Targeting the Telomeres, A Thriller

by R. N. Shapiro

  "We got along fine. We weren’t close friends, but we got to know each other pretty well. I’m trying to stay positive, but I'm worried about him and I hope you guys find him soon."

  "Well, I'd be lying if I told you there weren’t a lot of foreign governments after this telomere research. "How am I supposed to carry on this research without being Ron Michaels?"

  "We're going to give you access to the data, including Ron's personal materials. Did he ever say anything to you or give any indication of trouble with regard to his research?"

  Walston thinks but can't come up with anything. "Not that I recall. He’s a big brainstormer though, and he encouraged me to apply other biological breakthroughs to our telomere research."

  "Okay, keep me posted if you think of something." Solarez stands to open the door and find the next member of the research team.

  Walston follows his lead and gets up from the table. "Actually, there was one thing, but it's probably nothing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He had me drop a folder off at his brother's Georgetown law office when I was going to visit my folks one time. I just dropped the folder off, but he was insistent that I slide it through the mail slot over the weekend. I mean, I was going over the weekend anyway, but it seemed, I don’t know, like it was very important that I did it just like he wanted." Walston shoves his hands into his pockets and starts to walk down the hall.

  “That seemed unusual to you?" Solarez calls after him, and the researcher turns back around.

  “Yeah, a little. Just because that was the only time he asked, and I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t overnight the papers to him."

  "Okay, thanks for that.”

  Solarez makes a mental note to follow up on that information.

  "So, you’ve finally made your way to the lowly administrative assistant. You know, we tend to know more juicy stuff than the researchers. But you knew that, that’s why you wanted to talk to me last, right?" Randi Middleton teases.

  "Sometimes that's true." Solarez smiles.

  Randi doesn’t return his smile. "You’d better find Ron. And in one piece too. I've got one thing to tell you. I don't know if it means anything, but he borrowed my laptop because he had something he wanted to type. He gave me some reason why he couldn't use his own. I thought it was strange."

  "How long did he borrow it for?"

  "He took it home one night and brought it back to me the next morning. He said he didn’t have Excel software on his Mac, so he needed to borrow mine, cuz it ran Microsoft.”

  "Do you still have the laptop?"

  "Yeah, at home. Are you guys still gonna be here tomorrow?"

  "I won’t, but a couple other agents will be here following up. So yeah, bring it in and my computer people will look at it.” Solarez decides there's a lot of fertile ground to be plowed here at the lab, and maybe the laptop will provide a solid lead.

  Chapter 80

  Cheating

  The man surveys the area below from the roof of the hotel, his earbuds pumping a dance track into his ears. The north and east sides won't do, with lush grass close to the building. The west side is a parking lot, but shrubs line the foot of the hotel. The southern exposure is perfect, a solid concrete parking lot. He walks back to the metal door leading to a stairway that is rarely used, but mandated by the building code. The door is propped open by a shim he placed in the hinge on his way out. He checks it behind him after he walks through to confirm it stays slightly ajar. He descends the stairs, checking the exit doors at each landing before he arrives on the seventh floor, then leaves the stairwell and returns down the hall to Room 732. After he looks both ways for surveillance cameras, he slides a keycard into the door and enters.

  Fletcher’s favorite night has arrived. He exits the elevator with the vial of Amanda’s blood stashed in his inside jacket pocket and a small bouquet of red and white roses in his left hand. After knocking lightly, he waits for Monica to open the door and hopes he can talk her into spending a little time in the hotel room before they head out for dinner and drinks. The door opens and Fletcher eagerly enters, but when he notices the muzzle of the pistol aimed right at him, his face turns ashen.

  "You didn't know Monica was my wife, did you, you punk bitch!" the gunman seethes through clenched teeth.

  Fletcher knows better than to try to run. He freezes in place, the flowers still in his hand.

  "Take a seat at the desk, Fletcher, and don’t even think about yelling, you damn house wrecker." Charon keeps the gun trained on the scrawny scientist as he creeps to the chair and slinks down in it. “Bet you’re sorry now, aren’t you?”

