24 Hours

by Greg Iles

  Will’s heart surged. “Do you think he would?”

  “He’s a good man. We’re probably looking at an hour or more to get him and his equipment on site, but that beats the Tunica crew by a long shot.”

  “Does the FBI have the equipment you need?”

  “I wish I could tell you they did, because I want you to call them. But the fact is, when the Bureau needs cell phones traced in Mississippi, they call us.”

  “Damn it.” Will tried to think logically, but fatigue was starting to take its toll. “You’d better call that engineer.”

  “Doctor,” Ferris said in a compassionate voice, “You realize that we may not be able to trace this phone in time, even with a vehicle down there? If the calls don’t run any longer than fifteen seconds, it’s a crapshoot.”

  “We’ve got to try. It’s our only option. You’ve got to trust me on that. My daughter’s life depends on secrecy.”

  He gave Ferris the numbers of his answering service, the direct SkyTel line, and Cheryl’s cell phone. “I should be here,” he said, “but there’s no telling what could happen before morning. Call me as soon as you know anything.”

  “I will,” Ferris promised. “I hope God’s paying attention tonight.”

  As Will hung up, he felt Cheryl’s hand on his arm. Despite what he’d done to her earlier, she was watching him with empathy.

  “Do you think Huey would really kill Abby?” he asked.

  She bit her lip. “It’s hard for me to imagine it. But if Joey pushed him hard enough . . . he might. He can’t take pressure, you know? He sort of flips out, like Dustin Hoffman in the bathtub in Rain Man.”

  Will felt an enormous weight descend on his shoulders. If Ferris’s people traced Huey’s phone, they would have to be very careful about their next move. If they responded inappropriately, Abby could die simply because a mentally handicapped man lost control of himself for a few seconds.

  “How are we supposed to get her back?” he asked. “I mean, what did Joey tell you? After you and I pick up the ransom from the bank, what are you supposed to do?”

  Cheryl hesitated, still fighting some internal battle. “I call Joey,” she said finally. “Then we meet at the motel in Brookhaven.”

  “You’re supposed to bring me along?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you always brought the husband?”

  She hesitated again.

  “Cheryl—”

  “No. This is the first time.”

  Will shook his head. “I told you this time is different. Joe thinks I killed his mother, and he wants to kill Karen and Abby in front of me.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Yes, it is. Only I can’t believe he’d put himself, Abby, and the money in one place. If he does, he’s vulnerable. He has to assume that I could torture the name of the motel out of you, which means the FBI could come down on that place like the wrath of God.”

  “It’s the truth,” she insisted. “The Trucker’s Rest Motel, in Brookhaven.”

  “That may be what he told you. But that’s not how it’s supposed to go down. I’ve got to know where Abby is. You must know something more, Cheryl. Think.”

  She shook her head in exhaustion. “I think you should just pay Joey the money. That’s the way to get your kid back. That’s the way the others guys did it.”

  “I’m not the other guys.” He picked up her Coke can and downed what was left for the caffeine. “I’m down for special treatment.”

  “I thought you didn’t like gambling. Betting against Joey is like betting against the house.”

  Not with you up my sleeve, he thought. But he said, “It’s that kind of thinking that keeps you where you are, Cheryl.” He turned and arced the Coke can into the wastebasket from fifteen feet. “When everything’s on the line, you’ve got to go for it.”

  Karen downloaded Will’s e-mail at 4:25 A.M. Getting into the study to check it wasn’t difficult, because Hickey had finally passed out on the bed. The combination of Wild Turkey and the étouffée omelet had proved too much for him.

  She stared at the message, trying to read between the lines. The first part was clear enough. Will had received her message and understood its meaning. He promised that Abby would make it and told Karen to trust him. But the next line stumped her. Do you believe the condor is an endangered species? It had to be some kind of code. Will had been worried that Hickey might see the message, so he had used something only she would understand. Or that he thought she would understand. Did “endangered species” refer to Abby? And what did a “condor” have to do with anything? A condor was a type of bird. A large bird. Could Will be referring to his airplane?

