by Mike Ryan
“First things first is we’re gonna need to try to get video from the security cameras at the Grand,” Nicole said. “Once we get that, we can get proof that Evelyn left with Meyer. Then we can try to fill in the pieces from there.”
“Eric’s already on it. As soon as he saw Meyer’s background, he put a call in to get that footage ASAP. He said he’ll send something over to us as soon as he can.”
“Then we gotta try to find out where Meyer took them. We’ll need to find a list of private planes that took off that night on an international flight.”
“That’s assuming they left immediately,” Bridge said. “What if he just took her to a warehouse or some other place for a day or two while he rounded up some more girls? I doubt he’s smuggling out just one girl at a time. If you’re gonna do this, I’m imagining he’s taking out five or ten at a time.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I’ll have to start expanding the search over a few days.” Nicole stood up, ready to get to work. “You know what? I probably should look at the days each of those models went missing and cross reference it against international flights from private airports in the days or week after that. See if I can spot a pattern. Or maybe if all the flights came out of one airport. Then we can really start to nail things down.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Nicole went over to her computer and started typing away, hoping to find that small nugget of information that they needed. Bridge continued reading the file on Meyer, hoping he could figure out the most likely place he would have taken Evelyn Fester to. A little over an hour went by before Bridge’s phone rang. It was his FBI contact again.
“You got something for me?” Bridge asked.
“Check your email. Sending you over something now.”
“OK, hang on.” Bridge went over to his laptop and logged in, quickly bringing up his email. He immediately saw Happ’s name at the top of the list. “So what is this?”
“An interesting picture.”
Bridge opened the email and downloaded the file. It was a picture of two men and a woman leaving a side entrance of the hotel. The camera only picked up the back of their heads. The woman was between the two men who appeared to be holding her up as her head was down.
“Doesn’t really show us who that is. It’s not really clear.”
“There’s more pictures. Keep scrolling.”
There were four more pictures. Bridge looked at each one for a few seconds before moving on. He also didn’t comment again until he was done. The first one wasn’t clear on faces. The other ones were. There was a clear shot of Evelyn Fester entering the hotel about an hour before the one showing her leaving between the arms of the two men. The clothes matched up. There was also a picture of Otto Meyer and a few of his goons, whose clothes also matched that first picture.
“Looks a little more clear-cut now, doesn’t it?” Happ asked.
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’d have to agree.”
“In that last picture, Fester doesn’t look conscious. I’d say it’s a good bet she got drugged.”
“So she goes in, stays in the room for an hour, they drug her, then smuggle her out a side door into a waiting car, then whisk her away to another location, where they tie her up or lock her up until they can smuggle her out on a plane.”
“I’d say that’s probably pretty accurate. Question then becomes where did they stash her, what plane, and where were they going?”
“Nicole’s working on flights now. You got any shots of the car?”
“We’re working on it now. Checking traffic cams and stuff, seeing if we can get some hits on it.”
“Just a hunch, but I got a feeling that’s not gonna turn up much.”
“I think you’re right. If Meyer’s as smart as he seems to be, I doubt he’s dumb enough to use one car and take the risk of it being spotted. He probably switched cars at some point. I mean, we’ll check anyway in case he didn’t, but…”
“But it’s a long shot.”
“Yeah.”
Bridge and Happ talked for a few more minutes, hoping to brainstorm together, trying to find out where Meyer was likely going, though they couldn’t come up with anything based on the information they had. As soon as Bridge got off the phone, though, his girlfriend immediately called out to him.
“I got something!”
Bridge rushed over to her, standing next to her as he looked at her laptop. “What’d you get?”
“I think I got the airport they were using.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, like I said, I eliminated all the large and public airports, figuring there was no way they were going to use them.”
“Yeah?”
“So I focused on the small and private ones.”
“OK?”
“There are several that had international flights within the few days following when Evelyn went missing.”
“I’m assuming you’ve been able to whittle that down a little?”
“Cross-referencing that with when all the other girls went missing, there’s only one airport that had international flights within three days of when each girl went missing.”
“Only one?”
“Only one. And they had an international flight in every single case within three days.”
“What airport?”
“Chesterfield. It’s a private airport out in New Jersey. It’s apparently used often for celebrities and other rich people who don’t want to fly with the normal people or who want privacy for whatever reason.”
“Any known red flags with it?”
“Not that I’ve found so far. But there’s one more interesting fact about all those flights I found.”
“What’s that?”
“They all went to the same place.”
“Now that is interesting,” Bridge said. “Where’d they go?”
“Spain.”
“Spain? Hmm. Wasn’t on my list of top choices.”
“Doesn’t mean that’s where the girls are ending up, though,” Nicole said. “Could just be a stop that they know they can get into easily, then disperse from there.”
