“What do you want to do?” Craft asked.
At the end of the table Bolelli gripped the back of a chair. “Start buying more Kendall stock.”
“It will drive the price up even higher,” Craft said, alarmed. “It’s already inflated. We could create a feeding frenzy.”
“What do you think will happen when this thing hits the store shelves?”
“How high do you want to go? We’ve already depleted most of our cash reserves.”
“I don’t care. Overpay if you have to. I want as much control over Fitzgerald as I can leverage. If he partners with anyone, it will be Galaxy, not Titan, and if he doesn’t, we’ll still stand to make a shitload when this thing hits the stores.”
EMERALD PINES DEVELOPMENT
KENT, WASHINGTON
HIS STOMACH CHURNING, Sloane drove past the rock wall with silver letters identifying the development as Emerald Pines. It seemed every development built since the 1970s identified itself as if it were an exclusive gated community, but there was no gate at the entrance, and the homes were modest and unmemorable—between two and four thousand square feet with wood siding, trim, and wraparound porches. The developer had broken the uniformity by flipping the floor plans, placing the garage of some of the homes to the left of the front door rather than the right.
As Sloane stepped from the car his foot sank into the saturated thick lawn separating the curb from the sidewalk, the moisture seeping through his leather shoe and dampening his sock. A broken sprinkler head bubbled water, flooding the area. He pulled free his shoe and approached the house. The garage door was up, revealing a Toyota Camry beside an empty space for a second car. Michael McFarland had kept his job as a machinist at Boeing, but Eva, who had been employed at a local Costco, had been unable to work since Austin’s death. Bicycles hung from hooks in the ceiling, and sporting equipment and household supplies filled storage racks. To the right the front door was beneath a pitched porch with a skylight that offered natural lighting.
Eva McFarland answered the door looking like she had recently put on makeup and tried to comb her hair before giving up and pulling it back in a clip.
“David,” she said, trying not to sound rushed though he obviously had not given her enough advance warning. “Come on in.”
“I better take off my shoes,” he said. “Looks like you have a broken sprinkler.”
She looked past him to the sidewalk. “The gardener runs over them with the lawn mower. Mike is not going to be happy.”
He slipped off his shoes and left them on the porch. The tile entry was slick in his socks, and he felt a bit like a beginner ice-skater feeling his way, but the rubber stopper on the end of the cane gave him security as Eva led him toward the back of the house.
“I was just starting the wash,” she said, slipping a hard r into the word, as was the case with some native Washingtonians.
As with her own appearance, the rooms showed signs that someone had tried to tidy quickly: a single tennis shoe stranded in the hall, dishes in the sink, bread crumbs on the tile counter. Eva tossed a brown stuffed rabbit onto a pile of toys overflowing from a toy box in a corner of the family room off the kitchen.
“The dog likes to use it as a chew toy,” she said.
As if on cue, a small dog barked and scratched at the sliding glass door leading to a fenced-in backyard. More toys lay strewn on a rounded cement patio and lawn, along with a baseball contraption of some sort, a ball hanging at the end of a tethered string staked in the ground. Though the sun was out, the room faced north and was well shaded.
Eva turned off CNN. “I was tracking that storm in the Gulf. Mike has relatives in Texas. They say they’re going to lose everything.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She crossed her arms, as if cold. “You don’t really lose it if you can rebuild it or replace it. I look around the house now at all these things that were once so important, and, well, now I just see a bunch of stuff.” She seemed to catch herself. “I’m so sorry about your wife, David. When we heard about it we just couldn’t believe it. How horrible. I don’t know what to say.” And as if to emphasize the point they stood in an awkward silence. “We sent a card.”
“I appreciate it,” he said. “Thank you.” Carolyn had placed the card on his chair that morning so he would have time to read it in case the subject came up.
“Can I get you anything, coffee?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Another awkward pause.
“Please, sit down,” she said.
Sloane sat on a leather sofa as Eva retrieved the newspaper from a matching chair and set it on a wood coffee table next to a People magazine, US, and Sports Illustrated. The room held the burnt smell of a recent fire in the fireplace. Eva continued to ask him the perfunctory questions, whether the police had arrested anyone and how he was doing recovering from his injuries. Sloane answered her questions patiently until, with nothing left to discuss, she got to the reason for his visit.
“You said on the phone you wanted to talk about something about the case.” Sloane heard the hesitation in her voice. “They’re not going to appeal, are they?”
“No, they can’t do that,” Sloane said. “They’ve already paid the judgment.”
“Thank God.” She exhaled in relief.
Sloane hadn’t known Eva McFarland before the death of her son, but he had seen photographs. Whereas at one time she would have been considered perhaps ten pounds overweight, she was now rail thin, though she did not have the healthy, toned appearance of someone who had exercised and dieted to lose the weight. Despite the family’s recent vacation Eva continued to look gaunt and pale and had dark circles beneath her eyes. Sloane wondered how many hours a night she slept, and how often her nightmares woke her.
“I wanted to ask you a few questions about something that has come up.”
Her brow furrowed.
