by Draker, Paul
“Good-bye, Cassie.” I kissed her forehead and pushed her toward the open door of the Humvee.
She got in and peeled away, the tires throwing gravel that pinged off the sides of the ice machine.
Alone now, I knelt beside the pay phone, unzipped the duffel, and pushed aside the wetsuits and the long-gun hard case. Digging beneath them, I pulled out the pistol case. Half expecting to find it empty despite its familiar weight, I put my fingertips on the sensors of the built-in biometric lock and raised the lid.
My handgun—a custom Wilson Combat Tactical Supergrade—lay nestled in black foam. Its carbon-steel frame shared the classic lines of Blake’s boring old 1911 Colt .45, but the similarity ended there.
Chambered in high-speed 10-millimeter instead of the slow, subsonic .45, the Wilson was a different animal altogether. Compared to Blake’s old relic, it reflected a century of advancement in firearms technology. Its dehorned slide and frame were finished in durable green-black Armor Tuff, impregnated with molybdenum disulfide, and almost frictionless. The tritium-and-fiber-optic battle sights, match-grade trigger, and stainless steel barrel were designed for uncompromising accuracy. The tapered magazine chute and rail-mounted green laser made it doubly lethal for short-range, rapid-fire tactical shooting.
I pulled it out of the case, slapped a full magazine into the well, and racked the slide. Then I laid the gun on the case lid.
Only morons ran around with a loaded weapon jammed loose into the back of their belt. It was a great way to shoot yourself in the ass. I pulled a Blackhawk drop-leg holster and a twin-magazine pouch out of the case and stood.
Scanning the empty parking lot, I whipped my belt out of its loops, threaded it through the holster and pouch, and rebuckled it. Then I buckled the retention straps around my thighs. I slid my gun into the holster, feeling the solid click through my right quadriceps, as the type-3 retention device engaged.
Four spare magazines went into the pouches on my left thigh.
I kicked the case back into the duffel and zipped it shut as a jeep peeled into the lot. Two Navy guys jumped out, placating hands raised to shoulder height, showing me they meant no harm.
One of them held a phone.
I raised my own palms, too, walking forward to meet them halfway.
“We’re only supposed to give you a message,” one of them shouted.
“I know,” I said, and broke his jaw with a right cross, dropping him before he could say anything else. His buddy tried to scramble back into the jeep, but I caught him at the driver’s-side door and bounced his forehead off the door frame. He went rag-doll limp, tumbling to the gravel bonelessly when I hurled him aside.
I ground the phone he had dropped under my heel.
Throwing my duffel into the back of the jeep, I jumped in, buckled my seat belt, and started the engine. The guy with the broken jaw was crawling toward his prone buddy as I skidded out of the lot.
My actions would take Frankenstein by surprise.
It would never occur to an artificial intelligence to deliberately deny itself critical information the way I just had—it wasn’t possible for a machine to not want to know something. Refusing data input was a fundamentally irrational thing to do.
Even though Frankenstein would immediately figure out what I was up to, it would still do him no good. You couldn’t threaten someone if you couldn’t tell him what you wanted from him and what you would do if he refused. You couldn’t threaten a person you couldn’t reason with.
I was all done talking.
I was going to get my daughter now.
And then I was coming for him.
Frankenstein thought he knew what I was capable of?
Frankenstein was wrong.
CHAPTER 85
Roaring down Highway 445 ten minutes later, I was halfway through my second Powerbar when my throat closed up again. Crippling doubt had crept in, replacing my earlier certainty. By making my choice, I had bet Amy’s life on my ability to outthink a supercomputer that was a lot smarter than I was.
Now I had no choice at all. I had to figure out who actually had her. And where.
Frankenstein knew a lot about me. But he didn’t know everything. He didn’t know how I had paid my way through MIT. There was no electronic record of it anywhere. That was because I had spent my college nights and weekends on Boston’s seedy underground fight circuit, earning my tuition a few hundred bloodstained dollars at a time, in no-rules back-alley bouts and unsanctioned warehouse cage matches. I had also earned myself an ugly nickname.
