“We’re going to give you water. Move than you will ever believe.”
“Can you show me Sarai? I need to know she is safe.”
The voice laughed. “Sarai. There is no Sarai here.”
“So it was a lie?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve been away.”
“How long?”
“One day. They’re looking for you by now.”
“What is going to happen to me?”
“What do you know about us? Let’s start with what you know.”
“Nothing. I know nothing about you.”
Wordlessly he felt sharp jabs of pain on the bottoms of his feet, excruciating, piercing pain on his genitals, biting pain on his nipples, stabbing pain on his ears as they fastened alligator clips. They left him like that for a long period of time, several hours, he guessed. While it was quiet and still around him, the pain receded and soon he was numb where he had been wired up. The sound of the crying baby brought him back around. The child was in obvious distress and it sounded as if it had been abandoned and was hungry, hurting, or both. His pain had receded but part of his consciousness had fled along with it. He vaguely knew where he was and then he drifted away.
The potentiometer was switched from OFF to ON. And then quickly switched OFF again.
He literally arched up from the spinal board as the electric current shot through the contact points and screamed along the length of his body. A long agonizing scream issued from his chest and throat, entering his mouth and blasting at the ceiling. He urinated on himself and muttered helplessly, ashamed and shredded and totally terrified of the current returning.
“My, aren’t we the touchy one,” said the voice at his head. “You are capable of sound other than your lies.”
“What—what do you want?”
“The truth. Let’s start with that.”
“I swear I’ll give the truth. What?”
“How did you find out about us?”
He turned it over in his mind. The “us” the voice was referring to could only be the cell. Ragman and his group. He would answer as if.
“I obtained a file. From the FBI.”
“Where is this file now?”
“At my office. On my computer.”
“What does it say about us?”
“I—I don’t know what you mean.”
OFF-ON-OFF. The charge shot through him and this time his scream was silent and long. Then he passed out. How long he was out he had no idea, as the light above his head slowly refocused. It could have been minutes, it could have been days. He had no idea.
“You were away,” said the voice. “Welcome back.”
“Please. I’ll tell you everything.”
“Let’s take up where we left off. What did the file say about us?”
“The FBI is watching you. They have agents in your mosques.”
“Agents?”
“FBI agents. They are very close to you.”
“Do they know specifically about our task?”
“Don’t shock me again! But I don’t know, honest to God! The file doesn’t say anything specific about your task.”
“Well—that’s good news for you.”
“Thank you.”
“Do they have our names?”
“Yes.”
“And they are following us, of course?”
“Yes. Everywhere you go.”
“And you have been following us too.”
“Yes. Sometimes.”
“And you have murdered three of my brothers.”
“You took my daughter. I couldn’t let that happen again.”
He clenched his teeth and squinted, expecting a freight train of electricity at any second.
Which didn’t come.
“But you got your daughter back.”
“She won’t talk.”
“That is unfortunate. We meant her no harm. It was only about the money you took from Mr. Mascari.”
“Is that her crying upstairs?”
“There is no one crying upstairs.”
“But I heard crying! A baby—Sarai?”
“You need to forget about Sarai. This is about you now. Only you. Are we clear on that?”
He tried to nod his understanding. But his head wouldn’t move. His hands and arms were asleep and sharp needles were creeping up along as his arms as the blood flow remained impeded. Then the shaking set in. He began involuntarily to shudder from head to toe. His teeth chattered and his eyes burned. “Water, please,” he muttered.
“There is no water here. There is only electricity. As you know beyond all doubt.”
“Water.”
“Tell me this. How many agents are working against us? Which of us are they following? Do they know about our location in the Sears Tower? What else is there?”
“I don’t know about the Sears Tower—it didn’t—”
OFF-ON-OFF.
Again the fiery comets of electricity shocking him up from the table, stretching every muscle along his body, shuddering his eyes in their sockets as he fought to make it stop. He heard the howling of an animal and abruptly realized the wrenching sound was his own. Then his brain swam to the other shore and he was gone again.
A different voice spoke. “He has told us everything.”
“Agree.”
“Get rid of him.”
“Agree. What should I do.”
“Burn this place to the ground.”
“And the child?”
“Mother saw your face. Leave them too.”
A look passed between them. Jihad was happening and lives were easily expendable, infidel and believer alike.
“We will catch up to you.”
“Excellent.”
60
When he didn’t come home from work and the sun had set, Katy called paralegal Christine Susmann. Did he say anything about stopping off anyplace after court? No, Christine said, and she immediately went on alert. She knew it wasn’t like Thaddeus to just disappear and not tell anyone. The way it had been since Sarai’s kidnapping was a matter of constant communication so Christine, Katy, and Thaddeus knew each other’s whereabouts night and day. Their lives ran on calendars and expectations of comings and goings that were preplanned and communicated three ways. Always three ways. For him to just disappear after work could only mean one thing. They had him.
She couldn’t tell Katy about her fear. She would push it back an hour while she made inquiries on her own. Then they would talk. She communicated this to Katy, who reluctantly agreed to wait to hear from Christine.
