Scanning through local live feeds, he still came up short.
“Let it ride till morning, Austin,” his lovely wife said as she walked into the room and stood behind him.
“Well, I guess it takes a few hours. I just expected it to be here, since Riverton told me Fred had been arrested this afternoon.”
“It’ll be there tomorrow,” Carla said. “Come on, Austin. Let’s go to bed.”
He wiggled his eyebrows at his wife, who had walked backward into the master bedroom and waved to him from the doorway. He was about to close his laptop when he noticed a new email.
Something compelled him to take a look at what the email contained. The subject line of the email said, “Thought you might like this.” The sender had some kind of numeric moniker he’d never seen before. He knew better than to risk getting a virus, but he couldn’t help it. His middle finger pushed down on the square pad in the middle of his Mac, which highlighted the line of email. He waited while his computer worked on uploading an image.
The first thing he noticed was that there was music coming from his computer. Etta James was singing her signature song, At Last. Slowly the pixels on his monitor filled in the screen from top to bottom. What came into view was a picture of something fuzzy in white and peach tones. His stomach cramped when he realized it was a picture of Libby’s canopy bed. He recognized the two bodies on that bed: Libby and Cooper. In the center of the screen was a black circle with a white triangle pointing to the right.
This was a video he knew he didn’t want to watch.
But he had to.
He glanced up at the doorway, and mercifully, Carla had gone into the bedroom. His hands were shaking. He felt sweat stream down from his armpits. The back of his shirt was drenched. He was also about to lose the dinner he’d just eaten. He couldn’t concentrate on anything except the single white triangle beckoning him. Very slowly his fingers positioned the black cursor on the screen and let it hover over the image.
The sound of his own ragged breathing filled his ears as if he was wearing a headset. The dull tympanic boom of his heartbeat echoed in his vacant chest. He pushed the silver pad and he watched a windmill design complete a few revolutions, and then disappear.
What he heard next was breathing. Brownlee tried to focus on the sides of the picture, trying to figure out what was causing the blackness at the border. Then he figured it out as he heard his daughter call out Cooper’s name and saw the young sailor’s thighs rhythmically slap against hers, the famous song playing in the background.
The video was being taken from Libby’s closet. The man who took this was in her room.
Might still be in her room. And Libby had left several minutes ago to go to the house to find Cooper, to give him the good news.
Maybe this was taken earlier. Maybe Dolan did this before he got arrested.
He replayed the video and saw Libby’s bedside clock, reading 3:30. That was after Riverton said they had the guy. It was obvious the police didn’t have the right man. They’d arrested that scumbag Dr. Dolan, but the man who was terrorizing his family was still out there. Out there, hell. He was probably still in their house. And Libby was on her way there.
He jumped to his feet, raced to the phone and dialed Libby’s cell. It rang four times and then went to voicemail. Her chipper voice brought tears to his eyes. He slammed the handset down with a very loud, “Fuck!”
Carla was at the doorway in an instant, wearing a nightie, alarm written all over her face. She looked at the handset as if she expected it to be smashed to pieces. She then ran over to him.
“What is it?”
Austin Brownlee pointed to his computer. Carla sat down without a sound, tapped the keypad with one finger and watched the images on the screen. Brownlee saw the colors flash on her lovely face, reflecting on glistening tears streaming down her cheeks. She brought her hand up to her mouth, squeezed it into a fist and held it against her face just under her nose. She closed her eyes and then opened them again, as if she would see something else. Anything else.
Brownlee tried Libby’s phone again from his own cell this time. The call went to voicemail again after four rings. Then he dialed Riverton.
The detective answered on the second ring. Brownlee was going to say something to his wife who sat staring at the now frozen screen. He knew she was beyond shock as the significance of this video sank in.
“Brownlee, what can I do for you?”
“I—I have something else. You. Must. Come. Over. You have the wrong guy.”
“What the hell’s going on? Someone hurt?”
