Never Say Die

Chapter 13

The sun had been up for an hour by the time he started driving west again, on Highway 62. This time Remo picked up Highway 11 south from Edwardsville, down through Elizabeth, and came in toward Ideal Maternity from the reverse of his original approach. He pushed the Chrysler well beyond the posted limit, watching out for cops along the way, aware that precious time was slipping through his hands.

Two guards and one young woman missing. Even if they didn’t find the bodies, it was bound to cause a flap with staffers at the “home.” It was impossible for him to guess how they would take it, how they would react, but Remo had a nasty feeling in his gut.

If Dr. Radcliff and his flunkies started cutting losses, the young women might be first to go.

He had enjoyed the second wake-up call to Smith at Folcroft. Smith listened carefully while Remo ran the problem down, and though he cleared his throat from time to time, as if about to speak, he managed not to interrupt. When Remo finished, Smith agreed to everything, albeit reluctantly. There was a place for Joy at Folcroft Sanitarium. An open first-class ticket would be waiting for her, in the name of Alice Jones, when she checked in at the Louisville airport. A car and driver would be waiting for her when her flight touched down at White Plains.

“One thing,” Smith said before he severed the connection. “Does the girl have any useful information?”

“Nothing on the look-alikes,” said Remo. He had shown her Thomas Hardy’s mug shot, but it drew a total blank. “If you were setting up a charge of false imprisonment or baby-selling, she could make your case.”

“Too bad,” Smith said. “I do not see this one going to a jury.”

“No.”

So, he was driving through the woods in early-morning sunlight, wondering what he would find on this, his second visit to Ideal Maternity. He was prepared to bluff or tough it out, whichever method seemed the more appropriate once he was on the scene.

Joy’s explanation of the Radcliff scam made sense, or course. With the adoption crisis in America, disabled children and minorities were stacked up on the waiting list for parents, while your average childless couple was Caucasian, set on bringing home a healthy infant who resembled them in all respects. It was a seller’s market, nationwide, and the restrictions placed on baby-brokering by state and federal laws did little to prevent black-market sales. As far as Remo knew, the Radcliff operation might be absolutely legal, up until the point when pregnant women were confined against their will or made to disappear once they had given birth,

A baby-selling racket was despicable, the more so if it had incorporated homicide to cut its overhead, but Remo still saw no connection with the carbon-copy hit men wearing Thomas Hardy’s face and fingerprints. There must be more, a link back to Eugenix Corporation somehow, but each time he thought he had it, the solution skittered out of reach and found a hiding place in his subconscious.

Experience told Remo that he would get nowhere agonizing over the elusive problem. Rather, if he put it on a mental shelf and concentrated on the task at hand, let his unconscious mind deal with the riddle for a while, he stood a better chance of coming up with a solution.

Or, he thought, if all else fails, I just may need to have a chat with Doctor, find out what he has to say. The prospect made him smile.

He motored past the private driveway once more, no special reason, just to check it out, but what he saw made him brake his Chrysler in the middle of the road. The heavy chain was down and puddled in the grass to one side of the driveway, its warning sign forgotten. There was nothing to prevent his driving in.

Was it a trap…or had something bad gone down here?

He thought about retreating, going overland on foot, as he had done the night before, but Remo didn’t want to waste the time. He had a sickly feeling in his stomach—formless apprehension mingled with a premonition of disaster—but it did not translate into fear. He thought about the girls—young women—who would be the only living witnesses against their captors if the game went sour, wondering exactly how far Dr. Radcliff and his staff would go to save themselves.

He turned into the driveway, checking out the trees on either side. He kept one hand on the door latch and the other on the steering wheel, prepared to bail or ram with equal speed if he was ambushed. As it was, he had an uneventful drive up to the building.

He circled once around the brooding structure, watching windows, picking up no signs of movement behind the glass. There were no cars in evidence, and Remo saw the back door standing open, just an inch or two, as if the last one out had more important things to think about and didn’t care much if the building was secured or not.

He recognized the signs of an emergency evacuation, but he parked out front and blew the Chrysler’s horn regardless just to see if any stragglers might reveal themselves. The flicker of a curtain at an upstairs window, anything at all.

But there was nothing.

Remo was too late.

He left the car, not bothering to lock it, walked up to the front door and tried the knob. It opened at his touch.

He lingered on the threshold, sniffing at the air for any scent of blood or death. Instead, he picked up Lemon Pledge and Lysol. They were keeping clean, whatever else transpired inside these walls.

