Abducted: A Jake Badger Mystery Thriller

by Glenn Rogers

  “When you get Monica back, say hi for me.”

  “You bet.”

  A few minutes later, Emal called.

  “Mr. Badger,” he said.

  “Emal. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.”

  “Our friend Thomas stressed the importance of a timely response.”

  “I appreciate it. What have you got?”

  “My source says neither the Taliban nor anyone within its ranks is seeking revenge against any marine snipers.”

  “And your source would know?”

  “My source would know.”

  “Okay, Emal. Thank you.”

  Mildred arrived, and Wilson went to greet her and collect his morning cookie. After she put her purse down, she came into my side of the office and put a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts on my desk and poured herself a cup of coffee.

  “You went all the way to Burbank in the rain for donuts?” I said.

  “I figured that after last night's festivities you might need a little extra sugar. What's the rain got to do with it?”

  “Some people don't like to drive in the rain. But that’s neither here nor there. Thanks for the donuts.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “Why are you still here?” she took a donut for herself.

  “Because I was concerned that after last night's festivities, as you refer to them, that you might need some reassurance.”

  “Well, aren't you sweet? But remember, I went to bed most nights for thirty years having heard about the interesting and unique homicide of the day.”

  I shrugged. “Sometimes I forget that there's a difference between the way you look, like a sweet little old lady, and the way you are, a tough old broad.”

  “A tough old broad who brought you donuts,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  I selected a donut, took a bite, and smiled.

  I got to Alex's office in my rented Wrangler about ten. He was doing paperwork when I arrived. He put it aside and asked, “So, what's on tap for today?”

  “I want to visit the Durranis again.”

  Alex drove. In spite of the rain, we got there a little before eleven. The same big guy with the broken nose and damaged voice answered the door again.

  Alex had his ID out again, just in case he’d forgotten who we were ... well, who Alex was.

  “I remember who you are,” broken nose croaked. The Durranis had called him Ullah, but I thought of him as broken nose. “I will tell Mrs. Durrani that you are here.”

  He closed the door and we waited on the small porch watching the drizzle. I was happy that the porch was covered.

  When the door opened again, broken nose growled, “Follow me, please.”

  We did, and he led us up to Mr. Durrani's room. Mrs. Durrani sat next to his bed feeding him soup. She looked at us, put the soup down, and gently wiped her husband's mouth and chin.

  “How can I help you today, Agent Watson, Mr. Badger?” she asked.

  “I need to ask a few additional questions,” I said.

  “As you can see, my husband is very weak today. He cannot answer your questions.”

  “Actually,” I said, “I was hoping to ask you a few questions.”

  She studied me a moment and I thought I saw something in her face. Amusement? Perhaps. Curiosity? Maybe it was resentment.

  “Very well,” she said. “We can go back downstairs.”

  I looked at Mr. Durrani. He had fallen asleep.

  Chapter 40

  Tuesday Morning and Afternoon

  Mrs. Durrani led us into her elegant formal living room. Broken nose stood in the doorway.

  “Tea, please. For three,” she said to him.

  He nodded and left.

  “What is it you want to ask me, Mr. Badger?”

  “Do you know how your son died?”

  “They told us he was shot.”

  “That's all? You don't know the circumstances or who shot him?”

  “All they told us,” she said, “is that he had been shot.”

  “Would you be interested in knowing the details?” I asked. I wasn't sure where I was going with this. I was just trying to shake things up and see what came of it.

  “And how would you know the details of what happened to my son, Mr. Badger?”

  “I know some people. CIA. Military. I asked them.”

  She considered me for a moment. I was trying to read her, but she was a closed book. I'd hate to play poker with her.

  “And what did they tell you, Mr. Badger?”

  “The CIA targeted your son. The marines loaned them a sniper. The CIA led the marine to a spot where they knew your son would be, and the sniper shot him.”

