“How can that be?”
“The U.S.M.S. isn’t sure. All they know is that they’ve fielded requests on six separate WP identities that are no longer viable. According to my source, they’ve been conducting an internal investigation for the past year and a half.”
“Requests from whom and regarding what? We need those names.”
“I have them. Fourteen names. Information Technology is running a sweep for them as we speak.”
Bobby scribbled himself a note.
“Could I interrupt?” Audrey asked.
Bobby Duggan turned his attention her way. His facial expression suggested she was seriously pushing her luck. “By all means,” he said.
“The Harry Joyce file said the Secret Service was included in the task force because they suspected he was responsible for the murder of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Dale Monmouth. And because Justice Monmouth was running for a vacant Senate seat at the time of the murder, the investigation into the murder placed it under the purview of the Secret Service.”
“That sounds about right,” Bobby said tentatively.
“And that Justice Monmouth was shot three times in the head with a twenty-two caliber handgun while taking a holiday from the campaign trail… at the ancestral home in Butterville, New York,” she said.
“And the point of this is?” The drawl was gone. The tone was sharp.
“Justice Monmouth was killed on January 3, 1990.” She paused. When neither man recognized the significance of the date, she continued. “Same week as the Colin Satterwaite kidnapping.” She waved the Blackberry, pointed at the Google map on the screen. “Nine miles from New Paltz,” she said.
Bobby frowned and folded his hands on the desk. His knuckles were white. He pinned Audrey Williams with a withering glare. “What are you suggesting? Are you suggesting it may have been Harry Joyce who kidnapped this Colin Satterwaite?”
“It’s more than a suggestion,” she insisted. “Two serious felonies committed in the same time-frame in an area with almost no violent crime. We either have a connection between the events or a coincidence of monumental proportions.”
Her reasoning seemed to siphon the oxygen from the room.
Finally, Jackson Craig pushed himself to his feet. “That’s a very ugly thought,” he said. “A young boy, torn from his family, raised by a complete madman.” He rolled his eyes and looked away as if the implications were more than he could bear.
“It does answer the ‘who in hell would want to avenge the death of Harry Joyce?’ question,” Audrey ventured. “Victims of this sort of crime often identify with their captors. You know…Stockholm Syndrome and all of that.”
The room again fell silent. Bobby rocked back in the chair, lacing his fingers across his belly as he considered the matter. Jackson Craig closed his eyes and brought his fingers to his temples, as if he needed to massage the idea into his skull by hand.
Again, it was Craig who broke the spell. “Let’s for the moment assume that your scenario is more or less correct, that Harry Joyce snatches Colin Satterwaite when the boy is five. For the next twelve years, Harry teaches him everything he knows.” Jackson Craig tapped his temple. “I can work up a picture of that. Harry’s got him in that South Chicago complex training him to be an assassin. That’s just the kind of thing an ego-maniac like Joyce would love to do. Mentoring a boy, has a wonderful self-validating quality about it. Makes the mentor the final authority on everything.”
Audrey took a deep breath. “He probably spends the majority of his spare time sexually abusing the boy,” she said.
Craig scowled at the suggestion, waving the notion away like a noxious odor.
“I don’t think we should ignore the sexual element just because it’s uncomfortable to talk about,” Audrey pressed.
“What good would talking about it do?” Craig asked.
“It’s his weak link.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It’s everybody’s weak link,” she said flatly.
An unusually uncomfortable moment passed.
“The women’s clothes…the electrolysis…” Bobby finally muttered.
An even longer and more ominous silence ensued.
“We should have followed up on everything…classification system be damned,” Jackson Craig groused.
“The matter was officially closed,” Bobby said wearily. “If you recall, the powers-that-be at the time were concerned that the press might get hold of it and the whole damn thing would unravel.” He lifted his hands from the desk. “Harry Joyce was dead. There was no point in beating the bushes any more.”
