by Cat Connor
Lee grinned and quietly replied, “We’re going after a terrorist?”
“Did we get confirmation that this dick was a terrorist? The information I have says he conspired to have a Federal Agent murdered while on duty within the Commonwealth of Virginia.” I’d practiced saying that for months. Staring at myself in the mirror, daring a reaction as the words jumped out of my mouth, because one day I knew I would say them aloud to my team. A ‘Federal Agent’ sounded so much less personal than saying ‘my husband.’ “He is also suspected of being responsible for at least four murders of women within Virginia.”
“Misha indicated he was a terrorist. The woman he used to take the kids and possibly killed, was a terrorist according to the Russians,” Lee said. His tone suggested I had overlooked some important facts.
We believed two people had committed the murders and at least another two people had been involved in the disappearances of the kids during the Butterfly Murders case, over and above the corpsman and the doctor from Fort Belvoir, who were serving time for their crimes. One of the killers was a Russian female, identified as a terrorist. A dead Russian terrorist now. The other, Hawk … maybe.
I pulled out my best Mae West voice and said, “I’m seeing a big old blurry line here, boys.”
“I’m thinking that if we call this guy a terrorist then we will have less chance of the plug being pulled on the operation,” Sam offered.
I reminded them of something. “If we say ‘terrorist’, we run the risk of this becoming a joint/international task force situation. It’ll take much longer, we’ll have to bring extras up to speed, maybe even hand the case over to another agency.”
The men agreed, grim-faced.
“The other thing you need to know is this is a need-to-know operation. Misha and we three are the only ones who actually have any real information on what we’re doing. Of course Caine and O’Hare know we are going to Russia.”
No one could know about this operation. It would melt like a spun sugar house in the rain if anyone found out what we were doing.
“What about Chrissy?” Sam asked running his hand over his bald head.
“As far as the rest of the FBI – and that includes Chrissy – are concerned, we’re following a lead on a series of murders. No one needs to know which case.”
“Where does she think we are going?”
I smiled and replied, “New Zealand.”
Both men shook their heads in wonder.
“Why?” Sam asked. “I mean why New Zealand?”
I stuck a pin in a map?
“It’s summer there and it sounded nice.”
But really, I stuck a pin in a map.
“How much information have we got on the European situation?” Sam asked.
I watched Lee thumb through the original case files. I could tell by the expression on his face that he was looking at the photos of the murdered women. I didn’t relish the prospect of walking any more crimes scenes like those.
“Re-capping what we know,” I said, knowing damn well it was more what we surmised than anything actually known. “We think this guy is Russian or at least Eastern European. It was considered originally that he’d gone home to regroup or continue hunting.” Neither of them interrupted as I paused briefly. “He disappeared from our radar here soon after killing his partner. At the time, we rescued six children before he could remove them from the country. If he had a quota to fill, then it would make sense for him to carry on somewhere safer. Home maybe. But that’s supposition on our part at the moment.”
“Seven kids, Ellie. Carla Torres. He never got her,” Lee replied gently.
“True.”
“Then there is the European chatter,” Lee said as he read the papers in the folder. “Reported disappearances of seventeen young girls aged ten to thirteen over twenty-seven days from Munich, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt in Germany, then Brussels in Belgium, Helsinki in Finland and Oslo in Norway. The last reported disappearance was of four girls in Copenhagen in Denmark, exactly eighteen days ago. They’re all potentially Hawk’s crimes. Police have no leads and consider them mostly runaways from dysfunctional homes. Hawk operating in Europe is a real possibility.”
The list Lee read out stuck in my mind. Almost as if I should know something – but I couldn’t think what it was I should know.
“Yes, it’s conceivable he’s there, or that he’s gone skulking back to Russia to make the sales. Or still here somewhere,” Sam replied. His best efforts didn’t keep the skepticism from his voice. “Or heading to the moon on a shuttle.”
Lee handed the papers he was reading to me.
“Do either of you think the pattern of cities means something?” I asked, looking over the list again.
Sam nodded. “I don’t know what it means but it feels like it’s tied to something. This isn’t random.”
Lee’s phone rang. The phone in my pocket rang. I checked the caller ID and saw Misha’s name. He was the only person with the number so chances were it had to be him.
“Privet!” I said, concentrating on my call and not the sound of Lee talking on his cell phone.
“Hi to you too, Ellie,” Misha replied.
“Problem?”
“Da.”
“Big?”
“Da!”
“What’s happened?”
“We have new information and an informer we’ve been working with came forward.” He paused for a split second. “The informer gave an American Marine a directive. He was to pass a message to you.”
“I met him,” I replied letting the tone in my voice speak volumes.
Misha continued, “The operation has moved offshore again, they have left Europe. My source says that Hudson Hawk left through Vienna, Austria, seven days ago. He flew to Australia then to …”
“New Zealand,” I interrupted. So much for sticking a pin in a map.
“Bingo. He is traveling as Edward Hawkins. The latest information from Interpol is in your inbox.”
I picked my laptop up from the floor and fired it up.
“I got it, Misha. Spasibo.” Thank you.
