Black Sunrise

by Brett Godfrey

  “Do not be snide,” Kim said, “you are simply reckless.”

  “Well, I guess you have a point there—you got me.”

  Beeman took his hands from the wheel and pressed the accelerator to the floor, folding his arms in front of his chest. The car began to speed up. Within a few seconds, it was traveling ninety miles per hour and drifting into the opposite lane.

  Beeman never saw the blow that rendered him unconscious.

  Chapter 25

  “This is where the car was parked—this slot, here where this Subaru is.” Sand pointed to the space where a battered gray Subaru now sat. With them were Mark, Janet, Kenehan, Marcus Ortega and Robert Partridge, who had arrived that morning on a Delta flight from Miami. They were standing on the third level of the west parking garage at the Cherry Creek Mall. It was a few minutes before eleven, and the mall was busy.

  “I’d like to scan the surface with UV and maybe try some electrostatic film,” Ortega said, his hands on his hips. “But I doubt we’ll get anything useful.”

  Partridge addressed Kenehan. “Would you like me to move that car?”

  “Yeah, thanks. Put it over there.”

  Partridge stepped over to the van and dug out some gear. From his left hand dangled several rings of keys strung together on a loop of wire cable. Within a minute, Partridge had the car door open and the engine running. He backed the Subaru out of the spot and moved it to a vacant stall a few spaces down; then he shut off the engine and got out, relocking the door.

  “Owner will never notice.”

  Kenehan nodded. “Nice work.”

  Jensen was impressed. It was obvious that this kind of thing was completely normal for these people. Sand’s word nailed it: horsepower.

  As if reading his thoughts, Janet said, “They obviously know what they’re doing.”

  During his days as a prosecutor, Jensen had frequently accompanied the police at scene inspections; part of his job had been to supervise, to ensure no one violated the law in any way that might lead to the suppression of evidence. Surgical care was necessary to keep the guilty from going free. A procedural foul-up could lead to the release of a dangerous criminal, whose constitutional rights took precedence over obtaining a conviction. But finding his daughter was a priority that eclipsed any due process issues—particularly given the very real possibility that there might be no “legal” process for the abductors when they found Christie and Jackie. If abductors had taken his little girl, they would take others, and they should stop them.

  Thinking like a father, not a lawyer.

  Attitude adjustment, Sand had called it.

  Jensen had come to think of the perpetrators in the plural. It made more sense than a single assailant, for whom a dual abduction would likely be impossible. It had also occurred to him that the logistics of the abduction would be demanding enough that the assailants must have prepared it in advance. This was not the result of some drunken maniac’s snap decision to snatch a pretty girl. No, a coordinated, planned and skillfully executed action involving more than one participant was the only plausible likelihood he could envision. That suggested a ransom demand might be forthcoming. If a thrill-killing or mere sexual assault was the motive, there would probably have been signs of struggle.

  During the meeting at the airport that morning, as the group migrated out of the conference room, he’d told Brecht and Thomas of this theory. Thomas had played devil’s advocate. “Why discount the idea of a lone attacker threatening the girls with a gun to make them get in a car or van and just driving away?” he’d asked.

  “You’d have to know Christie,” Jensen had replied. “She’d run, scream or fight back. She would know it was her only chance. Even at gunpoint she’d never get in a car willingly, especially with a friend to help her make a ruckus.”

  When Jensen had asked Brecht whether he would use his political clout to spur the police into action, Thomas had answered for Brecht. “We tend to do better without interference from local authorities,” he’d explained. “They get underfoot.”

  Jensen continued to observe the team.

  Kenehan scrutinized the reinforced concrete above, looking for video cameras. Jensen had done the same thing during his first visit here two days earlier.

  He’d found none, which surprised him; in this day and age cameras were everywhere. This had to be the only upscale commercial parking lot in the city with no cameras. A good risk manager or insurance specialist should have spotted that and pushed to have a video security system installed, with a live feed to a security room or booth somewhere. Cameras conspicuously placed can deter criminal assaults.

