Golden looked at the screen. “Forten was given up for adoption when he was born. No record of birth mother. He bounced around from foster home to youth facility for his entire childhood. The longest he stayed in one place was two years.”
“So he had a crappy childhood.”
“Instability in early family is one of the indicators,” Golden said. She looked up at Gant. “Are you going to listen or are you going to critique me?”
“Go on.”
“He was removed from one of his foster homes when he was eight amidst allegations of abuse by the woman who was responsible for him — his surrogate mother. She was arrested two years later on charges of abusing another child. I checked on her — she’s currently in prison for armed robbery.”
Gant opened his mouth to say something, but he could see that Golden was anticipating him. “Yes. Bad mothers make bad sons. Men act out, women act in.”
Gant frowned and Golden explained.
“It’s easy to say that society places more binds on a female’s ability to act out, or is it that she’s simply too weak to become a predator? But what if women do become predators? What if women routinely act out their years of abuse by also becoming sexual sadists?”
Gant wasn’t following, but she kept on going.
“Maybe these women simply become mothers or surrogate mothers. Now they don’t have to worry about society and they are no longer the weak ones. Men go out into the world and wreak havoc, women turn inward toward their family and do the same. Here lies the difference in a fucked up adult and a murdering predator. The former has a terrible childhood indeed, but the latter has a sexual sadist for a mother. The sadist mother literally invents the abuse that the son later reinvents for his own needs. That reinvention is what I look for. It is the source.”
“You’re blaming mothers?” Gant was incredulous. “You’re saying this woman did something that’s caused Forten to act like this?”
“I’m saying that the odds are very high that a sadist who kills had a sadist for a mother. That is something my research has proven. So. Yes. Men focus their impulses outward: they kill strangers. Notice there are no serial killers who follow in their father’s shoes. They would never be satisfied torturing their own children forever. They would have the strength and the means to inflict their insanity on the populace. Women, as I’ve said tend to abuse themselves and their children. But hey, it’s just a theory. But I did come up with one of the names.”
One out of sixteen, Gant thought but did not say. “We know who they are, but that doesn’t help us much. What we have to figure out is what their next step is. We’ve been reacting. To get these guys we’re going to have to act.”
“To get Emily, right?”
Gant glanced over to the window, looking out at the darkness. “Emily is alive. There’s got to be a reason why they’re keeping her alive. And before this is over, they’re going to give us an idea where she is.” Gant moved behind Golden. “Let me see their files.”
Golden brought them up, one by one, and Gant scanned them. When all three were done Gant had a good idea of all three men’s military backgrounds and training. “All right. Here’s what we’re facing. Forten is the sniper and the leader. Senior man rank wise. You know about SOTI training right?”
Golden nodded. “Special Operations Target Interdiction training. A nice way of saying sniper training. I revamped their screening program.”
“A screening Forten obviously got through,” Gant said.
“Yes. Four years before I got here. There was a reason I revamped it.”
Give her a point, Gant thought. “SOTI is sort of a fancy way of saying sniper school, but there is as much emphasis in that school on shooting things as well as people.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You take a fifty caliber sniper rifle and shoot out a critical component in a microwave relay tower or in the engine of a jet fighter, you cripple that entire system. So we need to keep that in mind, although it’s most likely Forten will be shooting people.” Gant scanned down the man’s list of training. “OK. Besides being a trained sniper, Forten has a couple of other special skills. He was trained as a tracker in Borneo.”
“’Borneo’?”
“A big part of Special Forces training is joint training in other countries. Forten went over there and went through their tracking school, taught by ex-headhunters. So he’s an expert at following and finding people. He’s also a Special Forces medic. Which means he can perform minor surgery. Also knows pills and drugs.”
“Like what shot to give a girl to knock her out.”
“Right. Payne was the spotter for Forten. They worked together for two years. Recorded several kills in Afghanistan. Payne is a weapons man. Means he’s an expert on all sorts of guns. He also is a trained scout swimmer so he can operate in the water.
“Lutz was a demo guy. So that’s not good. We haven’t seen anything with his signature yet, but we need to keep that in mind. He can booby-trap things, blow things up, do all sort of nasty stuff.”
“Lucky us,” Golden said.
Gant stood up. “Let’s go talk to Sam. See if we can jog his memory.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Golden followed Gant out of the building. She knew he thought her theories were bullshit and her contributions so far of little value. It was a reaction she had run into many times before, both at the FBI and here at Bragg when she worked for SOCOM. She had little time to reflect on this latest issue because Gant pulled open the door to the car parked in front of a garish statue of a soldier. Gant brusquely gestured for Cranston get out. The three of them stood in the parking lot, their faces almost in shadow from the parking lot lights, with the statue looming over them as if in silent judgment. Golden decided Gant had jumped her one too many times about Sam, so she decided to remain silent and let him take the lead.
Gant snapped out the names. “Sergeant Joseph Lutz. Staff Sergeant Michael Payne. Sergeant First Class Lewis Forten.”
Despite the poor light, Golden could see Sam’s face go white. “They’re dead.”
Gant jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “That’s what it says on the plaque over there and in their service records. Like you said, died in a helicopter crash. Except they didn’t, did they?”
“They’re dead,” Cranston repeated, as if by saying it again he could make it so.
“No, they’re not. They have your daughter.”
Subtle, Golden thought as Cranston stepped back as if punched. He leaned against the side of his car. She resisted the impulse to reach out and comfort him. Gant was right about one thing: Time was of the essence. Even as she thought that, she realized he was right about something else: Sam had been holding something back. She’d sat with too many patients when she was practicing early in her career who with-held information during therapy not to recognize it now. She realized her judgment had indeed been clouded by her sympathy for Sam when they first went to his house.
“Not only do they have your daughter,” Gant pressed on, “they’ve already killed three other girls. They slashed one girl’s throat while she was working at a daycare center, right in front of the kids. The pilot’s fiancée. Her name was Kathy Svoboda. And she was pregnant. So technically they’ve notched four kills.”
Golden was startled by that last piece of information. She had not read through the autopsy.
Gant continued. “They drowned another girl in a foot of water. Jim Roberts of the CIA — his daughter, Caleigh. Eighteen years old. And they chained Michael Caulkins’ daughter Tracy to a tree and let her starve to death. Cached her, just like they’ve cached your daughter. Coroner estimates she lasted almost three weeks there, slowly dehydrating and starving. Tracy got so desperate she tried smashing her own foot with a rock to try to get out of the shackle that held her to the tree. If we’re going to find Emily before she meets the same fate, you need to tell us what happened.”