Burned Bridges

by A. J. Stewart

Flynn dropped into low power mode. He was awake, aware of his surroundings but not using any energy on processing any of it. He was absently looking out the window at the park when his phone rang. He looked at the screen. It was a number he didn’t recognize. Area code 917. He looked at Hutton.

  “New York number,” he said.

  “Listen hard,” she told him.

  He hit the button to take the call on speaker. “Yes?”

  There was little ambient noise, bar an electronic hum. The phone was most likely a burner and the microphone in it cheap. Manufactured for price, not clarity.

  “I can only guess you don’t want to see your girl again.”

  “I want to talk to Beth.”

  “You need to concentrate. Find the shipment. Focus on the girl you lost.”

  “I want to talk to Beth. I need to know she’s safe.”

  There was no response. Just the electronic hum. Then the sound changed. A higher pitch, like the difference between the sound of a tunnel before and after you enter it. Then a voice.

  “John?”

  Flynn glanced at Hutton. It was Beth’s voice. The unmistakable sound of fear. Flynn listened not just to her words but the sounds in between the words.

  “John, what’s happ—”

  Flynn said nothing. Her voice was suddenly ripped away. Replaced by the electronic hum, and then a male voice.

  “That’s it, pal. That’s all you’re getting. Now find that shipment.”

  Flynn set his jaw and stared at the phone as if willing it to throw a punch at him.

  “I’m looking. It’ll take time. Maybe forty-eight hours.”

  “Work faster. She doesn’t have forty-eight hours.”

  The clunk of the call ending reverberated around Hutton’s office. Hutton didn’t move from her desk. She just watched Flynn. He hit the phone to kill the call from his end.

  She asked, “Can you really find the shipment in forty-eight hours?”

  Flynn shook his head. “No, but I can find them.”

  “That’s a risk. What about Beth?”

  “Beth is no longer the objective. They are the objective.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because Beth is dead.”

  Chapter Nine

  Hutton stood and walked out of her office. Flynn waited. She returned with a man. He was older than her by a good two decades, but they had the same eyes—calculating and piercing. He was solid but fit, thick through the neck, with a bald head and a heavy salt-and-pepper mustache covering his top lip. His features were simultaneously hard and soft, like a granite boulder worn by the passing of time.

  “This is Nils Hedstrom,” Hutton said. “My business partner.”

  Flynn and Hedstrom looked at each other.

  “I’d prefer to keep this operation tight,” said Flynn.

  “Do you trust me?” she asked.

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

  “Well, I trust Hedstrom more than any person on this planet. Including you. And he knows this city better than you and better than me. He can help. And if this thing is at the point you think it is, you need the help.”

  “All right. We’ll see.”

  Hutton and Hedstrom took seats at the meeting table with Flynn.

  “You said you think Beth’s dead. Why?” Hutton asked.

  “When you were with the FBI, how many kidnapping cases ended with the death of the victim?”

  “Very few. Most kidnapping victims are rescued.”

  “How many ended with death where the assailant was not family or known to the victim?”

  “More.”

  “How many where proof of life was faked?”

  “Faked? What do you mean?”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know. Most, I would guess. But why do you think POL was faked?”

  “You said listen hard. I listened hard.”

  “It didn’t sound like her?”

  “It was her. But from yesterday. She said exactly the same thing. My name. Then she asked what was happening, but she was cut off and she didn’t get the whole word out.”

  “That’s not conclusive. It stands to reason she would say your name.”

  “That’s the first thing. But there’s a second thing.”

  “What second thing?”

  “The ambient noise. When the guy was talking, there was none. He was somewhere relatively quiet. Maybe indoors, maybe in a stationary vehicle.”

  “So?”

  “So, yesterday the sound was different. They were moving. They were driving to New York, so the ambient noise reflected that. It was higher pitched. The sound of tires on road. And that’s what I just heard. A completely different sound. High-speed road noise. Either side of Beth’s voice. But not around the guy’s voice.”

