by Ken Fite
The second officer reached for his radio and said, “Either leave now or you’ll be arrested for trespassing.”
Mitchell left and walked out into the massive parking area surrounding the United Center. He followed the path back to where he had parked his blue motorcycle. The bike was parked behind a large Chevy Suburban. As he approached, he noticed that he could see the side entrance to the building from where he was and saw there were two officers just inside. Mitchell climbed onto his bike and sat there for a few minutes, trying to figure out his next move.
FOUR
FROM THE MOMENT Victor Perez climbed through the opening he’d carved in the wall, he knew this operation would require a great deal of patience. But staying still without making a sound for twenty hours straight was nothing compared to the things he had been through in a prior life, one where he’d protect senators instead of kidnap them.
Perez could see Jim Keller through the grate as he paced the floor, back and forth, reciting parts of his acceptance speech. He could tell that the senator was nervous. He had studied him for months, listening to every speech he made, and he knew he often criticized the sitting president for not being able to read from a teleprompter. Keller practiced because he didn’t want to be a hypocrite and have to rely on his notes.
A minute later, the senator was interrupted by Jami, who knocked on the door. “Yes?” Keller asked.
“We need to head downstairs.”
Keller placed the small stack of index cards he’d been using to memorize his speech on a table by the door.
“I need a few more minutes, Agent Davis.”
Perez had heard the conversation a few minutes earlier that Agents Davis and Jordan had with the senator. He knew that Jordan had headed downstairs and Davis was alone with Keller. In just a few minutes, the senator would leave the room, head down to the convention floor, and he’d lose his chance forever. Months of planning. Hours lying perfectly still. The plan hinged on getting a break right now.
After Senator Keller put his notes down, he walked to the window that overlooked the convention. Perez heard him take a deep breath and slowly let it out before walking to the restroom in the suite. The senator closed the door behind him.
This is it! Now’s my chance! Perez thought. It’s now or never. He moved quickly, but carefully, removing the air vent he had covering the hole in the drywall that he had sawed a week before. He lowered the grate and slid it over to the side and crawled out.
In his right hand was a rag drenched in chloroform, and tucked behind his back in his Dickies work pants was his Beretta. He’d use it if something went wrong. Extra ammo was in his duffle bag still inside the wall. He replaced the grate, which quietly snapped back in place. He crawled out and was ready to go in under thirty seconds. Just like he had practiced. Everything was going according to plan.
The man hid behind the door, waiting for the senator to come out. He could hear him washing his hands and whistling a tune. Inside, Keller combed his hair and splashed water on his face. Perez could hear the senator telling himself to calm down. “It’s just the biggest speech of my career,” he muttered.
Agent Davis knocked on the door again. Perez dropped the rag and drew his gun and aimed it at the door. Senator Keller opened the bathroom door and yelled, “Almost ready.”
As he walked out, Perez coldcocked him in the back of his head with the butt of the gun. Keller fell, but Perez grabbed him by his jacket before he could hit the floor and make a sound. He quietly lowered the senator onto the floor.
Perez put the rag up to Keller’s face and left it there for a few seconds. Just in case.
He stuffed the rag into his left pocket, placed the gun behind his back, and dragged the senator a few feet over to the air vent, which he removed and crawled into.
This created marks in the carpet that had to be touched up. Perez pulled Keller through, which wasn’t an easy task but was done quicker than he thought.
He took one last look around the room to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. The room was clear. The only thing left behind was the senator’s index cards with his handwritten notes for a speech he’d prepared so long for. A speech constituents and delegates from around the nation would never hear.
Victor Perez replaced the grate and disappeared.
FIVE
I FINISHED SECURING the path that the senator would soon be walking. I had decided earlier in the day that I’d assign Davis to stay with Keller so I could focus on making sure he’d be safe as he travelled to the floor to speak to the crowd and also to all of America, as every major news network was covering the event.
There was always a risk in speaking at a venue this large, but securing the backstage area wasn’t too difficult. I walked the path the senator would take from his suite to the stage, where he’d soon be speaking. Jami would be responsible for getting the senator to me, and I’d take it from there.
I scanned the crowd one final time to look for anything out of the ordinary. Security was doing a good job maintaining order with the revved-up crowd. I was just about ready for Jami to bring Keller down.