  Her eyes were locked onto mine and I could see the anger building in her. Before she could say anything, broken nose returned with the tea. As he bent over to set the tray down, his coat came open enough for me to see the Glock 23 he carried in a shoulder rig. He served Alex and me first, and then Mrs. Durrani. She took a sip of her tea and set her cup down on the coffee table in front of her. She folded her hands primly in her lap. She was getting ready to speak when an attractive, well-dressed thirty-something Middle Eastern woman entered the room and, in accent-free English, said, “Mrs. Durrani, you have an urgent phone call.”

  Mrs. Durrani stood and said, “Please excuse me.”

  The young woman was quite attractive. She was also carrying a gun under her expensive tailored jacket. I glanced at Alex. He was watching her carefully and I could tell that he, too, had noticed the bulge under her left arm. The young lady left the room, leaving us alone with broken nose. He stood stoically in the doorway between the formal living room and a family room.

  Alex took a sip of his tea. Then, to broken nose, he said, “So, how's the nose?”

  “Fine,” came the scratchy, frog-like croak.

  “I understand that happened in an automobile accident,” Alex said.

  “Yes.”

  “I also understand one of your associates was involved in the same accident.”

  “Yes.”

  “But he died.”

  Broken nose hesitated, but finally said, “Yes.”

  “So how is it that he died and you only got a broken nose?” Alex asked.

  “My throat was also injured,” broken nose said.

  “But the other guy died.”

  “I was wearing my seatbelt,” broken nose said. “He wasn't.”

  “No seatbelt,” Alex said. “And he died. Must have been one heck of a high speed accident.”

  Nose didn’t reply.

  “This accident was last Monday morning?” I asked.

  “Yes,” nose said.

  “What time?”

  I could see from his face that he was getting annoyed.

  “Around nine twenty.” he croaked.

  “Where?” I asked.

  He just looked at me.

  “Where was the accident?” I asked, with a little more force.

  Finally, he said, “Veteran and Montana.”

  “Veteran and Montana,” I said. “Monday morning at nine-twenty. And there was a fatality.”

  Nose just looked at me.

  “Well,” Alex said, “I'm sorry your friend died.”

  Mrs. Durrani returned and took her seat on the sofa, a sofa that probably cost more than all of the furniture in my apartment combined.

  “You were explaining about my son's death,” Mrs. Durrani said to me.

  “Mrs. Durrani, does the name Monica Nolan mean anything to you?”

  She thought for a moment. “I know no one named Monica Nolan, Mr. Badger.”

  This woman was a stone. She gave away nothing. I'm usually pretty good at reading people. So is Alex. But I suspected he wasn't getting anymore from her than I was.

  I stood. “Well, thank you, Mrs. Durrani. I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. And I'm very sorry about your husband's illness. I know this is a difficult time for you.”

  She stood. “Yes, Mr. Badg
er. It is a difficult time.”

  She turned to broken nose and said, “Please show Agent Watson and Mr. Badger out.”

  He nodded, and she turned and walked away. Broken nose gestured us toward the front entryway.

  The rain had stopped and patches of blue were clawing their way through the gray shroud that had temporarily depressed the radiance of summer.

  “What do you think?” I asked Alex as he pulled out of the Durrani driveway.

  “Hard to say. Mrs. Durrani is very hard to read. Makes me nervous. I think she's hiding something.”

  “I agree.”

  “But maybe she's just really angry,” Alex said.

  “Could be,” I said. “Certainly has reason to be.”

  “But then there's the matter of having an armed household staff. Why do they need their help to carry concealed?”

  “And the automobile accident that I suspect didn't happen.” I said.

  “Yeah,” Alex said. “Won't be hard to check that.”

  “Frank can help with that,” I said, taking out my phone.

  “Frank,” I said, when he answered. “Can you check something for me?”

  “What do you need?”

  I gave him the details about the accident that was supposed to have happened the previous Monday morning. He said he'd check and get back to me.

