“Slow and steady sounds right to me. Do we have an infrared helicopter up?” Sayer asked, leaning her bike around a slow-moving car puttering along in the left lane. “If those girls are all together, surely we could spot them.”
“We’ve got a drone, not a helicopter. Quiet, small, much less likely to be noticed. Nothing so far, but some of those warehouses are insulated for refrigeration so it’s possible we won’t get anything.”
“What else?” Sayer barked.
“I’ve got my entire team and a hostage negotiation team ready to go if they so much as hear a mouse piss on cotton.”
“Great. I’ll be there soon.”
The SWAT commander grunted acknowledgment. “I’ll keep you up-to-date.” And with that, he hung up.
Sayer spent the rest of the drive breathing slowly, focusing on the task ahead. There might be split-second decisions to be made, and she needed to be clearheaded and ready to work with the SWAT commander to make them.
UNKNOWN LOCATION
Murmurs of fear spread around the bus at the sight of their captor heading across the sandy floor.
“Everyone back to their seats!” Kate whispered as she frantically tucked wires back into the hole in the dashboard. Her fingers trembled as she tried to fit the radio back into the narrow slot.
She missed the first time and her eyes watered with fear when she missed again. But, as Walter began to slide the bar from the door, Kate managed to shove it into place. It wasn’t perfectly flush, but it wouldn’t be noticeable unless he was really looking.
Breath shallow, heart pounding, she slid into the seat next to Nell.
The two girls gripped each other’s hands tightly, eyes downcast.
Walter stepped onto the bus, bringing a wave of putrid air with him. His glazed eyes roved along the bus, calculating. His clothes and face were smeared with dirt.
Kate’s stomach lurched and she was terrified that she was going to vomit. When he took Rowena, they hadn’t known what to expect, but now they knew he was looking for his next victim. She closed her eyes and breathed through her mouth, hoping to block the smell.
He muttered under his breath as he began to walk down the aisle. His eyes were wet with a feverish sheen as he scanned the girls’ faces.
Kate glanced up as he passed and her stomach lurched again.
Nell squeezed her hand.
“Hey,” a girl’s voice called from the back of the bus.
Kate recognized Becky’s voice. She risked a look back over her shoulder at the man who was standing frozen in the aisle, attention riveted on Becky.
“Hey, some of the girls are trying to make a transmitter to escape. I wanted to tell you. I can help you…”
Kate wanted to scream. What the hell was Becky doing? Did she think this was how she would save herself?
Becky stood up.
All the girls turned to watch what would happen next.
Becky’s voice quivered slightly, but she thrust her chin forward and continued, “Go ahead, look at the radio. They’re turning it into a transmitter. They plan to call for help.”
For a long moment, no one moved. Then the man made his way slowly down the aisle until he was standing right next to Becky. He seemed slightly confused for a moment, face slack, but then a smile widened his face into a skeletal mask. He tilted his head slightly. “There you are.”
Still smiling his freakish grin, he reached for Becky’s slender arm.
“What? I’m helping you!” she shrieked at him. “You need my help!”
Walter seemed completely unfazed by her shouting as he lifted her by an arm as if she were a toddler.
Becky bucked and writhed in his iron grip. “No! No! No!” she screeched.
Despite his skeletal appearance, Walter was clearly incredibly strong.
The girls watched with horror, some silently, some sobbing, as he dragged Becky forward along the aisle. She clawed at him, her nails raising rivulets of blood along his wrist that he didn’t even seem to notice.
Walter paused at the front of the bus and leaned forward to inspect the radio.
Kate held her breath. They were so close to getting an SOS out. How could Becky do this to them?
Walter’s kick was so fast it sounded like a mousetrap snapping shut.
His foot connected with the plastic radio, shattering it. With his free hand, he pulled out the broken radio, reached into the dash, and yanked out a handful of wires and the circuit board held together with Band-Aids. Without changing his expression, he dropped it all to the ground. As he nonchalantly dragged Becky toward the door, he stepped directly onto the board.
