Live Bait

by David Archer

  Summer, who was wearing a form fitting black dress and looking like she belonged in Hollywood, smiled at him. “I was hoping you’d ask,” she said. “You know I always enjoy myself in those little sessions.”

  Indie broke into a grin. “Okay, I’m dying to see this,” she said. “I keep hearing about your ‘special talents at interrogation,’ but I'll admit I find it a little hard to believe.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Wendy said. “I was with them the last time. When she goes into her act, any man she’s targeted is going to melt into a babbling puddle.” She glanced over at her cameraman, a grin splitting her face. “I thought poor old Harvey was going to have a heart attack.”

  Harvey glared at her for a moment. “I was fine,” he said. “I knew good and well it was an act. Trust me, Summer warned me ahead of time about what she was planning to do. I’m just surprised that old man lived through it.”

  Summer giggled. “I can handle it,” she said. “All I need is to know where to find him.” She turned to Harvey. “And that necklace, the one with the hidden camera built into it. I need that, too.”

  “No problem, I brought it,” Harvey said, blushing.

  She reached over and patted him on the arm. “Poor baby,” she said. “I'll try not to make it too racy this time.”

  Harvey turned a deeper shade of red.

  “This will be good,” Summer said. “I can do the ‘little girl lost’ routine. What does this guy look like, anyway?”

  Indie called up a picture on her phone and handed it over. The image showed a man in his late thirties or early forties, not terribly tall, but well-built and ruggedly handsome.

  “Wow,” Summer said. “Reminds me of some cowboy from the movies.” She looked up at Sam with a smile. “I'll have him eating out of my hands in no time.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Sam said, “but the idea is to find out what he knows about Amber. How do you plan to bring that up without tripping alarms in his head?”

  “Who cares about alarms? Once I get him tied to the bed, I can drop the act and get down to business. I'll find out everything he knows, but what do I do with him afterward?”

  “That’s where Rob comes in,” Sam said. “Since the abduction of the girl involves trying to force her father into an international business deal, we can get away with holding him incommunicado as a suspected terrorist. Rob will have a couple of his men take charge and hold him until this is over. After that, hopefully he’ll be facing plenty of charges that will put him away.”

  Summer nodded. “No problem. Do you want to be in on the questioning?”

  “Actually, I would,” Sam said. “Once you get him softened up, then I think it’s time for me and Denny to do our part.”

  “Sounds good,” Denny said. He grinned. “Since we’re in New York, do you want me to use an Italian accent?”

  Sam grinned back at him. “If you think it’ll help,” he said.

  “Sam,” Steve said, “what about his surveillance? If DHS is really paying a lot of attention to this guy, they just might take offense to our paying him a visit. Do we want them to know the truth about it?”

  “Good point,” Sam said. “We’ll play it by ear, but it would be good if we can avoid having to deal with them until after we’re done with our questioning.”

  Summer made a face that was supposed to look innocent and lost. “Oh, sir, I’m so sorry to bother you. I’m just lost. A friend of mine was supposed to meet me around here somewhere, but I can’t remember the address. Could you pretty please give me a ride back to my hotel? Pretty, pretty please?” She fluttered her eyelids for effect, and the men all grinned.

  “That ought to work,” Steve said. “Get him to leave his house, and then maybe some of us can run interference to shake his tail. If she can get him back to the hotel and into her room, we can be all done with him before those guys even figure out they lost him.”

  “Actually,” Sam said, “I think we ought to avoid bringing him to the hotel. Indie, why don’t you see if you can find us an empty building real quick, something you can rent online without giving too much information? A house would be best, especially if it’s furnished.”

  “I can do that,” she said. “Something outside the city, maybe?”

  “That’s probably a good idea, but not too far out.”

  “I’m checking the local real estate market for possibilities,” she said, tapping on her phone. “There are a lot of places to rent around here by the week, fully furnished and even with dishes and such. Getaway places, I guess. Here’s one about six miles out, and I can get it right now for up to two weeks, immediate possession.”

