He hadn’t had many dealings with the FBI; Brecon Point was not exactly a hub of criminal activity. But they had crossed paths before and he couldn’t say he was fond of them. The chief was right, though; they had access to resources he simply didn’t and they needed all the help they could get. Surprisingly, the Special Agent In Charge was able to take his call immediately and, as expected, put him through the wringer for not calling them in sooner. Nevertheless, he promised to get an agent there as soon as he could, certainly by the end of the day.
The local field office was just over a hundred miles away so that gave him, at absolute minimum, a couple of hours before they arrived.
Thirty-Three
It was nearly six p.m. and his stomach was reminding him that he’d barely eaten all day. He was just considering whether to order take-out when there was a knock on the office door. Before he had chance to speak, it was opened and a man dressed in a suit walked in.
“It’s customary to wait to be invited in when you knock on a door.” It was out of his mouth before he could stop it. He was in no doubt that this was the agent sent by the field office. He had all the telling features of an FBI agent; the suit and tie, the closely cut hair and the arrogant expression which seemed to come with the badge.
“I’m Agent Callahan, FBI. Deputy Groves, I presume?” he asked, ignoring Finn’s comment.
“Acting Chief Groves, yes.”
Agent Callahan looked around the office. “This will do.”
“I’m sorry? This will do for what?”
“I’ll need an office to work.”
Who did this guy think he was? “We have an interview room down the hall. You can use that.”
Finn met and held the agent’s eyes. He hadn’t expected the pissing contest to start so soon, but he wasn’t about to roll over and let this prick march in here and start acting like he was the hired help.
“That’ll work,” the agent finally said after a long pause.
“Can you bring everything you have on this case so far so I can get to work, please?”
“Well, I was just going to get some food and then I can go through it all with you.”
The agent held up his hand. “Thanks, but no. I always go through everything on my own first. If you could make yourself available if I have any questions, that would be great.”
And with that he turned and left the office, leaving Finn standing there.
Following him out of the office, he saw that Deputy Carver was at his desk doing paperwork. “Carver, get all the information on the case so far and take it in to Agent Callahan, will you? He’ll be in the interview room.” Deciding against the take-out, he told Carver that he would be back in an hour and to contact him if he was needed and left the building.
Thirty-Four
He’d grabbed Chinese food from the restaurant in town and had just settled down at his kitchen counter to eat it when his cell began to buzz on his belt. With a sigh, he put down his fork, his meal untouched, and checked the screen. It was work.
“Yes,” he answered, probably sounding brusquer than he intended.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but if it’s not too much trouble would you mind coming back to the station?” The sarcasm in Agent Callahan’s voice was obvious and it was all he could do not to rise to the bait.
“Of course, after I’ve had something to eat. Unless it’s urgent, of course?” Finn said with an equal amount of sarcasm.
“No, take your time. We’ve only got a bunch of missing kids. I’m sure they can wait.”
Finn glared at the phone as Callahan disconnected. He’d barely left the office at all for the past few days and this guy was implying he wasn’t taking the case seriously. Taking a deep breath, he returned his attention to his food but found that after a couple of mouthfuls he’d lost his appetite. He put the cartons in the fridge, though he had no idea if he’d get back to eat them any time soon, and left.
***
“Ah, you decided to join us. Thank you.” Finn ignored Callahan’s sarcasm as he walked into the squad room, surprised to see the other deputies gathered there.
“Take a seat please. I was just about to start my briefing.” Finn looked at the other deputies who all looked equally baffled.
“Right. Now that you’re all here, let’s get on with it.” He looked around the room. “I’m Agent Callahan, FBI, and I’m here as this investigation is now a federal matter, as it should have been from the beginning.” Finn smarted under the blatant criticism but held his tongue.
“I’ve gone over the case notes and I feel there are a couple of things that are worth revisiting.” He looked down at his notes. “The first thing is the farmhouse. I want it searched again to make sure you haven’t missed anything. If this has been going on for as long as this kid says it has, there has to be something there that could give us a lead. The second is the kid.” He looked directly at Finn. “Are we sure that he’s told us everything? Have we pushed him hard enough?”
“He’s told us what he knows. All of it.” There was no way Finn was letting this piece of work near Daniel if he could help it. The rest of the briefing was more of the same and by the end of it Finn was left in no doubt that Callahan thought his department was completely incompetent.
“Can I have a word?” Finn was trying very hard to control his temper.
“What about?” Callahan didn’t even look at him, preferring to carry on gathering his papers together.
“In my office, not out here.” Callahan didn’t move. “Now, please.”
Looking at him, Callahan smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Okay.”
Finn closed the door gently before turning to face him. “How dare you.”
“How dare I what?”
“How dare you walk in here and just take over the investigation like that without even discussing your plans with me first.”
