The 18th Abduction

by James Patterson

  I texted Joe a photo of the man and the house, up until now a mystery location to all of us.

  Joe told all units to stand by. He assigned three teams to surrounding intersections and ordered SWAT to come in.

  I used our car’s computer to look up the owner of the house Petrović had just entered. The title search came up with a name: Marko Vladic, formerly a citizen of Serbia, now a naturalized American. He’d lived in San Francisco for nearly five years and owned a blue Escalade.

  I checked the criminal databases, holding my breath as I wondered if Vladic had a police record. If so, Petrović was associating with a known criminal.

  I ran Vladic’s name through the FBI database for good measure before saying to Conklin, “He has no record. At least not under the name Marko Vladic.”

  Conklin said, “Try an image search.”

  As Joe gave orders to the teams and discussed perimeters, potential stumbling blocks, backup plans, I looked for Vladic, Marko in any public record I could think of.

  And I found him.

  I told Rich, “Active liquor license for a strip club in the Tenderloin called Skin. It’s at 816 Larkin. Is that Petrović’s club? Or do we have this wrong? Is Vladic Mr. Big? Is he the one who had Susan under his thumb?”

  “I can’t wait to ask him.”

  I looked up to see the SWAT truck stop at the top of the block, positioned to roll up to 3045 Pine. I wanted to look up Skin, their licenses, any violations.

  But I didn’t get a chance.

  Moments after speaking with him, I saw Joe’s van pull up to the curb a few cars ahead of us.

  When Joe and his partner were standing in front of the gray house, Conklin and I got out of our Honda. I zipped my Windbreaker identifying me as SFPD over my Kevlar vest and pulled my nine. Once Conklin and I were in sync, we crossed the street and ran up the exterior stairs behind Joe and Diano.

  The front door of 3045 Pine was painted charcoal gray, with a peephole and a brass knocker shaped like a fist. Joe was team leader, but I was the primary because it was under SFPD jurisdiction.

  Joe said to me, “After you knock, stand aside.”

  When I knocked, were bullets going to come through the door? Was this my last moment on Earth? If not, what about Joe or Conklin? How would I ever bear that?

  But there were other lives at stake. If Susan Jones and Anna Sotovina were here, it wasn’t their choice.

  I knew the drill.

  I stepped up to the door and lifted the knocker.

  Chapter 101

  I knocked and announced, “SFPD. Open up.”

  Conklin and I took positions on opposite sides of the door. I listened for the sounds of footsteps, a voice calling out, “Keep your pants on. I’m coming,” or the real possibility of shots punching through the wooden door.

  There was no response.

  I lifted the knocker again and put some muscle behind it as I banged it against the strike plate and shouted, “Police! Open the door or we’re coming in.”

  Still no answer.

  Joe called down to SWAT. Six guys in tactical gear got out of their armored vehicle and ran up the stairs. Before they reached the front door, there was the sound of breaking glass and an unintelligible, masculine scream. Glass sprayed out from a window on the main floor.

  I saw the muzzle of a gun poking out of the window, followed by three quick bursts of gunfire.

  Joe shouted “Go!” to the SWAT guys, who had a battering ram. They caved in the locks, kicked in the door, tossed a flashbang into the house, and closed the door as much as possible.

  The grenade discharged, shaking the windows. After a moment Joe and Diano shouldered the door in and entered the house, yelling, “FBI! Put your hands in the air!”

  Conklin and I followed the Feds into a dark and smoky foyer lit by our flashlights and faint streetlights. To our right was what looked to be a large living room with a broken window, dimly lit by a TV.

  Straight ahead, a carpeted staircase led to the top floor. To our left was the down staircase to the garage. Joe signed with his hands, directing me and Conklin upstairs, while he and his team took the living room and main floor.

  SWAT split up, half taking the stairs down, the others staying inside the centrally located foyer.

  I heard Joe yelling, “Hands on top of your heads. Face the wall!”

