by R. G. Ryan
At least I think that’s what he said. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you because my mind was completely consumed with a suspicion that had begun to develop. It was not a good suspicion, either.
In fact, it was pretty horrifying.
“Jake?” Redfern prompted.
“I’m sorry. Did you say something?”
“I said, once we touch down, we need to get a command center going and bring the local guys up to speed on what we’re dealing with.”
“Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.”
He was silent for a few seconds.
“You want to tell me what sent you off into never-never land a minute ago?”
“Do I want to tell you? No. But I will. I was just thinking about motive. It’s all about revenge. But it’s not that simple. A simple form of revenge would be to do what we were discussing—you know, kidnap her and put her back into circulation, so to speak. Or even, take her and kill her outright. It’s much more complicated, though.”
“Then, what’s he planning?”
“I think he intends to kill her, Gerry. In fact I’m sure of it. That would take care of his revenge on her. But I can’t shake the feeling that in order for his revenge against me to be complete…I have to somehow be able to witness her death and be powerless to stop it.”
“That is one sick bastard.”
“No, Gerry, that’s where you’re wrong. He’s not sick…he’s evil. Entirely and unreservedly evil. Sickness can be cured. There is no cure for evil.”
Chapter Twelve
Our flight had taken around two hours and fifteen minutes and it was getting close to 6:00 p.m. by the time we landed at the Henderson Executive airport. Michael texted me saying that they were passing through the Cajon Pass and were about three hours out. So I filled him in on what we had learned about the movement of the van and asked that he share the information with the others. We had previously decided that once in Vegas, Aaron would take everyone to his house to wait out whatever was going to happen. No one liked the idea, but what else were they going to do? I mean, hell, we didn’t even know what to do.
Apart from the strange reality that Cassie had been abducted by an honest to goodness, real live monster, not knowing what to do was the worst part of this for me. Actually, now that I think about it, knowing what to do and not being able to do it would actually be worse! But this…this suffocating ignorance was nearly unbearable. Add to that the growing suspicion that I had articulated to Redfern, and I was one miserable individual.
An agency SUV picked us up at the airfield and we made our way to a hotel off of St. Rose Parkway and I-15 to set up a command center. The hotel management, upon learning what we were dealing with, insisted on providing a conference room plus food and beverages free of charge. I guess there are some genuine “goodfellas” left in Vegas.
Upon arrival, Redfern introduced me to Andy Steward, his counterpart in Nevada. Steward, who had recently been assigned to the Las Vegas office, was a trim, fit man in his early sixties whose face didn’t appear to have been visited by a smile in the past couple of decades. With gray eyes and salt and pepper hair cut in a close, military style, he emanated a steely, no nonsense resolve.
He shook my hand.
There’s a thing that some guys do when shaking hands. Perhaps you have experienced it yourself. If not, allow me to enlighten you. The handshake itself becomes a contest of sorts where instead of a mere greeting, you attempt to crush the other man’s hand with your grip. It probably stems from that spot in our brains where our primal urges are stored. Agent Steward was doing that to me. I could tell that he was accustomed to overpowering most other men, and since my bullshit quotient was severely limited given Cassie’s situation, I squeezed back hard enough to hear a crack or two.
He winced. Almost imperceptibly, but it was there.
Round one of the pissing contest to yours truly.
“Heard a lot about you, Moriarity,” he said, subconsciously flexing his hand. “I’ve always wondered how much of it is true.”
Redfern answered on my behalf, “All of it…and more.”
“Well, it’ll be good to see you in action, then,” Steward answered with a smile of dubious origin.
I had just started to reply when my phone started playing, “She,” the theme from the movie Notting Hill… Cassie’s ringtone.
It was a Facetime call.
What the heck was going on?
I answered and waited anxiously to see what would come up on the screen.
What I saw was a door being opened into a small bedroom with a stained mattress sitting by itself on the floor. Suddenly, chaos erupted. The phone went flying and I was staring at a blank screen.
Redfern must’ve noticed my consternation.
“What’s going on, Jake?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I just received a Facetime call from Cassie’s phone, but I don’t think it was from her. I think it was Morgan.”
He was suddenly excited.
“Could you see anything that would help us?”
“Nothing but a door opening into a bedroom, a mattress on the floor and then the phone went flying and blacked out.”
Steward asked, “You think maybe whoever was holding the phone got taken out?”
I turned away from my phone to stare at him.
“I don’t know. I guess that’s one explanation. Or, maybe whoever it was just tripped and fell. Bottom line is that the phone hit something and shut off.”
Redfern hollered across the room to one of his agents.
“William, can you come here for a sec?”
A tall, lanky agent in typical Bureau attire, i.e. white shirt, drab tie, black slacks and the ubiquitous FBI windbreaker, ambled over to stand with us.
“Yes sir?”
“William, if we have a recent call from a phone, can we pinpoint the location where the call originated?”
“Uh, yeah, we can do that.”
