There was no way he could get on a plane, train, or bus, or even rent a car without an ID or a credit card. Agent Klipser and company no doubt had his driver’s license and primary credit card, but maybe Randal could go over to his house and find his hidden spare key, and then FedEx one of his spare credit cards along with his military ID card. Of course, that plan would take at least a day, and he had nowhere to stay.
Plan B was to hitchhike across the country with a trucker. First, he had to get out of the building and take his chances out on the streets. If hospital security or local police found him without clothes and ID, they’d haul him to the nearest precinct building to investigate his identity. Then, when they ran his prints and the FBI came calling, the shit would really hit the fan. He’d be back in federal custody all over again.
So he opted to avoid the police and the FBI as long as he could. They’d probably catch up with him anyway, but maybe he could get back to Albuquerque before that happened and get his attorney to square things away with the Feds. In his current situation, he didn’t see how fleeing would get him in any more trouble than he was already in.
Barefoot in his white smock, Carl wandered out the same emergency room door he’d entered less than an hour ago. His only detour had been to find a phone in an out-of-the-way, unoccupied office. He called Randal’s home phone, his office phone, and his cell phone, but his friend didn’t pick up. He hung up right before his calls to each of Randal’s phones went to voice mail. He couldn’t remember any time in twenty-five years that Randal didn’t pick up at least one of his lines. He began to sense a nagging feeling of paranoia, like the nightmare wasn’t over, so he quickly left that office.
Twenty seconds down the hall, it occurred to him that his son also had a spare key to his house. If he wasn’t working, he could get over there within an hour and grab his ID and credit card, and get them sent off for overnight delivery. He’d have to find somewhere to stay for at least one night; there had to be a homeless shelter and a soup kitchen somewhere nearby, right?
So he called Mark.
Chapter 20
0925 EST Wednesday
Arlington Heights, VA
“I’ll be damned,” McGrath said as he read the simple instructions of the ransom note on the center monitor.
I have a certain American girl.
For her safe return
Pay $250M
Account number to follow
–AR
“I had almost convinced myself that he was an innocent victim in all this.” He read the note with a certain amount of relief that he was right about Johnson after all.
Palmer agreed. “This is extremely troubling to me, Aaron. I still can’t wrap my brain around the fact that he held out on the table without breaking.” She shook her head as if unwilling to accept the obvious conclusions. “It just doesn’t seem humanly possible. It shouldn’t be humanly possible.”
McGrath shook his head. “In order for a subject’s nervous system to avoid short-circuiting under such extreme conditions, there must be some kind of inherent, or trained, or mastered ability to control one’s autonomic nervous system arousal to counteract fear and pain messages by reframing the brain’s commands. We’ve seen reports that a high-level yogi is able to do this, as well as extremely well-conditioned members of the Israeli Defense Forces trained in Krav Maga.”
“I agree,” Palmer said. “But the new interrogation regimen was developed specifically to prevent these kinds of professionals from concealing the truth during an extended interrogation. There aren’t half a dozen yogis in the world who possess that kind of mental discipline, and Johnson most certainly hasn’t been trained by the Israelis. The human brain simply cannot maintain organized, cognitive awareness when the body is subject to these methodologies, and I just don’t see Johnson having any kind of inherent ability to block or resist the new regimen.”
“Yes, but he did break,” McGrath said. “We saw that. He broke multiple times, or at least we thought he did. Maybe he was just faking.” He took a deep breath. “We’re going to have to reevaluate this new interrogation regimen after this event is concluded.”
“I don’t know, Aaron. We’ve had a one hundred percent success rate to date.”
“Until Carl Johnson came along. Or Alfonso Reyes. Whoever the hell this man is. What was it that enabled him to survive?” He paused. “And he didn’t just survive. He played us. He really played us good.” McGrath sighed deeply. “How the hell can a person fake breaking down multiple times under that kind of duress?”
“And the first thing he does when we release him is elude hospital security and police. He placed some cryptic hang-up calls to his friend, and then just disappeared.” Palmer stood with her hands on her hips and nodded at the center monitor. “And now this.”
“Have the local FBI bring in his friend, Randal Cunningham, for questioning,” McGrath said. He took off his glasses and wiped his lenses with a handkerchief he pulled from his back pocket.
“Nancy, could his son have been in on this the whole time too?”
“This can’t all be coincidental.” Palmer looked McGrath in the eye. “But even though I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I still can’t believe it. My gut tells me this man couldn’t be involved in all this, but...”
“But what?”
“I saw an anomaly in his last interrogation.” She stepped over to the manager’s workstation and worked the keyboard. Data populated monitor three and showed two electronic graphs. One graph was the squiggly lines from a standard lie detector test, and the other was Johnson’s brain wave pattern.
“This latest chart from yesterday shows a distinct deviation from all of his previous charts.” She pointed to several spikes on both graphs. “These peaks indicate deception. All his previous charts indicated that he’d been telling the truth.”
“And yesterday he tried to get Klipser to kill him.”
“That was my initial assessment too. But what if it really was an escape attempt instead? What if he’d had enough? Or...”