He stepped into the foyer, listened, heard no sounds that would suggest a living presence in the house. Immediately on his right was a parlor with chairs and couches arranged around a Sony console television with a VCR on top. The coffee table held a spread of magazines that ran toward Seventeen and Tiger Beat, in keeping with the average age of inmates at the home. The room was spotless, nothing to suggest a whirlwind had ripped through it hours earlier.

He checked the dining room, found nothing, moved on to the kitchen. Twin refrigerators were well stocked with food, milk, lean meat, but there would be no breakfast served this morning. Pots, pans and utensils had been washed up after supper, neatly put away in readiness for morning, but the staff and inmates had evacuated prior to feeding-time.

From Joy’s description of the place, he knew the laundry room would be downstairs, with storage in the basement. Past the kitchen pantry with its loaded shelves, the office lately occupied by Matron, or Althea Bliss, revealed the first clear evidence of a departure staged in haste. The desk had been swept clean, drawers dumped and scattered. In the corner, two green filing cabinets stood with empty drawers pulled open. Nothing in the closet but a metal hanger lying on the floor.

Whatever paperwork might have existed to detail the operation of the home for unwed mothers, it was gone. A watercolor painting of a meadow bright with poppies hung askew beside the office door, forgotten in the rush to get away.

He checked the next four rooms downstairs, staff quarters by the look of them, and found no clothes, no personal effects of any kind. Each room had beds for two, one pair still neatly made, not slept in, while the others were in disarray.

The maid would not be coming in today.

The last room on the ground floor would have been what Joy had called the lab, complete with vinyl floor and cabinets that reminded Remo of a medical-examination room. The operating table Joy described was missing, though, marks on the floor remaining where it had been bolted down. The other furnishings were also gone, including the track lighting overhead, and someone had cleaned out the cabinets, left nothing but a paper-towel dispenser on the wall above a sink constructed out of stainless steel.

The kind of heavy-duty gear you found in operating rooms wouldn’t fit in a normal car, which meant Bliss and her people had been stepping lively for their getaway. One truck, at least, called in from somewhere, probably with extra muscle to complete the move in record time. Wall sockets, scuff marks and assorted other signs told Remo they had also taken out a large refrigerator, plus some countertop appliances. The air was sharp with disinfectant, even now, and while he couldn’t prove that Joy’s report was accurate in all particulars, he was prepared to take her word.

He left the operating room and went upstairs, still listening for any sound that would betray a lurker in the house, to search the rooms once occupied by the young mothers of Ideal Maternity. Ten rooms, again with two beds each, though three rooms apparently had been unoccupied before the hasty exodus, beds stripped of linen, drawers and closets undisturbed.

A fourth room had one bed made up for sleeping and the other bare, exactly as Joy Patton had described the room she occupied alone.

And that left six. Twelve pregnant girls, all missing now. Their dresser drawers and closets had been emptied out in haste, but no private items were left behind. There was a common bathroom at the far end of the hall, some of the hanging towels still damp, but nothing in the way of makeup, medicine, perfume—in short, no other trace of habitation by a living soul.

Forensics experts could have torn the place apart, thought Remo, and come up with clothing fibers, fingerprints, perhaps hairs clinging to a bar of soap—but what would be the point? It was no crime to occupy a room or take a shower, and his work was not geared toward a trial, in any case.

As for Thomas Allen Hardy and his doppelgangers, Remo knew no more for having toured Ideal Maternity than when he took the case from Smith. He had a sense of precious time escaping, slipping through his fingers. Where would it end? And how?

One thing he knew for certain: if the place had been evacuated overnight, then Dr. Radcliff must be on alert. Would he attempt to flee, abandon home and clinic in Kentucky, or would he assume that he was safe, his anonymity preserved by the preemptive strike in Dogwood, Indiana?

Remo didn’t know, and there was only one way to proceed. He had to find the man, or try to. Face him one-on-one and wring the secrets of his operation out of Radcliff, one way or another.

At the moment, he was hoping the doctor would resist, give him a reason to inflict some pain.

The ghost was waiting for him when he stepped out of the common bathroom, standing twenty feet away, holding a semiautomatic pistol. Remo recognized the face immediately. He had smashed it several days earlier, in Florida.

The walking dead man smiled at Remo, raised his pistol in a firm two-handed grip and fixed the sights on Remo’s chest.