“Jake, give William the number of Cassie’s phone and the exact time the call connected.”
I had already been scribbling down the information in anticipation of the request.
“Here you go,” I said, handing over the slip of paper.
William took the paper and walked away without another word.
“Talkative fellow, isn’t he?” Steward remarked to William’s retreating form.
Gerald chuckled.
“He’s always been like that. In fact, that’s one of the longest conversations I’ve ever had with him.”
I said, “Let’s say that William is able to pinpoint their location. How do you want to play this?”
Redfern ran his fingers through his hair, a nervous tic he’d had ever since I first met him several years ago.
“That depends on so many factors, I’m not even certain I can come up with an intelligent response at this point. Why? What are you thinking?”
“Can I talk to you privately?”
He stared at me for a few seconds before turning to Steward and saying, “Andy, can you give us a minute here?”
“Sure thing, Gerry. I’ll get my guys set up. Brief me when you’ve got something.”
As agent Steward walked away, I said, “I want to go in alone.” Before Redfern could protest, I continued, “Think about it—like I keep saying, it’s only one guy…one small, very weak guy who, at his core, is inherently craven. He hasn’t even done any jail time.”
Redfern’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“After what he did to Cassie and Muriel?”
“I was so focused on getting the girls out of there and admitted into a hospital, I didn’t really think too much about Morgan. The truth is, I beat him so badly that I figured he’d be lucky to live let alone think about fleeing.”
“But…?” he prompted.
“When I went back with the police to pick him up…he and the other three girls were gone. Seemed like he had walked—or crawled—out of there and l
eft everything behind, including a substantial amount of blood—his blood.”
He narrowed his gaze .
“Just how bad did you beat him, Jake?”
“Well…let’s just say that I was…frustrated—probably focused fairly intently on revenge—so I sort of exacted my own form of justice, so to speak.”
“So to speak?”
I smiled.
“Yeah. Like that.”
He was thoughtful for a few seconds.
“Jake, look…I…I’m a Federal law enforcement official and you are a duly authorized special consultant. I can’t just stand back and let you go kill the guy!”
“Why not? He needs killing. You know it, and I know it.”
“But…that’s illegal!”
I pulled a chair out from the table and sat, motioning for him to do the same.
Leaning forward with my forearms resting on the tabletop, I said, “The only thing you are authorizing is that I, in my role as a special consultant with the FBI—who has, by the way, saved the Bureau’s collective ass on many previous occasions—go in and rescue my niece from a documented sociopath.”
His face revealed a medley of conflicting emotions.
“But you intend to kill him. Knowing that ahead of time—“
“How can you possibly know ahead of time what I will or won’t do? When we rescued Simone Ducharme from Yves Barreau did you know ahead of time that he was going to drive his car off the cliff at Torrey Pines Glider Port?”
“I knew that it was a strong possibility.”
“But you didn’t know for certain,” I countered.
He held his hands up.
“Okay…okay. I get it. So, let’s say that I send you off on a mission to get Cassie. I suppose my ‘plausible deniability’ is that it is ludicrous to expect that an inherently violent individual such as Mr. Morgan would go without a struggle. And…”
“…and in that struggle, if I prevail and he meets with an unfortunate demise…”
I shrugged.
He squinted his eyes and stared at me.
“Bro, that’s cold.”
I ran my hands over my face as if wiping my skin free from something revolting.
“Look, Gerry, ‘cold’ is what he did to Cassie, Muriel and who knows how many other young, innocent girls. The torture, the perversion…I can’t even bring myself to think about it let alone describe it to you. Like I said before…he’s pure evil and I cannot allow that evil to freely roam the earth if I have an opportunity to do something about it.”
He had just started to respond when William returned wearing an expression that was anything but hopeful.
Chapter Thirteen
Cassie lay on the floor clutching her right foot, nauseous from the excruciating pain caused by the roundhouse kick she had delivered to the back of Paul Morgan’s head. Rather than striking with the shin, as she had been taught, she had connected with the top of her arch and, based on the intensity of pain she was certain that something in her foot was broken.
From her position she could see Morgan lying where he had fallen against the chest of drawers in the corner. He appeared to be unconscious at first but then she noticed his eyes half open and trying to focus. The force of the kick was such that at the very least he would have a concussion and if there were any justice in the world, cracked cervical vertebrae.
She painfully rolled over onto her side and then into a kneeling position as Eddie peered out from behind the bathroom door where she had been hiding.
Tentatively, Eddie opened the door and walked over to where Cassie was kneeling and helped her to her feet.
Gingerly, Cassie stood on one leg and, leaning on Eddie for support, tried to put weight on her injured foot. Surprisingly the pain wasn’t as severe as she had feared and she found that she was actually able to walk a little. With Eddie’s assistance she was able to make it to the mattress where she sat down hard, panting from the exertion required to overcome the pain.
