Ransom X

by a b

  Wagner, always a fast learner, began to reply in short bursts. “A cadet.”

  “Female?”

  “All of them.”

  “A sexual predator,” He watched Wagner’s pupils as he interrogated the case through her eyes, essentially interrogating himself on the possibilities. Each time, she gave him a response that indicated yes or no something spurred him onto another thought. “No something worse, a group of trained rapists.”

  “Close.”

  “The perpetrator pursues originality, recognition – the repetition indicates confidence, an agile operation, something different, no ransom?”

  “None.”

  “Something’s wrong though, why is this case so desperate, if they’re looking at my methods – I mean usually they take years –”

  “They can’t this time. We need to get the next one, that’s why we need your full cooperation.”

  “You’re acting like this is a matter of national security –”

  “They have the director’s daughter; she is the cadet that needs your help. The details are at a level for which you’re not cleared. I am not supposed to be confirming any of this – I don’t know why – they could arrest me –”

  “Calm down, that’s my specialty. I needed to know, I was going to know anyway. We should take that briefing now.”

  “We? Briefing, I thought you were through after this conversation.”

  “I have known the director for twenty years, I knew his daughter, and I have a daughter.” He let his words sink in; the weight was surprising. Wagner wasn’t expecting emotion, and when it came out, it made gravity kick in stronger. His control over the room irritated her. If she’d only stopped to think about the irritation she could have learned an important lesson, but at age twenty-five, she preferred simply being irritated.

  “Let’s go.”

  Legacy didn’t move, “They’re coming to us.”

  Legacy and Wagner waited in very different ways, for the briefing to come to them. Wagner had her keys out, flipping them around her fingers like a circus performer keeping her hands occupied. Legacy sat very still, analyzing her preparations for the arrival of the FBI’s top brass. He smirked enjoying the passive pleasure of watching another neurotic person. Her eyes flicked up occasionally as if to say “go ahead, call me strange you statuesque whack job.” Legacy was only guessing, but something told him he was on the right track.

  “I really like to be stared at.” She broke the silence.

  He shifted his attention to the corner of his eye and left it there for quite a while. Legacy didn’t really think about her as they sat in the room. His goal was not to make an impression; it was to find the proper level of help that wouldn’t commit anything to anyone. He could tell from his interview with Wagner that the situation involved a criminal who lived in a world of thoughts, not actions. FBI is based around finding people who act without thinking. He’d said that once in a high level meeting. He didn’t get invited to many high level meetings after that. It was a win win situation. Now he’d have to be careful to step on just enough toes where they’d still listen, but they wouldn’t want him to be their dance partner. He planned his next move in silence.

  After about twenty minutes the world came back into focus CLANK. Wagner’s keys hit the ground and as she knelt Legacy actually noticed the face of the woman opposite him. He was moved to speak. “You should fix your make-up before they get here.”

  Wagner had smudged her lipstick. She took out her compact and after a swift succession of masterful brushstrokes, she puckered her lips, a wet, perfect, sarcastic kiss touched the air.

  Wagner wasn’t going to let him get the better of her.

  “You should fix your tie.” It was a perfect knot.

  “I’m into grunge.”

  CLANK. The doors opened.

  Uniforms walked in, straight, official, purposeful brisk steps. Following them was Director Wilkes who walked right up to Wagner, at the head of the table. He was about to ask for her to move when Legacy broke the silence.

  “I saved you a seat beside me, Larry.” The room watched as Wilkes bypassed Wagner and walked over to Legacy.

  “Martin, we need you.”

  “I don’t respond well to being needed.”

  “You respond to being challenged- “

  “That’s why you sent her.”

  A loud intake of breath signaled that Wagner very much wanted to say something at this point. She bit her lip as Legacy pointed a long finger in her direction.

  Legacy saw a light go on inside of Wagner as she made the realization that she was the lure. Not a lot of dignity in being used, especially for someone so concerned with her image. She had come into his office thinking that she was in the game when really it was all going on around her. She shot glances at the door, and Legacy knew that’s where she most wanted to be headed. They had many things in common.

  Wilkes launched into his briefing, and Legacy openly split his attention. He looked at Wagner as she shifted in her chair, miles away. He could tell that she hadn’t expected this, and beyond that she hadn’t known why she’d been sent until now. Her disappointment was transparent. The tension on her face was like the top layer of a perfectly still lake, symmetric and balanced but waiting only for the smallest impulse to plunge below.

  Now, Legacy wasn’t sure that Wagner’s face was pretty although he did notice the way men in her vicinity stole glances at her and one of the women from the CIA delegation did the same. Wagner didn’t look at any of them; the imbalance suggested some kind of charisma.

  He thought for a moment, letting Wilkes drone on in the background. He interrupted Wilkes.

