Expose

by Saranne Dawson

  Sam nodded. “That’s why I got out—and maybe it was why I went into it in the first place. You can get addicted to danger, and I think that was starting to happen to me. There was one guy I knew, a Brit, Ian, who’d been covering wars for ten years. You’d think he’d get more careful as time went on, but he didn’t. He just kept taking more and more chances—until he took one too many.”

  “Sam,” she said, taking a deep breath, “did you take that job because of me?”

  “Partly,” he admitted. “But it was mostly because I’d decided that I wanted to do something different for a while, and the end of the Cold War made foreign affairs more interesting.”

  Kate said nothing, but she didn’t quite believe him. Sam had never been all that interested in foreign affairs. He was a Washington native who’d grown up inside the fabled beltway, where, at least among journalists, foreign affairs were no more than a minor distraction from time to time.

  “Were you really in danger?” she asked.

  “Not all the time, but the problem was that you never knew when things could change. After Ian died, I started to think about all the times we’d sat around complaining because nothing much was happening—meaning no one was killing anybody. And that’s when I knew it was time to get out.”

  Kate wondered if there was a parallel there to her own situation—and if that’s why he was bringing it up now. Was she, too, becoming addicted to danger? It was a very sobering thought.

  They finished their breakfast and then Kate got the number for ORDP. When she called them, she was put through to the director of research, who was very willing to see her later in the day. After that, she showered and dressed and convinced herself that she was now fully recovered, though Sam was less certain. When she told him about her appointment, he insisted upon driving her there.

  “The doctor said you could have dizzy spells or double vision at any time for the next couple of days,” he reminded her.

  She reluctantly agreed to be chauffeured around, then went into her home office and spent the next couple of hours updating her notes on both the Newbury-Armistead story and the New Leaf story. Now that she’d had some time to think about it, she was far less certain that the man in the pickup was the maintenance man she’d seen at New Leaf.

  Finally, still feeling that strange reluctance to let go of the story, she called the Pennsylvania Department of Health again, only to learn that group homes and foster care fell under the jurisdiction of a separate department.

  Fortunately for Kate, she was accustomed to the frustrations of dealing with bureaucracies, and the people in Pennsylvania were, on the whole, a lot more helpful than most of their counterparts in Washington. But it still took numerous calls to Harrisburg and then to the county children’s services in that region before she could feel reasonably certain that the farmhouse she’d visited wasn’t a licensed facility.

  What I need, she thought, is to get another look at Ted Snyder’s files, to see if I can find any more with that “Classification One” notation. And if those names matched the names of the kids at the farmhouse…

  But even if she was willing to try breaking into Snyder’s office, it would probably be impossible. After all, it was a residential facility with staff present twenty-four hours a day—and good security, as well.

  No, it made more sense to see if she could pry any more information out of Tony DiSalvo. She would just have to wait until tonight and return his call. She wondered why he’d contacted her, then abruptly recalled that she’d given him the description of the man in the pickup. Could he have gone to work and seen the maintenance man, then realized that he could be the one she was asking about?

  Sam went out for a while to renew some old acquaintances and contacts and to talk some more to the people at the Post about his possible future as a syndicated columnist. He returned just in time to take her to Bethesda for her meeting. She didn’t tell him that she was grateful for his offer because she’d had several minor but annoying dizzy spells and one brief episode of blurred vision.

  “AT THE PRESENT TIME we are not taking a position on the subject of legalization. As you know, we’re a new organization, so we’ve just begun to study the issue.”

  “But several of your board members are known to favor legalization,” Kate responded.

  “That’s true,” the executive director said smoothly. “But some also oppose it, while others are neutral.”

  “Two of your board members have made substantial contributions to a PAC run by Congressman Newbury.” She gave him the names.

  “I wasn’t aware of that,” he said after the briefest of hesitations, during which Kate thought he’d seemed surprised.

  But was he surprised that they’d made the contributions—or was he shocked that she’d found out?

  “As you probably know, both men have many interests. They may have other business before Congress.” He affected a careless shrug.

  Kate did not like this man. Her antennae had been twitching ever since she’d walked into their elegant headquarters to find that instead of speaking to the research director, she would be meeting with the head man.

  “I’ve spoken to a researcher at Brookings and he tells me that if drugs are legalized, the pharmaceutical companies could stand to benefit—if they choose to go into the business.” She paused one beat for effect. “Does ORDP have any connection with any drug companies?”

  “Absolutely not! I’ve already given you our financial statements, which lists our contributors.”

  Kate thought he was doing a very good job of appearing to be offended, but perhaps not quite good enough.

  “Do you plan to adopt an advocacy role one way or the other?”

  “We may. It depends on the results of our research, which isn’t yet complete.”

  “My appointment was with your research director,” Kate told him, sensing that it was time to end this interview. “Would it be possible for me to speak to him before I leave…just for background?”

  “Of course. My secretary will take you to him.” He stood up, proving that he was equally eager to end the interview.

