Disappearance (A Mystery and Espionage Thriller)

by Niv Kaplan

  Lynn waited in silence for Lisa to subdue, and then spoke softly.

  "George met a man the night before he…" she could not bring herself to say it and had to take a deep breath before going on. "The night before they killed him. He told me about it during breakfast. Said Langone was definitely involved. Said you now had a reliable trail to follow. He also left a copy of his notes."

  She reached for her handbag and took out an envelope. "Here it is," she said, handing Lisa the envelope. "It'll probably mean more to you."

  Lisa was slow to recover. She took the envelope from Lynn but did not open it. She was suddenly aware the car was moving. She sat speechless and emotional. Not only had this woman just buried her husband, been seriously injured, and had the world basically come crashing down on her, she had the strength and concern to calm her down and tend to such ancillary issues.

  They sat in silence for a while as the limo drove aimlessly among the lavish homes and groomed lawns. It was late afternoon and long shadows began to appear on the road ahead. Here and there a kid on a bicycle or someone walking a dog would pass by, but otherwise the streets seemed deserted. Lights began to appear in windows and street lamps but time had lost all meaning.

  -------

  It was dark by the time they had reached the Great Neck train station. Lisa gathered her things.

  "George kept a file at home," Lynn said, "the notes I gave you are from there but it has more. I'll send you the rest."

  Lisa locked glances with Lynn for the first time since getting into the car. Her eyes were bloodshot.

  "It could help us a great deal," she said, gratified, then added: "Could I ask you a favor?"

  "Sure dear," Lynn said only too happy to oblige.

  "Do the police know about his notes?"

  "I don't believe so,"Lynn frowned. "I did give them a statement right after surgery, but only facts. Nothing about this."

  "Could I ask you to keep this away from them a while? I mean, we know who's responsible and we'll go after them, but for now, if this leaks, it will ruin our chances with Karen."

  Lynn considered the matter, then slowly nodded her approval without further inquiry. "Will I see you again?" she asked.

  "I'd like that," Lisa said without conviction.

  "Call me. Let me know how you are," Lynn said almost pleading.

  "I will," Lisa said giving her one last hug. "I'll need time to sort things out but I will call you."

  "And let me know about Karen."

  "I will," Lisa said reaching for the door handle. Another wave of emotion was threatening to burst out and she did not want Lynn to witness it. The driver quietly shut the door behind her and went to take his position behind the wheel. Lisa stood on the sidewalk as the long black car slid ahead. Lynn was watching her through the back window. Lisa waved weakly and turned for the station. Twenty minutes later she was on the train heading for Grand Central Station. She took out the envelope Lynn had given her and opened it.

  Eckert had his meeting with Carl G. Johnson neatly summarized in several short, concise paragraphs on legal size paper. She quickly scanned through them, realizing their suspicions had been confirmed. Langone, through a daughter-company of Barons Investments, held a small stake in Cascade Realty, three percent to be exact. Through this company, “Lionheart Inc.” he had financed various real estate purchases in New York, Utah, California, and Nebraska. In professional circles Cascade was rumored to be a front for some very heavy investors wishing to secure secluded, anonymous properties for themselves and some of their more acclaimed clients, for retirement and other obscure purposes. Along with Lionheart Inc., which was the smallest and newest shareholder, Cascade was privately held by just a few business entities whose names Johnson had mentioned. He revealed that Cascade had actually been a legitimate real estate company for ten years when a consortium of businessmen took over control in late 1979, turning it into a losing enterprise used for tax write-offs and other shady dealings. The company's market value with its array of countrywide offices, agents, and real estate assets was worth close to one hundred million dollars and was a sought after commodity, regardless of the reported average yearly operating losses of ten million dollars.

  Langone was admitted entry in late 1984.

  Lisa folded the notes back into the envelope and stuffed it in her handbag.

