Saving Jason
Page 24
54
You mentioned mountain lions before,” I said. I hadn’t wanted to say it, but I had been thinking it so much that it just popped out.
It was later in the afternoon and the Kid had not yet been found. Robertson wanted me to stay at the house with him. I was more valuable as an information resource than as a searcher. The teams reported in over the radios regularly, which helped me to control my soul-destroying anxiety. It sounded like things were progressing. If I had been out in the field, I would have been defeated by the immensity of the problem.
“Not likely. Big cats don’t come down unless they’re driven down. This time of year, there’s plenty to eat up in the mountains. It’s cooler. There’s water. I wouldn’t worry about that problem.”
“What would you worry about?”
“We think we’re going to find him,” he said. “Safe.”
“I’ve heard coyotes at night.”
“No doubt. But have you seen one? Our western coyotes are small. They might take a small pet, but even a small seven-year-old is big compared to them. They’ll protect a den, but they don’t usually attack. They run or hide.”
Searches of the house and barn had turned up nothing more than another two shoe marks in the dust near the corral. The house over the hill, where an older retired couple agreed to keep an eye out for any seven-year-old children—lost or not—revealed no sign of him. The teams were now focusing on a small but hourly expanding circle of probability. Robertson and Betty had broken up the map into search cones, beginning at the IPP (Initial Planning Point)—the house—and fanning out across the hills. They had assigned probabilities to those cones based on geography. Some areas were too steep or, for some other reason, less accessible to a small traveler. One group had gone off in three pickup trucks to investigate the lake area and surrounding waters.
Hal was nervous with all of the strangers coming in and out of the house and roaming around the property. He stayed near me. Willie made a big pot of chili before heading out with one of the search teams. Robertson didn’t question why I had two armed men living in the house with me, and I made no effort to explain.
My iPad chirped. Incoming email. A beer ad with an outdated coupon for discounts on Rolling Rock longnecks. That was Manny’s way of letting me know that there was someone in our chat room who wanted to talk. It was after nine in New York, so I guessed that it was Skeli.
“I’ll be in my room for a little while. Sing out if there’s any word.”
Robertson was busy examining the map again and didn’t look up. “Will do.”
Skeli looked tired. I couldn’t imagine what I looked like.
“You’re still at the office,” I said. Her diploma and licenses covered the wall behind her.
“The last client just left. Benny’s straightening up the equipment and then we’re walking out.” Benny was one of the therapy technicians. He was a big, gentle blonde from Iowa who had come to New York to seek his fortune on Broadway, but had enough foresight to pick up a marketable skill along the way.
“You okay?”
“Yes, we’re doing fine.” She looked down at her belly and back to me. She smiled. “Missing you.”
“And I, you.”
“You don’t sound good.”
“You’re right. I’m stressed. The Kid went missing today.”
“Oh my god. Is he back? Is he okay?”
“No. The state search-and-rescue people have been looking for him all afternoon.” I filled her in on the little that I knew. “This is all a mess. We should never have come out here.”
“You didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice. I pulled him out of the only world that he understood—that he felt even remotely comfortable in—and brought him out to this very weird place. This would not have happened if we were still in New York.”
“You don’t know that. And he would not be better off if you were dead. And that’s what might have happened if you were still in New York.”
“I could have found a way.”
“Well, find it now. That’s got to be your goal. The only way you can help him right now is by making plans for the future. So do it.”
“Anybody ever tell you you’re one tough broad?”
“I know they’re going to find him, Jason. So do you. He’s hiding right now. But when he gets thirsty enough, or hungry enough, or forgets whatever it was that spooked him, he’ll show up. Meanwhile, you have dozens of trained people out there doing what they do best. You said so yourself.”
I had. She was right.
“As long as that asshole lawyer, what’s-his-name, Blackmore, keeps you in purgatory, he wins and you lose. There must be some way you can turn this thing around. You’re the smartest man I know.” She looked away. Someone had just come into the room. “Give me one minute, Benny, and I’ll be ready to go.” She looked back at me—at the screen. “Is there any way that I can help? Pass messages to Virgil? Or talk to your FBI buddy?”
“Thanks. I don’t know whether there really is a way out of this mess, but I’m the only one who’s going to look for it. Do you pray?”
“Not since I was about the same age as the Kid,” she said.
“I never got the habit. Times like these, though, I understand its appeal.”
55
Mr. Sauerman?”
Neither the voice, nor the words, registered. I heard them, but I did not understand how they might apply to me.
Skeli made a good point. I was in hiding because someone was afraid of something that I supposedly knew. Some vital piece of information that would disrupt their plan, and possibly send one or more people to prison. The fact that I had no idea as to what that might be was irrelevant. They believed and were afraid, and had, therefore, sent someone to kill me. If they were afraid, I had the power. I just needed to find the key to use it.