  “Condor,” she said softly. “Condor . . . condor.”

  And then she had it.

  “Oh my God,” she said, and a smile came to her face. “Condor” was Robert Redford’s code name in the film The Three Days of the Condor. And the line “Do you believe the condor is an endangered species?” had been spoken over the phone by Redford to Max von Sydow, who played the assassin in the movie. But the significance for Karen was that the line marked the turning point in the film, when Redford turned the tables on the men trying to find and kill him. That was Will’s message. He had somehow turned the tables on Hickey.

  But how? What action could he have taken? Had he called the police? No. Not unless he had a way to keep Hickey thinking everything was still running according to plan. Tracing Huey’s phone seemed the most likely option, since Will had mentioned it before. But without Abby keeping the line open, how could it be traced? Maybe he’d gotten some information from Hickey’s wife. But why should she tell him anything? Had he threatened her? Bribed her? There was no way to know. She would have to do exactly what Will had told her to do. Trust him.

  She hit DELETE and watched the message vanish, then looked at the clock on the study wall. She was going to have to wake Hickey to make his next check-in call. She didn’t want to do it. Letting him sleep was clearly the best strategy for her own safety. But if he failed to make even one call, Abby could die. And if Will did have someone trying to trace Huey’s cell phone, the man would have to actually switch the thing on and use it before he could be found.

  Karen stood and began the long walk back to the bedroom.

  Fifteen miles south of the Jennings house, Dr. James McDill and his wife sat on a leather couch in the office of the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Jackson field office of the FBI. His name was Frank Zwick, and McDill figured him for ex-Army, probably Intelligence or CID. A short, fit man in his late forties, Zwick spoke with the clipped cadence McDill remembered from certain officers in Vietnam. The SAC had been on and off the phone for the past half hour, talking to bank presidents, helicopter pilots, other SACs, and miscellaneous officials, constantly smoothing his too-black hair as he talked.

  McDill’s identification of Cheryl Lynn Tilly at the Jackson police station had precipitated a storm of FBI activity. After Agent Chalmers phoned Zwick, the SAC had summoned the McDills back to the Federal Building along with eight field agents. Now they all stood or sat around his spacious office, listening to Zwick arrange the logistics of his campaign over the phone. McDill could only hear one side of the conversations, but he didn’t like the way the plan was shaping up. Suddenly, the phone clattered into its cradle and Zwick began addressing them.

  “Here’s where we stand. One: the ransom. Every bank within thirty miles of Biloxi is set to report incoming wire transfers greater than twenty-five thousand dollars to this office. Two: tactical capability. We don’t have time to bring in a hostage rescue team from Quantico, so we’ll use our own special weapons team. Some of you are on it, and I know you’re more than capable of handling this operation. We’re also coordinating a weapons team out of the New Orleans field office, for anything required on the Gulf Coast. We’ve got more than enough surveillance gear on site here, and we’ll have twenty agents in this office by seven a.m., ready for action. We’ll have twenty more out of N
ew Orleans for surveillance duty in Biloxi. Three: air support. We’ll have choppers both here and in Biloxi, ready for aerial surveillance and/or pursuit and assault.” Zwick made a steeple of his fingers and looked each of his agents in the eye. “Questions?”

  No one had any. Or no one wanted to voice what might be viewed as dissent by his SAC. McDill had several questions, but just as he was about to voice one, Agent Chalmers said, “Sir? I wonder if we’re not jumping the gun a little on this.”

  “How do you mean?” Zwick asked, looking none too pleased by the question.

  “Dr. McDill identified Cheryl Lynn Tilly from the JPD mug books. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the crime she took part in last year is actually being repeated this year. Does it?”

  Zwick gave them a self-satisfied smile. He clearly knew something they didn’t, and he could scarcely contain his excitement. “Gentlemen, ten minutes ago, our resident agent in Gulfport showed a faxed photo of Cheryl Lynn Tilly to a bellboy in the Beau Rivage Hotel. That bellboy is positive he saw Tilly in the hotel yesterday afternoon.”