  -------

  It was past nine when she reached her apartment, instantly noticing the phone message indicator flashing. There were six messages, five from Mikki and one from Lambert.

  Mikki left messages at one hour intervals, leaving a different phone number each time. The last message came fifteen minutes before she arrived, instructing her to go down to the street, buy the late edition of the Daily News and call him from a pay phone. He sounded edgy.

  Lambert left a message asking her to urgently meet him at the office early the next morning.

  Lisa followed Mikki's instructions. She bought the newspaper, found a pay phone several blocks from her building and dialed the number he had left. He picked up after one ring.

  "Lisa?" he said into the receiver without preamble.

  "It's me Mikki. What's wrong?"

  "Do you have the paper?" he asked; his voice strained.

  "Right here," she replied.

  "Open it to page two and read the account under 'Man Found Dead in Hotel Room."

  Lisa did as he said and felt the pit of her stomach begin to churn as she read about Carl G. Johnson found tied to his bed, naked, dead from numerous stab wounds, his corpse already stiff and rotting. She could not utter a sound, noticing her hand intensely clutching the phone as the muscles in her body recoiled to keep herself from losing her grip.

  "Lisa?"

  She heard Mikki on the other side sounding concerned.

  "Lisa, are you there? Are you OK?"

  "Yeah Mikki, I...I'm here. Give me a second," she whispered, feeling dazed.

  "Lisa, listen to me," Mikki was pleading. "Ignore it for now. You must listen. Go back to the apartment, pack a small bag, take all your valuables and get out of there. Take a taxi to Union Square. I'll meet you at the corner of Park and East 17th."

  Lisa still held the phone to her ear but she hadn't listened. She mumbled something incoherently. Mikki fervently repeated his instructions until she appeared to snap back and confirmed she had understood.

  It was a nerve-wracking hour and ten minutes before she finally emerged from a taxi where he had specified. He stood in the shadows while she paid then waited for the taxi to drive a distance before greeting her quietly. She surprised him by throwing her arms around him and hugging him tightly almost in desperation. He felt her shivering body coil around him; he had never seen her so fragile. He hugged her back tightly and they held on to one another for several moments swaying back and forth.

  On the train towards Queens, they sat apart, each watching the other's back, occasionally hopping between carts and twice stepping off the train, then on again at the last possible moment to check for tails. They finally stepped off at the Rego Park station, convinced they were not being followed.

  On foot, they walked by Lefrak City where they disappeared among the maze of high rise buildings and connecting underground walkways. They emerged on Corona Avenue and checked into a Best Western right across from where the 495 met the Van Wyck Expressway.

  They shared a room and remained awake most of the night. Lisa recapped the day's events describing the funeral and the ride with Lynn Eckert in great detail hoping to relieve some of the burden she felt.

  "I could barely utter a word," she recounted sadly. "That woman had just buried her husband and she was the one comforting me. She asked me, practically begged me to come see her again, but I wouldn't commit. I don't think I could ever face her again. Not her, not anyone at the office."

  Mikki was silent after she finished, thinking it best to let her wind down. Lisa sank into the one small sofa in the room and seemed to doze off for a while.

  When
she opened her eyes again, he spoke.

  "You know, Lisa, I've lost friends in the military; buddies of mine from the same outfit; one in combat and two in accidents. I was at their funerals and at their homes with their families. I've seen pain and sorrow. They each deal with such tragedies differently but all have one thing in common. Most of all, they yearn to be with the people who had been with their children last. They cherish every word about their final moments. What they said, what they did. They blame no one for their misfortune. Not their commanders; not their friends; not even the military. None of it has ever brought anyone back, and they know it. All they want is to keep the memory of their child as pure and as authentic as possible. Anyone who's been close is important."

  Lisa stared at him quietly, tears trickling down her face again.

  "You've been close to Eckert and to Lynn as well. That's why she wants to see you," Mikki continued. "That's why you're so important to her and why she would never dream of blaming you for her husband's death. You are not the blame! Langone and his people are."

