He placed the tip of the scalpel against the girl’s chest right between her nonexistent breasts and pressed the sharp tip a fraction of a millimeter into her skin. With duct tape across her mouth the girl whimpered through her nose, and her slender body trembled. Cummings cried out in anguish and begged and pleaded, so Johnson stopped. The woman cried and sobbed, helpless to protect her child. She agreed to tell him whatever he wanted to know.
He looked over at the FBI agent. “Where can I find this mu’fucker named Alfonso Reyes? What’s his address so I can go saw his fucking head off?”
“We don’t know where he lives. He moves around Mexico and South America a lot. He has several estates, so we never know for sure where he is.”
“Yeah, I suppose that figures. If you knew where he was, you wouldn’t have grabbed me. So who is this missing girl they kept asking me about?”
“I don’t know anything about the girl. They didn’t tell me who she is.”
“Reyes kidnapped some billionaire’s daughter. Agent Klipser kept asking me about her.”
“I swear I don’t know,” Cummings cried. “They never briefed me about who she is.”
“Come on, Lenore. Some little rich bitch gets taken, and you’re telling me the FBI doesn’t know about it?”
McGrath watched as Johnson kept asking questions. Cummings cooperated. She had no choice. She clearly believed, as did McGrath, that Johnson was angry enough to torture her child to get what he wanted.
To Palmer, he whispered, “I had Agent Cummings over to the house when she interviewed with us earlier this year. She knows where I live.”
“I’ll get more security over there. Johnson is an amateur, but he’s resourceful. If it’s humanly possible, he’ll find a way to get there.”
Suddenly, McGrath gasped and grabbed her arm. “Christ!”
“What is it?”
“She met my daughter when she was here.”
Palmer turned to Joey. “Get a protection detail over to Anita’s house in Santa Fe. FBI, local off-duty cops, private security firm, whoever you can get. Pay any fee necessary.” Palmer turned back to McGrath. “He captured Pete and Lenore at dusk yesterday, and it’s almost noon out there now, so he’s got at least a nineteen hour head start on us.”
McGrath studied the ugly visage of the man on the video. Johnson’s eyes were dark and angry. His mouth held a tight-lipped frown, as if the man was struggling every second with his anger, and he had dark bags of fatigue under his eyes.
Carl Johnson was extremely dangerous, but it wasn’t because he was a trained killer. The man wanted justice for his son’s death, and he was absolutely convinced his vendetta was morally justified. He was committed and was now a threat to McGrath’s entire family and staff. He was the worst kind of enemy because he didn’t care what happened to himself, and he didn’t care who he hurt or killed on his quest for vengeance.
The worst part for McGrath was the realization he had forged Johnson into the raging vigilante that he was. In a very real sense, what had happened to him and what he had become was McGrath’s fault.
To Palmer, McGrath whispered. “If he discovers my relationship to Melissa, and if he somehow finds her before we do...” He left the remainder of his thought unspoken.
McGrath watched the monitor and listened as Cummings told Johnson the FBI had been ordered to classify him as a Tier One terrorist earlier that morning. Then she explained what that meant. His photo and his crimes had been aired on every network across the country, and he was being called the “American Terrorist.”
Then she told him everything she knew about McGrath and his Terror Event Response agency.
“One last question,” Johnson said.
He removed his face mask and leaned on Cummings’ gurney, his face near hers in an almost sensually intimate posture. He seemed to study her, as if weighing his next actions. He glanced over at the woman’s daughter, then looked back at the FBI agent. She seemed to understand what he was thinking. She shook her head slightly, and her eyes watered again. Her lips trembled.
“Please don’t.”
“How does it feel?” he said.
“Please.” She shook her head. “Please don’t hurt my baby,” she sobbed. “Kill me. I’m responsible.”
Johnson looked over at the girl. “I wish I could have traded my life for my son’s. I wished I could have taken those bullets for him, but your boss, McGrath, didn’t give me that opportunity.” He shook his head and looked at Cummings again. “And you don’t get that opportunity, either. I want you to wake up every morning and feel what I feel for the rest of your miserable fucking life.”