  Sam looked at the picture she showed him and nodded. “That looks perfect,” he said as he handed her a Windlass credit card. “Get it and send us the address. How do we get the keys?”

  “Hang on a sec,” she said. “Okay, got it! The keys are in a lockbox on the front porch and the code is 19686. I’m sending you the address now.”

  “Send it to Summer, too. Summer, if you can get him to go with you, let’s take him there. If you can’t, we’ll grab him under the Patriot Act and turn him over to DHS when we’re done.” He turned to Darren. “As soon as she gets him out of his apartment, I’d like you and Jade to go in and search the place. Check out his computer, emails, anything to see if you can find any clues to where Amber might be hidden. This guy is involved, so let’s not leave any stone unturned.”

  The two of them nodded, knowing that Sam would want to get started as soon as they finished their dinner. It didn’t take long, and then they were each off to carry out their part of the day’s mission.

  Sam and Denny followed Steve to his room, and Sam took out his phone to call Margaret Williams. He tapped the number in the text message he’d gotten from Ron, and it was answered on the first ring.

  “This is Margaret,” came a surprisingly deep voice.

  “Margaret, this is Sam Prichard,” Sam said. “Ron Thomas said you’d be expecting my call.”

  “I sure was, Mr. Prichard. I’m keeping an eye on your boy right now. When would you like to get together to talk about him?”

  “Actually, I want to come check out the lay of the land,” Sam said. “Are you somewhere around his place?”

  “Just a little ways down the street. Ron says you are aware that he has some federal agents keeping an eye on him, as well?”

  “Yes, we know,” Sam said. “We’re actually planning to try to get him out and away from them for a while. Do you think that might be possible?”

  “Shouldn’t be very difficult,” Margaret said. “There’s only one guy watching him, and he tends to be asleep most of the time. Listen, there’s a convenience store right on the corner beside where I’m parked. Why don’t you stop by here and let’s talk for a minute, let me fill you in on this clown. After Ron called, I got really curious as to what this is all about. Ron said to ask you, and that you can call him if you need to verify that it’s all right to talk to me.”

  “All right,” Sam said. “We're going to be there in about twenty minutes or so. You’ll know me, I walk with a cane.”

  “Yeah, you won’t have any trouble spotting me, either. Just look for the tallest woman you’ve ever seen, that’ll be me.”

  “Okay,” Sam said. “We’ll see you pretty soon.”

  He ended the call and told the rest of them what she had said. “Harvey, go get that necklace for Summer, and then you come along with us. You can monitor her from your phone, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Harvey said. “I'll be right back.”

  They waited for him to run to his room and get the necklace, and then Sam, Denny, and Summer got up from their chairs. Sam kissed Indie and told her he’d be back as soon as he could, then the four of them walked out of the hotel and got into his rental car. He put Reese’s address into his GPS and then put the car in gear.

  “Denny and I'll wait with Margaret,” Sam said to Summer, “while you try to get Reese out of his apartment. Harve
y will keep us up to date by monitoring your necklace camera, so you won’t have to signal us when you leave there.”

  “Sounds good,” she said. Sam started to say something to the others, but he was cut short when his phone rang. He looked at the display and saw that it was Mr. McCabe calling.

  “Sam Prichard,” he said.

  “Mr. Prichard,” said McCabe. “I hope you’ll forgive a worried father, but I just needed to check in with you. Have you learned anything about who took my daughter?”

  “We think we’ve identified and located the person who called you that morning,” Sam said, “and we are on the way to question him, now. I’m hoping he might be able to provide us with more information about who’s behind this and where we can find her. Mr. McCabe, I wish I had more to tell you, but that’s where we stand at the moment.”

  McCabe let out a sigh. “Thank you,” he said simply. “It makes me feel better just to know that you’re out there working on it. You will let me know as soon as you find out anything?”