“Pozhalujsta.” You are welcome. “Keep me informed. I will send any further information to you.” You are welcome.
“Too bad we have to change our plans. I was looking forward to seeing Moscow.”
“Another time, my friend.”
“Take care, Misha.”
I hung up. Sam and Lee were watching me closely.
“Lee?” I asked.
“It was Chrissy. We’ve had a call from New Zealand police. Interpol suggested they contact us. They have missing kids. She told them we’d meet with detectives as we were already heading to New Zealand.”
“Funny how shit happens.” I skimmed over the email forwarded from Misha then briefed the boys on what I knew. “In the last three days, four children between the ages of nine and twelve have gone missing. One in Auckland, two in Hamilton with the most recent in Wellington. Police have no concrete leads and investigations are continuing.” As I heard myself say ‘in the last three days’ I knew where I needed to be. The trail would be cold in Europe; Misha would do better working that angle anyway. But New Zealand was fresh and we stood a good chance of finding the girls plus we had an invitation to help.
“Any murders?” Sam asked.
I looked at Sam. “Not yet. So far, no mothers found murdered. They were single parents of only children; as usual the fathers are the prime suspects.”
“Isolated? Do they fit our profile?” Lee asked. He sounded almost flustered. “I mean … shit! Do you really think these fuckers are operating in clean green New Zealand like they did here?”
I grinned. “As opposed to dirty filthy America?”
“I don’t think Lee meant it quite like that, Chicky Babe,” Sam replied with a wink.
Lee agreed with a nod and said, “I’ve never associated New Zealand with anything so sordid and despicable. Doesn’t sit right in my gut.”
“They helped u
s break a huge child porn ring – some of the low-life scumbags were in New Zealand,” Sam reminded him.
Lee grimaced. “It’s still fuc’n off.”
“Yes it is,” I concurred. It was very fuc’n off. “Now on that note, none of the victims’ mothers have known mental illnesses. No link to the Butterfly Foundation is showing up.” Hawk had once used the chat rooms at the Butterfly Foundation as his personal hunting ground.
“No known? Could this fucker be using the same old scam?” Lee asked.
Yeah. That had crossed my mind too. But that didn’t explain how he was grabbing kids in Europe. If it was him and my instincts told me it was, I believed he’d come up with another way to lure kids away from their parents; I just didn’t know what it was yet.
“Possibly, I’m double checking. I’ve been over to the Foundation offices and have the tech staff running reports on everyone who has registered.” It didn’t thrill me to be even thinking that Hawk could be up to his old tricks. “My staff are pinging the ISPs. It’s precautionary. Just because no New Zealanders are registered doesn’t mean they’re not there. Same goes for kids from Europe. It’s not difficult to say you’re from somewhere else, especially if they used a hotmail address to sign up.”
“But you verify the postal address – they need a physical address,” Lee replied frowning.
“Yes, they do need a physical address. We haven’t changed our policy. But there are also ways around that too. How many people have friends in various places throughout the world? We’re heading toward being one big global community, or in some cases, one big global smorgasbord.”
Lee nodded. “I see what you mean. It’s not hard to ask a friend if you can use their address and have that friend email you the code from the snail-mail sent from the Foundation.”
“Why would anyone do that with the Foundation though?” Sam asked.
“Because we’re not worldwide but mental illness is … and the only way to access the chat rooms is to provide us with a United States physical address.”
“How long before we get an answer back from the techies?”
“No idea,” I replied. “But really, the only thing we have that suggests the missing children in New Zealand are linked to our case against Hawk, is his movements. So far as we know, they’re missing kids and will turn up.”
Yeah right.
“But you don’t believe that …” Sam said.
“Not so much,” I replied.
“New Zealand it is then.” Sam said with way more enthusiasm than he’d shown for the Moscow trip.
“New Zealand,” I repeated. “Let me pull up a map of New Zealand.” It took me a matter of seconds to find a map of the whole country. We crowded around the screen and looked at New Zealand.
“It’s not very big, is it?” Lee muttered.
“Nope,” I replied. “Kids are missing from Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington.” I traced the cities to Cook Strait. “Does it look to you like he’s heading down the country?”
Sam agreed. “So the next big city is Christchurch.”
“Yep.” I tossed the pre-paid cell phone to Lee. He caught it smoothly. “Can you get us new airplane tickets and cancel the Russian trip?” I tossed him a brilliant smile to sweeten the pot.
It was beginning to feel something like summertime.
“SSA Chicky Babe, your wish is my command,” he said with a bow. “Wellington or Christchurch?”
“Christchurch,” I replied without hesitation.
He fished out the e-tickets from the folder next to him and left the room.
“Where’s that coffee, Sam?”
“Sitting in the pot waiting for me to pour it,” Sam replied. He hoisted his muscular body from the seat and ambled out to the kitchen.
Lee returned for a pen and notebook then disappeared again.
Sam came back carrying three coffee mugs. I relieved him of two, enabling him to sit back down. The cat prowled the room looking for a warm seat.
