Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel Read online

  This conviction came not from anything she uncovered—but from what she didn’t. After a full decade gathering global intelligence, she had developed a nose for when something was being hidden from her. During her investigation, she had reached too many dead ends that made no sense, certain matters that didn’t balance in her head. Worst of all, she stumbled across an impenetrable corporate firewall at one point, employing encryption algorithms that were military-grade. Even if she could, she feared smashing through it. The act alone could set off too many alarm bells, alerting the powers that be at the clinic that someone was sniffing at their door.

  So she opted for a more direct approach.

  On foot.

  She reached the parking lot and spotted the rental car, a silver Audi A6 sedan. Lisa Cummings had beaten her here, but her friend hadn’t had to navigate through two bus transfers from the airport to reach the clinic. They had come separately, each with her own mission.

  Kat climbed the steps to a wide porch that fronted the main building. It looked nothing like a medical facility. The façade was typical for Charleston: a Georgian stone mansion with wrought-iron railings, three floors of balconies, and a gambrel roof covered by mossy-fringed slate tiles.

  She stepped through the doors into an air-conditioned main lobby, refreshing after the hot bus ride and short walk. A reception desk beckoned. She approached it, noting out of the corner of her eye that Lisa sat in the waiting area, a space as sumptuously furnished as would be expected from the exterior, decked out in velvets and overstuffed cushions.

  Lisa matched the décor in a handsome St. John platinum dress with a drawstring waist. Her blond hair hung loose and shone under the soft lights; her makeup was flawless. She came posing as the private doctor for a select Washingtonian clientele, coming to interview the clinic for possible referrals for her patients. She had an appointment to meet with the head of the facility in a few minutes.

  Lisa was conducting this cursory investigation from the top down.

  Kat was taking the other extreme.

  “How may I help you?” the receptionist asked. She was a small woman with large eyes, made even more prominent by her harsh eye shadow.

  Kat moved closer to the desk, pressing against it, leaning a bit too forward as if trying to keep the conversation from being overheard. “I heard … someone told me … that you all are looking for donors.”

  The receptionist’s brows pinched in irritation.

  Kat pushed even closer, glancing surreptitiously over her shoulder, raising an embarrassed blush to her cheeks. “You know. Looking for a woman’s eggs. I heard you pay good money.”

  The receptionist sat straighter, her voice growing hushed, if not a touch condescending, made worse by the patronizing tone of her Carolina accent. “Hon, that’s handled elsewhere. This is for patient intake. If you’ll stand over there …” she waved a manicured hand away from the waiting area, toward a corner. “I’ll have one of the staff assistants come fetch you and bring you to the donor facility, if that’s all right?”

  Kat nodded and slunk back. “Thank you.”

  The woman made a noncommittal noise and picked up the phone.

  As Kat retreated to her corner, she met Lisa’s gaze. At the moment they were divided by a cultural and financial gulf. Lisa represented the end buyer; Kat embodied the product to be sold. There continued to be much ethical and moral debate about the sale of human ova. Once a price tag was put upon such a commodity, it became tied to the power of supply and demand—and the inherent abuse.

  In much of the Third World, entire villages now sold kidneys or became surrogate mothers, selling rental space in their wombs. It was called the red market—the wholesale buying and selling of body parts—and it was a booming business, both legally and illegally. She had read a report of Bolivian murderers who sought out victims to sell their fat to European beauty supply companies. In China, prisons were harvesting the organs of dead inmates, gutting them out, with whispers that some prisoners were being purposefully killed for profit. And in one case in Nepal, a dairy farmer had turned from delivering milk to supplying blood. He captured local hikers, imprisoned them in his barn, and repeatedly drained his new livestock of their blood, keeping them forever at the edge of death.

  Worst of all, such a marketplace moved in only one economic direction: from the poor to the rich. It was an unfortunate side effect when a price tag was placed on organs. Inevitably, flesh moved only up the social ladder, never down.

  Movement across the room drew Kat’s attention. A mahogany door opened and a rugged-looking man in his midforties stepped into the waiting room. He had jet-black hair, stood six feet tall, and was decked out in a knee-length white lab coat over expensive navy-blue trousers, a crisp white shirt, and a crimson tie. His smile was overly broad as he approached Lisa, who stood to greet him.

  “Welcome to NCFC,” he said and shook her hand.

  It was Dr. Paul Cranston, head of the clinic. Kat knew everything about him, even his social security number and where his passport had last been stamped: New Zealand.

  He led Lisa out of the waiting room and into the inner sanctum of the facility. As that door closed, another opened. A man, likely a hospital orderly, stood at the threshold of a doorway neighboring the front desk. He looked like a pit bull in scrubs. The receptionist beckoned to Kat.

  She stepped forward.

  “If you’ll follow me,” the man grunted, not bothering with her name.

  She hurried forward but stopped at the reception desk to grab a business card. She fumbled and purposefully knocked the holder off the counter and onto the reception desk.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching over to help collect the scattered cards.

