Authors: Peter James
‘Absolutely.’
‘Alive?’
‘Yes.’
She stood up, walked over to the window and stared out. There was no view, just a windowless brick wall the other side of an enclosed courtyard. ‘They’re too smart, too intelligent. People who think they’ve seized a couple of pretty children to abuse are going to find themselves with more than they bargained for. When Luke and Phoebe suss that these people they trotted off with so damned happily are actually monsters, then they’re going to start resisting – and when that happens, what the hell are these creeps going to do? What would you do?’
John walked over to her and put his arms around her. ‘Maybe they’re smart enough to escape. Perhaps this is the time that the advantages we’ve given them in life will pay off.’
She looked at him. ‘Really? Well, if you can explain all these wonderful advantages they have – how come they were foolish enough to go off with these people in the first place?’
‘Did you manage to sleep?’ Pelham asked John and Naomi.
‘A little, thank you.’ Naomi stared across the round table in the detective inspector’s office through raw eyes and with a throbbing head. Her scalp felt tight and uncomfortable, as if it had shrunk around her skull.
Pelham was accompanied by Tom Humbolt and a third man, a lean, good-looking American in a dark suit, whom the DI introduced as Special Agent Dan Norbert of the FBI, who was based at the American Embassy in London.
‘Thanks for coming down on a Sunday,’ John said.
The agent spoke in rapid-fire bursts with a Southern twang, his lips barely moving. ‘Not a problem, we’re full out on this case. Real sorry ’bout your kids. Gonna get them back for you, that’s what we’re here to do. We’re gonna get ’em back fast as we can.’
He spoke with a certainty that gave Naomi a spark of hope. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked. ‘Have there been some developments? Do you know where they are?’
‘We believe we do,’ he said.
Pelham said, ‘I decided not to risk waiting for the Greek authorities to get around to opening up the left-luggage locker and sent an officer to Athens airport myself last night. He found a bag in the locker containing amounts of cash in a number of currencies, the business card of a taxi company in Thessaloniki, and the deceased woman’s real passport sewn into the bottom. Her name is Lara Gherardi. That mean anything to either of you?’
‘No,’ John said.
‘
Lara Gherardi?
No.’ Naomi shook her head.
Pelham continued, ‘The FBI say she was reported missing three and a half years ago by her family in Chicago, who believe she was linked to a religious cult. She had a history of mental illness and instability, and had twice in her teens run off and joined cults. On those occasions, her family used to get communications from her, but they’ve heard nothing in three and a half years – they say it’s as if she disappeared off the face of the earth.’
Naomi looked at the American agent. ‘Where do you think our children are? Have you found out anything about the plane?’
‘We haven’t gotten any useful information on the Gulfstream yet. But we’re closing the loop in another direction. The man who was found with a gunshot wound on your doorstep on Friday morning – who was murdered yesterday – we believe is Timon Cort, a member of the Disciples of the Third Millennium cult.’
‘It really exists?’ John asked.
‘The Disciples?’ The agent tilted his head. ‘Uh, you want to believe it exists. We’re pretty certain we’ve located their base, and we’ve been monitoring all their electronic signals for several months by satellite, picking up all their digital communication packets. We’ve been tracking this Timon Cort character through emails – all coded in weird religious tracts of the Bible – for the past eighteen months. We linked him to Iowa, where there was a mass death of a family who had been to Dr Dettore, then to Rochester, New York State, where another family who had been to Dettore were killed. Then we lost him. Turns out he comes to England and pitches up on your doorstep.’
‘Who shot him outside our house?’ Naomi asked, tightly, shivering.
‘Can’t answer that,’ Dan Norbert said. ‘You get seriously screwed-up people in these cults. Two factions disagreeing about what to do, that kind of stuff.’
‘And you
know
where they are?’ she said.
‘Thanks to Miss Gherardi’s left luggage ticket.’ He chewed his gum for a moment. ‘Our office in Athens has been on to the cab firm who told us where they picked this woman up from yesterday. Her photo was in Timon Cort’s wallet. She got sent to kill him, presumably to keep him from talking, but that doesn’t interest us. It’s the connection between them, that’s the thing, that’s the absolute proof for us.’
‘I thought the Disciples killed people – that they were dedicated to eradicating children conceived in Dr Dettore’s clinic?’ John said. ‘Why would they abduct them?’
‘Seems like they’ve had a change of policy. In the past week in the United States, three sets of
Dettore
twins have been reported missing by the parents. They’ve just vanished, leaving even less for us to go on than yours have.’
‘
Three
sets of twins?’ John said. ‘They’ve kidnapped six kids in the past week?’
‘We don’t have evidence the others have been kidnapped, but it seems likely. They’ve all just slipped under the radar, vanished into thin air.’
‘And you think they’re in the same place as Luke and Phoebe?’ asked Naomi.
‘We’re gonna find out pretty soon.’
‘How soon?’ she persisted.
‘Well, ma’am, appropriations are really being pumped, and we’re just getting our proactive procedural safeguards locked in – we want to ensure we don’t give these bastards one inch of wiggle room, right?’
‘Right,’ she echoed blankly, barely understanding a word of what he had just said.
Then he went on. ‘I’m sorry to have to make you go back over ground you’ve been covering with these good people for the past forty-eight hours, but I’m going to need to start at the beginning with you.’
‘It’s not a problem,’ John said. ‘We’re very grateful for your involvement.’
It was three in the afternoon before Special Agent Norbert was done with his questions, and Pelham escorted him out of the door, back to his car.
John and Naomi sat in silence for some moments as they waited for Pelham to return. Naomi, completely drained, looked at Tom Humbolt, who had an expression on his face that seemed to be saying,
Why do guys like Special Agent Norbert treat everyone who isn’t FBI like they just fell off the back of a truck?
