Double Helix Read online

  Plus, there was the file folder in Del’s lap.

  His fingers trembled as he opened it. But he didn’t have to see the photographs to understand two things. He would do whatever they asked. And these spooks had pull and connections in the military far beyond what was available even to the president of the United States.

  ***

  When she reached the Courtney Campbell Causeway to cross the bay from Clearwater to Tampa, Paige had no reason to suspect a gray late-model car had been following her from the aging motel where she’d spent the night at Clearwater Beach.

  Once on the causeway, Paige had less reason to suspect the car was following her. The causeway was barely more than a hump of paved ribbon that cut across the flat green waters of Old Tampa Bay. Only occasional strips of sparsely grassed beach on either side of the road broke the monotony of the next half-dozen miles that remained until the Tampa side. Although the entire distance had finally been built to four lanes, traffic was still bumper to bumper, almost too busy at this hour for cars to jockey for position by passing. The gray car, now securely wedged four cars back in the snake of traffic crossing the water, would be with her until she reached land again.

  More to the advantage of her followers, at this early hour the sun glared directly into Paige’s face and made it difficult for her to squint at anything beyond the bumper of the car ahead. An ocean-going freighter, finally nearing the port after days at sea, cast a dark silhouette against the rays of the rising sun. Paige noticed these boats as little as she did the gray car. Even without the distraction of the sun or the lulling monotony of the drive, she had the distraction of her thoughts to keep her from observing much around her.

  As a result, when she reach the mainland, passed the airport, and took the first exit south to the headquarters of the International World Relief Committee, the vehicle remained invisible behind her.

  “Mrs. Stephens, how unexpected to see you. And, of course, how pleasant.” The brittle cheerfulness of the secretary’s voice said otherwise. As did the smile that did not reach her eyes. “In these circumstances, I would have thought you might be... resting.”

  Paige took a deep breath. In better days, she would have thought of something snappy to wipe the unwrinkled smile from this red-nailed bimbette, ten years her younger, who had never hidden her glossy interest in Darby.

  “I thought I would clear Darby’s things from his desk,” Paige said. Her grief was like a fog around her, and she had neither the spirit nor energy to play games. “I probably won’t be long.”

  Paige moved past the secretary’s desk and closed the door as she stepped into the office that Darby had occupied for nearly a decade.

  Her view was simple. A computer screen and telephone on a large, uncluttered desk, swivel chair behind. Filing cabinet to the right. Floor-to-ceiling window as a backdrop. Five stories up, she had a clear view of airport runways and of the corner of the bay, where scattered boats drew white lines in the water.

  How many times had Darby swiveled to contemplate this view, she wondered, bitten the tip of his pencil as he always did when distracted, and stared absently out the window?

  Paige tried to push away her memories, like trying to flap a clearing in heavy fog.

  Concentrate, she told herself, use the search as a way to numb yourself.

  Paige set her purse on the floor and settled in Darby’s chair. She tried not to imagine she could still smell his aftershave.

  Paige leaned over and reached into her purse. On motel stationery, she’d done some scribbling the night before, during her sleepless hours. She smoothed the paper and placed it on Darby’s desk. She reread what she’d written to the best of her memory.

  Weird voice: I don’t care about calling you at home, we have something to discuss.

  Darby: I’m tired of it. Ends don’t justify the means. I want out. voice: Not with what you did. We know it was you. Who else would have done it? Air vents, right?

  Darby: I can’t sleep. When I close my eyes, all I see is that room with the jars.

  voice: You get paid, what, a half-million a year?

  Darby: For my expertise. Not my conscience.

  voice: You had a good idea of what, this was about when you set it, up. You don’t actually believe we would let you go unpunished.

  Darby: You can’t get, to me. Nobody will. voice: How about your wife?

  Darby: She’s protected.. From the beginning I set that up. With computer disks that, show all the corporations, You won’t dare touch her. I’ve got computer disks that show all the numbers. All the corporations. Names, too, right into D.C. Anything happens to her, everything is released to the media.

  Four times, maybe more, Paige had broken into tears as she transcribed her memory of that Anal phone call. It was so strange, trying to remove herself from her feelings, to be so cold and objective. Each time the tears came, it had taken anger to force her to begin again. Each time the anger had arrived, she’d felt fractionally better, and her focus moved from grief toward determination to find out what had driven Darby to his desperate act of ultimate earthly escape. You can’t get to me. Nobody will.

  After satisfying herself that she had done her best in recalling the strange conversation, Paige had stared at the page for another sleepless hour. Then she’d jotted down some questions at the bottom of the page.

  What was Darby in, if not IWRC?

  If Darby was getting a half-million a year, where was the money?

  Why couldn’t Darby get out?

  What did Darby do with air vents? Where?

  What jars?

  What was the information on computer disks, and where are the disks?

  All the questions bothered her. Each one implied that Darby had been hiding something not only from her but also from the people here at the International World Relief Committee, and indeed from the world.

  But what? Darby had been trained to be an accountant. What could he know outside of his background that would be worth a half-million a year to someone else? Would she find any clues in his desk?

