The Panic Zone Part 45

A million scenarios shot through Lancer's mind as he drove across Fairfax County to the Anti-Threat Center. When he came to a red light, his cell phone rang. He pulled over to answer it.

"This is Jack Gannon with the World Press Alliance."

"Yes."

"Are you the agent who was with me in Libya?"

"Yes."

"I have to be sure. What was the name of the man I was supposed to meet?"

"Corley."

"I have information that might be critical to both of us."

"I'm listening."

"Before I go ahead, I want a name. I want to know who I'm dealing with."

Lancer hesitated. "None of this ever goes in print, you swear."

"You've seen what I've gone through for this story."

"Lancer, Robert Lancer, FBI, tasked to Anti-Threat Operations."

Gannon explained Emma Lane's case, the accident that killed her husband, her conviction that her baby was alive and the connection to the clinic and Polly Larenski.

"What sort of information was this Polly selling?"

"DNA.".

A car horn sounded behind Lancer and he realized he was blocking a lane.

"Hold on."

He wheeled his car around to a strip-mall parking lot and continued his conversation with Gannon.

"Lancer, I have two phone numbers. You have to search the phone records and see who was buying DNA from Polly Larenski. It could lead us to whoever is behind the child trafficking."

"I'd need to get warrants. You should call the local police."

"No. She tried that, there's no time. These numbers are critical."

"I need to know how you got your information."

Gannon hesitated.

"Jack, what led you to Emma Lane and the DNA angle?"

Gannon was deciding on how much to share with Lancer.

"Come on, Gannon!"

"Corley sent me his files."

"What?"

"Before I was supposed to meet him, he'd made arrangements to send me a memory card. He thought he was being watched. The card came to the hotel before I left and I read the files on the plane home."

This changed everything.

"Are you withholding evidence? You'd better turn those files over to us."

"I'm sharing the information. Listen, Emma Lane's file was in Corley's information. There's some sort of connection to her baby's DNA. Lancer, you have to search the call history of these two numbers, look for a similar number on both. One is Polly Larenski's home, and one is a pay phone near her home."

"I want that memory card, Gannon."

"We can't waste time!"

"Give me the numbers and let's go over everything one more time."

56.

Big Cloud, Wyoming.

Swirls of scorched pavement marked the spot where Emma Lane had lost her husband and baby boy.

Today under the morning sun, she knelt near it, where the gravel shoulder met the gra.s.s, and placed a memorial wreath of roses against a small white cross that Joe's friends had erected.

Jack Gannon was watching with Emma's aunt and uncle a short distance away. Seeing Emma mourning on the high plains before the majestic mountains resurrected what he'd lost. He thought of his mother and father, killed in a car crash in Buffalo. They'd been on their way to meet a priest who had information on the whereabouts of his sister, Cora. Years earlier, she'd run off with a loser who'd gotten her hooked on drugs.

In the time that had followed, Gannon's parents tried to find her. There were a few long-distance calls from her, an occasional letter with no return address, but ultimately, they never saw her again.

Gannon searched the peaks.

In his loneliest times, when he missed having a family, he thought of finding Cora. He thought of confronting her with all he was carrying: anger for leaving them and hurting everyone. He hated her for what she had done, yet loved her for what she had meant to him.

She was his sister.

As Emma returned to the car, his cell phone vibrated. It was his editor calling from New York. He answered and strolled away.

"Gannon."

"It's Melody, how is it going?"

"Major pieces have emerged. Emma Lane believes her son was abducted from a crash that killed her husband. Get this--she says it's tied to a California fertility clinic she'd used where someone in the lab was selling DNA to some shady corporation. I've got some phone numbers we're trying to trace. I think this could be tied to the cafe bombing, that Rio law firm, illegal adoptions and child trafficking."

"Is it the clinic Golden Dawn Fertility Corp. in L.A.?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"The Los Angeles Times just reported that a woman who died in a suspicious fire was a former lab worker suspected of selling the clinic's files to an unknown research group."

"Oh, man."