“We need to find this maniac,” Craig said. “We got an assassin at work here, Bobby. Somebody with access to viable, verifiable identities. Somebody patient enough to wait five years for his revenge. Some sexually abused nut case who’s making it his life’s work to wreak havoc on those responsible for the demise of Harry Joyce.” He folded his arms tightly across his chest. “Because of me, my family’s lives are in complete chaos. They’ve got men with machine guns in my sister’s front parlor. My father’s being cared for in a facility the company generally uses for sick terrorists.” He cut the air with his artificial hand. “This has to be over. Sooner rather than later. As far as I’m concerned, from this moment on, it’s him or me. Just that simple.”
Craig’s passion precluded comment. A long, uncomfortable moment passed. Audrey checked the crown molding and squirmed in her seat.
“Where do you want to start?” Bobby asked.
“First I’m going to find Gilbert and Emelda,” Craig said.
“Probably best you do,” Bobby said with great solemnity.
Gilbert shook the water from his windbreaker and then pulled open the door.
The room was quiet and empty. A single kerosene lamp flickered from the drain board. Emelda must have gone to bed, he thought. She hadn’t had much sleep lately and Gilbert was relieved she’d been able to get some rest. He crossed all the way to the back of the cabin and hung his coat on one of the pegs by the back door. He scowled and looked around. The air crackled. Something wasn’t right. He could feel it.
He slowed his eyes and scanned the area again. His Red Sox cap was missing. A tingle of apprehension rolled down his spine. He was certain he’d left the cap hanging on the hook to the right of the door. He immediately turned his gaze to the area around the sink. The yellow dish towel lay on the floor. The Beretta was gone. His heart felt as if it might beat out of his chest and fly off into the night.
He threw open the door to the children’s room. Michael had pushed all the covers off onto the floor. Rebecca bent an arm across her eyes. “Puuuuuleeeeese,” she croaked.
The other bedroom was empty. The bed was still made.
“Will you puuuuuleeeeeese close the door,” Rebecca entreated.
Gilbert hurried back to the children’s room. “Where’s your mother?”
Rebecca sat up. Her eyes were slits. “Huh?”
“Get up,” Gilbert said. “Get up and get your coats.”
Something in her father’s face set Rebecca to scrambling.
__
He
’
d used the entire roll of duct tape on her.
Ten wraps each where he
’
d taped the backs of her ankles to the backs of her thighs, trussing her into the kneeling position.
Another ten to tape her forehead to the tree, likewise her torso and the tops of her legs.
He used the remainder connecting her wrists together behind the tree in a giant pair of handcuffs.
The only loose end was on the foot of tape covering her mouth.
He pulled hard at the end. The tape came away with a hiss.
Unable to move her head, she threw her eyes his way. A silver sheen of polished steel passed by her vision.
“
Scream,
”
he said.
When she failed to respond, he slapped her face hard.
Something in her snapped.
She
’
d had all she could take.
She spit in his face.
He smiled and wiped it off with a latex-clad hand.
He grinned in her face as he unzipped her jacket, peeled it back and undid the buttons on her blouse. The scream he
’
d demanded began to rise in her throat.
He didn
’
t have to ask her again.
__
“Run,” Gilbert said. “Run to the root cellar. Stay there until I come and get you.”
“Where’s mama,” Michael whined, rubbing his eyes.
He kept his eyes on Rebecca. “Take him there,” he said. “Hurry.”
An earsplitting scream rose above the tempest. A scream of such utter pain and despair as to dash the hopes of those unfortunate enough to hear it.
Gilbert pulled open the back door and pushed his children into the night. Without missing a beat he turned on his heel and hurried across the house. He threw open the front door and stepped out onto the porch with the Smith and Wesson 40 in his hand.
The rain had stopped, leaving only the uneven rat-ta-tat of droplets falling from the trees. “Emelda,” Gilbert shouted at the top of his lungs.
