Taken

by Chris Jordan

  Wald jerks into his alert-posture mode. He’s an action junkie, in need of a regular influx of adrenaline, and guard duty at the boat shed just doesn’t cut it. “This about the hump you call Stanley?” he wants to know.

  “It’s about the mission,” Cutter says somewhat evasively. He’s patting his pockets, looking for the key to the old, gray metal office desk where he keeps some of his personal effects. “Change out of the overalls, I want you in civilian dress.”

  Hinks and Wald are stepping out of their blood-spattered overalls when Cutter removes a custom-silenced Sig-Sauer from the desk drawer and shoots both men in the chest. Bing-bing, bing-bing. He doesn’t much like silenced weapons because the muzzle velocity is always compromised, no matter how good the muffling device, but in this case it doesn’t make much difference, because the targets are less than ten feet from the desk. Can’t-miss range. All four shots penetrate, and from the pinking! rattle, one or more bullets have exited and are bouncing around the boat shed.

  Both men are down with mortal wounds, but neither is dead. Small-caliber bullets rarely kill instantly because the human heart continues to beat for a few minutes, no matter how devastating the damage, as Cutter knows from experience. So he’s obliged to dispatch his unreliable employees with head shots, the classic coup de grâce to the cranium as he stands over their quivering bodies. Distasteful, but necessary. He’s seen targets with truly awesome chest-cavity wounds get up and run around like bleeding zombies, effectively dead but still functioning on some level. Sever the brain stem, however, and the human body becomes a bag of cooling meat.

  Bing-bing, it’s over.

  After returning the Sig to the drawer and locking it, Cutter goes to the sink, where he carefully soaps and washes his hands. Removing the smell of gunpowder. He deeply regrets having to kill Hinks and Wald. It wasn’t part of his master plan, and he takes no pleasure from the executions. He’d known both men for several years, liked them on some level. But in there with the boy, it had suddenly become crystal clear that neither man was capable of carrying out even the simplest of assignments. Shocking, really. Both had been adequate soldiers in the field, performing dangerous and complex missions. To be fair, he’d known all along that Wald in particular had trouble controlling his impulsive behavior. Didn’t matter when the unplanned victim was an Iraqi suspected of terrorist activities, or an Iraqi who looked threatening or mouthed off or whatever. But the boy had to be kept in pristine physical condition or he was no use to the mission.

  The mission. The project. Cutter knew he had to remain focused. The next few days were crucial. Not having a guard team in the boat shed meant he would have to leave the boy untended for hours at a time. Which in turn meant he would have to reinspect the enclosure, make sure it was escape-proof for a very clever and determined eleven-year-old. The only other alternative was to keep him heavily sedated, and that wasn’t a good idea, considering what the boy would have to do when the time came. When Cutter had everything lined up and ready for the final play. The big move that was going to return his own precious son to a normal family environment. Or as normal as it could be, assuming Lyla bounced back into something like sanity, as she had done several times in the past. At some point, after Jesse was back home, it would be safe to get her the medical attention she required.

  Someday soon, but not now.

  Before returning to the enclosure with a first-aid kit and a bowl of hot water, Cutter spreads a blue plastic tarp over the men he’d executed. Just in case an unexpected visitor somehow managed to get through the locked fence and the locked door. Unlikely, but you can’t be too careful. Later he will decide the best way to dispose of the bodies. There are a few empty resin barrels in the shed that might suffice, assuming the barrels can be sealed. A problem to be solved. Or maybe there’s something in the old Chris Craft that will work—can two muscular men be fitted into a two-hundred-gallon fuel tank? Can it be sealed and then the boat itself sunk in deep water? Or is that too complicated, a scenario where too many things can go wrong?

  Have to give it some thought, once he’s attended to the boy.

  He’d never had to dispose of cadavers before. That was the nice thing about fatalities in a war zone—somebody else came along and cleaned up the mess.