“Please,” Cummings cried. Tears streamed from her eyes. “She’s innocent.”
“Yes, she is.” Johnson nodded. “As was my son.”
He stepped over to the girl’s gurney and flipped the scalpel in his grip until he held it like a stake in his fist. His hand was poised a foot over the girl’s chest and he gazed down into the girl’s frightened brown eyes. Then he plunged the blade downward.
Chapter 42
1329 EST Tuesday
Arlington Heights, VA
McGrath, Palmer, Jimmy, and Joey collectively gasped at the scene on the TV monitor as Johnson plunged the scalpel blade toward Lisette’s bare chest. The girl gave a muffled scream, and her mother let out a long mournful wail. She begged for mercy with renewed fervor when the tip of the blade suddenly stopped a fraction of an inch from the girl’s chest.
Johnson looked down at Lisette Cummings in silence for half a minute, the tip of the scalpel a tiny distance from piercing the girl’s chest. Lisette Cummings trembled, sobbed, and looked at Johnson, then she turned her head and tried to communicate with her mother. Lenore Cummings, also sobbing, muttered words of comfort to her daughter. She told Johnson she’d do anything he wanted if he spared her daughter’s life.
McGrath could see Johnson’s fist that was wrapped around the scalpel was trembling. He could tell the man really wanted to kill the girl to punish Cummings. Johnson seemed to be fighting a battle—maybe conscience versus consequence—in his mind. Finally, he pulled the blade away from the girl.
Johnson stepped back over to Cummings’s gurney and leaned down, resting his elbows on the mattress.
“Anything?” he said. She nodded. “Well, then tell me, Lenore,” he cooed at her. His lips were almost touching hers. “Do you know where Aaron McGrath lives or where he works? Do you know his address?”
She told him.
“Mmm-hmmm. Does he have any children?”
The woman whispered, “Don’t do this.”
Johnson whispered back at her. “I’ll trade your daughter’s life for the life of just one of his kids. Maybe he’s got a bunch, and he can afford to give up one. Maybe I’ll let him choose which child dies. Or maybe he’s like me and only has one child.” Johnson paused and said, “Had. One. Child. Answer my question, and I’ll leave you and your daughter here. Alive. Lie to me, and I’ll just come back, and we’ll have this conversation again, except, you know, without the conversation.”
Cummings closed her eyes and whispered. “Anita Chapman.”
“The kick-ass news reporter?”
“Her maiden name is Anita McGrath.”
“Well, maybe she’ll consent to an interview before I kill her on national TV.”
Johnson injected Cummings and her daughter with a clear liquid that he said was a sedative, then stood and stripped out of his bloody bunny suit. He looked at the video camera for a few seconds, and McGrath could feel the man’s hatred emanating from the monitor. The man’s jaw muscles worked like he wanted to say something, or like he was trying hard not to say something.
Johnson’s head was lowered a bit so that it seemed he was glaring at the camera from under heavy brows. The man looked both evil and insane. He spoke to the camera, his voice almost an inhuman growl. In fact, the man’s voice reminded McGrath of Pete Klipser’s voice with that intense gravelly sound no enemy wanted to hear whispered in his
ear. He felt a chill of fear worm its way up his spine, and he shivered involuntarily.
“Aaron McGrath, I’m coming for you.”
McGrath grunted at the monitor. “Not if I find you first, you bastard.”
Joey’s computer beeped again, alerting him to a keyword on one of a myriad data sources.
“Um, Boss, I found Carl Johnson.”
McGrath and Palmer turned to face him. “He’s on network TV.” The young man paused. “He’s with your daughter.”
