Missing: The Body of Evidence (34 page)

Six-thirty in the morning and Nancy had
prepared mentally for the day ahead. She hoped that she had not disturbed Dad
and Ben. The last thing she wanted was another confrontation with her dad. She
stood outside Dad’s apartment in the hallway, and pulled the door handle until
it reached the catch. Carefully, she placed her shoulder against the door to
ease it closed with a final click of the lock. Light of foot, she made her way
down the stairway and to her car.

Her eyes darted in all directions in the
parking lot, checking the perimeter. Another five hours to the meeting with
Homeland Security and the FBI and she was hoping today’s jaunt would fill in
some blanks for what she had to tell them. Nancy opened the car door and edged
onto the driver’s seat, placing a large-brown envelope and her purse on the
passenger seat.

She took a deep breath and let it out in a
sigh. A flick of her wrist to fire up the ignition, a prayer that the noise of
the engine wouldn’t alert her dad, and Nancy was off on her mission. A sense of
calm descended as she burned up the road ahead. The feeling was at one-hundred
and eighty degrees from yesterday’s convoy experience. Then, she had felt ill
at ease; almost embarrassed, which she thought kind of strange. But then,
driving around armed to the hilt like some vigilante army, however grateful she
had been,
was
highly illegal and had only added to the tension.

The hairdresser’s shop came into view and
she pulled over. Nancy took a pen-drive copy of Tracy’s report on the
professor’s death and dropped it into the envelope with the rest of the
contents, before sealing. Leaving the engine running, she took the brown
envelope, hurried over to the door, and posted it through the opening.

A glance around and she was satisfied no
one was watching. The thought struck, when getting back in her car that the
note she had left on her bed simply saying ‘Gone out, back at lunchtime’,
without saying where she was going, was likely to burn more than a few bridges
with her dad. She tried to set the notion aside as she headed in the direction
of Mary’s home.

Parked outside the estate where Mary lived,
she waited. The temptation to drive up to her house to ask questions was hard
to keep under check, and the thought only abated when Mary’s car pulled out of
the estate and Nancy followed at a respectful distance. There was no need to
drive too closely to Mary’s car; Nancy knew exactly where she was headed.

Driving along the mountain road, she hit
one of those patches where her thoughts were so wrapped up in the questions she
needed answering, she lost sight of the immediate task and was driving on
autopilot. The car turned at a bend. A shot of adrenalin interrupted her cool
karma. Mary’s car came into view and slowed. Nancy hit the brake pedal, but not
before she saw Mary talking on her cell phone. Anxiety receded as Mary’s car
hit another bend and Nancy slowed to a crawl and on exiting the bend the trunk
of Mary’s car disappeared around another bend. As she hit the next straight,
Mary’s car turned into ACI.

Nancy slowed and pulled over to the side of
the road. The entrance into Astral was at an angle, allowing her to see Mary’s
car drive up to the security barrier. A guard with a semi-automatic-assault
rifle slung over his shoulder exited the security cabin, strolled over to the
car and talked to Mary. The guard signalled back to the cabin and the barrier
lifted. Taking a deep breath, Nancy engaged first gear, and hoped her badge
would gain her access as she turned into the entrance.

The guard signalled her to stop. Nancy
pressed the window button.

‘Hi, Detective Roberts, LAPD. I’m here to
speak to Mary, the woman who’s just entered.’

‘Can I see some identification?’

Taking her badge from her purse, she held
it up. He glanced at the badge and walked to the front of her car, writing down
her car number plate details. He returned and signalled toward the cabin and
said.

‘Drive through and park up on the left
before the second barrier. I’ll need to phone her.’

Nancy gave him a smile. The barrier raised,
she drove through and she parked. The badge had worked its magic, but then it
always did. She smiled inwardly at the power of the badge. In her fifteen
years, it had never failed her in getting access to anywhere. A glance to her
left back at the barrier and there were now two guards throwing looks her way,
both nursing their semi-automatics in their arms. Their menacing gaze did
nothing for her confidence, which waned in tandem with her shoulders sagging.

Her head snapped right to the sound of an
approaching vehicle crunching the driveway gravel. The second barrier lifted, a
black SUV crunched to a halt and blocked her exit.

Nancy froze to her seat and fixed her eyes
on the rear-view mirror. The front doors of the SUV flung open together and two
guys jumped out flanking her car on either side with guns drawn.

‘Out of the car, lady, and keep your hands
where I can see them.’

Nancy stabbed him a look. She knew exactly
who he was and guessed she was in a heap of trouble. This was not how it was
meant to go. Nancy desperately tried to summon words that would extricate her
from the situation, but she had a feeling anything she could say would be
ignored, and removing the key from the ignition, she placed her hands on the
dash.