  The plaintiff lawyer in Jensen reared its head. Cheap, cost-cutting bean counters. When we find Christie, I’m going to sue these fuckers blind, just for therapy. Tear them a new one. She’ll be home safe, and she’ll own this mall.

  Ortega unpacked an ultraviolet lamp that looked like an oversize flashlight and knelt at the edge of the parking space, switching on the black light. Under the ultraviolet light, spots of oil glowed fluorescent yellow. Jensen knew that motor oil would phosphoresce under UV, and he wondered what else might do so. Electrostatic film might produce readable footprints, and luminol spray might make blood products or other biological oxidants light up under the black light, but seeing it required a fairly dark environment. Ortega used a large and expensive digital camera to take dozens of photos from a variety of locations, concentrating primarily on the area near where the driver’s-side door of the Jaguar would have been.

  These tests were long shots given how much time had passed.

  Kenehan crouched beside Partridge, examining the rough concrete surface under the ultraviolet light. He instructed Partridge to direct the beam back to a missed spot. Out came the electrostatic film, rollers and spray, along with another special camera and a small box on a tripod, which Jensen recognized.

  “Lidar?” Jensen asked.

  “Right.” Ortega answered. “We’re making a high-res digital point cloud to go with our imagery. I’m afraid there’s not much here to work with, Mr. Jensen,” he added, shaking his head. “No security cameras, no fresh bodily fluids, no abrasion marks in the concrete, no readable footprints, no unusual marks on the concrete. Just normal petrochemical and tire residue. We’ll swab for surface chemistry.”

  “What kinds of chemicals are you looking for?” Janet asked.

  “Anything you wouldn’t expect to leak out of cars,” Jensen answered.

  “Correct,” Ortega confirmed.

  “We use some of this technology occasionally in my civil practice,” Jensen explained to Janet. “Plant explosions, train wrecks, air crashes. We used to use a total station to survey a scene one point at a time. Lidar is miles above that. We’ve even used lidar on airborne drones.”

  “Cool,” Ortega said. “Didn’t know lawyers had that kind of tech.”

  “We contract with experts, forensic investigators and engineers. But they’re nothing compared to you guys.” And they don’t hotwire cars or snap people’s necks, Jensen mused.

  What had his father done to earn the loyalty of a man like Albert Brecht?

  Kenehan walked to the closest half-wall of the parking garage and surveyed the landscape below. A thick forest of old trees spread a considerable distance from the mall property. He scanned the canopy of vegetation, noting the brick-and-shingle structures that occasionally emerged above the growth. Each rooftop represented a family home. The view was beautiful. He saw it as a reminder of what he was here to do: see that which is obscured.

  It was a big world, full of predators, and much of it was hidden. Yet here they were, charged with the task of working a miracle, staving off the tragedy of unbearable loss, of lives ended and others ruined forever. To protect the goodness of family love and keep the harshness of reality at bay for these people.

  He thought of Louis Armstrong’s beautiful, aching melody: The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky. How did the rest go? I see friends shaking h
ands, saying how do you do? They’re really saying I love you. Hear babies crying, I watch them grow. They learn much more than I’ll ever know. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

  Except it wasn’t. The world was a jungle, filled with predators, haters, evil men doing evil deeds—including himself.

  And out there somewhere were two beautiful girls, just two more victims, statistics so minute they were negligible, barely worthy of police attention—victims who did not merit an all-points-bulletin, a dragnet or a national alert.

  Assuming they were alive.

  What were the odds?

  One step at a time.

  When things seem hopeless, you focus on the task before you, and perform that one thing with focus, zeal and vigilance; when you finish that task, you start on the next. Then the next. Never lose sight of your goal, and never let thoughts of failure take root, or they’ll take over, and then you’re done.

