Whistleblower

by Stefanie Pintoff

  García’s face softened.

  Red lights mingled with blue and created a psychedelic blur on the wet pavement as the ambulance arrived.

  García clutched at Frankie’s arm like he’d never let go.

  “Someone needs to ask him questions. I don’t care who,” Donovan said roughly. “He has information I desperately need. He’s met the kidnapper. He’s wearing Allie’s clothes.”

  “We’ve got it covered,” Eve assured him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  He brushed it off, running forward when the rear door to the ambulance opened. A medic stepped out of the back, made a series of preparations for his patient inside.

  Donovan was shaking with anger and frustration, elemental and deep-seated. He waved toward the great expanse that was Central Park. “Kidnapper’s in there, somewhere.”

  “We should send Tactical in for a search-and-rescue mission,” Eve said, also stepping toward the ambulance. “Given the amount of rain we’ve had earlier, they stand a good chance of tracking the boy’s movements.”

  Donovan’s words were thick in his throat. “Easy as pie. Which is why I want your man to handle it.”

  Eve whirled to face him. She had never met a man more determined to have things his own way. “You mean García? Right now, he’s a father who needs to be with his son. You and I, on the other hand, have the resources of two entire departments at our disposal.”

  Donovan’s eyes were blazing. Not with anger, though. Unease, Eve decided.

  “I want García,” he demanded. “He reminds me of men I trusted my own life with during Operation Desert Storm.”

  “You don’t get to pick and choose,” she told him.

  “Given what the bastard did to García’s boy, I’ll bet he’s motivated and ready to do it.”

  “All my guys are good, and they all want to make this perp pay,” she agreed. “But this isn’t about skill or motivation; it’s about manpower. Central Park is—what?—over eight hundred acres? In the dark, it would be a fool’s errand to send only a couple men. We need boots on the ground.”

  “It can’t be cops’ boots.”

  Eve had let this go on too long. She understood the pressures and the concerns that handicapped Donovan. But in this moment, his behavior made no sense—and it had to stop. “Why wouldn’t you want all the help you can get? The police commissioner is sworn to protect all citizens of this city. Maybe you’ve forgotten that includes Allie, too.”

  “Maybe you’ve forgotten that my department has been targeted by multiple threats. I already lost a man this evening,” he said roughly. “Every call my officers get? I’m aware it could be a trap.”

  “You’d like it better if a trap ensnared my team,” she retorted.

  “It won’t. I’ve seen the way García moves. Like he’s got eyes in the back of his head.”

  Eve nodded, finally understanding. She watched Donovan straighten his shoulders, regain control. The flash of vulnerability that she’d seen disappeared in an instant.

  The paramedics wheeled Frankie Junior to the ambulance. García followed them into the back.

  “Safe to say he’s got troubles of his own,” she told the commissioner. “It isn’t always about you.”

  But in that moment, García surprised her. He said a few words to Frankie Junior—then stepped back out of the ambulance.

  It was true that Eve could usually tell things about people, reading the words and emotions they would never say. Her process was largely intuitive, maybe with a hint of magic—not unlike predicting a future from the palm of a hand.

  But the truth of someone else’s relationship? Like this father and son? Its texture was far too complicated. Even for her.

  García watched the ambulance pull away. Then he exchanged a glance with Donovan. Something wordless passed between them—the faintest trace of a signal. Maybe it was a bond between two fathers. Or an understanding between men who always put their job first.

  “The doctors will do their job. I’m going to do mine.”

  “It’s too big an area,” Eve told him. “You won’t be able to accomplish anything until I send in reinforcements.”

  García shook his head. “I’m still going to get started. It’s like my old commander used to say: You eat the elephant one bite at a time.”

  García was still holding the purple raincoat and soggy panda backpack. Now he offered them to the commissioner.

  “It’s not even her backpack,” Donovan choked, angry again. “Looks like the asshole got it from one of the parade vendors. We ought to check; see if anybody remembers selling it.” He indicated a man hawking toys about thirty yards behind, with several animal backpacks—elephants, giraffes, monkeys, as well as pandas.

  “So who’s gonna look inside it—you or me?” García demanded.

  The commissioner didn’t open the backpack so much as he ripped it apart in frustration.

  He saw what was inside. Dropped it to the ground and gave it a hard kick. It scuttled against the metal bleachers.

  Silently, Eve picked it up. And stared, dumbfounded, at its contents.

  Chapter 52

  Near the Parade Route

  Reading her letter, I started to understand something: The situation is the key.

  That’s what I learned back in Psych 101 when we studied the Stanford Prison Experiment. Once people volunteered to be prisoners or guards, they internalized their roles. Guards turned into sadists; prisoners became rebels or victims. Morality went right out the window.

  Assuming it was ever there.

  It reminds me of the drowning child—another exercise they teach you in school.

  You imagine there’s a drowning child. He screams for your help—so you think you ought to give it. You’re big enough and strong enough; you can lift the child out of the water.

  But life’s complicated. You imagine how your clothes will get muddy and wet. It will cost time to change them. To call the child’s mom. To give statements to the police.

