Gardener: The Roots Of Ancient Evil (19 page)

              Prieto’s phone rang just as his driver pulled up to the airport.

              “Yes?”             

              “Good news, bad news, sir. So far I’ve only been able to dig up the destination. Departure and arrival times for private flights aren’t stored or updated the same way at every airport, so—”

              “Where?”

              “Colorado Springs,” Jamie said.

The blood drained from Prieto’s face. Did he know? Was this retribution?

              “Call the authorities and let them know,” Prieto commanded.

              “Sir, I…”

              “What is it?”

              “This information was very illegally acquired. I’d lose my license,” Jamie explained.

              “Very well, tell Winston and Ricker and have them get to the airport as soon as possible, and also call the same security outfit guarding Ms. Berg. Have them meet them. I’ll email photos. Let me know anything as soon as you get it, and I’ll have further instructions. I’ll call for an update as soon as I’m in the air.”

              Tommy went back to his office, but was too stressed to think straight. Why the hell did Shea have an armed guard downstairs? Was it possible that genetically altered flowers were so expensive? That didn’t make any sense; otherwise, there would be more security. He decided that he would tell Shea the first he saw him, play ignorant, which was mostly true. But what the hell else was Shea cooking? His cell phone startled him.

              “Yeah?”

              “Dude, come get me. Now,” Marco said and hung up.

Tommy jumped up and jogged out to his car. He called Viviana on the way to Marco’s.

              “Hey,” she answered, causing him significant relief.

              “Sorry to bother you. Marco just called, something urgent, told me to come right over. I didn’t know if something horrible had happened,” he said.

              “Aw, and you called me right away?” she said. “I made up some awesome story earlier, in about an hour I’m going to run those two DNA tests, on the brush and the knife, so I should have some good information later,” she said.

              “Those guards staying out of the way?”

              “Yeah, everything’s fine,” she said.

              “OK. Maybe Marco found a sale on beer or something,” Tommy joked. He ended the call just as he made the turn into Marco’s service apartments that Prieto had arranged. He was standing outside. Not smiling.

              “Airport, man, hurry,” Marco said.

              “What’s up?” Tommy asked, putting his phone away.

              “I don’t know. Jamie called and said Prieto called him direct. Somebody snatched his granddaughter, and they are coming here.”

              “What?”
              “Don’t know the details. All I know is he got some picture of a private jet that is supposed to be coming here, but he doesn’t want to call the cops because Jamie’s guy hacked his way into some federal database or something.”
              “Shit. What are we supposed to do?” Tommy asked.

              “I don’t know. More of those security guys are supposed to meet us there, find out who it is, follow them, get her back, dude, I don’t know,” Marco said.

Tommy glanced at the clock on the dash. The airport was about twenty minutes away.

              “Shea’s got some kind of secret underground flower lab. I went to check it out, and this big dude with a gun and a five-thousand-dollar suit chased me away,” Tommy said as he drove, periodically checking the rearview mirror for police.

              “What?”

              “I talked to Lusk, he talked about the soil being like a fine wine or something. I looked on Google maps, saw the place under construction. Opposite end. Lusk said Shea planted some flowers that Lusk said were sprouted in some artificial lighting.”

              “You mean like in a weed closet?”

              “Yeah, that’s what I said,” Tommy answered.

              They pulled up to the airport and parked in the closest spot possible. Metered parking, but they didn’t have enough change. They put in what they had and rushed inside.

              “Where do we find out about private flights? Arrival times, that sort of thing?” Tommy asked the first official-looking person he saw.

              “That would be in arrivals, third floor, all the way down,” she said, pointing them in the right direction.

They found the nearest escalator and ran up. They got to the top and jogged down to the far end, past the security gates. They scanned the counters. One down at the far end didn’t seem to have any commercial logo or name associated with it.

              “Hello, I wonder if you can help us,” Tommy, asked out of breath. She smiled and waited for the question. “Private jet, scheduled to arrive here, do you have any information?”

              “We had one,” she said, looking at her screen, “but it arrived about forty-five minutes ago.”

              “Can you give us any more information? It’s really a life or death situation,” Tommy said, completely serious.

              “I’m really sorry, but that is private information, I can’t disclose anything other than what I’ve told you,” she said plainly.

              “Listen to me very carefully,” Tommy said with fierce determination. He leaned over slightly, his eyes boring into hers. “There was a fourteen-year-old girl on that plane, most likely abducted. Her grandfather is a billionaire, Nelson Prieto, likely en route. If he gets here and you cannot find his granddaughter, you are fucked,” Tommy said.

She flinched, looked down at her screen, and verified what he’d just told her. Her composure suddenly changed.

              “Look, the only information I have is they arrived forty-seven minutes ago, there was one passenger, and she was picked up by a Gregg Keen. He had all the proper documentation or there would be a note,” she said.

              “Where is the plane now?” Tommy demanded.

              “It is still here,” she said, looking at the screen. She typed in a few keystrokes.

              “It’s not scheduled for any departures,” she said.

              “What the fuck does that mean?” Tommy demanded.

              “That just means that when the owner is not using it, this is where they keep it,” she said.

Tommy stepped back, pulled out his phone. Stared at the woman while he made the call.

              “Prieto, plane landed and she got off a little less than an hour ago, plane is still here, that’s all we know,” Tommy said, and listened. He nodded and hung up. Then he waited and continued to stare down the girl behind the counter, who looked like she was about to faint. Her phone buzzed. She picked it up and nodded a few times.

