Rick Mofina - The Panic Zone

The clerk consulted the computer.

“No, sir.”

“I’m looking for my friend Robert Lancer-he should be registered here.”

The clerk checked.

“Yes, room 2322 Blue Reef Tower D. That’s the next building west from you, sir. Do you wish to send Mr. Lancer a message?”

“Yes, tell him I’ve arrived and to please call my room.”

When Gannon got to his room there was still no message from Lancer. He set up his laptop and sent Lancer an e-mail telling him that he’d arrived at the hotel and was standing by. Then he sent a text message.

No response.

Gannon called the WPA’s Nassau Bureau. Prior to his Bahamas assignment, the Nassau chief had run the Amsterdam Bureau.

“WPA, Peter DeGroote.”

“Jack Gannon. I just arrived.”

“Ah, yes, Jack. New York advised us to expect your call. We’ll support you in every way possible. I trust you had a good flight?”

“Yes, thanks. Are you hearing anything at all related to a police action on a day-care center anywhere?”

“No, but we are monitoring police emergency radio chatter on our scanners and we’ll alert you on your mobile phone.”

“Do you have a photographer ready?”

“We have two. One is a freelancer. Both are in Nassau waiting to be dispatched.”

After the call, Gannon went to the next building to find Lancer.

Alone in her room, Emma studied her color photograph of Tyler and Joe, taken a week before the crash. She’d downloaded it to her cell phone. She traced her finger over their faces, smiling back at them before starting to unpack. That’s when she noticed the resort’s leather-bound directory of services on the desk. Paging through it she saw that the resort offered child-care service at the Blue Tortoise Kids’ Hideaway.

Gannon’s source had said police were going to get warrants for a child-care center and had advised Gannon to come to this specific hotel. She hurried to Gannon’s room and knocked hard on his door.

No answer.

She’d go alone.

At her desk in the offices of the Blue Tortoise Kids’ Hideaway, Lucy Walsh quickly read over the letter she was leaving for her employer.

“It is with the great regret that I must inform you that I am resigning from my position as chief executive assistant to Dr. Auden…”

The truth was Lucy had to leave the Bahamas because she was afraid.

When she finished with the letter, she printed a copy, signed it, put it in an envelope and slid it under Dr. Sutsoff’s door. The office was always locked when the doctor was away. It was just as well Lucy did it this way; she never felt totally comfortable in the doctor’s presence.

She returned to her desk and resumed packing her personal items.

Her growing fears that this company was a front for something evil had deepened. Last night she’d received stunning news from her church friend in Ireland, who had been forwarding her secret reports to an ex-cop who was working with a human rights organization.

“My contact on this case has been killed. I got word from London he may have been murdered in Morocco. It’s dangerous for you. Take precautions, Lucy.”

Something was horribly wrong at this place.

Lucy glanced at her computer from which she’d duplicated every file she could to a private online folder. She had also copied them to a blue memory card, no bigger than a stick of gum. Maybe she would send the information anonymously to the Irish Times? Somehow she had to alert the outside world.

As the computer beeped and lights flashed, she noticed through the glass walls that a woman was standing in the playroom staring at the children. The other staff members had not seen her.

Lucy went to her.

“May I help you?”

The woman turned, telegraphing an intense unease behind faded bruises and desperate eyes that failed to brighten as she tried to smile.

“Yes. My name is Emma Lane and I’m looking for my son.”

“Lane?”

“Yes, my son is Tyler Lane.”

“Lane, that name’s familiar but we have about 104 children currently registered. Some are out on excursions. Follow me.” Lucy led Emma to her office and sat before her computer monitor and started typing. “L-A-N-E?”

“Yes.” Emma twisted the straps of her purse. “Tyler is spelled T-Y-L-E-R. He’s a year old.”

“When did you bring him in?”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh, his father brought him in?”

“His father’s dead. I think my son was abducted and brought here.”

All the blood drained from Lucy’s face.

“Please,” Emma whispered. “Please help me.”

After knocking on Lancer’s door in vain, Gannon called Lancer’s cell-phone number.

It was futile.

Dammit. Where was he?

Walking from Blue Reef Tower D across the complex, Gannon froze. Almost hidden at the base of a grove of coconut palms, he glimpsed a shoulder flash, dark military overalls and a leather holster.

A cop. A SWAT member in tactical gear.

As Gannon’s eyes adjusted, he noticed a second cop in the grove.

Then, through the courtyard in the distance, he saw a cube van, obviously a police equipment truck. Next to it, he saw an ambulance.

They were setting up for a takedown somewhere.

Was this Lancer’s target? It had to be near.

Walking quickly through the vast courtyard, Gannon looked in every direction for any sign of Lancer, for any clue. Guests lounged around the pool, oblivious to what was coming. Gannon knew from his crime reporting days how police would soon seal the area with inner and outer perimeters as they prepared to move in.

Where were they going?

Gannon scanned everything until he saw the entrance of a low-roofed building almost hidden by tropical vegetation. He strained to read the wooden sign amid a garden of flowers: Blue Tortoise Kids’ Hideaway.

Yes, it all fit.

Lancer’s information

We’re going to execute warrants…Grand Blue Tortoise Resort…a child-care center.

Gannon started trotting to the building.

Lucy Walsh stared at Emma not knowing what to say.

“Please,” Emma said, “I know it’s crazy, sometimes I think it’s all a bad dream, but it’s real. Please, I’m begging for your help.”

Lucy said nothing and Emma continued.

“I sense you’re a good person and by your reaction, I think you know something. Please.” Emma struggled as she cued up the photo of Joe and Tyler on her cell phone and showed it to Lucy, her voice soft. “My husband died beside me and my son is missing-please!”

Maybe it was fate, maybe it was the timing, but Lucy did not have to search Emma’s eyes long before she found a reason to follow her convictions.

She got up, glanced around to be sure they were alone, then locked her door and returned to her computer.

“Where are you from, Emma?”

“Wyoming.”

Lucy entered her database of secret files she’d been copying.

“Emma, are you from Big Cloud?”

“Yes!”

Lucy caught her bottom lip between her teeth, then continued checking files. Her concentration sharpened as she pulled up more information.

“You have to swear that you’ll never tell anyone you got this from me.”

“Yes, yes! Please, do you have something?”

Lucy jotted information on a slip of paper.

“Your son is here.”

Emma’s hands flew to her face. Her body started shaking.

“Here? Oh, God! Where? Do you have him?”

“No, he’s not here at the center.”

“Where? Who has him? Tell me!”

“Listen carefully. Two people, their names are Valmir and Elena Leeka, are traveling on Albanian passports or U. S passports. Tyler is identified as their son Alek on an Albanian passport. They will say that they adopted him through an international agency and are staying here on vacation.”