  And there are consequences: You’ll be late to work. Your boss will be angry. You might lose your job.

  Should you still save the child?

  It’s a no-brainer, right?

  But did you know, all over the world, two people die every second from preventable causes? One hundred twenty every minute? Seven thousand two hundred every hour?

  So should you donate to UNICEF or the Red Cross? And how often—every day? Every week? Every month?

  The abstract is less of a no-brainer, right?

  How far will you go to save a child?

  And here’s a different question: What if the child is yours?

  Chapter 53

  350 Riverside Drive, Vidocq Headquarters

  Who was having the affair? The question was driving him crazy.

  Eli leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head. He had been sitting in front of his computer for well over two hours, tracing the financial details of Jill and Logan Donovan’s life. After hearing of the botched ransom drop at the museum, a new urgency had entered his online research.

  He considered himself Haddox’s technological equal when it came to unraveling asset-protection schemes. What ordinary people called “hiding their money.” And he was certainly on par with Eve in terms of understanding how people’s money habits betrayed even the most distorted thinking of their psyche.

  So what was he missing? Why hadn’t he found the answer yet?

  And then it hit him: Because I’m looking in the wrong places.

  He remembered himself as a teenager. How he’d wasted few words on his father or his grandma. He communicated with them in monosyllables, saving his real thoughts for his friends. He’s been smart-mouthed and aloof, pretending never to care—but behind it all, he’d been a pretty accurate observer of his immediate world.

  Allie had a credit card—and the charges on it fell into three categories. One of her parents was responsible for the hotels and restaurants and lingerie. The iTunes and gaming
sites and Fandango charges appeared to be uniquely Allie’s. But then Eli had noticed a third category, with unusual names.

  He started with the first and worked his way down, his fingers clicking a staccato on the keys.

  He uncovered chat rooms with fees.

  Forums where you paid for access to a private detective’s “expertise.”

  Something called WebJusticeForUs—which was partly a private forum, partly an advice site for amateur investigators.

  Haddox would’ve just hacked his way in.

  But Haddox wasn’t here.

  Eli couldn’t get beyond the login screen without a registered, paid account. So he opened his wallet, pulled out his personal credit card, and ponied up.

  Chapter 54

  Southeast Corner of West 77th Street and Central Park West

  Inside the panda backpack were two items that Eve was not expecting. The first was a large block of money—cash, wrapped in cellophane—that contained directions to the current location of the full two million dollars that Mace had dropped off in the garbage can with the smiley face.

  Scrawled on it, a message. Can’t buy me love.

  “Check it out.” She tossed the block to Mace. But she didn’t truly doubt that it was real. It was the ultimate tease from their adversary—throwing their money right back at them. Task One, indeed.

  The second item was a flip phone. Nokia brand. Cheap.

  Likely paid for in cash. Likely untraceable.

  A Post-it note with a message was there, too. Give this to the blonde watching the can.

  Looping letters with flourishes contrasted with square capitals penciled hard. But jagged—made with a shaky hand. Eve thought that could be from nerves—or the cold—or a mix of both.

  “That one’s messy. But it’s Allie’s handwriting.” Donovan stared at the paper in bewilderment.

  Eve opened the flip phone. Checked that it was active. Then searched its address book.

  Only one number was listed. She dialed it.

  It rang once. Twice.

  García’s fury and anguish were so intense they seemed perfectly matched. “I’m tracking down the bastard, not sticking around while you make conversation. Call me if I need to know something. Otherwise, don’t bother me.”

  “Go,” Eve said, nodding. If any single person had the ability to find the kidnapper within the vast acreage of Central Park, it was García. Not just because his former Special Ops experience gave him expertise. Because the same paranoia and hypervigilance that had cost García his marriage also made him extremely good at his job.

  Another ring. Then another.

  Donovan’s own cellphone began to trill. He looked down and motioned to her that he was needed elsewhere. “Remember to loop me in when it’s important,” he reminded her.

  Finally, a click. The line was live.

  A computerized voice answered. It sounded annoyed—and out of breath.

  “Is this the blonde?”

  Great, Eve thought. Six years at Yale, an advanced degree in psychology, and first in my training class at Quantico. And here and now, when that all mattered? I have to answer to “the blonde.”

  “This is Eve Rossi. You left me this phone—and a message—because you want to talk.” Her voice projected the image she wanted to convey: calm and respectful but firm.

  She wished circumstances were different. That they had more time. That Haddox was prepared—with the supersensitive equipment that could triangulate this call and record the conversation. Connect to the voice-recognition software that would almost immediately begin to analyze the kidnapper’s speech patterns and word choices.

  Instead, she would need to rely on her own powers of observation.

  “We’re going to talk about my second demand,” the kidnapper said.

  “Because the two million dollars wasn’t enough?” Eve remarked. “It’s a lot of money. It would satisfy most people.”

  “Yeah.” A chortle. “Obviously, I’m not most people.”

  “I can see that. Most people also wouldn’t have hurt the boy.” She held her breath, knowing how he handled the accusation would tell her a great deal.