  Every mouth in the room fell open.

  “To quote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—through the immortal voice of Sherlock Holmes—the game is afoot.”

  In that moment McDill had a premonition of disaster. It wasn’t the quote itself. It was more the way Zwick had voiced it. And the context. At the core of all this frantic activity was a kidnapped child. A child who could die at any moment. And that took the situation about as far from a game as you could get.

  “Our R.A. and that bellboy are reviewing the casino’s security tapes as we speak,” Zwick went on. “If they spot her, they’ll do a video capture and e-mail it up here for Dr. McDill to look at. Until then, we have to assume that McDill is right. There is a kidnapping-for-ransom taking place. The same crime has been executed five times previously by the same group, and probably within this jurisdiction.” Zwick laid his hands flat on the table. “Gentlemen, by tomorrow noon, those sons of bitches are going to be behind bars.”

  McDill held up his hand.

  “Yes, Doctor?”

  He tried to choose his words carefully. “Sir, after hearing all these preparations, I’m starting to wonder if the central fact of all this is being given the priority it should.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The kidnapped child. The hostage, as you call him. Or her. Somewhere not too far from here—if things are going as they did last year—a child is being held prisoner by a semiretarded man. That man is under instructions to kill the child if he doesn’t get a check-in call from the leader of his group every half hour. Given that, it’s difficult to see what you can accomplish with all this technology. Anything that alerts the leader to your presence could instantly result in the death of the child.”

  Zwick gave McDill a patronizing smile. “Are you suggesting we do nothing at all, Doctor?”

  “No. I’m simply speaking for those who can’t speak. Right this minute, a father a lot like me is probably sitting in a room in the Beau Rivage, sweating bullets over his child. He wants to pick up the phone and call you, but he knows he can’t. And he won’t. For good reason. I hope you can put yourself in that man’s place long enough to convince you to act with prudence.”

  Zwicles smile faded. “Doctor, I fully understand the complexities of this operation. But I wonder if you do. Had you and your wife reported the kidnapping of your son last year, that father you’re talking about wouldn’t be sweating bullets in that hotel right now. And the man behind this kidnapping would be rotting in federal prison.”

  Zwick looked as though he expected fireworks in response to this statement, but McDill simply sighed. “You may be right,” he conceded. “But my son is alive today, and I can live with my decision. I hope that by this time tomorrow, you can say the same about yours.”

  The SAC’s face went red, but before he could vent his anger, Agent Chalmers stood and said, “Doctor, why don’t you come get some coffee with me?”

  McDill took his wife’s hand and rose from the sofa, but he didn’t look away from Zwick as he walked to the door. He had looked away from too many officers in Vietnam, walked out of too many meetings without speaking his mind. At least tonight he would not have to feel the sickening regret he had felt then.

  As he passed through the door, a chorus of voices broke into a spirited discussion of tactics and equipment. He squeezed Margaret’s hand, but it was not his wife who filled his thoughts. It was that father trapped in the Beau Rivage. McDill had never laid eyes on him, but he knew that man better than he knew his own brother.

  By 5:56 A.M., Will was close to cracking. A steady diet of hot tea and Coke had his hands shaking like a strung-out addict’s, and his overtaxed mind was running in circles, like a greyhound chasing a fake rabbit. His efforts to locate Abby by tracing Huey’s cell phone had come to nothing. Hickey’s 5:00 check-in call had told Harley Ferris nothing new, because Ferris’s retired engineer had not been close enough to Hazlehurst to do any good. But when 5:30 ticked around, Will had his hopes up. Only the five-thirty call never came.

  He waited for ten minutes, but after that he could stand no more. For all he knew, Karen had somehow provoked Hickey into killing her. An acid lump clogged his throat as he dialed home. But when the phone was picked up, it was Karen’s voice, not Hickey’s, on the other end of the line.

