by Wally Duff
déjà-BOOM!
By
Wally Duff
A Hamlin Park Irregulars Novel:
Book 2
www.HamlinParkIrregulars.com
All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise — without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.
For permission requests, write to the publisher at:
Attention: Wallace Duff
c/o K, M & N Publishers, Inc.
Hamlin Park Irregulars, A Nebraska Limited Liability Co.
Suite 100, 12829 West Dodge Road
Omaha, NE 68154
© 2018 -- Wallace Duff. All rights reserved.
Visit the author’s website: www.HamlinParkIrregulars.com
First Edition
ISBN-13: 978-1732465206 (pbk)
ISBN-10: 1732465207 (pbk)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
To Bill Crozier, Dwayne Jelinek, and Perry Wickstrom:
Tim Newens and I will miss you three Benson Bunnies.
Just because it looks like a leprechaun and talks like a leprechaun, it doesn't mean it can't act like the little demon it is.
~ N.L. Gervasio, Nemesis
Part 1
Chicago, Illinois
August 2nd
1
“Dear girl, I am so delighted to meet you,” Dr. Michael Doyle said to my cleavage.
He glanced at the Chicago Sun-Times business card I’d handed to him. It identified me as one of their reporters.
“Christina Edwards, is it?”
He had a patrician British accent. Mine was pure Omaha, Nebraska.
“Please, call me Tina.”
We shook hands. Doyle put the card in his suit coat pocket. The aroma of sandalwood and something else, maybe jasmine, drifted over me.
I sniffed.
He caught me.
“Clive Christian No. 1, a gift from a grateful patient,” he said. “I am told it is the most expensive perfume in the world.”
“The scent goes beautifully with your suit.”
The material was dark blue silk with a faint burgundy stripe which matched his burgundy-colored French cuff shirt and burgundy, patterned Hermès tie. The large diamonds in his cufflinks cost more than I made in a year.
“Bespoke Savile Road. My personal tailor does a fantastic job, don’t you think?”
We were in his opulent, soon-to-be featured in Architectural Digest, four thousand four hundred and four square foot penthouse office on Chicago’s Lakeshore Drive. He indicated where he wanted me to sit, nodding toward a matched pair of padded Queen Anne chairs across from his mahogany desk, which was slightly smaller than the deck of a nuclear aircraft carrier.
Following his silent instructions, I sat down. He moved behind the desk and settled into an ergonomically-correct black leather chair. “How may I help you?”
He still spoke to my cleavage, and being a twenty-two-year-old female reporter, I was about to take advantage of that. I’d worn a short, tight black skirt, five-inch black pumps, and a clinging, white silk camisole top, which displayed enough to keep his focus on my physical assets and off the questions I was about to ask him.
Dr. Doyle was internationally known as the “Fat Doctor.” The European cut of the suit could not hide that he didn’t appear to be using his own weight-loss pill on a regular basis. In his PR press packet he was listed as five feet nine inches and one hundred fifty pounds.
That was a total fabrication. I am five feet eight, and even without my high heels, I would have towered over him. He was no more than five feet five, including the lifts in his glossy, burgundy Italian leather shoes. His slicked-back, abnormally black hair contrasted with his pale facial skin, but even a well-trimmed black beard couldn’t disguise jowls that proved his weight was north of two hundred pounds.
“Do you mind if I ask a few background questions to get to know more about you?” I asked.
That was a tiny fib. I knew more about him than he did. I was here because one of my Alpha Phi sorority sisters, Kelli Reischl, almost died from kidney failure while attempting to lose twenty pounds before our senior year spring break trip to Cabo.
Kelli was on renal dialysis for two months before her kidneys began functioning again. The end result was she missed that spring break and graduation. Her doctors never did come up with a reason for her near-death experience because she didn’t tell them about Doyle’s pills.
It wasn’t until after our graduation that I found out she had taken Doyle’s formulation right before her kidneys failed. I began sniffing around her story and discovered the real truth about Doyle.
2
“You received a medical degree and a PhD in biochemistry in London,” I said. “Gosh, you’re so young. That’s amazing.”
He arched his right eyebrow slightly. “I was gifted from an early age.”
“And then you came here to Northwestern Medical Center seven years ago where you discovered the treatment for obesity.”
