Ransom X

by a b

  “That’s what a date is dad.”

  As dry as the martini that was being delayed because of this conversation darted the response.

  “Fine, you know the deal.”

  “That’s not fair, it puts all the responsibility on me.”

  Lane chimed in, “what deal?”

  Martin resumed a measured step toward the study door at the end of the hallway. He intoned his answer to the girls.

  “If Chess chooses a boy and he hurts her, I’ll end up in jail for what comes next.” The hum continued from Legacy; he loved being home, where the threats stayed in the family. “Make sure he’s the right boy, a mature choice, and we’ll be fine.” When Martin reached the end of the hall, he closed the study door behind him cutting off any reply.

  A truck could be driven through the silence, but it wouldn’t be loud enough to drown the peals of laughter that burst out of Trisha and Lane the moment the door latched behind Legacy.

  It wasn’t ridicule, but Chess blushed a deep red in front of her friends. Chess charged after her father, “I’m going to talk to him. He will say yes.”

  “He already said yes.”

  “He will say yes the way I want him to say yes.” She crossed the floor, clop clop clop, all the way to the study. The door closed behind her.

  Trisha swooned staring at the study door, “My dad would never go to jail for me.”

  Music was coming from a stereo near a high-backed chair. The rattle of ice in a glass and the radiator at a steady volume alternating between hiss and click drowned out the noise of the door latching, or at least they should have. She had to catch him off balance.

  Three careful paces into the room, Legacy spoke. A deep voice, “Is this boy the one you’re going to marry?”

  “Dad!” Chess screeched. “Are you trying to humiliate me? Those are my friends, they all date.”

  She realized the weakness of her argument and saw her chances slipping away, then her mind landed on a trump card.

  “You can’t keep treating me like a child. If you do I’ll resent you later –”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “I read it in a magazine.”

  “I can’t argue with that. I relent.”

  Chess started for the door, victorious, the only thing missing was lip-gloss and she dug into her pocket to make the necessary re-application before greeting her friends with a smile.

  Chess was only steps away from the door.

  Legacy thought back to his former training at special ops, and the days when nobody turned their backs on him. He was a black eagle interrogator, the top one percent of the top one percent: meaning he got almost every one of his “clients” to break. Very few of the methods he had used in the past would be appropriate for a fourteen year old girl that he loved so dearly. Still­…

  SQUEEEK. His chair produced a painfully drawn out creak that stopped Chess in her tracks. The message was delivered: it wasn’t over.

  “If you are ready for dating then you’re ready for the talk.”

  Chess willed her feet to bolt out the door, but they stood still. “What talk?” she asked.

  He looked over his glass waiting – Chess circled the comment like it was bait, not willing to commit. Her eyes slid to a sidelong glance.

  “Every girl,” he continued haltingly “who is dating, needs to have a frank conversation with their dad about all of the things that go on between men and women –”

  “You mean?”

  Legacy tilted his head to the side neither confirming nor denying the content of the conversation waiting on her next words.

  “I’m not ready.” She looked unabashedly horrified, defeated, and, totally wigged out. Legacy turned away. She muttered on her way out. “This isn’t over, I’ll be back when I – argh - I may never date.”

  When the door clicked back in place, shutting behind Chess, Legacy’s relief couldn’t be contained, “Good,” he thought.

  He’d bought himself maybe six more months of childhood. He looked at a picture on his desk of Chess in the sixth grade. She had her mother’s smile. He never wanted to lose her. Everything she did warmed his heart to its current temperature, livable.

  At the same time, Chess brought with her a sense of loss that stung him to the core. She was so much like her mother.

  Chapter 3 Ask

  “BZZZ” Agent Wagner let the phone rattle along her metal desk. She’d turned the ringer off, but it hardly mattered, as the sound of the phone on “silent” mode could be better described as “almost silent”. The vibration traveled through her fingertips and woke her from a moment of deep concentration.

  Wagner often substituted deep concentration for sleep. “BZZZ” this time the phone moved toward the edge of the desk. Wagner lurched forward to keep it from dropping into a waste paper basket. The caller ID read out 14 voice mails at 9:02 AM. “Totally unacceptable” she thought so forcefully that it echoed and she wondered for a second if she’d said something aloud. Wagner had made 54 phone calls over the night with explicit instructions to get back to her by nine.

  Local law enforcement professionals know better than to leave an FBI agent waiting. She wasn’t going to start thinking about reprisals until ten, but there were going to be follow-up calls, and these would be conferenced with their direct superior to get their attention.

  Her cell phone suddenly burst into a polyphonic song. Only one number had been programmed to ring through and it wasn’t her mother. She stiffened up like a soldier coming to attention. She scolded herself for the reaction. People who want to lead never should allow themselves to act like – well to act like a follower. She was not a follower and she was in fact in charge of her entire class. Wagner had decided early in her cadet days that she would be the first female FBI director, and that it would happen before the age of fifty. Probably she overcompensated when answering the phone with sudden bluntness.