For a few years, “Terror Lennox” had been an underground legend.
It was a name associated with puddles of blood drying on the floor of dirty Combat Zone basements. With money changing hands while opponents left in ambulances or on stretchers. A name associated with career-ending injuries.
It was also a name that I shed several times a week, while trudging back to campus across the Mass Ave bridge at three or four a.m., bruised knuckles throbbing, my breaths steaming into the cold Boston air, the Charles River sliding by black and greasy below me as I crossed toward campus, headed for the Athena computer clusters to finish an assignment, or to the Barker library to study for a midterm exam I had in the morning.
Terror Lennox: a nickname I had hated. A name I thought I had left behind me forever the night Jen whispered the news in my ear, telling me we were pregnant.
Now, to get our baby back, I would be Terror Lennox once again.
I knew that Dr. Simon Frank’s signature undoubtedly graced the legal custody paperwork presented to the airline—the paperwork declaring Jen psychiatrically unfit to receive Amy at the other end. A perfect forgery of my signature and a custody judge’s would authorize airline officials to release my daughter to the bearer.
Jen had taught Amy well, though.
Our daughter would never have gone with a stranger, an adult she didn’t know, regardless of their credentials. She would have refused, throwing a screaming, kicking public scene if she had to. But what if that adult handed Amy a phone so that someone she trusted could tell her it was okay to go? She might or might not have believed the voice of her psychiatrist, Simon Frank. But she would have trusted a voice that sounded exactly like me.
Whichever officer of the court Frankenstein had coerced or bribed, I was sure that was how they had taken Amy off the plane and whisked her away. But they wouldn’t have held her for long, because Frankenstein would have had them hand her off to someone else.
Cassie believed that Frankenstein and I thought alike. I needed to put that to the test now, to figure out where my daughter was.
Paradoxically, if someone wanted to subvert a human institution and redirect the efforts of a large group of capable people toward a questionable goal, a military base made an ideal choice. To control the entire base, only a few high-ranking individuals would have to be compromised—or replaced with convincing voice and video simulations. The military’s rigid chain-of-command culture meant that orders, even strange ones, got followed without question.
But even so, a kidnapped 7-year-old girl would draw attention on a military base, no matter what the story. So Frankenstein wouldn’t have her brought there. He would have Amy’s captor hide her somewhere off base but nearby, awaiting his further instructions. That person would also need to be able to enter the base unescorted, to bring Amy to Frankenstein when summoned.
The thought of what would happen then made my throat constrict. Frankenstein hated me. I had no idea why, but my own creation wanted me to suffer. And he knew that the cruelest way to hurt me was to hurt my gentle daughter instead.
I tried to think like Frankenstein and was appalled at how easy it was—and at what that said about me. To ensure my compliance, he would want to be able to demonstrate what he was willing to do to Amy. Whoever had my daughter right now was someone Frankenstein could rely on not to hesitate when asked to hurt—or even kill—a 7-year-old girl.
I had to identify that person and find them
first.
CHAPTER 86
And then I knew.
I bent and vomited into the footwell. Wiping tears away, I dropped the rest of the energy bar and gripped the wheel with both hands. I needed calories to function, but I couldn’t eat. Not now.
I tried in vain to shut off the stream of horrific images that were searing themselves into the screen of my mind. But I couldn’t stop seeing them. I threw up again and crushed the accelerator to the floor.
Frankenstein would have known, as I did, that most normal human beings would find it difficult to hurt a child in cold blood. When the crucial moment came, hardwired instincts might rebel. Deep-seated biological prohibitions might kick in and prevent them from going through with it. Guessing whether a given person was truly capable of injuring a child on command was a crapshoot…
Unless you knew that the person had done it before, to other children, and would relish the opportunity to do it again. Especially since that person already hated this child’s father.
Frankenstein had read McNulty’s e-mails just as I had. He had listened while I taunted a guy about his jailhouse tattoos after he gave me undercooked chicken.
Right now my daughter was in the hands of Douglas Hensley, the child molester who worked the base cafeteria grill.