It was hard to miss his glistening clear-polish manicure when he pointed at me with his stubby index finger. “I have to make one correction. I found the cure for obesity.”
From my background research, I learned that Doyle’s system worked. People did lose weight taking his supplements. But that wasn’t why I was there.
“It is not a claim,” he continued. “It is a scientific fact that my formula is effective.”
“I’m not a doctor or scientist, or anything like that, but isn’t something missing from those studies?”
He glanced down at his platinum Piaget watch and stifled a yawn. “Nothing, my dear. Absolutely nothing.”
“What about complications?”
He straightened up in his black leather chair. “There can be rare idiosyncratic reactions from any formulation.”
“How about kidney failure?”
“To my knowledge this has never occurred.”
I took out a copy of Kelli’s medical record from my briefcase and placed it on top of his well-polished desk. I slid it toward him. “Then how do you explain this?”
Out came his gold reading glasses. He glanced at her name on the record. “This interview is over. Please leave.”
“Dr. Doyle, tomorrow, my newspaper — the Chicago Sun-Times — is going to publish my investigative article alleging that your formula has dire side effects. I am here to give you an opportunity to present your side of the story. I think it would be in your best interest to give me a statement.”
“And I am certain my attorneys will disagree with you.” He picked up Kelli’s file and threw it in his wastebasket. “We are done here.”
“Before I leave, there is one other related item that you might want to comment on. What is the Vakili Corporation?”
“Bloody hell! I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s strange, because the Vakili Corporation provided the money for your two new Bentleys, your private jet, this office, and your Lakeshore condo, along with total financing of your entire operation. Isn’t that correct, doctor?”
Tiny beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. “My CFO is responsible for these financial matters.”
“Dr. Doyle, do you deny that your profits are being funneled through several off-shore shell businesses to the Vakili Corporation, a front for the Irish Republican Army terrorist activities in Ireland?”
Follow the money. That was the clue my bureau chief had given me when I first began researching Kelli’s story. While doing that, I fell in love with investigative journalism.
The real issue wasn’t Doyle’s formula. It was the money that he made off the fat Americans using his pills to lose weight. And he wasn’t British. He maintained that deception to mask his real country of origin.
From my background research, beginning with his birth, I discovered that “Mick” Doyle was Irish and his black hair was actually red.
Like a leprechaun.
Doyle’s laundered funds were distributed to his relatives in Ireland who ran the IRA. His money also supported al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, which provided training for IRA members, including instruction in firearms, car bombing, firebombing, shooting mortars, and constructing IEDs.
Once I discovered this, I alerted the Chicago PD and FBI, with the stipulation that they would give me an exclusive on the story.
I stood up and took out my cell phone, preparing to hit a speed dial number to the authorities who waited in the hallway. The sound of a bullet being chambered in a handgun stopped me.
3
“Put that phone down!” Doyle screamed.
Yikes!
Doyle assumed a shooter’s stance. He pointed the barrel of the gun between my eyes, something he might have learned at a Hezbollah training camp.
“Toss that phone to me,” he directed.
My heart thumped against my sternum. A call from my cell phone to the guys waiting in the hall was the only thing that could save me.
There might be a better option.
My brother is a professional baseball pitcher with the San Diego Padres, but he has always said I have a better throwing arm than he does.
“You want this?” I waved the phone at him. “Here it is, buster.”
Before Doyle could react, I threw the phone as hard as I could at his face, hitting him squarely on his nose. He dropped his gun and put his hands to his face. Blood from his nose squirted between his fingers. A new, metallic odor overpowered his expensive cologne.
I dove for the gun and landed on my stomach. He jumped on my back and grabbed my hair. He pulled back. The pain was excruciating.
I screamed and grabbed the barrel of the gun. I swung it backward over the top of my head. The grip made solid contact with his skull. It sounded like I’d thumped a ripe melon.
I kept swinging. He let out a loud groan. The pressure on my hair was released. I rolled out from under him.
He struggled to his knees. I swung the gun like I was hitting a tennis forehand and struck his left cheek and the side of his nose with the barrel.
There was a squish from his ripped skin followed by a crunch from his smashed bones. More blood flew out from his newly caved-in left cheek and increasingly deformed nose.
