by Diane Capri
On each cot a patient lies flat, covered to the chin with a lightweight blanket. Three children and two women. Each patient’s left arm lies outside the blanket and is connected by a clear tube running from the inside of the elbow to a medicinal-looking bag filled with clear fluid hanging on a hook next to each bed.
After a few moments of determined staring at the crude proof-of-life, Kim felt her own breath synchronize to each patient’s chest, rising and falling with unassisted but frighteningly shallow breaths.
The camera’s eye approaches each cot and lingers several moments on each patient’s face.
First, a woman about 45 years old. Wild black hair, slight frame, eyes closed. In the second bed, a dark-haired girl, maybe 14 years old. On the third and fourth beds, younger dark-haired boys rest as peacefully as angels. In the fifth, another woman, maybe 70 or more. Grey wiry hair, pulled back tight. Sunbaked complexion reflecting a lifetime lived close to the equator. The camera zooms in. On her chest is a copy of a Spanish Language newspaper, dated today.
Kim didn’t need DNA to confirm the five were related. None of the patients moved even slightly except for the gentle rise and fall of breathing. But human bodies were not meant to be in medically induced comas for weeks on end. Kim worried about the level of supervision. Could they wake up unharmed?
The camera backs away from the beds and pans the room, perhaps to display the bleak conditions, because there is nothing more in the room to see. Nothing at all. No window, no television, no sentient beings. And absolutely no sound of any kind on the audio.
Less than two seconds displaying the nothingness. The video abruptly jump cuts to another scene.
Another room similar to the first, but this one is only dark around the edges. In the center stands a plastic floor lamp illuminating the single straight wooden chair beside it. A woman is affixed to the chair’s sturdy arms and legs at her wrists and ankles with black plastic cable ties cinched tight enough to cause swelling.
The woman is not much larger than Kim, judging by how little space she takes up in the chair. She is dressed in dark, dusty slacks and a grimy yellow blouse, sleeves torn above the elbows. Feet bare and filthy. The camera tightens in on her lap to a neatly folded New York Times front page, dated yesterday.
The camera rises. Her head is bent forward on her neck, chin touching her chest. Dark, stylishly cut hair falls forward to obscure her face.
No matter, Kim thought. The woman had to be Karla Dixon.
Kim stared without blinking. When she saw the now familiar life signs she’d observed in the five patients, she realized she’d been holding her own breath and exhaled slowly through slightly parted lips.
As before, the camera pulls away as if establishing the emptiness of Dixon’s prison for a full second. The video abruptly jumps to the next scene.
This segment is a slideshow, sets of images moving smoothly from one to the next, showing the story, each set offering a separate warning that is always the same: Death is nigh.
First, the Spanish language newspaper dated two weeks ago, followed by a photo of the five now-comatose patients enjoying lunch at an outdoor cantina along with a smiling Jorge Sanchez. Then, the same newspaper dated today, followed by a photo of the five comatose patients. Next, the front page of the Chicago Tribune dated Friday, followed by a photo of Sanchez’s body lying in what could have been the morgue.
The women and children, too, can die now.
The second set of images is the New York Times front page dated yesterday, followed by a photo of Dixon coming out of the terminal at Kennedy airport. Then, the New York Times front page dated today followed by a photo of Dixon bound and unconscious in the chair.
She can die now.
The third set begins with The Chicago Tribune front page dated last week, followed by a photo of Paul Neagley standing happily in the ice cream shop where he bought his strawberry milkshake every afternoon on the way home from work. Then, the Chicago Tribune front page dated today followed by another photo of Paul splayed on top of his sister after he’d been shot, both laying bloody and still. Only Paul is dead, but the photo shows they might both have died.
After that, a short recap: Today’s New York Times front page, followed by photos of the five patients, Dixon bound and unconscious in the chair, and Paul’s body on the gurney being loaded into the ambulance in Neagley’s driveway.