Chapter 43
1206 MST Tuesday
Albuquerque, NM
Carl faced Anita McGrath Chapman from his seat ten feet away. The canvas material of her director’s chair squeaked as it rubbed against the wood under her constant nervous motion. The three camera lights captured all the fear and terror on Anita’s face as she stared at Carl Johnson. Enjoying her discomfort, Carl continued to tell her and the American people about his capture and torture, and of the events of the last thirty days.
“So I welcome you to downtown Albuquerque, Ms. Chapman,” Carl said. “I know this isn’t quite what you expected when you agreed to do this interview, to actually become part of the drama.” Carl nodded. “And I know that some of the media—maybe even you—have tried to sensationalize this whole terror thing. Maybe you saw an opportunity to try and uncover a new angle here, maybe let me have a chance to proclaim my innocence, or explain the unfortunate misunderstanding that got me into this mess.
“But let me assure you and your audience, I haven’t been framed or unjustly accused. I am exactly who they say I am. I’ve done exactly what they say I’ve done, and I will not hesitate to kill again to get what I want. Understood?”
Carl looked at the two cameramen. “You two, get the hell out of here.” The men exchanged glances, but neither moved so Carl reached inside his windbreaker and pulled a gun from his shoulder holster. With a two-inch tubular suppressor attached, the black handgun looked very sinister.
“Go now before I change my mind.”
As the two men hurried toward the door, Anita Chapman sat clenching the arms of her chair with a white-knuckled grip. As Carl followed the men, he reached up and pulled down the backdrop curtain. He didn’t want to leave any visual barrier for the men to hide behind momentarily. He didn’t want either of them to try to be a hero.
Chapman had arrived dressed in her typical professional manner. She wore an expensive, two-piece, dark gray skirt suit. The blazer was a well-tailored, one-button piece over a muted maroon blouse. Only the first button of her blouse was undone. There was no cleavage showing. Carl knew from seeing her television interviews that kind of thing was not her image.
She was an ample woman, he thought, but she didn’t seem overweight. Her expensive clothes were tailored to conceal what needed to be concealed and to accentuate what she wanted noticed. She appeared forty or so, and though she didn’t possess the physique of his idea of the typical anchor newswoman—slender, beautifully styled hair, lots of makeup, and pretty eyes—Carl got the impression Anita Chapman was the kind of woman who succeeded on skill and accomplishment rather than on opportunism. Still, she was not unattractive, either.
Chapman had a round face that was probably oval fifteen years and four kids ago. She had intense green eyes, high cheek bones, narrow nose, thin lips, and a prominent chin. She wore minimal makeup and no earrings. Her hair sat in a style he had never seen on any other woman in her line of work. It was short, almost mannish, and was either dark brown with blonde streaks feathered in, or blonde with dark brown streaks, depending on one’s perspective. It was a style that only a well-established professional woman could get away with in an industry where striking good looks and bold style—for women and men—contributed as much to success as skill.
“Now, Ms. Chapman, let’s continue with the interview. What the world wants to know is how this story will get tidied up into a conclusion they can wrap their brains around. They want the underdog—me—to somehow become the good guy. They want me to become the champion for all the folks out there trying to fight back against the man.
“They want to know how I’m going to rise above the hatred and the killing, and become a hero of the people. They want me to have my say in front of the national court of public opinion—the media—and then release my hostages, walk out of here, and surrender like in the movies.
“But that’s not this story. This is personal between me and your father. You see, your father is by definition the good guy in this war because he works for the US government. I understand that. He says I’m a terrorist and so everyone believes it. I understand that, too.” Carl shrugged.
“But I didn’t ask for this. Your father sent assassins armed with grenades, sniper rifles, machine guns, and knives to kill me, so my bodyguards killed them instead. His people tortured me, so I tortured his people. He killed my son, and for that he’s a goddamn loyal soldier in the war on terror, and I am a Tier-One terrorist. But you know what?”
Carl Johnson paused for a few moments so Anita Chapman and the rest of her audience could digest what he had told them. Chapman’s face was composed, as if she was finally coming to grips with being a hostage.
