kiDNApped (A Tara Shores Thriller) (35 page)

“Oh my God,” Kristen said. She began to pace around the room.

“There is one good thing about this message,” Tara said, speaking for the first time since viewing the communication. Kristen and Lance gazed at her expectantly.

“We know they were here. In Lahaina. In that wreck.”

“That’s true,” Lance agreed, raising a finger in the air. “And we know
when
they were here.”

Tara nodded. “The explosion, or whatever that boat incident was that the harbor patrol checked out.”

“That had to be it,” Lance said. “And those scissors. Not a bit of rust on them. They probably came from the
Nahoa
, too. Maybe Dad tried to escape and was using them as a weapon, who knows.”

Tara ran to the dresser and snatched up her cell-phone. The two men looked at her as she hit a key then held the phone to her ear. She saw them watching her. “I'm calling Rob. Wherever the
Nahoa
is now, it’s definitely still within helicopter range.”

“That means
Dad
is within helicopter range,” Kristen said to Lance.

“It doesn't make sense to do a night search, does it?” Dave pointed out.

“I understand that,” Tara said, “But I want to let him know that we’re going at first light.”

Lance let his head loll back, as if tired, frustrated at the idea of getting up early again.

Kristen fought to control a sudden rage. “What, Lance? You don’t want to go? You keep forgetting that it was your sorry ass who got us into this god awful mess. You think I like draining my accounts like money grows on trees so I can try to get our father back from these...these absolute animals you threw him to?” She finished with a choked sob that made Dave put an arm around her.

Lance jumped to his feet, infuriated. “I know I'm busted here, okay? I'm being escorted around by an FBI agent while I try to explain what I did. But I'm still here, trying. I guess I could just give up on everything.”

“Maybe you should,” Kristen said, her voice lower and calmer sounding than before. “Perhaps you're incriminating yourself in the presence of Agent Shores more than you should be.”

Lance walked toward the door, eyes wide. Tara tensed, ready to take any action that might be necessary. She shot Kristen an angry look.

“Wait,” Kristen said. “Lance. Don’t do that. We might need your computer help again, and I want you in the helicopter with us if we spot the ship where Dad is being held. And I’d just be the one to have to bail you out if you turned yourself in, anyway.”

Lance stopped before he reached the door and turned back around to face his sister.

“That might be a bail that even you couldn’t pay.”

Her features took on a grim look at the reference to how serious Lance’s crime was in the eyes of the law. “You may be right. I know who could, though: Dad. How ironic is that? The one person who could have bailed you out from anything.”

Lance bit his lip, looking like he was about to explode. Brother and sister locked eyes. They engaged in a staring contest for the next ten seconds. Lance looked away first.

Tara spoke. “Let’s all get some sleep. We’re up at four-thirty.”

She retreated to the adjoining room she would share with Kristen.

A hard rain fell on the
Nahoa
. The elder Archer could hear it pummeling the ship’s deck just beyond the lab walls. He didn’t know what it meant for the weather outside. It could be just a passing squall, or the beginning of a rare Hawaiian hurricane. He had no way of knowing.

What he did know, however, was that it was late, and his guard had started to nod off about an hour ago. Now he seemed to be asleep more than awake, slumped over on the lab bench a good ten feet away, both arms cradling his rifle. He even snored at times, which sounded terrifying through the voice modulator.

Archer was amused that the scientist left in the lab to monitor his work seemed not to care about his sleepy colleague. He was there to be taught, and learn he did, peppering Archer with questions about his lab procedures. Why couldn’t you have done it like this instead of like that? Why transpose this sequence before insertion into the host? His questions were frequent and intelligent. He truly wanted to gain knowledge of Archer’s procedures, not only for his company, but for his own edification.

This was why he asked Dr. Archer to stop working while he used the lab’s bathroom.

Archer told the man he’d take a break. As soon as his scientist captor had entered the tiny bathroom and closed its door behind him, Archer glanced at his guard. The man was snoring steadily now, eyes closed, hands gripping his gun.

