Kinkos.
Using one of the pay-by-the-minute computers, she searched for any news from Cote d’Ivoire about similar abductions, either attempted or successful. She needed to try to find out what was going on, knowing it might be the only way to save the child. But there was nothing; no news that even hinted at anything other than what could best be described as normal kidnappings and abductions. She almost quit there, telling herself she should be satisfied with the results, that the desire for Iris was an aberration, that Jan had just been overly cautious. And now that she and Iris were thousands of miles away, everything would be fine.
But she knew there was one more place she should check, a database that had more information than could be found in even the most ardent Internet searches.
She glanced around the computer room with the sudden feeling a thousand eyes were staring at her. But the two other customers and the attendant behind the desk were preoccupied with their own concerns, and none had a direct view of her computer screen.
She allowed her nerves to calm for a moment, then typed an address into the Web browser. Using her own password, she logged on to the United Nations employee site. Her friend Noelle back in Cote d’Ivoire had promised not to process her leave of absence for several days, thus ensuring she would still have access to the site. Still, Marion held her breath until the home screen came up.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
It didn’t take her long to navigate to the section she was looking for. Again, she had to use her password. Access to this area of the site was limited to those who worked in certain departments.
She selected the databases she was interested in, typed in her parameters:
Marion skimmed the list. She had seen similar reports before. Most would be secondhand observations from locals telling UN officials what they had seen. She eliminated those that were of no interest to her. When she was done, she was still left with forty-four items, many of them several pages long. Beside her, Iris stirred in the stroller. She’d be awake soon, wanting something to eat and some attention. Marion decided the best route was to print out the ten most promising reports and take them back to her hotel to read.
By the time she finished, Iris was fully awake, and sitting in her lap.
Iris made a fussy noise as if to say she wanted to be anywhere but here.
“Just one more,” Marion whispered in the child’s ear.
She hit Print, then logged off the computer.
After collecting her printouts, she wheeled Iris up to the counter to check out.
“Cute girl,” the woman said as she handed Marion her change.
“Thanks,” Marion said.
“Is she yours?”
“Eh … no,” Marion said, taken aback by the question. Beside the fact that it was rude, Marion’s sense of security kicked in. A Caucasian woman with an African baby would be remembered. “I’m just babysitting for a friend.”
“Well, it looks like you’re doing a pretty good job,” the woman said. “What’s her name?”
Another moment of panic. “Emily,” Marion said, then immediately regretted it. Emily was her sister’s name.
The attendant leaned over the counter. “Hi, Emily. How are you?”
Iris smiled at the woman.
The look on the woman’s face began changing from one of happiness to one of curiosity. Marion knew the woman had seen there was something different in the child’s face — the epicanthic folds at the corner of the girl’s eyes, her nose broad yet smaller than normal.
Before the woman could say anything, Marion wheeled Iris toward the door and out onto the street. As they headed away, she knew she could never return to this particular branch again.
She got them a room in a hotel just off Times Square. That evening, after Iris fell asleep on the bed, Marion was finally able to read through the reports. Some were only a paragraph, and some were several pages. A few had been investigated, but most had not. There was a note in the report from Bangladesh saying the story was probably fabricated, and that the people involved were most likely just trying to get some money out of the UN.
Marion would have believed it once. But not now.
The targets were always the same: unofficial orphanages where the parentless came to live because there was nowhere else. There was no set hour when the abductors would arrive. Sometimes it was during the day, sometimes night. But they always came for the same thing, for the special children, the ones like Iris. The children no one else wanted.
It was the report from Afghanistan that was most interesting. The details of the kidnapping were pretty much the same. Several tough-looking men showed up at a building dozens of children called home. Once the men had what they wanted, they were gone. But it was the final paragraph that caught her attention.
A vehicle was stopped at a U.S. military checkpoint. Inside was a Caucasian male. He was accompanied by a driver and a bodyguard, both Afghanis. There was also a child in the car. The soldier couldn’t say for sure, but he guessed the young boy was about six years old. Though the soldier had no way of knowing, the basic physical description he gave matched that of the boy kidnapped the previous day. The Caucasian man said he was a doctor, and that they were transporting the child to a facility in Kabul for treatment. He produced paperwork backing up his story. Seeing no threat, the soldier let them through. “Our job isn’t to look for doctors transporting disabled kids,” he told an investigator later.
The report surmised that the supposed kidnapping and the doctor with the child in the car were unrelated. Again, Marion might have believed that, too, at one time.
After she finished reading all the reports, a part of her wished she had stopped with her simple Internet search. Her mind might have been more at ease then. She would have assumed the incident involving Iris had been an isolated event. But now she knew that wasn’t true. It wasn’t even some localized event happening just in Cote d’Ivoire or even just West Africa. No, it was much bigger than that.
The next day she decided to collect as much information as she could. She wasn’t sure who she would give it to, but someone had to know. And the more evidence she had, the better chance she had of someone listening. She found a coffeehouse with a couple of computers in back, and signed on to the UN site again. She got through the first portal fine, but when she attempted to navigate into the restricted area she’d been in the day before, her access was denied. A message popped up asking her to call the system administrator at her earliest convenience.
That was the moment she knew she’d made a serious mistake.
Immediately she logged off and left. She took Iris down into the subway system and randomly rode the trains as she tried to think what she should do. At Times Square she got off and found a pay phone.
She called the UN, but not the system administrator’s office. She dialed the extension for the friend who had helped her with the airplane tickets, a Dutchman named Henrick Roos.
“It’s Marion,” she said, before he could speak.
“Marion?” Roos said. “Are … you all right?”
“I need you to check something for me,” she said. “I seem to be locked out of everywhere but our main site. It was fine up until this morning. Is everyone having problems or is it just—”
“You should probably come in,” he cut her off.
She paused. “Why?”
“There are some … questions that need to be answered.”
“What questions?”
“It would be best if you just came in. I’m sure it will all be fine.”
“Okay,” she said, trying not to let her fear seep into her voice. “If you think that’s best.”