  Joe was okay, thank God, so Conklin and I kept going. The top floor had to be bedrooms. I was thinking ahead to Susan and Anna, with a strong feeling that we were about to find them behind locked doors, alive. My partner was right behind me when we reached the top-floor landing. I was expecting an empty hallway, a row of doors, but there was a hulking and shadowy presence right in front of me.

  I swung my light into his face.

  “Stop right there,” he barked.

  His arm was outstretched and there was a gun in his hand.

  We were face-to-face with the monster, only ten feet away. If anyone fired, someone would die.

  Chapter 102

  Petrović was immense.

  Much bigger in real life than I had imagined him. Six five? Six six? I still remember my heart beating in the red-line zone, but thank God, my training kicked in and overrode my near-paralytic shock.

  I yelled, “Police! Drop the gun.”

  Petrović didn’t move.

  Conklin said reasonably, “Don’t make a mistake now, Tony. The house is full of cops. You’ll never leave here alive.”

  Petrović paused to take that in; the flashbang, the shots, and the yelling downstairs. He said, “Okay, okay, look.”

  He stooped, put his gun carefully on the carpet, held up his hands, saying, “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Conklin kicked the gun away as Petrović said, “I have a license for this. I thought you were robbers.”

  My heart was still banging. I could feel it beating in my chest, my throat, behind my eyes.

  Conklin said, “Turn around and grab the wall.”

  I kept my gun on Petrović, and after Rich had cuffed him, I found the light switch. A hundred watts in the ceiling fixture blazed, and my blood pressure dropped to almost normal.

  I told Slobodan Petrović that we were bringing him in as a material witness in the murder of Carly Myers.

  He said, “Who?”

  I ignored the question. A material witness charge would hold him long enough for us to get a search warrant for his house on Fell, the house on Pine, and the strip club, Skin. I also wanted his DNA and a bite impression while we were at it.

  “You’re out of your minds,” he said. “I’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing. I own a restaurant. I live a clean life. This is a setup.”

  So he’d done nothing wrong. A line of crap I’d heard a few hundred times from guilty people since I first pinned on my badge.

  I asked, “Where are Susan Jones and Anna Sotovina?”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  Where were they? I needed to see them, talk to them, know that they were all right.

  I repeated my question and he repeated his no-answer answer.

  Petrović wasn’t talking.

  I said, “I’ll give you a choice, Mr. Branko. You can talk to us or to the FBI. It’s up to you.”

  He made his choice.

  I radioed for backup, and while Conklin kept his gun on Petrović, I checked out the layout of the top floor. There were five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and I searched all of them.

  The rooms were messy and unoccupied. The closets held working men’s clothing, waiters’ uniforms, and shoes, but there was no sign of our missing persons.

  If they weren’t here, where the hell were they?

  Maybe Petrović would tell us.

  Yeah. Right.

  Chapter 103

  Patrol officers folded Petrović into the back of a police transport van and took off.

  I returned to the house and found Joe in the living room, standing over two men lying facedown on the carpet with their hands
cuffed behind them.

  He brought me up to date on what I’d missed. The two men on the floor worked for Petrović at Tony’s Place for Steak. Free rent was part of their salary, so they both bunked here.

  To me, that made them probable witnesses to what had gone on in this house. I was grateful for that.

  Joe left the room to check out the garage. I studied the guys on the floor.

  The younger one, tattooed and pierced, looked to be in his twenties. That was Carson Wells, who was called Junior. The man lying next to him was ten years older and heavy. Randy LaPierre.

  They were still stunned from the flash grenade, but Junior lifted his chin off the floor and said to me, “Like I just said, I thought someone was breaking in. I fired. I didn’t hit anyone. You’ve got no right to arrest us.”

  I stooped to their level, literally.

  I said, “First one to tell me where I can find Susan Jones and Anna Sotovina makes a friend in the police department. I will work hard to get you a break from the law.”

  Randy said, “I don’t understand. We live here. I don’t know them. I swear on my mother.”

  “What about you, Junior? Want to be my friend?”