‘Three other sets of twins?’ Naomi said to him. ‘Why – why would they be taking them?’
‘Could it be to try to protect them?’ John asked.
‘Maybe to try to brainwash them?’ Humbolt ventured.
‘It seems positive, at least,’ Renate Harrison said. ‘If their agenda was to harm Luke and Phoebe, and these others, I don’t imagine they would have gone to these lengths of taking them away.’
Her mobile phone rang. She answered it, then a moment later said, ‘One moment, sir, I’d like everyone to hear what you have to say. Can we call you back on a speaker phone in a couple of minutes? Thank you.’ Ending the call, she said to John and Naomi, ‘It’s Professor Chetwynde-Cunningham with some information. I suggest we wait for Detective Inspector Pelham to return.’
A few minutes later, with a starfish-shaped conferencing phone on the middle of the table, Renate Harrison dialled the linguist’s number at Morley Park. ‘We have Dr and Mrs Klaesson, Detective Inspector Pelham and Detective Sergeant Humbolt listening, Professor.’
‘Jolly good. Good afternoon, everyone.’ He sounded very tired.
They returned the greeting, then waited.
‘I’m afraid I don’t have any good news for you. It’s a bit disappointing at the moment. We’ve all been working around the clock on this, and I’m afraid we haven’t made much progress. You are probably aware from our conversations, John, that encryption techniques have moved forward enormously in recent years, with a great deal of research money being thrown at creating uncrackable codes for secure trading on the internet. Yes?’
‘Sure,’ John said.
‘What we have here is way advanced from the code your twins were using a while ago, of reversing speech and deleting every fourth letter. I’m afraid what we are up against here is something none of us has encountered before and it’s not decipherable within current capabilities. I’m not saying it won’t be possible one day, but it could take us a month, or many months, maybe longer. Without the keys, we’re stymied in the short term.’
Pelham leaned forward. ‘This is Detective Inspector Pelham speaking, Professor.’
‘Yes, hallo.’
‘Are you willing to keep trying?’
‘Of course, but I don’t want to hold out any promises – you need to be aware of that.’
‘We appreciate your candour, Professor.’
‘With your permission, I’d like to send copies of these hard disks to one of my former colleagues at GCHQ – the Government Communications Headquarters at Cheltenham. He’s willing to give his people a shot at it.’
Pelham looked at John and Naomi for confirmation, then said, ‘You have our absolute consent to explore any avenue you consider appropriate.’
‘OK. I don’t think there’s much more I can add at present.’
‘We’re very grateful to you,’ Pelham said.
‘Thanks, Reggie,’ John said.
‘Perhaps I can offer you and your wife one small crumb in this awful predicament. If your children are smart enough to be able to communicate in this code, then they must have quite extraordinary intelligence.’
‘Meaning what, exactly?’ John asked.
‘Well, just that. Perhaps their survival skills are equally honed.’
‘They are still only three years old, Professor,’ Naomi said.
‘That may be, but they’ve got more wits about them than most adults.’
After a long silence, John said, ‘We hear what you are saying, Reggie, thank you. We appreciate everything you and your team are doing.’
‘I’ll keep you posted.’
They all thanked him, then Pelham terminated the call.
‘Maybe we should take a break,’ the detective inspector said. ‘I think we could all use a little air.’
It was a perfect night. They could have waited weeks for conditions like this, months even. No moon, heavy cloud cover, a light swell. They cut the motor and drifted, and within seconds, operating on synchronized watches, all the other outboards on the fleet of twenty inflatables had been cut, too.
Sudden hush. Just the slop of the ink-black ocean, the splash of oars, the creak of rowlocks, the sound of nervous breathing, the rustle of tough clothing fabrics.
Twelve miles to the south, the lights of the ships were now no longer visible. Out there in the darkness on the edge of the horizon, two aircraft carriers, one belonging to the Greek navy, one to the United States, were hove-to, on full alert. Helicopters sat on both their decks, crewed-up, waiting.
With all electronic equipment switched off, and all conversation forbidden, the crew in the flotilla of shore craft rowed the final three miles in silence.
*
At half past one in the morning, Harald Gatward knelt beside his bed, face buried in his hands, communing with the Lord in a prayer vigil more intense than any he had held in months.
He felt like he had hit a wall with his worship, the kind of wall marathon runners face after the first few miles, the wall of pain and despair you have to get beyond, because when you do, when you muster your resources and force yourself through, soon the juices start flowing, and everything becomes easier.
Satan had put up this wall and he needed God to help him find a way through it.
Father Yanni, the Abbot, had come to his cell and spoken to him last night, told him in that wise, lugubrious voice that the other monks had noticed he wasn’t praying so well recently. Particularly the past couple of days. Father Yanni wondered if, perhaps, the American was sickening for something? Or having doubts?
‘The man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin,’ Harald Gatward had replied.
The Abbott told him the monks would pray for his faith, then had said a short prayer with him, and left.
Gatward opened his eyes and stared into the darkness of his room. Soon it would be the drum call to matins and they would all see his troubled face. Might be better this morning to remain in his cell; he had to think through his problems, the ones he could not, dare not, share with the Abbot or any monk here.
Timon Cort.
Lara Gherardi.
What a mess.
Had Timon Cort said anything before he had died? Had Lara Gherardi? Was there anything in their possession that could yield clues to the enemy?
It had been a mistake sending Lara, and he was bitterly regretting it now. She had been a good person; he had acted out of panic, hadn’t thought it through properly, and had not given her time to plan. It would have been better to have sent someone not emotionally attached; her love for her fellow Disciple must have affected her judgement.