  Lisa straightened up a little on the sofa. She now realized that she had felt the same desire to talk to him when Karen had first disappeared; he being the last person to see her sister.

  "Is that how you felt when we lost Karen?" she asked. "Did you want to be with me?"

  Mikki couldn't suppress a smile.

  "I was young and confused at the time and there was the hope of finding her. I guess I never realized how much I wanted to be with you until we met again, here in New York. At first I thought it was for Karen's sake; now I'm not so sure."

  "Karen is an abstract memory for me now," he said after further reflection. "She's a person I see through you. You are her. I can't tell you apart anymore. I probably know you better than I ever knew her and I'm terrified of finding someone else when we find her..."

  Lisa was sitting up now. Her long smooth legs exposed under a red tee shirt, her rich wavy hair flowing down her shoulders, her green eyes staring into space.

  "Standing there, at the funeral," she revealed, speaking to an imaginary point in space, "I was envisaging Karen's funeral. It seems almost unnatural to expect to see her again. My mind seems capable of only grasping her burial. I know how you feel Mikki. I guess I too, am more afraid of what I find alive than.." she froze in mid-sentence, her eyes darting back to him.

  Mikki got up from the bed and walked to her, kneeling in front of the sofa. Her eyes were dry now, the redness gone. She seemed to have regained control.

  "We need to stay focused," he said leveling his gaze at her. "There's no use making futile predictions. Let's just keep at it and hope for the best. We've come a long way and there's plenty of reason to believe we'll find her in good shape."

  They spent the next two hours going over Eckert's notes, assessing the Johnson findings, comparing it with what they already knew, discussing the ramifications of the killings and putting forward different scenarios. Their task had suddenly grown twofold. Not only were they left with finding Karen, they now had to keep on the run to avoid both the people sent to deter them and the US authorities who were sure to get involved.

  At four in the morning they completed laying out a skeleton plan and fell into exhausted sleep.

  -------

  At exactly eight o’clock the following morning, Lisa walked into her downtown office building looking fit and alert. No one would have suspected she was functioning on just two hours of sleep over two days, and that the previous day had been one of her most trying ever. She hopped along the wide steps in her high heels, dressed in a classic gray blazer and short skirt, the only business suit she managed to stuff in her bag before fleeing her apartment the previous night, and joined the crowd of executives swarming the elevators.

  She emerged from the building two hours later, walking briskly toward the Fulton Street Subway station where she took the Express Four train to midtown, emerging on 59th and Lex. She walked two blocks north and one block east to Third Avenue where she entered a Citibank branch and took another hour performing various monetary transactions. She then flagged a yellow cab which took her to La Guardia airport where she met Mikki at the United Airlines terminal.

  An hour later they took off for Atlanta where they spent three hours roaming the terminal before catching a connecting flight to Miami.

  CHAPTER 39

  Marla Wilkins had built her reputation tracking down car thieves in the New York metropolitan area. She had a knack for sorting out leads and latching on to only the most significant of trails. Most of those trails led her to the poorer New York neighborhoods where, along with sorting out which car theft ring operated where, she also gained experience handling gangs. The car thieves would haul the stolen vehicles out to Queens or the Bronx where there was much more operating room and retrieval avenues were more plentiful than on the overcrowded Manhattan Island.

  The cars they stole were almost never found. Mostly they would be stripped bare within the first 24 hours and sold for scrap and spare parts. More often than not, those spare parts would be moved via the black market through large hangars out in the confines of faceless, rundown buildings, and it was there that those rings were at their most vulnerable.

  In her six years as a detective on the force, after serving only three as a uniformed policewoman, Marla had managed to bust no less than eleven such major rings. Her accomplishments got her promoted to various managerial positions at One Police Plaza before she was offered a transfer to the federal level at 26 Federal Plaza where she had spent the last four years on various task forces. Her admirable experience in the stolen car business had promoted her to deal with car bombs on the federal level, thus making her an obvious choice to lead the investigation of the latest car bomb incident which had killed a prominent Wall Street businessman at his quiet Long Island residence.