The sound of cracking plastic forced a sob from Kate’s chest. It had been a long shot, but she’d thought it just might work.
Walter stepped off the bus and slid the heavy metal bar back in front of the folding door with a heavy thunk. He strode away with Becky, still screaming across the sandy ground.
They disappeared into the distance.
Becky’s screams echoed around the massive brick chamber for a moment after they were gone.
On the bus, some of the girls let out anguished cries of horror while the rest stared wide-eyed at one another.
All Kate could think was that Walter hadn’t cared how much noise Becky had made.
He knew there was no one nearby to hear them scream.
FIELD COMMAND CENTER, LORTON, VA
In the weak afternoon light, Sayer finally pulled up next to the FBI mobile command center and shook off the chill from the ride. The large van was parked in an alley set way back from Telegraph Road. Inside the command center, four SWAT guys huddled over the small table. The air in the van was pleasantly warm, but also carried the musky scent of too many people crammed into a small space.
Sayer nodded to the SWAT lead who sat at the head of the table.
“Ah, our fearless case lead.” He began to stand up to offer Sayer his seat, but she waved him down.
“Anything?” she asked, happy to lean on the end of the table where she could bounce on her feet.
“We sent in three guys in electric company vests about an hour ago.” He gestured to the three small screens displaying jerky footage. “They’ve got camera and com support so we’ll know the second they find the girls. No joy yet.”
The casual pace of the three disguised SWAT agents felt too slow. Sayer pulled out her worry beads to rein in her driving need to do something. “You sure we can’t send in more guys?” She couldn’t quell the fear that the unsub was slaughtering the girls while they took their time searching the area.
The SWAT leader looked directly at Sayer with calm blue eyes. “The most dangerous thing we can do is spook this guy. We want to find him without setting off his alarm. Unless we have good reason to believe he’s hurting those girls as we speak, best thing to do now is to move slow and steady. I hear that’s not exactly your strong suit.”
Sayer gave him a rueful smile.
“Why don’t you keep an eye on the screens? I’ve got audio feed live.” He tapped his earpiece. “While you come out of your skin in here, I’m going to check in with the guys outside. Make sure they’re on the ready.” He gave her a genuine smile, then headed off. The other three SWAT guys followed with a spring in their step.
Sayer wished she had their inner calm. This was exactly the kind of situation SWAT trained for every day and they were in peak mode, fierce and focused.
Unsure exactly what to do with herself, Sayer was relieved when her phone rang.
“Agent Altair,” she barked.
“This is Al Valentine from the Walters.” Al’s voice sounded excited. “You already catch him?”
“Not yet. You have something?” Sayer pressed.
“Maybe, but it’s kind of obscure so I want to make sure. I need to swing by my home library to check something out, then I’ll head down to Quantico afterward. The sketch artist just left and said she was sending you the results.”
“All right.” Sayer looked down a
t an incoming email from the FBI sketch artist. A wild nest of shaggy hair framed sunken eyes and hollow cheeks above a broad, rounded chin. “I’m looking at the sketch now. You feel like this is close enough to release to the public?”
“I do,” Al said confidently. “That’s the bastard.”
The artist even managed to capture a maniacal twist to the unsub’s smile.
“Great. Then I’ll release this to the media and see you soon.”
As Sayer hung up, Ezra popped up on one of the screens at the front of the van.
“No news?” he asked.
“Nothing. The SWAT guys are out clearing the buildings, but no sign of the bus or the girls yet. But we got the sketch of our unsub from Al. I’m sending it to the PR guy now. Have him put it on blast to the media and get a dedicated group of agents on a tip line. As for here, all we can do is hang back and wait.”
“Your favorite pastime.” Ezra grinned at Sayer from the screen.
“So people keep saying,” she grumbled.