Finally, like any good film, the director reveals his climax: the front page of the Houston Chronicle, dated today, followed by a long, lingering photo of a happy family enjoying lunch at another outdoor cafe. The parents are maybe forty. Fair, handsome man, wearing a wedding ring, holding his wife’s hand. She looks Scandinavian. Tall, rail thin, white-blonde hair, icy blue eyes. She wears an open collared shirt that shows the bones on the front of her chest.
Kim’s breath caught. The boy was maybe nine years old. Short legs. Low waist. Long arms. But it was the eyes that captured and held her. Uncanny. Dark, reassuring, like the child knew, like he was saying, Don’t worry. Everything will turn out fine.
For Neagley, Kim realized something else took her breath away: The boy was Charlie Franz. He looked precisely like a miniature version of his father, Calvin—Neagley and Reacher’s team member, dead years now after being beaten senseless and pitched to the desert floor from a helicopter by Berenson and Dean.
When the director was sure they’d had a good long look at the boy and plenty demonstrations showing his message, he finished his masterpiece with the very last slide.
A simple graphic completes the video. It contains only three words: Return My Money.
Kim got the message loud and clear: Or they will all die. Before she had a chance to say anything about the proof-of-life or the ransom demand, Neagley had pressed the speed dial on the house speakerphone. The connection was swift and crystal clear.
Morrie said, “Yes.”
Neagley asked, “Have we authenticated the video?”
“Affirmative.”
“Where are they holding Dixon?”
“Unknown.”
“Sanchez’s family?”
“Also unknown.”
“Franz’s family?”
“Unclear.”
Neagley disconnected the call. She turned to Kim and demanded, “Call Cooper.”
Kim asked, “Why?”
“Because we’re out of time for flailing around on our own. We need higher level assistance. Cooper’s the quickest option. He’s already involved and he’s got the resources at his fingertips. Get him on the line.”
“What do you think he can do that you can’t?”
“Locate the hostages within a two-mile radius in less than thirty minutes.”
“And then what?” Gaspar demanded.
Neagley shrugged. “We go get them.”
Kim said, “Easier if we had the $65 million ransom.”
Neagley seemed to consider this briefly. She neither admitted nor denied guilty knowledge. Instead, she pushed the speakerphone button again and quickly dialed ten digits. They heard one ring begin to chime before the call was accepted.
“What do you want?” the all too familiar voice challenged.
“You owe me, Cooper,” she said.
“If there was anything I could do, I’d have already done it. My hands are tied.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Monday, November 15
3:50 a.m.
Houston, TX
Neagley had said she could usually find things and she had proved it by finding Franz’s family home with dispatch.
Three quick phone calls were all it took. Neagley had connected with a source at the Pentagon she refused to name to get the address, arranged a private jet to Houston, and extricated herself from Chicago without participating in the official investigation of the Las Olas attack on her home and murder of her brother. She was some sort of mutant superwoman, it seemed.
Neagley’s private security business was far more extensive even than Kim had imagined, and
she felt a little jealous, actually. She was an FBI Special Agent, a member of the most elite law enforcement agency in the world. Yet she worked the Reacher file with none of Neagley’s privately available resources. The seething anger Kim had felt when she awakened on Neagley’s stairwell Saturday was like a fire seed in her belly; it flamed hotter every time she matched herself against Neagley and came up wanting. Like now.
“Check your watches,” Neagley had said. “We’ll go in at four o’clock. No one expects you to arrive at four o’clock. It’s the best time to catch them unprepared.”
“Reacher teach you that?” Kim asked.
“Among other things.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the best way to figure out what someone else is going to do is to think like them, be them,” Neagley said. “You should try it sometime. It works.”
Kim ignored her condescension. Now was not the time to take Neagley on. But that time was coming. And Kim was looking forward to it.
Now it was ten minutes to four. The moonless night sky felt brisk against her skin. The cloud ceiling was more than a mile high. She knew the Boss was watching and he’d be able to see and hear outside activities clearly. Whether he’d help if this went south in a hurry was unclear. He’d made no promises.
