Authors: J. T. Ellison
Chapter
52
SAM WAS FASCINATED
by Anne Carter’s sudden change in demeanor. It was as if she’d seen an answer to a question Sam and Baldwin hadn’t asked yet. She began muttering to herself, quietly, under her breath, like a simmering kettle ready to boil.
Sam leaned back on the sofa. “Why do you say that, ma’am?”
The blue eyes lasered onto Sam. “First, Dr. Owens, tell me, what information did Kaylie Rousch give you about the cult?”
“That they were selling babies. The women were routinely raped in something they called the Reasoning, and the resulting babies were sold off.”
“Is she telling the truth?”
Baldwin set his glass on a marble coaster with a clink. “We’re looking into it. A trafficking operation of this scale, totally off the record, would take quite a few people to pull off. There would have to be a funnel organization, so to speak, to get the babies to the market, and the money back to the cult. That’s a lot of people along the chain to stay silent. We’ve never seen anything like it.”
Carter’s eyes narrowed, and she clasped her hands in her lap tightly. “Dr. Owens, you asked what I think happened. Doug could have put the ball in motion for them, then got scared and run. He had a business background, studied economics. We were going to help him get his MBA. He had a strong head for business, and a promising future. It was one of the reasons I brought him along.”
“Trafficking is a big charge to level. Did you feel betrayed by his actions?” Sam asked.
“Betrayed?” She huffed out a short laugh. “I’m a grown-up, Dr. Owens. This is a sad reality we sometimes have to acknowledge—people do stupid things for stupid reasons. I suppose Curtis Lott made it worth his while to leave our fold and enter hers.”
“But he ran away, then spent a year sending in reports asking for help.”
“Was he asking for help? Or was he sending us on a wild-goose chase?”
“That’s part of why we’re here, Anne,” Baldwin said. “The SIGINT from Matcliff indicates he wanted help extracting another girl from the cult.”
She looked pained. “If only that were the case. Those girls are dead, Dr. Baldwin. You know that.”
“I don’t know that, not at all. It wouldn’t be unheard of for us to find them alive.”
“Now who’s kidding whom? You really think the Eden cult would keep them alive, all these years? Use them for this ‘Reasoning,’ sell their babies? It’s preposterous. They are victims, like Kaylie was. She just got lucky, made an impression on Doug somehow, and he got her out. The rest are gone. We searched for them high and low. Each one, each case, thousands of man-hours.”
“Yet you were promoted and sent to New York. You weren’t on those cases anymore. Right?” Sam couldn’t help prodding the woman; she was holding back on them.
The sharp cheekbones got even more pronounced when Anne Carter pursed her lips. “It’s entirely possible Doug Matcliff was behind all of this, you know. We found all sorts of things on his computer when we searched his home.”
“Like what?”
“Child pornography, for starters.”
“Could the files have been planted?”
Carter sighed, clearly running out of patience. “Dr. Baldwin, you of all people know there are aspects to this case that defy logic. We were tipped off to Eric Wright and the trailer that held Kaylie’s things, but it was a setup. I wasn’t entirely convinced the photos were Doug’s, but when you look at the situation
en totale,
what else were we to think? He went down the rabbit hole and chose not to come out. I always thought he was the one who set up Wright. He knew exactly which buttons to press, and we fell for it.”
“That’s very possible. And yet, after everything, he chose to come out of the rabbit hole, and not come back to you. Maybe he was afraid you’d given up on him,” Baldwin said.
Or framed him, Sam thought, but bit her tongue. She wasn’t sure she liked Anne Carter. She had to remind herself the woman had been a star in the upper echelons of the FBI, and you don’t get there without being one hell of a good politician in addition to being a good cop. And pragmatic. Anne Carter was nothing if not pragmatic.
Carter waved a hand, dismissing the thought. “So long as he hadn’t killed anyone, I would have welcomed him back with open arms and made everything nasty go away. He was a good man, even if he did some stupid things. But if it’s true the other girls were in the cult, he wouldn’t have risked signal intelligence, which was why, after several months of nonactivity, the channel was closed.”
Baldwin couldn’t hide the shock in his voice. “You were the one who closed the SIGINT channel? Your only connection to a missing agent?”