“Come here,” he said.

“Okay.”

It was a serious miscalculation, bringing Remo closer, but the stranger had no way of knowing that. He held the pistol steady, keeping both eyes open, just the way they taught it at the FBI Academy. At this range, anyone not educated in the fine points of Sinanju should have been dead meat, but Remo wasn’t worried.

As Remo closed the gap, his adversary started backing toward the stairs, kept roughly fifteen feet between them all the way. He knew exactly where the staircase was, without a backward glance, and wedged himself into the nearest corner, giving Remo ample room to pass.

“Downstairs,” he said.

Up close, it was a simple move. Assume you couldn’t stop the first shot, dodge the bullet as you closed to striking range, disarm the goon and finish it at leisure. Remo hesitated long enough to glance downstairs—and saw two more Hardy doppelgangers. They were even dressed alike, in denim jeans and jackets, though their shirts were different colors: red and green.

Both men had pistols aimed at Remo’s face.

That complicated matters somewhat, but it was only a matter of strategy. If they simply wanted Remo dead, he guessed, all three would probably have come upstairs and opened fire the moment that he showed himself. If they were taking prisoners, it meant whoever sent them must have questions. That, in turn, gave Remo time and space to plan his move.

If they were any good at all, they wouldn’t try to shoot him on the stairs, where any rounds that missed or passed completely through his body would endanger friendly troops. A cross fire in cramped quarters was the worst way to prepare a trap, and they would know that going in.

For now, it was best to play along and assume they knew what they were doing.

“I’m going,” Remo told the nearest of the triplets. “Don’t get nervous.”

“Shut your face and move it!”

“Yassuh, boss.”

He started down the stairs, heard the assassin behind him, hanging back a little so that Remo could not turn and try to grab his weapon. Down below, the other two goons were backing up and separating, to triangulate their fire if anything went wrong.

From Remo’s point of view, it couldn’t hurt to shake them up a little. If they got rattled in the process, it could only help his cause.

“I don’t know what the trouble is,” he said to no one in particular, “but maybe one of you could introduce me to the man in charge. I’ve got this cousin with a problem, see, and I—”

“Shut up!” one of the ground-floor goons commanded.

“What I heard in town, a certain Dr. Radcliff was the man to see, but I can talk to someone else, if he’s tied up.”

“Shut up!” the other one downstairs growled, taking one step forward as he spoke, for emphasis.

“Okay, no problem.”

Remo reached the bottom of the staircase, heard the first man coming down behind him, while the others held their ground. They had him boxed, now, but the cross-fire problem had not been resolved. He still did not believe they meant to kill him outright, while they had a chance to question him. Their sponsor would be desperate for answers by this time, when everything appeared to be unraveling.

“Who sent you here?” the man behind him asked.

Remo half turned to face him as he answered. “Like I said, my cousin—”

“Cut the shit! We want the truth.”

“Okay, you got me, pal. She’s not my cousin. Are you happy now? I don’t know what you people charge to handle the delivery and adoption, but I’ve got some money put away. You don’t need guns, for Christ’s sake! It’s a business deal.”

“Who sent you?” the first man repeated, stepping closer, till his gun was almost touching Remo’s chest.

It was the break he had been waiting for.

The timing had to be precise, but Remo had it covered. Reach out with the left hand for his adversary’s wrist and clasp it tightly, while his right palm pushed the automatic’s muzzle out of line. The gun was a Baretta, double-action, with the hammer down, but Remo kept his enemy from firing with a sharp twist of the captive hand and arm.

The goon cried out in pain and furious surprise, but he had been disarmed by that time. Remo swung him like a weightless dummy, lifting him completely off his feet, boots slamming hard into the ribs of the second assassin.

The third man saw it coming, squeezed off two quick shots in self-defense. The hollowpoints struck Remo’s human shield, mushroomed on impact, ripping into lungs and liver while his body was still airborne, flying.

Remo let him go, saw the surprise and anger fade to nothing as he died. Momentum slammed him into the gunman, and they went down together in a heap, the dead man’s weight encumbering his sidekick.

The second thug was down on one knee, groping for the pistol he had dropped, about to reach it when a shadow fell across his face, and he glanced up to find Death watching him with dark, impassive eyes.

“Did Radcliff send you?”

“Fuck yourself!”