  “Absolutely, sir,” Sam said. “I'll call you the minute I know something, I promise.”

  The call ended and Denny looked over at Sam. “You didn’t tell him about the security officer?”

  “No,” Sam said, shaking his head. “He’s worried enough without knowing that there’s already been at least one murder involved.”

  Denny nodded. “I’ve worked a few kidnapping cases,” he said. “I don’t have any kids, but I can imagine it’s a nightmare for the parents when one of them gets stolen away like this. I don’t envy that poor fellow what he’s going through.”

  “I know,” Sam said. “It’s got to be hell.”

  Denny was driving, and Summer and Harvey rode along as they went to meet Margaret and check out Reese’s surroundings. Darren and Jade were following in a separate car. The apartment building was in a very nice neighborhood, almost a half hour’s drive from the hotel. The street was lined with apartment buildings that all looked very much alike, but they had no trouble finding the right one.

  Sam spotted the convenience store half a block from the apartment building with no problem and parked the car beside it. They spotted Margaret leaning against the outer wall, and she pushed off and came toward them as Sam stepped out with his cane.

  “I’m Margaret,” she said as they met in the parking lot. “Which one of you is Prichard?”

  Sam smiled and waved his cane in the air. “That would be me,” he said. “This is Denny Cortlandt, Summer Raines and Harvey Reilly, my associates.” Sam, Denny and Summer showed their IDs, flipping them over so that Margaret could see the Homeland Security endorsement on the back. Her eyes went wide when she saw it.

  Margaret shook hands with each of them as she looked them all over, her eyes lingering on Summer for a moment. “Looks like a pretty good crew,” she said. “Now, can you tell me what this is all about? See, Reese is somebody we pay attention to here on the police force. He’s one of those guys that’s always in the middle of something, and it occasionally means trouble here at home.”

  “Can I ask you a question first?” Sam asked. When she nodded, he went on. “I’m just curious, but how do you know Ron Thomas?”

  She laughed. “That’s an easy one,” she said. “I used to date him. Ron and I went to college together in L.A., and we studied criminal justice together. He used to call me ‘Hickory Tree,’ because I’m so tall. We got to be friends, then we ended up dating for about six months. We even talked about getting married once, but I figure I would’ve been a widow before we were married a year, so we decided to just stay friends.”

  Sam grinned. “He got on your nerves?”

  “Oh, not at all,” Margaret said. “He was just constantly trying to prove himself, and my height made him way too insecure. If we had gotten married, I think the poor guy would’ve died of inferiority complex.”

  “Okay, that probably does sound like Ron. As for what this is about, a sixteen-year-old girl was abducted out of her bedroom very early yesterday morning. Her father is a wealthy businessman, and the kidnapping seems to have been a ploy to force him into a partnership with a company from Africa. That partnership could cost him just about everything, so he had been refusing. He was warned that if the police are involved, his daughter will be killed immediately, so he hired Ron’s company to try to find her. I’m their chief investigator.”

  Margaret nodded slowly. “And you think Reese is involved?”

  “We found a recording of the phone call where our client was advised that his daughter was being held hostage, and there’s a strong possibility that it’s Reese’s voice on the phone. What can you tell us about the guy?”

  “Evan Reese is thirty-nine years old, a former government employee who now dabbles in information marketing. He’s been known to offer a lot of other services, as well, like working out secret deals between governments and arranging people to handle things like industrial espionage, things like that. Here in New York, he’s well known for having a lot of dirt on a lot of people. Occasionally, some of our less scrupulous citizens go to him when they feel that the government is getting too close to the things that they do. He knows the strings to pull to make sure an investigation gets stonewalled, or convince the district attorney not to pursue criminal charges. Unfortunately, he has way too much dirt on way too many people for anyone to be willing to do what it takes to shut him down.”

