Chapter 15

My mood was upbeat as I drove up Rt. 95, late on a Thursday morning. It was upbeat because it was ‘Tuesday Thursday’.

Once a month, always on a Thursday, I’d bounce ideas and thoughts and problems off Hazel, my administrative assistant and part-time receptionist. For sixty minutes, no phone calls or emails, we even locked the office door. It was all about feedback and suggestions and, most of all, another person’s perspective. Not such an original idea, but it helped. It was Hazel who decided on the name. After our first session, I thanked her for the chance to hear my thoughts out-loud and she said, with a ‘dare-you-to-agree’ arch to her eyebrow, “Sure. I’ll set an hour aside, once a month, for the two of us to get together. Let’s make it a Thursday so I can call it ‘Tuesday Thursday.’ She laughed in a way that made you think she was making fun, but it felt too good to care.

The office it was quiet and empty, despite being Thursday. There was a note pinned to the backrest of her chair. Written, in her favorite green ink, Surprise invite to lunch. Will give you the details when I get back.

There was a FedEx envelop on my desk. It was from: Dr. Leann Thunberg.

Sitting at my desk, I unzipped the envelope and, with the care of a first-year surgical resident, spread the cardboard edges just enough to peek inside. Not real sure why I do that. I’d like to believe everyone does, but never asked.

Inside were two sheets of paper. Holding the envelop by the edges, I let thems slide out on to my desk blotter.

The top sheet was a handwritten note on the letterhead of Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies.

Mr. Devereaux

Given how you seem to prefer communicating in a manner more personal than prevalent today, I thought I’d respond in kind.

I find putting pen to paper curiously stimulating. No doubt a result of spending the majority of my time with young people relating to the world via channels I can barely recognize, much less employ.

In any event, attached is a list of the students most closely identified with the group I referred to, in our recent meeting, as the ‘Most Likely to Subvert Club’. According to one of my sources, their official name, a bit more of an affectation than I would have attributed to Ms. Tudor, is ‘the Hermes Consortium’. I’ve added the best available information of the whereabouts of these young people.

I trust you will find this of value in your investigation. Should I acquire any relevant additional information, I will be in touch. If you find yourself in Boston, please feel free to call. I know an all-night cafe in the theater district so similar to Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks’ that you’ll be asking me for a Chesterfield and a shot of bourbon.

Yours,
Leann

The second sheet, plain copy/printer quality paper, had six type-written names in a vertical column along the left margin. To the right of each entry, a few lines of text for some, a single word for others. Of course, ‘Deceased’  kinda says it all in one word. The others three names had more information.

Starr Tudor-Prendergast:  Current location unknown. Head of the group, the Hermes Consortium. Poster child for old-money privilege. She is both a Tudor and a Prendergast. Which, in some circles, conveys a social pedigree expressed in the joke that it wasn’t the Patuxet tribe but the Prendergast who asked of the passengers of the Mayflower, “What took you so long?’ There are rumors that Ms. Tudor acquired some type of classified data from a pharmaceutical multi-national and that is the reason she doesn’t show up to class anymore.

Margaret Ryan: The most consistent story, and surely a future urban legend, is that she took a single suitcase and put herself on the doorstep of a convent somewhere in Maryland. (In pen and ink, ‘Now this is the kind of creative nihilism that I would expect from Ms. Ryan. She audited several of my classes. Brilliant girl. The original ‘wild-eyed redhead’. L’). Leann managed to convey the italic. I made a note to find a reason to be in Boston sometime soon.

Kyle Harrington: Withdrew mid-semester from all his courses. The Office of Admissions reports they’d received an email to the effect that he’d decided to return to Chicago and the family real estate business.

Stephen Grinnell: Deceased. (According to the Chicago Tribune.)

Michael Wannamaker: Deceased. (Obituary in the Mt Desert Islander, apparently the paper of record for Bar Harbor, Maine)

Ashley Severin-McNulty: Missing. Last seen getting into a black limousine in front of the Civil War Monument at the Cambridge Common.

It being ‘Tuesday Thursday’, I  decided to stay on the Binary Way. I flipped a coin. Heads I go to Chicago and tails I go to Maryland.

*****

Leverkusen, Germany

Warin Schader stood before the broad expanse of glass that formed the outside wall of Bayer A.G.’s secure boardroom. He touched one of the acoustic insulators where glass met wall with a finger that showed the ragged edges of a stress-eaten manicure. The Rhine River flowed past the city. Instead of walls and medieval battlements, sports arenas and playing fields lined the banks.

“Herr Schader? Will you favor us with your report or are we to assume you have not recovered the missing Arbovitae Verbessern project files?” The vice-chairman of the board spoke more to the other officers seated at the table than to the man standing before the window.

Turning to face the woman who, waiting for a response, was, in the way of young people, now doing something on her phone.

“Steps are being taken to recover the thumb drive. I believe the matter of the manager who stole the data falls in your department, Fraulein Günther.”

“I assure you, Herr Schader, he is.” seeing the doubt and surprise on the faces of the others, she continued, “Despite the long timeline for testing the efficacy of a GMO designed to induce sterility in target groups, with this subject we elected to employ an accelerated protocol.” Seeing surprise and doubt shift into discomfit, she added with a malicious smile, ‘In the case of our IT manager, we achieved one hundred percent effectiveness. Unfortunately, he succumbed to the treatment.”

*****

Crissfield, Maryland

“What should I do?”

Starr Tudor’s voice in the dark interior of the car sitting in a winter’s beach parking lot held the hope and trust that came naturally from being with a friend at a time when the world seemed nothing but threat and indifference. Margaret Ryan, ‘Sister Margaret Ryan’ smiled at the self-annotation in her mind, sat back and waited for her friend let her know how she could help.

*****

Providence, Rhode Island

“How did I do?”

Smiling, Zhao Annchi slid into the booth opposite Diane Tierney. Shrugging back into her blouse, which had served as a surrender flag at the climax of her impromptu audition. The audience thought that it was the exotically-Asian exotic dancer who was petitioning for a cease-fire. They had it backwards. The woman opposite her was not as easy prey, which was very much to her liking as she reached out across the table.

*****

Narragansett, Rhode Island

“What more can I do?”

Victoria Tudor-Prendergast stood at the edge of the flagstone and slate terrace. She faced the limitless ocean and waited for Robert Langford to answer. Of the people in her world, he was the only person with the capacity and will to protect her interests and help find her sister Starr.