Targeting the Telomeres, A Thriller

by R. N. Shapiro

  "It’s time."

  He removes the plywood he drilled holes in the night before and helps the man out of the storage compartment. Then he grabs a small duffel bag containing extra scuba gear.

  "I’ll create a diversion. When you hear his footsteps moving toward the bow, go.”

  The stowaway hurriedly puts on his wetsuit and positions his 15-minute oxygen tank on his back with the rest of his gear.

  The captain hears a commotion and looks over to see Jones fall to the floor of the bow, yelling and writhing in pain. He drops his newspaper and hurries over to assist him. While he’s attending to the distressed passenger, the stowaway slips unseen to the swim platform off the stern before silently sliding into the water. He gets a visual of his destination, then disappears under the surface.

  The captain leads Jones to the cushioned seating area in the stern.

  "I was headed below to puke, but then I tripped over something. God, that was painful.”

  "Just lay down a while, hopefully your foot will feel better, and maybe the queasiness will pass. If it doesn’t, hit the head and let ‘er rip."

  Within 30 minutes the other divers return, having cut their dive short to check on Jones, who indicates he won't be able to dive with the group. They decide to end the excursion and ask the captain to head back into the harbor early. Once they're out of their wetsuits and gear, Riess heads dockside. He notices a small, triangular red, white and blue flag has been raised on the fishing boat bobbing in the distance. He gives a thumbs up to Barber and Jones.

  Two fishermen assist the stowaway in the wetsuit onto the boat from the fold-down ladder off the stern, and one assists him with removing the small oxygen tank. They raise a small, triangular flag before pulling in the lines and cruising south.

  Within several days, the exfiltration team and their stowaway on board enter the harbor in Freeport, Bahamas. One of the crew members and Ron Michaels board a Panama-bound Air Panama jet later in the day at Grand Bahama International Airport. The last leg of their journey is on a charter jet, which makes a refueling stop in Hawaii and continues westerly along the equator to their ultimate destination.

  Chapter 65

  French Side

  Elizabeth Gardner checks in to her hotel room on the Dutch side of Saint Martin, props open her laptop, and surfs the websites of companies offering sailing charters. The captain she chooses has a one-day sail that day, but she books a three-day trip leaving the next day, which will stop first on the French side of the island. She explains that TripAdvisor highly recommends several restaurants there and she hopes they can travel during the day and take the dinghy to the island for dinner.

  The next morning, she carries one dark blue duffel bag onto the vessel. Her captain, Douglas Caperton, introduces her to his first mate, Hector. Normally the yacht sleeps two couples in addition to the crew, but Elizabeth rented the entire boat, so the three of them sail out of Simpson Bay toward Grand Case, a harbor on the French side. The seas are calm, almost glassy, and only a few occasional slivers of cloud dot the sky, not enough to block the sun even fleetingly. A small flock of brown pelicans fly overhead, gracefully flapping their wings, gliding, then flapping again.

  Elizabeth enjoys much of the sail stretched out topside near the bow, her back supported by the small windows of the master berth, large-rimmed sunglasses hiding her eyes, her nose stuck in a paperback. She remains aloof to the crew, rerunning her back story through her mind: assistant at a Wall Street bond-trading firm, vacationing alone for few days before her broker boyfriend joins her after tying up some last-minute loose ends at work.

  One of the analysts on the Solarez’ situation team had noticed several international phone calls from Canada to Megan’s Mango on the island of Saint Martin in the Caribbean. Further searching revealed Megan’s was a beachfront restaurant and bar purchased about a year before. Because a significant French-Canadian community populates the French side of the island, it was deduced that Odette bought the business under an alias after Justin’s delivery.

  Solarez instructed a female agent familiar with the case to pose as a tourist sailing in and out of the island’s harbors and extract the truth from the surrogate. After all, if Brittney Hayes could pretend to be a mental patient and meth addict to gain access to Amanda, she could play any role, including Elizabeth Gardner.

