That’s exactly what Harrington had been asking me to do. But it was different now-in my mind anyway-because the kidnapping gave me a legitimate reason to stay in close contact with Barbara. I had been there when it happened. I was the one who had told the teenager to stay in the car-the worst possible advice, it turned out.
I wanted an active role in tracking the bastards and catching them. When Harrington finally called back, I tried to make that clear.
I said, “I’m more of a hands-on sort of person. We should get together and discuss the next step.” He had confirmed the kidnappers had made contact before returning to the subject of Castro’s files and Senator Hayes-Sorrento.
“More questions?”
“A request, really.”
Harrington said, “I’m all ears.”
“I want an application.”
“A job, you mean. A real job… with us.”
“That’s right.”
“No need to apply. The answer is yes.”
I stopped by a window. The room was on the eighth floor. Snowflakes convexed skyward on a monoxide thermal, car lights eight stories below. “You’re sure you understand what I’m asking-”
“I offered you two research positions. You nixed both. Finally, we’ve found something that meets your high standards. I’m relieved.”
The sarcasm wasn’t imaginary. I was working on my own terms now. I’d told him I would accept only assignments that meshed with my interests as a biologist or that presented an unusual technical challenge. I was a private contractor, in theory, who had yet to accept my first job.
Harrington had offered me missions in Venezuela and Pakistan. I already had enough enemies in South America. For the Pakistan job, I needed at least six weeks to get in the kind of shape the job required.
I had said no to both.
Going after the teenager, though, was a good fit. Because I had a personal interest, I would have requested the job even if hack amateurs had abducted him. But these people weren’t hacks, they were pros-I’d seen their work. If they kept the boy alive, I had a decent chance of doing a reverse snatch-and-bag. The kidnappers would expect law-abiding cops, not someone like me.
I said, “Then I can pursue the matter.” The kidnappers and boy, I meant. “I’m all for it. But gloves on while you’re on the reservation.”
I said, “Of course,” because it’s what I was required to say. “What else do you know?”
“They want four cartons, two labeled j, two labeled S. Why? I don’t know yet.”
The image of a semi came into my mind, the cartons like oversized blocks, filling the trailer. j for jewelry, S for salvage.
“They sound like businessmen, not collectors.”
“Or salesmen. Too early to say.”
“A straight trade?”
“With a deadline. Sunday morning at eight.” I was looking at my watch as he added, “A little more than sixty hours. But that’s their guess, so it could be way off. It depends on the battery.”
I didn’t know what that meant. “Maybe we can humor them, get an extension.”
“Not a chance. They don’t have control over the deadline.”
“You just lost me.”
“I’m thinking of your home state. Do you remember the name Mackle? As in Mackle Brothers? Think back. You’ll understand the deadline.”
Mackle -the name had a distant familiarity.
I said, “They were developers. Maybe still are. Are those the-”
“Yes, the same.”
The Mackle Brothers did Florida megaprojects. Marco Island was one. Port Charlotte was another. Turnkey cities. Big money. I said, “One of the brothers had a daughter who was in the news because-” I caught myself because I remembered now. The Mackle girl had been kidnapped. Her abductors had devised an ingenious way to put responsibility for the girl’s life into the hands of law enforcement.
I said carefully, “She was detained.”
“That’s right.”
“In a… small room.”
“She might as well have been underground.”
I didn’t remember how long the girl had been buried. “Thirty-six hours?”
“Almost four days. With only the basics: a little water, a battery-powered fan. Very motivational.”
I understood now about the deadline. I whispered, “The sonsuvbitches.” “I hope you can pass the message along personally, Doctor.”
Suddenly, my transportation problems were more urgent. I needed to get home. I had weapons there, and other equipment. A commercial flight home wasn’t good enough.
When I told Harrington, he said, “There are some fairly decent outfitters closer to your hotel. Langley, Beltsville. How about Little Creek?”
If I needed weapons, he was telling me, I could choose from the best armories.
I said, “No need. A quick trip to Florida, down and back. Then anyplace else I need to go.”
Harrington knew what I was requesting. He said check back in a hour, he would see what he could do, then added, “But stay focused on your research. You’re working two jobs now-don’t forget.”
He was referring to Barbara and Castro’s files again. What did the woman know?
6
They’ve threatened to bury Will alive,” Barbara told me when I returned to her suite. “We have until eight a.m. on Sunday. They mean it. Our driver was found dead, stuffed into the trunk of the car.”
She’d just gotten the news.
The woman gave me an emotional hug, her eyes clear, not red as I’d expected, but she sounded dazed. “I’m sorry I dragged you in to this, Doc. I’m like poison lately. I hurt everyone I touch.”
The woman thought I was being kind when I replied, “I can empathize. But it’s not true of you.”
An FBI agent and a uniformed NYPD captain were in the operations suite when Barbara led me in. I had interrupted a briefing. Barbara’s staff was seated around the room, heads down. Phones had been muted but message lights pulsed at random on each desk.
There is a airless quality to a room filled with people in shock, a pheromone tension that depletes oxygen and leaches sweat. Small sounds echo. A cough is an occasional mask of the unchecked sob. Airports have a designated room. This room at the Waldorf was too richly lighted for the dark space it had become.
Hooker stood in the back, his expression attentive, not somber-a man accustomed to conflict. He nodded at me, then used his eyes to steer my attention to a computer.
On the screen was a photo of the teenage boy, Will Chaser. His abductors had used a flash. The black background was a garbage bag, possibly in the trunk of a car. His mouth was taped, cheeks inflated, and his brown eyes bulged as if surprised by the sudden light. They’d just removed his blindfold.
It was a close-up, head and shoulders. The pearl buttons of his western shirt matched the boots and cowboy hat I’d seen earlier. So did the untanned line on his forehead where black hair spilled over, thick as a brush. Because the boy’s chin was thrust forward, I guessed his hands were taped behind his back.
Looking at the photo, the image of Bern Heller sparked behind my eyes, then dissipated due to clinical indifference. In the Darwinian paradigm, a self-culling mechanism is requisite.
The image was replaced by the face of Will Chaser, the country boy newly arrived in the big city, all polished and brushed. I’d been amused by his tough guy posturing. “A goat ever kicked your ass, mister?” He’d said that when I’d hollered, “Kid!” Just off the plane, a teen who’d been miniaturized by skyscrapers, atomized by crowds, reduced to a speck, but he still had enough Oklahoma grit on his boots to fire back at a stranger.
No more tough-guy attitude. Not now. Adults go into shock when taped, gagged and blindfolded. This was a small-town boy. In the photo, he looked helpless as an infant.
As I followed Barbara across the room, the police captain, a woman named Tiffany Denzler, frowned her disapproval, saying, “Another outsider, Senator? This briefing was intended to be confidential.”