“Too late Cat,” I told her, and set the two mugs on the coffee table. I scooped up the furry grey animal. She purred softly and settled on my knee. I knew it was a brief thing. She was Mac’s cat and she didn’t sit on my lap longer than five minutes. Like me, she was still waiting for Mac to walk in the door.
Didn’t we all?
The cat stared at the living room doorway, her ears twitched as she listened to movement in the hallway. I watched her with interest as Lee came back. She jumped off my knee and stalked from the room. She was going to sit by the front door and wait, as she did every day.
Lee said, “We’re flying out of Reagan tonight to New York then on to Sydney, Australia and finally Auckland; then we’ll get an internal flight to Christchurch. We need to get moving.”
“We’re heading into summer,” I said. A smile lay on my lips; the thought of summertime was fabulous. No snow, no slush, no ice, no thermals! A mere twenty-four hours’ flying time and a couple of missing days, on account of the International Date Line, stood between summertime and us.
I reached down and pulled the passports from an envelope on the floor. With a quick look at them, I tossed them to the respective men.
I picked up another envelope and removed credit cards from it. “These are linked to my Foundation account. The only person with access to that account is me.”
A hard lesson had been learned once before regarding company credit cards and access. Someone tracked me via the credit card and it was not a good situation to be in. I handed out the cards. Lee and Sam looked at the writing on them then at me.
Sam said, “Butterfly Foundation.”
“Who’s funding this?” Lee asked.
“Me, for now.”
Both men looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Obviously work is paying our air travel, visas etc. I’m providing the incidental cash and our accommodation.”
“You’re claiming this back, right?”
“Yeah.” I grinned, “I’m not made of money and I’m not fronting cash for this trip out of the goodness of my heart.”
“If we get anywhere near this guy, don’t you think he’s going to recognize Agent Chicky Babe and her devastatingly handsome cohorts as FBI?” Sam asked with a grin.
“I do. I’m also hoping that if we get that close, we’ll have the scumbag in cuffs.”
“We could travel as regular folk. That would probably make it easier,” Lee offered.
“You want to give up your gun? Spend days trying to get the required documentation to arrive as tourists?” I replied.
Lee grinned. “All good points.”
Sam perused the email we’d received from Misha and more information sent from our liaison officer, Chrissy McQueen.
“Apparently they don’t have missing children in New Zealand like we do here,” he said. “Chrissy says they’re rare and end badly.”
“Good to know.” I replied. “Anything else?”
“So far the only kid never found was Kirsa Jensen. She went missing from Napier while riding her horse along the beach in 1983.” He found some more information and shared it. “Each year about eight thousand people are reported missing. More than half didn’t tell their families where they were, so they weren’t missing to start with. Some don’t want to be found. A very small number are victims of foul play.”
“Then we stand a good chance of finding these kids.”
I had a few calls to make before we left for the airport. We needed an attaché to meet the plane in Auckland, New Zealand, just to make sure we were cleared to carry guns within their borders. I also wanted to make sure police knew we were coming. The last call I made was to Carla’s cell phone.
“Hey kiddo, it’s Ellie.”
“Hi, Ellie. Thanks for bringing Joey by the other day.” Her voice was light and airy and held the promise of a beautiful smile. “When is the memorial for Cassie?”
“In a few weeks. Caine is organizing it.”
“I can go, right?”
/> “Of course. I’ll take you myself.” I paused. “I’m going away for a while, I don’t know how long. But you can still reach me on my cell, okay?”
“Sure,” she replied, her voice falling flat. “Where are you going?”
“Overseas with work,” I said.
“Okay.”
“You sure everything’s all right?”
“Yep.”
“Call me if you need me – or call Caine Grafton at my office if it’s an emergency.”
“Bring me a present?”
“Absolutely. Any idea what you want for your birthday?”
“Something cool from wherever you go,” she said, perking up. That was such a typical Carla response; she had an amiable and easy-to-please nature.
“Consider it done. Be good. See you soon.”
I hung up and put a memo on my phone to remind me to grab something touristy for Carla before we came home.
At the airport, before boarding, we had time for a coffee and quick chat. The three of us sat in a huddle after clearing security. Sam tapped my arm and looked past me. I turned my head to see Kurt Henderson passing through security.
“That’s the third time I’ve seen him lately. What the fuck?” I muttered. He looked over and waved. My cell phone rang.
Caine.
“Is this about Henderson?” I snapped into my phone.
“This is not my doing. O’Hare wants him traveling with you.” The boys were all high-fiving one another and doing the man-hug thing. I slipped away to a quiet corner. “Why?”
“Because last time you tangled with Hawk, both you and Sam needed patching up pretty good. Kurt has all your medical records with him and he’s a …”
“… a doctor,” I finished for him. Hell, I just saw him yesterday.
“There’s something else: he volunteered. O’Hare was looking for a doc to travel with you and he put up his hand.”
“That’s interesting.” I hung up and rejoined my group.
Henderson volunteered. First rule of Delta A: never volunteer.
“We’ll bring you up to speed on the case when we arrive in New Zealand,” I said. “Welcome to Delta A.” I shook Kurt’s hand.
“Thanks,” he replied. “Just tell me one thing: is this as bad as last time we worked together?”