  At the office door, Kate turned to thank him again for his time. He was punching out a number on his phone and looked up at her. For one brief moment, before he managed to paste a false smile on his face, Kate saw a very nervous man.

  In the outer office, Kate asked the secretary to show her to the research director’s office. The door to the executive director’s office closed behind her, and as the secretary got up, Kate saw a red light winking on her phone. Perhaps the hasty call had nothing at all to do with her visit, but that look on his face suggested otherwise.

  Kate followed the woman out into a hallway, where a wave of dizziness engulfed her. She put out a hand to steady herself against the wall and the woman turned to her ques-tioningly.

  “I’m sorry,” Kate said. “I’m just recovering from an…illness. Could you show me to the rest room first?”

  “Of course,” the woman said sympathetically. “Will you be all right?” Kate assured her that she would, and the woman pointed down the hall. “Mr. Samuels’s office is the third door on the right after the ladies’ room.”

  After thanking her, Kate staggered into the ladies’ room and sank onto a love seat to wait for the dizziness to pass. When it did, she used the facilities, then set off to find the research director.

  She walked through the appropriate doorway to find an empty secretary’s desk and an open door beyond. As she reached it, she saw a young man with longish hair hunched over a computer. She was about to tap on the doorframe and announce herself when she caught sight of a name on the computer screen. Her words remained in her throat as she squinted to see better. Was it New Leaf? She just couldn’t be sure at this distance, but she thought it was. And then she suddenly recalled Tony DiSalvo’s mention of something about a research institute that was studying the boot camp.

  She was wondering if she could move closer without being noticed when a
female voice behind her ended those thoughts. “May I help you?”

  Kate turned and smiled, then quickly turned back to the man at the computer and introduced herself. Immediately, the screen went blank and he got up to greet her.

  She asked the same questions she’d asked at Brookings and received substantially the same answers. At one point, he talked about a study they were doing of drug rehab centers, and, sensing an opening, Kate inquired if they’d included any of the boot camps that had recently become popular.

  Peter Samuels was less adept at hiding his shock than his boss was. He told her that they hadn’t included them as yet, which she thought was a mistake. Such a study would be perfectly in keeping with their research, and the fact that he denied it suggested strongly to her that her eyes hadn’t betrayed her. They were studying New Leaf.

  She left the ORDP offices in a state of confusion, wondering if it was at all possible that what she’d viewed as being two separate stories could in fact be related. It seemed incredible, but she knew she could no longer dismiss the possibility.

  Sam was waiting for her in the parking lot, but before she could decide what to tell him, he launched into the story of his own discoveries—or rather, the discoveries of The Ferret, to whom he’d just spoken.

  “Those two are definitely into something,” Sam said, referring to the two ORDP board members and contributors to Newbury’s PAC. “The Ferret says they’ve recently set up a lot of dummy corporations—some of them offshore. He thinks they’re trying very hard to cover their tracks on something.”

  “Is there anything else he can find out?” Kate asked.

  “He’s already started to look for a connection between their dummy corporations and any of the drug companies, but it’s going to take a while.”

  “Let’s go to the office,” she suggested. “We need to talk to Bob Strasser.” Strasser was the Post’s chief business correspondent.

  “Why?” Sam asked.

  “Because he might know which of the drug companies would be most likely to get into the business if drugs are legalized.”

  Sam gave her a smile. “Good idea. That could narrow it down for The Ferret. How did your interview go?”

  Kate told him everything—except for the part about New Leaf. She wasn’t sure she’d seen the name, but she was no longer certain why she was keeping this from Sam, either.

  “We’ve had a piece of luck,” Sam went on. “Crawford’s parents are back in town. I took the chance that they might not be gone for the entire two weeks and called her office. Her secretary said that she’s back, but she hasn’t come into the office yet. She expected her to be calling in for messages, though.”

  Kate sighed. Somewhere in there, the dead intern had gotten lost. Now she wondered if they had any right to bother the woman and force her to relive the tragedy. They discussed it and decided to put it off for the time being.

  BOB STRASSER BLINKED AT them from behind his thick glasses. “Are you going to tell me why you want to know?”

  “Not now, Bob,” Sam said. “But if there’s a story for you in it, we will.”

  He rubbed his bald head and leaned back precariously in his chair. “Well, there are a few that I would eliminate—companies that are already doing well and have a corporate mentality that I think would prevent them from getting into the business.”

  He thought for a minute, drumming his fingers on his desk. “You know, the most likely candidates would be the smaller companies—especially the ones on the cutting edge of biotechnology. They haven’t been doing too well lately and a couple of them are pretty close to Chapter Eleven. And the ones I’m thinking of are closely held, which means that the decision could be made by fewer people.”

  He gave them three names, which Sam took to The Ferret, while Kate went to check her messages. She was surprised to find among them a message from the Baltimore Sun reporter who’d helped her on the Charles Scofield matter. When she returned the call, the first words out of the reporter’s mouth were “He’s gone!”

