Scion (3 page)

Chapter 5

The Chief Executive of the FSS did not normally check his phone messages on Sundays but after the debacle in Cambridge he had a funny feeling he may get a call from
the Chief Constable. As predicted, the call came in just after lunch, requesting a fast-track procedure for checking the DNA of the suspect against the DNA left on the victims and against the database of known offenders. With a branch in Huntingdon, the CEO felt the least he could do was contact the Director responsible for the branch and ask if they could get someone in to start the testing. Unfortunately, the Director of the Huntingdon branch was a keen golfer and had teed off just after one. It was seven p.m. before he picked up the message and called in some favours.

The favour fell down the hierarchy to one of the most junior staffers, John Yates,
who had only been with the FSS for eight months and when his supervisor called with a big favour, unlike the previous recipients, he had nobody to delegate it to. Not that he wanted to, the key words ‘Chief Executive’ and ‘special favour’ were all the ambitious young scientist required. Twenty minutes later, he had opened up the Huntingdon Office and collected the DNA sample from the Post Box and was already in the process of running the tests.

***

Daniel Koning looked out across the skyline and felt as though he should pinch himself. His dream job. Chief Operations Officer. One of the corner offices in one of Manhattan’s tallest buildings. Whoever said hard work didn’t pay? Daniel had put work before everything. Marriage had come late, only three years earlier, at 44 and that was only because his lack of relationships were calling his sexuality into question. Within a year he was the proud father of twins, one boy, one girl and only then did he find something that could compete with his love for the company. His children completed what he believed to be the perfect life. A beautiful wife, two lovely children, a lovely house in the suburbs and as of the next day, Monday, his new job. Life didn’t get any better.

The previous incumbent, his old boss’ last day
had been Friday. Daniel, keen to get off to a good start, had decided to come in on the Sunday to move into his new office and prepare a presentation for his new team. He was keen for the transition to be a smooth one. Their old boss had surprised everyone only a month earlier by announcing his retirement. A number of names were voiced as potential replacements and after a few sleepless nights, Daniel got the good news. Some of his peers had been candidates and Daniel was keen not only to impress them but to make them feel they were still valuable members of the team.

He spun his seat around and looked back
at his new office. Two walls of floor-to-ceiling glass on the 92nd floor and over one thousand square feet of the most expensive real estate in the world. It had taken him less than fifteen minutes to pack up his old office, one floor down and about five seconds to realise just how much bigger his new office was. He was going to have to sit down with his assistant and organise some books, photos and ornaments to try and make the office a little less sparse. He hadn’t realised just how much personal stuff his old boss must have had in there.

As he pulled his box across the desk and extracted the
family photo that would take pride of place on his desk, the phone rang. His hand immediately moved towards it but stopped. He could tell from the flashing red light next to ‘Ext 1’ that it wasn’t security letting him know they had moved his car into the car park. It wasn’t his wife, she didn’t know the number and would have called his cell phone. The rest of the building was empty so it wasn’t even a transferred call. The dilemma was a tough one. The old COO had left on the Friday but his contract didn’t kick in until the Monday. Was it his line to answer? He knew that after six rings the phone would kick to either Voicemail or Call Divert and it was already at ring number five.

“Hello
?” he answered, bellowing authority. This was it, he was the new COO.

“We’ve got a problem, I’ve just got a DNA match flashed through to me.”

“Sorry?” asked Daniel, a corporate banker. He had no idea what the person was talking about.

“It’s
Clark here, we’ve scored a match on the DNA, 100% positive it’s him, he does exist.”

“Who is this?”

Daniel’s voice had lost the authoritative tone he had inherited from his old boss.

Clark
was immediately on the back foot.

“W
ho the fuck is this?” he panicked, knowing he had said too much.

“Daniel Koning, the new COO
,” imparted Daniel angrily. “And who may I ask are you? Wait a minute I know you, Clark, Joseph Clark., I’m your new boss!”

“Mr Koning, please forget we had this conversation,” suggested
Clark slightly more forcefully than Daniel liked.

Daniel was not going to let it go that easi
ly. It was important to get off on the right foot.

“I’ve always wondered what you did for us here, you’ve been a rather closely guarded secret,
Clark.”

Daniel had asked several times who the mysterious Joseph
Clark was. Each year he had been asked to sign off Clark’s budget, a not insignificant sum of money, for which, the company, it appeared, received no return. His old boss had just brushed it aside as no concern of Daniel’s, intriguing him further. He hadn’t even thought that his new role would allow him to uncover the mystery that was J. Clark, $2,000,000 on the budget spreadsheet.

“So what do you do?”

“I’m sorry Mr Koning but that’s not for me to tell you.”

“
But I’m your boss,” said Daniel a little less masterfully than he would have wished.

“On paper only
. Now please, for your own sake we didn’t have this conversation.” Clark hung up before Daniel could respond.

Daniel
stared at the lifeless receiver. He then pulled a pad of paper from his box and tried desperately to remember exactly what Clark had said.

***

The phone was answered on the second ring. The recipient having recognised the number, was worried. It was Sunday and there was no reason for a call, particularly from him.

“It’s me
,” said Clark.

Daniel Koning
’s old boss tightened his grip on the mobile.

“What?” he asked gruffly
.