  The receptionist sighed heavily and picked a few cards off the floor by her chair. Kat used the moment to slip the ballpoint pen palmed in her hand into the receptionist’s cup. It held a tiny camera that recorded audio and video passively to a micro SD chip. A small antenna allowed burst transmissions of the saved data with the pinged call from a cell phone.

  She had four more pens in her purse, with the goal of strategically placing them in key locations throughout the facility—or, at least, where she could reach without raising an alarm. If given the chance, it would be easy for a confused girl to get lost in here and wander where she didn’t belong.

  But first she had a role to play.

  “Just go,” the receptionist said and pointed to the side door.

  Kat apologized meekly and followed the orderly waiting for her. He led her out of the world of gardens and velvets and into a sterile environment of vinyl floors and stark white walls. Here was the hospital hidden behind the façade: sparse and utilitarian.

  They eventually reached and entered a short enclosed walkway that connected the main building to a more drab structure at the back of the grounds. As she marched, she noted each of the four clinic wings was connected in a similar manner. It seemed there was no need to leave the air-conditioned splendor for the summer heat. She also eyed the windowed walls to either side. The glass was thick, appeared bulletproof.

  Then again, the clinic’s clientele were often celebrities or foreign dignitaries. Maybe the extra protection was necessary.

  Still, a chill that had nothing to do with the air-conditioning swept through her. The space felt less protective than it was imprisoning.

  They entered the next building, and Kat was taken to a small examination room, one of a long row of them in this wing. The orderly handed her a series of forms to fill out, secured on a clipboard.

  “Fill everything out. Someone will be in to talk to you in a few minutes.”

  He left, looking as bored as when he’d first collected her.

  She began to fill out the forms when she heard a small click at the door. Stepping forward, she tested the handle.

  Locked.

  She frowned, fighting back a flicker of panic. Securing the door might be protocol, to maintain confidentiality. Either way, sh
e was committed. She’d have to keep playing her hand—but something was definitely wrong about this place.

  She hoped Lisa was faring better.

  12:18 P.M.

  “As you can see, we do all of our work in-house,” Dr. Paul Cranston said, stopping before a window that looked into a sealed in vitro fertilization lab.

  Lisa studied the space with a critical eye. The room was state-of-the art, with enclosed workstations equipped with laser oocyte scanners and Narishige micromanipulators for egg fertilization. Nothing was substandard, from Makler counting chambers to automatic sperm-analyzers, advanced warming blocks, and cryogenic chambers.

  Her guided tour had already included the surgical suite, used for both egg collection and embryo implantation. The clinic’s high-tech operating theater would put most hospitals to shame. Even the neighboring recovery rooms were private spaces that could have graced the pages of Architectural Digest, with fine linens, subdued lighting, and tasteful decorations.

  Clearly this tour was meant to impress.

  And it did.

  “We are a one-stop shop,” Cranston finished, offering a beaming, self-effacing smile. “From sperm and egg collection, to fertilization and implantation. We do all of our own patient monitoring, but we’re certainly happy to work in collaboration with a primary care physician.”

  Lisa nodded. “I’m sure some of my clients would prefer the anonymity of care outside the DC circles.”

  “Understood.”

  His eyes lingered a bit too long on her. Plainly, he desired to know more about whom she represented, but he knew better than to inquire directly. Lisa’s ironclad cover had been built to draw the personal interest of the clinic’s head, and obviously succeeded. She had been given the grand tour, along with the full-court sales press.

  “Why don’t we return to my office? I can supply you with brochures detailing each level of service, including fact sheets containing our success rates, and, of course, I’ll be happy to answer any other questions.”

  “That would be perfect.” She checked her watch in a move to urge him to hurry along. “I won’t take up much more of your time.”

  His office was up a level from the workspaces. It was like walking into a mahogany library, with bookshelf-lined walls, trophies, and framed diplomas, including one from Harvard, his alma mater. Like the rest of the tour, the room was also designed to impress. Huge arched windows overlooked the parklike grounds with views to the other three buildings that made up the complex.

  Cranston circled around his desk, where a prepared binder was already waiting for her atop his leather desk blotter. He handed it toward her, but she ignored it, focusing her attention out the window. She also kept a keen eye on his reactions. Besides a medical degree, she had earned a master’s in physiology. She understood bodily responses and could read them as accurately as most lie detectors—but unlike those detectors, she also knew how to manipulate those responses for a desired result.

  Now to get to work.

  “What happens in those other buildings?” she asked.

  He lowered the binder and followed her gaze outside. “The wing directly behind this one is for donor evaluation and collection.”

  Lisa eyed the three-story structure.

  That must be where Kat is.

  “The other two buildings are strictly for research,” he said. “We run reproductive studies for a dozen different universities, including as far away as the University of Tokyo and Oxford.”

  She turned her back to the window. “I’m assuming that any biological specimens, eggs, or embryos from my patients wouldn’t be used for such purposes without their consent.”

  “Of course not. We have a robust donor program that supplies such material. Let me assure you, Dr. Cummings, our research programs and patient services are completely separate. There is no crossover.”

