The Chain

by Adrian McKinty

  “What happened to your phone?” Rachel asks, seething. “Why isn’t it on? Why aren’t you sleeping with it under your pillow like a normal person would in this situation?”

  “I, I, I don’t know. Isn’t it over there on the dresser?” Helen asks. Her face looks haggard, frightened. Her eyes are red and hollow. At least that’s something.

  Rachel looks at the dresser. The phone’s dead. “You forgot to charge it,” she says.

  “I—I didn’t know.”

  “Sleeping while your daughter’s a hostage? What is your goddamned problem?”

  “I, I was just taking a—” she begins when the bedroom door opens.

  Mike Dunleavy walks in with his hands up. He doesn’t resemble his photos online or on Facebook. He looks much older, grayer, fatter, stupider. Isn’t he supposed to be some kind of smart guy with money? He looks like every dumb dad picking his kids up late from school because he forgot it was his day to get them. No wonder these clowns screwed it up. How did they ever kidnap anybody? Maybe they even lied about that.

  “Is the kid in the basement?” Rachel asks Pete.

  “Oh yes,” Pete says and he lets out a kind of half whistle as if to say it isn’t a pretty sight down there.

  “You’re the ones that took Amelia?” Mike asks with just a trace of an English accent.

  “We have her.”

  “Is she OK?” Helen asks desperately.

  “She’s fine. We’re looking after her.”

  “Why are you here?” Mike says. “We’ve done everything you’ve asked.”

  “No. You screwed up. We tried to call you, but your phone was dead and your computer was turned off,” Rachel says.

  Helen is looking at her strangely now. If she says something like “I think I know who you are,” then, Jesus Christ, I’m going to have to shoot her on the spot, Rachel thinks.

  “This is about the Hoggs, isn’t it?” Helen says. “They’ve done something.”

  “It’s what they’re about to do,” Pete says.

  “Oh God! What are they about to do?” Helen asks.

  “Seamus has an uncle in the U.S. Marshals Service. And he’s going to go see him tomorrow in Stamford,” Rachel informs her.

  “Wh—what does that mean?” Helen asks, appalled.

  “In theory, it means you have to kill little Henry and start again or else we have to kill Amelia and start again. Simple as that. I’m not having The Chain come near me or my family. Is that understood?” Rachel snarls.

  “There must be some other—” Mike begins.

  “There is. The three of us drive down to Providence and explain things to Mr. Hogg in person,” Rachel says.

  “The three of us?” Pete inquires.

  “The three of us,” Rachel insists. “Can’t trust these clowns.”

  She turns to Helen. “You’ll stay and watch the kid. Your husband will come with us. We’ll take your car. It’s a BMW, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Mike says.

  “Should be fast enough. Put some goddamn shoes on. Oh, and go find Mr. Boo. We need Mr. Boo,” Rachel says.

  “Mr. Boo?” Mike wonders.

  “Amelia’s bear. She wants it.”

  Helen gets Mr. Boo.

  “If you call the cops or warn the Hoggs or do anything stupid while we’re out, Amelia’s dead. They’ll kill her and then they’ll come for you and Toby. Do you understand?” Rachel says.

  Helen nods.

  They go outside to Mike’s BMW, a large, black top-of-the-line job. The kind they give to big earners at Standard. Plush. Comfortable. Fast.

  Mike hands Rachel the keys. She gets in the driver’s seat.

  Pete gets in the back with Mike.

  She turns the key in the ignition and the car growls to life.

  She looks in the rearview. Pete’s still a bit dazed. Mike’s shitting himself. She can handle both of them. She will handle both of them.

  “Buckle up,” she says.

  40

  Sunday, 11:59 p.m.

  She merges with the traffic.

  The highway hums. The highway sings. The highway luminesces.

  It is an adder moving south.

  Diesel and gasoline.

  Water and light.

  Sodium filament and neon.

  Interstate 95 at midnight. America’s spinal cord, splicing lifelines and destinies and unrelated narratives.

  The highway drifts. The highway dreams. The highway examines itself.

  All those threads of fate weaving together on this cold midnight.

