The Athena Factor

by W. Michael Gear

  “So?”

  “So,” Marc replied, “if we keep them in sight, I think we’re going to catch America’s sweetheart doing something really cool. And, like, that’s a couple of months’ rent if I can get it on film.”

  She glanced at the infrared camera that he pulled from a bag. “You’d better. I’m still pissed at what you paid for that thing.”

  “Hey, babe, it’s the coming thing!” He gestured ahead. “You just stay a couple of lengths back from that limo.”

  Genesis Athena. Christal rolled the name around in her head as she pushed the plastic grocery cart. According to her watch it was just after ten, and the store was almost empty. A few other patrons cruised up and down the brightly lit aisles of the Albertson’s. They were casually dressed, no doubt picking up the last few things before the weekend. That, or like Christal, they worked unusual hours.

  She glanced at her watch, figuring that Sheela would duck out of the Jagged Cat party as early as she could. She had promised to be at Christal’s by eleven. The woman who had pleaded so passionately with such a look of desperation in her eyes wouldn’t be partying on until all hours of the night.

  Christal had checked to be sure that Sheela made her party at Dan Tana’s, then had taken her Concorde to do some last-minute shopping. It had occurred to her in a stupendous flash that she was about to have a most auspicious houseguest—and her refrigerator was stocked with what she considered the barest necessities of survival: refried beans, tomatillos, cheese, poblano and jalapeño peppers, corn tortillas, eggs, and burger. Whatever Sheela liked, Christal could just about be assured that the famous actress’ spice cabinet didn’t just consist of cayenne pepper, cumin, cilantro, and garlic like Christal’s did.

  Genesis Athena. The thought intruded, as if trying to lever itself into her mind. An image flashed: that bit of Manny de Clerk’s foreskin. Christal was trying to force it away and concentrate on Canadian-friendly recipes when her eyes fell on the sausages in the meat cooler. Reddish and mottled—like a bloody tampon. Where in the hell had that come from?

  She could hear her grandmother’s voice, whispering encouragement from just beyond her perception.

  “What is it, Grandmother? What are you trying to tell me?”

  Christal stopped short, a coldness washing through her as her brain made the curious connection. Foreskin? The mottling on a tampon? Tissue!

  Menstrual blood contained bits of tissue from the sloughing uterine lining. And what was razor scuzz but bits of skin and beard hair? Tissue!

  Sandra Bullock’s hankies and toothbrush? They’d be loaded with cells. Some from the nose, others the delicate cheek cells inside the mouth. Just like Julia Roberts’ sheets—full of skin cells and hair scuffed off by friction as she slept.

  They’d taken a more direct and blunt approach with Pitt and Jolie. They’d chopped a piece out of Brad’s butt, and pulled Angelina’s hair out by the roots—and collected their tissue samples!

  She could sense the answer, just beyond her grasp, like the perfumed hint of flowers born on a summer night’s breeze. She thought of Sheik Amud Abdulla. What did a man who was obsessed with control and power do with bits and pieces of other people’s bodies? Power was the key, wasn’t it?

  What does a witch do with the pieces he collects?

  “He uses them to gain more power and control,” she mused aloud as she passed the processed meats and picked a small frozen turkey out of the freezer. She’d bet that Sheela hadn’t had a stuffed turkey dinner any time recently.

  What kind of power would a man like Abdulla seek?

  “Wealth,” she answered. “But how does he get more wealth from pieces of other people’s bodies? How does he sell that to others? And better yet, what kind of control does he achieve?”

  And therein lay the rub.

  Nevertheless, Christal smiled as she walked the aisles. She had it! She could feel the rightness of it. Abdulla accrued the wealth and control, and Genesis Athena was the vehicle through which he did it.

  But how? Why did the questionnaire screen out people like Christal? Who was it meant to pass? And why?

  When she picked that final lock, the whole thing would fall into place. She tossed a small sack of pine nuts into the basket for stuffing, then added black rye bread. She’d make Sheela a stuffed turkey like she’d never had before.