“Mr. Sauerman?”
The Kid was going to be found. That mantra was for my own fear. If I let myself think anything else, that would be all I could think about. Fear for him would drive out every other thought. I had let my fear rob me of my home, my family, and even of my own identity. I did not want to ever face a man with a gun again. Nor could I bear the death of another innocent, sacrificed in lieu of my own sorry ass. But I could still fight back with what I had left. My brain.
“Mr. Sauerman. Sir!”
My head snapped up. It was one of the state cops at my bedroom door—they all looked identical in their black uniforms—and I had the immediate realization that he had been trying to get my attention for some time. But who the hell was Sauerman?
“Yes? What’s up?” I asked. Of course. I was supposed to be Sauerman. Sauerman was a frightened man on the run. Well, I was a frightened man, too, but I was no longer running.
“IC wants you downstairs.”
Incident coordinator. Robertson.
“Thank you.”
Robertson and two of the team leaders were at the table. The woman, Betty, had a bowl of the chili, which she was attacking with ferocity.
“You need to hear all this. There’ve been some developments. They found sign. Some yellow threads on the edge of a patch of bougainvillea. It looks like the boy hid there at one point. Our people could have walked right past him.”
“But he’s gone again.”
“Yes, but this tells us where we need to concentrate. I can bring in teams from more remote areas and get everyone in this area here.” He pointed to the map and a purple-outlined cone that covered a few hundred acres.
“What says he hasn’t already walked out of the area?”
“This border? Very steep and all rock. It would be like trying to climb up the side of a thirty-foot-tall frying pan on your hands and knees. There’s plenty of places for a small child to hide all along the base, but climb over it? No. Not during the day.”
“We’ll post people on that ridge all night if we have to. We’re close, Mr. Sauerman. This is very good news.”
“You’re right. Thank you.”
“But night is coming. We’ll continue, but usually we try to attract people at night. Fires, big lights, horns. Anything to give someone who is lost a beacon of some kind. Autistic children don’t usually respond.”
“You’re right. Big noise scares him. Hurts, actually. He might find light interesting, but not a fire or floodlight. Christmas tree lights, maybe. Sparkling, twinkling. Or colored lights.”
Robertson looked at Betty. “Can we find something like that?”
“I’ll make some calls,” she said.
“Lastly, sir, we have a developing press problem. We can’t ignore them. We set up a dummy command post down at the high school gym. I’m going to drive down there in a little while and talk to the reporters. I don’t know your issues or why the marshals are interested, but a moment in front of the cameras might help us. People see a grieving parent on the local news and maybe remember seeing the boy walking along a road, or hiding in an outhouse.”
“Let me think about it.”
“That’s fine. But I want you to know. They’re not going to stay down there and be well behaved for very long. I’m surprised they’re not up here already. By tomorrow morning they’ll be right outside the door with trucks blocking the road and folks poking cameras in the window. They’ll dig until they get every last bit of information available. It’s going to be very hard to keep secrets, if you know what I mean.”
“I understand.”
He wanted me to say more, but I wasn’t ready. I still wanted the Kid found in the next minute—or five.
“Now that we know the general area, wouldn’t I be more valuable up there?” I asked. “He might come to me.”
Robertson looked pained. “You’re not trained. Sorry. If we put you out there, we have a greater likelihood of doubling our problem rather than resolving it.”
“I want to go.”
“Sir, I am not sending an untrained man out at night into that kind of terrain. And as it is an official SAR site, I can have you detained, if need be.”
“If you don’t find him tonight, then I’m going out there in the morning.”
“We’re going to find your son. I still believe he is close by and relatively safe.”
“I’ll talk to the press in the morning. When we’re finished, I’m going out there.”
“I don’t make trades, Mr. Sauerman. I find lost people.”
“I do make trades, Mr. Robertson, and I’m going to help you find him. Send one of your volunteers with me. If he hears my voice, he may come. I should be up there now.”
56
Robertson knocked twice and put his head in the door.
“I’ve arranged for a press conference tomorrow morning at seven. Up here. They’ve all promised to hold back until then.”
My laptop was open on the bed next to me, but I was having a hard time concentrating.
“And I go looking for him right after,” I said.
“And I’ll be going with you. Try and get some sleep.” He spoke in a quiet, kind voice.
“Thanks.”
Sleep wasn’t on my agenda. Daybreak was seven hours away.
I had to expect that my picture would be all over the world the next morning. The story of an autistic child lost in the high mountain desert would be the number-one human interest story of the day. The distraught father speaking to the media for the first time would be irresistible.