Paralegal Christine Susmann had received her professional training in the U.S. Army. Following basic training, she had begun her career working as an M.P. and had served two years at a Black Ops detention center in Baghdad. She was under lifetime orders to never discuss what she had seen or done on that post, which was fine; she never wanted to discuss it anyway. Following two successful years working hand-in-glove with CIA field officers, she had her choice of army schools and selected paralegal school. She had seen all she ever wanted to see of detention centers, prisons, jails, or any other institution where people were held against their will. Paralegal training had dragged on for almost a year, but when she finished, she was assigned to a JAG unit of busy lawyers in Germany.
Christine was five five and average weight, but that’s where “average” ended for her. For one thing, she was beautiful and had won Miss Hickam County in the summer of her senior year, right before enlisting. For another thing she was built like an NFL safety: broad, heavily muscled shoulders and upper arms; muscular thighs and calves; and she could still press 275 while weighing only 135. She worked out religiously at the Central Chicago Athletic Club with her boss, Thaddeus, on lunch hours where he wasn’t already spoken for.
Christine returned to the office after the frantic call from Katy. She had locked up two hours earlier at five o’clock. She had assumed—wrongly, she now knew—that he had gone from court stra
ight home. That had been the plan. She kicked herself for not checking to make sure he had arrived. She always checked to make sure where everyone was. But tonight she had expected his bodyguards to drive him safely home. What she didn’t know was that the guards had been lax. Amos Stamplett, who had accompanied Thaddeus to court, had walked to the end of the hallway outside the courtroom to take a call on his cell. He had moved beside the nearest window, hoping to improve the microwave signal. When he had reentered the courtroom, he had found it empty. His package had disappeared. Why hadn’t he immediately called Christine? BAG headquarters had tried, but she hadn’t answered. She had taken the EL train home and amid the clatter and clack of the train and its noisy occupants she had missed the call. It was coming together as she called around and pieced it together.
One thing was certain. He was missing.
The hair along the back of her neck prickled. She was certain they had him.
There was only one place she knew to go and that was the white duplex on Milwaukee Avenue where Ragman lived. She would begin there.
She headed downstairs, pressing 6 on her cell phone as she went.
Bat answered. “Hello, Christine? What can I do you for now?”
“We’ve got trouble. The package is missing.”
“What!”
Bat—Billy A. Tattinger—was the firm’s head investigator. He had relocated from Las Vegas to Chicago when Thaddeus returned to Murfee and Hightower Law Firm, Chicago. Bat had been rescued off the streets by Thaddeus, trained by Thaddeus, and schooled at Thaddeus’ expense. Bat loved the man, figured he owed him everything, including his licensed investigator status with the state, his return to the human race from the sidewalks and alleyways of Las Vegas, and even his own wife and son, newly acquired since Thaddeus had worked his magic of rehabilitation on Bat.
“Come by for me,” said Bat. “I’ll be waiting out front.”
“Bring a gun.”
“Christine.”
“Okay.”
“You come packing, too.”
“Always,” she said, and punched off. She was ready to roll.
She picked Bat up in front of his house in Glen Ellyn. The man was earning in excess of $150,000 per year, plus his wife’s salary as a radiographer, so in theory they could have lived in any suburb of Chicago they chose. They chose Glen Ellyn for its easy proximity to Chicago by train. Bat kept a car for investigators in the underground parking at work, so his comings and goings couldn’t be monitored by watching his parking spot. He was funny that way; another skill he had picked up on the streets.
“Milwaukee Avenue?” he asked after climbing in beside her.
“Uh-huh.”
“How long has it been?”
“He left court around three, according to the order signed by the judge.”
“And it’s what, seven now?”
“Just about.”
“Which means he could be anyplace.”
She swerved around a fast-lane sightseer, pulling across the double line momentarily.
“Shit!” he cried.
“It’s me, remember?”
He put a hand on the dashboard. “I do remember. You still drive like a bat out of hell.”
“We’re talking Thaddeus here.”
“I’ll shut up. So what do we do when we get to Mr. Towel-Head’s house?”
“Here’s what I’m thinking. Tell me what you think.”
She explained it all to him, how she saw them moving along in their investigation. He nodded several times and agreed with how she wanted it to go down. “You’re on,” he said at last. “I like your thinking, girl.”
“That’s woman, to you, pal.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later they drove slowly past the duplex. The garage door was shut.
All lights appeared to be off. But Christine knew these guys. Lights meant nothing. Everything was a cue and nothing was a cue. Misdirection was their roadmap to anyone who happened to be watching them, every moment carefully choreographed and calculated to mislead and cloud what was really going on with them.
She pulled into the Mobil lot, zipped around the dozen pumps to the far side of the station, and shut it off. They climbed out and headed west, parallel to the duplex’s property line, but a full lot north.
