First to Kill

by Andrew Peterson

The jet’s PA system woke him just after 0530 Central time. “Good morning campers,” Jenkins’s voice announced. “We hope you enjoyed the ride. We’ll be on the ground in twenty minutes. We called ahead for a taxi, should be there by the time we touch down.”

  Nathan looked out the window and saw the faint glow from Kansas City to the east. Directly below, a few scattered lights here and there were the only indicators that something other than an empty black void was down there. Kansas. The heartland of America. Somewhere, amid the endless wheat fields and buffalo ranches, was a giant ball of twine. He’d seen a picture of it, but couldn’t remember where, perhaps a travel magazine in his dentist’s office.

  Jenkins greased the landing, making the smoothest touchdown Nathan had ever felt. The thrust reversers deployed and Jenkins gunned the engine, gently applying the brakes at the same time. At the end of the runway, the jet turned onto the taxiway and rolled back toward the hangars. After the engines had spooled down, First Officer Williamson appeared and opened the fuselage door. He lowered the steps into place. Cool, damp air carrying burned jet fuel greeted them. Nathan liked the smell.

  “There’s our ride,” Williamson offered.

  Nathan looked in the direction of the hangars and saw a taxi approaching. It stopped about a hundred feet away. Its Middle Eastern driver got out, but out of respect or apprehension, didn’t approach the jet.

  Williamson continued. “We need a few minutes to shut down and secure the aircraft.”

  Nathan complimented the first officer on the landing before grabbing his overnight bag from the rear luggage compartment. Henning also retrieved his two carry-ons, an overnight bag and from the look of the other, a laptop. Nathan let Henning take the lead exiting the aircraft. They walked over to the cab and as usual, the driver took a little too long looking at Nathan’s face.

  “We need a motel,” Henning said. He hadn’t said hello, or how are you, or thank you for coming, or offered any other pleasantry. Nathan didn’t think Henning’s abruptness was intentional or purposefully rude, the man just had a lot on his mind. If the cabbie felt slighted, he hid it well.

  “The Days Inn is only a few minutes from here.”

  “That’s fine,” Henning said.

  The driver popped the trunk and Henning placed his two carry-ons inside. Nathan dropped his bag next to Henning’s and stepped to the front passenger’s seat. He wanted the front, which offered considerably more legroom. He looked at the Lear, admiring its sleek form. It had no markings identifying it as an FBI bird, which for some reason surprised him. On the way back to Sacramento, he planned to peek over the crew’s shoulders and ask a few pilot-to-pilot questions. What little he’d seen of the avionics package had impressed him. He wouldn’t mind switching seats with the copilot for a spell if they’d let him.

  At the motel, Nathan gave the cabbie a fifty and told him to keep the change. Everyone retrieved their bags and briefcases from the trunk. Hoping to make up for Henning’s lack of social skills at the airport, Nathan addressed the cabbie in Arabic.

  “Thank you for the ride, my friend.”

  Henning’s head turned quickly at hearing Nathan speak Arabic. Williamson, the copilot, didn’t react at all, which in itself was a reaction.

  The driver’s eyes grew a little. “You speak Arabic.”

  “I do. Please excuse my friend’s abruptness at the airport. We are all very tired.”

  “It is okay. I understand.”

  “Stay safe and go with God.”

  The driver pumped his hand and smiled. “You too, my friend.”

  After the cab pulled away, Henning stepped forward. “What did you just say to him?”

  Nathan shrugged. “I thanked him for the ride and told him we’re all tired.”

  “Well, aren’t you just full of surprises. What’s next, you going to pilot that Lear back to Sacramento?”

  “As a matter of fact…” He looked at Jenkins.

  “Sure, why not? It practically flies itself.”

  “No way,” Henning protested. “That’s not happening, not on my watch. You may be able to shoot a tennis ball at a thousand yards, land a helicopter in a palm tree, perform emergency surgery, find buried treasure, and speak Arabic, but you are not flying that jet back to Sacramento. Not while I’m aboard.”

