by Steven James
Go!
If the men were watching, then she would get caught, but she was already caught and just sitting around here wasn’t going to do anything. It wasn’t just herself she was worried about, it was the boy too. She needed to help him.
She unwound the chain, crossed the basement, and then clambered up the stairs and tried the doorknob.
It turned freely, but the door didn’t open.
No!
It must have been dead-bolted or something from the other side. Even when she threw all her weight against it, the door didn’t budge.
Thunderous footfalls from beyond the door somewhere. “Muhammad, she’s free!”
Oh no, no, no.
The footsteps came closer.
The lightbulb above the stairs was out of reach, but when she held on to one of her shoes, she was just able to reach it.
She smashed the bulb.
Her eyes were used to the dim light, but she was guessing that the man’s wouldn’t be when he opened the door. The light switch must have been on the other side, but he wouldn’t know that the bulb wasn’t working until he opened the door, and the shadowy area around her here at the top of the steps would give her just a moment of surprise.
But what was she going to do to him? She didn’t have her pepper spray with her. She wasn’t a fighter, didn’t know self-defense or anything like that.
The stairs. Use the stairs.
She heard the dead bolt slide to the side.
The door opened and she leapt at him, screeching like a wild animal fighting for its life, and by the look on his face it was clear that she’d startled him. She grabbed the front of his shirt and, stepping to the side, yanked him forward and past her.
It was enough to get him off balance and when she pushed him, he went tumbling down the stairs.
She entered the kitchen, slammed the door behind her, and bolted it shut.
You weren’t able to open it from the other side, he won’t be able to either.
Unless he breaks it down, unless—
There’s someone else here. He called for Muhammad.
She could see the front door on the other side of the house through the living room. She darted toward it.
But that boy is still here.
You can get help once you’re free. You just need to get out of here.
No! Once they know I’m free, they’ll leave or they might kill the boy!
The man she’d locked in the basement was hammering against the door, cursing and shouting out crude and shocking threats.
“Muhammad!” he hollered.
A voice came down the stairs from the second floor. “I’m in the john!”
“She’s out!”
The boy. Get the boy!
Lily ran down the hallway toward the room where, based on the location of the vent in the basement, she guessed he would be.
She cranked the dead bolt, opened the door, and rushed in, only to find that the boy’s leg was chained to the wall just as hers had been.
+++
I parked across the street from Romanoff’s place.
A heavily wooded park lay nearby.
No traffic. Just a quiet, serene suburban neighborhood.
+++
The boy was seated on a thin, yellowed mat and wore only a grimy T-shirt and underwear.
He gasped when he saw her, but she reassured him, “I’m going to get you out of here.” She tugged at the chain, but that was going to be hopeless. “My name’s Lily. What’s yours?”
“D’Nesh. They won’t let me go. They’re bad people.”
“I know.”
She heard the basement door burst open and the man she’d locked down there stalking his way through the house toward her.
“They’re coming back,” D’Nesh said. “It’s too late.”
Run or stay, run or stay?
That guy could just lock you in here.
But he didn’t lock her in.
Instead he appeared in the doorway holding a wickedly sharp kitchen knife.
“Muhammad, bring the camera,” he called. “You’re gonna want to film this.”
+++
There was nothing dramatic or out of place for the modest, beige two-story house. The Benz wasn’t in the driveway, but it might have been in the garage—there were no windows in the door, so there was no way to tell.
The shades were all drawn.
Hard to tell if anyone was home.
Jodie had updated the task force on where I was, but I called in my location to dispatch, then exited the car and headed for the front door to see if Ivan Romanoff was here.
As I approached the house, I noted its layout and mentally compared it to typical floor plans for two-story homes. From this vantage point I couldn’t see much of the back of the house, except for the wraparound deck.
I knocked at the front door.
+++
Lily heard someone knocking at the door.
The man with the knife glanced in that direction, then came toward her. She stood between him and the boy, but he pushed her aside, went to D’Nesh instead, and pressed the knife against the child’s throat. “You cry out,” he said harshly to Lily, “he dies. Do you hear me?”
“Yes.”
The knocking came again.
The boy’s eyes were wide, silently pleading with her to save him.
“Do you believe me?” the man said in a charged voice.
“Yes. Yes, I do. Don’t hurt him!”
She was tempted to run from the room, to go to the front door, to beg whoever was there for help, but then this boy would suffer, would die.
They might kill whoever’s at the door too.
+++
Shane realized what was going on and made a decision. It wasn’t ideal, but it was necessary.
+++
I heard footsteps inside the house.
A lanky Middle Eastern man with a salt-and-pepper beard opened the door partway. “Yes?” he said impatiently. “Who are you?”
I held up my creds and mentally reviewed the faces I’d seen in the case files.
