Quest

Chapter 7

“You are telling me that this is the sole piece of evidence you have collected?” It was only with the greatest of effort that Salvatore Scano kept his voice calm. He found cold serenity to be much more intimidating than anger or annoyance. Let them wonder what was going on behind that calm façade, and they would always fear that you were about to do something rash. “With all the resources you have at your disposal, the best you can offer me is nothing more than a poor quality photograph of an early twentieth-century painting?”

Silence reigned in the conference room as everyone exchanged sideways glances. No one wanted to be the first to speak. Finally, Alex, his son, cleared his throat. “That is the only piece of evidence there is, Father. Thornton left no other clues regarding his plans.” He fell silent, wilting under his father’s cold gaze.

Shane Kennedy took up the explanation from there. “We searched everything, Sir. Thornton’s office, his apartment, even his girlfriend’s apartment. Nothing that would tell us where he’s going. We were thorough.” Few men could meet Salvatore’s stare for very long, but, when it came to Kennedy, nothing seemed to intimidate the gritty former Marine, a quality that Salvtore both appreciated and found annoying.

“Details.” He reached for his cup of espresso, his eyes never leaving Kennedy’s.

“Breaking the encryption on his office computer was child’s play, but all the files dealing with the Amazon expedition pertained to the trip he was supposed to take with his students — not the one he actually took. He had no computer at home. It’s either hidden, been destroyed, or he’s taken it with him. No paper trail, either. He cleaned up after himself nicely.”

“What about his phone records, credit card charges and such?” Salvatore took a small sip of the hot, dark liquid, its bitter taste a perfect match for the information Kennedy relayed.

“Nothing helpful in the phone records. We believe he used a disposable cell phone for whatever calls he needed to make. We’re still working on obtaining the rest of his credit card information, though what do we have doesn’t reveal much.” He drew a sheet of paper from a manila envelope and slid it along the table to Salvatore, who eyed it dispassionately. It was a copy of a credit card statement with a charge for a round-trip ticket to London highlighted. “Thornton went to London several months before his expedition. While this doesn’t tell us anything specific, it suggests that the painting is of significance. Percy Fawcett was from the U.K. after all.”

“Anything else?”

“Not yet, Sir, but we are still working.”

“I expect nothing less.” Salvatore nodded and returned his attention to his son, Alex, who sat chewing his lip and staring daggers at Kennedy. “And what of the man we have in custody? Thornton’s colleague?”

“A waste of our time.” Alex’s voice was scarcely audible across the long conference table. “He knows nothing.”

“What did he tell you?” Salvatore took another sip and waited.

“Thornton gave him the picture with instructions to use it to find him should Thornton not return from the Amazon. The man’s a Literature professor, a school teacher, he didn’t know what to do with it, so he passed it off first chance he got.”

“And he confirms that this picture is the only piece of evidence Thornton left behind?”

“Yes.” Alex feigned a yawn. He thought his reticence made him look strong and aloof, but it served only to make him appear childish. More and more, Salvatore had considered the likelihood that Alex would not be a suitable choice to take the reins of ScanoGen. Alex was not half the man his brother had been. If only…

“You’re sure of this?” Noticing Salvatore’s distraction, Kennedy had taken over the questioning. “He’s not hiding anything?”

“He is a worm.” Alex’s twisted frown suggested a hint of something foul in the air. “He broke under questioning in less than ten minutes. I worked on him several other times just to be certain. He knows nothing else.” Alex actually smiled, something he seemed to do only when he was inflicting pain on someone, or thinking about doing so. How was it possible he was Salvatore’s progeny?

“Very well.” Salvatore resumed control of the conversation. “What about the girlfriend?”

“We are still working on that as well, sir.” Kennedy consulted his notes. “Our contact with the Charleston Police Department tells us she left the hotel they put her up in, and now she’s disappeared.”

“She is completely off the grid?” David Romani was ScanoGen’s Chief Operations Officer, and Salvatore’s best friend since college. “You can find no trace of her anywhere?”

“Our contact confirms that she hasn’t used her credit card at all in the past two days, and hasn’t drawn out any cash since shortly after she disappeared.” Kennedy consulted his notes once again. “She made two calls to a cell phone number in southern Florida. That’s all.”

“Our guest insists that the girl knows nothing. She was shocked to learn her boyfriend,” Alex sneered as he spoke the word, “had hidden so much from her. She was quite heartbroken over it. Such a tragedy.” He breathed on his fingernails and polished them on his shirt. “I don’t think she is of much concern to us. As soon as Thornton’s friend gave her the picture, she headed straight to the police station and handed it over to them.”

Salvatore turned his attention to Mitchell Vincent, an agent who was reasonably bright, but severely lacking in the backbone department. “Returning to the topic of Doctor Thornton. I assume your inquiries in the Amazon region have not uncovered any helpful information?”

Vincent shook his head.

“I am sorry Mister Vincent, I did not hear you.”

“No, sir.” Mitchell’s face reddened. “We located the town where he and his students began their expedition, but we don’t know where they went from there. No one admits to having seen them.”

Salvatore rose to his feet and looked down the table. “We invested a great deal of time and money on the Pan project. Doctor Thornton has clearly betrayed us. If we cannot locate him and force him to deliver on his promises, the project is dead in the water, and ScanoGen is in serious trouble.” He paused to let that sink in.

“Mister Vincent, you will continue the search for Thornton.” He next turned to his Chief Research Officer, Julius, who had remained silent thus far. “Mister Julius, I want you to take all the information we have on Thornton’s work and have our people conduct their own research. Perhaps we can discover his secrets independently.” Julius nodded, but the look on his face mirrored Salvatore’s thoughts. It was unlikely they could replicate Thornton’s work — they knew too little of what he had discovered, and much of his information was comprised of nuggets sifted from heaps of myth and legend. “David, Kennedy, you two stay with me. The rest of you are dismissed.”