“I didn’t close it. My successor did. When I found out about it, and looked into the SIGINT, I couldn’t disagree with the decision. The last several messages we received were out of sequence, didn’t use the appropriate language and codes. Then they stopped completely.”
She paused a moment. “I may not have made the same decision if it was mine to make, but I understand what happened. A new system was being put into place. Attempts were made to utilize the channel, but there were no responses. We were dealing with a compromised agent, and we all thought he was dead. After a year of silence, the channel was shut down to protect the Bureau from outside infiltration.”
She ran a long finger along the side of the lemonade glass. “Dr. Baldwin, you’re a lifer with us. You know that mistakes get made. Looking at the situation now, in hindsight, it’s easy to see that was a very bad choice. At the time, it seemed...logical.”
Logical.
“And that protected quite a few people, didn’t it?” Sam blurted out.
Carter stood and stalked around the room. “You didn’t know Doug. He was smart, and dedicated to making me believe he wanted to be on my team. Enough that I fell for his lies, too. I always believed if he was alive and knew there were more girls at risk, he would have come to me directly and told me. He may have gotten his own signals crossed, so to speak, but I always thought his moral compass was sound. If he was aware of something terribly untoward going on at Eden, he would have told us. I believed he would come in if it meant saving lives. I was wrong about him. A mistake I’ll have to live with for the rest of my days.”
“But he did continue sending in information, instead of coming in to you. We’re going through his SIGINT now, looking for what he had to say,” Baldwin said.
She stiffened a bit, but gracefully covered the movement with a small back stretch. “I was told this morning the new SIGINT traces—with an unauthorized code name, at that—were misleading at best. They were misdirections, lies, and we would have wasted a great deal of time and energy chasing down false leads.”
She sat across from Baldwin. “Knowing he’s been alive all these years infuriates me. If he wasn’t dead, I’d see him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But there is nothing more to be done here. Mistakes were made, and my part in this case is finished. Now, are we through? I have another horse that needs a bit of a frolic.”
Baldwin was angry. Sam could see the muscles in his shoulders were tensed. She didn’t blame him.
“A shame, isn’t it, that your pride and ambition took precedence over retrieving an asset,” he said.
Carter’s eyes flashed, and her lips thinned into a grim line. “You forget yourself, Dr. Baldwin. I still have friends at the FBI.”
He grinned at her, feral and quick. “As do I, Anne. As do I. Just a few more questions, and then we’ll leave you to your frolic. Do you know anyone named Frederick McDonald?”
She started to say something, then stopped and watched Baldwin closely. “What do you know about Frederick McDonald?”
“He was one of the beneficiaries named in Doug Matcliff’s will. We believe the will was solely designed to lead us through this story to all the players. So far, we’ve identified each one—and they’re all either dead or close to it. Who is he?”
She leaned back in her seat, the soft old leather easing with a small squeak. “McDonald was a bagman for the Dixie Mafia. He got out, supposedly, though do they ever get out? He set himself up a nice little operation in Asheville, North Carolina, running moonshine out of the mountains, of all things. We turned him, and he was a very helpful informant over the years.”
“What did he inform about?”
“Dixie business. Drug running, mostly. Supply chains. He helped us wrap up several elaborate operations, and he was rewarded for his troubles with a clean slate. I’ve often wondered what happened to him. He seemed like an intelligent man, happy to have a chance to start his life over.”
“He’s dead now. Someone broke into his house and turned his head the wrong way around last night.”
She didn’t look terribly surprised. “That is a shame. Clearly he didn’t keep himself on the straight and narrow, after all. But I haven’t heard his name for many years. And I’m afraid I have nothing more of use for you.” She stood, signaling the end of the interview. Smiled at them both graciously, let a bit of Southern pleasantness back into her steely tone. “If you find out anything more, or need more help, please don’t hesitate. This case seems quite complex. There’s nothing I’d like more than to hear those little girls are actually alive after all this time. But I’m not going to hold out hope.”
The interview was over. Baldwin stood, as well. “Anne, Adrian Zamyatin is systematically eliminating everyone on Matcliff’s list. Your name is on it, front and center. I have a couple of agents on their way out here to watch your back until this is all finished.”
She opened her mouth to protest, then sighed. “That will be fine. Thank you.”