  We drove back to Westwood and went to lunch at 800 Degrees Pizzeria. As we ate, Frank called back.

  “No accident reported last Monday morning at Veteran and Montana,” Frank said. “No traffic fatalities anywhere in that area.”

  “That's what we expected,” I said. “Thanks, Frank.”

  I went back to eating and my phone rang again.

  “You’re a popular guy,” Alex said.

  “It’s because I’m charming,” I said, as I took my phone out.

  “Sure. That’s what they called you at the Academy, Mr. Charm.”

  The call was from my insurance adjuster. A couple of the slugs had penetrated the cab and had done extensive damage to the dashboard electrical system, and one of the slugs had hit the engine block and damaged the fuel intake system. They were declaring it a total loss.

  I told Alex.

  “Did you have that replacement feature in your policy,” he asked.

  “Fortunately.”

  “So, you just go buy a new one, right? No big deal.”

  “I suppose.”

  “You don’t sound pleased.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “That one was exactly the way I wanted it. Special tires, a heavy-duty wench, a custom sound system, a holster mounted under the driver’s seat for my little .357. Now I have to do all that stuff over again. Takes a lot of time.”

  “You’re going to get a brand new vehicle without paying for it. Most people would be happy about that.”

  “I’ve been paying for it for several years,” I said, “in the form of additional insurance premiums. Besides, getting a new vehicle is like getting a new girlfriend. It takes time to get comfortable with each other. The beginning of the relationship can be kind of awkward. And think about Wilson. All of his old familiar smells will be gone.”

  He looked at me for a moment and then said, “He’ll get over it.”

  Just as we were finishing the last of our pizza, Mildred called.

  “Got another note,” Mildred said.

  “Another note,” I said to Alex.

  He had his own phone out, checking messages. He looked up.

  “What does it say?” I asked Mildred.

  “It says, You were so close.”

  Chapter 41

  Tuesday Afternoon

  From the restaurant, we went to Alex's office so I could pick up my Jeep. By the time we got back to my office, the clock was inching toward two. Wilson greeted us at the door and I paused to say hello. When I crossed the floor to Mildred's desk, she handed me the small envelop with the note in it. I opened it. Like the others, it was handwritten in all capital letters. It read:

  YOU WERE SO CLOSE

  I handed it to Alex. He looked at it, thought for a moment and said, “So, we just have to figure out where you were when you were so close.”

  “Okay,” I said as I walked into my side of our office suite. “Let's see if we can do that.”

  I made a fresh pot of coffee for Alex and mug of tea for me. There were a few donuts left so I took one and sat down at my desk.

  Alex also took a donut and sat in one of my guest chairs and said, more to himself than to me, “Delivered today.” He was holding the note and the envelope. He happened to look at the envelope. “There's no postmark,” he said. “A stamp, but no postmark.”

  “Is it possible for it to be delivered without it being postmarked?” I asked.

  “Not by the Post Office.”

  I called Mildred. She came into my side of the office.

  “Did the note get delivered with the mail?”

  “I assume it did,” she said. “But I couldn’t swear to it. I took Wilson for a walk. When we came back, the mail had come. That was laying on top of the pile.”

  “So someone could have slipped it through the mail slot after the mail was delivered.”

  Her bottom lip came out a bit. She wagged her head from side to side and she shrugged. “Could have,” she said.

  I thought for a moment and then opened my office security program on my computer. I backed up the video a couple of hours and watched the monitor that showed activity at the front office entrance. The mail slot is in the front office door. The mailman came and went, and in a few minutes a young woman approached the door and put a small envelope through the mail slot.

  I backed it up and looked at Alex. He appeared to be lost in thought. “Look at this,” I said.

  Alex watched the activity on the monitor.

  “She look familiar to you?” I asked.

  “It's not a good angle for getting a good look at her face,” Alex said, “but it looks a lot like the young lady we saw this morning at the Durranis.”