  29

  six degrees of pizza

  As it happens, I was right the first time about the pizza. Randall Shane may not litter the floor with empty boxes, but the delivery guy treats him like an old friend, and seems interested that he’s ordered more than the usual solo pizza.

  “Ain’t by any chance your birthday, is it, Mr. Shane?” he wants to know, leaning in the door to clock us. “Bet it’s somebody’s birthday, huh?”

  “Nope,” says Shane, moving to block his view. “Just having a few friends over. Thank you, Marty, keep the change.”

  I had offered to cook, thinking that the act of food preparation might be soothing, but Shane really doesn’t keep much in the house other than Ritz crackers, Campbell’s soup and a frost-bitten chicken potpie scabbed to the inside of the freezer.

  So that’s how we end up around the dining-room table, eating slices and discussing how to go about identifying the man who abducted my son.

  “This is a back-channel kind of operation,” Shane explains as he passes out paper napkins. “It’s not like you can just call up ‘Special Ops’ and ask for a list of guys who might have insignia tattoos. All information about personnel is classified, and it takes more than a court order to pry it out of the army.”

  “So who do we ask?” I want to know.

  “A guy who knows a guy. In this case, a woman who knows a guy. Or to be even more specific, an FBI special agent who has a brother assigned to the Pentagon. The brother happens to be an officer and a lawyer, which is different from being an officer and a gentleman, apparently.”

  Maria Savalo makes a face. “Randall, can I ask you a favor? Give me a break on the lawyer jokes for a while. I’m feeling, you know, vulnerable and all that crap.”

  Even with a smudge of tomato sauce on her chin, the last thing Savalo looks is vulnerable. Petite, feisty, blazing with self-confidence, she’s everything that vulnerable is not.

  “Okay, fine,” agrees Shane. “So this, ah, lawyer and gentleman is a high-ranking dude, works for the Pentagon equivalent of Internal Affairs. Which means he pretty much has unlimited access to a truly amazing amount of data. He’s been a willing source for years. At the agency, the feeling is his superiors are aware he’s a conduit to the FBI, and that he’s aware they’re aware, and that he’s allowed and maybe even encouraged to pass on certain types of information to another branch of the federal government.”

  “Very cloak and dagger,” says Savalo, staring at him with her large and radiant eyes. The comment is not intended as a joke, she means it sincerely.

  Shane shrugs—it’s all part of how he works, what he does. “It’s how things are done when you have to work your way around an enormous bureaucracy. For this source, at his level, a list of SOF personnel, active and discharged, is no big deal. Much easier than, say, requesting medical records for the same men.”

  “Medical records?” I ask. “Why would you ask for medical records? Oh, wait, of course. The tattoo.”

  “Correct,” Shane says approvingly. “Tattoos are noted in medical records for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is possible transmission of blood-borne disease. But they also like to have it on the jacket as a means of quick identification, which may or may not prove useful if every man in the unit has the same marking. What I’m going to do is wait for the first batch of names, cull through it, eliminating by age and height, race and so on, and then go back for medical records for the likely candidates.”

  “How long will that take?” I ask.

  One of the many things I like about this man is that he takes all of my questions seriously. No matter how obvious they may be to him, or even how silly or inappropriate. So he thinks about it before responding. “As long a
s forty-eight hours for the turnaround. That’s max. Could be much quicker if a name and location pops out. A Special Forces guy who lives in your town and banks at your bank, for instance. Or happened to be in a position to come into previous contact with your son. Could be a few steps removed from that and still have a connection.”

  “The six-degrees thing,” Savalo offers.

  “Yes,” says Shane. “Exactly. Once we know how this man chose you and Tomas, we’ll know who he is, where he is and where to find your son.”

  “What if there’s no connection?” I ask. “What if he flew in from Idaho?”

  Again, Shane takes his time considering the question. “I suppose there’s a remote possibility that Bruce responded to an ad in Soldier of Fortune, or the Internet equivalent. If that’s the case, then we’re not only looking for him, we’re looking for whoever hired him. But that still leaves us with a very specific connection to you, Mrs. Bickford. Why you? Why your son?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that question ever since it happened. Maybe because I had money in the bank? He knew all about my bank accounts, down to the penny,” I remind them both.