  “Very good.” Lisa returned to the chair in front of his wide desk and sank into the seat, shifting her purse into her lap. “Now let me be frank with you, Dr. Cranston.”

  “Please call me Paul.”

  She smiled, giving him that much. “Paul, I must be honest that I have been considering other facilities. It’s come down to here or a clinic outside of Philadelphia.”

  “Of course.”

  He kept an even demeanor, but she did not mistake the flicker of desire—to poach another client was even better than merely to win one. That was the bait.

  “But I assure you,” he continued, “you’ll find no other facility with the level of technological advancement, the latest tools, and the professional staff to oversee each stage of the process.”

  Cranston definitely wanted her imaginary high-profile client list—but how badly?

  First to let some slack in the line, intended to unnerve him. “I understand and appreciate that, Paul, but Philadelphia is also much closer to DC. I must take that convenience into account. My clients’ time is very important.”

  He looked crestfallen. “I can’t argue with that.”

  Now to dangle hope. “But your clinic has one distinct advantage. Beyond your stellar medical reputation, you have an unmatched social reputation, an excellent pedigree, if you will.”

  “How so?”

  “Amanda Gant-Bennett.”

  The edges of his eyelids grew more strained at the mention of Amanda.

  “Several of my patients are well acquainted with the First Family,” she continued. “They know of the delicate situation regarding the president’s daughter and how matters were handled at your clinic. In many ways, Washington is a small town.”

  She offered him a modest smile.

  He echoed it—the desired effect.

  “One patient of mine in particular is faced with a similar situation: an infertile husband. She asked me to specifically inquire into your donor program. To put it bluntly, using my patient’s words: ‘If it’s good enough for the president’s daughter, it’s good enough for me.’”

  She rolled her eyes, feigning amused disdain. “In certain Washingtonian circles—whether it’s the latest purse or the season’s designer fashions—name brands are all that matter. And this even extends to the choice of medical facility and, in this case, even the preference of donor.”

  He gave her an understanding nod and steepled his fingers under his chin. “There is, of course, no way to divulge who was the male donor in this situation. But I can guarantee you that each of our donors must pass the most thorough and exacting background check and evaluation. Each is ranked on several criteria: physical appearance, IQ, medical history, ethnic background, and many others.”

  “And if someone wanted to pick a donor of, let us say, equal criteria as the president’s daughter …?”

  His smile grew steadier, as he discovered a way to win her over. It was human nature: to almost have something in one’s grasp, then suddenly lose it, only made the desire to win it back that much stronger. It was why gambling was so addictive.

  “I’m sure that could be arranged,” he said. “We’d hate to lose you.”

  I’m sure you would.

  “Wonderful.” She rewarded him with a genuine smile of delight. “And would it be possible to obtain a list and description of such donors, something tangible I can present to my client? As they say, the proof is in the pudding.”

  Cranston swung to his computer. “Certainly. If you can give me a few minutes …”

  She settled back into her chair. Painter wanted that shortened list of donors, a way to narrow down the number of potential biological fathers for Amanda’s unborn child. But he also needed a way to turn the anonymity of those donors into real names.

  That meant gaining access to clinic records.

  As Cranston worked, Lisa snapped open her purse and pretended to check her phone. She pressed a button on it as instructed by Painter, then slipped the thin device into the seat cushions of her chair, using her purse to hide her actions. The phone had a wireless micro-router built into it, allowing Sigma to link and hac
k into the clinic’s server. Painter had tried to explain it in more detail, but electronic engineering was not her specialty. All she knew was to follow his instructions: wait until Cranston had logged into the computer and used his password, then activate the wireless router and leave it running nearby.

  She clicked her purse closed.

  Her work here was done.

  It seemed too easy, but then again, it was supposed to be.

  Painter had described the mission here as a soft infiltration. Rather than a full-frontal storming of the gates, Kat and Lisa’s only goal was to leave a trail of electronic bread crumbs: listening devices, cameras, wireless taps. Most of the tools had been engineered by Painter, made for easy concealment and minimal signature.

  But anything can be detected, given enough time, Painter had warned.

  So the second part of this mission was not to loiter.

  And she obeyed that now.

  In short order, she had everything she needed from Dr. Cranston, including the binder of brochures and information. He walked her back to the lobby, left her with promises to keep in touch, and she soon found herself back under the swelter of the midday sun.

  She headed over and climbed into her Audi sedan, a luxurious rental to match her cover. Though her part of the mission was complete, a knot of tension remained in her neck. The plan was for Kat to meet her back at their hotel in downtown Charleston. She would be relieved only when they were rejoined. From there, the electronic devices could do all the spying for them.

  She swung her sedan out of the parking lot and onto the street, still worried about Kat, feeling guilty for abandoning her partner.

  Her only reassurance: Kat was a pro.

  Nothing fazed her.

  1:14 P.M.

  What the hell is going on here?

  Pacing the small exam room, Kat checked the clock on her disposable phone. It had been over an hour since she first walked through the clinic’s front door. She should’ve been in and out by now. She had completed the sheaf of paperwork and handed it to the same orderly who marched her here and locked her in the room.