  Would she like what she found? She wanted to preserve memories of their early love, didn’t want to face her nagging doubts of the last cold six months.

  She pulled open the top drawer on her left: Rolodex, paper clip tray, phone book, two candy bars.

  What was she looking for anyway? Something unusual that might help her make sense of the jottings on the paper.

  Paige took another deep breath. She’d never sat behind Darby’s desk, let alone snooped through it before. How could she know what was unusual in it without first knowing what was usual?

  The next drawer down held two long empty plastic trays. Paige knew little about computers, but guessed the trays were designed to hold disks like the ones Darby occasionally pulled from his briefcase to use in his home office. Empty. She hadn’t expected this to be easy.

  The bottom drawer held a visitor’s guide to Los Alamos, New Mexico. She frowned. When had Darby been in New Mexico? He’d never mentioned it as one of his business trips.

  A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.

  Bimbette stuck her head inside without waiting for an answer.

  “Mrs. Stephens, I hope you don’t mind. Mr. Hammond happened to be here this morning, so I let him know this was a good chance to visit with you. He’s requested that you stop by the boardroom."

  Paige smiled a smile she didn’t feel. Not with Bimbette leaning around the door’s edge at an angle that showed too much ease with making announcements in this manner and conveniently displaying too much cleavage. She felt stirrings of anger again. How often had Bimbette done this for Darby’s eyes?

  “I’ll get there soon,” Paige said. No smile.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Stephens, but Mr. Hammond is on a tight schedule.” Bimbette smirked to show who was in charge. “He doesn’t fly through Tampa often. He requested you stop by immediately.”

  “Fine.”

  Paige smoothed her dress as she rose. Remol
ding her notes, she reached for her purse, tucked the paper in, and headed for the hallway. Almost out of the reception area, she turned back and paused.

  “You wore that dress when I was here before, didn’t you?” Paige asked. “Of course, it looks so good, I can see why you’d want to wear it as much as possible.”

  Paige strode on before Bimbette could reply. She felt vaguely ashamed of her cattiness – twice now in two days if you included dumping ink on the cop – but she also enjoyed the sensation of any emotion besides grief and confusion.

  ***

  She’d heard the John Hammond legend many times from Darby and others at the occasional social functions that drew the executives and their wives together.

  John Hammond. Reclusive millionaire, maybe billionaire by now. Funding charity for charity’s sake, not for profile or tax deductions.

  As the story went, he’d taken money from his profitable New York real estate development firm and seeded the beginnings of the International World Relief Committee. Most of the seed money had gone into hiring the best people from the private sector. John Hammond believed that volunteers did no better than volunteer-quality work, and although IWRC was a not-for-profit organization, he insisted his people be better paid than any other executives at the same level in any corporation, including IBM and General Motors. As a result, IWRC outperformed any similar relief group, which in turn helped it outmarket and outfundraise that same competition. Combined with Hammond’s almost genius organizational skills, these capable people ensured Hammond’s first money seeds matured into a self-supporting, rapidly growing, nondenominational, worldwide organization that flew food and medical supplies into areas torn apart by war, natural disasters, or famine.

  Nearly five hundred IWRC people now worked for John Hammond. Few had met him. While hundreds of millions had heard of and contributed to IWRC, none had seen him, either by photo or television screen.

  Paige was unprepared, then, for the man who greeted her at the boardroom door. This was no white-haired gnome with a twinkle of charity in his eyes. Definitely no Santa Claus. Paige, often conscious of her height, felt petite, protected as she took his hand.

  “Paige,” he said in a cultured voice. “I’m here, too, because of Darby. It is so sad we meet in these circumstances.”

  He meant it, too, as his eyes searched hers. Blue eyes, she noted, then felt a stab of guilt as she realized she was noting his eyes.

  John Hammond was midforties, maybe a couple of years more, but he obviously exercised and found time to get sun in his schedule, and that made it difficult for Paige to decide any closer his exact age. Tall, lean face. Crinkles, not wrinkles when he smiled. Dressed elegantly in two-piece brown for boardroom discussions, but not overbearingly formal in a navy power suit, which so many insecure executives chose as a way to belong to the pack.

  “You’re here because of Darby...?” She left it as a question.

  “Unfortunately,” he said with a smile of apology, “we need to Find someone to replace him.”

  He finally let go of her hand and gestured her inside the boardroom. “Your husband was an excellent man. We’re only now discovering how indispensable he was, A lesser man would not have been missed for a month, maybe two, and we could have been more decent in waiting to Find someone else. His qualities, however, place more pressure on us to immediately review a list of candidates.”

  Paige took the chair he indicated. He sat opposite her at the large, long oval table. With the boardroom door closed, they were in complete silence except for a slight hiss of air-conditioning.

  “It would be inane,” he said moments later, “to tritely inquire of your well-being. I cannot imagine the pain you might be facing. If there is anything I or the company can do to help...”

  Paige shook her head. Tears threatened. This was much worse than dueling with bimbo secretaries. There she could at least lash out as a way of relief. Here, the sadness and confusion just settled heavier.

  “This is indelicate,” he began again. “Yet too often I’ve found people ignore finances when it is so crucial not to have another reason to worry. Are you well taken care of?”

