Chapter 6 - The Poisoned Well
By 7:00 PM, the rain had intensified into a blinding downpour over coastal Connecticut. Thunder rumbled low over the Long Island Sound, shaking the heavy glass panes of my Greenwich home.
I sat in my rental car parked two streets away, watching the live surveillance feeds piped straight into my laptop.
Inside the house, the scene played out like a tragic theater piece.
Jessi was slumped on the living room sofa, her head resting awkwardly against the cushions. The drugged tea Wendy had given her earlier had taken full effect. She was in a deep, unnatural sleep, her breathing heavy and irregular.
Wendy stood over her daughter for a long moment, checking Jessi's pulse with two fingers on her neck. Satisfied that Jessi was completely incapacitated, Wendy walked over to the landline phone on the kitchen wall and dialed a number.
Marcus routed the audio feed through my earbud.
"It's done," Wendy said into the receiver, her voice devoid of any maternal warmth. "Jessi is out cold. She won't wake up until noon tomorrow no matter what happens."
"Is the girl ready?" Richard’s rough voice responded over the speaker.
"She’s upstairs in her room. I gave her a light sedative with her dinner. She’s quiet."
"Good," Richard grunted. "The Swiss medical team is already at the warehouse setting up the surgical suite. They brought their own anesthesiologist. They want to begin the extraction procedure precisely at two in the morning so they can hit their private flight out of JFK by five."
"Did they bring the rest of the payment?" Wendy asked, her eyes narrowing on the kitchen wall.
"Five million in untraceable bearer bonds, secured in a steel courier case," Richard confirmed. "Once the procedure is complete, we leave the girl's body near the rocky shoreline three miles down. We make it look like she wandered out of the house in the middle of the night during the storm and slipped off the rocks. The coast guard will assume she washed out to sea."
Sitting in my car, I gripped the laptop screen so hard the plastic housing cracked under my fingers.
They weren't just harvesting her; they were planning to dump my seven-year-old child's body into the freezing Atlantic ocean to cover their tracks. They were going to let my wife wake up to a missing child, letting her believe her daughter had drowned, while Wendy walked away with millions to spend in early retirement with her resurrected son.
"I’m coming into the house now," I told Marcus through my radio headset.
"Hold position, Julian," Marcus’s tactical lead officer warned over the frequency. "We have four operators surrounding the cottage and two watching the main gate. Let Wendy move Fiona out of the house first. If we strike inside the residential home, Wendy might use your wife as a human shield or attempt to destroy evidence."
"I am not letting that monster touch my daughter again!" I hissed.
"Listen to me, Julian!" Marcus cut in, his voice cutting through the radio static like an iron rod. "If we hit Wendy inside the house, Richard gets alerted at the warehouse and vanishes before we can take him down. We need both of them at the crime scene with the Swiss doctors holding the surgical tools. That is the only way to ensure every single one of them spends the rest of their natural lives in a maximum-security prison. Trust the plan."
I forced a deep, agonized breath into my lungs, leaning my forehead against the cold steering wheel. "Fine. But the second she carries Fiona out that door, we shadow her every foot of the way."
At 11:30 PM, the front door of my house opened.
Through the night-vision camera feed, I watched Wendy emerge into the torrential rain. She was dressed in a dark raincoat, carrying a large, heavy duffel bag in one hand. Over her opposite shoulder, wrapped tightly in a thick waterproof canvas blanket, was Fiona’s limp, sleeping form.
Wendy loaded Fiona into the rear cargo area of her SUV, shut the hatch with a muffled slam, and climbed into the driver's seat.
The silver SUV pulled out of the driveway, its headlights cutting through the sheets of falling rain.
"Subject is mobile," Marcus’s sniper reported from a tree line position near the gate. "Heading south toward the industrial district."
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I started the Range Rover’s engine, my teeth set, my knuckles white on the wheel.
"All units, this is Team Leader," Marcus announced over the tactical channel. "We are green for Operation Blackout. Move in."
