The video went dark.
It came alive again, the time now 9:47 PM.
“This is where the girls will be when they wake up.” The girls were lying motionless in a sturdy reinforced plywood box, side-by-side, their arms and feet no longer bound.
“What’s that box, maybe two feet high, four across, and six feet long?” Mac asked quietly.
“Looks about right,” Burton answered softly.
The camera zoomed, showing what looked like a Dictaphone and a flashlight lying between the girls.
“You’ll note the absence of food and water,” the voice said, as if reading everyone’s mind.
“Ah shit,” Rock uttered quietly.
“Mother fuckers,” Mac muttered, knowing where this was going.
The camera pulled back to show the box lying in a large hole, four to five feet deep. Portable lights provided just enough illumination to film, but not enough to identify the location. The video showed the arms of two men laying a piece of reinforced plywood over the box, then using electric screwdrivers to set it in place. There was no hole in the top for ventilation.
“How are they going to breathe?” Rock asked.
“The PVC piping,” Mac answered as he pointed to the lower right side of the screen. “If you look, there are holes on the right side of the box.”
The video went dark.
It came back to life, five minutes later, now 10:01 PM.
As Mac had suggested, one of the men was securing the PVC piping to the right side of the wood box. The camera pulled straight back to show that the pipes were four to five feet long, and would probably stick just above ground once the dirt was shoveled back into the hole. The voice came back, briefly.
“The girls have two pipes for air to breathe.”
The video once again went dark.
Ten seconds later, it came back to life, 10:27 PM.
The last of the dirt was being shoveled into the hole. The pipe stood inches above the ground. The camera pulled back to show that the area was a small clearing in the midst of thick woods. Logic dictated it couldn’t be far from the edge of the tree line, but there was no way to tell. The voice came back one last time.
“Mr. Hisle, I bet you’re wondering about your daughter’s diabetes. That type 1 is nasty stuff. Your daughter will just have to hang on. So if you and the chief want the girls back alive, you follow our next set of instructions to the letter.”
The video went dead.
The room was silent for a minute.
“Mother fuckers,” Rock railed, pounding the table, rattling the laptop, coffee cups, and water bottles. He wasn’t alone — several officers found something to hit, or at least some space to pace, to try to regain their composure. But Mac, Riles, and Burton stood still, deep in thought. Burton had his arms crossed, stroking his chin with his right hand. Mac grabbed a notepad and scribbled his thoughts down, working the gum in his mouth hard. Riles took a look over Mac’s shoulder and nodded.
“We gotta… gotta… find these guys,” Lich ground out, running his hand over his bald head. “We don’t have much time.”
“We need to go over this video with a fine tooth comb, find anything and everything,” Mac said. “I know a guy. We need to get this to…”
“We’ve got that covered,” Burton interrupted. “This is the FBI’s bailiwick. Technology is our deal.”
“Yeah, but wait a minute…” Mac persisted. “I know a guy…”
Burton steam rolled him and took control of the room.
“Duffy,” he said, pointing to the laptop, “let’s get our video people on this, every second of that video. I want them going over it, picking it apart, find something that we can use.”
“I’ll make it happen,” Duffy answered.
“Wait,” Mac pleaded, but Riley grabbed his elbow.
“Keep your powder dry for now and let Burton do this thing,” Riles whispered into his ear, “this is the FBI’s show. Let them play it out.” Riley gave him a look that recommended patience.
“We don’t have the luxury of time,” Mac retorted under his breath.
“See what Burton does,” Riley replied, equally quiet. “Let’s see if he’s as good as they say he is.”
“And thinks he is,” Mac replied, with just a touch of skepticism, Riley returned a knowing smirk. “I like the guy,” Mac added in a whisper, “but I only see him reacting to events. We need to push this thing.”
“We need to stay at the table. The mayor’s here for a reason. He’s just waiting for us to fall out of line.”
“What about that pipe for air from the…” Lich asked the room, struggling for what to call it.
“Grave. It’s a fucking grave,” Mac said, finishing the thought out loud, drawing looks from the room. “And that’s how they want us, the chief, Lyman, all of us to think of it. If we don’t find these guys, that’s where those girls will die.”
“They’re not going to die,” Burton replied with fervor. “We’re going to find them.”
“How?” Rock asked.
“First,” Burton answered, “We’re going over that videotape. If there is something there, we’ll find it. Something in the van, an identifying characteristic or mark on one of the kidnappers, I’ll bet that there’s something there. The road and land they’re on, we need to see if there’s any identifying landmarks or features on it. We just have to break it down and look.”
Mac joined in.
“We need to, at a minimum, get this out to local sheriffs and chiefs within an hour of the cities. The girls are buried somewhere rural, but they can’t be that far from town. They need to be somewhat close, so maybe, just maybe, some county mountie will recognize something.”
“Why don’t you think they’re farther away?” Riles asked.
“They want isolation for sure, they need to have it to bury the girls and not draw any attention with those lights. That takes time and privacy. But they can’t be working two or three hours away. That’s not convenient enough. They’d want to stay close,” Mac shook his head. “They’re not up in Brainerd and then driving two, three hours down here to plant laptop computers under football bleachers. They’re centered somewhere around here and then driving from the Twin Cities, or somewhere nearby, up to Clearwater or down to Ellsworth. They’re not that far away.”
“McRyan, the last phone call was from Duluth,” Duffy noted. “They made it from a city park. They could be prowling around up there. That creates an awfully wide net.”
“Fine then. Let’s send the thing out to the whole state as well as western Wisconsin,” Mac said. “But I doubt they have the girls up in Duluth or any place that far from the Twin Cities. They’re in closer somewhere.”
“Then why go to Duluth?” Duffy pressed.
“Because now they’re not on as tight of a timeline. They’re not calling us until 6:00 PM tomorrow night. So they have time to go a little farther away, gain that extra layer of safety. And at the same time, they get the chance to make us think they’re that far away. They want us expending resources casting that wide of a net, spreading ourselves that thin. But I just don’t think they’re that far away. They’re closer than that. They have to be.”
“Still an awfully big area… essentially the fifteen-county area,” Lich said, looking at the map pinned to the bulletin board. “And we don’t know this for sure.”
“No, we don’t,” Mac replied. “But it feels right, makes sense, and gives us something to work with, a lot of eyes to give us a look. Who knows? Maybe some sheriff’s deputy, forest ranger, or cop gets a look at that video and says, ‘hey six years ago I responded to an emergency call down that road.’”
“I don’t know,” Duffy said, with apprehension in his voice. “What if this thing leaks? I mean, this is pretty unsettling video. It’ll create a media firestorm if it gets out. I’d rather control this.” Mac got the feeling that FBI control of the investigation was of more concern to him than the girls or the kidnappers.
“Agreed,” the mayor added.
“Are you two fucking kidding me?” Mac growled. “Media firestorm’s worth it if someone finds that spot.”