“It’s actually about Mathew,” he said, referring to their older son.
“Mathew? I don’t understand.”
“Was he ever part of a group of kids chosen to evaluate a toy made by Kendall Toys?”
“What?”
“Was he ever asked to play with a Kendall toy and tell them what he thought of it?”
Eva folded her hands in her lap and looked to the darkened television. “I’m sorry. Things are still a bit hazy. What is this about?”
Sloane took out a crude sketch he had made from memory and showed it to her. “The toy was an action figure called Metamorphis.”
Eva considered the diagram and, after a moment, displayed the beginnings of a smile. “You know, I think I do remember this.”
Sloane’s pulse quickened.
Her smile widened. “Yeah. I do remember this. Mathew would take that thing all through the house yelling, ‘Metamorphis,’ and make it change. I think it became a boat, or an airplane or something. I can’t remember.”
Sloane tried not to sound impatient. “How did he get the toy, do you recall?”
Her nose scrunched. “I think it was through a friend of a friend type of thing. Mathew’s best friend’s father has a relative . . . someone who works at Kendall. I don’t know, but they were looking for a few boys. I remember because Mathew couldn’t tell his friends at school anything about the toy, or let them see it. And I seem to recall that we had to sign a document that said we wouldn’t divulge anything about it—as if I were about to run out and talk to all my friends about a toy.”
“You didn’t keep a copy of that document, did you?”
“If I did, I’ve long since thrown it out. There’s enough clutter around here without adding to it.” Her head tilted. “How do you know about this?”
Sloane had debated whether it was best to tell Eva about the Gallegos family or let her read the articles. He decided that the articles would be too painful.
“How long did Mathew play with it?”
“A few days, maybe a week. Like I said, I don’t really recall all the details
.”
“Did he have to go anywhere and be observed playing with it, or to answer any questions?”
She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “I have a vague memory of something like that, a Saturday—I remember because Mike had to take him pretty early in the morning. He said it was a warehouse in the middle of nowhere. You’ll have to ask Mike. Mathew was happy, though. I remember they paid him something.”
“Was it by check?”
“I assume, but I really don’t know.”
“What did Mathew think of the toy?”
“He loved it,” she said without hesitation. Then she leaned forward, hands on knees, eyes narrowing. “But how do you know about this?” she asked again. “Why is this important?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be cryptic. I had someone come and talk to me about the toy. He designed it.”
“Okay.”
“He gave me a file with some drawings and an article . . . an article about another boy in Southern Washington.”
Eva’s eyebrows knitted closer together.
“The boy died a few days before Austin.”
She pulled back.
“He lived in a town with a Kendall manufacturing plant and his brother was also given one of the same toys to play with. The boy came down with flulike symptoms: high fever, vomiting, listless.”
Eva covered her mouth with her hand.
“The parents didn’t take him to the doctor right away because they’re here in the country illegally. By the time they did the boy had slipped into a coma.”
Tears pooled then overflowed the corners of her eyes, running down her cheeks. “What are you saying?”
“Did you ever notice any pieces of the toy around the house, anything at all?”
“You think Austin choked?”
Sloane shook his head. “No. Small black pieces, tiny rectangles.”
She shook her head.
“The toy operates through the use of dozens of tiny, powerful magnets.”
“No, nothing like that,” she said.
“If the plastic cracks the magnets can become free, and if a child swallows more than one, the magnets will attract each other inside the intestines. With time the intestine starts to die in that area, and it can perforate. If that happens, bacteria can get in and poison the bloodstream and organs.”
“No. Nothing like that,” she said again. Then, “This other boy, he had . . . they found magnets in his body?”
“They did an autopsy; the medical examiner found six magnets.”
Eva rubbed her face with both hands, mumbling. “Oh my God. Oh my God. This is a nightmare. This is such a nightmare.” She looked at Sloane, wringing her hands. “You think the same thing happened to Austin, don’t you? That’s why you’re here.”
“The symptoms are remarkably similar. If the same toy was in the house . . .”
She raised her voice, upset. “Why haven’t we heard anything about this before? Why wasn’t it on the news?”
“The father works for Kendall. He was afraid of losing his job. The attorney they hired settled the matter out of court, without litigation.”
“Can he do that? Isn’t there some obligation to let someone know about it?”
“Only a moral one, I’m afraid.”
She stood abruptly, turning away, one hand at the small of her back, the other alternately rubbing her forehead and the back of her neck.
“I’m sorry, Eva. I know this is hard.”
“I thought this was over. I thought maybe we could . . .” She choked back tears. “At least try to have some semblance of a normal life, if not for Mike and me, then for the kids.”
“If I’m right, Eva, Dr. Douvalidis is not responsible for Austin’s death.”
She closed her eyes, softly uttering, “God damn it. God damn it!”
Sloane couldn’t think of any easy way to say what had to be said. “There’s really only one way to find out for cert—”
“No!” She opened her eyes and put up her hands a foot apart, just below her chin, staring him down, emphasizing each word. “No. Do not even suggest it.”
