The Hidden Genes of Professor K: A Medical Mystery Thriller (Jack Rogan Mysteries Book 3)

by Gabriel Farago

  Kobo put a few more notes into the bowl and got to his feet. ‘Come,’ he said to Jack, and together they walked back to the bike.

  ‘Any luck?’ said Jack.

  ‘Let’s go home first, and I’ll tell you.’

  Kobo’s dog greeted Jack like a long lost friend and wouldn’t leave his side. Kobo went into the kitchen and returned with two beers. ‘Cheers,’ he said, and raised his bottle.

  ‘Well?’ said Jack, enjoying his first refreshing sip of the cold beer. ‘Are you stringing this out on purpose, or do you want to get me drunk first, before letting me down gently?’

  ‘I have some information you’ll find most interesting,’ said Kobo, grinning from ear to ear. ‘You saw what happened. At first, he didn’t want to talk, then came the usual thing. He asked for money …’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Rahim was right. The old man was part of the search party looking for Lady Elms. He was a tracker. They found the couple hiding in a small native village near the ruins of the Van Der Hooven farm. Siegfried knew the chief, and many of the young men there were his childhood friends. They put up a fight, with spears and clubs mainly. The search party was, of course, well-armed and killed a number of them. Siegfried was captured, tied to a post and badly beaten. The old man was sure they intended to kill him, but some of the young men hiding in the bush managed to cut him loose during the night and helped him escape. He got away. But the old man did say that Siegfried’s injuries were so severe, he doubted he would have survived for long.’

  ‘Was that it?’ said Jack.

  ‘Yes. That’s all he had to say. Obviously there must have been a lot more to it all, but he wouldn’t go any further. You heard what Rahim said. There was a cover-up and I’m sure everyone in the search party was somehow involved. Lord Elms would have paid handsomely for silence. That’s how things concerning whites were resolved here at the time,’ Kobo added quietly.

  Jack held up his empty bottle. ‘I need another beer,’ he said. ‘This definitely deserves another bonus. Great work, Kobo!’

  Jack opened his notebook and quickly looked at the entries he had made during the day. While excellent progress had been made – especially with the old man hinting at a possibility that Siegfried may have survived – Jack found himself at a dead end.

  What if he did somehow survive? Where would he have gone? How would he have lived? thought Jack, playing with his pencil. Not even his mother seems to have known anything about this. He must have gone into hiding. How strange … Jack closed the notebook. Or perhaps he just died and this is as far as we can go. Perhaps this is it …

  Kobo saw the disappointment on Jack’s face. ‘Why don’t we take a fresh look at all this tomorrow?’ he said, and handed Jack another beer.

  Kobo was enjoying himself. His client had just promised him another bonus and was preparing dinner. Jack loved cooking. He had just finished chopping the fresh vegetables from Kobo’s garden and was expertly cutting some chicken into thin strips.

  ‘Preparation; it’s all in the preparation,’ said Jack, turning up the heat under the wok. ‘Now, some lemongrass and chilli. Voilà. Almost there. Get the plates!’

  ‘I had word from Sharif earlier,’ said Kobo, tucking into Jack’s tasty curry. ‘You remember the man I spoke to in front of the police station?’ Jack nodded. ‘One of Sharif’s men. Sharif took Dr Gaal’s death very badly. He’s already hunted down two of the culprits. Al-Shabaab, just as we suspected. But there was something else …’

  ‘What?’ said Jack.

  ‘The camp’s gone. Torched. Nothing left. A white South African was giving all the orders. A tough guy. Mercenary most likely.’

  ‘We must have really spooked someone big time,’ said Jack.

  ‘Yes,’ said Kobo, turning serious. ‘And that worries me.’

  ‘The hand?’

  ‘That’s part of it.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Just a hunch, but we have to be careful.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Kobo must have sensed something, because two armed men were hiding in the thick bushes nearby. One of them had a pair of binoculars and was watching Jack and Kobo through the open window. The other was cleaning his gun.

  72

  Someone was banging on the door of Kobo’s shack, and excited voices could be heard coming from outside. It was just getting light when Kobo answered the door.

