Disappear (41 page)

She would find it impossible to get decent legal representation in the divorce.

She would become a distraught and lonely woman, struggling to survive.

Falkstog strode into his office at the far end of the hallway. He liked the layout of his new premises, and the way in which the operation had been set up. He felt good. With his darkly dyed hair, green tinted contact lenses and plastic surgery, he was a different man. He intended to ensure it was a long time before he faced such an upheaval again.

The phone rang and he immediately recognised the voice of the powerful figure on the other end.

‘Yes,’ said Falkstog, ‘ready to go into action again - as always. Who’s the subject?’

As he listened to the reply, he swivelled to his computer keyboard and began to tap the keys. ‘No, no problem. A full scale surveillance can be underway within hours. Money talks, my friend, any language you want.’

At the far end of the continent, a man known to most Australians replaced the handset and settled comfortably back in his chair. A grim smile of satisfaction flitted momentarily across his features. He was glad Falkstog/Vanderkirk had been successfully relocated. He was still the best independent operator of his kind and the right one for this assignment.

Falkstog’s covert investigations for certain government officials meant that he attained and stored highly sensitive data.

Information that could not fall into the hands of the regular authorities.

The problem was that, as a freelancer, Falkstog had a range of wealthy clients, and his illegal work for just one of them – Henry Kaplan – had brought his entire operation to the attention of the police.

There could be no more unfortunate incidents such as the one to which they’d just been exposed.

If and when that happened, Falkstog’s operation would be dismantled and Falkstog removed- permanently.

It was a wintry morning in upstate New York. A cold, bitter wind had reduced the temperature to below freezing.

Donald Simms pulled the collar of his woolen coat closer round his neck as he waved the freight company’s container truck into the receiving dock.

He’d worked for the Dreamhaven Cryonics Society for the past three years as the day shift technician and caretaker. Sometimes he thought he’d go mad in this job, stuck in this quiet place for long, lonely hours with the caskets of frozen dead bodies.

He’d stayed because jobs were scarce. He’d only got this because of his relatives. His nephew, a successful dentist, had died four years earlier. He’d been at this plant, in cryonic suspension, ever since.

As the truck backed up, Simms went to the filing cabinet in the corner cubbyhole-cum-office and pulled out the corresponding paperwork. It was rare for an already frozen patient to be admitted. It had happened only once or twice before, but never with a client from another country.

This one had been sent, after eighteen years suspension in Sydney, Australia, because the family member - a son - was planning to come to live in the US. The logistics of shipping this chamber and its power supply must have been horrendous, Simms thought.

These whacko immortalists had more money than sense.

The woman’s name, he read, was Monica Rentin.

A trust fund had been set up in New York several months earlier, and the annual proceeds from that would pay for the on-going suspension of the frozen old cow.

Simms chuckled to himself.
More money than sense …

He wondered how much dough this woman’s family had - and whether they’d be prepared to pay if the casket with the woman went missing, held for ransom. It was an interesting thought.

What would they pay?

How hard could it be to put one of those damn caskets onto a truck and spirit it away to a hiding place?

The freight man jumped down from his cabin. ‘Where do you want me to put this thing?’

‘Straight through the double doors behind me and to the right of the morgue,’ Simms said.

‘Morgue?’

‘That’s what I call it.’

Simms glanced through the paperwork as the hydraulic forklift moved the casket. Strangely, there’d been no further contact from the son since he’d arranged the shipping three weeks earlier.

Simms put the papers aside and daydreamed, as he often did, of grand fortunes attained from clever crimes, and his escape from this twilight world of the frozen dead.

He went through the double doors to hook the chamber and its mobile power unit up to Dreamhaven’s permanent systems.

In the cold, clinical operations room, Monica Rentin/Kaplan’s long suspended, perfectly preserved body began its untraced and indefinite stay.

***

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You can find out more about Iain Edward Henn’s books at his Amazon author page.