But what Frankenstein didn’t understand was that a sexual predator would be incapable of waiting. The sick compulsions that drove animals like Doug Hensley would override any fear of consequences.
Even if I succeeded in rescuing Amy, it was already too late—the damage to her sweet, innocent mind and delicate child’s body would be irreversible. I would provide her with every possible kind of care and support, but my daughter would never be the same again.
Another eruption of tears left me gasping, my hands shaking on the wheel. I knew exactly where I was going, though—the ex-con’s address had been part of the administrative e-mail McNulty had received. As the miles hammered by beneath the jeep’s tires, I cast my thoughts back 164 years to Cassie’s ancestor Chief Winnemucca, who had led a war party to rescue two kidnapped Paiute children and kill the men who had raped them.
Unlike Winnemucca, I was going to let Douglas Hensley live. But first, I would do some major anatomical reengineering. Every single fucking piece of Doug not strictly required for life support was coming off—when I was done he would weigh less than Amy’s sixty pounds. Someone would have to push him around in a shopping cart and feed him through a straw. Without eyes or a lower jaw, he wouldn’t be able to see where they put him, or complain to anyone about it.
But I was going to let him live.
Two miles past the Regional Shooting Facility, I turned off 445, keeping the jeep near ninety as I roared down the beige dirt surface of Range Land Road. A quarter-mile-long dust plume trailed behind me, spreading across the barren, greasewood-dotted desert. I skidded onto Winnemucca Ranch Road and turned left past a small, irrigated field of green that sat in the middle of the low-lying scrub. Then I slowed the jeep. Boxy white RVs, motorhomes, and camper vans dotted the dusty turnouts on each side as I entered the Hungry Valley OHV Recreation Area.
Jacked-up 4x4s, ATVs, dirt bikes, and other off-road toys sat on trailers or parked amid the scattering of motor homes and campers. People came to Hungry Valley for the miles of rugged four-wheeling trails—and for the free camping. I didn’t think Doug Hensley was much of a four-wheeling aficionado. What brought him out here was undoubtedly the opportunity to park his RV far out of the sight or hearing of his neighbors.
For an address, he had listed the Moon Rocks, an eerie formation of slick granite that jutted from the surrounding desert. Pulling into the wide, flat parking area at the base of the lunar rockscape, I scanned the RVs until I spotted one with its own hookup to a large fixed propane tank. A permanent-looking arrangement of tables and furniture sat alongside the RV, forming an open-air woodworker’s shop.
Like crudely-carved totem poles, a dozen waist-high statues of birds of prey stood in front of the workshop, for sale. I skidded to a halt in front of them and leaped out of the jeep.
The long-haired Deadhead type sitting in one of the lawn chairs was tossing crumbs to the pigeons milling around his feet, but his eyes were aimed skyward, where a trio of larger birds circled—redtails or goshawks or something. Grateful Dead had a book in his lap, open to pictures of raptors, and a pair of binoculars around his neck. Keeping his gaze on the hawks overhead, he made a show of ignoring my rapid approach.
I planted my foot between his thighs and shoved the chair’s aluminum frame backward to slam against the RV. The bird book fell to the dirt.
“Douglas Hensley,” I said. “Where is he?”
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
“His parole officer.”
“I’ve met Doug’s parole officer,” he said. “You ain’t he.”
“He’s a busy guy,” I said. “I’m helping him out by lightening up his caseload.”
Grateful Dead’s eyes dropped to the gun at my hip.
I reached past him to wrench the license plate off his RV. Glancing at it, I memorized the number and Frisbee-tossed the plate into the back of my jeep. Then I gave the guy my full attention.
“Directions, motherfucker,” I said. “Now. And if he’s not where you tell me, or if he’s expecting me when I arrive, I’m coming back. The two of us will go out into the desert ”—I pointed up at the circling hawks—“ and you can feed some of those, instead.”
The directions I got were concise and crystal clear. Hustling back to the jeep, I passed a half-finished stump-carving on a worktable. Sitting in the sawdust next to it was a gas-powered chainsaw.