  “What?” Kate was confused.

  “Charles Scofield escaped from the hospital last night.”

  “But how could he have managed to escape? You said that he was supposed to be a virtual vegetable.”

  “Right. That’s why they think he had help.”

  A cold lump settled into the pit of her stomach as she listened to the details. The former New Leaf resident had been kept on powerful medications, according to his contact at the hospital. Each time they’d tried to wean him from the drugs, he’d become violent. The psychiatrist in charge was convinced that he couldn’t possibly have escaped on his own.

  “Have you talked to his mother?” Kate asked.

  “Yeah. She hasn’t heard from him, and she’s really worried.”

  Kate thanked him and hung up, then sat there thinking about the farmhouse she’d visited. She called the reporter back and asked if he could fax her a picture of Charles and he said he’d do it right away. She promised that she would let him in on anything she learned.

  Sam was waiting in her cubicle when she returned with the faxed photo in hand. His gaze went to it, and then to her. She explained who it was.

  “Uh, Sam, there are a few things I haven’t told you.”

  “Why does that not surprise me?”

  “I just wanted to keep the New Leaf story to myself,” she stated defensively. “Besides, I don’t really have anything—yet. But I think I may need your help.”

  Those final words cost her, but not quite as much as she’d expected. She wondered what that told her about their present relationship—not to mention their future.

  This story is consuming us both, Kate thought. And yet she knew that, beneath the surface of their working relationship, the turbulent currents of their shared past were still there.

  Chapter Eight

  “I still can’t believe that you kept all this from me,” Sam complained as they drove west the next morning.

  “Stop whining. I told you that I still don’t have anything concrete.”

  “I thought that for once we were working well together.”

  “We are, but we won’t be if you keep this up.’’

  “It’s really a stretch to believe that the two stories could be connected,” Sam said, glancing again in the rearview mirror. He was driving a rental, but after Kate’s experience, they knew that didn’t guarantee they wouldn’t be followed.

  “Coincidences do happen,” she pronounced. “But I agree with you.”

  “So we don’t know if we’re pursuing two parts of the same story or two entirely separate stories. And we also don’t know which one of them is responsible for the threats.” He paused for a beat, then added, “But my money’s still on Newbury and Armistead.”

  “But that could just be because of Newbury’s reputation,” she observed, reaching for the cell phone. “I’m going to call The Ferret and see if he’s found anything else.”

  Sam put out a hand to stop her. “Wait until we stop and we’ll call him from a pay phone. Cell phones can’t be trusted. If anyone is following us, they might overhear it.”

  She replaced the phone. “I wish I could have gotten hold of Tony DiSalvo last night. He’s a good guy and he’s already uneasy about the changes he’s seen in the boys at New Leaf. I think he’ll help us.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” Sam replied. “If he does, he could be risking his job.”

  “That’s true,” she sighed. “And he did tell me that it was the best job he’d ever had. I hope I can reach him tonight.”

  “I wish we had at least a working theory about all this,” Sam said. “With Newbury and Armistead, it’s simple enough. Greed. All we need is for The Ferret to make a connection between those guys and some drug company that might benefit from legalization. But this New Leaf business…” He shook his head. “It makes no sense, Kate. What could they be up to?”

  “If they’re really responsible for kidnapping Charles Scofield from the hosp
ital, then it’s obvious that there’s something they don’t want the doctors there to discover.”

  “But you said that the hospital had already done all sorts of tests on him.”

  “They did and they didn’t find anything, at least as far as my source at the Sun knows.”

  “Then what they might be worried about is that he could snap out of his psychotic state and tell them something.”

  “Good point, but you’d think that he would have told his mother before all this happened.” Kate stared at the long gray ribbon of highway before them and wrapped her arms around herself. “I have a bad feeling about this, Sam. I feel like any minute we’re going to cross over into the ‘Twilight Zone.’“

  NOT QUITE THREE HOURS later, they were driving slowly along the narrow, deserted road that passed by the farmhouse. They rounded a curve and Kate saw the old mailbox.

  “That’s it—up there on the right.”

  “Get out the map,” Sam said as he put on his turn signal. “If anyone sees us, they’ll think we’re just lost.”

  They pulled over and Kate peered up the long lane to the farmhouse. “Those are the same two boys I saw before.” Even from this distance, she could tell. They were even sitting in the same place. What kind of life was this for kids—drugged up all the time? And yet maybe it was the only way they could exist at all.

  Sam reached into the back for the powerful binoculars he’d bought before they left. “I don’t think anyone from up there can see them if I keep them in the car,” he told her as he brought them into focus and peered up the lane. “They’re good,” he said, lowering them after a moment. “If Scofield comes outside, we’ll be able to confirm that it’s him.”

  “But we can’t sit here all day without arousing their suspicion,” she cautioned.

  Sam studied the area. On both sides of the farmhouse, open fields stretched for a half mile or more. Behind it, however, was a thickly wooded hill. He took the map from Kate and began to study it.