  Jenkins cleared his throat. “Maybe we should get checked in.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later they were settled into their respective rooms. The first thing Jenkins did was dial his first officer’s room. “Is that really what McBride said to the cabdriver?”

  “Yeah, but he left something out,” Williamson said.

  “What?”

  “He apologized for Henning’s behavior. Apparently Henning hadn’t been real courteous with the driver.”

  “Who is this guy?”

  “Haven’t the slightest.”

  “Think he’s one of us?”

  “I’m betting he’s a spook. CIA or NSA.”

  “How many languages do you speak?”

  “Including English, five.”

  “Think I should I let him into the cockpit?” Jenkins asked.

  “If you asking me if he’s dangerous, I’d have to say no.”

  “Think he bought our act?”

  “Not for a second.”

  “Well, until Lansing changes his mind, we stick to the plan and fly him wherever he wants to go.”

  * * *

  Nathan considered calling Harv but decided against it. It was almost three in the morning in Sacramento. He set his overnight bag on the small table next to the bed. In the bathroom, he washed his face, brushed his teeth, and plugged in his phone. He stripped down to his underwear, pulled the sheets off the bed, and made a makeshift bunk on the floor. He set the alarm clock for 0700, an hour away. Staring at the ceiling, he rehearsed the questions he planned for the Castle’s shrink, hoping this little jaunt would be worthwhile. His mind moved to the pilots. When he’d spoken Arabic to the cabbie, Nathan had been certain First Officer Williamson understood every word. He’d seen it in his eyes, an unmistakable twinkle of recognition. What were the odds that one of the pilots assigned to ferry him around spoke Arabic? It seemed Lansing’s trust had limitations.

  Too tired to worry about it, Nathan rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. Another long tomorrow loomed. Actually, he realized, tomorrow’s already here.

  * * *

  Despite his exhaustion, Nathan awoke before the alarm sounded. He cracked the curtains and scanned the parking lot where a smattering of pickups, sedans, and SUVs waited beneath a red Kansas sky. At the opposite end of the room, he made a miniature pot of coffee.

  After a quick shower and shave, Nathan called Henning’s room. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Not too well, you?”

  “About the same. Hungry?”

  “I called the front desk. There are several coffee shops within walking distance.”

  “What about our pilots?” Nathan asked.

  “I didn’t want to wake them.”

  “Five minutes,” Nathan said and hung up.

  Over breakfast, Henning asked about Nathan’s background. Although Henning seemed to understand Nathan’s need for discretion, there was a touch of resentment. The stuff in Nathan’s head was doled out on a need to know basis, and Henning didn’t need to know. Simple as that.

  On the walk back to the motel, Nathan’s cell rang. He looked at the screen. Harv.

  “How was your flight?”

  “First-class. It’s a nice ride.”

  “No doubt. I took the liberty of arranging your meeting with the Castle’s shrink. I’ve been on the phone all morning trying to reach him, finally did. It took a bit of coaxing, but I think I convinced him of the urgency of the situation. He’s seen the television coverage of the bombing, and knows his former patient is responsible. His name is Dr. Harold Fitzgerald, and yes, that’s really his name. He’s agreed to meet with you at the officer’s mess at ten-hundred.”

&
nbsp; “Great work, Harv. What’s your take on him? Will he talk to us?”

  “I honestly don’t know, my gut says yes, but I could’ve read him wrong. Our call was pretty brief. I’m sure he’ll want your conversation off the record.”

  “I’m really hoping to learn something, anything, that might give us a starting point for tracking Ernie Bridgestone. I still need to run his girlfriend in the NCIC database. Did our guys find anything from the visitation-log info?”

  “Maybe. The address she used on the log sheet was a dead end. We called the phone number and got a changed-number recording, so it’s a fairly recent change. The new number is a five-five-nine area code in Fresno. When I had Mason pretend to be a telemarketer and call the number, he thought the woman who answered hadn’t been honest. Mason said she hesitated for a instant before saying he had a wrong number. It might have been a girlfriend or sister, or it might have been our mark herself.”

