This was the resort’s child-care service center. Its exterior walls were constructed with hurricane-proof glass. She saw toddlers and older children playing inside. Guests were required to use their room keys, and staff needed their swipe cards for access beyond this point. She fished in her bag for her security card and passed it through the reader. It beeped and she entered.
She was met with joyful chaos. The smells of baby powder, suntan lotion and fruit mingled in the air. It was a large operation handling scores of children from infants to preteens. It ran twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and was staffed with trained caregivers and several nurses. It also had more than fifty top-flight babysitters on call for additional care on-site or in a guest’s room.
The Hideaway offered computer games, movies, parties, sleepovers and crafts, as well as supervised excursions throughout the resort or to the amusement park. It was meant for parents who needed a break for a few hours.
And, in some special cases, longer.
It was expensive but families from all over the world praised the quality of the care. Staff members were thoughtful, compassionate. No one was neglected and someone was always available to speak to any visiting child in Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Farsi or Russian-nearly every major language.
The child care was not provided by the resort.
The Grand Blue Tortoise had contracted an agency specializing in the service. The Blue Tortoise Kids’ Hideaway was a numbered company that vanished in the labyrinth of the local tax system, the maze of Bahamian corporate law and the cloak of complex international banking operations.
The same shadowy entity also provided similar services at resorts in the United Arab Emirates, Greece, Australia, Maldives, Africa, the Mediterranean, Hong Kong, the U.K., China, Canada and the U.S.
Dr. Gretchen Sutsoff and her silent investors owned it all.
But no one knew that she was the invisible force controlling the company. Very few people knew her true identity. No one knew that, for years, she had been living under the alias of Elinor Auden, medical doctor, businesswoman and researcher. It enabled her to work with her international associates as they secretly strived to correct the mistakes of civilization.
“Good morning, Dr. Auden.” Lucy Walsh, the chief executive assistant, acknowledged a young family. “As you know we were expecting Elena and Valmir Leeka, and their son, Alek. They’re from Albania and have been vacationing in the United States.”
“Yes, of course.” Dr. Sutsoff smiled at the boy, squirming in his stroller. “Goodness, someone’s not happy. If you’ll indulge me for a minute, I’ll be with you shortly.”
The doctor entered her office alone, shutting the door behind her.
The quiet was calming.
She turned on her computers and glanced up at the bank of flat screens wired to the cameras monitoring the rooms, the outdoor jungle playground, and the pool where more children played.
Three muted TV panels monitored cable news channels.
No one knew the true nature of her research. No one knew the scope and reach of her operation and what it involved. She did a quick check, scrolling through files.
LA #212005 to New York67
LA #907864 to Texas908
LA #376274 to Minnesota9087
LN #77-487 to Bristol26
LN #F8-787 to Manchester98
LN #FF-879 to Dublin948
LN #00-977 to GlasgowS93
BN #JI-47-90 to Franfurt635
BN #K-489-86 to Munich875
BN #A-34-90 to Hamburg887
And the new ones: PRC #PQ-487-98 to Kunming967 and LA #181975 to Wyoming847.
The Chinese case would arrive soon. Now, she needed to focus on the extensive computer files she already had on the Albanians who’d arrived today with the Wyoming case. She had concerns with the Leekas but would get to them later.
Sutsoff’s dedication to her work bordered on being pathological. Her staff worshipped her genius with zeal and fear. Her enigmatic mystique commanded unquestioned obedience, loyalty and absolute secrecy.
For the “special cases.”
While most of the children at the center belonged to vacationing parents, there were those who were entangled in “complications,” such as international custody disputes or “other matters.”
“Their parents seek our service as a sanctuary,” Sutsoff had told her staff. “For security reasons, these situations must never be discussed.”
Consequently, the staff never questioned her about the strange cases or the cases of children who stayed for weeks, even months on end, as if they’d been abandoned.
Or hidden.
Dr. Sutsoff concentrated on these children, the ones her staff privately called, “the Children of the Hideaway.”
The latest to surface was the Albanian case of little one-year-old Alek Leeka. His medical records had already been scanned into the secure computer system. Dr. Sutsoff had studied them on her island before flying in today. Now, after rereading them and double-checking her secure files, she thought the preliminary work done was flawless. The child’s DNA signature was perfect, the best of them all to date.
But recent mistakes had been made in this case and it was time to deal with them. Sutsoff asked Lucy to usher the family into her private office. Lucy joined them, making notes of the meeting. The baby was on the verge of crying.
“Why so grouchy?” Sutsoff cooed. Then she said, “Hello, Elena and Valmir. You must be very pleased things have gone so well, so quickly?”
They smiled and nodded nervously. Elena was chewing gum.
“We are happy to have a son, finally,” Valmir said.
“The files note that you are both dual citizens of Albania and the United States and that you’re in the process of adopting your new child whom you’ve named Alek.” Dr. Sutsoff nodded to Lucy. “Unfortunately, the boy was orphaned when his parents recently died in a tragic car crash in the United States. Ah, but for every ending there is a beginning. The adoption process has been expedited through an international law firm based in Brazil. Isn’t that correct, Elena?”
Elena, who was working hard on her gum, stopped and nodded.
“That is correct, yes.”
“It’s been a little stressful,” Sutsoff said to Lucy. “Elena and Valmir are going to extend their vacation. Now, if I may, I’ll just have a look at Alek. I see he’s a little crotchety. I think I can fix that.”
Sutsoff looked at the baby in his stroller, taking stock as if he were a prized jewel, smiling to herself before turning and scrutinizing her computer files once more. Then she hefted him to the small table in her office, slid on her stethoscope and while Lucy steadied him, proceeded to examine the toddler for some twenty minutes, making detailed notes the whole time. Afterward, Sutsoff went into her small fridge and poured a little fruit punch into a plastic cup with dolphins on it. Then Sutsoff opened her small black medical bag, found a tiny brown bottle, unscrewed the lid and tapped a few drops into the juice.
“This medicine should help.” She held the cup while little Alek gulped it down.
“That’s a good boy.” She patted his head. “Lucy, would you mind getting one of the staff to take care of Alek. He’s going to stay with us for this afternoon while his parents have some alone time.”
Lucy took the toddler in her arms.
“Come on, sweetie,” she murmured. “You can meet the other angels.”
After Lucy closed the door, Valmir’s head snapped to Dr. Sutsoff.
“Where is our fucking money?”
Sutsoff ignored him and checked a file on her computer.
“We want to be paid now,” Valmir said.
“Valmir, you were part of the recovery team in the case of this Wyoming boy?”
Subtly, Valmir pushed his chest forward. “Yes.”
“Your instructions were to obtain the baby. That accident could have killed him. You took a stupid risk.”