“We found him, we’ve got a 100% DNA match, it came through about 15 minutes ago.”

William Walker III almost dropped the phone as the words hit him. Speechless by the revelation it took some time to respond.

“Who knows?”

Clark did not want to admit to his earlier mistake.

“Just me and you.”

“Containment?” asked Walker.

“Difficult, he’s in England in a prison cell
.”

“What?”

“Did you watch the news today?”

“Of course.”

“Well chances are you’ve seen him, it was his head that smashed into the ground in Cambridge.”

“Jesus!
” Walker’s home phone rang and his wife called out to say it was for him and it was urgent.

“Hold on
Clark,” he said before picking up the phone on his desk.

“Hello
?”

Walker
’s face reddened as Daniel relayed the conversation he had just had with Clark.

“Daniel, can you just hold a second please.”

He muted the phone as he placed the cell phone to his ear.

“
Clark, I thought you said it was just you and I that knew?” he asked menacingly.

Clark
had known William Walker III for many years and realised he should have been more forceful with Daniel Koning about forgetting the conversation. Not for himself but for Daniel’s own sake. There were very few men in the world as ruthless as William Walker III.

“He doesn’t have any idea what I was talking about
,” pleaded Clark.

“Quote “we’ve scored a match on the DNA, 100% positive it’s him, he does exist”
,” answered Walker coolly.

“Point made, I’ll deal with it immediately
.”

“Good, I thought my retirement may have been premature.”

The chilling message was not missed on Clark.

“I need to make some calls, you know what to do.” Walker hung up
and demuted Daniel.

“
Sorry about that my wife wanted to know what I wanted for dinner. Will you be there much longer?”

“Couple of hours, maybe
.”

“OK, I’ll call
Clark and call you back.”

Walker sat back
in his seat and contemplated what the news meant. For twenty four years they had had the prospect of the boy’s existence hanging over them. Some, after a few years, had suggested they should forget about it, he didn’t exist. Walker had been a lone voice calling for vigilance but even he had begun to relax and drop his guard by retiring on his seventieth birthday, just a month before the deadline was up. He knew what had to be done and picked up the phone. He needed some very specialist help.

***

Daniel had just put the finishing touches to his presentation and felt sure it hit exactly the right note. He printed off a copy to take home and as he waited for it to print wondered how much longer Mr Walker, William, would be before he phoned back. It had already been a couple of hours. However, a knock on the door removed him from those thoughts.

“Come in
,” he shouted, surprised when a non descript man aged forty-five to sixty walked towards him and was not a security guard.

“Mr Koning
. Hi, my name is Joseph Clark.”

T
he man crossed the office quickly and shook Daniel’s hand. Only after they shook did he realise he had failed to remove his gloves. He smiled apologetically as he removed them and sat down in the seat facing Daniel’s desk.

Daniel
didn’t hide his surprise.

“Oh, I was expecting a call from Mr Walker.”

“Yes, he sent me instead,” explained Clark.

“So what do you do Mr
Clark?” asked Daniel.

“I resolve problems before they become problems
.”

“Sorry, but what the hell does that mean?”

Clark rose from his seat, walked around Daniel’s desk and looked down the 92 floors to the ground below.

“It means exactly what I said, I pre-empt issues and resolve them.”

“What sort of issues do you pre-empt?”

Clark
walked back towards his seat. As he passed Daniel he withdrew a small pistol from his pocket and expertly placed a silencer on the barrel with the other. Daniel could only see Clark’s back and did not see what he was doing. As Clark turned around, the pistol pointed directly at Daniel whose face drained.

“Problems like you Daniel
.”

Daniel stared speechless
. His eyes eventually moved from the pistol to the family portrait.

Clark
, watching Daniel’s pleading eyes, shook his head with genuine sorrow.

“I told you to forget our conversation but you just didn’t listen.”

Clark walked around the desk, pulling his gloves back on and instructing Daniel to place his hands on the armrests of his seat. He removed two lengths of cord and lightly tied Daniel’s hands to the chair. The cord was similar to that used on dressing gowns and would leave no marks.

Daniel relaxed slightly
. He worked for one of the oldest and most respected banks in America. They weren’t going to kill him, he was just being taught a lesson. They were just scaring him. If they were going to kill him, he’d be dead already. He had read enough novels and seen enough movies to know that.

Clark
wheeled Daniel away from his desk and placed him facing the window.

“Don’t move or struggle and you may just make it out of here alive
,” said Clark as he headed back to Daniel’s computer.

Daniel hearing th
ose words became even more convinced this was just a scare tactic. He obviously had heard something he shouldn’t have and they were making sure he’d remember to forget. A strange clicking noise caught his attention and as his head turned, Clark shouted a warning.

“Don’t even think about looking over here.”

Five minutes later, Clark returned to his side and announced cheerily “all done” and began to remove Daniel’s cords. Once he had removed them he checked for any tell tale marks or threads. Finding none, he grabbed a leg of the huge desk with one hand before raising the pistol and shooting the window three times, as the window exploded outwards, the wind rushed in before being sucked back out with even more force than it had rushed in. Clark held tightly to the leg of the desk and gave Daniel’s chair a helping nudge towards the gaping hole.

“W
ell you can’t say I’m not a man of my word, you left here alive.”