“No, no, no,” McGrath said, shaking his head. “You’re suggesting that he withstood eleven days of harsh interrogation and that getting us to release him today was part of his plan?”
“All I know is that he underwent a drastic change yesterday. He suddenly displayed...I don’t know...strength. He became belligerent. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
McGrath grimaced. “No one has seen anything like this or anyone like him. He really caught us with our proverbial pants down.” He looked at the ransom text on the monitor again and muttered. “What is he, some kind of goddamn superhero?”
“He’s not Superman.”
“Are we overlooking some deep-black-ops, enhanced-soldier program? Something that would give him the ability to resist this kind of interrogation?”
Palmer shook her head. “We’re briefed into all the most classified development programs. There are no enhanced-soldier programs on the black books. That’s all just science fiction.”
McGrath barely mumbled his conclusion. “Then, as impossible as it sounds, we have a previously undiscovered civilian with inherent mental strength and possibly an operator skill set.”
“I can’t see it, Aaron.”
“Well, he laughed off eleven days of pure hell. And he manipulated two lie detection systems. If he’s half as resourceful as he seems to be, he’ll find a way to backtrack to the interrogation center. Get everyone there prepared to evacuate and relocate. If he decides to go on a rampage, or if he calls in some heavies, that will definitely complicate our operation.”
“I’ll upgrade security at all our TER facilities in case he gets new intel or grabs a hostage,” Palmer said with a nod.
“You mean, another hostage.” McGrath paused. “I can’t believe I got this so wrong. We just put out the information about his son only an hour ago. He must have talked to someone else before he called his son.” He clapped his hands together hard. “Dammit! Reyes or Johnson, i
t doesn’t matter. We had him in custody, and I let him go!”
Palmer turned to address the analyst with the big Afro. “Has anyone else in his network received a call within the last hour?”
Jimmy’s thick fingers flew over his keyboard. “He only called Randal Cunningham on his cell, his home phone, and his work phone, but there was no conversation.”
“What is the likelihood that the calls were some kind of call-back signal?”
The analyst nodded. “The likelihood is high, but I’m monitoring the hospital for incoming calls from Johnson’s circle of contacts and I see nothing.”
“What if Cunningham used someone else’s phone or an untraceable burner?”
The young man shook his head. “Either of those options would still show the geographic point of origin as Albuquerque, and there have been no calls to the hospital from that location. Even if Cunningham called someone else in another state or country who then called the hospital, I’d still see the incoming call, even if I couldn’t trace it quickly enough.”
“What about the extension he called his son from? Any other outbound calls from that phone or the one he called Cunningham from?”
“Nothing, ma’am. He spoke to his son for a couple of minutes, but the transcript shows no keywords or any kind of coded language.”
“Hmmm.” Palmer spoke softly, as if talking to herself. “So perhaps his hang-ups were prearranged coded instructions for this Cunningham fellow to take a specific action, dictated by the order in which the phones were called. It wasn’t a call-back code, but maybe it was a call-forward code.”
“And within minutes we get the ransom email.” McGrath added, “That’s pretty sophisticated for a civilian. You still think he’s not an operator?”
Nancy Palmer shrugged. “Well, he’ll either find a way back to Albuquerque to his son, or he’ll meet him somewhere.”
“Or he’ll send people to evac him.” McGrath paused, then said, “Update Pete and put a full surveillance package in play on Carl Johnson’s son. I want to know everything that young man does from this moment forward. I want his phone tapped and his position tracked at all times by his cell GPS chip or by cell tower triangulation. We need to know everyone who makes contact with him.”
McGrath put his hands on his hips. “From this moment forward, Mark Johnson is our top priority.”
Chapter 21
1135 MST Thursday
North-Central Mexico
Alfonso Reyes filled two wine glasses one-third full with a rich, smooth, Argentine Merlot. He swirled the rose-colored liquid in both goblets as he carried them back to the couch where the journalist waited. She stood as he approached.
Marie Benoit was her name. She was French by citizenship and African by ethnicity. She’d been educated in the United Kingdom and had a British accent, which seduced his senses and increased his desire for her. She was lithe and tall and was conservatively dressed in a tan skirt and jacket. The light color of her clothing contrasted sharply with her ebony skin.
Marie took the glass, and her dark brown eyes seemed to pierce straight into his soul, or so he imagined. Then she appraised the wine glass.
“Are these diamond wine glasses?”
“Indeed they are. You’re familiar with these, then?”
She nodded. “Last year in Mumbai I interviewed a Saudi prince, and he served wine in a pair of similar glasses. I love the embedded diamond in the stem.” She held the glass up a little higher as she studied the near-perfect rock that glittered in the stem just below the goblet. “I’m told these glasses can go for upward of five thousand US dollars each.”
“They are a bit pricey,” Reyes said. He’d wanted to impress her with his knowledge and his expensive collection, but it was clear she was not easily impressed. “The vessel is made from borosilicate, a type of glass known for its high resistance to thermal shock. So the glass maintains the wine’s properties at normal levels while the glass is held in warm hands. The point-one-five-carat diamond is of G color and VVS-1 purity. It and the borosilicate are fused at twelve-hundred degrees Celsius, so the goblet is very durable.”