So Kim, Neagley, Gaspar, Morrie, and two private security personnel Morrie had recruited locally were stationed outside the darkened Houston condo where the former Mrs. Calvin Franz now lived with her son, Charlie, and her new husband. The husband worked for an oil company as a junior executive of some sort. Neagley’s contacts said he’d been sent on a six-week work assignment to Alaska three hours after the family outing recorded in the proof-of-life video. Which was already too many hours ago.
The husband’s absence presented an easier opportunity for Berenson and Dean to kidnap Angela and Charlie Franz. Phone calls to the home and to Angela’s cell phone had been unanswered. All other location efforts were unsuccessful.
What they didn’t know for sure was whether Angela and Charlie were home asleep or had voluntarily left or, worst case, were already taken.
“Cooper could answer this question, you know,” Neagley said. “He has the ability to pinpoint their heartbeats inside this building. Assuming they’re still here. One call to the Pentagon. That’s all he had to do. You might want to ask yourself why the heartless bastard is unwilling to make that call, Otto.”
Kim didn’t have to ask; she already knew. Sure, the request to use military surveillance on domestic citizens was illegal. But he wouldn’t have let that stop him. The Boss wanted the Reacher File assignment off the books. Each time he intervened on their behalf, and the more sophisticated his actions were, he increased his risk of exposure. He wanted plausible deniability and he would sacrifice Angela and Charlie Franz to get it. Neagley, too, for that matter. Kim figured she and Gaspar were slightly less expendable because the Reacher file was not complete. He’d prefer not to lose them and start over with a new team. Maybe.
Gaspar rubbed his hands together and shuffled his feet. “Damn, it’s cold out here.”
“Be a lot hotter in Mexico when we get there,” Neagley replied.
“Can’t wait,” he said.
Kim looked around again. Once more, she saw no indication that anything was amiss here. No cars traveled the residential street. No lights flickered in any of the homes. Night sounds were almost nonexistent, too. No barking dogs or meowing cats or distant traffic noise. Even the wind was still.
Nestled between Washington Avenue and Memorial Drive on Croft Street, the area could charitably be described as a neighborhood in transition. Angela Franz’s abode was one half of an upscale duplex. But the home on the other side of Franz’s was a ramshackle one-story frame house, 1950s vintage, and the vacant houses across Croft would have been improved by a good fire.
Angela’s three-story condo resembled a saltine box, deeper than it was wide or high. Online real estate records claimed 3,191 square feet on three floors of living space. Four bedrooms and four bathrooms, inside any one of which Las Olas killers could be waiting. Windowless two-car garage on the main level at the Croft Street side meant Kim couldn’t see whether Angela’s car or any other vehicles were parked inside. The condo had a market value of $700,000 or so, which meant the decor was likely to be upscale, too. In Houston, that meant hardwood and tile floors in most of the rooms, which would make it impossible to move with stealth.
Morrie had disabled the house alarm and then stationed himself and the two private security personnel at the east side entrance to the fenced patio, Morrie and one man inside the fence near the back entrance of the home, and the other man behind the fence, in case someone climbed over and landed in the empty lot adjacent on the south side.
Gaspar would remain out front. Kim and Neagley would enter through the side garage entrance and, hopefully, find Angela and Charlie Franz blissfully unaware, sleeping in their beds, precisely where mothers and children should be in a quiet residential neighborhood at precisely 4:00 a.m.
“Time to go, Neagley,” Kim said. “Ready?”
“Always,” Neagley replied.
They crouched, guns drawn, and crept quickly, close to the building, until they reached the garage entrance. Kim picked the lock rapidly. She held her breath as she opened the door, listening for another alarm or a screaming child or whatever might come to a home invader at 4:00 a.m.
She heard nothing.
She pushed the door open and slid inside the blacker-than-black garage, feeling Neagley enter immediately behind her and gently close the door. Kim settled night vision goggles onto her face and relaxed into the soft green glow that eliminated the darkness.