  Paige nodded. Almost smiled. There was the feeling of protection again.

  Hammond gave her a gentle look. “I understand this was completely unexpected.”

  Paige nodded again. She hadn’t told anyone of the final words she’d heard her husband speak on the other phone extension. She hadn’t told the police the night of his death – there would be enough questions to cloud Darby’s reputation without relaying a conversation that made no sense and implied so much. In fact, until her sleepless musings, she’d tried to block it out of her mind, as if by ignoring it she could And some normalcy in the suicide of her bright, young husband.

  “Yes.” She answered slowly. “His death was unexpected.”

  Then she spoke a question before consciously realizing it had entered her mind. She spoke it suspecting she had as little reason to trust John Hammond as anyone else in her mixed-up world.

  “Mr. Hammond,” she said, “how well do you know everything that happens at all levels here at IWRC?”

  ***

  Although Slater needed to reload on groceries after the attack, he hadn’t found the energy to return to Los Alamos until Thursday morning. Upon his return at noon to Seven Springs, the last thing Slater had expected to find was a neighbor armed with a shotgun at his front door.

  By then, Slater had regained an internal equilibrium. Much of that resulted from the drive itself. Westward from Los Alamos, the highway cut into the pines of the Jemez Mountains and wound around and over the first crest, then descended to Valle Grande, where the pines opened to show the massive bowl of an ancient crater, softened now into a giant grassy meadow. Once around the edges of the valley, the road ducked back into mountains and tree shadows, and eventually met the turnoff to Seven Springs. Smooth, wide pavement continued up the turnoff for only a few miles, up and over another crest, then abruptly the road became pitted gravel that followed the fold of a canyon base.

  Slater enjoyed the drive. Always did. Most often, he had the road to himself. The sky never failed to fascinate him: its blue on cloudless days an azure in the clean mountain air he’d seen nowhere else, its occasional storms a rapidly darkening drama of menace.

  During the entire drive, he’d forced himself to concentrate on the breathtaking views and the peacefulness of the mountains, and in so doing had avoided pondering the strangeness of his fright of a boy who seemed to have supernatural abilities, the rock that had been dropped beside his head--instead of on it, and his paranoia about the police tracking him down.

  Not even rumbling through the dust at the spot where he’d seen the boy broke him from his mood. There was nothing left to show that anything unusual had happened Tuesday evening.

  A half-mile later, he’d reached Seven Springs, announced by hand-painted letters on a weather-beaten plank crookedly nailed to a post at the side of the road.

  Seven Springs, merely a collection of cabins, stood among screening pines at the base of a narrow canyon. A creek ran along-side the road, passing by each of the cabins. Some of the buildings were shacks, retreats for stream fishermen who simply wanted a roof to keep out rain and bugs at night. Others, more recent, were chalets as comfortable as any house. Few were year-round buildings, for when winter’s snow filled the canyon, it became nearly impossible to reach Seven Springs with anything less than a 4 x 4 truck, and indeed just beyond Seven Springs, the road was closed during the winter months, making passage impossible out of the mountains into the town of Cuba and the desert plains.

  Seven Springs was not a town – the reason Slater had chosen it. Its cabins and houses were isolated from each other. It had no general store, no streets, Just a winding gravel road, with houses and cabins set back among the trees. Slater had been there since the previous fall and had yet to meet any of his neighbors. It hadn’t taken much work to keep it that way either.

  Unt
il now.

  Slater recognized the man waiting on his front porch. Had seen him maybe a half-dozen times, usually on weekends, usually in a station wagon with his fat wife, driving into or out of a trail that led to a cabin at least five minutes' walk from the small creek. He was a middle-aged, balding, chunky man, distinctive by the rim of red, wiry hair that rimmed his big, round head. Now he wore a checked flannel shirt tucked into jeans – a weekend camper feeling like Kit Carson. Especially with a shotgun in the crook of his right arm.

  Slater wondered briefly if he should hit reverse. Stupid move, he quickly decided. If the guy was actually here to shoot him, he’d have hidden in ambush. Besides, the driveway was so narrow Slater knew he’d lose any race against shotgun pellets blasted from a full-bore barrel. And even if he did get away, how would he know when it was safe to return?

  Slater sighed at the tension that tightened his stomach muscles. He shut down the ignition and stepped into the sunshine.

  “Good morning,” Slater said evenly as he shut the door.

  “Maybe,” his visitor wheezed. “Depends on how our discussion goes.”

  Slater became aware of all the sounds around him. Faint warbling of birds. Creaking of insects warming up with the midmorning sun. The ticking of his cooling engine. And the total lack of any sound to suggest any other human beings nearby. No passing cars. No radio. Nothing but the anger of a chunky balding man armed with a shotgun.

  “This your boot?” the man asked before Slater could think of something suitable to say in a social situation of this kind.

  The man kicked a mud-caked boot from the porch onto the ground near Slater’s feet.

  “Don’t deny it isn’t,” he said to Slater’s silence. The man stepped closer, almost off the porch. “I checked it against the other ones on your back steps. Same, identical size.”