  “It’s possible Bridgestone has already warned her she might get a call like that,” Nathan said.

  “If he still has any contact with her all, he probably has warned her or more accurately threatened her. She might go underground. Maybe we should’ve waited on the call.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Telemarketers call all the time. Listen, we just finished breakfast, we’re walking back to the motel. I’ll call you after we’ve met with Fitzgerald.”

  Nathan tucked his phone away and filled Henning in on what he’d learned about Ernie’s old girlfriend and fake telemarketer call.

  “That might have been her,” Henning said.

  “It’s possible. We won’t know until we talk to her.”

  “And if she won’t talk to us?”

  “She’ll talk.”

  * * *

  The entrance to Fort Leavenworth looked like a hundred other military-base entries. A small guard shack divided the road. MPs with sidearms approached the taxi and asked for everyone’s identification. Their taxi had been expected so the security procedure went smoothly. As instructed, the driver placed the bright-yellow temporary-vehicle pass on the dashboard. He was given a small map of the base showing the location of the dining facility.

  Nathan thought the fort had a college campus feel to it, lots of green open spaces, mature trees, and historic buildings. At the dining facility’s curb, Henning asked—told, really—the driver to wait for them. Army service members filtered in and out of the DFAC. Most of them wore Army combat uniforms. A man in civilian clothes stepped out and approached them, Fitzgerald, no doubt. The man looked nothing like the stereotype of a shrink. No Freudian glasses, bald pate, or goatee. No white coat. He looked more like an aging California surfer than a prison psychiatrist. Dressed in tan slacks and an aloha shirt, he was in his mid-fifties, with sandy-colored hair, broad shoulders, and pleasant smile.

  Nathan offered his hand. “Dr. Fitzgerald, I presume?”

  “The one and only.”

  “Nathan McBride. Thank you for meeting with us. This is Special Agent Bruce Henning from the Sacramento field office.”

  “I’m very sorry for the loss of your colleagues.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Henning said. “I appreciate it.”

  “I’d prefer if we talk out here,” Fitzgerald said. “The less we’re seen together, the better. I know a nice spot under some trees. I eat lunch there all the time.”

  The cabdriver looked over with a questioning expression. Nathan asked him to keep the meter running and wait. The three men began walking down the sidewalk. After several hundred yards, they veered over to a group of oaks. There wasn’t any place to sit except on the grass, so that’s what they did. The meeting instantly became cordial as though they were there for a picnic, not a discussion of national security.

  “This okay?” Fitzgerald asked.

  “Perfect,” Nathan answered. “You know why we’re here.”

  “I do.”

  “I appreciate you meeting with us on such short notice.”

  “You realize I’m hanging my tail out on a limb talking to you.”

  “You have my word as a Marine Corps officer, it doesn’t go any further than us. We need to find Ernie Bridgestone and his brother. Find them fast.”

  “I’m not sure what I can do to help.”

  “There are a couple of things. First, I’m looking for any insight into his head, how he thinks.”

  “I’ve counseled hundreds of troubled souls, but he possesses a pathology we don’t see very often.”

  Nathan waited while the doctor gathered his thoughts.

  “He’s what I’d consider a borderline devoid.”

  “Devoid?” Henning asked.

  “I’ll try to explain by using an example. A mother has a child, a little boy for our purposes. As the child matures, his mother starts to notice he isn’t like other boys. He doesn’t smile or laugh or cry or show any type of emotion at all. He’s picked on by other children. They think he’s stupid because he doesn’t laugh when they do, and it’s made worse when he doesn’t react to their ridicule. So imagine the mother sitting the little boy down and explaining that when he sees other children laugh, he should do the same thing. She teaches him to curve his lips up in a smile, show his teeth, and make a heh-heh-heh sound like the other children do.”

  “That is seriously messed up,” Henning said.

  “That’s right, Special Agent Henning. Just as some children are born with a childhood disease that cripples parts of their bodies, others are either born or molded into masking emotions. That’s why I consider him a borderline case. I believe his emotional responses are suppressed, not missing altogether, although I can’t be certain of that diagnosis.”