  The sailboat reaches Grand Case by late afternoon and Elizabeth requests they go ashore in a dinghy for a cocktail before dinner. While traveling the short distance to shore, Hector offers to accompany her, but she politely declines. Wearing a cropped top over her bikini and a colorful wraparound on her waist, Elizabeth drops her flip-flops in the sand out of reach of the gently lapping waves of the harbor. Sounds of reggae music carry on the wind from one of the restaurants or bars, she can’t tell which one. Looking around, she sees the sign for Megan's Mango a few doors down, so she walks along the beach past a few young tourists seated at a wooden picnic table. She navigates the well-worn salt-treated steps to the open-air café.

  Another couple speaking in a strong accent, which she surmises is South African, enjoys two colorful frozen cocktails she doesn’t recognize, each with pineapple and mango on spears beside their straws, and they laugh at something the man said. Elizabeth bides her time at a high-top table, staring out into the harbor, patiently waiting to meet Odette. The end of “Scarlet Begonias” by the Grateful Dead plays through some unseen speakers, followed by “St. Patrick’s Day” by John Mayer. What a strange musical segue, she thinks. Although Solarez still refuses to believe Odette, the surrogate momma was in any way involved with a baby swap, primarily since he personally vetted her, buying this café and leaving Canada rather abruptly leads Elizabeth to suspect money had the desired effect for whoever needed her cooperation.

  Unfortunately, she doesn’t see Odette at the bar, waitressing tables, or anywhere else. After ordering a stoli and soda on the rocks, which she nurses for several minutes, she heads to the restroom to survey the rest of the establishment. On the way, she notices a small area where local artists’ creations are for sale. Behind the small glass counter, Odette sits on a stool. Elizabeth recognizes her from the photos she was provided, but doesn't stop, deciding instead to continue to the restroom. By the time she comes out, Odette has left her post and stands beside the bar talking to a waitress. Elizabeth walks over to the women.

  "I like the necklaces and bracelets in your case. Can I get a closer look at some of them?”

  "Of course, follow me," Odette says. “Are you visiting?”

  “Yes, on a charter. We’re anchored out in the harbor.”

  They return to the retail corner and Elizabeth feigns interest in several of the colorful pieces. "The local jewelry is very cool."

  "A little extra something for folks like you, people touring the islands, wanting to take a piece of the Caribbean home with them."

  Elizabeth detects a slight French-Canadian accent in Odette’s near-perfect English. “I’m Elizabeth. And you are?”

  “I’m Natalie,” she answers, confirming she does not want to be traced.

  "Is your family from France? I hear a hint of a French accent."

  "No, Canada. I bought this place about a year ago."

  "Must’ve cost a small fortune, but what a fantastic location, right on the water."

  The woman pauses before responding. "I was very fortunate. I inherited some money when my dad passed away, and I always wanted to run a café on a beach. My family came to Saint Martin once when I was younger and I dreamed of coming back. Now it's a dream come true. I have the pleasure of meeting people like you from all over the world during the day, then retire to my boat. I love being rocked to sleep by the waves."

  Elizabeth knows Odette's father is alive and well, but says nothing. She buys one of the bracelets with cash and heads back to her seat. She orders another drink, barely touches it, then meets Hector at the dinghy to head back to the sailboat. Once on board, she sends an encrypted message to Solarez who
suggests she first determine if Odette stays alone on her boat, and if she does, to visit her the next evening and confront her on the swap of Justin.

  Elizabeth watches the sunset from the yacht most of the evening after enjoying her dinner with the captain and Hector at one of the fine French restaurants along the beach. When she and the men part company, she uses her small binoculars to watch for a dinghy leaving somewhere near the café to try to determine which boat Odette lives on. But she fails to locate her that night. She wonders if she stayed with a boyfriend on shore or if she somehow missed her. So many dinghies had gone back and forth in the course of the evening, figuring out which one ferried her target was a daunting mission, especially from the moored sailboat.