  "She never said a word about being married.”

  "You write down on that piece of paper your apology to me."

  Fletcher looks down at several sheets of hotel stationery and a pen. He tries to pick up the pen, but his hands are violently shaking.

  "Write something like, 'I'm overcome with guilt. I'm so sorry about what I've done.’ Then sign it."

  Fletcher doesn't ask questions, he just starts writing: I'm overcome with guilt. “I wrote the first part. What was the rest?”

  Charon gets looks over his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry about what I’ve done.” He watches Fletch writing. “Now you sign your name and date it."

  Fletcher complies.

  "Where's your wallet?" he demands.

  Fletcher pulls it out of his pocket and holds it up in his right hand. "Right here.”

  "Put it on the desk next to the note, I want to check something. Now, stand up and put your hands behind your back.”

  “What for?”

  “Shut up if you know what’s good for you.”

  Fletcher stands up with his hands behind his back and feels the man putting thick plastic zip ties around his wrists. After that, the man pulls out a small roll of duct tape and rips off a piece to put over Fletcher's mouth.

  “Hey, I don't know what you think you're doing—" Fletcher protests.

  Charon backhands him with the gun across the back of his head. Fletcher falls to one knee, but gets back up.

  "Follow my orders." Charon presses the strip of duct tape across his mouth. "I'm taking you to the top floor where Monica is waiting, and we're going to chat." He grabs Fletcher's bound wrists. "My Glock is going to be right here in my jacket pocket pointing into your back, so don't try to be a tough guy. If you follow my instructions, you'll be walking out of here after we all talk this out.”

  Charon puts his ear to the door to listen for any noise in the hallway, then he jerks Fletcher behind him, opens the door, and edges out into the hall. He positions Fletcher in front of him and they head toward the emergency stairwell where Charon pulls the door open and shoves Fletcher through. They start trudging up towards the rooftop.

  Fletcher's mind whirls. Why is this guy setting up a confrontation between me and Monica? I wrote his stupid apology note. Wait, did Monica set me up? Fletcher can’t bring himself to believe Monica was involved. We were in love, right?

  As they pass the ninth floor and a sign stating, “Roof: authorized access only,” Fletcher finally stops obsessing about Monica and concludes he isn’t coming back down alive if they reach the roof. He jerks his entire body around and breaks away from his captor. He hauls ass toward the ninth-floor door and reaches it before he realizes he can’t turn the round knob to open it since his hands are bound behind his back. This brief hesitation allows Charon to get within a few steps of him. Charon lunges toward him and plunges a needle into Fletcher, just below his right shoulder blade. Fletcher collapses on the concrete stairs, unable to move due to the paralytic agent.

  Charon takes stock of the situation. Fletcher appears to be 5-foot 8-inches tall and must weigh no more than 125 pounds. Charon removes a small pocket knife from his back pocket and cuts the zip ties holding Fletcher's wrists. Then he flips him onto his back and begins pulling him by his arms.

  “We found love in a hopeless place—” Charon sing
s almost to himself but loud enough that Fletcher can hear his depraved, twisted voice. “You shoulda never fallen for that booty, Fletcher. Sex is the downfall of so many a man.”

  Fletcher’s eyes are wide open in terror, but Charon doesn’t notice. He pulls him one step at a time, back up past the ninth-floor landing and toward the rooftop, taking a few breaks along the way, complaining about how damn hard his work is. Fletcher feels the concrete scraping against any skin that is exposed on his body, but cannot express his discomfort.

  Stooping and grabbing Fletcher’s body, Charon forces his torso up against the edge of the four-foot wall surrounding the rooftop’s perimeter. After he leans over and sees no movement, he puts both hands around Fletcher, half-lifting, half-rolling him on to the top of the stub wall. He gives his victim’s body a powerful kick to launch it away from the edge of the building. For a split second, he thinks about Fletcher’s too-short life, but quickly recovers.