  “I’m assuming guilt would be missing as well?” Nathan asked.

  “Definitely. As a child, he would’ve had a hard time distinguishing between right and wrong. What all of us instinctively know as being wrong, say like mistreating an animal, is missing, or more accurately, short-circuited. The safety mechanism is bypassed, or it’s missing altogether. He doesn’t feel any regret for the Sacramento bombing. None.”

  Henning visibly stiffened a little.

  “What about his brother, Leonard?” Nathan asked. “What would Ernie feel toward him?”

  “Loyalty isn’t clearly defined as an emotion. In fact, I don’t think it’s an emotional state of mind per se. I mention it because Ernie Bridgestone is extremely loyal to his older brother. He talked about Leonard often.”

  “In what way?” Nathan asked.

  “Mostly about their childhood. Their father was abusive. Brutally so, I’m afraid, and their mother didn’t intervene. A common belief among psychologists is that the first year of a baby’s life is perhaps the most important. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ernie had also been neglected for long periods of time. Try to imagine it: An infant cries because it’s hungry or lonely, but there’s no one there to feed or comfort it, to give it the tactile feedback it needs to feel secure and loved. Think of it, an infant screaming into the dark, isolated and alone, for hours, maybe even days.” Fitzgerald shook his head. “It’s cruel beyond comprehension. I truly believe Ernie is the product of such an environment. Leonard is a few years older, so he might have filled in where his mother didn’t. It would explain the strong family bond Ernie feels toward Leonard.”

  “Isn’t it reasonable to assume Leonard was subjected to the same neglect?” Henning asked. “And wouldn’t he then have the same condition?”

  “Yes and no. I believe he was, but some people can overcome such trauma through intellect. My own father, for example. He was from a broken and abusive home, but he became a valuable member of society, putting himself through medical school and becoming a Naval flight surgeon. He was also a loving father to me and my sisters. He broke the cycle. Some can, some can’t, or more accurately, some won’t. They justify their negative behavior by blaming someone else. This act of blaming, of being a victim, if you will, becomes part of their pathology.”

  Na
than nodded his understanding. “Would Ernie have been able to form a meaningful relationship with anyone other than his brother? We know he was married.”

  “The answer is yes, but it depends on what you mean by meaningful.”

  “Love, would he be capable of love?”

  “I’d have to say no. At least not in the way we think of it. His love would be based on actions, not emotion. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say Ernie comes home from work and his wife hasn’t cleaned up the kitchen from breakfast. She’s tired or having a bad day, or whatever. Ernie would interpret the dirty dishes in the sink as a sign she didn’t love him. Follow?”

  Nathan nodded. “Tough situation. She’d never be able to do enough to prove her love.”

  “That’s exactly right. A relationship like that is doomed from the start. No matter what she did, it would never be good enough because the emotional bond is missing. When people are truly in love with each other, small things are forgiven and forgotten. Not so with a devoid. Seeing those dirty dishes is like a slap in the face. He doesn’t look at the dishes with compassion and ask her if anything’s wrong, he just sees them as indication she doesn’t love him. Living with a devoid would be the ultimate walk on eggshells.”

  “Why would someone stay with a person like that?” Henning asked.

  “The simplest answer is love. She loved him and was willing to put up with his shortcomings. There are other reasons. She might’ve had nowhere else to go, or she was convinced she could change him if she only did this. None of it would make a difference. The tragic reality is, unless Ernie gets comprehensive psychiatric help, he’ll never change. He’ll never come to terms with who and what he is. I was beginning to make some real progress with him just before he was released. You have to remember, on some level these people instinctively know there’s something’s wrong with them, they just don’t know what it is or how it happened. To use a simplistic example, take cats. If kittens are exposed to human love and affection within the first few weeks of their lives, they become pets. If not, they’re feral. Of course, it’s not that simple with humans, but the principle’s basically the same. Unless an infant receives the stimuli needed to feel safe and secure, it’s guaranteed to grow up with emotional problems to one degree or another.”