  Chapter 66

  Hopeless Place

  While Odette peruses a magazine in the sleeping berth of her sloop, she listens to an acoustic piano playlist through Spotify. She never hears the rowboat or the intruder who slips aboard, silent as a tiger targeting an unsuspecting gazelle. When she senses someone in the room with her, she glances up from her reading and sees a black face mask and a pistol with a silencer pointed at her head.

  "If you want to live, don't scream."

  The intruder drops a backpack on the bed near where she lays.

  "Who are you?” she asks, sitting up on the bed. “If you want money, I’ll give it to you.” She tries to remain calm.

  Using a few front teeth, he rips a 6-inch piece of duct tape off the roll he withdrew from his pack, keeping the pistol trained on her.

  “This is temporary, until I know you're not gonna scream. I'll take it off soon because I want you to answer some questions. Cooperate and this bullet won't go through your skull.”

  He slaps the duct tape over her mouth with latex-gloved hands.

  "Turn over and lay down on your stomach.”

  With her heart pounding and tears streaming down her cheeks, Odette slowly rolls over.

  "Put your hands behind your back."

  She doesn’t move them at first.

  “Now!”

  She hesitantly complies.

  The man tries to tighten a zip tie around her wrists but realizes he can’t without putting his gun down. The moment he lays it on the bed, Odette kicks her legs out against his body, causing him to fall backward. He manages to grasp the pistol on the foot of the bed as he falls to the floor. In a second, he’s on his feet and trains the muzzle at her again as she tries to scramble out of the cabin.

  "Stop right there!”

  Odette freezes only steps away from him, her eyes wide with terror. He backhands her across the face. “You dumb bitch. Try that again and it'll be the last thing you do. Lay back down."

  Out of options, she gets back on the bed, wondering if falling prey to the almighty dollar is coming back to haunt her. She should have known it was too good to be true when the Asian man told her he had a simple way she could earn a lot of money—$100,000 down and another $200,000 after the delivery of her surrogate baby. All she had to do was not react to the slight change in the baby’s appearance when the nurses cleaned up the newborn and handed him to her.

  He zip-ties her ankles, and she doesn’t try to escape this time.

  "You know what, I changed my mind, I'm keeping that damn duct tape over your big mouth. I’m allowed to do that, right? Ever hear of BTK?” he asks her, fully aware she can’t answer him. “It stands for bind, torture, kill.”

  He reaches into the backpack and pulls out a long hypodermic syringe, which he sets on the counter beside the bed along with the small vial of liquid. Odette sees the needle and the meds and her fear amps up to sheer terror. She shimmies her body toward the foot of the bed and flops to the floor.

  “Binding done, time for the torture part,” he says, turning around and realizing she’s not on the bed anymore.

  “Stop movin’ around!”

  He pulls her up with two hands and flops her back on the bed. He fills the syringe three-quarters full and jabs it into her right buttock. Odette tries to scream but only manages a muffled groan through the tape, then nothing at all as the paralytic agent squelches any further movement. The intruder takes several other vials out of his pack and fills a second hypodermic needle with a cocktail of their contents.

  He plunges that one into her left buttock, supplying an overdose of Lorazepam and two other medications that together cause her breathing to become shallow. He waits about 20 minutes, periodically checking her pulse until it is barely perceptible. He gathers up the extra zip ties, syringes, and small vials from the counter with his gloved hands and replaces them with loose pills and a few unmarked prescription bottles. He begins whistling the melody to “We Found Love in a Hopeless Place” by Rihanna and Calvin Harris.

  “I wonder if Calvin Harris wrote all those lyrics?” he asks his semi-conscious victim while opening up a small, clear plastic bag and locating his roll of duct tape. “Ya know he’s a musical genius. Ya think Rihanna wrote any of them? Damn, all she has to do is sing and move her body. Who cares if she can write lyrics, you agree?”