  Woken by the commotion, Jack sat up in his bunk in the kitchen and kept rubbing his eyes. ‘What’s going on?’ he said sleepily.

  ‘Something awful; come!’ Kobo was getting dressed.

  ‘What?’ said Jack, looking for his jeans.

  ‘One of my neighbours just called in about the old man we visited yesterday. He’s dead. Bashed to death.’

  ‘Jesus!’

  Kobo and Jack hurried outside, hopped on the bike and raced down the lane to have a look.

  The old man was lying face down in a pool of blood in front of his hovel. The back of his head had been crushed and something grey and sticky-looking was oozing out of a large open wound covered in flies. Another old man and two women stood under the tree, watching.

  Jack looked at the broken bowl at the old man’s feet. The money was gone. ‘Robbery?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t think this has something to do with our visit?’

  ‘Not sure,’ said Kobo, shaking his head. ‘Let’s get away from here!’

  ‘Shouldn’t we report this?’

  ‘Already been done. There’s nothing more we can do for the poor wretch.’

  Kobo felt suddenly uneasy. The violent death of the old man had unsettled him. Attacks like this were rare in the neighbourhood.

  As soon as he stopped the bike in the laneway outside his cottage, Kobo knew something was wrong: the gate was open. The dog, he thought, where’s the dog? Without fail, Kobo’s dog would come running to greet him.

  Kobo ran towards the house. ‘Oh no!’ he shrieked. The dog was lying on the doorstep, his head a bloody mess. Kobo bent down and picked up the limp little body and cradled it in his arms. Jack had to look away. Kobo carried his dead four-legged friend into the veggie patch and put him down gently under the tomatoes. ‘Let’s go inside and have a look,’ he said to Jack, his voice sounding hoarse.

  The whole place had been turned upside-down. Empty drawers, broken glass, clothes and kitchen utensils littered the floor.

  ‘Whoever did this must have been in one hell of a hurry,’ said Jack. ‘We’ve been away for less than twenty minutes.’

  ‘What does that tell you?’ said Kobo.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Someone watched us leave.’

  ‘You think there’s a connection?’

  ‘Yes.’ Kobo turned and ran outside.

  Jack was looking for his duffel bag. He found it in a corner under an upturned chair, its contents strewn across the floor. ‘Shit! My passport! Gone!’ he mumbled. ‘How could I have been so stupid?’ Usually, Jack never went out without his passport, wallet, notebook and phone. It was a golden rule he never broke whenever he travelled, except that morning. In a hurry to go and investigate the old man’s death, he had left his passport and notebook behind.

  Fuck! The notebook and my iPad, thought Jack, going through his things on the floor. This is bloody serious! Then he remembered the last thing he had done before falling asleep on his bunk. He had gone over some of his notes and listened to the Hoffmann interview again before turning off the light. Jack went down on his hands and knees and looked under the bunk. ‘There!’ he cried out. The iPad was exactly where he had left it the night before – tucked under the mattress – but his notebook was nowhere to be seen. Jesus! thought Jack, and banged his fist on the floor in frustration.

  Feeling deflated, he got up, went outside and looked for Kobo. He found him pulling up floorboards in the chicken coop. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t keep anything valuable insi
de the house,’ said Kobo. ‘And this is the most valuable thing I own.’ Kobo lifted a long metal container out of a hole under the floorboards.

  Jack recognised the brown and green camouflage markings on the box at once. Military issue. Weapons and ammo, he thought.

  Kobo opened the chest. ‘I have a feeling we’ll need this.’

  ‘Impressive,’ said Jack, looking at the arsenal of automatic weapons in the chest. ‘How on earth did you get all this stuff?’

  Kobo grinned. ‘Better you don’t know. Now, which one would you like?’

  Jack chose a Beretta 92FS, and Kobo took the Glock G42 Gen4 pistol, his favourite. ‘That should do it for the moment,’ said Kobo. He took out some ammo, closed the lid of the metal box and, helped by Jack, lowered it back down into the hole under the floorboards. Then he placed the floorboards on top and covered them with straw.