“I don’t know.” He put his hand up to his forehead at the hairline. “I don’t know if she’s safe. She went over—Oh God, Clark. You have the wrong man.”
“No fucking way. We’ve got the right man all right. The guy is a certifiable weirdo. Wait till you see some of the stuff we’ve gotten from his house.”
“Someone sent me a video clip this afternoon. It was taken today at 3:30. Libby and C—they were on Libby’s bed. In Libby’s room—“
“You mean that fuckin SEAL taped them together and sent you a clip? That what you’re saying, Austin?”
“No. I don’t think it was Cooper. Someone was holding the camera, adjusting it, making it focus on—body parts—“ he could hardly get the words out.
“Who? Who took the video?”
“I don’t know. But I know it’s him. The one who’s been sending the photographs. I just know it is. That’s how he got Libby’s pink stationery. He’s been inside the house, Clark. He’s been going and coming inside our house.”
“You still at the Hotel Del?”
“Yes.”
“Stay right there. I’m sending a squad over to the Brownlee residence. Stay the hell away from there, you hear?”
“Yes.”
“And Austin, try to get hold of Libby.”
“All I get is voicemail. I’ve tried twice.”
“Keep trying. I’ll be right over to get your computer.”
Cooper and Kyle wound their way up the street towards the Brownlee house. A pickup truck almost scraped the driver’s headlights on Kyle’s SUV as it took the angle of the corner too steep, traveling at a high rate of speed. Kyle hadn’t had a chance to downshift from high beams, so the lights flashed on the face of a man behind the wheel wearing a Padres baseball cap.
The Brownlee’s gardener. “That’s strange.”
“What?” Kyle asked.
“The fuckin’ gardener. Libby said his regular day was tomorrow. He’s about as good a driver as he is landscaper,” Coop snorted.
“Something wrong about that, Coop,” Kyle replied.
Cooper turned and looked toward the rear of the truck that was smoking, picking up speed as it barreled down the hill to the commercial district. Something was definitely wrong. He started having that feeling like he did sometimes when he was in an unfamiliar neighborhood overseas, when they didn’t know what was around the corner, when they were looking for bad guys in daylight or near daylight. This was the most dangerous time of day for them. They preferred working dark of the night assisted by their night vision gear.
Dusk was known as the killing time.
When they pulled up to the Brownlee home, Cooper saw Libby’s car. It was locked. He and Kyle dashed to the front door of the house and found it was also locked. Kyle was going to kick it in when Cooper stopped him.
They tore off toward the side gate and quietly ran through the yard to the kitchen door and stopped. The slider was still open, and on the floor of the kitchen was Libby’s purse, the contents spilled all over. Her cell phone had been ringing, and the light had just gone out.
“Libby?” Cooper shouted. They both listened as they searched the rooms downstairs. They sacrificed stealth for speed while Cooper shouter for Libby.
Upstairs nothing had been touched. They ran from room to room, and then met in the hallway.
“I think she’s in that asshole’s truck,” Cooper sai
d. “They’ve got a head start on us.”
The two sailors dashed down the stairs and out to the back yard, and through the wooden fence. Cooper got out his keys.
“Hey, let’s take mine. It’s faster.”
“ something I need .” Cooper unlocked the driver’s door, pulled the metal plate loose and pulled out the black case. He also a black duty bag over his shoulder. Kyle had already started up the SUV by the time Cooper inside, the case on his lap. Kyle took off down the street .
Cooper flipped open the two spring-loaded clasps and raised the lid. Kyle started to whistle. Pressed into charcoal grey packing foam were two white plastic pieces of a drone, controller unit, tail assembly and propeller mechanism.
Cooper pulled out the pieces he needed, threw the case in the back, and held the body of the drone in his left hand. He inserted the wing into the slot in the middle until it clicked in place. He screwed the propeller unit to the device’s nose, clicked the tail unit in place and turned it on. He heard a slight whir of the props.
