Ingrams & Assoc 1: Double Bluff Ch. 02

After lunch April dropped Silverano back at work and, silently missing her Nissan Z as she did everyday, and swung over the medical center to get his results. They almost wouldn't let her have them; thankfully, she'd thought ahead and get a note from Silverano to release them, but even then, they'd had to call him to confirm it. But it was done. She had them in her hand.

The first thing she did was head to Staples, to find an envelope that matched the one the results came in. Silverano had an afternoon meeting at the FBI building across town, so she spent a productive hour scanning in the envelope the results were in, to get the medical center logo on it and then generating new envelopes of the same type.

She opened the results, scanned those in, put them back in the replacement envelope and dropped them on his desk.

Taking advantage of Silverano's absence, she spent an hour going through the results, doing it twice, because she didn't believe what she read.

April had done a post grad course in DNA analysis – it had been that course that had lead to her discovery that the person she thought was her uncle was in fact her father – so she understood what she was looking at. And it did not make sense. At all.

She closed down the images of the scanned results, thought for a moment, then got up and went down to the garage, where her car was parked. Looking around to be sure no one was watching, she pulled out her phone and called Ingrams.

She waited for the connection to Operations and after giving the call / counter call to indicate she was not under duress, she was connected to Desirea.

"April, you aren't due for a call until this evening. What's up? Is everything OK?" asked Desirea.

"Yes, I'm fine. The DNA results arrived today. I just scanned them in – I'll forward them on to you in a bit. But I need to talk to you about them."

"What? Are you prepared for his impending crises?" replied Desirea, curiously.

"That's just it, Des. I don't understand it, but according to these results, all three of his children are his."

"What?" shouted Desirea. "That can't be right. There's got to be some mistake."

"Not according to these results. I've been over them twice. They are legit. For the kids, they are three distinct results – it's not the same one copied three times. These are three different kids, and they are 99.9% certain they are his, since we have his DNA results to compare against. I can only assume that the results that got me here in the first place must be tainted or contaminated in some way, or that a mistake was made somewhere along the line. I mean, what other explanation is there? This was a third party group doing the testing; he's not had access to them. They have no reason to falsify the results. What else can it be? The original samples must have been wrong."

There was silence for a moment and then Desirea said, "OK, we need to go back and check the flow here. I know we went over it when the mission came in – hell, you did too. It's not like State commissioned just one test. They did two or three, to be sure. Something is screwed up here and I don't know what it is, and I do not like it."

There was another pause, then April said, "What do you want me to do?"

"What do you want to do, April? You're closest to it all. This is your mission. We follow your calls."

"I think I need to stay in place. We don't have a handle on what's going on here and I've already seen some cracks in Paul and Jenny's marriage, just from listening to the fighting going on behind closed doors. I'm looking more into that now, since I figured he'd need more stability when the news came in. I think that's still a valid cause for me to stick around. But right now... it seems like the entire reason for this mission is pointless. At least for the reasons we thought, anyway."

"Well, you never know what might be going on, April. Until we have more information, I think you are right. We need to ensure these negotiations go well, and if there's no work to be done on our end, then we can just call it a win. But for now, stick it out there and continue on course for what you were going to do. We may have more need of pillow talk than we think. Do you think Silverano knows? That somehow he did something to the samples?"

April snapped her fingers and said, "Brad Tomlinson."

There was a second while Desirea ransacked her memory. "He's the guy in Palo Alto, isn't he? The genetics researcher...oh. Right. I see where you are going."

"Yeah. I think we need to look into this. That would explain the money too. Imagine that old friends Brad Tomlinson and Paul Silverano have come up with a way to modify DNA samples, so they could reflect whatever you wanted. That would be worth money, wouldn't it? Lots of money. At least four hundred grand."

"Hmm. You have a devious mind, April. I knew I liked you for a reason. Yes, we'll get into this, definitely something to look at. In the meantime, I'll start backtracking and talk to the client and figure out who had access to the original samples. You carry on and let's see where this takes us. Still make your regular call this evening and be sure and get us copies of those results. The guys here in R&D will want to look those over."

"I'll be in touch tonight. Man, it's never easy is it? What the hell is going on here? How could anything have happened to those samples?"

Desirea chuckled and said, "Maybe his kids are the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers - who knows? We'll get to the bottom of it, April. Better get back to work."

"Yeah, you're right. Talk to you later, Des."