  Hutton said nothing.

  “They recorded her voice,” said Flynn. “After they took her. Possibly when I asked to speak to her. Maybe even before that. Maybe they told her I was on the phone to get the recording and then they killed her. She might still be in DC. I might have followed a ghost here. I might have even heard a recording yesterday. But I definitely heard one today.”

  Hutton flopped back in her chair and ran her hands through her hair. She hadn’t done that in Iraq. She had longer hair now. She glanced at Hedstrom, but he was watching Flynn.

  Hutton said, “We should call the FBI.”

  “No.”

  “I’m serious. I still know a lot of people there. Good people.”

  “As good as you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, no. I’m not calling the FBI.”

  “Why? This is what they do.”

  “I know it is. And who would you consider the number one suspect in any missing persons case?”

  “Family.”

  “Specifically?”

  “The partner,” said Hedstrom. His voice was like New York City gravel. “Husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend.”

  Flynn watched him. “Exactly. Statistically, the most likely person to cause Beth harm is me. And I know that isn’t the case. But the FBI doesn’t. They’re going to waste a lot of time looking at me. Time I don’t have to waste. I don’t want these guys getting away. I want them where I can find them.”

  “But we can’t find them,” said Hutton. “Isn’t that the point? No leads on the shipment, no leads on Beth.”

  “That was before. Now we know something about them.”

  “What do we know?”

  “We know they’re in New York.”

  “It’s a big town, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “They’re in the Union Square area.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The guy more or less told me. He said I needed to concentrate. He said I needed to find the shipment. And then he said focus on the girl you lost. He didn’t say focus on your girl. He said the girl. The one I lost. As opposed to the one I found.”

  “The one you found?”

  “You. He meant you. He’s seen us together. Maybe when we got lunch. He’s watching us.”

  Hutton played the words through her mind. “Maybe.”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Hutton. “Nils?”

  Hedstrom said nothing. He moved his eyes from Flynn to Hutton and then back. He made no move to say anything. Then Hutton’s desk phone beeped. She stepped to her desk. Flynn watched her. Hedstrom watched Flynn. Hutton hit a button on the console.

  “Yes?”

  “Boss, you in the daily brief?” asked a male voice.

  Hutton shot a look at the men at the meeting table.

  Hedstrom nodded.

  “I’ll be right there,” she said.

  Hutton picked a notepad and pen off her desk and turned for the door.

  “Daily team update,” she said to Flynn. “Give me a few,” she said.

  “Take all the time you need,” he replied.

  Hutton gave Hedstrom another glance
and then walked out of her office. Flynn watched her go. Hedstrom watched Flynn. For a moment neither man spoke.

  “You don’t want her to help me,” said Flynn.

  “What makes you say that?” replied Hedstrom.

  “You have doubts.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Flynn took a deep breath. “Ask your questions.”

  Hedstrom’s expression didn’t change. “She trusts you.”

  “I know.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You’d have to ask her.”

  “I did. Now I’m asking you.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because I was honest about how honest I could really be.”

  “Or because she cares about you more than she’d like to admit.”

  “I can’t speak to that.”

  “I’d hate for someone to take advantage of her.”

  “She’s not easily taken advantage of,” Flynn said.

  “No. But it is possible. For all of us.”

  Flynn said nothing.

  “She looked for you, you know,” said Hedstrom. “For years.”

  “I thought it was safer for everyone if I didn’t make contact.”

  “Is that what you thought?”

  Flynn leaned into the table. “What is it you want from me?”

  “I want to know why an American boy joins a foreign army.”

  Flynn leaned back and let out a long breath. It was a question he had asked himself more times than there had been sunrises in his life.

  “Hutton said you were a Marine?”

  “Semper Fi,” said Hedstrom.

  “So was my dad. I was a military brat. Mostly outside of the US. I grew up an American, just not in America. And let’s just say that something happened to change the way I felt about things.”

  “Not even close to good enough.”

