24 Hours

by Greg Iles

  “That’s probably the WLBT traffic chopper,” she said. But for the first time, she wondered.

  “Traffic chopper, my ass.” Hickey reached down and punched a number into the cell phone. After a few seconds of silence, it began to ring.

  “Joey?” said Huey.

  “That’s right, boy. You all ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “Were you born ready?”

  “Um . . . yeah.”

  “It’s time to go to the backup.”

  “Okay.”

  Karen’s chest tightened. “You said that before. What’s the backup plan?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “May I please speak to Abby? Please.”

  Hickey sighed with frustration. “Huey, is the kid right there?”

  “She’s in the bathroom.”

  Karen’s maternal radar went on alert. “Has she been to the bathroom a lot this morning, Huey?”

  “She sure has.”

  “Oh God. Her sugar’s going up. She needs her shot.”

  “And I’m bleeding to death,” Hickey said. “Stay cool. You’ve got stuff with you, and we’ll be there in plenty of time.”

  “When?”

  “Here she comes!” Huey sang out.

  “Abby?” cried Karen.

  After a brief silence, Abby said, “Mama?”

  “Goddamn it,” Hickey muttered.

  Karen’s heart leaped. “I’m here, baby. Are you all right?”

  “I don’t think so. I think I’m going south, like Daddy says.”

  Karen fought to keep control of her voice. “It’s okay, baby. Mama’s on her way to get you right now.”

  “You are?”

  “I’ll be there before you know it.”

  “Put Huey back on,” Hickey said.

  “I’ll be there before you know it,” Karen said again. “Now, put Mr. Huey back on, baby.”

  “Okay. Hurry, Mom.”

  “I’m on my way!”

  “Joey?” said Huey.

  “I’m here. You know what to do? Everything just like I told you.”

  “I remember.”

  “We’ll talk when we see each other.”

  “Okay. But, Joey?”

  “What?”

  “Is everything gonna be okay?”

  “You bet. Get going, now.”

  “Okay. Bye-bye.”

  Just before Hickey pressed END, Karen heard Abby yell, “Bye, Mom!” and she filled with pride. Abby was hanging in there.

  “Bastards,” Hickey said, looking up through the moonroof again. “If your husband had done what he was supposed to, you’d be going straight to your little girl right now.”

  Karen’s heart stuttered. “You said we were!”

  “We’re not going anywhere until I lose this tail.”

  “You don’t know it is a tail.”

  A scornful grunt was his only comment. “Your husband had better be getting my goddamn money.”

  “He is! You know he is.”

  “He’s trying to fuck me over is what I know. And I’ll tell you this. If they try to stop this truck—”

  “I’ll say whatever you tell me to!” she promised. “All I want to do is get to Abby.”

  Hickey checked the rearview mirror again. “The squad car dropped back out of sight. They’re playing us loose. They want to follow us to the girl.”

  Oh, Jesus, Karen thought. Will, what did you do?

  Without warning, Hickey veered across two lanes of traffic and onto an exit ramp. At the bottom, he swung under the interstate and onto a wide boulevard.

  “Lakeland Drive?” said Karen. “Is this the way we went last night?”

  “You just sit tight, Mom.”

  “This is the road to the airport.”

  “That it is.” Hickey laughed softly.

  “This way, Dr. Jennings.”

  Will turned down a hall that led off the bank’s main lobby and followed the secretary up a short flight of stairs. Upon entering the bank, he had seen that dealing with a teller was not the way to go. There were lines at the windows, and even the loan officers in the glassed-in cubicles had customers. He walked up to a secretary, identified himself, and asked to see the senior officer at the bank. When she asked what it concerned, he told her he was receiving a wire transfer of two hundred thousand dollars and wouldn’t deal with anyone but the top man. The young woman made a call, then asked him to follow her up the stairs.