  Shane nods, then pauses to pat his mouth with a napkin before proceeding. “No doubt money was a factor,” he begins. “It may be possible that Bruce or one of his associates is a hacker and was trolling bank data, looking for a likely prospect, and happened to find you. But if I were planning a crime like that, I’d keep the child right in the home while I sent the mark—you—to withdraw or transfer the funds. That’s how it’s usually done.”

  “You’ve seen cases like this before?”

  “Not exactly like this one,” he says. “Every case is different. I wasn’t directly involved with the bank robbery unit at the Bureau, but they worked ten or twelve crimes a year that involved taking a bank manager’s family hostage in their own home, scaring the hell out of everybody, and then sending mom or dad off to get the dough and then hand it off to an accomplice. More than half the time the ploy was successful—nobody even knew what was going on until it was over. But if that’s all it is, a way to extract money from you, why go to the trouble of filing phony paternity papers? Why kill the local police chief and try to implicate you in the crime? Why keep Tommy? No, this isn’t just about the money. Bruce has an agenda.”

  “What is it?” I ask. “What’s his agenda?”

  Shane smiles grimly. “That’s the big question. A lot of what he’s done seems to be a diversion tactic. Trying to make sure the federal authorities aren’t involved, at least not right way. It’s as if he has a mission to accomplish. Something he needs to do that involves your son.”

  What that might be remains unspoken. It’s simply too terrible to contemplate. Of course my mind has been wrestling with the possibilities, and when I start to settle on one—sick porno, for instance—it blares inside my head like a car alarm that won’t shut off. I think Shane knows what I must be thinking, what I have to be worried to a point of madness about, and has decided not to name the possibilities. Until we manage to find something concrete it’s all speculation, and anyhow, the only thing that matters is getting Tommy back. Whatever has happened to him, whatever he’s been exposed to, he and I will deal with it when the time comes. When he’s back home in his mother’s arms, safe from the evil things in the world.

  “I’ve got to boogie,” Ms. Savalo announces, glancing at her wristwatch. “I’ll take you back to the motel, Kate.”

  “When can I go back to my own house?” I ask plaintively. “When can I go back home?”

  Savalo sighs. “Your home is still a crime scene. The state police detectives want it for a few more days. And even then, there’s that bottle blonde from Channel 6. She’ll be parked on your doorstep.”

  Tears spill from my eyes. I hate this. I hate weeping like a weak sister when I need to be strong, but the urge to be home, to sit on Tommy’s bed and inhale the smell of him, is almost more than I can bear.

  Shane clears his throat. “Here’s an idea. Stay here for a day or two. Use the guest room. We’ll cab over and pick up the rental car in the morning.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” says Savalo, her face betraying no expression whatsoever.

  “Why not?” Shane asks.

  Savalo shrugs. “It’s up to Kate.”

  And so it’s decided. The great relief of not having to return to the fetid, lonesome motel room almost makes me cry again. Almost, but not quite.

  The bed in the guest room is freshly made, which makes me think that Shane’s invitation wasn’t as spur of the moment as it sounded back there in the dining room. But who’s complaining, when a man changes the linen and takes the trouble to tuck in the corners? Maybe they teach that at the FBI, under self-sufficiency. Ted never made a bed in his life—what’s the point, he’d say, when we’re just going to mess it up all over again?—and Tommy thinks the idea is ridiculous, and worse, effeminate. Making beds and keeping your room tidy is something girls do. Starting short-stops are definitely exempted.

  As to sleep, well, that’s going to be difficult with my mind jangling with images of Bruce and his special tattoo, and all the unspoken stuff about what my son may be going through, and the possibility of arrest hanging over my head. My attorney, borrowing a strategy from Shane, seems reluctant to get specific about what will happen if I’m charged with murder. Not wanting to add to my burden, apparently. Is bail possible, or will I be held awaiting trial? I can’t stand the thought of being shut up while Tommy is still missing. Strange how that’s the only part of a possible arrest that really bothers me; my standing in the community, my business, what my friends will think, what Fred Corso’s poor wife must think, none of it matters. Just not being there when my son comes home. That’s unthinkable.