  It wasn’t ransom. None of the celebrities would pay to get their bits of tissue back. Nor had any demands been made. So, what did Abdulla get? What was the prize contained within those often-microscopic bits of flesh?

  DNA.

  But they’d thought of DNA. Considered it, and abandoned it. Abdulla could have obtained his samples at minimal risk. With ludicrous ease, actually. Evidence recovery teams recovered DNA every day from crime scenes all across the country. People left DNA everywhere they went. Instead of swiping Sheela’s tampon in that ridiculously involved sham in the ladies’ room, Copperhead could have waited, and simply stolen Sheela’s champagne flute when she set it down. A moderately competent technician could have recovered more than enough cells from the smear on the glass to develop a complete DNA profile.

  “So, why grandstand?” Christal mused. What could be gained by taking such terrible risks? The smallest of mistakes could have landed Copperhead and Mouse in the can. Then the whole thing would have been compromised.

  “Or would it?” She frowned as she rolled her cart to the checkout and began placing items on the conveyor for the checker. It wasn’t like the police could have held either Copperhead or Mouse for more than a night until they made bail for trespass. They could have claimed it was a prank gone wrong, apologized, paid the fines and restitution, and walked.

  Christal swiped her credit card and wheeled her load of plastic sacks out into the warm night. The sky was glowing a yellowish brown. The Los Angeles Basin, it seemed, never experienced true darkness. And I am just starting to see the light!

  Christal slipped behind the wheel, a giddy thrill running through her. It was all coming clear. Sheik Abdulla was a witch, all right. Just a different kind of witch than the ones she had grown up hearing about. He, too, wanted souls to control. It was only the way of it that eluded her.

  She turned on the map light and pulled the small blue notebook from her purse. Steadying it on the steering wheel, she began jotting down the basics. God, it was all coming together. And in a moment of epiphany, she had it!

  Why hadn’t anyone expected this? It was the logical next step given the leaps and bounds in which genetics and biotech had been evolving.

  She scanned the notes, thinking back to the expression on Sheela’s face that night they’d stolen her tampon. At the end of her list, she printed one last haunting question before jamming her notebook partially into her purse.

  “I’m going to get you,” she promised as she slipped the big Chrysler into drive and headed for her apartment. “By the time Sheela leaves on Sunday, Mr. Sheik, I’m going to have you by the cojones.”

  30

  Lymon caught up with Sheela’s limo as it turned onto Coldwater Canyon. He pulled up beside the driver’s window and gave Paul a thumbs-up. Against the reflection of the lights on the car’s glass, he could barely make out Paul’s nod and grin.

  Glancing behind, Lymon couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary in the traffic. Switching lanes, he maneuvered to the car’s right side and stayed even with Paul as they slowed for a red light. He rolled to a stop across from the right rear passenger door and looked over expectantly. Even before the stretched Cadillac came to a complete stop, Sheela opened the door, stepped out, helmet on her head, and slammed the door shut behind her. In a flash, she was on behind Lymon, her arms tight about his middle.

  “Let’s go!” she cried, glee filling her voice.

  When the light turned, Lymon waved at Paul and rolled the throttle, letting the big Indian bellow as he pulled away. He signaled, pulled into the right lane, and turned off on a side road. “Want to go straight to Christal’s, or ride
for a while?”

  She was laughing, the little-girl sound of it filling his soul with joy.

  “God, Lymon! I’m really doing this! I feel free! Free, free, free!” She whooped, raising her arms to the night and jiggling the bike.

  “Hey! Let’s not wreck us in the process, all right?”

  “God, no! This is too good to be true!” She snugged her arms around him and squeezed the breath out of him. “I want to ride for a while. But we do have to go by Christal’s first. I told her I’d be there at around eleven. She’ll worry if we don’t check in.”

  “Right.” Lymon flicked the turn signal and bent them into a turn, heading around the block and back toward Christal’s.

  “Hey,” Sheela said as she leaned her chin on his shoulder.

  “Hey,” he answered gently.

  “It was really good to see you pull up alongside, Lymon. When Christal told me to stow my helmet and leathers in the limo, I was just hoping against hope.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, well, I’m an accomplice now. Rex will skin me alive if ever figures this out.”