Special Agent Stanley Ciuffa clicked on the comm. “They’re headed west. Evidently coming around behind.” He was parked across from the Mobil in a windowless yellow van. What he was able to see was made possible by three TV lenses mounted along the van’s roofline, a new feature that used the same nighttime visual capabilities as found on the Apache helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, Ciuffa had served in both theaters and had been wounded, but not disabled, and had thereafter joined the Fibbies. He was second in command to Pauline Pepper and worked terrorist organizations while she had come up through gangs. That night, she was down at the other end of the block and around the corner, riding a Harley panhead and accompanied by two other agents on street Harley Soft tails. It was a new look for the FBI, the bikes, being tried on for size in Oakland, Chicago, and Miami. Places where biker gangs were notoriously active and violent. The riders wore leathers and were heavily armed with semiautomatic firearms and small shotguns. To say they were itching for a fight with the occupants of the duplex would have been an understatement that rankled all of them.
Pauline Pepper spoke into the comm fastened to her jacket. “Let them go. I want Christine first in on this guy. If I know my girl, she’ll get Thaddeus’ location before we ever could.”
“Roger that,” said Ciuffa, as he watched the infrared couple round the corner and head back south, out of sight.
“Rolling,” said Agent Pepper, and she kicked it into first and edged ahead to the intersection with Milwaukee Avenue. She inched around the corner, lights off. Running without lights on the new Harleys was of course impossible, but Mechanical and Armaments had intervened and the normal lights-on wiring had been interrupted with a switch on all bikes. She left the motor running and was quiet enough with the heavily baffled pipes that all agents swore by. If there was any giveaway in all this, it was the fact the bikes avoided straight pipes in favor of silent running. No Harley rider in his right mind would have settled for quiet. But this was a very different ilk of rider than the norm.
Christine and Bat crossed the imaginary property line separating the first house from the duplex on the west side. They would have to enter the adjoining house’s backyard, pray there were no watchdogs, and then go up the outside fire stairs to the upper entrance. Her gut instinct told her Ragman was inside. She would have bet the farm on it; in fact, she was making that bet. If she lost the wager and the guy wasn’t actually there, then she would have zero idea where to begin looking for her boss. She said a silent prayer and lifted the gate latch to the abutting backyard and stepped inside. Bat followed, his hand against her back so he didn’t overstep on her. Silently they crept across the backyard and came to the fence that set off the rear lot line. It was a standard six-foot fence, wood, and she felt along its surface. She could see well enough by now to make out the absence of a gate. So now what?
“You step on my hands,” Bat whispered. “Then go on over.”
“What about you?” she whispered back.
“Hey, for an old street guy a six-foot fence is nothing. Now let’s worry about you.”
He joined his two hands together, interlocking fingers, and Christine stepped onboard and he lifted. Her free leg swung up and over and in one easy move she was on the other side, waiting for Bat. He easily pulled himself atop the fence and jumped down the other side.
“Ready?” she whispered.
He nodded.
They set out across the backyard.
Then they were at the stairs. She went first. Bat followed close behind.
She stepped on the outer edges of the stairs as she went up, in order to avoid squeaks from boards that would otherwise give underfoot. Bat followed her lead and climbed likewise
.
They made the first landing. She pulled her .4o caliber Glock from its shoulder holster and waited while he extracted his nine-millimeter as well. Then they proceeded up the second flight. They quickly made the upper landing and waited, breathing as shallow as possible as they listened. Both were crouching and Christine’s ear was pressed against the wood door. She heard nothing.
She turned and pressed her non-shooting ear to the door. She had better hearing in the ear that was furthest from weapons as she fired them. It was true of all who had fired thousands of rounds through military-issue guns. However, even through the better ear she still could make out no sounds.
She reached above her head and touched the doorknob. She tentatively twisted it counterclockwise. It gave in a full 180-degree turn. She nodded at Bat, indicating it was unlocked. This was a trick she had taught Thaddeus several years ago. Let them come inside without a sound, she had taught him. Then you can easily track them across the room and let them come to you before their eyes fully adjust to the blackness inside.
The door opened and she stuck her head inside. She could make out a washer and dryer piggyback. Her eyes quickly adjusted and she looked through the next doorway into what appeared to be the kitchen. There was no one there, so she moved from a crouch to a half-stance and moved inside. Bat followed close behind. They had previously agreed that when they went into the living room she would own the right half and he would own the left. An old Special Ops trick that was going to perhaps come in very handy tonight.
Without a sound she crossed the kitchen floor and stopped. The living room was next and she didn’t want to reveal herself. So she didn’t peer within.
Incredibly, she hadn’t long to wait.
Ragman himself came marching into the kitchen like he owned the place. Which he did. But what he didn’t own was the space and its occupants. They had made it inside without a sound and he didn’t have a clue. He snapped on the kitchen light and found himself staring at point blank range straight into the very nasty-looking muzzle of a very large caliber handgun. Holding the handgun was a woman he’d never seen before, but his instincts told him to freeze at the just the same moment she said the same word.
Chase, the Bad Baby: A Legal and Medical Thriller (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 4) Page 21