  With sleep out of the question, I prowl the guest room, looking for clues about my host. Unlike the rest of the house, this room seems untouched by his personality. A couple of lighter spots on the wall indicate that pictures may once have hung there, but no more. Nothing in the closet—just a few empty hangers. No books, no knickknacks, no indications that the room has ever been occupied. But the place has a scrubbed feel, as if someone worked hard to eradicate any trace of human habitation.

  The fact is, I’m a terrible snoop. Let me in your house and I’ll seek out the secret you. I won’t open a diary, but almost everything else is fair game. I’ll check out your books, your refrigerator, your medicine cabinet. Shameful habit, but I can’t help it. As it happens, the cabinet in the attached bathroom is as empty as the closet. There’s an unopened bottle of generic shampoo in the shower stall, and a bar of soap still in the wrapper.

  Back in the bedroom area, I slide open the top drawer of a pine chest and notice neatly folded linens, pillowcases and sheets with the factory creases still intact. And then, under the linens, I find what has been hidden. A framed photograph facedown against the bare wood. No doubt it will match one of the lighter spots on the unadorned wall.

  In a way, the picture itself is shocking. A somewhat younger and much more relaxed Randall Shane grins at the camera. One arm around a willowy blonde with gorgeous eyes and a shy smile, the other resting on the shoulders of a girl who looks a lot like her mother. Nine or ten years old, with the clear eyes and the serious expression of a deep thinker. A little beauty who’s going to be serious trouble as an adolescent, testing all the rules, you can just feel it.

  So my knight in slightly dented armor was married, once upon a time. Married and the father of a brilliant little girl. One of those kids, like Tommy, whose personality is fully formed at a young age. Suddenly the family photo seems icy cold in my hands and I hastily return it to the bottom of the drawer, feeling deeply ashamed. How dare I intrude in the man’s private life, simply to satisfy my curiosity? It’s a violation of his generosity, of his trust.

  Still, I can’t help wondering. Divorced, or something worse? Something he does not share with strangers or clients. Most divorced men would have mentioned having a
child by now. Shown off a well-thumbed snapshot. Alluded to the fact that they, being parents, had some idea of what I was going through. And yet Shane had done nothing of the sort. Never alluded to anything but his previous career and his present vocation. Is this loss—for it has to be a loss, one way or another—is this emptiness in his life somehow connected to his sleep disorder? And if so, how exactly?

  Leave it alone, I urge myself. None of your beeswax. And never dare mention this, or he’ll know you for a snoop and never trust you again.

  And I depend on his trust. Shane is my hope. Despite my current reliance on the big man, and my interest in what makes him tick, there’s no twinge of physical attraction between us, no prospect of romance. My heart is too full of Tommy for anything like that. Not to mention Ted, who still guides me in memory. But it makes me wonder what Ted would think of Shane. Would they be friends or rivals? Friends, I think. Buddies, even. He’s exactly the kind of self-contained, self-deprecating guy my Ted gravitated to. For sure he’s the type of adult male Tommy likes to be around. A true-blue father figure without any of that macho bluster that confuses boys—or girls, for that matter.

  Determined to avoid another onslaught of tears—crying hurts when your tear ducts are empty—I strip off my clothes, shower, towel dry and slip into the neatly made bed. Not allowing myself to think about who this bed might have belonged to, back in the day.

  Counting sheep, counting Bruce, counting my own heartbeats, I eventually drift off into a light, troubled sleep, and find myself floating down empty corridors, searching for my son.

  Then out of nowhere I’m sitting bolt upright in the bed, wide-awake and shivering with fear. Because of the noise.

  A dull thump! that seems to shake the floor. And then, very clear, a man shouting. Muffled, can’t make out the word.