  “My dad was killed. The government disowned him. It was politically convenient. They tried to make him a scapegoat for something that he didn’t do. I was a kid, and I was threatened by our government with spending the rest of my life in Guantanamo, or somewhere worse. My dad’s CO found me and got me out before they could make that happen.”

  “Go on.”

  “I was raised in service. I wanted to serve. I was supposed to go military college stateside. And my country turned its back on me. I found myself just out of high school, in a foreign country. I was alone, confused. But I still wanted to serve. And I met someone, an officer, who took me in and offered me a chance to do just that. He taught me that service is about ideals, beliefs. Not random lines on a map.”

  “So the French Foreign Legion?”

  “Hutton told you.”

  “I joined the dots.”

  “Yes. I was told I could serve. They offered me a place to go and something to fight for.”

  “But not the Stars and Stripes.”

  “No. Just what the Stars and Stripes stand for. Liberty. Freedom. Justice.”

  “You sound like a recruitment poster,” said Hedstrom.

  Flynn crossed his arms but said nothing.

  “Did you ever fire on Americans?”

  “No. And I wouldn’t have if I had been asked. And they know that. They don’t send guys in against their own. They understand the conflict in that. They understand that asking men to make that choice could backfire on them. Besides, the US and modern France are born of the same cloth. We’ve been on the same side since the Revolutionary War. France was our first ally. We’re different politically, and we’ve had our disagreements. But if you want a reminder of what we share in common, just look out in New York Harbor.”

  Hedstrom glanced out the window in the general direction of the Battery. He couldn’t see the water from his seat, but he knew what was out there.

  “Statue of Liberty,” said Flynn.

  “What about her?”

  “She’s French.”

  Hedstrom looked long and hard out the window and then returned to Flynn.

  “Tell me about the kidnapping.”

  Flynn explained everything from their arrival in Washington, DC., until he had gotten to the offices of Hutton Hedstrom Associates.

  “Why take her?” Hedstrom asked. “Why not just go for you?”

  “Leverage. If they want me to do something, they can’t hold me, so they took someone they could hold.”

  “But then they kill her? What’s the motivation?”

  Flynn let Hedstrom’s blunt assessment slide. “Less risk. They need the leverage. They don’t specifically need Beth.”

  “But to use a recording, the same recording. What do you make of that?”

  “Amateurs. A pro would assume I would figure it out.”

  “If they’re amateurs, how did they track you here?”

  “They got lucky the way I got lucky. I tracked Beth’s phone. It went offline near the Con Ed plant. I figure they charged it and used the same tracking app on the phone to find Beth’s tablet.”

  Flynn pointed over his shoulder at the bureau where the tablet lay attached to Hutton’s charger. Hedstrom looked at the charger and then back at Flynn.

  “They didn’t get lucky. You wanted them to find you,” he said.

  “Narrows down the area I have to search to find them.”

  Hedstrom looked back out the window. This time he ran his eyes along the street and across at Union Square.

  “So you think they’re out there.”

  “Somewhere.”

  Hedstrom stood. “Let’s take a look.”

  The unit leader was pacing. He wasn’t good at waiting despite having done so much of it. He was a man of action, of decisive gestures. Not waiting. So he paced. He watched his men tap at keyboards and make calls. He marched to the window overlooking the street. Leaves blew along the sidewalk, reminding him of a home he had left long ago. He clenched his fists and drove the thought from his mind. His phone rang as he turned from the window.

  “Our guy is on his way in.”

  “Good,” said the team leader.

  “He’ll want some kind of incentive. It’s his day off.”

  “Do what you gotta do.”

  “I thought you might offer something.”

  “I could put a gun in his mouth.”

  “Never mind. I’ll take care of it.”

  “You do that.”

  “Be here at six. Come to the loading dock.”

  Chapter Ten

  Hedstrom strode to his office. It was similar to Hutton’s—a view, a desk, a meeting table. Less paperwork. He opened a file drawer and pulled out a cylindrical bag with a single carry strap. He pushed the drawer home hard and walked out. He led Flynn into the fire escape—cold, raw concrete—and up onto the roof of the building.

