by KJ Kalis
But where was she?
Charlie checked his watch, a gold one with a large face that had been given to him as part of an award he won a few years before. The back was engraved “Honor, Commitment, Courage.” It was four o’clock in Washington, which meant it was one o’clock, or just after, in Tucson.
Charlie tugged his pants up as he walked toward his desk, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He shook his head just a little. There wasn’t really anyone else in the office today given that it was a weekend. He saw two low-level analysts were at their desks when he wandered in two hours before, their heads hunched over their desks, their laptop screens glowing as they stared at the information in front of them. Charlie’s mind raced. Why do I let Jess continue to work in Tucson? It would be so much easier if she was here in this office with the rest of the team, Charlie thought.
As Charlie turned back toward the window, he saw a few cherry trees blooming in the distance. Spring came fast to Washington, and with it lots of tourists, people who wanted to walk the National Mall, visit the Smithsonian and go to the White House, if they could get an invitation into the building. The rest of them hung outside on the metal fence that at least gave them a glimpse of where the President lived and worked, but that was all. Charlie liked the constant hum of Washington, the politics, the intrigue and even the meetings. And there were lots of meetings.
A scowl on his face, Charlie turned back toward his desk, noticing his door was open. He usually kept it closed so that he could get some work done, but on a day like today with no one in the office it didn’t really matter. The only person he was concerned was working this weekend was Jess. He chewed the corner of his lip, leaning back on the windowsill. Something didn’t seem right this morning. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but his gut told him that there was something going on.
In all the years he’d known Jess, she wasn’t the type to blow off requests from him. He’d mentored her and they had built up a good working relationship. If anything, she would over explain what was going on, “Yes, I’m working on the presentation. I had to step out for a second to go to the grocery store, but I’ll be back at my desk in forty-five minutes.” That was the kind of communication he was used to from her. Why was she being squirrely? Charlie tried to shake off the thought. Maybe he was just reading into something that wasn’t there. Maybe he caught her at a bad time. It was possible, he tried to convince himself.
The presentation she was putting together for the Navy was complex, an analysis of ongoing border threats, both from the north and south and how US waterways and territorial waters were being used to allow sex traffickers, cartels, and most importantly, terrorists and espionage into the United States. When Jess and Charlie had talked about the presentation and him handing it over to her, he explained how many moving parts there were. They weren’t just talking about one section of one small border and how that impacted a state, they were talking about every inch of every mile of border and territorial waters that surround the continental United States, plus another analysis that covered US territories, Hawaii and Alaska. All of those required separate analyses. Jess had been working on the project for three months. Charlie had no idea how many thousands of hours she had into it, but her preliminary work had been good, very good. Now, if he could just get her over the finish line.
Charlie sat back down at his desk, waking up his computer, staring at the screen. No new emails from Jess, either. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
12
Jess turned in her seat, checking to make sure her backpack was in the backseat of Chase’s car. It was. At the last second, she decided to grab it. She’d stowed it, complete with her laptop and cables of different sizes and connection types in her car on the way out to pick up Abby that morning, just in case Abby asked her to spend the afternoon. Not that Jess wanted to work while she was trying to spend time with Abby, but there was that presentation she needed to finish.
The presentation.
It was nearly impossible for Jess to think about what was going on with her work at the moment. Finding Abby had eclipsed everything else in her life. “So, do you think you can fabricate something to give the kidnappers?”
“What time is it?” Chase said, not taking his eyes off the road.
“Almost two.”
“I have no idea. I’ll know more once we get back to the lab.”
Jess stared at the road again, wondering if they had any options. The bare-bones of a plan formed in her head — have Chase formulate some sort of fake ABG and then use that to get Abby back, but she wasn’t sure it would work. There was a lingering question of why the kidnappers were so convinced they needed ABG. It just didn’t make any sense to her.
“This ABG, Chase, you said it can be used in the field to stop arterial bleeds?”
“Yeah. That’s what it was designed to do. Kevlar will stop bullets when they hit center mass, but if somebody gets clipped in the neck and their carotid is exposed, we can lose them in about two minutes. ABG seals up the hole long enough for the blood flow to be restored to the brain and heart. It’s not a permanent solution, that’s for sure, but it’s enough to give the medics and the trauma surgeons a real chance at saving lives.” Chase glanced at her, “This is probably the most important work I’ve done in my entire career, Jess. It could help hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. And now these thugs, whoever they are, they want to take it away from me. I just don’t understand it!” Chase pounded his fist on the steering wheel.
Jess frowned. She almost asked him how it was possible he was more upset about his work than Abby, but she held back not wanted to upset him more. Jess knew Chase loved Abby. He just loved his work, too. “Okay, try to stay calm. If I’m going to help, I need more information. Here’s what I don’t understand, why would someone leverage Abby to get the formula and samples of ABG?” As soon as the word leverage came out of her mouth, Jess felt bad. It was a word she used in her work. It probably wasn’t the best choice when talking about her niece who’d been kidnapped.