“Yeah, could be.” Bridge immediately pulled out his phone again.
“Who are you calling?”
“Eric. Gonna let him know about this. Maybe he can get us some information on where those planes landed, who might be there, things like that.”
“And then what?”
“You better get us packed and quick.”
“We’re going to Spain?”
“On the next flight out.”
8
They booked a flight for later that evening. It was a little over a seven-hour non-stop flight to Madrid. Once they got there, they checked into a hotel near the airport, wanting to have some place near that they could work quickly, and also close to the airport in case they had to take off right away if they found out this was just a pit stop for Evelyn Fester’s kidnappers. They’d only been in the hotel for about ten minutes, just long enough for Nicole to get her computers up and running when Bridge’s phone rang.
“Eric, what’s shaking?”
“I assume you guys are in Madrid?”
“Just landed about an hour ago. Hold on, I’m putting you on speaker.” Bridge put the phone on the desk and hit the speaker button. “Just checked into a hotel a few minutes ago. Right now we’re seeing what our next move is.”
“I can tell you what your next move is.”
“I’m intrigued. Go on.”
“Your next move is to drive out to a private abandoned airport in Ciudad Real.”
“Why would we do that?”
“Because that’s where I believe the plane landed that was carrying those girls.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Flight records.”
“What do you mean, flight records?” Nicole asked. “I already checked the flight records. That’s how we got here.”
“I know,” Happ replied. “But did you double-c
heck it on the airport’s end to make sure that’s where the flight was actually going?”
“Uhh…”
Happ laughed. “I probably wouldn’t have either. But one of our other guys did.”
Bridge glared down at Nicole, hoping they hadn’t made a huge blunder in going there. Nicole looked up at him and just shrugged.
“Please tell me we didn’t just fly out here for nothing,” Bridge said.
“You did not,” Happ said. “I already told you, your next move is in Ciudad Real.”
“OK, but how do you figure that?”
“Because the flight records were bogus. They weren’t going to Madrid or any other public airport. And most private ones that have people working there are going to be suspicious of a plane landing with multiple women handcuffed, tied up, or restrained in some other way.”
“So one that isn’t currently in use.”
“Exactly. I’ve reached out to some contacts in the Spanish government who have told me that that airport has been used for several illegal activities lately.”
“So do you know that that’s where the plane went, or is this an educated guess?” Nicole asked.
“We’ve already tracked the plane to that location.”
“Is it still there?” Bridge asked.
“No, the plane is gone. But the evidence they were there may not be.”
“It makes sense. Private airfields, especially abandoned ones, have been used for decades for various military exercises or secret government missions no matter what country we’re talking about.”
“How far is Ciudad Real from here?” Nicole asked.
“Probably a two-hour drive,” Happ answered.
“Guess we better get going.”
Bridge didn’t reply. As Nicole and Happ continued the conversation, his mind was going somewhere else. He was trying to put himself at the airport, trying to figure out what happened, where they went.
“They would have had to stop somewhere after getting off the plane, before going to wherever they were taking them,” Bridge said.
“How do you figure?” Happ asked.
“Think about it. They just stepped off a seven, eight-hour flight. Are they just going to shuttle them into some van for another few hours without everyone getting a chance to stretch their legs, use the bathroom, things like that?”
“I dunno, Luke, I’m not sure these guys really care whether the girls would pee all over themselves or not.”
“But if they’re intending on selling them, or using them for sex, I doubt they’re gonna want them smelling undesirable either.”
“You may have a point there.”
“Or they just might wanna regroup. Or they might be waiting for someone else to arrive to take them somewhere. I just get the feeling they took them somewhere else first. Like a holding facility or something. It would probably be nearby. Maybe even on the property.”
“I’ll start working on that, see if I can find something by the time you guys get there.”
“OK. We’ll leave in a few minutes for Ciudad Real.”
“All right. Call you if I find anything.”
Bridge ended the call and picked up his phone, putting it back in his pocket. He looked at his girlfriend, who was shaking her head.
“I should’ve double-checked that myself,” Nicole said. “I should’ve realized a flight like that wasn’t going to actually put down where it was going.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“It could’ve cost us time.”
“But it didn’t. You got us here. A little off course, but you got us here. Now we gotta find some evidence that they were actually there.”
“These guys are smart. If they’re smart enough to pull things like this off, and I’m sure it’s not the first time, I doubt they’re gonna leave evidence behind.”
“They’re criminals. All criminals make mistakes somewhere. We just gotta find them.”
“Hate to break it to you, but not all criminals make mistakes. That’s how some of them get away.”
“Yeah, but let’s go with my illusion first. It’ll give us some hope on the drive over there.”
