanted was to let them know something was wrong. “Are you having fun?”
“Yes. Uncle David says we’re going for a drive, then we’re going to come and see you.”
“Well, you two be good, won’t you? I’ll see you very soon.” She didn’t know what to say, he had her on speaker and she didn’t want to upset the kids. “Are you there too, Jacob?”
“Yes, Mummy. I want to go home.”
Her heart broke at his little voice. “I know, sweetheart. Uncle David is going to bring you to me, aren’t you, Uncle David?”
“Sure. I just need you to do something for me first.”
“What?”
“Tell your detective buddies to put my brother in that ambulance.”
“They won’t do that, David. Please, bring me my children.”
“I want to, Beth, I really do. But I’m not losing another brother. Put him in that ambulance and I’ll let Jacob go.”
“And Emily?” It was all she could do to keep her voice light and steady.
“Em and I have a little adventure planned. But don’t worry, she’ll be home soon enough.”
David hung up then, but not before Beth heard Emily say “But…” It was only one word, yet it conveyed so much. Both her children were becoming frightened, and it wouldn’t be long before the tears and the screaming began. David was great with them on a normal day, but he wouldn’t be able to cope with tantrums. What would he do?
Beth tried to call back, but the phone went straight to voicemail again. She raised her arm, poised to throw the phone across the room, when Detective Cooper came back in.
“What’s going on?”
“Beth just spoke to David,” said Annette.
Cooper looked at Beth, and she pulled herself together enough to relay David’s message. “You have to get my children back,” she begged him once she’d finished. “He’s not thinking straight. I never thought he’d hurt them, but I don’t know who he is. This isn’t my gentle cousin anymore. Please, Detective. Get my babies back.”
“We’re doing everything we can. We found his car at the airport, but he’s not booked on any flights.”
“No, he was definitely driving when I spoke to him just now. He was on speaker, the kids were in the car with him.”
“Yes. We figure he must have hired another one. We’re checking with all the hire car companies at the airport, but it looks like he’s used a false identity like the one he set up for Annette. It will take some time to work out exactly what he’s driving.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” said Annette. “David’s not a bad person. Why is he doing this?”
“Are you aware of the arrests that were made at Fisher & Co earlier today?” Cooper asked her.
“No. I don’t get a lot of time to watch news. I’ve been here with Cameron most of the day. Why?”
“A joint strike force operation has busted a major drug importation ring involving at least one Fisher & Co employee. We expect to make more arrests in the coming days. Also uncovered today was an operation involving the Foundation your son David set up, which was illegally importing human eggs and embryos for research purposes. We believe David is responsible, which may indicate that he has something to do with the drugs as well.”
“But David is totally against drugs,” said Beth. “I can’t see him having anything to do with what you found on that ship this morning.” As she said it, Beth realised she actually had no idea what David was capable of — he’d just kidnapped her children.
“It’s possible he was condoning the drug importation in order to facilitate the other operation for his own purposes,” said Cooper. “The information I’m getting is that this ring is highly sophisticated, involving many people at many levels, including members of a motorcycle gang. There’s no way David could be an instigator in that business. He could, however, have turned a blind eye or even facilitated some part of the process in exchange for assistance bringing in his own kind of contraband.”
“Human eggs and embryos,” said Beth.
“Yes.”
Now it was Annette’s turn to look pale. “You mean… the work the Foundation was doing was illegal? Professor Keane’s research?”
“It seems that is the case, yes. Look, it’s complicated, and we have other things to worry about now. But the bottom line is, whatever David has been involved in he knows it’s all over. He knows Professor Keane isn’t going to be able to build Cameron a new kidney in time to save his life. He also knows that when we catch up with him we’re going to arrest him. So whatever plan B is, he’s putting it into action.”
Beth finally understood that the life of at least one of her children was in danger. David had nothing to lose now except his brother. He was going to get Cameron a new kidney, and he was going to take it from Emily.
“Professor Keane was the one who tested my children for compatibility to Cameron. Does David plan to have him do the transplant?”
“I doubt it,” said Cooper. “Professor Keane is a research scientist, not a surgeon.”
“Then what’s his plan?”
“I wish I knew.”
52
After bundling Beth and Annette back into Cameron’s ward, Cooper took over the visitor’s lounge as a mini command post. He called in a couple of uniforms from Wollongong Local Area Command to come and keep watch o
n Cameron, so he could get his partner back. He also called Flynn Anderson and sent him and Baxter out to Beth Fishers house, to keep Louis up to date and stop him from doing anything stupid. Parents of kidnapped children needed handling.