  He struck a petulant tone. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t want him to get hurt.”

  Definitely not the response she was hoping for. No admission of agency. Not I hurt the boy. But the boy got hurt.

  It marked him as one of the delusional ones—what the FBI called an injustice collector. A person who remembered every slight, who believed that everything was anyone’s fault but his own.

  Eve had long believed that these people were the most dangerous. Because it was hard—impossible, really—to reason with somebody whose reality was a fiction.

  “You didn’t want him to get hurt? We did exactly what you asked and you didn’t keep your end of the bargain. All we want is Allie back.”

  He ignored Eve’s last statement as if she hadn’t spoken. “I never wanted to hurt the boy. Why would you think I did?”

  “He was hurt. Are you saying it was an accident?” Eve was still working to figure out how this person thought. To find out what was important to him and establish a common ground. If she could win him over, convince him that she understood him, and get inside his mind, then maybe she could wear him down. Convince him to let Allie go.

  The man laughed softly. “No accident. Just self-defense, pure and simple. The kid tried to hit me over the head with a rock.”

  Good for you, Frankie, Eve thought. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

  “So how about holding up your end of the deal?” she asked. “We gave you two million dollars. You were supposed to release Allie Donovan.”

  He laughed—but it was harsh and cruel, not a sign of rapport. “By parade’s end, Eve—parade’s end. The money was just your first task. A down payment, if you will, to prove we can deal honestly with each other. Remember, there are two more.”

  “Then let’s be honest with each other, Mr….?”

  “Call me Bob.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “C’mon, Eve.”

  “Fine. Bob. What I want is simple: for you to let Allie go. Immediately.”

  “Actually, that won’t work for me. Immediately implies a kind of urgency that I just don’t feel.”

  “Since you’re holding a frightened thirteen-year-old child as your prisoner, I’d appreciate some urgency.” Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Donovan, pacing along Central Park West, scanning the perimeter of the park. His phone to his ear. His right hand trained on his gun. Back in uniform, consumed by the job.

  “Well, Eve, maybe you can put some of that urgency to work for me. Remember Gregg Burke?”

  “The cop killer,” Eve confirmed. Gregg Burke hadn’t just shot a cop on a street corner in Queens—allegedly in retribution for an unarmed police shooting in the same neighborhood. Burke was also a jihad sympathizer who used racial turmoil as an excuse to kill. Right now he was being held in a secure location downtown, arraigned on charges including first-degree murder and possessing weapons of mass destruction, as investigators gathered sufficient evidence to slap him with terrorism-related charges.

  “I want him.”

  “You and over half the civilized world.”

  “He was drawing attention to a real problem.”

  “There are problems everywhere, Bob. Killing people doesn’t solve them. Neither does kidnapping a child.”

  “You want the kid back? You’ll bring Gregg Burke to me. This is your second task; your deadline is nine a.m.”

  “Impossible.”

  He ignored her objection. “You need to bring Burke to Columbus Circle, right as the parade begins and the first few floats make their way by.”

  “Even if I could bring you Burke—which I can’t—Columbus Circle during the parade will be a madhouse. There’ll be thousands of spectators. There’ll be hundreds of police.”

  “Which is exactly why no one will notice our business.”

  �
��I cannot spring a cop killer and suspected terrorist out of jail. The idea is preposterous.”

  “Do you not understand that I’m willing to kill the commissioner’s daughter? Remember the ticking clock? You have two more tasks to complete; you need to stay on schedule.”

  “We need more time,” Eve said quickly. “We’re talking about a high-profile maximum-security prisoner.”

  “You’ll think of something, Eve. The commissioner will help you. After all, this is his test. I need to know exactly how far he’s willing to go to save his child.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Maybe I have something to prove.”

  “I want to talk with Allie.”

  “I’ll be monitoring the news, to see if you succeed.”

  “I need to make sure she’s all right.”

  No answer. Just a click.

  And he was gone.

  Chapter 55

  Central Park, near 72nd Street

  García sighted his path with a Maglite beam, retracing his son’s tracks back into the park. He had trouble at first. The tracks weren’t neat. They were ever-changing, suggesting rapid, haphazard movements. Frankie Junior had been dizzy from blood loss—and García could detect traces of that, too, on the leaves along the narrow, wooded path.

  And, he soon realized, they were going to dead-end into the loop, the paved road that circled around the interior of Central Park. He made an educated guess: The tracks were leading into the Ramble.

  Just north of the lake, the Ramble was a thirty-eight-acre maze of twisting trails and winding streams, large rocks, and dense woods. It was probably the one place in Manhattan so remote that it was possible to get lost.

  Except García had been trained to navigate the harshest of trails, in the worst of circumstances. If he could track a target in the sandstorms of Afghanistan, blind to the world around him, he could trace a trail in the heart of New York City.

  Faint footprints continued on the other side of the bridge, just at the entrance to the Ramble. But just as important, there were additional signs pointing to where Frankie Junior had passed. Mound of leaves recently disturbed. Branches, with their dry side facing up.