Chapter 4 - The Intercepted Audio
"Wait,"
Dad said,
holding up a weathered hand,
"before we go to the authorities,
we need to know what they're telling their investors right now.
If Ryan realizes we have the ledger,
he'll liquidate the shell accounts and flee the country on Sterling's private jet."
Frank smirked,
a grim,
humorless grin that stretched across his weathered face.
"He won't have time to run,"
Frank said,
reaching for a pair of high-end studio headphones,
"because when Beatrice swiped into Suite 412,
she didn't notice the auxiliary audio bug your father asked me to plant in the ceiling smoke detector yesterday morning."
My eyes widened in surprise.
"You knew?"
I asked my father.
"I didn't know the extent of it,"
Dad replied quietly,
his eyes full of sorrow,
"but for the last three months,
every time I visited your house,
Ryan wouldn't look me in the eye.
He was too nervous,
too eager to show me Leo's medical charts,
and too insistent that you were suffering from postpartum paranoia whenever you raised questions.
In my line of work,
Mariana,
when an arrogant man suddenly acts guilty around a cop,
it means he's already committed the crime,
or he's planning one."
Frank plugged an external speaker into his workstation,
boosting the gain,
filtering out the ambient white noise of the hotel's air conditioning unit.
The audio came through crystal clear,
echoing off the concrete walls of the hangar.
The sound of porcelain shattering.
Then Ryan's panicked voice exploded from the speakers.
"Where the hell could she have gone,
Mother?!
Her car is still in the valet line!
Her purse was on the table!
She took nothing but the baby and her winter coat!"
"Calm down,
you fool!"
Beatrice's shrill,
venomous voice cut across the room like a whip.
"You're screaming like a child while Victor is waiting in the corridor!
Do you have any idea what happens if that girl takes Leo to a public emergency room?"
"I know exactly what happens!"
Ryan shouted,
his voice cracking with hysteria.
"Dr.
Cross used twenty milligrams of rocuronium mixed with pediatric midazolam!
Any blood screen will flag it within ten minutes!
The hospital will lock down the building,
the police will issue an amber alert,
and they'll trace the compound back to our San Diego laboratory before sunrise!"
"She won't go to a public hospital,"
Beatrice hissed,
her voice dripping with venomous confidence.
"Mariana is proud,
she is terrified,
and she has no money of her own.
She ran straight to that pathetic retired detective father of hers.
Arthur Delgado thinks he's a hero,
but he's just an old man with a bad pension and an old service revolver."
There was a heavy pause in the recording,
followed by the sound of firm,
deliberate footsteps entering the room.
A deep,
heavily accented voice spoke next,
calm,
cultured,
and chillingly devoid of emotion.
Victor Sterling.
"Is the delivery compromised,
Beatrice?"
"No,
Victor,"
Beatrice replied instantly,
her tone shifting into sweet,
deferential compliance,
"just a minor domestic complication.
Mariana suffered an anxiety attack and took the child for some fresh air.
Ryan is handling it."
"Do not treat me like a fool,
woman,"
Sterling said coldly,
the sound of his cane tapping against the hardwood floor.
"My jet takes off from LAX for Geneva at two in the morning.
The transplant team at our private clinic is already scrubbed and waiting.
The tissue sample Dr.
Cross retrieved before the girl bolted is only six milliliters,
barely enough for a preliminary culture.
I paid one point seven million dollars for a full harvest,
not a diagnostic smear.
If that boy is not in my medical transport within ninety minutes,
I will not only cancel our second tranche of eight million dollars,
I will personally hand the SEC the documentation showing how you embezzled your clinical development funds."
"We will find him,
Mr.
Sterling,"
Ryan pleaded,
sounding like a beggar on his knees.
"I have our private security team tracking Arthur Delgado's old vehicle right now.
They have his license plate,
they know his favorite haunts,
and they'll intercept them before they reach the county line."
"Ensure they do,"
Sterling replied softly,
"and Ryan?
If the mother resists,
make sure it looks like a tragic carjacking.
A grieving father inherits full custody of his child without any pesky custody hearings to delay our medical schedule."
The line went dead as someone in the suite kicked the door shut.
Inside the hangar,
the silence was deafening.
Marcus stepped back from Leo's cot,
his face pale with disgust.
Frank slammed his fist onto the wooden table.
My father didn't shout.
He didn't curse.
He simply walked over to the gun locker mounted on the wall,
unlocked the steel combination dial,
and racked the slide of his tactical twelve-gauge shotgun.
"They think I'm just an old man with a bad pension,"
Dad said,
May you like
turning around with eyes that burned like dry timber,
"let's show these corporate parasites what happens when they come for my grandson."