“I’m scanning through building records looking at owners and renters just to make sure there’s no red flags there,” Ezra said. “And I’ve pulled the video feed from a traffic cam pointed at the entrance so we can make sure the bus didn’t leave while our witness wasn’t watching.”
Sayer thanked Ezra and hung up thinking about how ballsy it was for him to drive up here with a bus full of kidnapped kids without even taking the banner off the side of the bus. This unsub was too bold. Too fearless. He wouldn’t hesitate to do something drastic if he felt cornered.
With that thought souring her stomach, she watched the three live video feeds on the wall of monitors. She could hear the SWAT agents breathing as they calmly strolled among the warehouses, studiously checking electric meters as they went.
TELEGRAPH ROAD, LORTON, VA
After watching the painstakingly slow progress of the undercover agents for almost twenty minutes, Sayer couldn’t sit in the mobile command center any longer. She put in one of the earbuds and headed out toward Telegraph. If there was an emergency, SWAT would be making all the tactical decisions, so she didn’t really need to just be sitting around staring at video screens waiting for something to happen.
Plus, she needed to stretch her legs and figure out what was bothering her. Because something about this entire operation felt wrong. Too convenient.
Sayer casually strolled by the warehouse park entrance, making her way toward the army air base where the witness had been on guard duty.
As she approached the turnoff to the airfield, she muttered to herself, “What the hell?”
The narrow road toward the airfield bent around a wide curve.
She followed the curve all the way to the guard shack and looked back toward the warehouses. A series of low airplane hangars made it impossible to see the entrance to the warehouse park.
There was no way the witness could have seen the bus from here. For some reason, the witness lied.
FBI COMMAND CENTER, QUANTICO, VA
Sayer paced at the front of the small command center, staring out at a wall of grim faces. It was already late afternoon and she still hadn’t eaten any lunch. Her empty stomach turned in on itself, burning with frustration thinking about the magnitude of the mistake they’d just made. That she’d just made.
“He couldn’t have seen the bus turn into the warehouse park from the guard shack and there’s no way he had an eye on the entrance all night. The SWAT guys are finishing their sweep just to be sure, but I don’t expect there to be any sign of the bus or the missing girls. Ezra, did you look through the traffic camera footage at the entrance?”
“Yeah.” Ezra pulled up traffic footage on the large screen and let it play. “Luckily there’s a camera pointed right at the entrance intersection. I watched the whole thing three times to make sure and there was never any bus.”
Sayer stopped pacing to stare at the grainy black-and-white video. “Which means that our witness went to the trouble to arrange an elaborate sighting in a dead-end warehouse park where we spent the last few hours focusing all of our resources.” Her voice rose.
The room filled with the sound of shuffling papers and downcast eyes.
“Now we need to figure out who and why. What can you tell me about our witness? Who interviewed him?” Sayer demanded.
A young field agent raised his hand and half stood up. “I, uh, I’m Agent Rist, ma’am. I was first on scene so I did the interview.”
“And? Where is the witness now?”
“We, uh … released him after he gave his statement. I followed protocol for taking witness statements—two forms of ID, full written and signed statement. But we just checked his home address. It’s occupied by someone who has never heard of the witness. It appears that the IDs he gave me might’ve been fake. I mean, they scanned as real.”
“Might’ve been?” Sayer forced herself not to shout. This was a total disaster. Wasting so much time in the middle of a massive kidnapping could mean the death of one or more of those girls. “Did you follow post-interview protocol and fact-check the statement before passing it up the chain?”
“No, ma’am.” Agent Rist stared down at his hands. “I figured that we were in such a hurry with all those kids missing, so I passed it along. I meant to do the follow-up right after I reported the tip, but then everything happened so fast with SWAT and…”
“There’s a reason we fact-check tips before acting on them, Agent Rist.” Sayer’s voice fell into a snarl. “We wasted almost two hours in the middle of a major investigation because of your oversight.”
“I know, ma’am. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry won’t help those girls. Next time follow protocol.” Sayer gave him one more hard stare before looking back over at Ezra. “Put up the copies of these fake IDs.”
