“Where we assume she met the orderlies?”
“Mahoney and Gutierrez, right. Joy had the early kitchen shift, like I explained, and when she turned up missing, I sent everybody I could spare to check the grounds. The bodies were a hundred yards east of the buildings, give or take. No sign of Joy. That’s when I called you to report.”
The doctor turned to Warren Oxley with a frown. “Mahoney and Gutierrez. Do we know how they were killed?”
“No hard specifics,” Oxley told him, “but it looks like they were beaten.”
“Is there any way to tell—”
“How many people were involved? We haven’t got a clue.”
“All right.”
It wouldn’t have been the police; that much was obvious. The law arrived with badges, warrants, fanfare. Sound bites on the evening news. It was conceivable that one or more policemen might have helped the girl escape, in hopes of making her a witness, but they wouldn’t beat two men to death and leave their bodies in the forest.
No. It must be someone else.
But who?
The FBI had started asking questions several days ago, about Eugenix and the Thomas Hardy deal…if it had been them. Dr. Radcliff knew how cheaply false credentials could be had. These days, with the desktop technology available, a high-school freshman could present himself as King Farouk, complete with sterling credit references, passport—the works. But if the Feds were not his enemies, who was? Someone had questioned the mortician in Nevada, interrupted Jasper Frayne’s assassination down in Florida and turned up just in time to help one of his subjects vanish from Ideal Maternity. It added up to major trouble, and the less he knew about his enemy, the more Radcliff was bound to worry. Calm down, he told himself. You have to keep your wits about you.
“Have the girls begun to settle in?” he asked Bliss.
“More or less,” she said. “There’s not much room, you understand.”
“It’s temporary. We should have a larger place available within a day or two.”
“All right.”
“I’m sending someone out to help you with security. You understand, of course.”
The matron’s voice was stiff, but she did not resist. “Of course.”
“That’s all.”
Dismissed, Althea Bliss rose and left the room. She had a plowman’s walk, whatever femininity she once possessed eradicated by her years in uniform. She was a plodder, but efficient in her way—until last night.
“Shall I get rid of her?” asked Warren Oxley.
“No. Not yet. Let’s wait and see the final damage estimate.”
“She could have been involved,” said Oxley.
Radcliff frowned, considered it, then shook his head. “She doesn’t have the nerve or the imagination,” he replied. “Much less the sympathy. What could a girl like this one offer that would make Althea risk her life?”
“You never know.”
Oxley was thinking of the fourth complaint in Talladega, with its allegations that Althea Bliss had used her office as a prison matron to coerce one of her female charges into sex. Radcliff assumed the charge was true, and he had warned Bliss on the day of her employment that any misbehavior endangering Project Lazarus would be severely punished. She had known exactly what he meant and didn’t argue. For the kind of money Radcliff paid, she could restrain herself—or find some method to indulge her twisted passion that did not affect the project.
“She’s not that stupid,” Radcliff told his chief lieutenant. “She’d be cutting off her nose to spite her face.”
“And what a nose, at that.”
In other circumstances, Radcliff might, have smiled at Oxley’s joke, but he had lost his sense of humor when he got the news about Ideal Maternity. There was no time for joking, not when his life’s work was at stake.
“We need to find out who’s behind this,” he told Oxley. “Cutting out potential leaks is no damn good if they’ve already tracked us down.”
“I’m working on it, Quentin.”
“So, work harder, Warren. And remember what’s at stake, for all of us.”
“As if I could forget.”
“See that you don’t,” said Radcliff. “If Lazarus goes down, we go down with it. I mean everybody.”
“Understood.”
“In that case, you have work to do.”
“I’m on my way,” said Oxley, sounding chastened.
Radcliff watched him go and wished he felt more confident about his aide’s ability to sort the problem out. A part of him, however, feared things might have gone too far already—that they might have passed the point of no return.
To hell with that. He couldn’t give up.
The best part of his life had been devoted to the dream he labeled Project Lazarus. Not only had he managed to succeed beyond his wildest dreams, make fools of those who mocked him back in school, but it had paid off well enough to leave him set for life, whatever happened next. Those who had failed to recognize his genius would eventually see the light. They would come crawling to him on their hands and knees, to beg for immortality.
The trick in being set for life, though. Dr. Radcliff knew, was managing to stay alive. From this point on, survival had to be his top priority.
No matter what the cost.
Joy Patton caught the ten-fifteen from Louisville, on Northwest Airlines, bound for JFK. She said goodbye to Remo at the gate and surprised him by standing on tiptoe for a parting kiss.
Before the 727 lifted off, Remo was halfway to the parking, intent on getting back to the motel. Chiun was staring out the window watching the passing cars when Remo came in. He wore a bored expression on his parchment face.
“Smith is waiting for your call,” Chiun told him, eyes locked on a red Buick.
“How long ago?” asked Remo.
“Eight minivans.”
He lifted the receiver, entered the special CURE code and got an answer midway through the first ring.
“What’s the word?”
“I ran the names you gave me, with the information from your source. It is not encouraging.”
“Go on.”
“Regine Miskele, age nineteen, from Kansas City—the Missouri side. She has been arrested twice, for shoplifting and drug possession. Marijuana, I believe. A chronic runaway, dropped out of high school in her sophomore year. There is nothing to suggest how she made contact with Ideal Maternity, but no one in her family has heard from her in thirteen months.”
“She left the home nine weeks ago,” said Remo.
“Altogether possible,” Smith said, “but I cannot trace her. If she has a bank account or driver’s license in the States today, she used another name.”
“That’s one.”
“On Karen Woodruff, I confirmed her age as seventeen, born in Muskegon, Michigan. Another drop-out—there appears to be a pattern here—but no arrests on record. It has been eleven months since she touched base with any friends or relatives. She has vanished, too.”
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as can be,” Smith said. “The closest match, age-wise, turned out to be a black girl in Miami.”
“Two for two,” said Remo.
“Make that three,” Smith told him. “Sheila Stroud is on the record in Seattle, as reported. Turns nineteen next weekend.”
“If she’s still alive,” said Remo.
“This one almost graduated, but her parents split in January of her senior year and she unraveled. Got in trouble with a boyfriend, and dropped out to have the baby, then miscarried. One way or another, she decided no one wanted her around.”
“What is it with these parents?” Remo asked.
“I do not know. In any case, she left home about a year ago. The family says she kept in touch the first few weeks, then nothing.”
“That would be when she hooked up with Radcliff’s people,” Remo said.