Everyone except Alex hurried out of the conference room.

Salvatore fixed him with a blank expression. “Do you require something of me, Alex?”

“No, sir.” Alex scowled and flashed resentful looks at Kennedy and David. He was ever envious of their place in his inner circle, but he did not understand that their places had been earned. Alex, however, was content to rely on his family name, indulging his sadistic urges as needed while he waited for the day he would take over ScanoGen. A day that likely would never come. “I mean, what do you want me to do with Thornton’s friend?”

“I shall think on it and let you know. You may go now.”

Salvatore turned his back on his son and moved to the window overlooking President’s Park. Reston, Virginia wasn’t the most picturesque place in the world, but the view from Salvatore’s office always calmed his nerves.

He waited for the sound of the closing door before he turned back to face the two who waited at the table, still in their seats. He first addressed himself to Kennedy.

“Tell me how you intend to proceed, considering what we have to work with.”

“Obviously, we are researching Percy Fawcett and any connection he might have to the items in the painting. We think the book is important. I’ve got men on their way to England as we speak, with orders to search any places connected with Fawcett, and try to find and obtain anything pictured in this painting. Until we can figure out what exactly this painting is telling us, the least we can do is make sure that if any of the items pictured in it are important, no one else can get their hands on them.”

“That is a good start. Anything else?”

“Not at this time, Sir.”

Salvatore dismissed Kennedy with a flick of one finger, sank into his chair, and closed his eyes. Only in front of David did he ever let his guard down. “Can you believe that dirtbag Thornton screwed us over like this, David?”

“Relax, Sal, we’ll get him.” Now that Salvatore’s wife had passed, David was the only person in the world who dared call him by his nickname. “Odds are, the guy’s dead anyway. What was he thinking, going into the Amazon with nothing but some college kids?”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better, David. If we don’t find Thornton, we might not be able to complete Pan, and then what?”

“The company will get through it like we always do. So we piss off some defense contractors, and we lose a little money…”

“It’s my money!” Salvatore slammed his fist down on the conference table, rattling his empty espresso cup and the phone that sat to his left. And there’s more money at stake than anyone knows, he thought. “Never mind that. We have another problem. I received a call today from a Reverend Felts.”

David sat up ramrod straight and frowned. “That idiot with the cable show? The one who blames everything from hurricanes to hangnails on our ‘sinful, humanist government?’”

“One and the same. He wants to meet with me this afternoon.”

“Pardon the expression, but what the hell for? Is he on another of his anti-cloning crusades, and accusing us of…” David froze in the midst of running his fingers through his thinning, gray hair. The color drained from his face as he slowly turned to look at Salvatore, his hand falling to his side. “Does he know?”

“He knows something. He wouldn’t lay all his cards on the table, but he said enough to convince me it’s no bluff.”

“You want me to take care of it?” David’s features hardened.

“Please do. I’m thinking, though, if he knows, it’s because someone let something slip. What I need you to do is find out if there is a leak. And if there is, plug it… permanently.”

“I’ll do it. Anything else you need from me?”

Salvatore shook his head. As David left the room, he closed his eyes, rubbed his temples, and groaned. “My head is killing me,” he said to no one in particular. Opening his eyes, he tapped the call button on his phone.

“Yes, sir?” Tam’s rich voice filled the room.

“I need you.”

“I’ll be right there, Mister Scano.” In ten second’s time, Tam Broderick, his personal assistant, was coming through the door carrying a glass of Wild Turkey with two ice cubes, just the way he liked it. “I could tell by the sound of your voice that you needed a little something for your headache. She smiled, her teeth pearly white against her rich, chocolate complexion. Her big, brown eyes radiated motherly concern as she moved behind his chair and began massaging his scalp with her strong fingers.

Kennedy had found her in training for the Washington D.C. police force, and persuaded her, with a little help from Salvatore’s bank account, to come to work at ScanoGen. She had a well-organized mind and a gift for details. She was also cute enough to be believable as a secretary, but that petite body packed a wallop. She’d done a bit of kickboxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and could handle a gun as well as anyone in the organization outside of Kennedy. It was little wonder she had risen so rapidly up the company ranks. At times, he had been tempted to expand their working relationship, but pragmatism always won out in the end. Tam was too valuable an asset for him to risk affecting her job performance for the sake of a little entertainment.

“You are aware that I have a late lunch scheduled this afternoon with Reverend Felts.”

“Yes, Sir. Two o’clock at the Bastille. I have a private table reserved for the two of you, your car is ready. In fact, you leave in ten minutes. You’ll have the usual security, plus two of our people in plain clothes dining a few tables away.” Her fingers traced circles across his scalp, her thumbs pressing firmly in the indentation at the base of his skull. The dull pain seemed to flow into her hands, draining him of all tension.

“Very good.” He was referring to her thorough planning, but his words could have applied to the scalp massage as well. Was there anything this woman could not do? “I need you to take care of one more detail.” Her hands worked their way down his neck, her thumbs working deep into the muscles. “Reverend Felts will not be able to make it to our lunch meeting today. I don’t want my time to go to waste, so schedule someone of consequence to dine with me. I trust you can line up someone suitable on short notice.”

“I’ll see to it right away.” Tam gave his shoulders a firm squeeze before departing. “Don’t forget your drink,” she called back over her shoulder.

Salvatore smiled as he raised his glass in a silent, mocking toast to Reverend Felts’s health. He brought the amber liquid to his lips and closed his eyes as it warmed his insides. If only all of his problems could be solved so easily.