Before he hung up, Flynn had told him that Stan Walters had cracked. Grayson was doing the interview right now, and Stan was giving him everything, apparently, in hopes of not spending any or much time in jail. Cooper asked Flynn to get a message to Grayson: he wanted to know as much as possible about David’s involvement in the whole setup. It wasn’t long before Grayson called him back.
“David Fisher wasn’t an instigator, but he found out about the operation a number of years ago. This is a sophisticated setup, Coop. One of the biggest we’ve ever taken down.” Cooper could tell by his voice that Grayson was still on a high. He steered him back to the matter at hand.
“What did he do when he found out?”
“Apparently it was good timing for Fisher. His research team were going nowhere, they needed more stem cells or whatever it is. He sat down with Vince Macklin, and not long after that they both went to Thailand. Different flights, of course, but we’ve checked the records and they were both in Thailand at the same time. Walters says they went around to all the Thai fertility clinics and offered them big money for any ‘spare’ embryos or unfertilised eggs. It’s big business over there, you know. Lots of Aussies, people from all over the world, really, go there for IVF, surrogacy, egg donors, you name it. The laws are weak, and the ones that do exist aren’t policed. Anyway, it seems Fisher and Macklin came to this agreement that the drug operation could continue using Fisher & Co ships, and Macklin’s men would also bring in the embryos and eggs for the foundation.”
“And the murders?” Cooper asked.
“Walters says Macklin and the Chiefs were responsible for Terry Dorman, as well as Gail Simmonds and Anton Coffey. Simmonds got wind of something and started digging, her and her boyfriend put too many pieces of the puzzle together between them. The researcher was just unlucky enough to have the information on the memory stick tying Macklin to Fisher & Co.”
“What about Jill Fisher? She was the one who started all this.”
“Walters was adamant the Chiefs had nothing to do with that one.”
“Then who did?”
“He says he doesn’t know.”
“You believe him?”
“What reason would he have to lie? He’s just told us everything else.”
It was a good point. Cooper thanked Grayson for the information, and hung up just as Quinn joined him in the lounge. They quickly filled each other in, Quinn describing the mood change in the ward when two uniformed officers arrived to stand guard, and Cooper relaying what he’d just learned from Grayson.
“So you think David killed his cousin?” asked Quinn.
“Let’s think it through, knowing what we do now. Jill found the unsent email linking Fisher & Co to Macklin. That in itself wouldn’t be enough to set off alarm bells for her, would it? Would she even know who Macklin was?”
“He’s been in the news a fair bit, boss. Spokesperson for their unfair treatment with these new laws and all that crap.”
“Yeah, okay. Let’s assume she knew who he was. What would she do when she found the email? Keep quiet and do some digging, or tell someone she trusts?”
“My money’s on telling someone she trusts.”
“Mine too,” Cooper agreed. “She found the document on her computer terminal, which was down in Operations. Presumably Stan Walters was using her computer instead of his own as an added precaution against getting caught. He must have been interrupted, or something else went wrong, and that’s how Jill ended up seeing it.”
“So if she found it down there, she wasn’t going to talk to anyone else in Operations. She’d take it upstairs.”
“Right. Not to the big boss, her Uncle. Too busy. Who’s the person she trusts most in that company?”
“David. He was her cousin, someone she’d known all her life and the person who hired her in the first place. No way she’d think he was involved.”
“Exactly.”
“But if the email was on the memory stick,” said Quinn, “and Jill gave the memory stick to Beth at least a week before she died, wouldn’t that mean she sat on the information for that long? David didn’t kill her straight away.”
“He had no reason to. She proved by taking it to him that she didn’t know he was involved. He probably told her to keep quiet, for her own safety, while he investigated it in-house. Something else must have happened to trigger her murder.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to stay quiet anymore?”
“Maybe. I suspect we’re going to need to get those answers from David himself.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We wait. He can’t do anything without Cameron. We should be able to find him before he makes his next move.”
They didn’t have to wait long.
* * *
“Detective, please don’t let him hurt my baby.” Beth almost screamed the words as she ran into the visitors lounge, holding her phone out for Detective Cooper to see. She’d just received a text message from David. The photo was innocent enough, Emily and Jacob playing beside a shallow river. But the accompanying text had sent chills down her spine, and convinced her that her cousin was no longer the man she’d grown up with.