  ‘I meant to ask you,’ said Kobo. ‘Where did you learn to shoot like that? The way you took out that tyre the other day was pretty impressive.’

  ‘Better you don’t know,’ said Jack, smiling.

  ‘We can no longer stay here,’ said Kobo, turning serious. ‘We are obviously being watched. We should split up. Safer that way.’

  Jack checked his gun. ‘I agree,’ he said. ‘We must warn Dr Rosen. And I no longer have a bloody passport! Great.’

  ‘Least of your worries,’ said Kobo. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  Part V

  ‘Stars, hide your fires’

  The mind is its own place, and in itself

  can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.’

  John Milton; Paradise Lost

  73

  Calypso had taken on fuel and provisions in Perth and was crossing the Indian Ocean on its way to Mogadishu.

  Macbeth controlled his impatience the way he always did, by keeping busy. With a worldwide, state-of-the-art communications network on board, he was never far away from where he wanted to be. Years of being confined to a wheelchair had taught him to become a ‘cerebral man’. For him, action had long ago been replaced by mental activity. Being in control and a step ahead of the game was the reward for patience, and a disciplined mind operating without the usual distractions.

  Macbeth opened the modified door of his stateroom, pushed his wheelchair out onto his private deck and watched the sunrise. This was his favourite time. He did most of his best thinking by watching the horizon bob up and down, and feeling the cool, salty air tingle on his face. There were few sensual pleasures in a life as restricted and confined as his.

  Johannes had just reported in with some astonishing news. As expected, he had carried out his instructions to the letter: Alpha Camp was no more. Anyone who had anything to do with the project in the south had either been removed, or silenced. The clumsy, violent murder of the local doctor by the inexperienced young rebels had been blamed on fighting between local warlords.

  All that had been the easy part; dealing with Dr Rosen and this new, unexpected development was a different challenge altogether. However, Macbeth had to admit that Johannes and his men had already shown some remarkable initiative in tackling the problem.

  Macbeth looked at the bundle of pages that had just been emailed to the ship by Johannes from the HAU base in Mogadishu. The first two pages were photographs of an Australian passport of someone called Jackson Hannibal Rogan, journalist, born in Brisbane on 11th November 1968. That’s one birthday easy to remember, thought Macbeth. A Scorpio born on Armistice Day. The rest of the email consisted of a bundle of handwritten pages scanned from some kind of notebook. The brief message from Johannes was factual and to the point as usual:

  We kept Dr Rosen under surveillance in Nairobi as instructed. She received a visit from the two MSF volunteers who accompanied her to Alpha Camp. They were also placed under surveillance.

  One of them is a local African known as ‘Kobo’ who works for MSF, the other a European called Jackson Rogan, a journalist. Rogan is staying in Kobo’s house on the outskirts of Nairobi. We have been able to search the house in their absence to find out more about them, and have secured Rogan’s passport and a notebook. Nothing else was taken. The relevant material has been scanned and is attached.

  We thought the notebook could throw some light on Rogan’s activities, as it appears to contain specific references to people, times, dates and places. The passport speaks for itself. Mr Rogan isn’t going to travel far any time soon without it. The originals are here in Mogadishu.

  I await your further instructions.

  The only thing Johannes didn’t mention in his email was the old man’s murder. He knew his boss wouldn’t approve of what happened. Not because of the violence, but because he preferred a more careful, subtle approach. Macbeth hated anything that attracted unwanted attention. In the scheme of things, reasoned Johannes, it was highly unlikely he would ever find out.

  Macbeth tucked the bundle of papers into the side of his wheelchair and buzzed his assistant. Carlotta appeared almost at once.

  ‘Find out everything you can about this man.’ Macbeth handed Carlotta the two pages of Rogan’s passport. ‘Same way you investigated Dr Rosen. Surf the Net, use contacts; every detail is important here. I want to know everything about Mr Jackson Hannibal Rogan you can find.’

  For the next hour, Macbeth immersed himself in the material received from Johannes.