At five minutes to eight, I put a hand up to my ear and radioed Agent Davis. “Is the senator ready?” I asked.
A few seconds later she responded, “He wanted a few more minutes.”
“The senator doesn’t have a few minutes. He’s supposed to start at eight. He should be here already. You need to move now.”
I stood to the side of the stage, where I could see Congressman Billings wrapping up his speech. I was positioned in a way that the crowd and media couldn’t see me well, but I could see them. Standard protocol. I continued to scan the crowd, especially the first few rows, looking for anything unusual.
Agent Davis knocked on the door. “Senator, it’s time,” she said. There was no response. “Senator Keller, we need to go now, sir,” Jami said and knocked on the door again. He didn’t respond.
I heard Jami’s voice through my earpiece. She was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t understand what she said. The speech Billings was giving was almost over. In his usual style, he got more passionate and progressively louder near the end. The congressman was being interrupted in between what seemed like every point he made by cheers from the crowd, which made it extremely difficult to hear anything.
“I did not copy,” I yelled into the earpiece. I had already started walking back, hoping to be able to hear better, although the congressman’s voice echoed everywhere. There seemed to be nowhere to escape to where I’d be able to hear any better than I was right now. Still, I headed closer to Jami.
“He’s not responding, Blake,” Jami yelled. That time she came in loud and clear.
I walked faster as I arrived at the service elevator. There were escalators and stairs at the United Center, but neither would take me as close to Keller’s suite as the elevator.
“What do you mean he’s not responding?”
“He’s not responding,” said Jami. “And the door is locked.”
“Kick it in,” I yelled as the elevator doors closed.
There was a blackout period of about twenty seconds during the ride up to the third floor when I lost contact with Jami. No matter what federal agency you worked in, you still had to deal with outdated equipment like earpieces that don’t work in elevators. I drew my gun and aimed it at the elevator doors.
Twenty seconds doesn’t seem like a long time, but I still managed to have a lot of thoughts during the short trip. Why is the senator not responding? Why didn’t I stay with him and send Jami to secure the floor?
Billings finished his speech. I heard the crowd go wild, although the sound was muted inside the elevator. The backdrop of noise added to the confusion of the situation. I tried to stay focused on getting to Keller.
When I arrived at the third level, the elevator doors opened, and I moved as fast as I could toward the executive suite. I turned a corner and saw Jami inside the suite, also with her gun drawn.
I stepped through the
busted door. I watched as Jami’s eyes looked everywhere. I could tell she was just as confused about what was happening as I was. It didn’t make sense. How could a man disappear without a trace?
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Jami replied. Her voice trembled as she spoke. “He’s gone.”
SIX
AT FIRST GLANCE, the room seemed spotless. A television hung adjacent to a wall of glass that overlooked the entire convention floor. The suite doubled as a skybox during sporting events and was the kind of room presidents and dignitaries might watch a Chicago Bulls game from. The TV was on mute, but set to one of the major news channels covering the speeches at the convention.
It was surreal watching live coverage of an event I could see taking place from a window just a few feet away. For a moment, a thought flashed across my mind. The media will be all over this very soon if Senator Keller really is missing.
“Are you sure he didn’t leave? You were here the whole time?” I asked.
“The whole time. I never stepped away.” Jami walked over to a table by the door, picked up a stack of index cards, and put them back down. There were no other exits, absolutely no way out.
“Blake!” I turned around and saw Jami crouched on the floor. I walked over and joined her. She pointed at three tiny red spots on the cream-colored carpet in the center of the room, and I brushed my fingers across them. They smeared.
“It’s fresh,” I said and immediately stood and looked around the room.
Just then, the air conditioner kicked on. I was sweating, and a few seconds after I heard the click of the thermostat, I could feel the cool air blowing on me. Although it was starting to get cold outside, inside the arena and even in the suites, it got rather warm.
I noticed the air return, and for some reason, I walked over to it. I placed my hand over the grille, expecting to feel the pull of air being sucked in, but I felt nothing. Part of me thought that any second now I’d feel something, but as I stood there, my eyes focused on something else: another air return across the room.
Jami saw what I was looking at. She walked over and put her hand on the grille. “I feel something, Blake.”