  The staircase ended at another hall, this one lined with doors. She led him to the one at the end, knocked, then opened it and showed him into a typical branch bank office, furnished out of mail-order catalogs . Behind a mahogany veneer desk sat a balding man in his early fifties, with shining skin and a line of sweat on his upper lip. He stood.

  “Hello, Dr. Jennings. That’ll be all, Cindy.”

  The door closed behind Will, and the man held out a plump hand. “I’m Jack Moore, vice president.”

  Will shook the hand and looked around the office again. There was a small door on the wall to his right, partially open.

  “What’s that?”

  “My private rest room,” Moore said.

  “Oh.”

  “How can I help you, Doctor? Your wire came in a few minutes ago. What would you like to do with the money?”

  “I want to withdraw it in cash. I also need to withdraw some personal funds. I have a hundred and fifty thousand in CDs deposited with this bank in Jackson.”

  Moore wiped his upper lip. “You want to walk out of here with three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in a suitcase?”

  “That’s right.” Cheryl had retrieved a cheap briefcase from her suite as they left the Beau Rivage.

  “I see. Well . . .” Moore glanced at his rest room door. “If that’s what you want, I guess . . .”

  The rest room door opened, and a tall man with sandy hair and blue eyes stepped out.

  Will backpedaled to the door. “What the hell is this?”

  “Dr. Jennings,” said the stranger. “I’m Special Agent Bill Chalmers. I’m fully aware of your situation, and I’m here to help you.”

  Will was so stunned that he simply stood where he was. “But—How did you get here? How did you know where to go? Harley Ferris didn’t know where I was going.”

  Chalmers nodded. “There’s a sofa behind you, Doctor. Please sit down. We don’t have much time, and we have a lot to do.”

  “I only have one thing to do. Get my money and get out of here.”

  “Please sit down, Doctor. I think you’ll like what I have to say.”

  Will backed up until his calves hit something padded. He sat.

  “Do you know a cardiovascular surgeon named James McDill?”

  “McDill? Sure. He’s a member out at Annandale. He doesn’t play much golf. Collects cars, I think.” Even as he spoke the word “collects,” something ticked in Will’s brain.

  “Exactly one year ago,” said Chalmers, “James McDill’s son, Peter, was kidnapped in exactly the same way your daughter was yesterday.”

  Will blinked in disbelief.

  “He didn’t report the crime until last night, and nobody knows why better than you. But this week he was overcome with anxiety that it might happen again. He called our Jackson field office around eleven last night. I was on duty, and we’ve been working ever since to piece together what’s going on.”

  “Have you talked to Harley Ferris? Do you know where my little girl is?”

  “Mr. Ferris is working with us now. We’ve augmented CellStar’s tracing crew with a SWAT team, and we just had a very lucky break. Get a grip on yourself, Doctor. The man holding Abby just took a call on his cell phone, and he forgot to switch it off. The SWAT team estimates they’re two minutes from your daughter’s position.”

  Waves of shock and hope buffeted Will. Even after Ferris’s assurances, Chalmers’s words seemed incomprehensible. “What do they plan to do when they get there?”

  Chalmers walked up
to the couch and squatted, so that his eyes were level with Will’s. “We think we should go in and get her.”

  “You mean, guns blazing?”

  “Not quite, no. We have special entry devices. Heat sensors and video to accurately place human bodies in the structure. They’ll use special stun grenades to incapacitate the tango, then—”

  “Tango?” Will interrupted.

  “Sorry, that’s radio slang for terrorists. These guys train to rescue hostages from terrorists.”

  “Can’t you try to talk him out?”

  Chalmers smiled patiently. “We could do that. But it’s our understanding that the man holding Abby is mentally handicapped. The leader is still loose. He could call this Huey at any time and order him to kill your daughter.”

  Will felt as though he and Abby were standing in the path of a truck and couldn’t move. “Can’t Ferris shut off Huey’s phone?”

  “Yes, but that might panic him. Or he might be under orders to kill your daughter if his communications are cut off. Right now—while Huey and Abby are isolated from the leader—we have a golden opportunity to go in. Before the situation deteriorates any further.”