  He could feel something strange and sinister reaching out towards him from the past. People and places he hadn’t thought of in years suddenly came to mind for no apparent reason. The notations in Rogan’s notebook were pieces of an intriguing puzzle, which obviously had meaning and importance only to Rogan. Yet there were references and suggested links that somehow resonated with Macbeth, subconsciously at first, but becoming clearer and more meaningful the more he read.

  The real shock came when he turned to the page with the Hoffmeister interview questions and answers. At times, Rogan’s handwriting was difficult to decipher and the text hard to follow due to numerous changes and deletions. Macbeth had to go over the questions several times to make sense of the answers. However, what he read made the hairs on the back of his neck tingle and his heart beat a little faster.

  It can’t be! he thought, reading a particular name scribbled in the margin over and over. It’s just not possible! Yet when he read on, more astonishing revelations came to light that ruled out both coincidence, and mistake. Incredible! What is this man investigating? And why? Macbeth asked himself over and over. Who is this Jackson Rogan? What does he know?

  Macbeth looked across the heaving ocean, trying in vain to calm himself. For a while, he was unable to stop his hands from shaking. He knew nothing happened without a reason.

  Rogan; Rogan; Journalist … thought Macbeth, why is this name suddenly familiar? Macbeth closed his eyes. The rocking movement of the ship always helped him concentrate. Then, out of the recesses of his complex mind, a picture materialised and floated into his consciousness. It was the cover of a magazine with a face and a name. Macbeth focused on the face. Slowly at first, but becoming clearer with each swaying movement of the ship, the blurred face took shape until it resembled the face in the passport photo. The writing too had become legible: Jack Rogan, Man of the Year who never gave up.

  Macbeth opened his eyes. ‘That’s it!’ he shouted. It was all coming back to him. The Nazi gold book. Swiss banks; hidden bank accounts; Holocaust money, thought Macbeth.

  Macbeth pressed the call button on his wheelchair. Carlotta appeared within seconds. ‘I know who he is,’ Macbeth said excitedly. Carlotta looked at her boss, surprised. She rarely saw him so animated. ‘He’s a famous author. He was TIME magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’ not long ago. Get Johannes on the phone straight away, and carry on with your research. I still want to know everything you can find about our Mr Rogan.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Carlotta. She turned on her high heels and hurried back to her office.

  74

  Kobo dropped Jack off at th
e Médecins Sans Frontières HQ. Located in one of the poorer neighbourhoods of Nairobi, most of the time the dilapidated building wasn’t occupied at all and served more as a warehouse than an office.

  Kobo had arranged to stay with one of his cousins. He suggested to Jack they meet at a quiet restaurant just around the corner for dinner that night, to talk things over.

  Jack caught up with Dr Rosen in her small room at the back of the building. She was writing a report and looked tired and uncharacteristically subdued.

  ‘What’s wrong, Bettany?’ asked Jack.

  ‘No one really wants to know about this,’ said Dr Rosen, the disappointment in her voice obvious. ‘I spoke to all my contacts. As soon as I mention Somalia, they run for cover. The place is just too dangerous, they say. Basket case, out of control. No one wants to take the risk of hostages being taken by the terrorists, or worse. What a world we live in.’

  ‘Well, we must have rattled someone’s cage big time,’ said Jack, and told Dr Rosen about the murder of the old man and the break-in at Kobo’s place. ‘Kobo’s certain we are being watched.’

  ‘What do you suggest we do?’

  ‘We must get away from here. I agree with Kobo; it’s become too dangerous. I just spoke to Lola in Sydney. She will get here as soon as she can to pick us up. You can come with us, of course. I think that would be the best way. Until then, we keep our heads down and lie low. Could I stay here?’

  ‘Sure. I’m sorry I dragged you into all this,’ said Dr Rosen.

  ‘I volunteered, remember?’

  Dr Rosen managed a wry smile. ‘Why is it that every time I hit a low you somehow make me feel better? And I’m about as low as you can get.’

  ‘Jana would say it’s what incorrigible rascals do best.’

  ‘Ah. That must be it. How are your investigations coming along?’ asked Dr Rosen, changing the subject.

  ‘I was doing very well for a while, but then I hit a dead end.’