He was greeted with another horrific scream, longer and, if anything, more mortifying than the first. Tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Don’t hurt her,” he pleaded as he jumped down from the porch and ran across the muddy red ground. “Please don’t hurt her.”
__
Michael rested his head on her shoulder but didn’t sleep. Rebecca had her arm crooked around his neck, pulling him tight as they huddled in the damp dugout. She stroked her brother’s hair and listened for the sound of footsteps, the sound of boots above the low hiss and gurgle of water.
“I want Mama,” Michael whined.
“Be brave,” was all Rebecca could think to say. She listened to the water seeping into the ground and pulled Michael closer. And then the door swung open. Rebecca sprang forward, her arms outstretched, reaching for her father in the second before she sensed something wrong and the tall shadow shined the flashlight in her eyes, blinding her, grabbing her by the hair and pulling her out of the cellar in a single stroke, the terrible burning in her scalp as he held her completely off the ground, legs kicking, arms reaching as he moved to the right, swung her once to gain momentum and then pitched her off into the darkness, legs still kicking, hands groping like a mime…only screaming now as she tumbled head over heels into nothingness. Above the sound of her own cries and the roaring of the wind, she heard his voice.
“And so…the new order begins,” he bellowed into the darkness.
One.
Was it one? Okay one. Stay ahead of them. Gotta stay ahead of them.
Best way to do that was to give em something else to do.
His eyes were ungodly tired. He
’
d had another series of weird flashes, like badly overexposed film, nothing but the darkest of the dark and the lightest of the light, left blind and blinking, staring at a giant red planet swimming before his eyes.
He made a mental note.
Be on the alert. Note the situation and the time.
Ascertain what was triggering these short-lived mind videos, all these black and white images, markets and manholes and folding metal doors, dirty men in watch caps, graffiti on walls and trash lined gutters all running through his head at flank speed, odd disjointed pictures accompanied by the familiar sensation of fullness, of being stuffed to bursting and a burning sensation that followed him around like the fiery tail of a kite.
Two.
Or was it part of one? Anyway. Recycle paperwork all over the place. Bread crumbs for them to follow.
His scalp tingled with a mixture of anticipation and terror.
Three. Gotta make a plan adjustment.
The farm wasn
’
t going to work out.
Good for a couple of weeks maybe, a month at most and then he was going to have to think of something else. Something permanent.
Something more crowded. He knew just such a spot.
Problem was, it was the first place they were going to look.
Log cabin out in the wild blue nowhere. Cloudless sky floating over a picture postcard landscape of buttes and mesas running off into infinity and all Audrey Williams could look at were the pair of bright yellow forensics enclosures. One up on the side of the hill, constructed around the base of a tree, another to the right of the driveway, fifteen yards closer to the cabin
.
Her insides began to tighten. Her face prickled with ‘wreck on the highway’ anticipation as she gulped cold mountain air and moved forward.
Last night’s rain had been swallowed by the thirsty ground. Back in the shadow of the butte, tinsel traces of silver sparkled from the lowest pine needles. The late morning breeze ran through the tree tops like a freeway, setting the plastic sides of the forensics enclosures to flapping and snapping. Somewhere in the distance the flat slap of helicopter rotors fractured the air.
Fifty yards ahead, the cabin clearing seethed with activity. Outside of the house, half a dozen brown-uniformed lawmen formed a tight circle in front of an empty car-port, watching from the corners of their eyes as a line of FBI technicians moved methodically across the front yard searching for evidence. Inside the cabin, another team of white clad agents was hard at work. From a distance, they looked like insect larvae.
A tall man in a gray suit walked out the front door. He stopped to button his suit jacket and then walked at them with an awkward gait, as if his knees were bothering him.
He passed the yellow enclosure without a sideways glance and continued walking their way. His eyes were locked on Jackson Craig. The two men stopped about a yard apart. The man was big, beefy and beginning to lose sight of his belt buckle. He had a thick head of graying curls and a flat pock-marked face, made oily by the sun.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “I should have guessed.”