  “Rex can go screw himself,” Sheela muttered. “I don’t know, Lymon, should I fire him?”

  “He’s the best in the business.”

  “At what price?” she wondered. “When I talked to him this afternoon, he hinted that I might want to think about changing security firms. He said you stiffed him for another ten thousand in your bill.”

  “Yeah, and I’ll bet he didn’t tell you I ate five thousand of the twenty the IRS hit me for. I divided it with you since part of the fault was Rex’s for prepaying me last month. He didn’t think of what that would make the quarterly earnings look like. If I’m down at the end of this quarter, you’ll get the benefit then, too.”

  “Do we have to talk business?”

  “No.” He signaled for a left and slowed to wait out traffic at the entrance to Christal’s Residence Inn. At the first break in the oncoming cars, he slipped the clutch and pulled into the lot, aware of a Porsche hot on his heels. He noticed that the sleek car pulled into the registration space and a young man leapt out, watching the Indian as Lymon rounded the end of the speed bump and idled toward Christal’s.

  People noticed the Indian. It was unique, with the styled fenders and the huge engine. People didn’t walk up to it thinking it was just another Harley.

  He started to pull into the space before Christal’s, then noticed the van, its side door open. A knot of people were hurrying down the walk, a limp-looking body propped in their midst.

  “What the hell?”

  “It looks like someone had one too many to drink,” Sheela said as Lymon slowed and put a foot down.

  The bike dropped into its loping idle, shaking beneath him as he watched. They were loading the person into the door. Lymon saw a swaying of hair. Something about the woman’s slim form …

  “Hey!” He let the clutch out, rolling forward. “What the hell’s going on here?”

  A man turned, tall, blond-headed. He looked handsome in the glow of the sodium lights. “Nothing that’s your business. My wife just drank a little too much, that’s all.”

  Lymon eased to a stop several feet from the van, craning his head to see inside. He could feel Sheela tense behind him. “Christal?” he called.

  His only warning was a blur as the man leaped, caught him on the shoulder with both hands, and tumbled Lymon, Sheela, and the Indian onto the pavement.

  Lymon’s body slammed hard, his helmet cracking loudly against the asphalt. He got his hand under him, pushing up, only to feel the weight of the Indian trapping his calf and foot.

  “Son of a bitch!” He heard an engine roar, looked up past the bike, and saw the van careen back, lurch to a stop, and then squeal the tires as it rocketed ahead, hammered the speed bump, and screeched into the night.

  “Sheela? Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” She was wiggling behind him. “Shit! What happened?”

  He flopped like a trapped fish, got a hand up to press the chicken switch on the handlebar, and heard the big twin chug to a stop. “Someone just took Christal.” He threw himself desperately against the weight of the big motorcycle. “I don’t fucking believe it!”

  “Hang on,” Sheela muttered. “I’ve about got my foot loose.”

  Lymon turned his head at the sound of footsteps. He could see the young man running across from the registration building. He held a big blocky camera before him, stopping to shoot a couple of quick pictures before saying, “Hey, shit! Sheela Marks! What a hit!” Then he lifted the camera to shoot another couple of frames.

  Friday night in the summer was always a busy time at the police station in Beverly Hills. This one was no exception. Lymon barely managed to keep a shackled drunk from puking on Sheela as they made their way down the hallway.

  The interview room they had been taken to was off a hallway, soundproofed, and apparently wired for sound. The room, painted off-white, wasn’t more than ten by eight with the proverbial one-way mirror framed into one wall. A thick and heavy metal table dominated the center; each leg had been bolted securely to the cement floor. The cubicle felt decidedly cramped with six people in it.

  “I don’t get it,” Lymon growled as he shifted from foot to foot. To Sheela he looked like a caged lion. Something in the set of his face, in the rage behind his eyes, both fascinated and repelled her. Her own adrenaline was still rushing through her veins like a tonic.

  Two uniformed cops sat on the other side of the battered gunmetal gray table and stared uneasily at Sheela where she leaned against the far wall. In reply, she stared back.