  At thirty-nine, Marla was at the top of her profession, quick, energetic, experienced and extremely fastidious about her work. She was quite tall and slim with a seductive figure and smooth olive, skin which showed no signs of aging. Her face was remarkably attractive. She had enchanting brown eyes and wore her hair very short, exposing a diverse assortment of earrings.

  She was happily married to Derek, an accountant by trade, for fourteen years and had two children, a boy and a girl.

  She and her counterpart, detective Eric Stone of the New York Police Department, a lanky fellow with a bleached mustache and straw-like hair parted in the middle, greeted the receptionist at the entrance lobby to Eckert, Lambert & Associates on the forty-first floor and were immediately shown to the firm's conference room.

  Ed Lambert and Suzy Chambers emerged from Lambert's adjacent office a few minutes later and seated themselves across from the agents. Coffee was served and the meeting officially got on the way.

  Marla lay the ground rules. She produced a small tape recorder from her briefcase and asked permission to record. There were no objections.

  "This is an official FBI investigation," she began. "Eric, my partner here from the NYPD and myself, are investigating the death of one Mr. George Eckert, known to be a partner at this firm."

  She stopped briefly to take a sip from her coffee.

  "Anything you say in this room can be used against you in a court of law..." she continued, quickly going through the obligatory formalities.

  Lambert and Suzy sat silent as agent Wilkins described what had been pieced together so far. It was not pretty. George had been killed instantly as his car exploded at the entrance to his garage. Cause of the explosion: most likely a car bomb. They had found traces of Semtex, a substance known to fabricate trigger bombs and a few copper wires which they suspect may have been part of the fusing mechanism.

  So far, they had interviewed a handful of neighbors and taken a brief statement from the widow, Mrs. Lynn Eckert. The immediate neighbors all heard the explosion; two of them suffered minor damages to their homes, but no one had seen it.

  "We've pretty much got all the evidence we n
eed to prove tampering and booby trapping," Marla summarized. "Now all we need is some suspects and a motive. That's where you folks come in."

  She paused, took another sip from her coffee and eyed them carefully. Her partner remained silent.

  "Mr. Lambert," she continued after an awkward minute, realizing her subjects were not going to offer anything unsolicited, "can you think of anyone or anything, work related or otherwise that would have put your partner in jeopardy?"

  Lambert cleared his throat.

  "We've had some enemies in the past, if that's what you mean, but never ones I would deem capable of committing murder. Most of our disputes have been on a purely professional level. I honestly can't think of anyone who would have had reason to take such measures."

  "How about on a personal level? His private life? Were there any family disputes? Did he owe money? Was there a mistress? Alcohol problems? Drugs?"

  Suzy was shaking her head, horrified.

  "There was none of that," Lambert said irritably. "I've known him for thirty years. George Eckert was as straight as they come. Hardworking, dedicated family man. None of what you just said applies to him."

  The striking FBI agent squinted her eyes at him.

  "Then maybe, Mr. Lambert, since you knew him so well, maybe you tell me what you think got him killed?"

  -------

  The house looked no different from a thousand others built in the current decade on the western outskirts of Omaha, Nebraska. It was well kept, had a small lawn in front and an even smaller yard in the back. Painted light brown, it had a wooden-shingle roof and a two-car garage.

  The address was easy to find. It was located in the Pepperwood sub-division, a twenty minute ride southeast of Omaha's Eppley Airfield, where Sarah and Eitan were staying at the Ramada Inn.

  They had been watching the house for two days now, and as Mikki had predicted, it seemed to be deserted. No cars coming to and from, no kids coming home from school, no visible movement inside the house day or night and no activity in the back yard.