  “Agent Wagner has already begun briefing me.” Legacy turned toward Wagner, which consequently put his back to the Deputy Director.

  Everyone around the table knew Wilkes. The air momentarily left the room. The agents stared at Wilkes, waiting. His composure was barely equal to the task, but he calmly replied, “She is not up to date on the recent developments-”

  “I don’t want to know recent developments,” He let his opening statement sink in.

  Legacy turned in an arc. He scanned the faces, seasoned agents all with specialties. Legacy went down the line and silently identified their role on the case, coroner, forensics, communications, three regional investigators, five national, CIA – it wasn’t a parlor trick, it was his specialty, instant asset evaluation. He paused for a moment confused. Why would all of these officers be in this briefing room? He had known that this was big, but the assembly of personnel told him that every resource was being tapped, and the stunning part was, that it was being brought directly to his door. This assembly had been pulled from the case to meet with him, Legacy had been expecting a mixture of specialists, and what he got was a room full of leaders, these weren’t people who were used to taking orders from anybody. The ripple that he’d started with his interruption went through each and every face at the table, and all of them had a reply. This was a team of the best the FBI had to offer, convened for the purpose of saving the Director’s daughter.

  It was an operation of the scale that comes around only a few times in a career, something with no estimable price tag. His gaze circled the room and landed on Wagner, she was the youngest by far. Legacy continued.

  “The perpetrator of this abduction pursues originality, recognition – the repetition indicates confidence, an agile operation no ransom.”

  A murmur went through the room. An older agent couldn’t contain himself and leapt into the conversation. “You’re saying you haven’t read the file?” Legacy nodded. “Why would he abduct and return without ransom?”

  Legacy scowled at the interruption of his thought process. He stopped. He didn’t even look at the agent, instead turned to Wilkes and bit off each word.

  “Keep your men silent.” It was a mode of Legacy’s behavior that hadn’t been seen for years. It was the side of him that kept him from being promoted and put him at the bottom of
the list for the yearly company picnic. People in the bureau often spoke of his temper and related behavior. It was mislabeled as anger, arrogance, or intolerance. The truth of the matter is that his behavior was a well-honed result of all-consuming concentration. He had been trained for a single purpose, and couldn’t even conceive of breaking the concentration he required to pursue that purpose; therefore, any outside comment was dismissed as noise. Legacy had never worked with partners - it was a well-known fact.

  Legacy in that moment returned to duty. His demeanor in years past was coming back to him as he strode about the room. Wilkes actually cracked a brief smile – he put out a hand to silence the offending and offended agent.

  It was Wagner’s voice that brought Legacy back to the table “There have been no ransom demands.”

  “Yet somebody must pay,” Legacy retreated into his thoughts, “something’s wrong with the timing, why is this case so desperate?” He decided to test a pressure point, he said, “the methods I use can take time –”

  “They can’t this time.” Wilkes replied, “We need to catch them now; we need you to have these bastards collared in a matter of days.”

  He nodded toward the senior agent. “I assume that a body has been found?”

  Wagner jumped in “They haven’t escalated-”

  Legacy turned to her. “They did, the day that you were sent seeking my involvement, they found a dead body. Isn’t that right, chief?”

  Wagner’s words were a fast rolling percussion “We have been looking for the girl that went off camera last week, but it’s still a search and rescue, we have no reason to believe that she’s dead –”

  “They found the body yesterday morning, agent.” Legacy said with stone cold certainty, he pointed to Wilkes.

  Wilkes gave a military dip of his chin, signifying yes in the most respectful way he could.

  The meeting ended after an hour, there were a series of expectations laid at Legacy’s door, none of which he fully committed to. He was “on board,” but as the members of the briefing left the table he knew that many would report private reservations to Wilkes about whether he was “fully on board.”

  That was their problem.

  It was five o’clock. He still had an hour before he needed to be home.

  *****

  Chess sat stretching with her legs inching toward the splits. She was developing her own intuition, which told her that this move would almost definitely hurt, YES! She was right. A wave of the strain crossed her face. She was going to be a cheerleader if it killed her. “Now, uh, was not the time to, uh think about pain.” She reminded herself. At a certain point in her inching downward, her weight suddenly became gravity’s subordinate and it carried her to the floor, legs perpendicular to torso. She practiced her father’s restraint for only a moment, and then tears welled up in her eyes. There was not an emotion for the kind, except perhaps the hatred of floor wax, and the rubbery tension that she was putting on her muscles inducing a time-tested response. She screamed.

  Legacy was nearing his apartment door when he heard Chess' scream. His keys were in his hand and with practiced precision locks opened, CLACK CLACK CLACK. He pushed the door and met resistance from the chain lock. A hard shoulder into the center of the door ripped the chain from the wall and sent it door flying open.