  It was cold on the roof. The breeze might have dropped at street level, but five stories up it broke between the taller skyscrapers and funneled through the two men. But Flynn had been colder and so had Hedstrom. The roof was flat and open. Tar and pebble covered the surface. A hutch with a fire door gave them access from the stairs below. There was a block of air conditioning units that sat quietly waiting for the summer heat, deferring the winter months to the furnace in the basement. An eighteen-inch parapet ran around the perimeter of the roof.

  Hedstrom nestled in behind the parapet. Flynn got as comfortable as he could. Hedstrom pulled a spotting scope out of the bag, put his elbow on top of the small wall, and then positioned the spotting scope across the street. He ran the scope along the street, north to south, and then handed it to Flynn.

  The scope was a Leupold Golden Ring model, an excellent piece of equipment. Flynn could see the stubble starting to grow on the shaved faces of men walking through the park on the other side of the street. He could practically see the pores in their skin. He adjusted the scope and slowly panned along Union Square East from south to north. Reached the north end of the park, where the road became Park Avenue. His vantage point gave him a view uptown another block on the west side, about a quarter block
on the east side. No watcher would be on the east side. That gave them too limited a line of sight of Hutton’s building. He focused on the west side. There were no cars parked on Union Square East. He moved the scope north to Park Avenue. West side, just north of East 17th.

  He focused the scope in on that spot. There was a vehicle parked there. A basic blue sedan. A Chevrolet. Not the kind of Chevy that anyone would write a song about. The driver’s seat was filled by a woman with a beehive of blond hair. She appeared to be waiting on someone. Looking over her shoulder toward the sidewalk, as if she was nervous that she would be shifted along by the NYPD. Flynn could see she was wearing earrings that hung heavy from her lobes, encrusted with blue gems. Perhaps aquamarine. He wasn’t sure. Gemstones weren’t his area of expertise.

  He pulled the view out some and slowly panned back along the street to the south. Lots of people moving in various directions. In and out of the park, to and from the subway. Fast, slow. More fast than slow. Two individuals caught his eye because they were stationary in a river of movement, but both proved to be waiting for someone to arrive from the subway station. He reached the southeast corner of the park and kept going as far down Broadway as his angle would allow, which wasn’t far. Broadway turned to the southeast itself rather than continuing in a straight line from Park Avenue, so his view only progressed a couple of buildings down. But if he couldn’t see further down the street, then no watcher could see Hutton’s building, so he panned back and kept sweeping the street.

  Flynn knew a good team could keep eyes on Hutton’s office around the clock without detection. They could pose as road maintenance workers, but there were none on the block. They could act as park gardeners. They could dig all day and not raise suspicion. They could pace up and down the street in turn, one watcher and then another. Dressed in suits, they could keep the rotation going for hours before someone might suspect they had seen one of those faces previously. But such techniques weren’t random. They developed a pattern. Eventually, the same people followed the same path. And within his field of observation, a pattern would quickly develop.

  He saw no patterns. He saw no repeat faces. No road works, no park maintenance. He scanned back to the north end and saw the blue sedan. The woman driver with the beehive of hair was talking. Agitated. She said something in the direction of the sidewalk, away from Flynn. He moved his scope slightly and saw the officer. NYPD. She was getting moved on. No lingering on the streets of Manhattan during the day. Parking was like clogging the arteries, and the cop was like a statin drug clearing the way. The woman looked flushed and annoyed, but she started her car and pulled out into traffic without the bother of a turn signal. The cop turned his attention to a large dark truck behind. Maybe a Yukon. An older model that you didn’t normally see downtown. Black paint baked a dark purple on the hood by years of sun and snow and a lack of oil changes. The cop waved his arms at the Yukon. Flynn couldn’t see the driver. He was behind tinted windows. But he didn’t require a chat with the cop. He just signaled and pulled out, freeing up the lane for through traffic.