Every Wicked Man
Page 36
Agent Greer studied the room as if he were searching for something he might have misplaced. “Did you drive here?”
“What?”
“Did you drive?”
“No, I took the subway.”
She was about to ask why that mattered, but before she could, he said, “I should probably take you to Pat.”
“Does this have to do with Tessa?”
“Tessa,” he said simply.
“My daughter.”
“Ah, yes.”
“Was she found?”
“Come with me. I’ll fill you in on everything I know as soon as we’re—”
Christie felt her throat tighten with fear for her daughter. “I’m not leaving until you tell me if you know where she is.”
“We haven’t confirmed her location, but Patrick needs to talk with you about it in person. We should hurry. There are some things happening with this case that have left us . . . well, unsure who to trust.”
“What do you mean?”
“We think someone from the Bureau might’ve been in contact with Blake Neeson. An email was sent to him from one of the computers at the Field Office.”
A chill. She knew that name all too well from Pat’s search for the man. “Neeson?”
“Yes.”
“Are you saying he took my daughter?”
“No. That’s not it.” Greer gestured toward the door, but it seemed like less of a request and more of a command.
“I should call Pat.”
“Certainly, Ms. Ellis. I’ll wait in the hall.”
He immediately left the room.
She took out her phone but then realized that if there was anything untoward happening with this man, he wouldn’t have encouraged her to call her husband.
She knew that Pat was following up on a lead, so rather than bother him, she simply texted that she was leaving the hospital and would see him soon. I’m with Agent Greer, she wrote, then joined the man in the hallway.
“How long have you been working with Pat?”
“Off and on with different task forces for a little over two years.”
“I see.”
“He’s a good man.”
“Yes, he is.”
Together, they headed to the parking garage.
74
Ten minutes to the greenhouse.
Collins let us know that an unauthorized email, content unknown, had been sent to an email address previously associated with one of Blake’s accounts. It originated from Greer’s computer at the Field Office.
When I was about to call him, I saw a text from Christie that she was with him.
I tried her number first, then his, but neither picked up.
Ralph didn’t trust Greer, hadn’t from the start. He was also suspicious about him escaping after being abducted by Blake’s men.
Was he involved in this?
But then why would he have contacted Blake? How would he have even known how to reach him? And was he really stupid enough to send a message to Blake from his own computer at the Field Office?
I doubted that. It was too obvious, too convenient.
But he knew about the tracking device.
My head was spinning.
Who else on this case could have gotten into Greer’s computer?
Thurman?
Maybe, but he wouldn’t have likely had the clearance. It’d need to be someone higher up.
Then another thought.
Patricia had said that when Timothy Sabian was a boy, he’d made the 911 call to the Cincinnati cops, so . . .
Did Thurman ever work in Cincinnati?
I didn’t know.
Who could have accessed that computer?
Collins? Someone from her division?
No. Higher.
The agents at Sabian’s place said that DeYoung had called them off the house.
Was that even possible?
They couldn’t be sure it was his voice, but—
The assistant director was from Cincinnati.
No.
He knows how to make someone’s past disappear.
Could he be Sabian’s dad?
Don’t assume. Verify.
I tried Christie again, but she didn’t pick up.
I contacted hospital security and sent them to Calvin’s room. “Hurry. I need you to see if my wife is there. And if Assistant Director DeYoung is with her.”
* * *
+++
As a boy, Timothy had been instructed not to play with knives.
He knew that he would get in trouble with his mother if he did, but he wanted to find something that was sharp enough to hurt his dad if he ever needed to protect her.
His mom let him open up the envelopes that they got in the mail.
He used a special opener.
It cut through paper, tape, even heavy packaging if you pushed hard enough.
He’d kept it with him all the time when he was young.
Hidden, so she couldn’t see.
Hidden, but close.
And he kept one close by him when he got older as well.
So, before he’d left the house with the girl he’d given the Beretta to, he’d grabbed the letter opener and tucked it into his jacket pocket.
Then he slipped an X-ACTO knife in another pocket, already thinking of how he might use it if he needed to.
* * *
+++
Blake tapped record and let Ibrahim babble on, creating the video that explained the reasons behind the tainted Selzucaine: “We will use the vile hunger of the infidels against them, as we allow them to destroy themselves. We are The Brigade of the Prophet’s Sword.”
He had a flag of the group draped beside him. Very emblematic. Very jihadist.
The Matchmaker stood by and watched the whole time.
Blake would post the footage after Ibrahim was dead, and then he’d deal with the Matchmaker. The Selzucaine needed a new distributor; he would take that over himself.