  Charon sprints as fast as he can to the rooftop door. He pulls the shim out and shoves it in his pants pocket as he goes, taking two to three steps in the concrete stairwell at a time until he reaches the fifth floor. Opening the door, he composes himself and walks toward the elevator with his sunglasses on and the hood of his hoodie placed close to his face, trying to conceal his identity while looking like just another guest. He descends to the basement level, where the laundry, fitness room, and his car are located. He gets in his car and slowly drives out of the lot.

  Chapter 81

  Ferry

  Amanda turns around in her seat to make eye contact with Ryan about eight rows behind her on the opposite aisle, disobeying his rule that they never acknowledge each other on any leg of their journey. When he ignores her, she faces the front again and reads the small handwritten note she’ll soon be throwing out.

  D Concourse. To South China Ferry Station, ferry ticket, HK-Shen Zhen. Meet highest level of ferry 10 minutes following departure. Discard note.

  She closes her eyes and takes several deep breaths to calm herself. You've got this, she keeps repeating. It’s the best way to get Justin back, maybe Dad too. And to succeed where the CIA failed—that would make quite a story someday. If she lives to tell about it.

  She looks down at her almost non-existent carry-on bag that Ryan insisted was all she could bring. She tries to think of a trip where she brought such few belongings but can’t. The contents aren’t even hers, they were bought for her by Ryan. She wonders what she packed for the New York trip when the plane went down, then pushes the idea out of her head before it can bring back distracting thoughts of her deceased mom and the fact that she can’t remember anything about her. She digs into the small duffel past a shirt and pair of pants, locates the sealed bag with the pill bottle, and glances at the disguises, also in large plastic bags. She fishes one red pill and one blue one from the bottle and downs them. She’s a day or two behind in taking them, but they don’t seem to be doing anything anyway, she just takes them because her dad asked her to.

  After they exit the plane at the airport in Hong Kong, she and Ryan are heading directly to the ferry to avoid customs inside the airport. They’ll deal with it when they reach Shen Zhen, a busy industrial city full of factories and warehouses packed with workers building products to ship to the rest of the world. The Chinese and English instructions to prepare for landing are announced, and the jet bounces a couple shorts hops before settling on the runway.

  Once off the plane, Amanda finds a restroom in the airport concourse and changes into the disguise Ryan instructed her to use for this leg of the trip. Exiting moments later, she follows the signs written in multiple languages toward the ferry station.

  Amanda finds a seat on the top deck of the ferry under the overcast sky. Her internal clock tells her she should be asleep, even though it's only late afternoon in Hong Kong. The sun, wherever it is behind the clouds, is sinking closer to the horizon.

  Within a minute of sitting down, she hears a voice from behind her.

  "Everything good?"

  She doesn't turn around.

  "Fine.”

  "Excellent. About five minutes before the arrival time, they'll announce we’re approaching the dock. That's our cue to head to the lower deck. Find me at the rear of the ferry and follow."

  Amanda nods slightly, then looks out the window at the lights from distant buildings along the starboard side. She uses her finger to draw her initials in the condensation, a cursive “AM.” Then she traces a rectangle around them. Her near meditative state gets interrupted by someone speaking Chinese over the loudspeaker, followed by the English version. She slings her bag over her shoulder and heads for the stairway. This better work.

  Arriving at the lower deck, she finds Ryan standing near a door, which he pushes open as soon as she approaches. As they rush down a short staircase to another door, Amanda notices a sign showing a circle with a red line through it. Okay, pretty clear we aren’t supposed to be here.

  The strong, musty smell of moisture envelopes them both as Ryan opens the next door. They make a right into a narrow hallway, then another right, and he finally opens a third door to reveal a small, dark mechanical room.