“Pull over for a second, would you?” he said to Kyle.
Cooper opened his door, held the drone in his left hand while he adjusted the toggle switch controller box until a small computer screen lit up. He arched his arm behind him, then thrusted the drone the direction they were traveling and they watched it take off.
“Go, go, go,” Cooper shouted. Kyle took off down the road.
The black and white monitor was not as clear as Cooper . The picture was fading in and out because night was beginning to fall. He directed the drone by adjusting two dials on the unit aiming for an elevation of two hundred feet. The monitor showed it had flown over the busy road that led to a string of businesses. He spotted the truck immediately and directed the drone to hover over it.
“No infrared?”
“Didn’t get a chance to mount the camera. This will have to do for now.”
Cooper punched a button and street lines formed on the screen.
Cooper’s cell phone went off. He passed it over to Kyle.
“Hey Fredo,” Kyle said.
Cooper heard Fredo shout at the other end of the line, “That detective dude is looking for him. Some urgent shit about Libby.”
“I think we already know. Trying to locate her now.”
“You guys over at the house? I want to help.”
“Nope. Just came from there. We’re following someone.”
“That’s what the dick said—“ Cooper couldn’t make out the explanation.
“We know this,” said Kyle.
Fredo was asking for their position and Kyle gave Fredo some street names and descriptions of buildings.
The monitor showed the truck turning. “Take a right up there about three blocks,” Cooper directed Kyle.
He was fairly certain the truck would go towards the freeway, which pleased him because he could see on the monitor commuter traffic ahead was at a near standstill.
“Fredo, we’re barreling down South Morrison, I think headed toward the freeway.”
“Fuck it,” Cooper said as the truck turned in the opposite direction. “He’s going back down the other side, parallel to the freeway.”
“Okay, now we’re headed south on—” he looked for a sign, crossed a set of railroad tracks, and still couldn’t find any. “We just crossed some tracks, back on South Morrison. Have Riverton call us, okay?”
“Will do. Malcolm and I are gonna try to find you, too.”
“No. Stay out of it,” Kyle said.
“Not a fucking chance,” Cooper heard Fredo shout back to his LPO.
Kyle hung up and placed Cooper’s phone in the center console.
They tried to catch up to the truck, but traffic was all over the place. For several minutes they followed and continued to fall further and further behind.
“Talk to me, Coop,” Kyle demanded.
The truck had turned off the main road. “I think you go right at the next street.”
Kyle did as he was told, and they hit a dead-end cul-de-sac. They quickly recovered and continued down the previous route, and then turned at the next intersection. For a second, the picture went black.
“Come on. Come ooooonnnnn, sweetheart! Don’t fade on me now. Just a little longer,” Coop was coaxing the machine with everything he had. The screen lit up again, and they spotted the truck turning into an industrial yard that looked like a graveyard for old semis.
Coop could see the chain link fencing coming up on their right. An automatic gate was just closing a few yards ahead of them. The sign out front said Corsi Bros. Transportation and Salvage. Several large hangars big enough for a cruiser sat in abandoned rows. Between them stood several two-story buildings with broken windows.
Kyle came to a sliding stop.
Coop’s cell phone chirped again. This time, Coop picked it up just as Kyle hopped out of the van and ran towards the closing gate.
“Where are you?” Riverton shouted.
“Corsi Salvage Yard, off Morrison—South Morrison, down by the inlet.”
“I know it. Don’t try to approach.”
“He’s got Libby.”
“Probably, but we can’t say for sure. Did you get a good look at the guy?”
“Absofuckinglutely. The Brownlees’ asshole gardener.”
“Good. Look, you got to wait for us. No vigilante justice here, catch my drift? You’ll get yourself killed, or, even worse, get her killed.”
“Sorry, but I gotta run.”
“Coop, do not interfere, do you—“ Coop hung up the phone.