“I think you’re mistaken. I don’t have to discuss my plans with you first. This is now a federal investigation and, as such, I’m in charge.”
“And you don’t think it would have been a common courtesy to speak to me about it first?”
“I would have if you had been here. But you weren’t. Besides, my priority is finding these kids, not treading on eggshells around you.”
He was right, of course. Finn realized that. He would just have to put up with him for now. It didn’t mean he had to like it, though, and he most definitely didn’t like it.
Callahan checked his watch. “So, do you want to stay here and discuss it some more or shall we head out to the scene? My search team will be there by now and I don’t want to leave them waiting.”
***
He was still angry as they pulled up at the farmhouse to search it for a second time, but he was determined to keep a lid on it. “I don’t know what you expect to find. We’ve searched the house already,” he told Callahan after his car pulled up behind him and he stepped out.
“I’m well aware of that. But my team,” he paused as he nodded to where a group of men were gathered around an unmarked van, “are specially trained and if there’s anything to find, they’ll find it.”
Finn knew he was right. They couldn’t afford to miss anything and his deputies were simply not trained for this sort of stuff.
“Who else have you invited to the party?” he asked as another van pulled up alongside the other one. “I’ve brought our own CSI team. Just in case we find anything.”
Finn hated to admit it but he was impressed. He didn’t have to like him but he did seem to be throwing a ton of resources at this.
Following the search team into the house, he watched as they methodically started their work. They were like a finely-tuned machine and each room was carefully examined with very little unnecessary chatter. They’d worked their way from the top of the house down and hadn’t found anything by the time they’d reached the ground floor. They’d just started in the living room, though, when a ripple of excitement could be felt. He followed as Callahan
stepped through the door.
“What have you found?” Callahan asked before Finn had chance to speak.
“This, boss.”
They both watched as one of the search team pressed a panel that was concealed in the back of a bookcase set against the back wall. As he did, the whole panel slid sideways, revealing a staircase which descended underground. Not again! Finn groaned to himself at the thought of another small, dark place.
“I’m guessing you didn’t know about this as it’s not in your report?”
“You know full well I didn’t,” Finn snapped. “Try not to be so happy about it.” Resisting the urge to wipe the condescending smirk of Callahan’s face was getting harder by the minute.
“Go and let CSI know what we’ve found and that they’re needed,” he instructed one of the search team. “We don’t have any time to waste on this so I suggest we limit it to just you and I down there until CSI have done their bit.”
Great, just me and mouth almighty. What a treat. After Callahan had turned on a light by pressing a switch at the top of the descent, Finn gingerly followed him down the stairs which were made of wooden treads placed on steps carved out of dirt. There were only about a dozen to negotiate before the walls opened and they found themselves standing inside a room the size of a large office.
Unlike the fighting arena, there were no pillars holding up the ceiling here; it simply wasn’t big enough. But what it lacked in size, it made up for in comfort. The floor of the room was almost entirely covered in a massive rug on which rested a huge, black leather couch. That wasn’t what drew their attention, though. It was the enormous, flat screen TV hanging from the wall directly opposite it. To the right of the TV there was yet another bookcase, but unlike the one upstairs which had been filled with books, this one was filled with DVD’s.
Pulling a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and slipping them on, Finn reached forward and pulled a DVD from one of the many stacks. It was just a disc in a clear plastic case. Turning it over in his hands, he found that there was writing on the reverse. A date. Pulling another one off the shelf, he checked that one, too. It was exactly the same, unmarked except for a date.
“We’d better take a look.” Finn knew he wasn’t going to like what he was about to see as Callahan took one of the discs from his hands and, removing it from its case, inserted it into a slot on the side of the TV. Finding the remote on the arm of the couch, Finn turned the TV on and they both stood and waited for the disc to load.
There was absolute silence in the room as the first disk started to play. Neither of them moved as they struggled to take in what they saw on the screen.
“Turn it off.” Callahan told him.
For once, Finn agreed with him and he flicked the switch on the remote, returning the screen to blackness.
“I’ll get a specialist team to go through the discs to see if we can identify any of the people who are on them.”
Finn didn’t envy them their task. He didn’t think he could cope with having to sit through hours of watching them. Returning his attention to the room, he looked at the rug thoughtfully.
“Help me get this table out of the way,” he called out to Callahan, waiting until he had grabbed it at one end. This guy clearly had a penchant for hiding things underground and Finn wanted to see if his hunch was right. Sure enough, once they’d moved the table out of the way and rolled back the rug, a floor safe was revealed.
“It’s locked.” Finn pulled uselessly at the handle.
“We’ll get it transported back and our tech team will get it open.”
There was nothing else for him to do down there so he made his way back upstairs to observe the rest of the search.