She walked them out, and waved as they climbed into Baldwin’s car. Sam watched her smile disappear when she thought she was out of sight.
“Pride goeth before a fall, eh?” Sam said.
“You know it. Man, they really screwed up on this one.”
“She could have been more forthcoming. She knew more than she said. At this point, what does telling the truth matter?”
“Anne is making sure her ass is covered in case this all blows up and she’s called to testify. She gambled and lost the chess match with her boy wonder. It stands to reason there will be fallout.”
“She’s lost more than that, if those girls really are dead. I can’t believe she’d play games with their lives.”
Baldwin gave her a shrewd look. “Lesson one. Not everything in the FBI is what it seems.”
They headed down the winding drive, back onto the main road toward the highway, both lost in their own thoughts.
“You didn’t tell me about Frederick McDonald. That he was killed,” Sam said finally.
“Sorry. June Davidson called early this morning. McDonald tripped his silent alarm last night, which called the police to his house, but it was too late when they arrived. He was dead, and there was a trail of blood out of his basement into the woods. A shotgun by his side had been discharged, so we believe he took a shot at someone, and hit him, before he was taken down. Lab down there’s pulling samples and sending them to us.”
He pulled the car onto Interstate 66 and headed east.
“This doesn’t feel like a serial killer on a spree, does it? Someone is cleaning house. First Doug is killed, which he knew was coming, then everyone who was involved with him in this scheme, peripherally or otherwise, gets taken out,” Sam said.
“You’re probably right. The question is, who’s running the show?”
“Curtis Lott?”
He nodded. “Until we locate the cult, and find Adrian Zamyatin, we’re at a loss there, too. We need to be able to take Curtis Lott into custody and talk to her, find out the true story. See if the girls are still alive. If this is a massive supply chain of babies into a black market, we’re going to be arresting a lot of people.”
“Supply chain.” Sam tapped her fingers on the dashboard. “Anne Carter said Frederick McDonald was in charge of the drug running for the Dixie Mafia. If he knew how to move product from importer to distributor, he might know how to move something more esoteric. Like babies.”
“It’s very possible.”
“Someone will be given immunity to rat out everyone working on this. Baldwin, you can’t let them do that. Everyone involved is culpable here. They all need to be punished.”
“I know, Sam. I know. But our witnesses are being knocked off before we can get to them.”
Sam was quiet for a moment. “Do you think Adrian is going to go after Anne Carter? Or will he be coming for us instead, thinking we’re keeping Kaylie from him?”
He rubbed his hand through his hair, spiking it up, and looked downright miserable. “I honestly don’t know.”
Chapter
53
Washington, D.C.
THERE WERE MEDIA
vans lurking around FBI headquarters. Fletcher wondered what the press knew about Kaylie Rousch and Doug Matcliff, but didn’t let it get in the way. Lisa Schumann had a scoop, and the rest of the D.C. media machine was churning, as well.
Thankfully they all hadn’t been peeping in his windows last night. A female FBI agent spending the night at a D.C. homicide cop’s place? All sorts of misunderstandings might ensue. Then again, this was D.C. What was shocking and inappropriate in some places was de rigueur for this town.
Jordan drove under the building, parked and got Fletcher checked in and into the elevator, but she was clearly lost in thought. When they hit her floor, she crooked a finger and said, “Come on. I have an idea.”
“About what?”
“How to find Eden. And, hopefully, Kaylie Rousch.”
She pulled him into her office, closed the door. “It was in the SIGINT from Matcliff. Something about beginnings and endings circling back.”
“All right. What does that mean to you?”
“I’m not sure. But there was something else. Remember he used the word
Geddon
several times?”
“Yeah. So what’s Geddon?”
“That’s what I want to find out. Maybe it’s a person, not a word.”
She put a red thumb drive into the slot on her computer and booted it up. “We have two networks. One’s public. That’s the green side. One’s secure, totally private, for classified information, interagency stuff. That’s the red side. We’re going in the red side, so don’t try to check your Facebook, okay?”
“Ha-ha. You’re going to see if there’s a mention of Geddon in the files?”
“You’re a smart cookie, Fletch. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
She pulled up a database and typed the name into her search field. The computer cooked for a second, then started spitting out a list of files. Jordan leaned in closer to the screen, touched the tip of her finger to the list.