  “I’ll be there in a minute.” Then click. She’d just hung up on the principal, or in her case the deputy director. She batted her eyes quickly until moisture gleamed in the corners, then she licked her lips, an old college trick to keep men looking from her eyes to her mouth. It kept their attention to what she was thinking and what she was saying, and that is the way she liked it.

  There were plenty of reasons to look elsewhere and very few reasons to be disappointed. The stares of men had followed her since her second year of training. She’d been a late bloomer and she hadn’t grown into her 5 ft. 7 inch frame until well past graduation. Wagner didn’t give a second thought to her adult appearance, it was a tool, and she maintained it with artful precision. Something inside drove her to keep a sharp edge on every tool that she had. Her face hardly showed an outward trace that she’d slept only two hours a night for over a week. Her haircut, architectural and perfect provided a jet-black frame around a face filled with unflinching gunmetal resolve, cold and accurate. Her professional attire fit close to an athletic body. Wagner’s eyes were her real assets. On the job they seemed to stare beyond her surroundings, like they were in competition with anything that might confine her.

  Natural light cast a blue tint after filtering through the dual pane windows of one of the most secure buildings in the country. It made the center atrium and social center of the complex feel more like an aquarium. Wagner looked longingly at the coffee cart line before pressing forward into busy hallways, confidently navigating the honeycomb of dividers and private offices that stood between her and the director’s large corner office. She wasn’t going to let herself overreact this time. She was comfortable, in her element, and ready for anything he could possibly throw at her. Or so she thought. It took only one statement from the director and about three steps inside the door from Wagner before she found her composure challenged.

  “How in the hell can you do this to me, Bradley?” Not her best opening line.

  Wagner was shouting from just inside the entryway at a tall, dignified man three times her rank, twice her age. “You’
re putting me in left field.”

  Bradley Wilkes had never tolerated crap from underlings. He was the one that the cadets called Ice. He turned toward Wagner eyes ablaze. “Call me Bradley again, agent.”

  “I’m sorry Director Wilkes-”

  “That’s not much better.” He said between clenched teeth.

  “I don’t want to be pulled out of the action. I’m making progress, I keep developing leads –” She changed her tactic, “I want to stay close to ­the team. I’m learning so much just working around you.”

  Wilkes' smile vanished before it reached the production stage. He seemed to take great satisfaction handing over a file. Wagner knew it had to contain some kind of punishment. “Here’s the file, take the train down and meet his supervisor this afternoon.”

  With resignation Wagner let her fingers close around the heavy envelope. It had a picture on the cover of a young man in field fatigues. In the photo, he leaned close into a man tied to a chair. The young interrogator had an expression that was completely unreadable, disturbing in its complete blankness, and the look in the eyes of the man being questioned was pure fear.

  Wagner broke her fixation on the photo with the sound of the door opening behind her. She looked up to see the director welcoming in a visitor, “Bob, come in, you’ve met Ashley right?”

  Wagner dropped her folder and stammered. “Your honor.”

  “Is this one of your daughters? I can’t imagine one of your girls would be that polite, or come to think of it carry weapons in a shoulder, and ankle strap.” He identified the positions of Wagner’s concealed weapons despite the fact that there seemed to be no visual evidence. “Must be one of the younger agents. I’m Robert Doorner.”

  Doorner hadn’t visited their office in over three years. It had to be about the case. There must have been a new wrinkle. She realized suddenly that she was standing dumbfounded in front of the director of the FBI. He was about to draw back his lonely extended hand when Agent Wagner grabbed it suddenly, not remembering that her cell phone was still in her palm. A sudden vibration shot up both of their arms. Doorner didn’t show a sign of surprise, he merely commented. “Might have been too quick to judgment.”

  “May we have the room, agent?” She studied the stiff precise military stance, tone. The news he was about to give wasn’t good. Wagner would have still put up her pension to stay in the room and hear it.

  “Yes Deputy director, sir.” Wagner collected herself and her folder; she gave Wilkes one last questioning look before leaving the office, something big was up. The door closed behind her.

  The meeting between the men started on a light note.

  “She’s not much older than my daughter. She looks pretty young to be reporting directly to you Bradley.” He noted.

  “I just gave her some distance. She lobbied hard to get onto this case, and considering how little progress we’ve made –” Wilkes replied setting up the director for the low expectations that he was peddling.

  The director’s brow creased unexpectedly, Wilkes had known him for over twenty years and a display of emotion was almost unheard of. This was the man whose stony demeanor had earned him the nickname “flat line.” He was rumored not to have a pulse. Doorner hid his disappointment so quickly that the expression might have easily been explained as a flicker of the light. His voice presented a gruff charm.

  “I know the type, give them a life raft when the ship’s going down and they look at you like you handed them an anchor.”

