CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
John could see the river as they rode in the back of the black SUV through Westminster. He and Gilly had been immediately stripped of their bags and frisked but not handcuffed. They sat side by side, holding hands.
“Uncle Dan will sort all this out,” Gilly whispered to John.
“No talking!” the guard said from the other side of the iron mesh grill separating the back seat from the drivers.
John squeezed her hand and tried to focus on the scenery outside the car. If he could get free—could he leave her here? What was the point of slipping away, even if he could? It seemed a better use of his time to just pray Daniel Heaton wasn’t as big a jerk as he’d seemed at the memorial service.
And that somehow, please God somehow, he’d had nothing to do with the attack on Dr. Lynch.
The SUV drove into an underground parking lot where both John and Gilly were ushered out. The men who met them in the garage were not obviously armed, looking more like Secret Service than policemen, it seemed to John. He tried to take that as an improvement in their situation. Still holding hands, the two got into an elevator with three agents. They rode to the fifth floor where the doors opened. Two of the agents stepped off, then turned and grabbed John roughly by the jacket and wrenched him off the elevator.
Gilly screamed. John tried to see what was happening but the men dragged him down a long carpeted hallway. His mind raced. Why were they being separated? Was Gilly being taken to her uncle? He knew it was useless to ask the agents. As soon as they were sure he wasn’t going to try to dash back to the elevator and Gilly, they released him and walked one in front and one behind him until they came to a set of double wooden doors. The first agent knocked on the door and then opened it. The second agent pushed John through.
The only furniture in the room was a small conference table with no chairs around it, a couch, a coffee table, and two straight back chairs in the middle of the room.
Sandra Lynch was zip-tied to one of the chairs. She sat with her head down on her chest, her hair covering her face. Her shoulder was sloppily bandaged and bright red was seeping from the wound and dripping to the floor beneath her. John ran to her and knelt beside the chair. He lifted her hair from her face and saw her lips were swollen and both eyes blackened. A spasm of fear ran through him. He looked around the room but the agents had left. Quickly, he ran his hands down to where her hands were tied behind her, but he had nothing to cut the plastic ties with. She groaned.
“Dr. Lynch, it’s me, John.”
They had done terrible things to her. But she was still alive. Why? Why shoot her and let her live?
“Wake up, Dr. Lynch. Please.”
“Never you mind, lad,” a strongly Irish accented voice said. John whipped his head around to see a stocky man with red hair enter the room. Behind him was Gilly’s uncle, Dan Heaton.
John jumped up and faced them.
“Let her go,” he said fiercely. “She’s no threat to you. She’s hurt.”
“Aye, laddie,” Heaton said. “We know. We’re the ones who did the hurting. But if we untie her she’ll fall over. Those ties are the only things holding her up.” Heaton had an amiable smile on his face as if he was walking into a cocktail party. John got a sudden image of him at Gilly’s house, smiling and nodding at people. It was only now he saw what a monster had been standing in their living room.
The Irishman put his hands on his hips as if to better survey John and Dr. Lynch. He walked over to them. John was struck by how coldly confidant the man behaved. John had seen this kind of attitude before in bullies. They so disrespect their victims—like say a dumb teenage kid and a woman scientist who’s in the process of bleeding to death—that they don’t even bother tying up the kid.
“Anything in their belongings?” The Irishman asked, although he was scrutinizing John so closely it was almost as if he were speaking to him.
“Nothing useful,” Heaton said. “Clothes. Some food. A few magazines. No notes, no books, no slides.”
“And you’re sure they know the cure?”
“I am reliably informed, yes.”
“The bitch won’t talk?”
“As you see.”
The redheaded man nodded then pulled his semi-automatic pistol out from a shoulder holster and walked over to John and Sandra.
“Oy! Doc!” he said loudly to Lynch as he held the gun to her temple. “Mind answering a few questions?”
John watched in horror as Dr. Lynch lifted her head from her chest. Her eyes fluttered open and she licked her swollen and bloodied lips.
“She’s useless,” the Irishman said in disgust. “You’ve gone too far with her. She’s feckin’ banjaxed, so she is.”
“I told you.” Heaton went to lean against the wall to observe. John could pick up nothing in the man’s demeanor that indicated he was unhappy with the proceedings in any way.
“Let’s try a different approach,” the Irishman said turning to John. “Hello, lad. Feel like dying today?”
John stared at him and clenched his fists. He didn’t answer.
“D’ya know why you’re here, me boyo?”
Out of the corner of John’s eye he saw Sandra turn her head slightly in his direction.
“Ye say this kid knows?” the Irishman asked over his shoulder to Heaton.