Thirty-Five
Everything now was in the hands of the Feds. They’d completely sealed off the farmhouse and had removed everything from the secret room. It was all now being processed by specialists and high tech computer programs to see if any of it could shed any light on where Flint had gone. For now, though, Finn had a bit of spare time and he intended to put it to good use.
Switching on the garage light, the mere sight of the car calmed him. He had put it off long enough; he needed to confront the issue with Kat and get his head around it once and for all; working on the car always helped him focus.
Over the years he’d imagined all kinds of reasons why Kat had left town all those years ago and yet he’d never considered that she might be pregnant. He’d thought that what they’d had had been good enough that she would have told him about something like that.
Sitting on that hill months ago after she’d returned, he hadn’t been prepared for the news that he had a son. She’d tried to explain, to tell him that she’d done it for his own good, but he hadn’t been able to get past the fact that she’d had a son; his son, and she’d kept it from him all these years.
At first he’d been angry. Who did she think she was to make a decision like that without telling him? To give his son away to strangers without telling him? Those questions still remained but the anger had faded, giving way to an understanding of sorts. He wasn’t sure he would ever entirely be able to get past it, but he knew now he wanted to try. They’d been good together, and nearly had been again, so it would be a shame now to lose that friendship without trying to save it.
Thirty-Six
He wasn’t expecting to find Callahan in his office when he arrived the next morning but he was there, casually sitting behind Finn’s desk.
“Do you mind? I think you’ll find that’s my desk.” Finn waited for him to stand up and step out of the way before sitting down. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Well, I have some news and I thought you’d like to know about.” He paused as if waiting for Finn to ask him what it was. You’ll have a long wait before I give you that satisfaction, Finn thought.
Obviously giving up on getting a response, Callahan continued. “It looks like we may have a lead on Flint’s whereabouts.”
That got Finn’s attention. “Where?”
“On our doorstep, just an hour’s drive away. Our tech guys managed to identify quite a few of the faces on the videos using facial recognition software. Clever stuff. Anyway, comparing those names to a list of the numbers we got from his cell phone provider we found that he’d called one in particular several times on the day he locked Kat and Daniel in that dungeon.” He was smiling now. “I’ve just had a call from our local office out there and they’re about to carry out a raid on the premises.”
“That’s fantastic news. You didn’t have to drive all the way over here to tell me that, though. You could have just called.”
“I know, but I wanted to see if you wanted to tag along. They’re waiting for me to give the word.”
Finn was thrown. Maybe you’re not as bad as I thought you were. “That’s really good of you and yes, I do want to.”
“Then let’s go. We’ll take my car.”
Not arguing, Finn followed him downstairs and they set off, the tires screeching and the back end of the car sliding out as they left the station lot. “Try not to kill us before we get there, would you?” he muttered.
“Was there anything else recovered from the house?” Finn asked through clenched teeth as he hung on to the strap dangling from the ceiling for dear life.
“That safe under the rug? Well, it was filled with paperwork. It looks like Flint kept a record of all the dates and places when his men snatched a kid. We’re not sure why, but possibly to keep from hitting the same place twice.”
“At least that should make it easier to reunite any kids you do find with their families. How many were there?”
Callahan sighed. “Unbelievably, over fifty. We’ve managed to match all the dates and places with reported child disappearances but there was one thing that stood out. They were all boys except for one girl, one of the earlier victims.”
“Why on earth would he take a girl? If he was using all his victims in this ‘fight club’, he would just want b
oys. It makes no sense.”
“Agreed. Just one of the many things we’ll be asking him when we get our hands on him.”
***
What should have been an hour’s drive in fact only took them forty-five minutes and Finn was certain that Callahan hadn’t lifted his foot off the pedal once that whole time. The place they were headed was another innocuous looking farm that you wouldn’t look twice at if you were driving past, never suspecting what was happening there.
About a mile away from their intended target, Callahan turned his car off the tarmacked road and onto a dirt side road. About half a mile down, he reached a parking area which was already full of emergency vehicles. There were several police cruisers, three ambulances and, of course, the FBI teams.
“Looks like you’ve got it well covered.” Finn was impressed.
“We’re not taking any chances. He’s not getting away this time.”
Finn went to open the car door but before he could he felt Callahan’s hand on his arm. “You’re here as an observer only, okay?” Finn nodded. He knew this was an FBI operation; he was just glad that he was going to be there to see the bastard taken into custody.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything that’ll jeopardize this bastard getting what’s coming to him.”
***
The plan was simple. The SWAT teams would surround the main farmhouse and the two barns stood nearby and, on a pre-arranged signal, would enter the building simultaneously taking anyone they found into custody. Everyone was aware that there were likely to be children present and that they didn’t know where, so their instructions were clear: go in hard and fast but don’t shoot unless you have to.
The McKays Box Set - To Kill For, Blood Sport, Hard Time & Gang Land Page 24