Chapter 20
Mitchell Gaines was troubled. He sat at his desk in his office, looking out the window of a high-rise on the Dallas skyline and wondered again why he had a sinking sensation in his belly over his son. He called the dorm twice already and both times, Danny’s roommate said Danny was out, and would call back. He hadn't. The two weekly calls they had received had been on the house’s answering machine, it was as if Danny only called when he knew both of them were out of range or out of the house.
On impulse, he left the office and told his PA he was going for pizza and he descended the building to walk across the street to the local pizza parlor, a real brick oven, family-owned jewel that was part of the eclectic downtown Dallas.
Ordered a New York style with extra cheese and mushrooms and dialed on a throwaway generic phone he’d kept from the old days when he was in HS and still paranoid. He’d dug it out of the attic where it had waited since his accident.
Dialed a number from memory. It rang ten times and belatedly, he remembered the time difference on the East Coast. Apologized when a sleepy voice answered grumpily. “Who the hell is this?”
“Mitchell Gaines,” he said.
“Gaines! Jesus, I thought you were dead or something! Where are you? What are you doing? Why are you calling me?” Jake James bitched.
“What you mean, you thought I was dead?”
“Well, hell, man. We heard you were killed in a car accident right after a major lab fire in that fancy building you worked in. Your house was sold, your wife moved away. Nobody saw or heard from you in years. Till now. Where are you?”
“Dallas,” Mitchell said slowly. Out of the blue, “you ever solve the Senator’s son’s murder? Or find his body?”
“No. Poor guy, he was devastated. The only thing they kept him going was his crusade against crime. You can walk downtown DC today and be safe. He’s cleaned up the city. He’s going after terrorists next.”
“Can you fax me the files on the case?”
“Why? You got a tip? Call the FBI and MPD,” James returned. “What have you got?”
“A hunch,” Gaines replied his head suddenly aching. “Oh, never mind, James. I’m acting stupid, picking at straws. Bye.” He hung up and stared at the pizza, his stomach churning in waves of nausea. Frantically, he dialed Danny’s number and it went straight to voice mail. Next, he called Jasmine’s phone and reached her.
“Hey, babe,” she chirped. “How are you? You hear from Danny? Funny, I tried to call him and got no answer, just his roommate and his voice mail.
“Jazz, what’s the name of that social worker we met Danny through?”
“Why?” She sounded instantly suspicious.
“Someone was asking me if they knew where they could adopt a kid. Special needs, one no one else wanted. I thought of her.”
“Horowitz, Hemowitz, something like that. Jane. Her first name was Jane. I might have the number of the agency. The name of the agency will be on the adoption papers.”
“Where are they?”
“In the safety deposit box.”
“Thanks, Jazzy. I’ll be home early. Bye.” He called his PA, told her he was taking the rest of the day off and walked the six blocks to his bank.
When he breached the safety deposit box, he found the papers, his and Jazzy’s wills, birth certificates and a digital copy of Daniel’s. He unfolded it and scrutinized the French paperwork, was able to read and translate. Danielle Defreaux was born March 25, 1997 to a Camille Angelou and Jean-Pierre Rochefort. The adoption agency was called The Society for a Better Life out of Lucerne, Switzerland. The adoption decree looked official, was signed and witnessed by a Jane Hemowitz and Doctor Martin Mendoz, Esq., notarized on heavyweight papers, some four in all with the clauses he’d only skimmed over when he’d signed below Jasmine’s name.
He read it again, carefully noting the line about continuing Daniel’s therapy with Doctor Cohen and only Doctor Cohen, that Daniel was not to be taken out of state without express written permission by Doctor Cohen, and that he was not to be given any drugs except on her okay, no piercings, or tattoos. If he was to be injured in any way requiring hospital, or medical care, she was to be notified immediately before 911 was called even in a life threatening situation. Some of them seemed downright silly and others vaguely threatening.
Mitch folded up the papers, stuck them in his breast pocket and closed up the box. He exited the vault room, thanked the teller and left the bank, walking slowly back to the overhead garage and his pickup truck. Wasn’t surprised when he saw the neatly attired man standing next to his truck and knew instantly who he was.
“Colonel,” he said flatly, wishing he was armed. He looked around for backup. Saw no one. “No uniform?”
“I was curious to see what you remembered?”
“You. You offered me a job. Undercover.”
“Deep undercover. So deep you didn’t even know it. What triggered your memories?” He asked curious.
“Call it a father’s intuition. Only, I’m not his father, am I?”
“To all intents and purposes, you are. You raised him for the last four years.”
“And Senator De Rosier had him for fourteen.”
“Dantan De Rosier died in that lab at Spook-Land, Mitchell. Two scientists named Everett Hawthorne and Marian Cohen killed his personality through a…brainwashing technique using electroencephalogram waves, biofeedback and drugs. Then, they programmed in a whole new persona. Two, in fact. One for you to raise and the other that Doctor Cohen slowly and carefully nurtured in her therapy sessions until he was grown up enough to activate.”
“He was right,” Mitchell said. “He said she was bad, she scared him. I went to confront her.”
“You were breaking your programming. She went in and the tweaked you so she’d be more comfortable with her, and the therapy. And she gave you something else to focus on, Daniel’s sexual maturing. What a time she had keeping that in check!” He breathed out. “Whoo! We had to hire a hooker for him so his hormones wouldn’t jeopardize the downloads.”
“You’re going to use him to spy on the White House,” Gaines remembered.
“That and other things. Question is, what are you going to do?”
“I am, as I seem to recall, an NSA agent. What’s my assignment now?”
“Are you two close to him, Mitchell? We need a control officer. He’ll be going to the farm for training in covert skills.”
“He’ll recognize me.”
“You’ll be operating him out of NSA headquarters. You’ll never see each other. You’ll just be a voice directing him. Our first missions will be test to see how far his control is.
“You know, last night, he managed to scare off three of my men. With an owl.”
“And afterwards? I seem to recall after, he collapses.”
“Not this time. He was ready to get up and go after them. Quite the foolhardy hero, this program. He can be anything we program him to be,” the Colonel admired. “We’ll just forget about your little research mission, shall we? No more phone calls to Agent James, no more lying to your luscious wife and no more poking into Daniel’s adoption. We both know it’s all an agency run operation. Quite expensive, so don’t fuck around with it, Gaines. You in or out?”
“In, sir,” he said.
“Good boy. I‘d hate to have to shoot you.” The Colonel made an obscene gesture and across the parking structure on the same rooftop height of the next high-rise, Gaines saw the sniper stand up, pull down his rifle and salute before he disappeared. The Colonel took his hand out of his pockets and Gaines saw the shoulder holster. Empty.
“Start carrying again,” he said curtly and left the NSA agent leaning against the pickup door.
Mitch peered under the chassis, opened the hood slowly and checked for anything obvious. Then, he backed up behind a concrete wall and pressed the self-starter button on his key ring and flinched.
The beeping and throaty hum of his Triton V-8 greeted him and only then did he sink his clenched butt cheeks onto the plush leather cushions. When he arrived home, even then he wore caution like a Kevlar vest.