  “I agree.”

  “Why deliver it like that, risking that kind of exposure?”

  “Mrs. Durrani’s tired of waiting,” I said. “I pissed her off this morning. She sent that woman out right after we left. She’s a cat playing with a mouse and she's getting tired of the game.”

  Alex sat for a moment, thinking. “Shall we go back?”

  “No,” I said, after a moment. “If we tip our hand, she may kill Monica.”

  “Are we sure it’s Mrs. Durrani?” Alex asked.

  “It's her. I can feel it. I don’t think Mr. Durrani knows anything about what she's done. She had her people take Monica to get to me because she knows I'm the one who killed her son.”

  “You think broken nose took her?”

  “I think he and his dead associate together might have been able to take her.”

  “You think Monica's the one who did the damage to his nose and throat?”

  “Well, we know he wasn't in an automobile accident, so, yeah. She probably killed the other guy.”

  “I know she's tough,” Alex said, “but doing that kind of damage ...?”

  “I've sparred with her,” I said. “She's fast and strong and she knows how to fight. She could easily have done it.”

  We were both quiet for a moment, thinking about options.

  “If you don't think confronting her is the right approach, what do you think we should do?”

  “They can't know we're coming. We've got to go in at night and get her out before they have time to react.”

  “How are we going to do that?”

  I thought for a moment. “I think the first thing we need to do is get the plans for the house.”

  Alex said, “Mr. Durrani said that an architect in Beverly Hills drew up the plans.”

  “Mildred,” I called loudly.

  “Architects in Beverly Hills,” she called back.

  Alex looked at me, surprise etched in his face. “Mildred,” he said, “
if you ever get tired of working for Jake you come see me. I need someone like you in my office.”

  “I don't think so,” she said from her desk. “Too many rules to follow when you work for the Feds.”

  Her comment made both of us smile.

  After a moment, Mildred said, “Nine. I just emailed the list to each of you.”

  “You need to raise her pay,” Alex said.

  “Yes, he does,” Mildred said from her side of the office.

  “You just got a raise,” I said. “Remember? Krispy Kremes every Friday morning.”

  “Donuts?” Alex said. “Her compensation increase comes in the form of donuts?”

  “Fringe benefits,” I replied. “A legitimate and crucial feature of all compensation packages.”

  Her email came through. I opened it on my phone. Alex opened it on his.

  “We can work faster if we divide it up,” Alex said.

  “You take the top four, I'll take the bottom five.”

  “What's your plan?” Alex asked. “What are we trying to accomplish?”

  “We need to find out which firm designed the house. Then we hack into their computer system and retrieve the plans.”

  “It'll be easier if we have a photo. We can say we saw this house we like and want the architect who designed it to do one like it for us.”

  “Good plan,” I said.

  Alex called one of his agents. He gave him the Durrani's address in Bel Air and told him to hurry over there and take a photo of the house—front view—and send it to him and to me. He gave the agent my text number.

  He ended the call and said, “We'll have a photo in a while.”

  Twenty minutes later we each had a photo of the Durrani house in our phones. It was ten minutes to three. It was too hot for Wilson to be left in the car while I went into air conditioned office buildings to talk to architects, so I explained this to him and told him he should stay with Mildred and I'd pick him up later. He woofed that he understood, and I gave him the last of the day's donuts.

  Chapter 42

  Tuesday Afternoon

  The first name on my list was William Brimmer. His office was on South Doheny. Nice building. Old. Three stories. Brimmer's office was on the third floor. Since my tan corduroy sport coat had a bullet hold in the shoulder, I was wearing my gray Herringbone jacket over a light blue Oxford button-down. My Levis were broken in enough to be just the right color to go well with the gray herringbone. Snazzy. The receptionist was a good-looking forty-something, tan with blond hair, a perfect nose and perfect teeth, which she showed me when she smiled and asked if she could help me.