  Chapter 5 Shadow

  Chess rolled over on the carpet in the living room, she gave the standard “What kind of freak breaks into his own house?” look at her father, then seeing the desperation in his face, she changed her tone to teenage disinterest. “I was going to get the door you know – ah!” A sudden stab of pain rocked her backwards, eyes rolling down and away from her father.

  Legacy looked Chess over. She began rubbing her thighs like they were on fire.

  The clock struck six. Legacy looked at his watch, perplexed. He had been early.

  In a relationship where consistency had dominated the landscape, this certainly wasn’t the regular homecoming. Something had been bothering Legacy since he left the building.

  An hour later, there were take out Chinese cartons stacked in a small pyramid on the kitchen table. Legacy had started doing this kind of merry mealtime behavior early on after Chess' mother had died. It was all about the presentation of the food on the table – and very little about the food itself. Legacy wasn’t a cook. They hadn’t eaten a home cooked meal in years, with the exception of take out from “Home Cooked Caroline’s Bistro”. Legacy had no contact with his deceased wife’s family – he knew they existed, but even if they knew about him and Chess, they had never invited them to dinner.

  The pyramid was a childhood remnant that turned into a mealtime tradition. Chess couldn’t eat any of the bottom cartons, until they’d both finished the top one. The top one always seemed to contain a mixture of steamed vegetables even though Legacy claimed to stack the boxes randomly. Legacy knew that she had certainly figured out his game by the time she was ten.

  She walked into the kitchen, saw the food stacked on the table and announced, “Wow I’m shocked, steamed vegetables.” Her tone was drab and distant. “Let’s get this over with.”

  This time the top container was stuffed full of the greasiest, sweetest, fried-est offshoot of modern Chinese cuisine, orange chicken. It was her favorite. She looked at her father for a moment, as his hand reached for the top container and he spooned most of it on her plate. His hands were steady but something else connoted nerves. Chess served the rice.

  They ate in silence. Finally Chess turned to Legacy having speared a giant piece of chicken. She pointed the chopstick accusingly at her father and let a little teenage drama seep into the room. “Why the wood splintering entrance? All the freaky strangeness?”

  “What freaky strangeness?” Legacy swirled a glass of scotch and sniffed the air above it. “I am feeling over regular if anything tonight.”

  “You’re bothered. I know you want to know why the door was chained in the first place.” She reached over and drug her piece of sticky chicken through the rice on Legacy’s plate, leaving a slug-like sugary trail.

  “I don’t.” He lied. “Will you eat this please?”

  He pointed down on his plate. It was a well-known fact that Legacy liked almost nothing sweet.

  Chess spoke with her mouth full. She scooped the offending trail off of her father’s plate. “A couple of your friends from work came by to drop off some paperwork–” Legacy leaned forward, but Chess cut him off “I used the SDP. I chained the door.”

  It was the standard delivery protocol. It called upon Chess to get identification of any unexpected visitor, and then upon confirmation a delivery was acceptable, but only if the materials fit through the gap in the door created by the chain lock. Anything that was a shadow’s width wider than four inches had to be left outside or with the doorman.

  Chess resented any rule that prevented her from being able to open her mouth or her own front door. She called Legacy’s rules “the prison code.”

  Legacy sat leaning forward, but his head tilted and his eyebrows were arched. He should have known that they’d waste no time getting him all the documents for the case.

  Chess shot him a questioning look.

  The light in the room seemed to bend until it fell upon her face. She somehow soaked up the light in any room she entered even at fifteen when most kids duplicate every flaw they see in their parents then leave them in the dark. Her largest act of adult rebellion had occurred when she quit the debate team – to join the chess club. The most precious materials in the world existed somewhere in the interconnection of her heart and mind. Legacy felt her impatience build.

  “Everything is in your study.” She added, “I moved a desk lamp in there so that you’d have light.”

  Legacy paused as he pushed himself to his feet. “I worry about you.” He couldn’t look at her – he walked toward his study.

  “There’s one scrapbook that didn’t fit through the doorway. I couldn’t open the door, so it’s still in t
he hallway.”

  Legacy changed direction and walked toward the door.

  Legacy bent over the scrapbook in the hall. His shadow crossed the dim light and disrupted the glare off of the plastic coated front page. An oily smear near the corner caught his attention. It meant next to nothing on its own, but like so many things it is a reaction of improbabilities and happenstances that add mass and create their own gravity. Forces not dissimilar to those that had put Legacy on this case often cannot be broken down into obvious components. Many things happened and Legacy was back in the game. In this present, however, in this hallway, it was a simple equation of width and the way a shadow crossed the page that put into prominence a meaningless smudge. It was hardly worth a second thought, really.