No. I didn’t recognize him, and his frame didn’t fit that of the man in the security footage outside the condo. “I’m Special Agent Bowers with the FBI. I’m looking for Ivan Romanoff.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“This is 1607 Bradley Road, isn’t it?” I said, though I knew it was.
“Yes.”
“And you are?”
“Muhammad El-Sayed. I don’t know any Romanoffs.”
“What are you doing in his house if you don’t know him?”
“I am not from here. I am staying with a friend,” he said, switching his tack and suddenly speaking in stilted English. “This is his old college roommate’s house. That is all I know.”
“And what friend is that, Mr. El-Sayed?” I took out a notebook. “What’s his name?”
“What is this about?”
“A missing person’s case.” I studied his face, watched his reaction. “A boy named D’Nesh Mujeeb Agarwai. Do you know where he might be?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know that boy. Will that be all?”
And that was it.
That’s what I was waiting for.
If a federal agent shows up at your doorstep asking questions about a missing boy, you’d typically be nervous and worried. Most people would naturally ask, “What happened to him?” or something along those lines. That, or they would get frightened or nervous and ask why the agent was talking with them, or they might deny that they had anything to do with his disappearance.
We are a curious race, and when someone betrays that instinct, it says to me that something else is going on.
The gui
lty think that asking questions about a case will make them seem guilty, so they don’t. But just the opposite is true. It makes them look suspicious.
“Mr. El-Sayed, may I come in? Maybe we can talk inside?”
“Do you have a search warrant?”
Pretty well-informed for a foreign national just staying with a friend.
“Why would I need a search warrant? Is there something you’re not—”
I looked past him and saw it on the other side of the living room: the plaid couch from the video Francis Edlemore had shown me, the one with the footage of the four masks and D’Nesh Mujeeb Agarwai’s backpack.
32
Time seemed to slow down.
The pack wasn’t there now, nor were the masks, but it was definitely the same couch.
As my gaze shifted back to Muhammad, he must have recognized that I knew something.
“Hands in the—” I reached for my weapon even as he slammed the door in my face.
I tried the knob.
Locked.
Gun out, I took a step back, then kicked hard against the door, planting my heel just to the side of the lock. It took two kicks before the lock splintered and the door flew open, smacking hard against the wall.
For a brief moment I moved to the side to avoid being an easy target, then I whipped around into the doorway and caught sight of Muhammad disappearing up the stairs.
“Stop! Put your hands up!”
“Help!” a boy cried from a room down the hall.
“D’Nesh?” I called. “Is that you?”
“Yes!” a woman shouted. “We’re in here!”
Muhammad reemerged at the top of the steps holding an M4.
Oh.
Bad.
He swung the gun into position and fired before I could get off a shot.
I dove to the side around a corner of the wall to get out of his sight line and heard the sound of semiautomatic fire as he sprayed the spot where I’d been standing only a moment earlier.
This drywall wasn’t going to give me much protection.
Crouching, I leaned around the corner and got off two shots but couldn’t tell if I hit Muhammad or not before going for cover again.
He was yelling in a language I didn’t understand. Sounded like Arabic, but I couldn’t be sure.
Apparently, I hadn’t hit the mark.
I tapped in 911, sent in a dispatch code telling them I was with a suspect and that shots had been fired.
They would send backup, but who knew how long that might be?
I needed to hold out until then.
And I needed to find a way to get to the woman and the boy.
Based on the house’s footprint, I guessed that there wasn’t another way down the stairs, so unless Muhammad was going to jump out a two-story window to flee, he would need to come back down the steps he’d just ascended.
+++
Lily heard the gunshots.
Moments ago someone yelled for the guy to stop, to put his hands up.
A cop!
He must be a cop!
The man with the knife glanced at the doorway to the room, then at her and the boy, and she had the sense that it was too late. That he wasn’t going to chance letting them live any longer.
But the cops are here!
“Take me instead of him,” she said.
The man grabbed her roughly, pressed the knife to her throat, and shoved her ahead of him into the hall.
“Drop the gun!” he hollered. “I’ve got the whore!”
+++
“I’ll kill her!” a man in the hall south of me yelled. “If you don’t drop your gun!”
I was pinned down between the two men. I needed a play here.
When I was a kid in a snowball fight, my brother would lob one snowball at me and then when my eyes were on it, he’d zing a second one right at my chest.
Misdirection.
I didn’t have a second gun with me to throw out there, but unpocketing my Mini Maglite, I turned it on, then spun around the corner and tossed it into the air as a distraction, and as Muhammad was shooting at the flashlight, I fired at him.
Three shots. Center mass. I wasn’t sure if all three hit their mark, but at least one did.
He staggered backward into the wall behind him, then drifted limply to the floor.