  “What Randy said. I never heard of them.”

  I said, “You can tell your mothers you’ll be in jail at 850 Bryant. Seventh floor.”

  I called to the two cops standing in the doorway, and they hauled the men to their feet.

  Randy said, “Do what you want, lady. You’ve got shit on us.”

  Uniforms were taking out the trash when Joe and his partner came up from the garage level, rejoining Conklin and me in the living room.

  “No one is in the house,” Joe said. “Anna’s not here. Susan’s not here.”

  “Come ooon. Don’t say that.”

  He said, “There are three bedrooms on this floor. We found some women’s clothing in closets. Street clothes and lingerie. There were boxes of makeup in a dressing room. We’ll send it out for testing. If any of the women used the lipstick, we’ll get a DNA match.”

  “So they were here.”

  “What I’m thinking is we may have just missed them,” Joe said. “The garage door to the street was closed, but the rear door to the back garden was wide open. And if a car was waiting for them on Bush?”

  He threw up his hands, looking more demoralized than I’d ever seen him.

  Crap. Team Petrović had seen us, and maybe we’d been breathing down their necks enough that they had to make a move. So they used their exit strategy.

  Chapter 104

  Out on the street, flashers lit up the predawn morning.

  Cops had strung crime-scene tape in front of the house to keep passersby out of our scene. Some people had been roused from their beds at 2:00 a.m. and were clumped together on the sidewalks to find out what had happened. We weren’t talking.

  Joe’s ride was waiting.

  He said, “Put Petrović on ice. Diano and I want to stop off at the office and file a report, but I’ll see you at the Hall in an hour. I’m feeling good about this.”

  I was optimistic, too. The women were gone, so maybe alive. And Petrović was ours—for as long as we could hold him. How long would that be? Days? Weeks? We needed evidence if we were going to charge him.

  And if we couldn’t do that, we’d have to let him go.

  I flashed back to Petrović pointing a gun at my face. I was still shaken by that sight and knowing that he could have pulled the trigger. We’d talked him down.

  But the thought came to me: What if he got another chance at me? And I thought about Susan and Anna. Totally powerless. I’d never met them, but I felt as though I knew them. And I had a sense of the terror they’d felt, the brutality they’d been subjected to.

  I looked up at Joe. I’m pretty sure he could read my face and see how close I was to tears. He reached for me. I went into his arms, and we kissed in front of cops and Feds and God and everyone. He said, “It’s okay, Linds. We did great.”

  The Honda pulled up. Conklin honked the horn. I released Joe and squeezed his hand.

  Then I got into the car and buckled up.

  We passed Petrović’s Jaguar, still parked in front of the men’s clothing shop.

  “Richie, back up.”

  I got out of the car and copied down the Jaguar’s tag number.

  Then I called the lab.

  Chapter 105

  Same night—or more accurately, that morning—Jacobi stood up from his desk, opened the drawer in his credenza, and pulled out a bag from Sam’s Deli.

  “Sit. Sit down,” he told us.

  He congratulated us on bringing in Petrović, then passed the bag over his desk, saying, “Here’s what I’ve got. Two BLTs, a bag of chips, two Kind bars, and some information, for what it’s worth.”

  Conklin tore open the deli bag, handed a foil-wrapped sandwich to me, and said, “Hang on a minute.”

  He got up, headed for the break room, and returned with the coffeepot, mugs, and fixings. He filled mugs for all of us, then said, “Go for it, Lieu.”

  Jacobi began, “Marko Vladic is Petrović’s number two guy. He pays his taxes. Keeps his nose clean. In public, anyway.”

  Conklin said, “We checked him out. He works as day manager at Tony’s. At night he manages a strip club called Skin.”

  Jacobi said, “That’s right. Skin is a small girly joint above a liquor store. Small equals exclusive. Club chairs. Nice little stage. The liquor is expensive. Lap dances are, too. I’m guessing it’s profitable.”

