“Someone else called up that page!” George was raising his voice. “Pia would never stop to look for directions, she’d just start driving. She’s very headstrong…”
“Someone who’d break into a place, headstrong in that way?” said Samuels.
“But no one reported it, did they,” said George.
“And you also say you received a text from her phone that you don’t believe she sent.” Samuels let that piece of information hang in the air. “Has it occurred to you guys that she’s stringing you along? I don’t see any evidence she’s been kidnapped. We’ll take those pictures you brought in. I wouldn’t mind asking her about this illegal entry she was talking about. I know a lot of those security guys who work at Nano. They are a very professional group and justly concerned about industrial security involving proprietary secrets and any and all episodes of illegal entry. I will take everything you have told us under advisement, and we will be back to you gentlemen. Thank you for coming in.”
“Are you implying that’s what Pia Grazdani was doing? Stealing secrets from her workplace?”
“I’m not saying anything, Mr. Wilson,” said Samuels. “Okay, I think we’re done here. Again, thanks for coming to see us today. Come on, Officer Gomez! We have work to do on this matter.”
Samuels and Gomez walked away.
“Don’t say it,” said George.
“I have to,” Paul said. “When someone over eighteen disappears, there has to be hard evidence of foul play, and the only known crime here was committed by Pia herself.”
“But we know she’s been taken,” said George.
“Sure, but look at it from their point of view,” said Paul.
“You heard the guy,” said George, who started to walk out of the building. Paul followed. “He’s pals with the security at Nano. I know Pia can be paranoid, but that looks mighty cozy, don’t you think? I wonder if Nano recruited from the local law enforcement for their security team. What about the FBI? I think we should go and talk to them. I doubt there’s any former Feds at Nano.”
“You think the FBI is going to say anything different? They have the same standards of evidence, and they’re sure to knock it back to the police.”
“So it’s up to us, is that what you’re saying?” said George. “Should we just try to file a run-of-the-mill missing-person’s complaint?”
“I think that’s what we just tried to do.”
“I suppose you are right. This is the kind of situation where Pia’s isolation works against her. But we can’t just do nothing.”
“I don’t know what we can do. Listen, George, I’m willing to help you, of course I am, but I don’t see how breaking into Berman’s house or anything else along those lines is going to help, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I know if I could only get into Nano….”
“Then what, George? The place is tight as a drum with security. Remember what Pia did last, and she worked there, remember?”
“What about Pia’s boss, Mariel? Mariel whatever her name is. She’s a piece of work, but who knows? We could start there, talk to her, see if she’ll tell us anything.”
“I suppose. If we can figure out how to get in touch with her. I assume she’ll be at work on a Wednesday.”
“My sense is that work is all she has,” said George. “It might be hard to contact her, but we have to do something. Maybe it would be helpful to find out where she lives.” He winked at Paul.
Paul shrugged, but didn’t say anything. At least it was better than trying to break into Berman’s castlelike house or Nano.
CHAPTER 53
Pia had spent the day mostly sleeping in bed, a real bed, not the filthy mattress on the floor of the dungeon where she had talked to Berman. After being examined by the doctor, two men wearing fatigues and surgical masks had moved her to a small, utilitarian bedroom up some cement steps leading out of the basement and along a corridor with the lowest ceiling Pia had ever seen. Even she had had to hunch down while she walked. There was one unadorned lightbulb in the middle of the featureless ceiling.
Pia felt groggy and out of it. She had lost track of time and was unsure of where she was until her mind cleared. Halfway along the route from the basement cell there had been a small window, and Pia had caught a glimpse of some trees and a garden. It had been raining outside, and it looked gray. At the time she had questioned where it could have been. Could it be Colorado? But the trees looked wrong. And it was too green. Berman had said something about being in London. Is that where I am? she wondered.
The two men had shackled Pia to the metal-frame bed in the room. There was no furniture or windows, and the door was of heavy steel. This was another cell, only less humid than the cellar. Pia was livid with Berman for putting her in this position. She saw there was a bedpan she was going to have to use. She felt humiliation along with her anger. She was being kept like an animal.
After a few minutes of being awake, the door opened, and the Chinese doctor came back.
“Do you speak English?” she asked. The man looked at her with a blank expression. He was indeterminately middle-aged, with a puffy, doughy, expressionless face.
“If you’re a doctor, whatever happened to ‘Do no harm’? Tell me that.”
The doctor looked down, and Pia imagined she was about to be injected again with whatever they had been using to knock her out. He grasped her arm.
“No, you don’t!” she screamed. “I don’t want to be drugged again. Leave me alone, you asshole.” Pia squirmed out of the man’s grasp and screamed and shouted at him. He didn’t try to restrain her nor say anything, he simply rapped on the door and stood aside as two Chinese guards came into the room.
“Leave me alone! I demand that you tell me where I am. Where’s Berman? I want to talk to him.”
Pia cried out in pain and one of the guards grabbed her roughly by her bad arm. In the confined quarters of her small room, it took only seconds for Pia to be thoroughly restrained.
The doctor held his hands out to show he wasn’t carrying a needle, and examined Pia’s arm.
“You’re another Nazi experimenter, like Berman. I know you can understand me. You are not going to get away with this. They’re going to get you, too.” The doctor gazed at Pia without a single facial muscle contracting. She couldn’t even tell if he blinked. Without a word, he left, along with the guards.
CHAPTER 54
Paul Caldwell used a friendly 411 dispatcher to find Mariel Spallek’s address on the city system when it turned out she wasn’t listed in any of the public records. She lived in an affluent town adjacent to Boulder, in a single-story rental building that was one of four attached units. The dispatcher had told Paul there were no other occupants listed at that specific address, a revelation that didn’t surprise Paul in the slightest.
“So now we’re here, what are we going to do?” said Paul, who parked fifty yards down the road, just in case. “Are you going to walk up to the front door and ring the bell?”
“Why not?”
“Didn’t you say you’ve met her? What are you going to do, say you just moved in next door and want a cup of sugar? Say you’ve joined the police department?”
“I don’t think I’m dressed for that.” George had gone to the store, but only added a pair of cheap sneakers to his frat-boy outfit of sweatpants and a T-shirt.
“I don’t know, I’ll think of something,” said George.