The two guys converged on her, weapons
drawn, as she exited her car. Blondie and his CIA sidekick were no strangers
and somehow she wasn’t surprised by their appearance. What worried her were the
marks on the left hand side of Blondie’s face and marks on the opposite side of
his partner’s face as if they’d been peppered with shotgun pellets. A vision of
the glass imploding on the vehicle during the attempt on her life stuck in her
mind. Her entire being trembled within.

‘You know the drill, lady, assume the
position,’ Blondie said.

Nancy remained tight lipped and complied,
turning and placing her hand on the hood. He continued.

‘I thought you were on sick leave? What
business do you have here? This is government property.’

Nancy scowled and chose to remain silent as
he kicked her legs apart and began his close-quarter search of her body. He
removed her pistol from her holster and handed it to his partner. She cringed
as he ran his hands down her pants leg.’What have we got here?’ He removed a
Saturday-night special from her leg holster. ‘I think this calls for a double
check.’

This time he was slow and deliberate. She
had to hold her counsel with a bite of the lip as he fondled her breasts. Then
he ran his hands in her groin area finally rubbing her butt.

‘Having fun?’ Nancy asked.

He put his lips close to her ear. ‘Nice
tits and ass, lady. I bet you can go some.’

Nancy turned, slipping the car keys into
her pocket and faced him.

‘Oh, I can go some, all right. Try this.’

Her knee connected with his groin. He
doubled over, grabbing at his dick with one hand and his gun arm flailing. She
grabbed his gun arm by the wrist. A twist of her upper body and his arm lodged
behind his back. With his wrist bent in her grip, his gun dropped from his limp
hand. Nancy flicked her leg between his, and using his weight against him, he
ended up face down and eating grit. Planting a final knee in the back, Nancy
cursed at not having any cuffs with her, then her anger abated at the feel of
the barrel of his partner’s gun pressed to her forehead. He gave her an order.

‘Ease off.’

Hands grasped her shoulders and she sprang
to her feet in survival mode with her hands held high. The hands holding her in
a tight grip belonged to a foot-patrol guard who had joined the fray. Another
of the patrol was tugging at the leash of a German Shepherd in need of a
mouthwash, saliva drooling from its snarling teeth.

Blondie groaned and rose to his full
height. His cheeks flamed with embarrassment. He brushed the dirt from his suit
and picked up his gun. Nancy thought she should try to diffuse the situation.

‘Okay, we’ve had our fun. Now, how about I
get in my car and drive away and we’ll forget I ever came here?’

Blondie snapped at her. ‘Why
are
you
here?’

‘Private business. Mary Goodyear knows why.
I need her help with some of her insight into psychic problems. She told me I
needed help, but I haven’t been able to find any. So I came here to ask her.’

She knew it was a lame excuse, but thought
it was worth a shot. Blondie pressed his finger to his ear, and spoke into his
jacket sleeve. He walked away out of hearing and then returned, still talking
into his sleeve.

‘… Okay, will do.’ He turned to Nancy. ‘You’ve
got your wish. Get in the SUV. We’ll take you to see Mary.’

A glance at the nearest camera pole and she
could see the camera was pointed directly toward her. Blondie and his partner
holstered their guns. Blondie held the rear door open for her, which almost
brought a snicker from deep within. With the situation diffused, she was
cautiously optimistic that she would get her interview and leave, save for one
thing… the marks on their faces looked as though they had been caused by being
showered with glass as visions of the ambush came back to haunt her.

Nancy felt the bulge of her keys in her
pocket. The temptation had been there to press the GPS alarm on the key ring to
bring in the cavalry, but so far, she felt she was doing just fine without her
dad and his cronies’ help.

She wondered if Uncle Dave and Jim had
witnessed events, but looking around, she failed to see any high ground that
would give them a vantage point. The ACI building looked strange. She had only
viewed it on Google maps from above, but looking at it head-on, the
white-painted-single-story building had two enormous domes, that sure enough
looked like telescope housings. And, as Uncle Ben had said, they gave the
building the appearance of two breasts sunbathing on the roof.

Security at the entrance to the building
was every bit as tight as at the security gates, with armed guards at either
side of the door. Blondie tapped in a code to a device at the side of the door
and it slid open. There was no receptionist in the foyer. All the walls were
painted white, with modern art prints adorning the walls, providing a
distinctly clinical looking ambience. Flanked by Blondie and his partner, they
approached a door. This time, his partner tapped in a code and then he signalled
for her to enter.

It was a small room, similar to the
interview rooms at homicide headquarters, furnished only with a small table and
two functional chairs. In one corner at ceiling height, there was a camera and
along one wall a mirror.

‘Wait here, she’ll be along shortly,’ said
Blondie.