“Oh, wow. Bingo,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Geddon is a holding company owned by...come on, you guess.”
“I have no idea.”
“Oh, Fletch. You’re no fun. Arthur Scarron’s family trust.”
“Ah. So what does it do?”
“Manages all the properties the Scarron family owns.”
So that’s why Scarron was named in Matcliff’s will.
“Okay, now let me guess. The property holdings match the places where girls went missing?”
“Exactamundo. And there’s a nice little parcel of land out in Great Falls. Matches the latitude and longitude of the mark on the map Kaylie Rousch left for us.”
Thurber knocked on her door and came in, looking exhausted. “You eat? Someone left some pizza in the conference room.”
“I never say no to cold pizza. First, though, I’ve got something. And don’t get pissed, but I filled Fletcher in on the other girls. He couldn’t operate without that knowledge. I made a judgment call.”
Rob narrowed his eyes at her. “We’ll discuss that later. Show me what you have.”
She laid it all out for him. “It’s early, but this is it. I can feel it. Matcliff did tell us the truth, after all. Everything matches, including the site in Great Falls. Rachel Stevens must be out there. And the rest of Eden, too.”
Thurber made her show him each step, then nodded and cracked what would be called a smile if he had the energy to make it meet his eyes.
“Hell of a catch, Jordan. I’ll take it to the brass, see if we can’t add this to the warrant. It might speed things up. When we saw Kaylie Rousch’s tip, we went ahead and mapped the property. It’s a good fit for the type of land Eden liked to settle. Unplugged and out of the way.”
“That’s good. When do we go in?” Fletcher asked.
“Soon as the paperwork’s ready. Everyone is gearing up. We reconvene in thirty. Good work, Jordan. You too, Detective. Go get some coffee, or that leftover pizza, clear your brains.”
“Will do.”
Thurber left and Jordan gave Fletcher a dazzling smile. “That went better than I expected. We’ve got her. I know Rachel’s out there. We’re going to find her, and she’s going to be okay. I can just feel it. Let’s go take a look at the maps in the conference room. I’m sure there’s something there with specifics so we can start thinking about where on the property they might be holding her.”
They walked down to the empty conference room and started combing the maps staked to the corkboards.
The FBI had been busy since Fletcher had left the night before. Thurber hadn’t been kidding when he said they were moving on the Rousch girl’s tip.
Some of the maps he could interpret himself. Others had shapes he didn’t recognize.
Jordan was standing in front of a green-tinged aerial shot with small gray markings on it. “Oh, look at this. They are patrolling the borders of the land.” She used a white grease pencil to sketch out a perimeter for his eyes to follow.
His mind made sense of things. “The gray blobs are people?”
“Yep.”
Fletcher cracked open a Diet Coke and handed it to Jordan. She set down the pencil, took the chilly can absently with her left hand. She grabbed a slice of cold pepperoni pizza with her right.
“See this, right here?” She used the can to point to a spot on the map. Her mouth was full, the words a bit garbled, but he got the gist.
She swallowed. “I think this is our entry point. The satellite imagery shows no guards in this area for the past several hours. We have a shot if we move quickly. We can come in overland, through the woods, get a surrender and retrieve the girl.”
“You mean you and I can slip in the back while the rest are engaged up front?”
“That’s right.” She took a sip of soda. “We’ll be able to go straight to the house through the field. They’re not going to be watching the back when all the attention is on their front gate.”
“Don’t underestimate Curtis Lott. I think this woman will have that house guarded six ways to Sunday. I can’t imagine we’re going to have a shot at getting close without taking a few of her people out.”
“We’ll coordinate with our hostage rescue team. HRT will throw some flash bangs in there, gas them, knock them out. Then we’ll be safe to take Rachel.”
“What about the rest of the cult?”
“They’re down and get arrested. After we get the girl, the rest isn’t my problem.”
She set the can down and turned toward him. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re crazy. But I like it. Here.”
She had a crumb on her lip. He brushed it off with the pad of his thumb. She didn’t move. Her eyes were locked on his, and he realized he had the most insane urge to kiss her.
She knew it, too. She smiled when he furrowed his brow and dropped his gaze.
“I won’t hit you if you kiss me, you know.”