  Towns and exits gliding south, shutting down other possibilities, other paths. Peabody. Newton. Norwood.

  The Google map making its own zodiac.

  Pawtucket.

  Providence.

  The Brown University exit. Lovecraft country. An old coach road to East Providence. Big houses. Even bigger houses.

  Maple Avenue. Bluff Street. Narragansett Avenue.

  “Here,” Mike says.

  “Is this it?”

  “Yeah.”

  The house is a large, ugly, mock-Tudor job, an early 2000s McMansion on a street filled with similar properties.

  They drive past it and park a little way up the road.

  “Front or back entrance?” Rachel asks Pete.

  “Hard to say,” Pete mutters. “We don’t know about dogs, alarms, that kind of thing.”

  “Back, then,” Rachel decides.

  The three of them exit the BMW, walk around the block to the Hoggs’ backyard, and climb a metal fence at the rear of the property. No dog comes tearing toward them. No floodlights come on. No shotgun blast comes roaring out of the night.

  The back door is a solid-looking thing but there’s another door attached to a kind of mudroom on the side of the house. It has only a latch lock on the other side of a piece of glass. Pete turns on his EM-pulse kit and breaks the glass.

  They wait for a response. A yell. A light coming on.

  There’s no reaction.

  Pete puts his hand through the broken window and undoes the latch on the external door.

  They go inside the mudroom, which is a small, narrow wooden chamber filled with coats and boots.

  Flashlights on.

  Mudroom to kitchen to dining room.

  A dining room with pictures on the wall.

  Rachel’s flashlight catches a family portrait. Two boys, a man, and his wife. Tall man with jet-black hair. Small, doughy, attractive wife who looks like she’s nice. The kids are about the same age, early teens. One of the boys is in a wheelchair. Why did the Dunleavys kidnap the one in the wheelchair? Why make it so difficult?

  What kind of a person kidnaps a disabled child?

  Then again, what kind of person kidnaps a kid who might die of an anaphylactic reaction to nuts?

  What kind of person kidnaps a child?

  They walk into a games room that has a full-length pool table, a dartboard, and a Nintendo Wii console. At least the Hoggs appear to have money.

  “I guess you better take this,” Pete says absently, giving Mike a nine-millimeter pistol.

  Rachel looks at him, amazed. Why would he give—

  Mike turns and points the nine-millimeter at Rachel’s head.

  “Now, you bloody bitch, you’re going to get yours. You’re going to release Amelia tonight or I’m going to—”

  “You’re going to do what?” Rachel snaps. “You think we’re dumb enough to give you a loaded gun?”

  Mike stares at the weapon. “I—”

  Rachel snatches the pistol out of his hands and gives it back to Pete, who finally seems to realize his mistake.

  Rachel shoves the barrel of the .38 into Mike’s cheek.

  “You still don’t get how it works, do you? Even if we gave you Amelia back, that won’t be the end of it. The Chain has to continue. That’s the way it’s set up. They’ll kill you and Amelia and your wife and Toby. They’ll kill all of you and start again. They’ll kill me and my family too.”
/>   Mike shakes his head. “But I—” he begins.

  Rachel pistol-whips the .38 across his face. He winces and staggers back toward a fish tank. She grabs the lapel of his jacket and stops him from falling.

  She pulls him close. “Do you get it now?”

  “I think so,” Mike whimpers.

  She puts the gun under his chin. “Do you get it?” she insists.

  “I get it,” he bleats and then he actually starts to cry.

  She takes off his ski mask and lets the gun fall to her side. She looks at him and holds the moment for a beat, two, three.

  “Close your eyes,” she says.

  He closes them, and she takes off her ski mask, pulls his head down, and leans her forehead against his.

  “Don’t you see? I’m saving you, Michael,” she says very softly. “I’m saving you and your family.”

  He nods.

  He understands now. Forehead against forehead. Victim and accomplice. Accomplice and victim.

  “It’s going to be OK,” she whispers.

  “Are you sure?” he asks.

  “Yes,” she says. “I promise.”