Archer flashed on the idea of wresting the sleeping man’s gun from him, killing him and the scientist in the bathroom, but he quickly forced this idea from his mind. Shots would be easily heard throughout the ship at this time of night—even over the steady drumbeat of raindrops—and then he would be overpowered or killed in a gun battle. Jumping ship now—at night in the rain, without knowing where they were—was a suicidal option.

He considered taking one of the guards as a hostage, but decided their lives might not be worth much to the lead. The lead...something about him bothered Archer, but he shoved the thought aside and focused on the task at hand—the plan he had devised.

He had organized an alphabet of DNA sequences to be used for creating his messages. Once his captors understood the system, they had had him code the message to Kristen to stop following the boat. Now, with no one watching him for the first time in several hours, Archer accessed the alphabet base pairs without being seen.

He worked as fast as humanly possible for such precision work, hands moving with robotic accuracy and speed as he transferred vial contents via pipette to Petri dish and well slide.

It was his shortest message yet, but also the most important. He was hunting in the cabinet beneath him for an empty test tube when he heard the toilet flush.

Quickly
!

Archer tossed aside various items in the cabinet until he found one of the white-capped test tubes. He pulled it out and closed the cabinet door.

He could hear the man in the bathroom running the sink now. At least the guy was hygienic, Archer thought as he transferred the new microbial message he’d just created into the test tube. Kristen would definitely recognize the tube as coming from this lab were she to see it.

Dr. Archer capped the tube and slipped it into the pocket of his shorts just as the bathroom door opened.

…TTGC
64
CGAG...

Thursday, June 18, 4:57 A.M

The rain woke them before the pre-dawn hotel wake-up call.

Opening her door, Tara was taken aback by the deluge.
Rain
didn’t seem the appropriate term for the weather she witnessed. She could see no farther than a few yards outside the door. Water pelted her face. Gusts of wind blew trash past her feet. She closed the door and went though the bathroom that connected the room she shared with Kristen to Lance and Dave’s.

They were already opening their door, also marveling at the vicious weather. “Tropical storm,” Lance said. He looked at Dave. “Ever see anything like this?”

Dave shook his head. “Not this bad, no, but I have seen some heavy rainstorms on Oahu. They don’t last long.” Outside, the rain intensified. Kristen flipped on the television but there was nothing but static on every channel.

“Storm must have taken something out,” Dave said. “At least we still have power for now.”

Their room phone rang. Wake-up call.

“I’m calling Rob,” Tara said.

“I’ll get started on some coffee,” Lance said, moving to the small kitchenette area. Kristen continued to fiddle with the TV without success while Tara listened into her cell-phone. Rob was doing most of the talking. She ended the call after saying “Okay,” a couple of times.

“Rob says it’s bad where he is too, over by the airport, and no way can he fly until this clears up. Says to check back in two more hours.”

Dave nodded, pulling back the curtains to reveal the dark rainstorm outside their room. “This is definitely not helicopter weather.”

Kristen sat down on one of the beds, sighing. “Okay, we’re up, we’ve got at least a couple hours to kill.”

“But it’s not beach weather either,” Lance said, bringing over steaming mugs of Kona coffee.

“No,” Kristen said, accepting a mug, “but there is something we can work on.”

“What’s that?” Tara asked.

“I’ve been wondering about the second part of the message before last. The message from Dad, with the boat name, and—”

“And the twenty-one digit number,” Lance said, remembering the second part of the message he himself had decoded on the beach. “Okay, it’s an alphanumeric string. Ideas?”

Tara availed herself of a cup of coffee and sat at the room’s only table to observe the conversation.
Who is it that actually makes the connections? Is any of them impeding the discussion?

“Some other kind of code—a code within a code?” Dave threw out.

Lance shrugged.

“God, I hope not,” Kristen said. Then, “No, I don’t think that’s it. As if arranging DNA within a bacterial cell that you need a decryption key to decipher isn’t secure enough already. I think it’s safe to say that what we have
is
the message.’

“A serial number of some kind—not a boat tag, but something else?” Lance offered.