Marie nodded and sipped, as did Reyes. She sat down, but he didn’t try to sit next to her. That would have been too obvious, and he could tell that her shields were up. No doubt many men had tried to seduce this woman, and he would try also. He was patient, though, and he respected her personal space. He sat on the second leather sofa a few feet away, and for a moment they both gazed into the fireplace.
It was a ten-foot-long appliance that only reached two feet off the floor. It featured an exotic gas log that stretched the full length of the chamber, giving the illusion of a continuous, ten-foot-long flame. Above the low fireplace was an expansive window wall that allowed them to gaze out onto the naturally landscaped courtyard of his estate.
She said, “We were discussing possible dates for an in-depth interview regarding your new children’s hospital for cancer research. I think the European fundraising connection is particularly interesting. Ideally, my camera crew and I would want to accompany you on your tour through Switzerland and Germany.”
“As you probably know, I’m chartering a private jet for the trip next week. You’re welcome to accompany me on the flight and conduct the interview then, but I’m afraid my time will be very limited on the ground over there.”
“Fine,” Marie said. “Will Mrs. Reyes be available for an interview also?”
Reyes gazed at the journalist over the rim of his glass. “She’ll be doing some prep work for some other local fundraising activities I’ll conduct here and throughout South America on my return.” He shrugged. “And quite frankly, someone has to make sure my stepdaughter goes to school.”
After six years, he still couldn’t bring himself to think of that little runt as his daughter, and he didn’t want his wife within ten miles of Marie Benoit. His mind wandered a bit at the prospect of having Marie to himself on a ten-hour flight over the Atlantic. He was about to continue the discussion when his cell chimed. He looked at the device and saw it was Ricardo Guzman, his bodyguard and personal assistant. The man would never interrupt him unless it was urgent, so Reyes took the call.
“Si?” he said. He listened for a few seconds, then said, “Mark Johnson? Who is this man?” He listened again. “He’s going to the FBI? What information could he possibly have about my business operations?”
He looked at Marie as Guzman spoke and smiled an apology at her. “Prep the plane and have our people do a background check on him and his family, and setup an interview. I want to talk to him personally.”
Reyes disconnected the call and stood. “I’m sorry, Ms. Benoit, but business calls.” He set his wine glass on the slate coffee table. “Check with your staff and let me know if you’d like to travel with me to Europe. Meanwhile, I have an exciting business opportunity to check out in Albuquerque.”
Chapter 22
1025 MST Friday
Albuquerque, NM
Carl Johnson prepared to leave the cab of the eighteen-wheeler at the westbound off-ramp of I-40 at Juan Tabo Boulevard, near the east end of Albuquerque. The driver, Stan Harbor, was a genuine nice guy. He shared his food and water—he was health conscious and only ate healthy fast food on the road—and even gave Carl a full set of much too large clothes and boots to replace his white lab coat.
He’d given Harbor a sad story about being mugged and stripped, and then said he had walked naked four miles in the frigid cold after midnight to get to the hospital emergency room. He showed his bandages as proof of his misfortune. An added touch that was partly true was that he didn’t want to go to the police for fear they’d simply lock him up overnight because he had no ID. Harbor bought the whole song and dance. It was, after all, almost the truth.
The only fault Carl could find in the man was his incessant enjoyment of Country Western music. He had the satellite radio on every minute of the day and night, even when he slept.
When Carl called his son from the
hospital, Mark was on break at work so he couldn’t get online to wire money by Western Union. He wouldn’t be able to get to the house to FedEx his ID and credit card for a few more hours. So, they talked for a couple of minutes, and Carl glossed over what had happened to him and where he’d been for almost two weeks. After hanging up, Carl got out of the building as quickly as possible.
He’d made his way west to the nearest interstate on-ramp and hung out at the truck stop until Stan came along and offered him a ride. As luck would have it, Stan was bound for Cali—“The California Cali,” the man had said with a laugh, “Not the drug capital of South America Cali, Colombia”—and his route eventually hit I-40, which went right through Albuquerque.
Sitting on a road-rash butt for thirty hours, plus two additional six-hour sleep stops for Stan was tough, but Carl sucked it up. He hadn’t thought to carry a change of bandages and more salve cream for his wounds. As the wounds started to dry out and scab over, sometimes the slightest movement caused the newly formed scabs to crack painfully.
Carl waved one last time, then slammed the door and hopped down from the runner in his ill-fitting clothes. When the light turned green, the big truck thundered straight across the intersection and back onto the westbound on-ramp.
He made his way a few blocks north to his local bank branch, where he almost couldn’t get money from his account without ID. He didn’t blame the teller. With clothes that fit like big potato sacks and two weeks of razor stubble growing all over his jaw and neck, he looked like a vagrant, not a professional real estate agent with thousands of dollars in his account. Fortunately, the branch manager knew him—the bank prided itself on personal service—and she authorized his withdrawal.
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