Nicole grabbed one of her laptops, then the two of them left the hotel. It took them two hours and twenty minutes before they reached the private airport in question. Upon getting there, they were surprised at how easy it was to enter. There was a gate, but it was only partially closed, without any lock or chain around it to keep trespassers away. It was almost like they wanted people to be in there.
“Well, now we know why they used this place,” Nicole said. “Security is nonexistent.”
Bridge opened the gate all the way, then got back in the car as they drove further onto the property. They stopped and got out once they reached one of the main buildings.
“I have to admit I’m a little surprised,” Nicole said.
“At what?”
“At how big this place is. When Eric said they went to some private airfield, in my mind I was picturing some small, rinky-dink place that was falling apart.”
Bridge looked at a few of the buildings, noticing missing windows, graffiti on the walls, holes where siding used to be. “Well, you got the falling apart part right. It definitely hasn’t been maintained in a while.”
“Yeah, but this place looks like it might have actually been a thriving airport at one time.”
“At one time.” Bridge went over to one of the main doors, pulling on it. Unsurprisingly, it pulled right open. “Well, guess we should go in and look around.”
They did, and immediately, they noticed a ton of trash on the floor. It was everywhere.
“Um, about that evidence we were looking for…” Nicole said.
Bridge kicked a few plastic cups away from his foot. “Yeah, I know. It’s gonna be tough to find it in this mess.”
“Tough? Try almost impossible.”
Though Bridge knew that she was right, they still had to check, just in case they were able to find that small needle in the haystack. After roughly an hour of searching, they still hadn’t found anything. Bridge’s phone rang again.
“Eric, tell me you got something.”
“You guys at the airport yet?”
“Yeah. Been here for about an hour. The searching isn’t going too well. This place is a wreck. If I ever commit a crime, this is where I’d go. You couldn’t find anything in here.”
“Well, I think I can help in that regard.”
“Whatcha got?”
“I’ve got a satellite photograph of a dark-colored van sitting outside a small warehouse just outside the airport.”
“On the grounds? Which direction?”
“No, it’s technically not a part of the airport,” Happ said. “It’s got its own address. It’s literally a few feet from the property boundary of the airport. I’m texting you the address now, but it should only take you two or three minutes to get there.”
Bridge looked at his phone, seeing the text message pop up. “You got any pictures of the girls or the suspects or anything?”
“No, just the van. It was sitting there for about thirty minutes. Then it was gone.”
“What makes you think it’s connected?” Bridge asked. “Maybe it’s just some random business.”
“Well, I checked who owns the building.”
“Let me guess, Otto Meyer?”
“No. But you’re on the right track. It comes back to some shell company that lines up with a subsidiary, which goes to another subsidiary, which goes on and on.”
“And where does it eventually lead?”
“It eventually leads to a company called Hotstuff Productions Limited. It’s some type of video production company.”
“I can take a guess at what kind of videos they’re making.”
“Yeah, well, anyway, Hotstuff Productions Limited has about eight owners. One of which is someone called Stefan Mueller.”
“So?”
“Stefan Mueller is also a known alias of Otto
Meyer.”
Bridge ran his hand over his face as he pondered the information. “OK, so now it’s making sense. Meyer owns this building. He flies the girls in, and he can easily get them into this building that he owns without anyone seeing. No one knows what’s going on, then he can set things up from there. He can then send the girls to wherever he’s sending them.”
“Sounds about right.”
“I think we should get over to that building, ASAP.”
“Yeah, I don’t think you’re gonna find much at the airport,” Happ said. “Doubt they were there long enough for anything to be left behind.”
Bridge then snapped his fingers at Nicole and pointed toward the door. He started walking back in that direction as well.
“Hope you guys are locked and loaded.”
“I’m always locked and loaded,” Bridge replied.
“You have time to get guns there or did you slip them through the airport?”
“We made a brief stop before getting to the hotel after we landed. You know I don’t like getting weapons through airport security.”
“Why? You know how to do it.”
“Yeah, but I’m not just talking about unloaded pistols that can be checked in. I’m talking about the stuff they generally don’t let you travel with. And just in case there’s a slip-up somewhere, or I get sloppy, or something just goes wrong, I don’t wanna take the chance of getting hauled in somewhere.”
“Why? I’m sure you could talk your way out of it or call in one of your old contacts in the CIA?”
Bridge laughed. “Or even my current ones in the FBI.”
“I ain’t helping you out of that.”
“Sure you would.”
“Probably.”
“And I don’t like calling my old friends for help.”
“Why?”
“I hate owing people favors,” Bridge answered. “When I left there, I left on good terms with everyone, and I left with a clean slate. Nobody owed me, and I didn’t owe anyone else. And I’ve kept it that way ever since. Owing a favor to one of my old friends at the agency would basically be just as good as me having to agree to some off-the-books assignment that was a death wish they didn’t want to assign to one of their current agents.”