More coffee was consumed while the three of them considered this. “Serial number of what?” Dave asked. “A piece of lab equipment, maybe—like a DNA sequencer, or a computer?”

Lance shrugged again. Kristen retreated to her adjoining room and came back with her laptop. She set it up on the desk. “Hope the Internet works,” she said, flipping on the wireless switch. A few seconds later she breathed a sigh of relief. “Connected. This time I’ll focus on the number itself, unconnected to the boat.”

She entered the twenty-one digit string into Google. Her face took on a serious expression.

“How about a bank account number?” she asked. “An IBAN—International Banking Account Number—issued in Switzerland.”

Tara perked up. Sensing a possible significant development in the case, she discreetly thumbed the voice recorder in her pants pocket.

“A Swiss numbered account!” Lance exclaimed.

“That same exact number comes up?” Dave asked.

“No,” Kristen replied, “but I’m looking at a result that has a breakdown of the different digits and what they mean. The first two are the country code. CH is Switzerland. The next ten characters—always numbers—are collectively known as the control digit, and the next five after that—also always numbers—are the bank clearing number. Then the last twelve characters—they can be numbers or letters—are the account number. It’s consistent with what Dad coded into the DNA,” she finished, fingers moving rapidly across the keyboard to juxtapose windows on the screen.

Lance and Dave stared at the laptop with their mouths open. Especially Lance. Tara walked up to the computer with her digital camera and snapped a picture of the screen, which showed the IBAN number breakdown along with the decoded message.

“Why would Dad code a Swiss account number into the DNA of a bacterial population?” Kristen asked. Without waiting for an answer, she asked Tara if she could use her cell-phone.

“What for?” Tara asked.

“I’m going to leave a message with my Dad’s estate attorney to ask him about this.” Tara handed her the phone.

Lance made a snorting noise. “We already saw a list of assets prepared by his attorneys to be distributed as part of his estate, and there were no international bank accounts on it. I think the better question is what is Dad doing with a Swiss account number in the first place?”

…CGAC
65
GAAA…

A booted foot kicked Dr. William Archer’s cot, jolting him awake. Panic gripped him as he felt his pants pocket for the test-tube with his latest—and most important—coded message. Still there. The guard was smiling down at him.

“Enough beauty sleep. Get up.”

Archer looked over at the door and saw his science monitor conferring with the lead scientist. The geneticist sat up woozily. The guard joined his colleagues at the door. Then, surprisingly to Archer, his ever-present twin escorts left the lab, leaving him alone with the lead.

Archer started to stand, but the lead held out a hand—the one not holding the gun, Archer noticed. The masked figure spoke.

“Please remain seated. William, I have something very important to tell you.” Archer froze for a moment, perplexed, before allowing himself to fall back into the cot. His captors hadn’t addressed him by his first name before, always Doctor Archer.

“Yes?”

The lead turned around to look at the lab door, as if making sure it was closed. Then, with a last glance around the lab, the lead put a hand on his mask and started to peel it away.

Archer gasped.

“No!”

His most horrible fear was coming alive. The lead removing his mask could mean only one thing: now that he had created GREENBACK, they were going to kill him; the mask was no longer necessary. Maybe the bastard wanted to be able to look him in the eye while he exterminated the life from him, Archer thought—some kind of twisted revenge fantasy for killing his colleague.

Archer saw only one chance for survival. He leapt from the cot. He rushed the lead, knowing he didn’t have time to tackle him before his weapon could be raised.

He saw the lead shaking a mane of long, black hair. He thought,
maybe I do have time
!

And then Dr. William Archer stopped dead in his tracks.

Stunned beyond comprehension.

He was looking at a woman. And not just any woman, but a woman he knew well. Not Chinese. Caucasian. Russian, in fact.

“I’m sorry, William. But I’ve come to help you now.”

The voice, now freed from the modulator, was mellifluous and smooth, but fraught with a certain tension.

It was a voice he knew well, but had not heard in years; familiar yet distant.

“Marissa?”
Marissa
...