“They can’t threaten me or hurt me anymore. I’ve got nothing left to lose, and I don’t care if they burst in here and kill me. But I will take you with me, and they know it.
“All this was because the government thought I was someone I wasn’t. It was a case of mistaken identity, and they simply covered it up because they have the power to make it all disappear. Because they don’t have to own up to their mistakes. Instead of doing the right thing, they did the easy thing and put out a legal assassination order on me. And the world believes it simply because your father says it is so.
“So your audience wants to know why I’m a terrorist? It’s because I killed the men your father sent to kill me. It’s because I sawed off the head of the man who tortured me.”
Carl stood and walked over to the window facing Gold Avenue. Mr. Garcia’s men had hung dark thermal blankets over the windows and the walls so that when the hostage rescue teams mobilized, they would be blind about what was going on inside. Carl carefully parted a seam in the thermal blanket with the fingers of his left hand and peeked through the tiny gap. Gold Avenue was deserted, though it was the middle of the work day.
He looked east and west, but he could see no movement on a street normally bustling with noon pedestrian traffic from all the downtown offices. The HRT—Hostage Rescue Team—would likely be staging on the next street south, probably just behind the big bank building. Maybe they’d prep for their raid on Third Street, just east of the jewelry store, or maybe in the alley behind the store. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there.
Yes, they’re just about ready to raid the place.
He picked up a large ax leaning in the corner by the door. Then he turned and walked back into view of the camera placed behind Anita’s shoulder. He faced the reporter.
“I know I don’t have the means to get close to a man like Aaron McGrath. He’s too well protected.” He stepped over behind his chair and hefted the ax to his shoulder. “But you can only truly understand someone’s pain of losing a child when you’ve watched your own child die.”
He looked as menacingly as he could at the camera.
“Of course, I’m not a total savage. I won’t make the world watch while I carve you into pieces.”
He heaved the ax high over his head and swung the blade down to the floor and severed the cables sending the camera feed to the transmitter truck outside.
Chapter 44
1418 EST Tuesday
Arlington Heights, VA
McGrath watched as the interview feed went black. His gut twisted in a knot.
Christ, he’s going to do it! He’s going to kill my baby-girl!
The monitor on the left showed the front view of the abandoned jewelry store from a SWAT camera mounted on the third level of the parking structure south of Gold Avenue.
The monitor on the right showed a view of the alley behind the store from another SWAT camera.
Dread settled in the pit of McGrath’s belly, and he let the chatter of the rescue team’s comm channel force its way through the palpable fear gripping him. He heard the on-scene commander give the order to breach.
Good. Get the hell in there and kill that insane bastard.
In a moment of painful acceptance, a gruesome potential image settled in his mind of Johnson hacking his daughter to pieces. He imagined that when he finally read the autopsy he’d discover his daughter lived through the terror until Johnson finally decided to put her out of her misery.
He heard Palmer’s voice next to him, whispering, and he realized he’d closed his eyes. He refocused on the wall-mounted TV monitors.
“It has only been a few seconds,” Palmer said. “They can still save her. They’re going in now.”
The business just west of the jewelry store was a two-story office building that had been evacuated. Sharing the right wall was the old bank building on the corner of Gold Avenue and Third Street. McGrath recognized the structure from a distant memory of time spent in Italy.
The Occidental Life Building was an historic building, he’d read, a unique example of US Venetian Gothic Revival architecture. Modeled after Doge’s Palace in Venice, the building had street façades on the south and east sides, each faced with white terracotta tile and decorated with elaborate floral patterns. A row of pointed arches ran along each façade below a row of quatrefoil windows that somewhat resembled four-leaf clovers. The old bank dated back to the 1920s, maybe earlier.
The TV van sat parked directly in front of the vacant jewelry store where Johnson held Anita Chapman and her family. A spiral antenna mounted to a vertical pole extended from the top of the van to transmit television signals back to the main studio. Thick cables led from the back of the van through the bent lower corner of the metal frame of the store’s glass front door.
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