Ezra pulled up two scanned photos—a driver’s license and a military ID badge—that showed a smiling man with sandy blond hair and an imminently forgettable face. “Jonathan Lafferty claimed to be army, working security at the airfield just across Telegraph from the warehouse park. To be fair to Agent Rist, he swiped the driver’s license and it came back as legit. But, after you realized that he had to be lying, one of our analysts tried to follow up and discovered that there is no Jonathan Lafferty working at that army facility. And the DMV has no record of this man. It looks like he’s a total fabrication.”
“Yet again, something we should’ve confirmed before acting on his intel. So who the hell is he?” Sayer stared up at the kind of man you would walk by a thousand times and never notice.
Ezra shook his head. “We don’t know. We’re running everything we have. I’ve got his face in facial recognition. I’ve got all the background information he provided running through possible aliases. I even pulled his prints off his signed statement. Nothing.”
“Did he seem stressed out? Confused? Nervous? You notice anything unusual about him?” Sayer looked at the young agent who was hunched over the table, his face down.
“Uh.” Agent Rist stood back up. “No, he seemed somewhat excited to be part of catching the kidnappers. He definitely had that military air about him.”
“So, what I’m hearing right now is that this man reported a fake sighting. Then stayed to be interviewed by an FBI agent to whom he gave multiple expertly forged IDs. And it now looks like the whole thing was staged and that the real bus was never anywhere near that goddammed warehouse park?” Sayer’s voice shook with anger. “I want to know why. Is this guy one of the kidnappers? Were they trying to throw us off? Or is this some kind of hoax? These kind of high-profile cases do bring idiots out of the woodwork.”
Underneath her anger, Sayer’s chest thrummed with anguish. She was in charge and, even though there was no way she could’ve known that basic protocol hadn’t been followed and that the agent had neglected to fact-check the statement, she bore ultimate responsibility for this case. This mistake was on her shoulders and anything that happened to the girls from here on out wou
ld be her fault for not seeing through this sooner.
Feeling positively sick, she looked out at the task force and saw a roomful of people desperate to do whatever it would take to find the girls. Their focus renewed her hope that it wasn’t too late.
“All right. This entire charade knocked us for a loop, but we’re back on course. Now we figure out what the hell just happened and pick back up where we left off. We’ve got Al Valentine’s sketch of the unsub circulating everywhere, but no hits yet. In fact, Dr. Valentine had a lot of useful information for us. For example, we’ve got a tentative translation of the chant from the tape.”
Ezra put up the text of the chant and read it out loud.
After Ezra finished, Sayer said, “Obviously there’s a theme here. Dr. Valentine is trying to track down the exact origin of this chant but let’s get our teams on it as well. And, based on his expertise, I think there’s a good chance our unsub is an Egyptian scholar or a very serious amateur. Let’s look for someone who fits the description of our unsub with this kind of background. Are any Egyptologists missing? Any clubs or local hobbyists whom we can send the sketch? And let’s include that tidbit for the media as they publicize the sketch of our guy.”
“On it,” Ezra said.
“The other important thing we learned from Dr. Valentine is that our unsub is not only highly knowledgeable about ancient Egypt, he is also very likely delusional. As in hearing voices, possibly experiencing a psychotic episode. So, sort of good news, bad news.”
“Good news, bad news?” one of the agents asked.
“The bad news is that makes our unsub less predictable.” Sayer began to pace. “We often use patterns of behavior to track serial killers, so it can be much more difficult to catch erratic killers. And don’t imagine that erratic means any less dangerous. Even people in the midst of a severe psychotic episode can be rational and calculating. The key to finding this guy will be figuring out the exact nature of his delusion. The good news is that people that sick don’t tend to fly under the radar for long. I want a team looking at mental institutions, psychiatrists, hospitals, jails. Find out if anyone has encountered someone ranting about ancient Egypt.”
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