Chase sighed, “I have no idea, honestly. The military’s been interested in this because of the application. It means fewer lives lost in the field. Even though we're not in an active war with any country, you know as well as I do there are operations running around the globe all the time. Our military and special operations units are always exposed, and the enemy is just getting more and more sophisticated. We have to keep up.”
Jess knew that probably better than Chase did, she realized. “Are there any other applications for the ABG? Anything you haven’t told me about? Any drawbacks to it? Any way it could be used offensively as opposed to just for medical use?”
Chase turned the car down the side street that took them into the industrial park where the lab building was. Jess had never made so many trips in and out of Chase’s lab in one day. She realized he probably hadn’t either. “I don’t know exactly how to answer your question. I mean, what ABG does is it quickly clots the cells in the area, creating a flexible shield. It’s almost like a silicone patch once it’s applied.”
Jess shifted in her seat, “So it creates superfast clotting? Like blood clots?”
“Well, I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I guess so. It just covers the area so that the blood can’t escape from the system. With those kinds of wounds, that’s how people die. It’s not the wound itself, it’s the loss of blood.”
“Is there any other way that it could be applied?”
“I don’t think so. Right now, it’s a liquid. We’ve talked about how to package it, and I’m thinking the best way is a small squeeze vial. The medic would simply pop off the lid and squirt the ABG on the injury. It would be like using superglue. Right now, it’s a liquid, but we can turn it into a gel, which might be easier to use. Anyway, once it’s on, within about ten seconds, the area would be sealed, the medics could stabilize the injured soldier, and then they could evacuate and get more help.” Chase pulled the car into a parking sp
ot, the same one they’d parked in earlier that day, and turned off the engine. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m not sure. Something isn’t right here. I need to do a little bit more research. It just doesn’t seem like ABG is something worth kidnapping someone over. I mean, it’s a lifesaving product, not something that I’m thinking could be used offensively. Or at least you haven’t said that’s the case.” Jess unclipped her seatbelt, “Can I take a look at some of your research papers while you’re in the lab?”
As Chase got out of the car, he called over his shoulder, “I guess. At this point the cat is out of the bag.”
Chase took off at a trot across the parking lot. Jess followed, slinging her backpack across her shoulders, trying to keep up with him. She caught the door as it started to close, Chase a couple steps in front of her. Chase broke down into a quick walk, waved at Sully, who was still perched behind the security console staring at his cell phone. Chase was already inside the elevator by the time Jess caught up to him. They rode in silence up to the second floor, the elevator beeping as the doors opened. Chase trotted off down the hallway, opening the lab door. He’d already flipped the lights on by the time Jess walked in. She stood for a second, staring. She needed a place to work. “If there a conference room or something on this floor?” With the amount of equipment in Chase’s lab, there wasn’t even an inch for her to put her laptop down.
“Yeah, across the hall. It should be open.”
Jess stepped back out into the bright hallway and saw the door that Chase was talking about. She opened it, flipping the lights on, the expanse of a long wooden table stretching out in front of her. Jess took a seat facing the door, just in case Chase or someone else walked in so she wouldn’t be startled by them coming up from behind her. She opened up her backpack, pulling out her laptop and a charging cable, quickly plugging it into the wall. If nothing else, at least Charlie could see she was online. That might buy her a little bit more time.
While her computer warmed up, Jess started to pace. Something about this entire day didn’t make sense, she realized. A lot of things, actually. She started to make a mental list. First, how did the kidnappers know that Chase was developing ABG? Second, who were they? Third, why did they want it and to what end? Jess realized she needed all that information in order to do any type of calculation on their odds of getting Abby back. As she thought about it, she realized it sounded so cold, so analytical. But that was her job, analysis. Pure and simple. She just hoped that the skills she developed in her career would be enough to help save Abby. There would be time to be emotional later, to hug and cry if they were able to get Abby back. That time wasn’t now.
As Jess sat down in front of her computer, she thought back to the pictures that the kidnappers had sent. The first one was just of Abby, clearly wherever they were holding her. The second one, though, was more interesting to Jess. The picture of Abby and Piper together implied there was ongoing surveillance. Whoever had taken Abby knew about the family and had taken their time gathering information about them. They were well planned and methodical. Disciplined and analytical. Jess stared off at the blank wall in the conference room. Maybe they were tracking the movements of Abby and Piper before the kidnapping? They had to be in order to get the picture of Abby and Piper they sent. They certainly had to be tracking Chase, too. Jess scowled. How was it possible that Piper and Chase had no idea someone was following them? Before the question could fully form in her mind, Jess already had the answer. Chase and Piper weren’t trained in counter surveillance. Very few people were. Jess herself wasn’t sure she could evade someone who really wanted to follow her. Clearly, she hadn’t, because they had found out where she did her banking and lured her there pretty easily. She chewed her lip. If only she’d noticed there was something fishy with the bank papers. If only...