“I’m only borrowing this,” I said, grabbing it by the guard. “But you might not want it back when I’m done.”
Tossing it into my jeep, I climbed in after it and peeled out.
• • •
Five minutes later, I was bouncing across trackless scrubland, scanning the distance ahead. Spotting the solitary white rectangle I was looking for, I aimed the jeep toward it.
Douglas Hensley’s RV sat isolated a mile from the road and two miles from its nearest neighbor. A heavy stand-alone propane grill stood next to it, sunlight sparkling off its stainless steel. I could see the squat gray propane tank sitting alongside.
If I were still in Roger’s eight-ton Humvee, I could floor the accelerator and drive it straight through the RV, demolishing it before Doug could get out the door. Even now, I could grab one of the flares from the jeep’s roadside kit and pull up alongside Doug’s shiny new gas grill. It would take less than five seconds to wedge the flare through the top of his propane tank, light it, and sling the tank underneath the back of the RV’s chassis, where the fuel tank was. Then I could put a bullet through the propane tank.
But my hands were tied. Amy was inside the RV, too.
I angled the jeep toward the front of the RV, where she was least likely to be. A hundred feet from it, I took my foot off the gas and slid my mouth guard in.
The jeep hit at around thirty miles per hour, crumpling the RV’s engine compartment and shattering the expansive windshield. Unbuckling my seat belt, I launched myself out of the driver’s seat and scrambled over onto the jeep’s hood, drawing my gun. Holding it in a two-handed grip, keeping the barrel elevated above Amy’s head height, I kicked in the shattered safety glass of the RV’s windshield and plunged into the cockpit.
I hurtled through the empty kitchen and dinette… and came to a sudden stop.
Doug Hensley lay sprawled on the floor between the dinette and the bathroom, staring up at me out of two empty, gore-filled sockets. The teardrop tattoos alongside one of the holes were smeared crimson.
Feeling my stomach contract, I stared in shock.
How had little Amy managed to do that to him?
Then I noticed the pale cauliflower lumps that thickened the puddle of blood beneath his head. The back of Doug’s skull had been blown open. Someone had shot out both of his eyes, using holl
ow-point bullets. My gaze rose to take in the two side-by-side splotches of blood and brain matter clumped on the wall at head height.
I could almost see a ghostly Doug standing before me, slack-jawed, his eyes disappearing one after the other, as the hamburger-size splotches bloomed on the wall behind his head like Mickey Mouse ears. Bam—bam. The shooter had drilled both Doug’s eyes dead center where he stood, the second shot following the first so quickly that Doug’s body hadn’t even started to drop yet.
My daughter couldn’t have done this. But whoever had was one hell of a shot.
A thump came from the back of the RV. The bedroom.
Hopping over Doug’s sprawled legs, I kicked aside the stepstool that had been braced under the handle, and yanked the door open.
Lying on the bedcovers, Amy stared at me with terrified eyes. Her arms and legs were tied with duct tape. The sight of her sent a serrated saw blade through my heart.
My little girl looked so scared.
Dropping to my knees beside the bed, I tossed the gun aside. I pulled my daughter to my chest and hugged her, and my knees started drumming against the bedframe. I was shaking so hard that the frantic questions pouring from my mouth dissolved into an incomprehensible stutter of heaving syllables.
Amy burst into tears, too.
“Daddy, please don’t cry,” she sobbed. “Nothing bad happened to me. I’m all right.”
CHAPTER 87
The paramedics, moving with urgency, slid the gurney out of the back of the ambulance. As they pushed through the sliding glass doors of Renown Regional Med Center’s emergency department, I slid out from behind the other parked ambulance and slung the strap of a bulky red trauma bag over one shoulder. Matching my rapid, deliberate pace to theirs, I jogged through the glass doors a few feet behind their gurney.
My bright neon-yellow EMT jacket with its strips of reflective tape matched what the other paramedics wore. So did my dark baseball cap. I’d found both, along with the oversize trauma bag, in the back of the parked ambulance.