“Oh, he knows. Don’t you, lad? Pretty close with old Finlay, weren’t you? Just tell us what ingredients are in the cure and you and Dr. Lynch will be back on your bikes in no time. Sound fair?”
“He lies.” The words from Dr. Lynch were rasped out but they were clear enough.
“So you aren’t quite dead yet,” the Irishman said to Lynch. “No matter. We’re done with you.” He put the barrel of his gun to her temple and then turned to John. “Tell us what you know or I’ll kill her.”
John felt a dizziness swirling around his brain at his words. He had no doubt the man meant them.
“John, no,” Dr. Lynch said, struggling to lift her head. “They’re going to kill us both anyway.”
“True enough, Doc,” the Irishman said with a vicious laugh, dropping his gun from her head. He fished his cellphone out of his jeans pocket and spoke briefly into it. “Shane. Bring the girl in. Yes, now.” He hung up and turned to John. “Perhaps there’s someone who means more to you.”
Daniel Heaton walked over to the Irishman. His face was flushed with anger. “Look here, O’Reilly, I don’t know how you do things in Ireland but this sort of thing won’t wash over here.”
“You have a better way? Even if they don’t know the cure, we can’t let them live after all this.” O’Reilly waved his hand to encompass the room.
“Well, they do know the cure. My niece has assured me.”
“Which brings up the topic of that little loose end.”
“Are you suggesting I kill my own niece?”
John could see Dr. Lynch’s head had collapsed onto her chest again. He didn’t know if she was listening or if she’d really fainted.
“Don’t bugger with me, Heaton. You don’t give two tosses for the girl.”
“I know I won’t allow you to murder her, ye daft Irishman! Besides, what does it matter who knows what? Once you kill these two—off premises, thank you very much—whether they talk or no, the secret will be safe. As far as anybody knows there is no cure.”
John nearly choked hearing his words and the cold-blooded way he spoke them. His arms trembled with goose bumps racing up and down them. So Dr. Lynch was right. It wasn’t about the cure. It wasn’t about sick people or doing what was right. It was all about power. He glanced over at Dr. Lynch. Her eyes flickered open again but she looked woozy.
“It matters, Heaton, because I want the cure. Especially if nobody else has it.”
“Liam, if I didn’t know better, I’d think that Ireland had started getting sick. Is that what’s happened? Have you discovered your first cases on the Emerald shores?”
“That’s none of your business. We had a deal and that’s all you need to know.”
“Well, this is no longer the same deal. So it is my business. You don’t just need the cure to permanently go away, now it seems you need the cure, itself. That’s different. Very different.”
“I don’t see how.
“I know you don’t, Liam.” Heaton turned to look at John and Dr. Lynch. “So what do we do with these two? Beat it out of them and hope they tell us the truth?”
O’Reilly narrowed his eyes and looked at John.
“Would ye lie to us, boyo? Knowing ye could’ve saved thousands from the disease?”
John nearly laughed in the man’s face. Was he really attempting to appeal to John’s altruistic nature? “I could if the thousands were related to you,” John said.
“We’ll see how funny ye are when I’m holding a gun to your little girlfriend’s head, me boyo,” O’Reilly said with a snarl.
“And how am I to pretend things are normal with my niece after all this?” Heaton said. “Won’t she remember she was used to extract information from this lad? A lad who then permanently disappeared? Why exactly did you tell your man to bring her here?”
“Because there’s no going back, Heaton,” O’Reilly said, holstering his gun and turning on him. “The doc, the Yank, your niece…and you’re barking if you think there is.”
“I was mad to start this with you. And now for the life of me I can’t remember why I did.”
“For the ore, Heaton, if I need to remind you. You did it for the feckin’ lithium deposits that Ireland has and England wants.”
“It occurs to me, O’Reilly, that there’s really nothing stopping us from just taking the ore.” Heaton advanced on O’Reilly. His eyes looked fevered as he warmed to his idea. “We’ll tell the world—if they’re even interested—that we struck a deal with you. I understand your communications over there is still rubbish so our version will stand.”
O’Reilly sputtered, “The United Nations would never let you do that!”
“You’re joking, right? The world is upside down with recession, the effects of a fecking atom bomb and a world-class plague. Nobody will give a shite about poor little Ireland playing the bitch to England one more time.”
“Got it all worked out, do you, Heaton? But I believe you’ve forgotten one key thing,” O’Reilly said, the veins prominently displayed across his forehead.
“I would be entertained to hear what you think that might be,” Heaton said coolly.
“Ye forgot what devious bastards we Irish can be,” O’Reilly whispered into Heaton’s ear as he pulled the man close to him. A knife materialized in his hand.
O’Reilly plunged it into Heaton’s chest.