  Failure is not an option, Brecht had said.

  For just a moment, Roady felt like he could see through Mark Jensen’s eyes.

  His daughter. What could be more precious?

  Roady had never had children nor been married, but in officer candidate school, he’d had a glimpse of what it must be like to be a parent. One day the command master sergeant had issued a call for volunteers, for those who would give up their one and only day of leave for the week to donate time to underprivileged kids so they could go to a circus. He’d volunteered without thinking.

  What a mistake that had been.

  On the Saturday in question, he’d ridden the bus with the other volunteers to the parking lot where single mothers dropped off their children, leaving them in the hands of officer candidates in uniform for a day of fun.

  They had assigned Kenehan two young girls—sisters—ages ten and six.

  They’d ridden the bus for an hour, while he’d awkwardly tried to make small talk with them. The older one had surprised him with her world-wise demeanor, her unexpected maturity, the by-product of growing up in poverty without a father, facing the harshness of the world without protection. She was ten, going on forty.

  He’d bought them cotton candy, listened to them squeal at the acrobatic feats of the trapeze artists, the skills of jugglers, the massive elephants and fierce tigers. He’d bought them souvenirs, more cotton candy, Cokes—anything they wanted. The hours had slipped past with cruel speed.

  They had stolen his heart.

  All too soon they’d boarded the bus again, headed back to the lot where the girls’ mother would be waiting with the other parents. During the ride back, a bee had landed on the younger girl’s arm. Instead of flicking it away, she’d looked up at Roady with eyes the size of saucers.

  “Bug!” she’d proclaimed, giggling.

  Roady’s heart had fallen out of his chest, and he’d never felt so fulfilled.

  When the bus had pulled to a stop in the parking lot, mothers had approached furtively out of the darkness to collect their kids. When almost all the other mothers had gathered their litters and departed, his girls’ mom had showed up with an apologetic look on her face.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she had said. “The car wouldn’t start.”

  “It’s okay,” Roady had said, holding the younger girl’s hand. He then knelt down to meet her at eye level. “I told you Mommy would be here. It’s time for you to go home now.”

  “Okay,” she’d said, her eyes pouring tears. The resigned tone of her voice had torn his intestines out and dumped them on the gravel of the parking lot. He’d thought he would die. The pain had been—

  Oh, Jesus, what was I thinking?

  And then he had done the unthinkable.

  He simply had shaken the mother’s hand and climbed onto the bus with the rest of the officer candidates, riding in silence back to the base.

  And that night, he had tossed in his bunk and cried, for the first time in years.

  I just left them …

  Failure is not an option, the Old Man had proclaimed.

  Albert Brecht. God of Risk. Kingmaker. Beater of odds.

  Roady took a deep breath and glanced for a moment over his shoulder at Janet. She was talking softly to her husband, and she stole a glance back at him. He met her eyes briefly and then turned his gaze back to the southwest. He could see through her barely controlled façade, how she fought to make herself strong, holding her fears at bay—one second at a time.

  A remarkable woman, he thought. Christie comes from good stock.

  Looking out across the leafy plaza for a while longer, an idea came to him. A possibility worth pursuing. “Partridge, Ortega, come over here for a minute.”

  Partridge arrived at his side. Ortega finished sealing the swabs he’d collected into glass tubes and packed them in protective styrofoam within his Pelican case; then he stepped up as well.

  The others sidled closer to listen in.

  “Roady?” Ortega queried.

  “What do you see, guys?”

  A moment passed before Partridge answered. “Trees, grass, streetlights, river.” After a few more seconds, he added, “Rooftops … and those apartment buildings. Aahhh.” His head nodded slowly. “High-end condos, management companies. Security. Video surveillance?”