“Cooper read the message aloud. ‘No-one around. Jacob could drown here. Don’t let that happen. Give me my brother.’ You really think he’s capable of hurting your son?”
“Yes,” was Beth’s answer. “He has both my children, but he only needs Emily’s kidney. Jacob is expendable. For God’s sake, give him what he wants!”
“If I do that, I’m not only putting Cameron in danger, but your daughter as well. We have no idea how he plans to carry out this surgery, but you can bet it’s not going to be in a safe hospital environment with an approved surgeon. You really want me to take that risk with your daughter’s life?”
“If you don’t, he’ll kill my son. Oh my God, what do we do?” Beth went to the window and looked out over the city of Wollongong, this place that held the secret of her aunt and cousin for so many years. Emily and Jacob were out there, somewhere, and she couldn’t help them. She turned to her aunt, fists clenched by her sides. “You’ve known the true David for the last fifteen years,” she accused. “What do we do?”
Annette was immediately defensive. “I didn’t know anything about illegal drugs or stolen embryos,” she countered.
“I don’t care about any of that! He helped you run away, kept you hidden all this time, even when his own father was wrongly accused of murder. Now he’s stolen my children, and he’s threatening to hurt them. What kind of a man is he, really?”
“He just loves his brother, Beth. He was a wreck when we lost Tim, he felt so helpless. He doesn’t want to feel that way again.”
“What about how I feel? And Louis? He has our children, for fuck’s sake!”
“Beth, why don’t you sit down while we figure this thing out,” said Quinn.
“I don’t want to sit down.” She pushed away the chair he held out for her. “I want my children back. Why are you all just standing around? Why aren’t you looking for them?”
“We’re doing everything we can,” said Cooper. He turned to Annette. “Beth’s right, you know David better than anybody. Do you think he’d hurt Jacob?”
Annett’s focus shifted from Detective Cooper to Beth, and then back again. “Yes,” she finally said. “I think he’s capable of anything. He’s been singularly focused on saving Cameron’s life ever since we found out he had that fucking disease. It’s taken him over. I think you need to give him what he wants.”
53
“I don’t like this, boss.”
“You think I do?” they were travelling about a hundred metres or so behind the ambulance, one of two unmarked police cars to do so. They’d questioned the paramedics who had originally c
ome to transfer Cameron, but the guys were adamant they had nothing more than a standard transfer order. They were to take Cameron to St George Hospital in Southern Sydney. Cooper figured David’s plan was to stop the ambulance somewhere on the way. They’d replaced one of the paramedics, the driver, with an undercover officer, but left the other because Cameron needed specialist medical care. He’d been briefed, though, and Cooper was worried that he’d been a bit too willing to take on the job. Nothing he could do about that now. They had no idea what David had planned, and Cooper hated going into a last-minute operation like this with so many unknowns.
“He’s coming off the freeway,” said Quinn, moving over into the left lane so he could follow. The car behind did the same. The ambulance exited the freeway near Wollongong University, turned left and went back over the freeway, before rejoining it to head south. “He’s going back to the hospital.”
“Just wait,” said Cooper. He quickly sent a text to the paramedic, as per the plan they’d worked out earlier. Cooper didn’t want to use the two-way radios or phones in case David was listening in, but he was pretty sure they’d be able to text. He got a swift response. “Paramedic says they’ve been diverted to the airport at Albion Park. Wants to know if he should continue. I’ll tell him yes.”
Cooper typed the response. He’d had a feeling something like this would happen. There was no way any hospital or doctor in Australia would perform an illegal transplant surgery. David must have made arrangements to fly Cameron and Emily out of the country, somewhere the laws around these types of things were a little more relaxed. Somewhere like Thailand, where he’s already got contacts in the medical profession. Cooper got on the phone to the head of security at the airport, and confirmed that there was a Cessna Citation Jet currently fuelling for a trip to Darwin. He put Cooper on hold while he checked the status of the aircraft.
“What’s the plan?” asked Quinn.
“We need to think carefully. David’s going to have to assume we’ve followed the ambulance, he’ll be expecting us at the airport. He’s still got both Emily and Jacob, so he’ll use them as leverage to make us let the plane leave the ground. That can’t happen.”
The Dark Series Page 62