  He slides the bag over her head and tapes it shut around her neck with a double layer of tape. Her faint exhalations partially fill the bag like a half-deflated helium balloon for a few seconds before she suffocates.

  Charon holds no personal grudge against this woman, just wants to do the job right. After he checks for a pulse and fails to find one, he surveys the cabin area carefully, assuring himself nothing but the random prescription meds are being left behind. Using a pair of scissors, he cuts the zip ties from her wrists and ankles takes the bag off of her head, and removes the duct tape from her neck and mouth, being extra careful not to cut her skin.

  Why does he think of this kind of upbeat music while killing? He hadn’t been born a killer, he was desperate for money and couldn’t be picky about the type of work he got. The jobs had haunted him at first. That’s why he’d try to lighten the mood by listening to some catchy songs before or during the act. What once distracted him from the depravity of what he did was now part of his routine.

  He shoves the used tape and ties into the plastic bag, then slips off the sloop stern with his supplies into the rowboat and silently rows back to shore.

  Word of Odette’s untimely demise travels like lightning through the shops and restaurants of St. Martin the next morning and is soon confirmed by local websites. Minutes after messaging the bad news back to the U.S., Elizabeth receives a response: There’s a new mission at hand and she will receive her instructions within 24 hours. She closes the laptop, prepared to move on to the next job but feeling like she missed a golden opportunity to discover the truth about Justin.

  Charon hits the end key on his burner phone, confirming the successful operation, then turns away from the view of the bobbing boats in the harbor. Pushing the balcony door closed behind him, he walks back into his hotel room to the king-size bed where his luggage sits. He sets his wheeled bag on the floor and extends the pull handle, then slings his black backpack over his right shoulder. After taking two steps toward the door, he stops. He slides the pack off his back and on to the bed, slides out his laptop, and flips it open near the white pillows he barely touched during his stay. Flopping down in front of the screen, he taps in his password, establishes his secure connection, and types into the search bar: “who wrote the song we found love in a hopeless place?”

  “I thought so,” he says out loud, while sliding the laptop back into his backpack. He grabs the handle of his other bag and hurries out of the room so he doesn’t miss his flight.

  Chapter 67

  Survey

  "Sir, we may have a lead on a mother who gave up a baby for adoption near Tillsonburg a week before the Michaels’ delivery occurred," the FBI analyst tells Solarez. “She’s in Simcoe, the next town over.”

  “Let me guess, 50 people live there and any sniffing around we do will raise all kinds of red flags.”

  "No red flags will be raised. When a child is adopted in Ontario, it�
��s done through the Ministry of Children and Youth Services. About a year after the adoption occurs, the Child’s Aid Society of Hamilton, or CAS, reaches out to the mother who gave up the newborn to check on her well-being and assess how she felt the adoption was handled.”

  "So, we're going to get that information from CAS on this mother?”

  "Actually, almost everything I told you is fake, I wanted to see if it sounded believable. We're going to send one of our agents to talk to her under the guise of working for CAS.”

  “Well, you had me fooled. Good work.”

  A Canada Air jet touches down in Hamilton, Ontario, and after clearing customs, the operative finds her French-Canadian contact, the one holding up a small sign with the words "Elizabeth Gardner" written on it in black permanent marker. They get in the car and he drives the 50 kilometers to the Lazy River Inn, one of the few places to stay in Simcoe. Elizabeth knows, because she checked out the hotel situation herself. She also researched the origin of the name Simcoe, since it sounded to her like some kind of manufactured product. But the city was named after a British Army general who had helped pioneer the area. She imagines General Simcoe riding on horseback down Main Street to the Canadian trading posts as they make their way to the inn.

  Elizabeth first reaches out to Natalie Michele through a voicemail, which goes unreturned. She calls a second time and leaves another polite message about the need for the one-year adoption follow-up survey, stating she would like to meet Natalie at the Ontario Community and Social Services building and can “be available at Ms. Michele's convenience.” She finally receives a text: