The Panic Zone

48

Rabat, Morocco

I’ve been sent a package from a dead man.

The thought raced through Jack Gannon’s mind as he locked his hotel-room door, then tore open the yellow padded envelope from Adam Corley.

What he found inside was a small camel.

It was a beautiful object a bit larger than Gannon’s palm. According to the tag affixed with a gold tassel to its neck, it had been carved from walnut wood by an artist in Essaouira, a town along the Atlantic coast.

Gannon also found a handwritten note in the envelope. “Jack: a gift to help you remember Morocco -Adam C.”

Nothing else.

Gannon sat at the desk, puzzled.

Why did Corley send him this and when? He turned it over, running his fingers along its smooth surface. It was almost blood red with nice, overlapping grain. Its meaning was a mystery that Gannon was pondering when his phone rang. He placed the carving in his computer bag then answered.

“Mr. Gannon, this is the concierge. As you requested, we’ve looked into flights. You can depart Rabat early tomorrow morning on an Air France flight to Paris’s Charles de Gaulle, where you will connect to New York for arrival at JFK late in the evening.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Would you like us to confirm it on your credit card, sir?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Very well, we’ll slide the ticket under your door later and arrange for a taxi for 6:45 a.m.”

After hanging up, Gannon turned on his laptop. Among his e-mails were several from Oliver Pritchett in London and Melody Lyon in New York. Her most recent one asked, Haven’t heard from you-what’s happening?

It gave him pause.

How could he begin to answer her?

Well, other than being abducted, stripped and tortured, not bad.

Gannon decided it best to call Melody but when he reached for his phone, he started shaking. He ran his hand over his face.

Somehow the world felt different.

He felt different.

Now he understood why some assault victims refused to talk. The humiliation of the violation was overwhelming and it brought back images of Rio de Janeiro and the drug gang drilling a gun into his mouth, pulling the trigger on an empty chamber.

This sort of thing doesn’t happen to guys like me. I’m a blue-collar nobody who grew up in Buffalo. I don’t need this crap. Maybe I should find a job at some safe suburban weekly.

Maybe I don’t have what it takes.

Shut up! Suck it up. You asked for this, Gannon. You yearned to work for the WPA. Well, you got your wish, pal. Don’t forget, Gabriela Rosa and Marcelo Verde paid with their lives for this story. So did Maria Santo, and now Adam Corley. Remember what Melody said-Find the truth, no matter where it leads. This is how we will honor the dead.

Gannon collected himself and started an e-mail to Melody Lyon.

A source was murdered before we met. I was questioned by police. I’m now on my way back to NYC with more crucial information. I’m okay. I’ll discuss it with you in New York.

After he sent the e-mail his body shook again.

Maybe if he just talked to somebody, somebody he trusted. He pulled out his wallet for a Buffalo number. It took a few seconds for the overseas connection to go through.

“Clark Investigations. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

In that moment, Gannon pictured his friend Adell Clark, a divorced former FBI agent who ran a one-woman private detective agency out of her modest Parkview home in Lackawanna where she lived with her daughter. A few years back, Clark had been shot in an armored-car heist at a strip mall in Lewiston Heights. He’d profiled her, and they’d become friends and had many heart-to-hearts. Adell knew him better than he knew himself.

Could he bear to tell her what happened?

The message cue beeped.

No. Not now.

He hung up and dragged his hands across his face, then started packing. He was nearly done when his phone rang again.

“Jack, Pritchett in London. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he lied.

“You know what happened to Adam?”

“Yes.”

“It’s bloody horrible, the British Embassy called his father and he called us. Did you see him before he was killed?”

“No, but I was at his house after it happened. The police questioned me.”

“Do they know who’s behind it? Did they arrest anybody?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Christ, this has to be linked to the intelligence he was gathering. You have to be careful, Jack. This is terrible.”

Gannon glanced toward his computer bag.

“Oliver, something odd happened. I got a package from Corley at my hotel.”

“What?”

“Obviously he sent it before our meeting. It’s a small hand-carved camel.”

“Did he send a note with it?”

“A small one, it said, ‘Jack: a gift to help you remember Morocco -Adam C.’ What do you think it means, given we hadn’t even met?”

“Knowing Adam, it’s more than a gift. I can’t tell you what, exactly. Hang on to it. Were there any documents with it, anything like that?”

“No.”

“Adam was supposed to send me a full report on what he’d learned from his sources and from his trip to Libya, but I haven’t received anything.”

“Maybe he dropped it in the snail mail to you?”

“I don’t know. This whole thing is very bad. Jack, get out of there. It’s too dangerous for you. Equal Globe International has lost two people. Your news agency has lost two people. Get out of Morocco before it’s too late.”

The next day Gannon peered at the Atlantic from the starboard window seat of an Air France jetliner.

He had the row to himself and tried to relax as he studied the carved camel in his hands. He turned it over and over, recalling how Pritchett had said that Corley’s act of sending him the figure must have a deeper meaning.

Like what?

Caressing its smooth surface, Gannon noticed a tiny square indentation in the camel’s belly. He’d missed it at first because it ran along the grain line. Holding the camel closer for inspection, he noticed the grain line was, in fact, a seam. It ran along the length of the carving, dividing it in half.

He tried wedging his thumbnail into the seam. The indentation was smaller than a grain of rice. No luck. He took stock of his surroundings, then withdrew a pen from his pocket and managed to insert the tip into the tiny slot. After wiggling the pen’s tip, the two halves of the carving shifted. With careful, controlled effort, Gannon pulled the camel apart into two equal pieces. They’d been hollowed out and opened to a memory card, hidden inside.

How did the airport scanner miss this?

Gannon shrugged, pulled out his laptop, switched it on and inserted the card. Dozens of file folders appeared on his screen. The first was labeled Note to Jack Gannon.

His pulse quickened when he opened it.

Jack: This is rushed. I hope to see you soon but wanted to get this down first. Since my return from Benghazi I have obtained significant new data that relates to what Maria Santo discovered in Brazil and to your investigation. However, since I don’t trust everyone in the intelligence community, I’ve passed this to you. I know I am being watched by people connected to this operation. Now, they could be watching you, too. I don’t know who they are or how far this goes. I therefore have taken precautions to give you a copy of all my files, all the intelligence I have gathered. I include my notes for the report I am drafting on our investigation into a worldwide child-stealing operation that involves illegal adoptions. We’ve discovered that this operation seems to involve more than child stealing and illegal adoptions. An objective or purpose is emerging. No one knows, or has, what you now have. I’ve made arrangements for a local messenger boy I trust to deliver my “gift” to your hotel, as a precaution should something untoward happen before our meeting.

If you’re reading this, he has succeeded.

The problem is, if we have not met, you will not have the benefit of my explaining what I’ve provided and the context. But one thing is certain: Some sort of operation, an attack of some sort, appears to be imminent. Read through this material, see where it fits.

Good luck, Jack.

Adam Corley

Gannon began surveying Corley’s files. It was a long flight, and he would have time to read, but for now he’d scroll through the files quickly and randomly to see what he had.

Here was something on Drake Stinson, the ex-CIA attorney with the Brazilian law firm Worldwide Rio Advogados. Here was something about him in Benghazi at a meeting with some shady-looking types and an American scientist, who used several aliases.

Who was she?

He came to another labeled Extremus Deus.

Never heard of that term-sounds Latin.

As he paged quickly through the files, he caught something that twigged a memory, a reference to LA #181975 to Wyoming847.

Wyoming?

Gannon recalled some reference to Wyoming from files passed to him by Sarah Kirby, Maria Santo’s friend from the Human Rights Center in Rio.

Only Corley’s file seemed larger and more detailed.

He came to a document labeled Big Cloud, Wyoming-Golden Dawn Fertility Corp.

Big Cloud, Wyoming? What was that about?