  After a night spent in ignorance, Will was having difficulty processing the sudden influx of information. “I still don’t understand how you got here. How you knew it would be this bank.”

  “We didn’t. We put an agent in every bank of any size in Gulfport and Biloxi. I requested this one because it was the largest. I flew down early this morning. The minute your wire came in, I contacted my Special Agent-in-Charge in Jackson. His name’s Frank Zwick. And he wants to talk to you.”

  “Is he in contact with the SWAT team?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please call him. And there’s a woman outside in my rental car. One of the kidnappers.”

  Chalmers nodded. “Cheryl Lynn Tilly. We’ll leave her alone until the team hits the cabin. If she gets suspicious and comes inside, you can tell her there’s some delay with paperwork. We have more agents converging on the bank right now, but they’ll be discreet coming in.”

  “I can’t believe all this.”

  The FBI agent smiled. “In a few minutes, your daughter will be in FBI custody, Doctor.”

  Will was afraid to let himself believe it.

  “You did well getting Harley Ferris involved. I only wish you would have called us earlier. Trusted us.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “I understand.” Chalmers got up and went to Moore’s desk. The bank’s vice president looked as though he didn’t quite believe what was happening before his eyes. “Would you excuse us, Mr. Moore?”

  “Of course.” The banker made a hasty exit.

  Chalmers dialed a number on Moore’s phone.

  “The leader’s name is Hickey,” Will said. “Joe Hickey. He has my wife with him, and he’s one clever son of a bitch. Do you know where they are now?”

  “Driving toward Jackson International Airport.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t worry. They’re not going anywhere. We’re watching them from a helicopter, and we’ve got men in the airport. Hang on.” Chalmers spoke into the phone. “Chalmers here. I’ve got Dr. Jennings with me...He’s on board with us...Yes, sir. Any word on the little girl?” Chalmers gave Will a thumbs-up.

  “I want to talk to him,” Will said, standing.

  “I’ll tell him,” Chalmers said, and hung up. “The SAC has a lot on his plate right now, Doctor.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “SWAT found the cabin.”

  “The green pickup truck?”

  “It’s parked under the trees.”

  Will closed his eyes and began to pray.

  Eight FBI agents in camouflage ninja fatigues and black headgear crept silently through the trees toward the cabin, their Heckler and Koch submachine guns tight against their bodies. A ninth agent was already under the structure, scanning the small floor plan with a supersensitive microphone and headphones. Their leader was Special Agent Martin Cody, and Cody was in radio contact with the agent under the house.

  “Got anything?” he said into the microphone mounted inside his ballistic glass face mask.

  “Not yet.” Special Agent Sims Jackson was observing the cabin through a thermal imaging camera. “Nothing but a hot water heater.”

  Cody didn’t like that. The truck was there, but the people weren’t? Was there a root cellar of some kind? Could the tango have detected their approach and fled into the woods? It would be tough carrying a five-year-old girl, but Cody had been told the man was big. He could also have killed the little girl and fled alone, but even if she’d been dead a couple of hours, there should still be enough heat in the corpse to register on the thermal imaging device.

  “Cody to tracing van,” he said into his mike. The CellStar van was seventy yards back up the logging road. “Has the cell phone moved?”

  “Negative. Still in the same position.”

  “We’re going in,” Cody said into his mike. “Prepare for explosive entry. Stun grenades through the windows, ram on the front door. It looks thin as paper, but you never know.”

  A staccato burst of mike clicks answered him.

  “Shoot high,” Cody reminded them, though they knew the drill already. “This kid probably isn’t much over three feet, which is a good break. Okay . . . deploy.”

  What followed was a ballet the team had rehearsed hundreds of times. Men moving forward without sound, carrying weapons they could dismantle and put back together in absolute darkness. In thirty seconds the team had deployed around the cabin, grenades and HKs at the ready.

  Agent Cody had a bad feeling about the assault, but he often got those just before contact. He checked to make sure his ram team was in position to hit the door. It was.

