by David Archer
“Carla, could you describe him?” Sam asked.
“Oh, goodness,” the housekeeper said, “I’m afraid I’m terrible with faces. He was kind of tall, but he had a hat and sunglasses on. He wasn’t fat, but he wasn’t skinny either. Does that help any?”
“I think it might,” Sam said.
Walter said he was finished, so Sam promised to keep McCabe updated as they learned anything, and then they got into their car and drove back towards the hotel. Everyone was waiting with Indie when they got there, and Harvey turned on his camera as soon as Sam was inside the room.
THREE
“How did it go, mates?” Denny asked.
“I think it went pretty well,” Sam said. “The main things I got from McCabe were that the caller seemed to have a French accent, and that the only background sound he could remember was a beeping noise. Other than that, he couldn’t remember much more than what he had been told.”
Denny closed his eyes and pursed his lips. “A French accent,” he repeated. “That’s something, anyway.”
Sam nodded his head. “It doesn’t help much, though,” he said. “McCabe said the caller didn’t give them any indication as to where his daughter was being held, but he did hear what sounded like the backup alarm on a forklift or piece of equipment in the background.” He shook his head. “I just wish he had been able to record the call.”
Indie looked at him. “Did he take the call on a cell phone or landline?”
“It came in on Amber’s cell phone,” Sam replied. “That’s how he found out she was gone, her phone was ringing at four a.m. but she wasn’t answering, so he got up to check on her.”
“Hmm,” Indie said. She turned around to her computer and started tapping on the keyboard.
Denny’s eyes opened and he looked at Sam. “So what else have we got?”
Sam grinned. “Walter hit the mother lode of leads,” he said. “The kidnapper entered the house with a key, then got into their attic and used an old fire escape ladder to get from there to Amber’s window. The housekeeper said Amber complained of being tired before she went to bed, earlier than usual, so she may have been drugged. She slept with her window open, so the kidnapper cut through the screen to enter the room and then strapped her on his back to carry her back up to the attic and then down the stairs and out of the house. Walter was able to track them across the yard and found where he had left a car, and figured out that it was probably an Enterprise rental car from the tire tread pattern. Our suspect is approximately six feet tall and weighs around a hundred and eighty pounds.”
Denny smiled. “Bloody good, Walter,” he said.
“There’s more,” Sam said. He turned to Jade. “Jade, Summer, I want the two of you to see what you can find out about Dark Horse Security, here in Atlanta. That’s the security company McCabe was using, and they may be involved. They would have had a key to the house, and they would certainly be able to deactivate his home security system. It also seems that the kidnapper was aware of a weak spot in the second floor that makes noise when someone steps on it.”
Both of the girls picked up the tablet computers they had brought to the room with them and began tapping on the screens. They huddled together, sitting on one of the beds, and whispered back and forth as they worked.
Sam started to ask what they were talking about, but he was interrupted before he could say any more.
“Bingo!” Indie shouted suddenly. She snatched out her ear buds and unplugged them from the computer. “You guys gotta hear this,” she said. She tapped a couple of keys, and voices came from the speakers. Indie hit another key to pause the playback.
“What is it?” Sam asked.
“Well, what a lot of people don’t know,” Indie said, “is that every cell phone call is recorded by the carriers. They just float around in cyberspace, sometimes for years, because the NSA requires the carriers to keep them until they can run them through something that scans for certain keywords.” She grinned. “I kinda taught Herman to do that sort of thing, so I turned him loose. Check this out.”
She tapped a key and the speakers came to life again.
“Hello?” That was the voice of Mr. McCabe.
Another voice spoke, and Sam heard a hint of some sort of an accent. “Listen carefully,” it said. “I am calling about your daughter!”
“Hold it, hold it,” Sam said, and Indie paused the playback once more. “Are you telling me you found the recording of the actual call somewhere?”
Indie looked surprised at the question. “Sam,” she said, “every telephone conversation is recorded in the United States. Phone companies deny it, but it’s true. All Herman had to do was hack into his cell carrier and check the calls on Amber’s number, then find his way into their recordings archive. It took a couple minutes, but he did it.”
Sam’s eyebrows went up, but he shrugged. “Okay, go on, then.”
Indie resumed playing the recording. There was a couple of moments of static, but the call was clear enough for them to understand what was said.
“Wait a minute,” said McCabe, “You can’t be serious. What is this about? Where is my daughter?”
“She’s safe at the moment,” said a man in what Sam considered to be a poorly faked French accent. “She’ll be perfectly safe, as long as you do what we want you to do.”
There was a moment’s pause before McCabe spoke again, fear evident in his voice. “And what is that?”
“Your company has an opportunity for a business relationship with Ethio Electronics. You have five days to complete that arrangement, and if all goes well, then your daughter will be returned to you alive and in one piece. If not, then I’m afraid you’ll be getting her back in several different packages. Do you understand?”
McCabe hesitated, and in the brief pause they could hear the beeping sound in the background.
“How do I know you truly have my daughter?” McCabe asked at that point.
The caller chuckled. “Well, I suppose you need some proof. Here, I'll let her speak to you.”