“Wrong answer,” Remo said, and kicked him hard enough to dislocate his left shoulder, flip him over on his back, the fallen pistol hopelessly beyond his reach.

A backward glance showed the third gunner about to wriggle out from underneath the body of his comrade. He had also lost his weapon, but he wasted no time looking for it, rather grabbing for a knife sheathed on his belt. The blade was six or seven inches long and double edged, black tinted, with a long groove down the center that allowed a straight-on puncture wound to bleed without obstruction, even if the knife was not withdrawn.

It was a killer’s weapon, forged for one specific purpose, but a blade’s utility is measured by the man who wields it. This man, under other circumstances, would have been a deadly adversary, but he didn’t understand whom he was facing. With a snarl of anger, throwing caution to the wind, he came at Remo, leading with the blade, and thereby sealed his fate.

Remo sidestepped the thrust, allowed the blade to pass him by, and struck out with a vicious backhand to the assassin’s ribs. He heard bones crack and felt the ribs implode, curved lances shearing into lung, spleen, diaphragm. A strangled cry of pain erupted from the hit man’s throat, immediately followed by a rush of blood as bright as poster paint. The man collapsed, not dead but dying, slumped on hands and knees, the knife forgotten now as he surrendered to the waves of mortal pain. His arms were trembling, barely able to support him. Remo crouched beside him, tangled fingers in his hair and gave the head a twist, examining the too-familiar face.

“Who sent you?” Remo asked.

“Fu-fuck you!”

He broke the doppelganger’s neck and shoved the body over on its side. The sole survivor of the hit-team was watching him and clutching at his injured shoulder, looking for a way out of the trap as Remo turned to face him.

“You’re a little short of help right now,” he said. “Why don’t you make it easy on yourself?”

“No, thanks.”

“I don’t mind doing it the hard way,” Remo told him, “but it seems like such a waste.”

“You don’t scare me,” the doppelganger said. “I’m not afraid of dying.”

“Death’s no threat,” said Remo. “It’s the quick way out.”

“Do what, you want,” the wounded hit man sneered. “You’re dead already, but you’re just too dumb to know it.”

“Suit yourself.”

He was advancing on the prostrate form when the gunner jack-knifed, brought one knee to his chest and drew a stubby derringer from its concealment in an ankle holster. Remo was prepared to dodge the bullets, knowing that the small gun only held two shots, but he misjudged his captive’s plan. Instead of trying for a kill from six or seven paces, the hit man reversed the derringer, shoved it into his mouth and fired. Despite its size, the little gun was loud—perhaps a .44. The power of a bullet fired into the skull at skin-touch range puffed out the dead man’s cheeks. His eyes bulged in their sockets, streaked with crimson, and his head slammed back against the floor. The bullet did not exit, telling Remo that it must have been another deadly hollow-point.

“Well, that just beats all,” Remo complained.

In other circumstances, Remo would have tidied up the battleground, but he would leave it to the cops this time, in case some trace of evidence remained to haunt the owners of Ideal Maternity. He could imagine local uniforms, attempting to dissect the triplet act and getting nowhere fast, besieged by federal agents once they put it on the wire.

He spent the next five minutes looking for a telephone and came up empty. Almost every room had wall jacks, but the instruments themselves had been removed when Matron and her crew were cleaning house.

No matter. He would find a public phone somewhere along the highway on the drive back.

He took a final look around the place, saw nothing he had missed the first time and went back outside. His rented Chrysler was the only vehicle in sight, and Remo guessed his three late adversaries must have hiked in through the woods, or else been left behind deliberately, to deal with any problems that arose.

He found a pay phone in Elizabeth, outside a supermarket and made the call collect to Smith. The head of CURE’S voice was crisp, alert.

“Report,” he said, in place of salutation.

Remo briefed Smith on the outcome of his latest visit to Ideal Maternity and waited for a moment while the older man thought it over. When he spoke again. Smith’s voice was grim. “There does not seem to be much choice,” he said.

“No choice at all.”

“You may as well proceed, in that case.”

“Right. I’ll be in touch from Louisville, before I make the move. We’ll send that package off to you, and in the meantime, I’ve got several names you need to check. Find out if they’re available for interviews.”

“Who am I looking for?” Smith asked.

“Some former tenants of Ideal Maternity,” said Remo. “Word is they were graduated, so to speak. I’d like to know what happened to them—and their children, if it’s possible.”

“All things are possible,” said Smith, “if you know where to look and who to ask.”