“Eva, it’s not just about Dr. Douvalidis. The other children in that focus group had the same reaction to the toy as Mathew. They loved it. It’s already in production. Millions will be in stores . . .”
She shook her head as Sloane spoke. “No. No, no, no.”
“ . . . for the holiday season, and those toys will be brought home to houses with children as young or younger than Austin—”
“No!” she yelled, cutting him off. Tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving a black trail of mascara. Her hands, clenched claws, looked as if she were strangling someone. “You can’t ask me to do this. You can’t ask me to dig up my son and have someone cut him open. I won’t do that. I won’t do that to him.”
“I know it’s difficult—”
“Don’t you dare sit there and presume to know how I feel. Don’t you do it! Do you know how many people have presumed to know how I feel? How many have offered their condolences and then left my house and gone right back to their lives? They don’t know how I feel. They don’t have a clue. They get to go home every day and see their babies sit across from them at the dinner table instead of an empty chair. They help them with their homework, see their naked little bodies get into their pajamas at night, kiss them, hear their soft little voices, angels.” She wiped the moisture from her cheeks on her jeans. “Get out.”
Sloane gathered his things. “I’m sorry,” he said.
He got to the doorway leading to the hall before she spoke again.
The question stopped him, but Sloane did not look back.
“Could you do what you’re asking me to do?”
GEORGE BUSH CENTER FOR INTELLIGENCE
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
THE BROWN SIGN with white lettering hidden amid the tree branches and foliage indicated he was nearing the George Bush Center for Intelligence. That sign had not existed the last time Charles Jenkins had been to the facility, George Bush Sr. having not yet been president. Jenkins suspected that more than one late-night comedian had recently used the words on that sign as the punch line to a joke.
Jenkins turned off the main road and soon thereafter approached a guard booth with a yellow metal gate extended across the road. In case a visitor still missed the point, a sign warned that he was entering a restricted government facility and overhead bubbles recorded every car coming and going. He slowed and lowered the window to speak into a box.
“Can I help you?” a male voice asked.
“I’m here to see Curley Wade?” Jenkins was about to correct himself; Wade’s real name was Edward, but Jenkins had never known anyone to use it. Neither, apparently, did the faceless voice.
“Your name?”
“Charles Jenkins.”
“Stand by for a second.”
After a minute the voice directed Jenkins to drive through strategically placed barricades designed to prevent a vehicle from getting up a head of steam as it approached the entrance. He parked next to a white concrete barrier, and proceeded to a nearby building to obtain a visitor’s pass.
Inside the building, uniformed guards sat behind what Jenkins assumed to be bulletproof glass. Jenkins provided his name and the nature of his business. One of the guards instructed that no photographs were to be taken on the property and directed Jenkins to lock his cell phone in a small locker in the lobby. That was also not a requirement the last time he had been at the facility, since cell phones were still only seen on the Star Trek television series. He clipped a visitor’s pass to the lapel of his navy blue sport coat, and the guard advised him to take a seat in the waiting area for Wade’s assistant to escort him onto the facility. At least that hadn’t changed. Employees parked in lots a safe distance from the building and were shuttled to the campus.
Jenkins listened to the hum of vending machines while considering the assortment of magazines on the coffee table,
and it struck him that he could have been waiting in any dentist’s office in America instead of one of the government’s most highly classified facilities. It served as a further reminder that much had changed in the thirty years he had been away.
AFTER RETURNING HOME from his tour in Nam, Jenkins had spent much of the next couple of months sleeping late, drinking beer with neighborhood friends, and ignoring his mother’s inquiries about when he might find a job. When he got bored he put on his green army jacket and walked the streets or frequented questionable bars, hoping someone would say something derogatory. No one did. The military had transformed his body from soft body fat to ropelike muscle. At six five and 250 pounds with a scowl and an attitude, no one with a brain even looked in his direction.
One afternoon a knock on the front door awoke him from a nap on the couch, and Jenkins found two men in dark suits with crew cuts standing on the porch.
“Wasting your time, fellas, I don’t believe in God.”
The men shot each other a sideways glance. The shorter of the two did the talking. “We’d like to talk to you about being of further service to your country.”
Military recruiters.
Jenkins started to laugh. “I was stupid enough to enlist once. I’m not stupid enough to do it again.”
But they had not come to ask him to reenlist. They had another proposition for him, and it was quickly apparent they had already combed through his background.
“I don’t think so,” Jenkins said.
“Is that because you have so many other job offers rolling in?”
Jenkins stepped out onto the porch, sat in one of the wicker chairs, and lit up a cigarette, another bad habit he picked up in Nam. He blew smoke in the air and considered the Ford parked at the curb. “I’m on sabbatical.”
“How long have you been home?”
“Not long enough.”
“So are you going to just keep going out looking for fights in bars the rest of your life until someone puts a knife or bullet in you?”
Jenkins shrugged. “Just spent thirteen months in the jungle asking myself that same question. How come you weren’t interested then?”
The stocky man nudged his partner. “Forget it. Davidson was wrong.” The two men started from the porch.