  "We'll be staying here at least fifteen minutes after the ship docks so we can exit after the crew and the passengers. This is going to go one of two ways. We're either going to steal down the gangplank if we can do it without being noticed, which is the easy way, or we're going to navigate our way through the crew hallways to the stern, lower ourselves into the water, and swim to one of the piers. That’s obviously the harder way, but we can’t risk being seen if the gangplank is brightly lit. I’ve got rope in here and some other equipment, just in case. If this goes the hard way, ditch the duffel bag. There’s nothing in it identifying you, right?”

  “Nope.”

  "Perfect."

  “What if something goes wrong? We don't have any weapons. What’ll we—”

  "I've got a weapon, right here." Ryan draws a gleaming knife out of a scabbard. The shiny surface catches tiny rays of light and glints in the near darkness.

  "How’d you get that on the plane?"

  "I didn't, it was hidden for us on the ferry. You didn't think we could pull off this operation without any inside help did you?"

  "I guess I figured you’d know someone, but—"

  "You'll meet her at some point,” Ryan assures her. “Our weapons and supplies will be in two duffel bags in lockers once we get to the dock.”

  A few minutes later the ferry engines change, the hum and vibration reduces to an idle, then they rev again and Amanda feels the ferry slowly reverse direction. As the engines die down again to a murmur, Ryan checks his watch while reviewing the details of the Beijing bullet train with her. They’ll each be sharing sleeping berths with strangers, and she is not to try to contact him. If things go well, he’ll be the one to come to her berth or find her in the dining car during the eleven-hour trip across the hinterland of China. They will each have two burner phones. He goes over several back-up plans that entail splitting up and finding each other at specific times and locations.

  “We gotta see Liza’s mark in the Beijing train station. If it’s not there, we separate.”

  “So, Liza’s her name. What’s the mark?”

  “In the main terminal is a coffee place with a board for messages and business cards outside the women’s restroom. If everything is cool, there’ll be a peace sign in pink on the board.”

  “Um, okay, not quite what I was expecting,” Amanda says, slightly disappointed the sign isn’t more spy-like and less feminine.

  “Try to sleep on the train,” Ryan advises. Amanda figures she has a lot more than sleep to worry about.

  Chapter 82

  Backtracking

  "Shannon, find David Carter, the intern, have him report here to the ready room," Solarez barks to one of his trusted analysts already working at her terminal. When David appears, Solarez asks him and Shannon to follow him to the nearby conference room.
They enter and he closes the door behind them.

  "Shannon, we've been tracking this guy, Ty Ryan, and Amanda was with him several times before she disappeared. I now think they're together, and I need you to track what he's done in the last week. I mean everything, figure out where he's been, who he's seen, every detail. Report back to me within two hours."

  "David, here's what I've got for you. We've searched Crossroads Farm, and we know Amanda was using her laptop recently, but now it’s gone. It’s either with her or was discarded somewhere. I want you to recreate every internet search she's done on that laptop."

  "But sir, don't we need a subpoena to legally do this search?"

  “That's a technicality, David. I can get one from the assistant U.S. attorney or from the FISA court. This is part of a counterintelligence operation involving whatever the hell the Chinese have done with her dad, and has international reach. Assume it falls under one of the open warrants we already got.“

  "Well, shouldn’t I wait until—"

  "No, I want you to start on it right away. You let me worry about the legal stuff. We’re on the schedule to present an extension request to one of the FISA judges.” Solarez stares at David until he nods. "Alright then, both of you get busy. And please send Anita in to see me."

  Moments later Anita enters and sees the papers in organized rows in front of Solarez. She knows the drill, but Solarez briefs her anyway.

  “Anita, we need to go over the CIA reports on the summit between the North Korean and Chinese presidents. Call our Chinese embassy agents and convey to them that this is a volatile situation. We don't know what Amanda Michaels plans to do, but we are concerned she may be planning to disrupt the summit. Don't mention a plot, just tell them counterintelligence needs every detail about the summit—times, places, locations—and we want some assurance that they are assigning several agents to scour all major entry points into Beijing. We’ll continue to update them and we expect them to do the same for us."