  “Definitely worth a try.” Kenehan gave Partridge’s shoulder a comradely slap. “Let’s visit the unit managers of those high-rise condos. They’ll have offices on prem. Those houses over there look expensive, and they sit near a busy street, so they may have security cameras as well. If we get more than one video angle, maybe we can run ’em through the BEAST and bring out a face, a license plate, or some other clue. Canvass the area—get people on it now. Also, get me the tapes from inside the mall.”

  Partridge nodded. “On it. Anything else?”

  Coming out of his dark place now, Kenehan paused before continuing. “Have our people in Baltimore start working on the credit cards. We’ll need a list of the stores where Christie and Jackie made purchases so we can run photos by sales people and see if they observed anything. Memories are fading as we speak, so do it fast.”

  “You got it,” Partridge said.

  “We may also be able to come up with the names of some other shoppers in the mall that afternoon who may have seen them. We’ll probably have to hack that info to get it fast enough. Get Takaki on it. Find a mall guide online. We need a list of all the stores here.”

  “Will do.”

  “Good man.” Roady felt better now. They were finally in motion.

  He noticed a man strolling by, observing with interest. People had been walking past intermittently, stopping occasionally to gawk for the past hour, so he made nothing of the gangly guy with a dark mustache and a long, beaked nose.

  Antonio had been unable to fight off the urge to visit the mall. Beeman had warned him not to come back here, but the allure was too strong.

  He’d spent so many afternoons exploring this place, scoping it out, spotting bitches, planning how to take them and reporting back to Beeman. Of all the places he’d scoped out, this mall was clearly the best hunting ground. He’d started thinking of it as the Cherry Mall. It was busy and upscale, with plenty of hot chicks. Classier bitches, with money. Most importantly though, this mall had two huge, dark, enclosed parking garages amazingly free of security cameras.

  He’d spent afternoons wandering the mall, mentally rehearsing how it might go down, wondering if he could really do it, working himself up with the visual stimulus of beautiful women in their revealing summer shorts and skimpy tops.

  Mindless cherries, there to be picked, and devoured with gusto.

  He liked to take pictures of the prettier ones as they strolled by, holding his phone in front of his face as though skimming Facebook, snapping shot after shot.

  After a session of hunting and shooting, he would settle down in one of the large leather chairs scattered throughout the large central atrium, discretely checking his work. He’d gotten a thrill from taking those shots. Taking them h
ad been a way of learning how to take ownership of a woman without her knowledge or consent. In that way it was watered-down rehearsal for the main event: taking total ownership with her knowledge. Fuck consent.

  Strewn about Antonio’s house were color inkjet printouts of women, cropped and enlarged to zoom in on their sweet cleavages, tender buttocks, and other private regions. He savored the invasion of their privacy. He was a modern-day Peeping Tom, armed with his Galaxy phone, hunting undetected while in plain sight. Each image had a frozen candor that made them all look so important, so secretive, in the instant he’d captured them.

  Captured. He loved that word, now that he had proven himself a man.

  A man? No. A god.

  Staring at the pictures, his fantasies had run wild. He would think, I could have that one, or that one, or her … or this one. They just kept getting better and better, as did his skill with the cell phone camera as he practiced.

  And now he had two of them! Live, moving, warm, afraid and helpless.

  He giggled. Nothing like a spare in case of a flat.

  Did he have the stones to give life to his fantasies? It was time to find out. He’d been dancing around this question for the three days, with the girls in the basement, taking his time, in no hurry, as Beeman wanted. God but that man was brilliant. Almost a savior, in a way.

  Very soon, it would be time.

  Nut-cutting time, he thought. Or more accurately, cunt-cutting time.

  It was time to head back into the hills and taste the fruit.

  He’d thought of nothing else for the past three days. Now, with a few hours to kill before his bus left, he’d decided to visit the place where he’d planned the thing, where he’d raised the courage, where he’d played it out in his mind countless times—and where he’d done it.

  Where he’d evolved into a god.

  For real, dude.

  He’d come back to the scene of the crime to find out whether the place would look any different now that he’d crossed the line.