The force of the blow from the gun knocked him on his back. He sobbed, mingling tears with the blood surrounding him on his expensive wool carpet.
I reversed my grip on the gun and held it in front of me. In Nebraska, I’d grown up around guns and was an expert at shooting moving targets. If he tried to move, there was no way I could miss him.
And I won’t hesitate to do it.
4
I picked up my cell phone and speed-dialed the cops and FBI agents in the hallway to alert them that I had a gun in my hand and not to shoot me when they entered the room.
The door flew open. FBI agents and several Chicago Police Department officers rushed in.
A young Chicago policeman pointed at the blood-covered, whimpering Doyle thrashing around on the carpet. “What the heck happened to him?”
The cop was tall and muscular and looked like an Italian movie star sent in from central casting.
“He messed up my hair,” I said, shaking my long brown tresses to free up the tangles. “I’m all about my hair.”
He smiled. “Good to know.”
The cop put on latex gloves for protection from the blood streaming from Doyle’s face and nose. He pulled the doctor’s hands behind him and snapped handcuffs on his wrists. Jerking Doyle to his feet, he took out a white card and read the doctor his rights.
Doyle’s swollen nose rapidly turned dark purple, and his left eyelid puffed up to a tiny slit. The skin over his newly deformed left cheek, his nose, and other facial lacerations continued to bleed profusely.
To see me, he had to tilt his head back, giving me a disgusting view of the fresh blood now beginning to clot in his nostrils.
“I will kill you for this, if it’s the last thing I ever do,” Doyle hissed, his accent no longer British aristocracy.
Pure Irish.
He tried to spit blood in my face, but the cute cop shoved him away from me. “Button it, slick,” the cop said, as he twisted Doyle’s arm a little harder for emphasis.
That attracted the attention of one of the FBI agents. “Ease off, Infantino. We’ll take it from here.”
He released his grip on Doyle. The FBI agent pushed the doctor into the hall. Two Chicago PD detectives followed.
“You seem a little shook up even though you just beat the crap out of the doc,” Officer Infantino said to me.
“I’m okay,” I said, with more courage than I felt.
It was my first big story, and there was no way I was going to be terrified by Doyle. But as the adrenaline surge dissipated from my system, I realized I had been scared out of my mind.
Infantino eyed me up and down as he watched me attempt to control my rapid breathing. His gaze stopped at the same place Doyle’s did a few minutes before.
“How about having a drink with me after work to kind of relax, talk about the case, and so forth?”
I handed him my business card. “Call me.”
He fingered the card. “Go off-shift at four. Can be ready by seven.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be done with my edit by then, but I would like to go home and freshen up too.”
“No need, sweets. You look great the way you are.”
This was going to be the perfect way to celebrate my first big investigative journalistic story.
And I couldn’t wait.
Part 2
Chicago, Illinois
Saturday, August 12th
Fourteen years later
5
We traveled one block before I lost it.
“When were you going to tell me?” I asked.
I drove our blue Honda Odyssey “mommy van” home. My husband had consumed way more than his share of red wine during the Saturday night dinner party at Debbie and Rody Janzen’s house.
I was furious, and I’d held my anger in as long as I could.
“Tell you what?” Carter asked.
“About the bombing of an abortion clinic in Chicago!”
“It was not in Chicago.”
That stopped me. “It wasn’t?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
Something’s not right.
“Then why were you and Rody talking about it?”
“We discussed several of his stories that I’m editing.”
Carter is an assistant managing editor for local news at the Chicago Tribune. Rody is one of his reporters.
“It’s late, and I’ve had too much to drink,” he continued. “Can we talk about this in the morning?”
I pulled the van to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. “Where was the clinic located?”
“In Deerfield.”
“Deerfield? You didn’t think I would be interested in hearing about a bombing,” I took a deep breath, “thirty minutes from our front door?!”
“Honey, it’s late. Let’s go home.”
“Do the police know who did it?”
He shook his head.
“Was it the same M.O. as Arlington?”
He took in a deep breath before he responded. “The device was made of C4 and left in the men’s bathroom.”
C4!
Hearing that thrust me back into the hallway of an Arlington, Virginia
, abortion clinic over five years ago. I chased a story about a bomber and nearly died when he detonated a C4 bomb hidden in the men’s bathroom.
Just like in Deerfield.
Here it comes.