And once the quantum encryption research came through, everything would be set.
When they were done with the filming, Blake asked Mannie, “How are the preparations coming?”
“Almost ready. One truck is loaded. We’re finishing with the other one now.”
* * *
+++
As Christie and Agent Greer neared his car, a man called to them from a nearby row of vehicles. Somewhat overweight and unkempt, he looked vaguely familiar, and Christie had the sense that she’d met him before, but she couldn’t recall his name.
“Bill?” he said, walking in their direction. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see Dr. Werjonic.”
The man looked at Christie curiously, and Greer said, “This is Patrick Bowers’s wife, Christie Ellis.”
The guy introduced himself as Assistant Director DeYoung. “You can call me Peter,” he told her, then he turned to Greer. “I came to visit Calvin myself and to pick up the paperwork that he was going to fill out regarding his help with the case. He called me earlier to tell me that it was ready.”
“He’s in surgery.”
“I didn’t know that. Is he going to be alright?”
“They’re not sure. It’s serious.”
Greer glanced at Christie somewhat uneasily, then said to DeYoung, “Sir, could I speak with you in private for a moment?”
The assistant director looked confused but agreed.
They walked behind a nearby minivan, and Christie overheard DeYoung say, “Bill, you’re on administrative leave.”
Administrative leave? Christie thought. Why didn’t he mention that? Why didn’t he—?
Greer said something to him in reply, something that she couldn’t make out, and then the sound of a gunshot ripped th
rough the parking garage, its staccato echo reverberating harshly off the concrete walls.
One of the men grunted heavily, and then there was the sound of a thick thud behind the minivan.
75
Christie gasped and stared in the direction of where the men had gone.
“Agent Greer?” Her voice didn’t even seem to be coming from her. “Peter? Are you okay?”
She heard the shuffling of feet behind the minivan.
Heart hammering, she edged around the side of the vehicle to see what’d happened.
Agent Greer lay crumpled on the ground with Assistant Director DeYoung standing over him, holding a handgun.
“He tried to attack me,” he muttered. He seemed dumbfounded by what had just happened. “He tried to kill me.”
Christie stared at the growing stain of blood spreading across Agent Greer’s chest.
“Is he . . . ?” She barely managed to say the words. “Is he dead?”
DeYoung bent and gently checked for a pulse.
“He’s gone,” he said softly.
“But this is a hospital. Maybe they can bring him back. Right? I mean, right?”
“Yes, yes, good idea.” He nodded vigorously. “I’ll go. I’ll get someone. I’ll get help. You stay here—hang on, I don’t want you near the body. Wait in my car.”
He rounded the minivan and unlocked a sedan near where she’d first seen him, then opened the backseat door on the driver’s side for her.
“Are you sure?” she said.
“I don’t want anyone to suspect you of anything. I’ll be back in a minute with the paramedics.”
Without really thinking, Christie climbed in.
He patted at his pockets. “My phone, my phone,” he muttered. “May I use yours? I need to contact our team, tell them what’s happened.”
“Um, sure.”
She doubted her cell would get very good reception in this underground garage, but she handed it over and he closed the door.
Only then did she notice that there was a plastic barrier between the front and back seats.
And no way to open the door from the inside.
* * *
+++
“I think it might be DeYoung,” I told Ralph. I whipped through my reasoning as he pulled off the highway toward the county road that led to the west end of the greenhouse property.
I heard back from hospital security that no one was in Calvin’s room.
“Check the entrances and exits,” I said, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.
I felt helpless being here on the other side of the city, but if someone from the Field Office really had been in contact with Blake, then finding Blake might be the best way to locate Christie, and maybe even Tessa as well.
* * *
+++
“What are you doing?” Christie shouted through the car door, but the assistant director ignored her.
He walked to Agent Greer’s body, retrieved the man’s phone, then smashed both her phone and Greer’s on the ground before returning to the car.
When he took his place behind the wheel, he said to Christie, “I’m sorry it had to come to this.”
“What’s going on?”
“It’s about my son.”
“Your son? You just shot Agent Greer!”
He didn’t reply but instead started the engine.
She pounded on the barrier separating her from the front seat. “Hey!” she screamed. “Let me out of here!”
She thought of the advice she’d learned from Pat, advice on staying safe in dangerous neighborhoods: If you ever encounter someone intent on doing you harm, never get in a car with them. Never let them take you to another location.
Too late.
It’s too—
But as worried as she might be about herself, she was even more distressed about her missing daughter.