Only one vehicle in the garage. A silver Volvo station wagon of indeterminate age. The other parking slot was empty. This would normally hold the husband’s car, which was now parked at the airport. Against the wall was a mess of kid stuff. A bike, a skateboard, a scooter, a few balls of various shapes and matching bats and gear to go with them. Across the back was a workbench, neatly organized; hand tools hung on a pegboard, several rolls of duct tape rested on the shelf. Under the bench were gardening tools and supplies.
To the left of the bench was the entrance door to the home’s interior. There was an alarm pad next to it. The red “armed” light glowed. Above the door was a security camera. Kim saw the red “recording” light steady on, too. Had Morrie screwed up? Were the security measures disabled or not?
She grabbed the doorknob. It held fast. Unlike most homeowners, Angela Franz evidently realized the vulnerability of her security system at the interior garage entrance. Kim picked the flimsy lock quickly, turned the knob, held her breath and opened the door. No warning beeps. No sirens. If a silent alarm fed directly to the police department, there was nothing they could do about that now. Get in, get out, hope no one got hurt.
Neagley followed Kim through a laundry room and into a hallway that led to the back of the house on the right, or upstairs to the other living areas. They both went to the back patio door and opened it to let Morrie inside. Then the three split up to search the rest of the house.
According to the online records, the second floor contained an open floor plan of common rooms and one guest suite. Along the back, French doors opened onto a second floor balcony. A total of four areas to search. The third floor contained the remaining three bedrooms and three bathrooms, and another balcony. Seven more possible hiding places.
They worked swiftly. Kim searched the second floor. Neagley and Morrie took the third. Within five minutes they knew Angela and Charlie Franz were gone. They saw no signs of violence or that the home had been ransacked. To the extent that any home invasion could be peaceful, it seemed they came and took only what they wanted: the two hostages. In exchange, they left only one obvious piece of evidence.
The three rejoined Gaspar out front, recalled the two freelancers, and piled back into the van Morrie had procured. One of the freelancers drove. When they were on the road, Ki
m pulled from her pocket the two-by-four inch Las Olas sealed brown envelope she’d collected in Angela’s kitchen. She hadn’t opened it, but she could feel the flash drive inside. And on the front it said: Agent K. L. Otto.
She knew what it was. Proof-of-life on Angela and Charley. Or proof-of-death on another of the hostages. Either way, not good. She held onto the envelope a few moments more before she said, “Gaspar, take a look at this and pass it over to Neagley.”
When Neagley received it, she handed the envelope to Morrie. Because there were no official law enforcement personnel present, no one needed to pretend chain of custody for the evidence was important this time. But still, maybe DNA could be lifted off the envelope’s seal at some point.
He pulled out a small pocket knife and, as Kim noticed he’d done with the previous envelope, carefully separated the factory applied adhesive on the bottom lip from the envelope to get inside but avoid breaking the Las Olas seal. He poured the shiny silver flash drive out into his hand.
They couldn’t view the drive’s content. No one had a laptop. They’d left their equipment in the jet.
Morrie looked at his watch. “ETA twelve minutes,” he said.
Kim estimated twenty minutes more to reach Houston Executive Airport, board the private jet they’d arrived in and plug the flash drive into the laptop. Twenty-two minutes before they learned what Berenson and Dean wanted them to know. Her stomach had already been pumping acid into her system in anticipation of the flight. What she felt now was sharp, unrelenting pain in her belly.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Monday, November 15
5:35 a.m.
Houston, TX
Parked at HEA, the freelance security waited in the car while Kim and the others boarded the jet, located a laptop and crowded around it to watch the flash drive’s short and pointed contents.
The video began with an establishing shot of the front of the Franz condo. There was no time or date stamp, but the footage probably was recorded only two or three hours before, given the all-enveloping nighttime. As when Neagley’s team had been there, the building was dark and quiet and no activity in the immediate vicinity.