I would be recognized. Outed on national news. How long would it take for the press to realize that John Sauerman, resident of Las Vegas, New Mexico, was actually Jason Stafford, the ex-felon who had graced the front page of New York’s other favorite tabloid?
Better they hear it directly from me. The torrent was coming; it made sense to meet it head-on.
There was another knock at the door.
“Come in.”
It was Hal. “You okay? I’ll be in the next room.”
“I’m fine. Thanks. Willie?”
“Still out with the team. They’ve put up a forward camp at the LKP. He’ll sleep there.”
LKP. Last known place. Twelve hours in and we had all adopted the jargon.
“See you in the morning. I’ll probably be up for a while.”
“You want company?”
“Thanks. No.”
“Good night, then.”
I tried lying down and closing my eyes. As soon as I let my mind relax, the images of horror swept in, screaming for attention. My son, cold, terrified, dehydrated, in pain, stalked by animals that flew, walked, or slithered.
I got up and went out onto the balcony. It was the night of a new moon. The stars looked close enough to touch. I took a chair, put my feet up on the railing, and tried to think of anything but my son.
People who grow up in cities learn about constellations from books. I’d been to the planetarium in Manhattan exactly three times in my life. The only constellation I could identify with any degree of confidence was the Big Dipper. There were times when I couldn’t find it. A friend in college had explained that it was upside down and, therefore, looked different to me. I believed him because he had no reason to lie, and if he was playing a prank, it would have been the only one he ever attempted. Sometimes I could find it, sometimes not.
But at least the Big Dipper looked like a cup at the end of a long curved handle. A dipper. Other constellations looked nothing like their names. Man’s desperate attempt to create order out of chaos. Impose order. And it was an imposition. Wasn’t the display—which must resemble what the ancients saw every night—magnificent without having to be chopped into recognizable pieces? Did early navigators determine that a particular grouping resembled the Babylonian god of war? Wasn’t it more likely that some shaman called it that as part of some religious quackery designed to keep the peasants in fear of their universe?
The universe is filled with mysteries enough. Why does man create mysteries where none exist? It merely highlights their ignorance. I had never been a student of astrology and was resigned to the idea that I never would become one.
Mathematics was filled with such supposed mysteries that, upon deeper investigation, were revealed to be mere coincidence or wordplay. Some, like Russell’s paradox, or Euler’s Königsberg bridges puzzle, were instrumental in opening up other fields. Others, like the seventeen camels, the rope around the Earth, or Ulam’s Rose, revealed less about the workings of the universe than they did about the limits of mathematics as a form of communication.
Ulam’s Rose. I sat up. Ulam’s Spiral. I ran back into the bedroom and grabbed my laptop.
It took me less than a minute to find Manny’s messages. They went back for a few months. Of course, he wasn’t Manny then. Who had he been masquerading as back in April? The writer. Evan Hunter. I Googled him quickly and found the answer. Salvatore Albert Lombino.
I did a search for messages from Lombino. The one I wanted was the very first. The buyers of the shares of Becker Financial. The coded names of the buyers. Lists of numbers. Prime numbers.
Ulam’s Spiral has drawn more than one young mathematician into its spiderweb of meaningless confluence. If in some distant future or alternate universe, the mystery of the spiral is solved, it will have more to do with our understanding of the workings of our subconscious than any new mathematical theorem. Chaos exists. Some events are truly random. The fact that we see patterns speaks to how we perceive reality—how the brain works—rather than to any intrinsic grand design.
Ulam was a twentieth-century mathematician who, during a sleep-inducing lecture at a conference he attended, began doodling a spiral shape composed of numbers in order, highlighting all the pri
me numbers:
17
16
15
14
13
18
5
4
3
12
19
6
1
2
11
20
7
8
9
10
21
22
23
24
25
26
He noticed that prime numbers tended to align on diagonals as the spiral increased in size. Then he saw that there were longitudinal and latitudinal lines. Later, when he was able to see computer-generated results, the lines became even more apparent. Eventually, a spiral was created that used numbers of several digits. When the resulting picture was reduced in size to an image that could be seen all at once, in its entirety, by the human eye, it looked like a rose. Ulam’s Rose. The scientific mind looks for cause and effect. If lines exist, there must be an algorithm that can predict them. But in the case of Ulam’s Rose, there is none. It’s like seeing shapes in clouds.
During my junior year at Cornell, a cruel teaching assistant had assigned the problem to our class on a Thursday. My study group spent a long sleepless weekend modeling the spiral and running test after test for repeatable patterns. When we dragged our defeated selves back into class on Tuesday, the laughing grad ass told us, “You are all so arrogant as to think that every problem can be solved. You must develop humility to be great mathematicians.” I hated the jerk.