  The paparazzo, a freelance photographer named Marc Delangelo, glowed; while his girlfriend, Jennifer Schmidt, looked sheepish as they sat in two of the plastic chairs.

  “I got it all.” Marc was beaming. “I mean, I ran half a roll of those people carrying that woman to the van.”

  “It’s dark,” Hurley, one of the cops, protested.

  “It’s an IR camera, man,” Marc cried as he tapped a finger on the heavy camera resting on the table. “I don’t need flash, get it? I can shoot in any light.”

  The second cop—Randisi, according to his tag—said, “Look, you’ve got no proof that this Christal Anaya was abducted. These might have been friends of hers who were taking care of her.”

  “She was new to town,” Lymon replied. “She didn’t have friends here.”

  “Yes, she did,” Sheela interjected. “She had me!” A fire was burning within her. “And she had you, Lymon. Then there’s that FBI agent.”

  “Sid Harness. But he’s in Washington.”

  “FBI?” Randisi asked.

  “A mutual friend.” Lymon was grinding his teeth.

  Sheela pushed off the wall and stepped over. “Look, Officer, maybe she wasn’t abducted. We’ll have a better idea when we process Mr. Delangelo’s film.”

  “Hey, it’s my film! My personal property. Protected under the First Amendment”

  “It may be evidence,” Hurley corrected.

  Sheela felt her blood begin to boil as she turned on the photographer. “What’s it worth to you? Huh? I’ll give you fifty thousand right now. Sight unseen. Hell, you might have left the lens cap on. Forgot to put film in the camera. Who knows?”

  Delangelo swallowed hard. “Seventy-five thousand.”

  “Bullshit!” Lymon exploded, wheeling around.

  The look in his face sent a cold shiver down Sheela’s spine. She raised a hand, blocking him. “Easy, Lymon. Take a breath.”

  He did, keeping the maniacal rage from boiling over. She looked past him at the two cops. She could read their expressions: wary, as if sensing the stakes and unsure who to finger for the coming explosion.

  “Gentlemen,” Sheela said professionally, “I would appreciate it if your crime scene people could go over Ms. Anaya’s apartment. I realize that you might have budget concerns, but if you will call your chief, I believe I can find some sort of reasonable compensation for the d
epartment.”

  The two cops glanced at each other, and Randisi made a slight tilt of the head. Hurley stood, nodded, and let himself out into the hall.

  Lymon was thinking now; she could see it. He said, “You’ve got a file on Christal. She pressed charges a couple of weeks ago during the Manuel de Clerk thing. She identified the same woman at de Clerk’s who took Ms. Marks’ tampon at the Regent Beverly Wilshire. If I were you, I think I’d start there.”

  Randisi watched them through half-lidded eyes, his fingers tapping on the statements they had just signed.

  “Hey, I’m outta here,” Delangelo muttered, “Come on, Jennifer.”

  “You’ll leave when I tell you to.” Sheela barked, using her stage voice. “I’m not done with you.”

  “Bullshit!” Delangelo cried. “I’m sitting on the biggest shot of my life here.”

  Sheela walked up to stare into his eyes. “What if I told you there was more here than the simple abduction of a security agent? What if I told you that you’re sitting on the biggest story of the decade?”

  “Are you shitting me?”

  “Oh, it’s not Nine/eleven, or Afghanistan, or Iraq, but it’s something that could make your career. If you’re interested, you’ll play ball. If not, I’ll write you a check for seventy-five thousand for that camera right now.”

  He hesitated, frowned, and she read him like a comic book. He didn’t even have complicated illustrations.

  “This is bullshit.”

  “No bullshit,” Sheela replied. “You in or out?”

  Delangelo glanced at Jennifer, who was shaking her head no. He licked his lips, the frown line deepening in his forehead. “Seventy-five thou? No shit?”

  “Done.” Sheela stuck out her hand. “Rex will have a check for you in the morning. Security will let you through.” She reached for the camera.

  “Hey.” Randisi gestured at the camera. “That’s not leaving this room until I say it is.”

  Sheela tossed him the heavy camera. “How long will it take your people to develop infrared film?”