"People are gaining on us, Jack. We need to hide Emma Lane. We've invested too much in this story to get beat now. Ask her if she'll come to New York today, for further interviews on the story. The World Press Alliance will pay her expenses. Try to get back here as soon as possible."

After Gannon told Emma what the WPA wanted, she contemplated the request then consulted her aunt and uncle.

A moment later she gave Gannon her answer.

"I'll do anything if it brings me closer to my son."

57.

Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.

Robert Lancer entered his section chief's office at FBI Headquarters and set a folder before him.

Hal Weldon slid on his bifocals and loosened his tie. As he reviewed the file, Lancer glanced out the window overlooking the National Mall and the White House.

Since Jack Gannon called him yesterday, Lancer had worked on warrants to obtain the phone records of Polly Larenski and the pay phone in Santa Ana, California.

He'd called the FBI's Los Angeles field office and FBI's Santa Ana Resident Agency. He prepared a summary of all the facts, including his sworn oath and belief that the information was linked to a suspected imminent attack. The rest had to be processed up the chain for sign-off before it went to a judge.

"Looks good, Bob. I'll take it from here." Weldon removed his gla.s.ses. "I just got off the phone with Charley. We're still trying to locate Drake Stinson and Gretchen Sutsoff."

"Are we going to go public?"

"It's being considered."

"And the others?"

"Defense and the CIA have located the other scientists who worked on Crucible, and they've volunteered to cooperate. They've been taken to military bases to be flown to Detrick, but the CIA will give them a rough reception."

"Why?"

"They're suspects, too," Weldon said.

"What? Foster Winfield's the one who first alerted them to this. The guy's got a terminal condition."

"They're covering their a.s.ses," Weldon said. "Look, we'll flag our warrant application as an expedited request. How fast we make it through the lawyers to a judge is anybody's guess. I'll keep you posted."

As he navigated D.C.'s traffic back to the Anti-Threat Center in Virginia, doubt gnawed at Lancer.

In the warrant application, he'd failed to specifically detail that Jack Gannon claimed to possess Adam Corley's computer files on the case, because he knew Weldon would have demanded he go after Gannon for the files with a warrant, or even an arrest.

Am I a fool to allow Gannon, a reporter, free rein with what could be a significant piece of evidence in a threat to national security?

Lancer was on a tightrope.

He needed time to cultivate Gannon as a source. The guy was good at digging up information. Maybe he could strengthen their uneasy alliance with some quid pro quo? As for the warrant, well, that was a roll of the dice at best. They could take days or hours.

Even then, would it yield anything?

At his office at the center, Lancer scrutinized everything he had that was related to the case. He made calls and followed leads. The sun had set by the time he got a call from Weldon.

"We got our pitch to a judge who granted the warrant. Our people are banging on doors in California. We should have the phone records by morning, Bob. I hope to h.e.l.l we get some mileage out of this."

58.

Rapid keyboard tapping underscored the intensity with which Sandra Deller attacked the data yielded by the new warrants.

Deller, the chief a.n.a.lyst at the Anti-Threat Center's Information Command Unit, had made Robert Lancer's case her priority. Pages of call logs going back several months for Polly Larenski's landline number appeared on Deller's monitor.

"According to my source--" Lancer came and stood next to her "--Larenski is believed to have received and made calls concerning our subject from her home phone and the pay phone near her home on Civic."

Deller clicked and a second set of call logs appeared.

"This one?" she said.

"Correct."

"We're looking for a number or numbers that will appear in both logs." Deller issued a few commands for a merge. "Voila." She highlighted the number that appeared: 242-555-1212.

"Where is that?"

Deller entered the number in another database.

"Bahamas. Na.s.sau. Actually, it's Paradise Island. That's a resort area. Hang on." Deller continued her swift searches. "Look, it's for the Grand Blue Tortoise Resort." Deller went to a Web site for the resort and clicked through pages. "Nice. Let's see if we can be more specific with the number." She continued searching and said, "The number is for the Blue Tortoise Kids' Hideaway. Let's check it out." She went to the Hideaway's Web page. "It's a child-care center, Bob."