The door closed behind her, leaving her
alone to her thoughts. Nancy tried the door handle, but the door was locked.
Pulling out a chair, she sat and faced the mirror. In what was a reversal of
roles from what she was used to, Nancy folded her arms. She smiled at the
mirror, wondering who it was that would be observing her every facial
expression and body signals.

It was too late now to be thinking of
options. With some luck, Nancy hoped to interview Mary, and that her answers
would throw some light on the subject of the professor’s death. Then, if her
good fortune held, she would simply leave. If nothing else, she at least hoped
to find out what ACI did for its existence. Somehow, she didn’t think it would
be that easy, especially with Blondie and his partner cementing a connection of
Mary and ACI. What with the association of the agents to Mary, and with the
marks on the agents’ faces indicating they may have been the ones who tried
killing her during the car chase, she feared the worst.

A cold shiver ran through her body. She
hoped that whoever was watching her could not see her trembling on the outside.
Weakness was the last thing she needed to display.
Idiot,
passed through
her mind as the best description of her barging into ACI unannounced.
Confronting Mary at her home, in hindsight, would have been the better option.
Nancy’s thoughts turned to the GPS device on her key ring. Her dad had been
clear. ‘Only use the GPS if you are in real danger.’ Nancy began to think the
blows to her head had taken their toll on her powers of reasoning, but she held
back on retrieving her keys, not sure if it was the right decision.

Closing her eyes, she recalled the
satellite view of the grounds from Google Maps. The building was square, giving
no clue as to the internal layout. At the rear, fencing cordoned off a sizeable
area. Included within that annex, were marked out tennis courts, a small
football field and a swimming pool, together with a child’s play area. Beyond
that, there was a lake and then a wooded area. From above, the entire area
within the external fencing gave the appearance of a vacation hotel. Nothing
within the grounds gave any indication of an involvement in chemical
manufacture.

She opened her eyes to the sound of buzzing
coming from the lock on the door. The door opened and in walked Mary. She
walked behind the desk and sat.

‘Good morning, Detective Roberts.’

‘Good morning, please, call me Nancy. I’m
not here on official business.’

‘How did you know I worked here?’

‘Well, I came to your home this morning,
fully intending to talk to you there, but I saw you drive off and followed you.
I thought about flashing my headlights to stop your car, but then I had the
notion, being a cop ’n’ all, that you may think I was trying to rob you. So, I
decided to wait until you stopped. And here we are.’

Nancy smiled outwardly, but at the same
time wondered if that cockamamie excuse sounded as big a lie to Mary as it did
to her. The pause lasted for what seemed like an age, with nothing in Mary’s
expression to give a clue as to which way she was thinking. Mary picked up a
pencil from the desk and started tapping it on the surface. Finally, she peered
at Nancy over her half rimmed spectacles and stopped the annoying tapping.

‘So, how can I help?’

‘You said I had a gift, back at the
station, and to be honest, strange things
have
been happening to me. I
tried seeking help with a psychic, but they said that they couldn’t help. I was
wondering if you could maybe help me before I go mad.’

Mary leaned back in her chair.

‘What sort of strange things?’

‘Well, it’s the visions mainly. Sometimes,
I feel like I’m travelling outside my body.’

‘Can you give me an example?’

Nancy gave her the recollection of
travelling to the log cabin, careful to leave out any mention of the janitor’s
son, David. Mary listened, clasping her hands to form the shape of a steeple
with two of her fingers and stroked her lips with them.

‘I don’t think I can help you, you’re too
old to join our research program. But there again, in the interest of research,
we may be able to help. Is there anything else that goes with the astral travel
for you to create a force?’

Nancy didn’t want to explain about her
apparent ability to break glass, but saw what she said as an opportunity to
talk about Astral.

‘So is that what you do here at Astral;
research psychic abilities? I’d be interested in knowing more if you could
help.’

Mary picked up the pencil and chewed on it,
while she maintained an uncomfortable gaze at Nancy. At last, she broke her
silence.

‘Wait here.’

Mary stood and made her way to the door
clicking a fob in her hand that released the lock on the door. She turned
briefly and threw Nancy a look, before exiting the room.

She doubted Mary was visiting the bathroom,
and guessed she had gone to the viewing room for advice. Nancy stood and walked
to the mirror, teasing her hair with her fingers and hoping to give the
impression she was relaxed to her observers.

It was only a matter of minutes, when the
door lock buzzed and Mary re-entered.

‘Follow me and I’ll take you for a tour of
the facility. Then you can decide if we can be of help.’

The opportunity to ask questions out of
sight of prying eyes and ears was too good an opportunity to miss. Trying not
to sound overly enthusiastic at the thought of discovering what the ACI
research program entailed, Nancy curled her lips in a smile.

‘Sounds good to me.’

Nancy followed with a spring in her step,
but her smile turned to a frown as Blondie and his sidekick joined in on the
tour, albeit at a respectful distance behind them.