  “On my five-count,” he said. “Five-four-three-two-GO!” The cabin windows shattered one second before the front door went down. Even in daylight, the blue-white flash of the stun grenades lit up the windows, followed by ear-shattering bangs. Cody saw his men vanish into the cabin. He charged forward and went through the front door five seconds behind them.

  The raised cabin floor shuddered under the impact of boots. The interior was filled with smoke, but it cleared quickly through the broken windows. There were no cries of “FEDERAL AGENTS!” because no one could have heard them after the stun grenades.

  “Bedroom! No joy!” cried the speaker in Cody’s helmet.

  “Kitchen, no joy!”

  “Bedroom closet’s empty!”

  Cody checked the corners of the front room, in case the girl was lying dead in one of them. He found nothing.

  “Cell phone!” someone shouted. “Cell phone in the kitchen!”

  “Got another one!” cried someone else. “Landline in the bedroom!”

  Landline? Cody had been told there was no landline in the cabin, and he had seen no wires outside. Maybe there was a buried cable running to the building. He went into the kitchen and saw one of his men holding the cell phone. He was about to take it when the phone began to ring. Cody yanked off his helmet, stared at the phone for a few seconds, then took it and hit SEND.

  “Yeah?” he said, hoping the caller would mistake him for whomever he had tried to call.

  “Do you have Prince Albert in the can?” asked a male voice.

  Cody stood dumbfounded for a moment. “Who is this?”

  He heard wild laughter; then the caller clicked off.

  Cody put his helmet back on and keyed his mike. “Tracing van, did you hear that call?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Where did it come from?”

  “Unknown. We’re checking.”

  Cody ripped off his helmet again, pulled a digital cell phone from his pocket, and dialed the private number of SAC Zwick in Jackson.

  Will paced back and forth across the banker’s small office. Agent Chalmers sat behind Moore’s desk, speaking quietly to Zwick. Suddenly, Chalmers groaned and covered his eyes wi
th his free hand.

  “What happened?” Will asked. “What happened, goddamn it?”

  Chalmers looked up, his face pale. “The cabin was empty when SWAT went in. Huey and your daughter weren’t there.”

  “What?” Will searched his mind for an explanation. “It must have been the wrong cabin.”

  “It wasn’t. They found the cell phone inside. And someone—probably Hickey—actually called them on it while they were there. Made a joke out of it.”

  Will shook his head in disbelief.

  “They also found a landline in the cabin, which means Hickey could have given Huey new instructions without anyone knowing. The phone company has no record of that line. It’s probably an illegal tap.”

  A landline. He should have known Hickey wouldn’t let Huey operate without some sort of backup. “But the truck was still there?”

  “The truck was there, but the battery had been removed. It looks like there might have been another vehicle there. They may have gotten away in it.”

  “May have? Are you kidding me? They’re gone!”

  “Doctor—”

  “Give me that goddamn phone!”

  Will snatched the phone from Chalmers’s hand and shouted into it: “Are you the guy in charge of this Chinese fire drill?”

  “This is Frank Zwick, Doctor. Special Agent-in-Charge. Losing your temper isn’t going to help your little girl.”

  “You just tell me, what do you plan to do now?”

  “I’m deciding that at this moment. You can help me. Did Cheryl Lynn Tilly mention any possible destination that would require air travel?”

  “Costa Rica. She said Hickey has a ranch down there. Or some land, anyway.”

  “Costa Rica? You can’t fly direct from Jackson to Costa Rica. And there’s no reservation for a Joe or Joseph Hickey on any flight out of Jackson today. So, he must be flying out under an alias, with a connecting flight to South America.”

  “Look, if Hickey called your men at the cabin, he knows you’re involved. You may have just killed my little girl, Zwick.”

  “I seriously doubt that, Doctor. Hickey wants two things: his money and his freedom. Killing your daughter won’t help him get either. She’s half his total leverage now.”