  The second she heard Will’s voice, she began to sob. He was certain something must have happened to Abby, but Karen explained that her tears were simply a reaction to the stress. Hickey had missed the last check-in call because he’d passed out drunk in their bed.

  “I woke him up for the five o’clock call,” she said. “He told Huey he wouldn’t be calling back for another hour at least. He said he had to sleep.”

  Hickey hadn’t bothered to inform Cheryl of this change of plan. “What are you doing to help Abby?” Karen asked.

  “I got Ferris. We’re trying to trace Huey’s phone. But if Hickey isn’t calling him, we can’t trace it.”

  “Maybe I should wake him up and tell him I have to talk to Abby.”

  “Do you think he’d let you?”

  “Probably not. But what choice do we have?”

  “Cheryl is helping us now. To a certain extent, anyway. I’ll explain why later. But tell me why you think Hickey is planning to kill Abby.”

  “He thinks you killed his mother.”

  “That’s what I got from Cheryl. Okay . . . I guess you’d better try to wake Hickey up.”

  There was a strange silence. Then Karen said, “Will, he tried to rape me.”

  A burning heat swept over Will’s face, and the migraine that had receded after the torture session stabbed him behind the eyes.

  “What happened?”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” she said. “I cut him with a scalpel, and it stopped him. For the time being, anyway. But . . . I don’t know what might happen before we leave the house. Will, if it comes to a choice between enduring that and Abby dying, I can force myself to live with it. But can you?”

  He sat in the hissing silence, feeling more hatred for one human being than he had ever dreamed possible. If he came face-to-face with Hickey, he would kill the man without hesitation. But that wouldn’t help Karen now.

  “Karen . . . I know things haven’t been what they used to be for us. I’m not sure why. I know it has to do with your leaving medical school.”

  “Oh God,” she said in a hysterical voice. “At this point that sounds so petty and ridiculous. But you’re right. And all I care about in this moment is getting my baby back.”

  “We’re going to get her back. I swear that to you. And whatever choices you have to make to stay alive, or to keep Abby alive, I can live with. Nothing you could ever do would change the fact that I love you. Nothing. I just hope you can forgive me for letting this happen.”

  Her reply was too choked for him to understand, but he thought he heard “... not your fault” in there.

  �
�Let Hickey sleep until six,” he said, not wanting her anywhere close to the man now. “But if he hasn’t made another call by then, you’ll have to get him up and on the phone to Huey. Throw a fit. Tell him you won’t wire the money unless you have proof that Abby’s okay.”

  “I will.”

  They sat in silence for another few moments; then Karen whispered good-bye and clicked off.

  When five-thirty rolled around, the phone didn’t ring.

  Now it was six, and still the telephone was silent. Had Karen tried to wake Hickey? Was she trying now? Or had she succeeded, only to find herself having to submit to him to keep Abby alive?

  The black sky over the gulf had changed imperceptibly to indigo. Dawn would soon break over the shrimp boats and the deep-sea fishermen heading out past the barrier islands. Will could almost see the Western hemisphere whirling eastward into the sun, like some cutting-edge CNN commercial filmed by Stanley Kubrick. Only Kubrick was dead now. And if Hickey didn’t start making his check-in calls again, Abby might soon be, too.

  The ringing telephone stopped his breath in his throat. He darted over to the sofa and prodded Cheryl, who was snoring softly. She rubbed her eyes, picked up the phone, then nodded to indicate that it was Hickey on the phone. She said her usual “Everything’s cool,” then signed off. Her eyes had the dull sheen of sleep deprivation. Will looked back at her without speaking, and in a few seconds her eyes closed.

  Two minutes later, the phone rang again.

  Like an automaton, Cheryl stirred and started to answer, but Will grabbed the receiver first. “Hello?”

  “Harley Ferris, Will.”

  “What have you got?”

  “The Hazlehurst target switched on his cell phone just before six. The subject in your house made a landline call that went through the Hazlehurst tower just after six. The call lasted sixteen seconds, and the trace target switched off his phone immediately after the call.”