The assistant director put on his siren and pulled out of the garage, leaving Agent Greer’s body behind.
* * *
+++
I called DeYoung’s office number and reached his receptionist, Annalise. She told me that he was at his desk.
“Check. Make sure.”
A moment later she said quizzically, “No. Actually, he’s not here after all. And he left his cell phone by his computer.”
* * *
+++
Christie watched as Assistant Director DeYoung, if the man really was who he claimed to be, called a number using a flip phone and said, “The place by the riverfront where you met with Julianne. Be there by two.”
Hoping that whoever was on the other end of the line would hear her, Christie shouted for help, but DeYoung quickly hung up.
* * *
+++
Timothy couldn’t be certain, but it sounded like someone had been yelling in the background, terrified cries before the line went dead.
* * *
+++
“Who was that?” Tessa asked Timothy from the backseat.
“My dad.”
“Your dad?”
“Yes.”
“Where are we going?”
“The waterfront. It’ll be okay. I just need to take care of things with him, then you’ll be safe and I’ll drive you home.”
Here she was, alone in this car with this guy she barely knew, and despite his assurances that he wasn’t going to let anything happen to her, she didn’t feel exactly reassured.
This was, basically, a perfect storm of not-goodness.
You have a gun.
Seriously? What are you going to do with that? It’s not like you’re actually gonna shoot someone!
Patrick might. Her mom might. They went target shooting sometimes at the range, but she’d never even shot a gun in her life.
Why doesn’t Sabian just drop you off somewhere?
“You wrote that the truth tastes like tears,” he said to her, drawing her out of her thoughts.
“What?”
“On that church bulletin you gave me. You wrote that the truth tastes like tears.”
“Oh.” Her stupid poem was the last thing on her mind. “Yeah.”
“And that you wished you could touch the light that threads its way through the ever-present rays of darkness all around you.”
“You have a good memory.”
“Is that really how you feel? Lost in the darkness, reaching for the light?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “Yeah. It is.”
“Me too.”
“What do you do when you feel like that?”
“I try to cut the darkness out of me.”
“Does it work?”
“No. I don’t think I’ve ever quite gone deep enough yet.”
76
Ralph parked behind a small rise in a wooded glen just off the gravel road that skirted along the edge of the property.
While we were planning how to approach things, I heard from Metro Medical that Agent Greer’s body had been found in their parking garage with a single GSW to the chest.
Two phones lay shattered beside him. One was his. Based on my description, it took security only a few seconds to confirm that the other was my wife’s.
I stared out the window at the heavy snow, rapidly tapping my leg, deep in thought.
The news about Greer was shocking, but I had the sense that the full impact of what’d happened would come later. Right now, I needed to move forward, needed to do what I could for the living.
For my family.
For—
“What do you want to do?” Ralph asked. “Go back or go on?”
As much as I wanted to turn around and look for Christie and Tessa, I knew that there wasn’t really anything I could do at the moment to find either of them.
You’re here. Clear th
is property.
Find Blake.
I couldn’t shake the thought that if we tracked down Blake Neeson we’d be on the way to finding my wife and stepdaughter.
“The hospital is too far across town,” I said to Ralph. “Driving back wouldn’t do us any good right now. Get NYPD on it. I’m wondering—if Christie’s abduction has anything to do with Blake—if his men might bring her up here. Get someone on the hospital’s security cameras. Let’s find out what happened in that parking garage.” Then I added soberly, “And if Assistant Director DeYoung really is the one who took her.”
* * *
+++
Christie prayed for her daughter, that she would be found, that she would be safe, that she would be okay.
Don’t hold my own doubts against me, Christie begged her Lord. Please. Do what you want to me. Make me suffer. Take my life, but please spare my precious daughter.
And God was silent.
Christie watched as the man who’d abducted her pulled to a stop beside the shoreline of the East River near an abandoned warehouse.
You need to get out of here.
Use whatever you have at your disposal.
Attack him where he’s most vulnerable.
Neck, eyes, nose, ears, groin.
She had her apartment keys with her and now tightened her right hand around them with two keys protruding from her closed fist.
As soon as he opened that door she was going to rake those keys across his eyes.
* * *
+++
We got word that Sasha’s tracking device was in an executive car that the Connecticut State Police had pulled over. They took the driver into custody. He had no ID and he wasn’t talking.
Time to move.
The snowfall cut down on the visibility, but I could make out the ghostly outline of three greenhouse structures as well as an office building.
Based on the amount of land we were talking about, however, I suspected that there might very well be more greenhouses tucked back out of sight in the snow-shrouded day.