  “Do you think they honestly want him gone?” Sam asked. “I’m going to be asking him a lot of questions about his involvement in this abduction, and he better have some answers. When I get done with him, I could probably arrange for him to spend the next fifty years or so locked away in federal prison.”

  “Wouldn’t break my heart any, I can tell you that, but you may get some resistance from the local and state governments. A lot of what he does is useful to the political types, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “I’m afraid I know exactly what you mean. Luckily, I’m the apolitical type, and I don’t really care what they want.” He looked down the street toward where Reese’s apartment building should be. “Okay, so where’s our boy?”

  “That’s his building right there,” Margaret said, pointing. “Can I ask what you’ve got in mind?”

  “Well, Summer is our interrogation specialist,” Sam said with a straight face. “She’ll try to entice him into driving her back home, which happens to be a place in the country where we can get him all to ourselves, to interrogate him. If he has any idea where the girl is, I want to get that information without letting the people behind it know that we got to him. After that, I’ve got some security people who can sit on him for a while, if necessary, or I can turn him over to DHS. Since economic espionage with an international component is involved, we can hold him as a potential enemy combatant under the U.S.A. Patriot Act.”

  Margaret looked Summer over again. “She shouldn’t have any problem getting him to do whatever she wants. Evan is nothing if not a horndog. He’s always got a hottie around somewhere, but they change as often as his underwear.”

  Summer grinned. “Good,” she said. “Makes my job easier.”

  Margaret shrugged. “Just watch him,” she said. “He can be pretty rough on a girl. I’ve had to deal with a few of them after he was finished, and it wasn’t pretty.”

  “And he’s still walking around?” Denny asked. “Maybe we can fix that.”

  “If he’s the guy from that phone call,” Sam said, “he’s not gonna be hurting any other women in the future. He might even get a taste of it in prison for himself.”

  “That would be fine with me,” Margaret said. “So, when do you plan to do this?”

  He turned to Summer. “Are you ready?”

  She giggled. “Sam, I was born ready!” She turned on the camera in the necklace, then walked off toward Reese’s building as Harvey tuned in to the video transmission.

  Margaret grinned when she saw the image on his phone. “Okay, that’s cool,” she sai
d.

  The four of them watched as Summer approached the building, then walked inside and went up the elevator to Reese’s floor. He was in apartment 3B, and she found it just beside the elevator when she got off.

  FIVE

  Summer knocked on the door and waited a moment, and then it opened cautiously. Reese looked out around it and said, “Yes? Can I help you?”

  Summer smiled brightly. “Yeah, I’m here to meet Brent, did he get here yet?”

  The man blinked in confusion. “Brent? I’m afraid I don’t know anyone by that name, you must have the wrong apartment.” He started to close the door, but Summer reached out and put a hand on it.

  “What?” she asked, her voice sounding panicky. “This is 3B, isn’t it? That’s what it says on the door. Brent told me to meet him at 1430 Lancaster Drive, Apartment 3B, he said he’d be here around 7:30. Isn’t he here yet?”

  Reese looked her up and down, then opened the door a bit wider. “Well, that’s the address,” he said. “But I’m afraid I don’t know anyone named Brent. Are you sure you got it right? Maybe you should call him.”

  Summer screwed up her face as if she were about to cry. “But I can’t,” she whined. “He lost his phone and used a pay phone to call me. I swear this is the address he gave me, he told me he’d meet me here. Oh, I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”

  Reese stared at her. “I’m really sorry, but I don’t know…”

  Summer let tears start down her cheeks as she looked at him again. “I—I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give me a ride back to the house, would you? It’s out in the country, so I don’t have any way to get there.” She reached out and put a hand against his chest. “I would be ever so grateful, if you could.”

  Reese looked her over again, then smiled. “What the hell?” he said. “It’s not like I really have anything else to do.” He looked her up and down once again. “Well, at least nothing that would be better than spending time with a beautiful girl like you.”