But maybe that was the way to find the people who took Abby, Jess realized. Maybe she could counter their countersurveillance. Through her work, Jess had access to all sorts of surveillance databases and video feeds from around the world. It was one of the best ways to make connections between people and organizations. Could she use the same technique to help figure out who’d taken Abby? All of a sudden, it felt like Jess’s heart skipped a beat in her chest. If she could figure out who had Abby, they might have a real chance of getting her back.
Jess ran across the hall, shoving the door open and yelling for him, “Chase!”
He was hunched over his laptop, typing away, “What?”
“I need the license plate numbers from your car and Piper’s. You know them?”
Jess held her breath for a minute. Most people didn’t know their plate numbers, but it was the best way for Jess to track them. Chase stopped for a second, stared at her, and then scrawled something on a piece of paper. Jess heard the paper tear as he ripped it off the pad, “Here you go. Mine’s the one on top.”
Chase didn’t bother to ask why she needed them. Jess was grateful for that, not sure how her brother would feel about Jess peering into their personal life with a great amount of detail. Jess ran back to her computer and sat down in the chair, swiveling it back into place. She typed in Chase’s license plate number into a video surveillance program that NAII had access to. It was a pretty simple program actually. All it did was log a license plate when a car passed a reader. Most people didn’t realize it, but there were LPR’s, or license plate readers, placed strategically all around the country, with tighter clusters in each urban area. Federal law enforcement was using the technology the most effectively at the moment, but local law enforcement was starting to figure out how use the information to help solve local crimes.
A small round wheel appeared on Jess’s screen while the request processed. About ten seconds later, Jess had all the data on Chase’s car from the last two weeks. She went into the dashboard of the program and squinted, adjusting the time frame, extending it to a month. Jess guessed the surveillance had to be going on at least that long. These guys were too well-planned to have pulled this off in just a couple days.
The wheel spun on her computer again, and then pulled up a map covered in dots. They were all the places that Chase’s license plate had registered over the last thirty days. There were clusters in several spots — the LPR on Mesa Boulevard about a quarter mile from the lab, another cluster about five hundred feet from the entrance to his development and then another cluster near Abby’s school. Other than that, there were very few dots. Jess hovered her mouse over the map, looking at some of the outliers. While she couldn’t tell exactly where he’d gone, she could expand the map and then see what was nearby. She moved her cursor over one of the dots and expanded the selection. There were three hits in that area, with a drugstore nearby. It seemed reasonable that Chase would have visited the drugstore over the last month or so, probably picking up things for Piper or Abby on his way home from work. She hovered her cursor over another dot, a single one, and realized it was near a movie theater. For the next few minutes, Jess sat and checked all of the outliers over the last month. Every single one seemed plausible, a dot near a car dealership, another one near a school where Chase had told Jess Abby went for a soccer camp. There were a couple other dots near restaurants, but that was it. Jess knew she could pick up video of his car passing those areas, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She chewed her lip. Maybe checking the countersurveillance was a dead end? Her chest tightened.
Jess pressed her lips together for a moment. She had to stay focused. She had to treat what was going on in her brother’s family like it was any other analysis. That was the only way they had any chance at all to save Abby. Jess looked down at the conference room table where the scrap of paper Chase had given her was sitting. She keyed in Piper’s license plate number, adjusted the duration for the track to thirty days and waited. About a minute later, the results popped up. Jess squinted at the screen, trying to make sense of where Piper’s car had been over the last thirty days. As she enlarged the screen and checked the resul
ts of the LPR, she saw some of the same locations she saw in Chase’s results — dots around Abby’s school, the local grocery store, and hits on the license plate reader just outside of their development.
She stared at the screen for another second. Something caught her eye. There were quite a few dots on the edge of the screen, almost out of her view. Jess dragged the view down and noticed there were a series of registrations north of Tucson at the Tombstone Road access off of the freeway. Jess furrowed her eyebrows. That didn’t make any sense. She used the map feature to determine what was in that area. Nothing. There was a tiny town about five miles from where the reader had caught Jess’s car, but her car hadn’t registered in that area. Not that it was impossible that’s what her destination was, but why so many dots in that area? What was out in the desert for Piper to visit? The only thing that direction were the mountains. Jess pulled a pen out of her backpack and made a note on the piece of paper with the location. It was something to ask Chase about. Then she caught sight of another set of dots, more than ten of them, once again north of the city, but this time northwest. A lump formed in her throat. From the looks of it, wherever Piper had gone was at least a forty-five-minute drive from their house. That wasn’t an insignificant drive. Jess enlarged the area and saw that the LPR’’s had pinged Piper’s car in Desert Springs, a suburb north-northwest of where they were now. Jess chewed her lip. That was strange. Why was Piper so far from home so many times over the last month?