Another pause, and a girl’s voice came on the line. “Daddy?” she asked. “Daddy, please, please come and get me…” Her voice trailed off as the phone was taken away.
“Five days,” the caller said. “Do you understand?”
“Wait! How can I contact you? It may take me some time to…”
“You don’t have any need to contact me,” the caller said. “All you want to do is tell your lawyers to get the partnership set up. Once that is done, she’ll be dropped off safe and sound and you will be told where to pick her up. Otherwise, her next ride will be the very last one she ever goes on.”
“Why are you doing this? You don’t sound like one of the Ethiopians. Who are you?”
“Me? I’m just a man who was employed to do a job. I was hired because I know how to motivate people to do what I want them to do. When people need someone properly motivated, they call upon an expert, like myself. As I said, do what I tell you and everything will be fine. You can be absolutely sure of that, but you can also be certain of the consequences if you do not.” The caller hung up, and a second later, the line went dead.
Sam looked at Steve and Denny. “What do you make of it?”
Steve frowned. “That accent is definitely French, but I don’t think it’s real. It sounded just a bit too forced, to me.”
Sam nodded. “I agree. Some of it seemed just a little bit too perfect, the way an actor might do it to make sure people caught it. I’d say we’re probably dealing with someone who is accustomed to using accents when speaking with someone face-to-face, but not so much over the phone. A lot of people tend to put extra effort into it, just to make sure it’s obvious in a situation like that. There were a couple of spots where it sounded more like a New England-type accent.”
Steve looked at him, and his eyebrows rose. “Good point, I missed that. So we are probably looking for someone from the northeast, then.”
Indie was tapping on her keyboard. �
�I’m running a snippet through the DHS voice print database, now. If this guy is really a player on the international scene, they would be most likely to have him in their files, somewhere.”
Steve nodded. “If that doesn’t turn anything up, try the FBI database. Theirs is pretty good, too.”
“That’s where I’ll go next, if I need to, and after that I’ll hit the Russian database. They’ve been doing that sort of voice print recognition longer than anybody, and they use it almost exclusively for their intelligence people. If this guy is really that big a player, they’d almost definitely have a sample of his voice in theirs.”
“This is awesome,” Wendy whispered to Harvey. “Be sure to get it all, this will be fantastic when we get to let the story out.”
“Okay,” Sam said, “what about the sound in the background? Definitely sounded like a backup alarm to me.”
Steve was nodding again. “I agree, no doubt about it. Maybe they’re holding her in a warehouse somewhere, one that’s actually still working. We should probably send Rob to check all of McCabe’s warehouses. Be a real laugh if she was held in some building he owns, wouldn’t it?”
“Maybe,” Sam said, “or maybe that’s just what somebody wanted us to think. It seems a little convenient that we got some potentially identifiable background noise. That could lead us to the conclusion that the call came from someplace that uses forklifts and such, but what if she was really being held in a basement someplace and that was only a recording? What if they expected the call to be recorded, and this is nothing but a smokescreen?”
Steve shrugged. “That’s certainly possible,” he said. “It does seem a little easy, these clues. I think you have a point, and the caller might have suspected he was being recorded. Why wouldn’t he have gone someplace quiet, why risk somebody overhearing him?”
“Because he’s just plain cocky?” Indie asked. “I got a hit on the voice print. According to the NSA database, there is a 79.8 percent probability that the caller is Evan Reese. That wouldn’t be nearly close enough to be considered evidence in a courtroom, but it’s something. He’s originally from Manhattan, from a wealthy family, but he ended up working with Blackwater for a while. He worked briefly for the government after that, some sort of information analyst, but at some point, he must have decided to go out on his own. He’s been suspected of involvement, and even charged, in a number of abductions and blackmail operations, but there’s never been anywhere near enough evidence to get a conviction. Charges always get dismissed, for some reason.” She clicked the link on her monitor and scanned the page that appeared. “Seems our friends at Homeland Security keep a close watch on this boy, monitoring his movements, even to the point of watching his apartment. Want to guess where he was early yesterday, when Amber disappeared?”
“Right here in Atlanta?” Sam asked.
“Bingo,” Indie said. “You win the prize! He flew in two days ago and stayed in this very hotel, then took another flight to Ithaca, New York, two hours after that call was made. DHS has people watching his apartment, and he’s been inside it since he got back home. There, take a look at the screen, that’s a picture of him.” The image on the screen showed a thin man with graying hair and brown eyes.
Sam and Denny looked at the photo, then at one another. “Sounds like he just might be our man,” Denny said, but then he shook his head. “I don’t know about you, Sam, but this seems just a wee bit easy, to me.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, it almost feels like we’re being led somewhere by the nose. Unfortunately, we can’t afford not to follow the lead. Whether he’s the actual kidnapper or not, this Reese is definitely involved in all this somehow, and I plan to find out exactly how and why.” He turned it to Indie. “Can you get Herman to find out if Reese rented a car while he was here?”
“He’s already checked,” she said with a grin. “Unfortunately, the answer is no. I’ve got Herman scanning through all of the Enterprise rentals for the last four days, now, and then he’ll check out the people who rented them. Any who don’t check out will be flagged, but we probably won’t have results until later today.”