“Muhammad?” the man in the hallway called.
With my gun level and ready, I edged into the hall. The living room stretched out behind me.
Five meters from me a thickset man stood behind a woman in a cheerleader outfit. He had a knife to her throat.
Though I was a pretty good shot, I didn’t want to chance hitting the woman. “Let her go,” I ordered him, my weapon directed at his head.
He sneered at me and opened his mouth to reply.
But that was the last thing he did.
His head snapped back and he collapsed as the sound of a gunshot sliced through the air.
I was momentarily confused. I hadn’t squeezed the trigger, or had I?
I whipped around and saw a flash of movement as someone ducked out of sight into the other room, apparently fleeing.
But it wasn’t Muhammad.
A third person.
Whoever it was had fired the kill shot.
And that was some shot.
Why didn’t he kill you?
Chase him or—
No.
Check the victims. Secure the boy and the woman.
She’d collapsed onto the carpet and was shaking, terrified.
I rushed forward, past the corpse of the hulking man who’d been holding the knife to her throat, and knelt beside her. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“No.” Her breathing was ragged, gaspy. “I’m alright. The boy, D’Nesh, he’s in the room.”
I brought her with me as I went to check on him.
D’Nesh Mujeeb Agarwai was huddled in the corner, sitting on a thin mat, his leg chained to the wall.
“It’s okay,” I assured him. “You’re going to be okay. My name’s Pat. I work with the police. I’m here to help you.”
He said nothing, just watched me warily.
“You’re D’Nesh, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“I’m Lily,” the woman said.
“Alright, Lily, tell me: are there any other people here?”
“Not that I know of, no.”
With the shooter out there, I wasn’t about to chance telling her to run for safety or risk leaving her and the boy here unprotected. I needed to look after these two until backup arrived.
I’m pretty good with locks and I took out my lock pick set and got started on the padlock shackling D’Nesh’s leg to the wall.
33
I was still working on the lock when I heard the crackle of flames coming from the hallway.
“Stay here,” I told Lily.
Gun in position, I crossed the room and peered into the hall.
The end of it was blocked.
Someone had wedged in a reclining chair and set it on fire, sealing us in. Beyond the chair, through the shimmer of heat and curls of black smoke, I could just barely see the whisper of movement as he—or she—went through the living room lighting the drapes on fire as well.
Okay, change of plans.
There wasn’t time to wait for backup.
We needed to get out of here now.
Based on the intensity of the flames, I guessed that the arsonist must have splashed the recliner with gasoline or some other accelerant first, before lighting it.
I rushed back into the room to D’Nesh’s side and called to Lily, “Try the window.”
She went to the window but found that the slats crisscrossing the glass were steel.
Enough with trying to pick this lock. I wasn’t going to gamble with three lives that I’d be able to pick it quickly enough to save us.
“Check the other rooms in the hall,” I told Lily, and she disappeared out the door.
I positioned myself between D’Nesh and the wall so that if the bullet ricocheted it would hit me rather than him, then I lined up the barrel at the hasp where the chain was attached to the wall.
On the fourth shot the link snapped.
I gathered the boy up in my arms as Lily returned. “Nothing,” she exclaimed. “The windows in the other rooms are barred too.”
We had to get past that burning chair.
I pointed toward the thin, ratty mat that D’Nesh had been sitting on and said to Lily, “Grab that.”
It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.
Smoke was curling beneath the doorjamb into the room where we were and gathering along the ceiling.
“Close your eyes,” I told D’Nesh so he wouldn’t have to see the corpse in the hall. Then, carrying him, I stepped over the body.
By now, the recliner was engulfed in flames, completely sealing us off.
I set D’Nesh down for a moment.
I considered barreling forward and trying to tip the chair over or shove it out of the way, but it appeared to be pretty firmly wedged in place, so I took the mat from Lily and draped it across the flaming chair instead.
The flames snaked up around the mat’s edges, but the center of the mat remained clear for the moment.
It wasn’t going to buy us a lot of time, but hopefully it’d be just enough to get to the other side.
“Crawl over that,” I told Lily.
“I don’t think I can.”
“You can. Go.”
After a short hesitation she took a deep, uneasy breath, then scrambled across, crying out in pain as she slipped and her arm brushed through the flames.
“You alright?” I shouted.
“Yes.”
I knelt beside D’Nesh. “You’re next, okay?”
“I’m scared.”
“It’s okay. I’ll be right behind you.”
Lily waited on the other side of the chair to help him. “Hurry!”
But the boy didn’t move.
Flames raged up the walls on both sides of the mat.
“We don’t have much time, D’Nesh. I want to get you back home to your mom and dad . . .” I searched my memory for other details from the case files. “And your dog, Pepper. She wants to see you.”