              “Please wait one moment,” she said to Tommy and Marco. Less than a minute later two security guards arrived.

              “Gentlemen, if would follow us please,” the lead guard said deferentially.

              “Where are we going?” Marco asked Tommy.

              “We, along with Prieto’s guards, are meeting him when he lands. Then we will tear apart the other plane and find out who it belongs to,” Tommy said as they followed airport security.

              “Ricker?” one of the newly arrived private security guards asked. Tommy nodded. The guard looked at Marco. “Winston?”

              “Yep.”

              “What are we doing?” the guard asked Tommy.

Tommy nodded toward the plane currently sitting on the tarmac.

              “Soon as Prieto lands, we’re going inside that plane, getting whatever information we can, as quickly as we can, and get out.”

The three guards quickly exchanged looks.

              “That plane, does it belong to Prieto?”

              “It does not,” Tommy replied.

              “I don’t feel comfortable going inside. We need a license to operate, and doing things like that makes it hard for guys like me to stay employed,” he said.

              “What about opening the door?” Tommy asked.

              “So long as it wasn’t me who did it,” he said.

              “Fine. You get us inside, and keep anybody else from interfering. Or at least stall them in any way that is legally comfortable for you,” Tommy said.

              “We can do that,” the guard answered. The other two guards nodded. They stood waiting, and turned when a private jet came in for a landing about 300 meters away. Two of the guards borrowed a cart from the airport security and met Prieto as he got off a few minutes later.

              “Thanks for coming,” Prieto said when he arrived. He handed the phone to Marco.

              “This is Marco,” he said, and then listened carefully, nodded a few times. “OK, got it,” he finally said, handing the phone back to Prieto. “Keep the line open, I know what to do.”

Tommy nodded at the lead guard, who moved a rolling ladder up to the entrance of the private jet. Marco walked up and did some work on the door, and after less than a minute it opened.

              “All yours,” the guard said. He and the other two guards fanned out around the base of the ladder, ready to deflect any questions or concerns. Tommy and Prieto followed Marco up the ladder. He went in and immediately went into the cockpit.

              “OK, now what?” he asked into the phone. He listened, scanning the instruments. He looked at Prieto. “You got a cable or something?” he asked. Prieto reached into his pocket and pulled out a small transfer cable used for transferring data between phones and PCs. Marco took it, plugging one end into the phone. Then he plugged the other end into a receptacle at the bottom of the instrument panel.

              “OK, go ahead,” he said into the phone, which he held near the connection. The cable was relatively short. He looked at Tommy. “He said this will take maybe a minute for his guys to get in there and find what we need. He said something about Trojan horse encryption keys or something,” Marco explained.

Prieto looked on nervously. After a minute and a half, the phone chirped twice.

              “Yeah?” Marco said to the person on the other end of the phone.

              “Yep. Time to boogie,” the voice replied.

              “Is that it?” Prieto asked.

              “Yep, he said they got all we need from here, unless you want to have a look around?” Marco asked. Tommy went to the door and looked out at the guards. He didn’t see any problems.

              “Yeah, we got time,” Tommy said. They went to the cabin. It was clean. Tommy and Marco stood patiently while Prieto looked through all the compartments, restrooms, and holds. They found several magazines aimed at young teenage girls. A few empty cartons of juice. An empty bag of sweets. It appeared to be a very well thought out, highly organized and deeply financed con, one aimed at separating young girls from their families, but none dared to speak the thought out loud. The implications were too terrifying to contemplate.

              “I’ll go with you guys,” Prieto said, looking at Tommy. He asked where Tommy was parked and what kind of car he drove. Tommy told him. Prieto instructed the guards to both lead and follow them.

              “Where you guys at?” Jamie asked once they were en route.

              “About thirty, forty minutes from your place,” Tommy replied. Jamie was on speaker.

              “We should have information by then. In the meantime we’re monitoring all FAA traffic for any private flights leaving U.S. airspace,” he said.

              “Thank you, I appreciate that,” Prieto said.

              “Don’t mention it. I took your reward offer and split it between me and five of the best tech guys I know. Wherever they’re taking her, they can’t do it without leaving a trail. We’ll find her,” Jamie promised.

They drove in silence for several minutes, Tommy following the guard driving in front of him, and periodically checking the guard behind him.

              Viviana tried one more time. She’d spent the last two hours on this brush, but every single hair follicle she’d been able to retrieve had been too damaged for a complete DNA sample. The alleles had been too degraded, and she hadn’t found a strand that had enough intact to make a comparison. Ideally, when comparing DNA between two samples, the more genetic markers there were, the higher the confidence interval. But what she had she could only show a high or low probability that the two individuals represented by their DNA on the brush and the gardening tool were equivalent. Not nearly enough to stand up in any court.

She put the brush aside and began doing work on the gardening tool. It looked like a small knife, only the blade wasn’t sharp, and was slightly concave, and slightly pointed at the tip. She suspected it was used to create small holes about an inch in diameter to plant seeds. She carefully inspected the handle under the microscope, looking for rough edges. There were plenty, and on them were flakes of skin. She carefully removed one piece and began preparing for DNA extraction and analysis. Maybe they’d get lucky and whoever’s DNA this was would be in the system, and support Prieto’s theory that he was an imposter who’d wormed his way into the Shea family fortune. She checked the clock, surprised that she’d blown past lunch without feeling hungry. She looked back at her sample, deciding she’d eat after she was finished. Wouldn’t be much longer.