The picture on Coop’s monitor was fading fast, and at this point was more out than in. Kyle had gotten through the gate before it closed all the way, hitting the reset button on the opposite side. They were rewarded when the gate slowly swung open again and Coop drove through.
“Where are they?” Kyle asked.
Cooper was trying to get a decent picture. “We might be too far away.”
“Not possible. The inlet is only a few hundred yards in this direction. He’s here somewhere in this fenced area.”
For just an instant, Cooper saw an image on the screen of the truck parked in a garage structure with a metal rollup door that was closing behind it.
“He’s in one of those bays. One of those buildings over there.” He pointed and Kyle drove to a row of warehouses and paused. They were looking at a cluster of buildings, each with similar roll-up doors, all closed. There must have been at least fifty of them.
Cooper’s heart sank as he realized he might not find the right one in time to save Libby.
He called the drone back and flinched as it made a hard landing on the dirty asphalt storage yard just next to Kyle’s van.
“So now we just have to find the needle in the haystack,” Cooper said to his LPO.
“I’m guessing you brought equipment?”
“Fucking A.” Cooper picked up the drone, placing it carefully in the back of Kyle’s SUV without taking it apart. He set the controller next to it. He pulled out the black zipper bag and extracted another polyethylene case and flipped it open. His H&K MP7 was tucked into the black packing material, but Cooper was after the thermal scope.
He had small IED charges in another smaller bag, which he pulled out and attached to his belt as he joined Kyle.
“It was an interior garage, with doors on both sides,” Coop said.
“So that rules out about eight of them. About forty to go,” Kyle chuckled.
They put on their night vision gear. Cooper saw Kyle strap on a utility belt similar to his own, but not as customized. Coop had made a cottage industry of sewing specialized belt pockets and vests for other Team members. Each man had his preferred equipment in addition to the standard issue.
The two started creeping down the first row of storage units as Cooper scanned them with his thermal scope. He was picking up some small images toward the bottoms of the units.
“Rats,” he whispered. They got to near the end of the first row when th
ey saw headlights from a vehicle approaching around the corner of the building, stop and heard the idling of a gurgling motor.
Kyle and Cooper flattened themselves against the row of warehouses on the opposite side and took what few inches of cover they might have in one of the doorways.
The springs on the truck groaned as a very large man extricated himself from the driver’s side and, in the light from the truck saw heavy lace up combat boots stomp on the ground. A flashlight clicked and light flooded out as they quickly flipped up their goggles to avoid getting blinded. He held something heavy in his hand, which wobbled the flashlight briefly.
Shotgun.
A gravelly voice bellowed “Hold it right there. Don’t even think about farting, or I’ll blow your asses into the bay.”
Chapter 40
Libby was being hauled from a truck that smelled of gasoline into a chilly, dark covered space, perhaps a garage. As her feet dragged along the floorboards, they snagged a gasoline can and tipped it, sending it crashing to the concrete below. She heard a man’s voice swear. The gasoline smell was almost overpowering.
With his arms under her chest, her kidnapper dragged her through a doorway and into a carpeted small space. The room was done up in pink, complete with a set of Barbie Dolls on a French Provincial sideboard that looked like it came out of a little girl’s room.
And then it hit her. It did look just like a little girl’s room. A single bed with a hot-pink, fuzzy bedspread, dotted with stuffed animal pillows was in the corner. An overhead chandelier in pink had lit up automatically as they entered the room. The massive arms hoisted her up and onto the bed. She was left in sitting position. She couldn’t feel much of her body below the neck.
Her eyes were beginning to focus better and she turned her head in time to see the man’s back, dressed in the same khaki clothes the gardener had worn every time she saw him. His hair fell loosely in ringlets as he removed his baseball cap. He quickly tied the ringlets back with a rubber band. Then he began searching for things in a makeshift kitchen consisting of a deep utility sink, a microwave and a hotplate.
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