  She puts her ski mask back on and hands Mike his mask.

  She glares at Pete. “What the hell’s the matter with you? Get it together,” she hisses.

  A dog appears from a side door, a big tawny-brown Alsatian. It freezes when it sees them. “Hey, boy,” Pete says. The dog comes over and sniffs Pete’s hand and likes what it smells there.

  He pats it on the head. It sniffs Rachel and Mike and, satisfied, heads for the kitchen.

  A TV is blaring from a room at the front of the house.

  They follow the sound down a corridor hung with more family portraits.

  In the living room, they find a large man snoozing on a recliner in front of Fox News. A jowly, powerful, fallen man taken down by events, like Gulliver.

  He was reading the Bible. It has slipped to the floor next to him. There’s a gun in his lap.

  Rachel nods at Pete.

  Pete carefully lifts the gun and puts it in his own jacket pocket. “Is that Seamus Hogg?” Rachel whispers.

  Mike nods.

  Rachel picks up the Bible.

  He was reading Deuteronomy.

  Now, she thinks, it is time to teach him a new religion.

  41

  Monday, 4:17 a.m.

  Empty beach. Indifferent sky. Waves iterating on the cold black ocean.

  Rachel walks up the back steps of the Appenzellers’ home.

  From the outside, the house looks deserted.

  In through the kitchen.

  To the top of the basement steps.

  “Kylie?”

  Voices down below.

  Dutch angle. Tight on Rachel’s face. Jesus. What now?

  She takes out the .38, levels it in front of her, and walks downstairs.

  Kylie and Amelia are in the dome tent.

  They are playing Operation. Kylie isn’t wearing her ski mask. They are eating potato chips and Amelia is laughing her head off.

  This is the first time Rachel has heard her laugh.

  She sits down on the basement steps and puts away the gun.

  She wants to be angry at Kylie for not following the protocol. But she can’t be. Kylie is looking after the little girl the way a human being should care for another human being.

  Kylie has more empathy than she does. Kylie is braver than her.

  Rachel goes back upstairs.

  She puts the gun on the kitchen table and sits.

  She is filled with self-hatred and revulsion. None of this would have happened if she had been a better mom.

  For a moment she wonders what it would feel like to put the barrel of the nine-millimeter in her own mouth. That cool carbon steel resting on her tongue as if it belonged there. The thought scares her, and she pushes the weapon away.

  “When is this going to end?” she whispers to the darkness.

  The darkness keeps its own counsel.

  42

  Monday, 6:00 p.m.

  Seamus Hogg has been thoroughly educated. He gets it now. He makes a plan and executes it rapidly. Apparently, he’s a quick study in the child-abduction business. He drives to Enfield, Connecticut, and waits outside a football field for a fourteen-year-old boy named Gary Bishop who plays defensive tackle.

  Rachel doesn’t know much about football, but she knows that defensive tackles are big. That worries her, but the target has been approved by the Wickr contact. How carefully do they vet these things? Do they even care if it all goes wrong? Do they occasionally long for it all to go wrong? What is the psychology of a monster?

  She looks at the clock above the tide marker.

  It says 6:01 p.m.

  She goes outside to wait on the deck.

  Kylie’s in the living room doing her homework. Pretending everything is normal, sitting there doing her math but letting out little whimpers. Rachel wants to sit with her, but Kylie says no. Rachel watches her through the glass. An OK day at school, she said. She looked terrible and had no trouble convincing anyone that she had been ill.

  Pete is over at the Appenzellers’ house with Amelia. Amelia is in her princess tent playing Operation by herself now. Amelia hates Rachel. She told Pete that. “Don’t want the lady. I hate her.”

  Rachel doesn’t blame her in the slightest.

  Rachel looks at her phone and the burner phone next to it on the deck: 7:15.

  If it all gets screwed up again, could the Dunleavys be trusted to kill Henry Hogg and wipe the slate clean?

  If they can’t, will she have to kill little Amelia over there at the Appenzellers’? Kill that terrified, sad, lovely little girl in the tent? The .38 revolver is in the pocket of her robe. It’ll have to be her. Letting Pete do it would be a cop-out. Pete had, she knew, actually shot people. Possibly killed people. In Afghanistan he had been in several firefights, and in Iraq he’d been in too many to count.