  “Exactly,” Wilkes studied the heavily lined face of the operations director; he had been through public scandals, triumphs and years of unnoticed success. He didn’t want to answer the question that came next.

  “So Bradley, is the ship sinking?”

  “I’m sending her to meet with Legacy.”

  Director Doorner sighed, his question had been answered, and it was clear that he wasn’t pleased. “So the lifeboats are in the water. I’ll tell you if this next one goes down it’s going to blow the lid on this operation sky high.”

  THUD THUD THUD. Boxing gloves dug into worn canvas. Wagner worked the bag over like a blood quarrel between her and the center mass. She was going to have to do something she didn’t like to do today.

  THUD THUD THUD. She couldn’t control it and it couldn’t be out of her control. There was a life at stake. She wanted a couple more hits before she changed into her travel clothes. Her travel clothes were indistinguishable from her work clothes, but she separated them out as a completely different category in her own mind.

  THUD THUD THUD. Let a little more sweat seep into the hair.

  THUD THUD THUD. Her life had no room for frustration, no room for the variables, uncertainty principles, or randomness. This detour wouldn’t change her course, whoever he was. He would have to bend.

  Thud. Wagner entered the Virginia office, marble stonework over the front portal depicting a woman holding a flag in rippling, curving extension. Wagner was willing to bet that the woman in the pose would rather be holding a cup containing triple cappuccino, like the one that was in her hand. She flashed a badge at the front desk and asked to see regional director Sam Bailey. A fresh-faced clerk was assigned to escort her. He looked out of place in the navy blazer and tie.

  “I’m Dill.” He said in a lazy voice, he stared directly at pinstripes on her chest. “Follow – um follow me, agent -” Wagner said nothing. He finished the sentence in his mind. She walked through the metal detectors, confused when they didn’t go off.

  In a relaxed tone, Dill explained that the equipment had broken down about a week prior and that they still made a show like it worked - to deter the people who might bring in a gun or a knife.

  They got into the elevator and went to the top, the third floor. Cracked masonry tiles made a line down the center of the corridor. The line of broken tiles led to the door of Sam Bailey.

  The clerk opened the door and entered without knocking. Bailey was on the phone and nodded pleasantly at the interruption. He silently offered something wrapped in tin foil to the clerk, a slice of homemade bread.

  “Blackcurrant banana bread, my wife’s newest specialty.” He shielded the phone to explain. “Honey, I have to go. I’ll get their impressions for sure.”

  He put down the phone, smiled up at Wagner. Wagner felt like she’d been dropped in the Deep South even though she was only twenty miles out of Washington. The capitol of the confederacy was only fifty miles away from the capitol of the union and yet the division of attitude was still wider than stubborn geographical distance would allow. Wagner stared at Bailey across a gorge so wide and so deep that she felt like if she’d stepped forward she might lose her balance and fall into the black current bread abysmal.

  The clerk broke the silence “Tell Cecille, it’s the best yet.”

  “I’ll let her know.”

  The clerk backed out of the room, taking every last moment to stare at Wagner.

  Wagner scanned the room, looking for some opening for their conversation. A series of framed fly-fishing images were against the far wall, a solid body iron cast safe sat behind the desk, it had the original FBI logo painted in raised gold leaf on the crown of the lock. The only window had blinds shut.

  “It’s a southern custom to flatter the cooking of a man’s wife. It’s like winding a watch, doesn’t make much sense to anything but the insides, but it does keep things moving smoothly.”

  Wagner put out her hand. “How about a handshake?”

  “Excuse the crumbs.” He shook her hand then pointed to a chair. Wagner sat.

  Bailey looked her up and down. “So, what’s your game plan for getting him on the case?”

  “It’s orders from Washington.”

  Bailey couldn’t contain a long high-pitched chuckle. “Have you read his file?”

  Wagner had, on the train from Washington. She knew that Legacy had taken over the cold cases division five years ago. He had taken a dead-end job and made it into modern mythology, an untapped niche
. Cold case review was a formality before Legacy walked into the position. After the percentage of cases closed jumped, Legacy had become a bit of a magnet for unsolved crime. Bailey now received requests for his assistance around the clock.

  “Unsolvable crime is a better way to put it. Everything that hit a dead end, all the sudden had a previously unseen outlet once Legacy started looking into it.” Bailey took pride in the fact that his backwater office had a bit of star quality in the basement. “He thinks different than us, agent.”

  “How?”

  He walked to the window searching for an explanation. “It’s like that spider web on that stem, see it?” Wagner nodded. “You and I might notice a pattern, develop ideas about the geometry, the location of flies, how the prey became trapped by the sticky threads.”

  Bailey turned back to Wagner, and in a warm tone. “Legacy would look at that and tell you which strand the spider made first and which repair he made last, and it gives him insight to where the next fly will be caught. His web is oh so tangled.”