Sam nodded, then looked at Jade and Summer. “How about it, guys?” he asked. “Anything on Dark Horse?”
“Actually, not that much,” Jade said. “I’m afraid there wasn’t much to find. It’s a relatively small company, only a couple of years old. At the moment, they only have a couple of dozen clients, and most of those are commercial rather than residential. They have a lot of good reviews, though.”
“That’s why McCabe was using them,” Sam said. “Maybe you should pay them a visit. We need to know if any of their people have suddenly disappeared or failed to show up for work.”
The two girls got up from where they were sitting. “They’re only about twenty minutes away,” Jade said. “We’ll go have a talk with the owner, John Burkart.” The two of them walked out the door, and Sam turned to Darren.
“McCabe said the reason he’s been refusing to do business with Ethio Electronics is because of technology that isn’t allowed in certain parts of Africa. He’s worried that the government might wonder if he was cooperating in supplying some of that technology where it’s not supposed to go.”
Darren nodded. “He should be,” he said. “If any of his designs were to turn up in countries that were proscribed from having it, he could be looking at fines or worse. Companies have been shut down by the government for this sort of thing, so he’s wise to want to avoid the possibility.”
“But isn’t there a way to restrict what he shares with Ethio?” Indie asked. “Would he actually have to let them see all of his corporate secrets?”
“He probably wouldn’t, not willingly,” Darren said. “However, there would be exchange of personnel. Some of their people would come to work over here, and some of his would go over there. It’s not that he’d actually want to release any of that technology in that part of the world, but their engineers would learn things that they could use to improve their own products. Some of those things, unfortunately, would likely involve proscribed technology.”
Sam nodded his head. “I see the problem,” he said. “Unfortunately, the most pressing situation is the missing girl. Keep digging as you can, but I want all of us concentrating on finding Amber and bringing her home safely.”
He took his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number, then waited for it to connect. Almost a minute later, he got an answer.
“This is Ron,” his boss said as he answered.
“It’s me,” Sam said. “We have a lead, but we’re going to need to go to New York.”
“Hang on a moment,” Ron said, and the line went silent as he placed him on hold. Sam waited for about three minutes, listening to Indie tapping on her keyboard and cursing under her breath, but he didn’t want to ask questions while he was still on the phone.
“Okay, I’m back,” Ron said. “The Gulfstream is still at the Atlanta airport, so I’m putting it at your disposal. Are you getting somewhere on this case?”
“I'll know that when we get to Ithaca. I'll check in when I know more.”
“All right, Sam,” Ron said. “Keep me posted, and I don’t care what time it is. McCabe is a big client, and we need to do everything we can to save this girl.”
“We’re going up there to check out a guy named Evan Reese,” Sam said. “Indie was able to get into some supersecret database and find a recording of the actual call when McCabe was informed about the abduction, and then she got a voice print match on this guy. I think it’s time he comes face-to-face with me and Denny, see if we can get him to spill a few beans for us. He lives in Ithaca, and we have the address.”
“Sounds like a plan. Come to think of it, I’ve got a friend who lives in Ithaca, a lady cop. What’s the guy’s address? I'll ask her to check him out and keep an eye on him until you get there.” Sam gave him the address and waited as Ron jotted it down. “Okay, her name is Margaret Williams. I'll text you her phone number, and you can give her
a call when you’re ready to move on this guy.”
The phone went dead, but a moment later, it chimed to sound an incoming text message. Sam glanced at it to confirm that it was Margaret’s phone number, then shoved it back into his pocket. “Okay, gather everybody up, and let Rob know that we’ll be heading out before too long. If this really is the guy, he may have other people working with him, and Rob and his team might be needed. Ron is letting us keep the Gulfstream, so we’re on the way to Ithaca, New York. As soon as the girls get back, we’ll go on down and check out, and then we can meet in the hotel restaurant for lunch. It shouldn’t take too long to get to Ithaca, so we’ll head for the airport as soon as we finish eating.”
Steve nodded and walked out of the room. Denny stayed behind for a moment, and once the door had closed, he looked up at Sam.
“You agree with me, mate? That this is some sort of wild goose chase?”
“I think there’s a good chance of it,” Sam said. “It just feels like it was all just a little too easy, so I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Reese is nothing but some sort of trick to detour us from where we ought to be going.” He let out a sigh. “Unfortunately, until we have some idea where the girl was being held, I don’t want to split up the team. If I thought it would pay to leave a few behind, I would.”
Denny shrugged. “Indie says the DHS believes he’s done this sort of thing before. Could be the bloke just got sloppy, this time.”
“His sort of people get sloppy only when it’s to their advantage. Still, we need to know what he knows, no matter how little it is.”
“True, and at least it gives us someplace to begin. I’ll see you down in the restaurant.” He got up and walked out the door without another word.
Sam and Indie began packing immediately, then sat down to wait for Jade and Summer to return.
FOUR
The receptionist looked up and smiled when Jade and Summer walked in. “Welcome to Dark Horse Security,” she said. “How can we help you today?”