His head shot up. “What?”
“You heard me,” she said, then leaned in and touched his lips with hers.
A shock of desire flooded his body, and without thinking he gathered her in his arms and deepened the kiss. She fit against him well, and her arms immediately snaked around his neck so they were pressed together, every exquisite inch from knees to lips. She was strong and soft and smelled like lilacs.
One of her hands dropped to his hip and he realized he was getting dizzy. They shouldn’t be doing this. Someone might walk in.
Don’t think, Fletch. Just go with it.
Her back was long and smooth and he ached to feel her skin. Carefully, he pulled her shirt out of her pants so he could run his knuckles along her rib cage. She sighed and relaxed into him, accepting, allowing, and he had to stop himself from bending her backward over the conference table, stripping off her pants and forgetting everything for a while.
Breath coming in short gasps, he said, “No chance you locked that door, did you?”
She laughed quietly. Her hands went to the front of his shirt. She laid her palms on his flat stomach. “Where’s the fun in that?”
He kissed her again, ran his hands down her back and around to the front. “Why the hell do you wear pants all the time?”
“Because I wanted to see how long it would take for you to try to get into them.”
That was it. He was lost. “I think I have a crush on you, Special Agent Jordan Blake.”
They heard noises in the hall and broke apart, giggling like schoolkids.
He’d pulled her hair out of its ponytail holder. It was mussed around her face, and her cheeks were flushed. Very fetching. He watched her search for the small rubber band, and it was all he could do not to walk over to her, unbutton her shirt and take things further.
“You are thinking dirty thoughts,” she said, smiling. She looked down, around her feet. “Where the hell is that thing?”
He also glanced down, trying to remember. He’d pulled it out of her hair and tossed it...to the right. He followed the remembered trajectory and spotted it on an empty chair. He handed it to her sheepishly and she kissed him again, quick and hard.
“That was fun. We should do it again sometime,” she said.
“I have the next five minutes free.”
She laughed, a throaty sound that got him going all over again, but they heard voices, coming closer this time, and quick, heavy footsteps. Jordan was suddenly in motion, tucking and straightening. By the time Thurber walked in, they were calmly eating cold pizza and sipping on their flat Diet Cokes, and Jordan was pointing at the map again.
God, he was in so far over his head.
Thurber tossed a sheet of paper at them. “We got the warrant. HRT is already suited up. They’ll meet us out there. We need to stake out the land. We roll in fifteen. Be ready. You hit the spot?”
Fletcher looked down so Jordan wouldn’t catch his eye and start laughing and blow this whole thing.
“Yeah, I’ve got it,” she said. “There’s a tunnel on the easement to the property we should be able to sneak through. They might have guards on the other side, but as of the last satellite pass, it was devoid of living beings. If they are there, we can take them out without a problem. Then it’s a clear shot into the farmhouse.”
“Good. Suit up and get downstairs. Get Detective Fletcher a vest, too.”
“Are you inviting me along?”
Thurber’s face was like granite. “You worked this case, didn’t you? Yeah, you’re in. Now get your shit together and let’s roll. Brass is putting together the ROE right now.”
He stalked out of the room.
“ROE?” Fletcher asked.
“Rules of engagement. How we approach, what the shooters are allow to do. Self-defense, shoot to kill, whatever they decree is what we all have to stick to.”
“They’ll try negotiating first, right?”
“Absolutely. Which is why you and I are going to get out there and find Rachel Stevens. You trained for SWAT by any chance?”
“Yeah, but it’s been a few years.”
“Our HRTs are built on a similar premise. They’re badasses. They deploy all over the world at a moment’s notice to save our citizens. They’re the best at what they do. We’ll follow their lead.”
“We need to call Sam and Baldwin.”
She had her phone out already. “On it.”
She’d slipped back into straitlaced FBI agent mode. Not that he blamed her. But he was definitely interested to see where this might lead. He hadn’t been all that perturbed when Andi told him she was lighting out for New York and they could play things by ear. He realized if Jordan said the same thing, he’d be pretty pissed.
Interesting.
He listened to her talking to Baldwin and Sam, liked the sound of her voice when she got all bossy—a lot. Shook his head and grinned to himself.
Fletcher, you are such an idiot.