  But she had brought him in. So it had to be her. No choice.

  She’d ask Pete to wait in the kitchen and she’d go down the basement steps in her socks. Amelia wouldn’t hear her approach across the concrete floor. She’d shoot Amelia in the back of the head while she played. Amelia would never know what happened. Existence to nonexistence just like that.

  Killing a child—the worst thing anyone could ever do.

  But better that than have Kylie sucked back into the void.

  Rachel begins to cry. Great waves of anguish and anger. Did this make them smile? Forcing virtuous people to do terrible things? Every human being walking this earth can be forced to violate his or her deepest beliefs and principles. Isn’t that hilarious?

  She waits until 7:25 before phoning the Dunleavys. “Well?”

  “We’ve just called Seamus Hogg. The kidnap was successful. The kid was almost no trouble at all. He got him.”

  “That’s great.”

  “How’s Amelia?”

  “Amelia’s fine. Playing Operation again. Safe.” Rachel hangs up.

  She walks to her bedroom and sits on the edge of the bed.

  She puts the .38 on the dresser, lets the hammer down gently, puts the safety back on, unclicks the cylinder, removes the bullets, puts them in the dresser drawer, and breathes.

  An hour later the Wickr app on Rachel’s phone chimes. Her contact informs her that she can release Amelia Dunleavy.

  With only a slight hiccup, The Chain is marching on its merry way.

  Rachel calls Helen Dunleavy on a burner phone.

  “Hello?”

  “We’re going to release Amelia in the next thirty minutes. Will call with instructions,” Rachel says and hangs up.

  She goes to the Appenzellers’ house and puts on her ski mask, and she and Pete unchain little Amelia and get her out of the basement. They put on gloves and Rachel dresses her in a brand-new fingerprint-free pair of jeans and a sweater. When the coast is clear, they drape a towel over her head and move her to the back seat of Pete�
��s pickup.

  They drive her to the playground at Rowley Common and get her out of the car. They tell her to keep the towel on for a count of sixty and then play on the swings until her mom comes to pick her up. They leave her with a wiped-down Mr. Boo and a toy octopus she has become particularly fond of.

  They park the Dodge across the street from the common and Pete watches Amelia through binoculars while Rachel calls the Dunleavys. She reminds them about The Chain and the blowback and the terrible consequences of releasing their victim early or of anybody talking. They have already been given this speech by the voice of The Chain, and they assure her that they will do the right thing.

  Rachel tells them where their daughter is and hangs up.

  She and Pete wait in the Dodge Ram.

  A little girl left by herself on the swings in the gathering dark in early twenty-first-century America. How scary is that?

  Five minutes go by.

  Amelia gets bored.

  She gets off the swings and walks to the edge of Route 1A. Cars are roaring by at fifty miles an hour.

  “Damn it!” Pete says.

  Rachel’s heart is in her mouth.

  There are other people in the park now, a couple of teenage boys in hoodies. “She’s going to get herself killed,” Pete says.

  “I’ll handle it,” Rachel replies. She puts her ski mask back on. She gets out of the car and runs over the road to Amelia. “Amelia, this road is dangerous. I told you to wait by the swings! Your mommy and daddy will be here in five minutes.”

  “I don’t want to play on the swings,” Amelia says.

  “If you don’t go over to the swings, Amelia, I’m going to tell your mommy and daddy you don’t want them to come for you, and they won’t come!”

  “Would you really do that?” Amelia asks, suddenly frightened.

  “Yes! I would,” Rachel says. “Now go play on the swings.”

  “You are such a meanie! I hate you!”

  Amelia turns and begins walking back to the playground.

  Rachel sprints over the road before the teenagers register the ski mask and maybe begin wondering if something is wrong. When she’s sure they aren’t looking in her direction, she gets in the Dodge.

  Amelia sits glumly on the swings by herself as the two teenagers go into the playhouse, apparently to light up a joint.