  “That fits with what Susan’s sister told us,” I said. “That Susan was dancing to pay off a debt to Mr. Big. Make me happy, boss. Who owns the club?”

  “Goes by the name Antonije Branko.”

  I said, “Oh, my God,” and fell back in my chair. “Here comes the balloon drop from the ceiling.”

  Jacobi laughed.

  I stood, threw up my hand, and gave him a high five, a low five, and a hip bump for good measure.

  Richie’s turn to laugh.

  I sat back down, gulped some coffee, and told Jacobi that Petrović’s Jaguar was on a flatbed truck, speeding out to our forensics lab at Hunters Point.

  “CSI is going to hoover the hell out of it.”

  “Let me know if they find anything good. In the meantime, I’ll stay to watch your Petrović interview,” said Jacobi.

  Conklin looked at his watch.

  “It’s almost three. Has Tony stewed in his cell long enough?”

  “I’d do it soon,” Jacobi said. “His lawyer won’t be picking up his phone.”

  I said, “Joe’s got a dog in this fight.”

  “Get him on the line.”

  I used Jacobi’s phone, called Joe, and then gave the jail upstairs a blast, requesting that Petrović be escorted down to Interview 1 in a half hour.

  I went to the ladies’ room, washed my face, finger-combed my hair, and rehearsed possible interview scenarios. I reminded myself that whatever I had to say to get Susan and Anna home was allowed. Cops are allowed to lie.

  There was a clean shirt in my locker. After I changed and felt somewhat fresh, I walked down the hall to the interview rooms. Before going into number one, I looked through the glass.

  Petrović was sitting at the small gray table across from the two most important men in my life.

  I flipped on the audio and listened for a minute. Joe and Rich were warming him up—talking to a psychotic mass murderer about baseball and the price of gasoline.

  Chapter 106

  When I entered the interrogation room, Joe stood up and gave me his chair across from Petrović.

  “Forgive me if I don’t stand,” said Petrović.

  “Relax,” I said. “It’s been a long night for everyone.”

  “Sergeant, right? Sergeant, you’re wasting your time with me.”

  “Mr. Petrović—”

  “Call me Tony.”

  Petrović looked comfortable in his street clothes and jail slippers. The han
dcuffs had been removed. His belt had been confiscated. His gun was at the lab. And although he’d told us that he had a license to carry, that was a lie.

  If we needed illegal possession of a firearm to hold him, we’d do it, and we’d get him on brandishing a weapon, too. Maybe we could keep Petrović for thirty days on those charges with a sympathetic judge, but they were the smallest of beans.

  We needed Petrović to tell us where to find Susan Jones and Anna Sotovina, and failing that—there was no failing that. We had to find those women.

  Meanwhile, it was very early on a Thursday morning. Judges were sleeping. We didn’t have search or arrest warrants, and it would take until the afternoon at the earliest to get them.

  I said, “Tony, you’re familiar with police procedure, so I’m going to skip the small talk. You help us, we help you.”

  “What do you want? What do you give?”

  “We want Susan Jones and Anna Sotovina.”

  Joe leaned in. “Before you say you don’t know them, we know that you do. Susan worked at your club. You and Anna have history in Djoba.”

  “I don’t have these women.”

  Liar.

  I said, “Well, we have a few things of yours. For one, we have your car.”

  “Where’s the warrant?” he asked me in a tone as smooth as the single malt my father used to hoard for private celebrations.

  I said, “We don’t need a warrant if you leave it in a public space. Which you did. Now it’s at our lab. We’re liable for any damage, but don’t worry. We’re treating your car with latex gloves. You could say we’re going to detail it.”

  Petrović cracked a smile.

  He said, “How do you say it? Knock yourself out.”

  I smiled back.

  “Oh, we will. You left a water bottle in your car’s cup holder. We’ll collect your DNA from that, and if we find as much as a hair belonging to Carly Myers or Adele Saran, we’re going to charge you with murder.”

  The killer yawned. It didn’t seem fake. Slobodan Petrović had beat life imprisonment before. But he might be overconfident now.