She noticed Morgan trying to focus his eyes on something to her left and then realized it was the collar that had been around her neck. She reached over and picked it up and let it dangle from one finger in a gesture of pure mockery.
“Eddie take this and put it on our friend,” Cassie said firmly.
Eddie took the collar from Cassie without speaking and locked the collar in place with the key that she had stolen from Morgan’s hiding place in the other room. Fortunately, Morgan had slipped back into unconsciousness and, therefore, offered no resistance.
Eddie stood and backed slowly toward the bed.
“Cassie, this is making me very nervous. I mean if he wakes up he’s going to kill both of us. You just don’t know how mean he can be,” she said in a voice quivering with fear.
“You’re wrong. I do know how mean he can be. But if we can find that remote control thing he used to zap me, I’m pretty sure his meanness will be neutralized. Check his pockets and see if he has it on him.”
Eddie approached Paul cautiously, kneeling once more in front of where he lay. She reached her hand out slowly and drew it back quickly two or three times before finally patting him down the way a police officer would frisk a prisoner. She stopped suddenly and peered closely at a thin cord around his neck. Carefully pulling the cord out from under his shirt, she found that the remote control unit was attached to it.
As she was attempting to pull it over his head she realized that the collar around his neck was preventing her from doing so. Since the cord seemed fairly thin, she gave it a tug thinking it would break, but it held firm.
She tugged again a little harder with the same result.
“I’m just not strong enough.” Eddie said disappointedly, sitting back on her heels.
“C’mon, you can do it. Don’t worry about him, he’s down for the count,” Cassie encouraged.
Eddie nodded in affirmation and grabbed the remote firmly with both hands, bracing her foot against his chest and pulling with all her strength. The cord broke suddenly sending her into a backward somersault landing in a sitting position with the remote control clutched firmly in her hand and a smile of triumph lighting up her face. She turned to Cassie holding the remote up like a trophy.
Having been roused by the breaking of the cord, Paul’s eyes flew open and he lunged, grabbing Eddie’s ankles, teeth bared in a grimace, guttural sounds issuing from his throat.
Eddie screamed and at first tried only to break his grip.
Cassie was yelling, “Zap him! Zap him!”
Suddenly Eddie figured it out and found the presence of mind to trigger the electrodes on the collar. Morgan immediately lost all muscular control and flopped around like a fish out of water.
It was only when he lapsed back into unconsciousness that she removed her finger from the trigger.
“That should keep him quiet for awhile,” Cassie said, reaching out to place a hand on Eddie’s shoulder.
She was breathing heavily as she looked up at Cassie with a mixture of fear and relief. Then, her gaze shifted back to Morgan lying unconscious at her feet. She stood up, never taking her eyes off of him as her breathing suddenly became more rapid.
“Eddie, are you all right?” Cassie asked without receiving an answer.
Eddie began making small sounds with each breath which escalated suddenly into a full blown scream as she pressed the button on the remote and held it down sending Morgan’s body into spastic contortions.
Cassie shouted, “Eddie! Eddie, stop it!”
She tried to stand and fell hard by the side of the bed but managed to grab onto one of Eddie’s arms as she fell, pulling her down with her and breaking her grip on the remote.
They both lay there panting loudly.
Cassie said, “You don’t want to kill him.”
“I don’t?” Eddie gasped.
“Well, maybe you do, but you can’t.”
After a few seconds of indecision, she handed the rem
ote to Cassie who took it from her saying, “How about we find a way to get out of here?”
Chapter Fourteen
William said, “Got a problem.”
“Okay,” Redfern replied. “How big of a problem?”
“Pretty darned!”
“All right. Let’s hear it.”
“SatPhone.”
When William didn’t say anything else, Redfern prompted, “Uh, okay. Is there more?”
“The call was routed through a SatPhone.”
I asked, “How is that possible?”
He shifted his gaze in my direction.
“Easy. You create a Wi-Fi with it. Log on to the Wi-Fi and you can do anything you want. But that’s not the problem.”
“What is?”
He held up a tablet displaying what looked like a shot from Google Earth and tapped a spot toward the center.
“This.”
Redfern shook his head.
“William, for God’s sake! Can you just tell us what you have to say without being so damned cryptic!”
Without changing expression William said, “I am.”
“William!”
He sighed as if having been tasked with explaining himself to a child.
“See where my finger is on the map?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“It’s in the middle of nowhere. Amargosa desert north of Las Vegas.” He took his fingers and expanded the image as far as it would go. “Now do you see the problem?”
Redfern and I leaned in for a closer look. There was nothing to see.
Redfern sat back in his chair, shaking his head defeatedly.
“There’s nothing there. I mean we’re obviously losing daylight, but even in full sun there’d still be nothing there.”
“Exactly!” William affirmed. “At first I was thinking, maybe the guy drove out there and placed the call from his vehicle. But as you can clearly see, there are no roads. So unless he four-wheeled it for about twenty miles—which is highly doubtful given the terrain—that’s impossible.”