I bent down and grabbed the vent with both hands and pulled—it came right off and I was shocked to find a large hole that led to a long open space. I put my hand up to my ear. “This is Jordan. I need all exits on lockdown. Do you copy?” I yelled into my earpiece for the two men I had stationed at the side entrance as I crouched down and started to crawl into the hole. “Do you copy!?” I yelled again.
As I made my way into the opening, I could see light coming from the other side of the long space. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dark, but once they did, I could see enough to crawl through.
“I need you to go to the front of the building and walk the perimeter. It may not be too late to stop this.”
“You don’t know where this leads or who’s at the other end of it. Let me come with you,” Jami said and started to follow me.
“No, go to the front now!” I yelled. Agent Davis stopped and turned back around. I could hear her run out of the room and down the hall. What the hell is happening? I thought to myself.
The space was tight but big enough to walk through, although I had to move hunched over and low to the ground. Drywall dust was all over me. About halfway down the pathway as I approached the other side and the light got brighter, I noticed something on the floor reflecting the light. It was blood. Maybe the senator’s.
The closer I got to the end, the more quickly I moved. I found what appeared to be another large grille, and I assumed that it was designed to disguise another hole in the wall in whatever room this was in.
I slowed down and looked through. I didn’t know who, or what, might be on the other side. I saw a dimly lit hallway. I couldn’t tell if anyone was there, but I was running out of time, so I kicked out the grille and pulled myself out, gun drawn.
Crouched again, I aimed my Glock 22 to one side of the hallway. Then I heard what sounded like a door close the other way. “Federal agent!” I yelled and started running.
SEVEN
FIVE MINUTES EARLIER, Victor Perez crawled out of the same space. He had dragged Senator Keller through the pathway, holding his wrists behind his back and pulling the unconscious man from behind while he crouched and leaned forward to keep his momentum.
He tried to focus. He knew from years of training that he had to concentrate on what he was doing in the moment that very second, and he had to be perfect. One little slipup, one small mistake, could set off a chain of events and alter the trajectory of his plan.
Perez reached the end of the pathway that didn’t exist just a week earlier. He had stolen schematics of the arena several months prior, before he became a “janitor” and after it was announced that this would be the location for the convention. He studied them, and after learning where Keller would be taken before his speech, he found the space connecting the suite and the spot where he now stood.
He found the large shipping and storage crate he’d left here a few days before. It was the kind of crate musicians used to haul their gear when travelling. He’d taken it from the backstage area while the crew hired to set up the event started unloading their equipment prior to the first day of the convention. An hour ago, just before he expected the senator to arrive at the suite, he had checked on the crate to make sure it was still in place and hadn’t been moved by anyone.
The crate had black ABS paneling, chrome-plated handles, and butterfly latches to keep its contents secure. It also had four wheels, which Victor Perez locked before positioning the crate just underneath the pathway’s exit so he could more easily pull the senator out and deposit his body inside.
At a hundred and eighty pounds, Jim Keller was not a large man. The fifty-nine-year-old former SEAL had been in politics for ten years now. Once a SEAL, always a SEAL, as they say—the senator was still sharp as a tack, but surely wasn’t expecting to be coldcocked in the back of the head and stuffed inside a box.
But pulling the senator from the end of the pathway Perez had created took a lot out of him. He closed the lid of the crate and secured the two butterfly latches in place before pulling his duffle bag strap over his head and securing it on his shoulder. Then he replaced the air return’s grille. Although the hallway was rarely used, usually only in emergencies, he didn’t want to make a careless mistake if he didn’t have to.
He snapped all four wheels to unlock them, freeing up the crate to be pushed easily from behind. It was rectangular, so he pushed from one of the short sides. That would also make it possible to get the crate through one of the doors at the end of the hallway.
Perez moved quickly. In less than a minute, he had made his way to the end, unzipped his duffle bag, and grabbed his Beretta, should he need it. He wiped sweat from his brow and opened the door. Two DDC agents were in front of him. They looked at Victor Perez like they had seen a ghost.
In a way, they had.
Victor Perez raised his gun and shot both agents in the chest before they had a chance to process and make sense of what they were seeing. They fell to the floor, leaving a clear route to exit the building.
Perez walked over to the agents, who had managed to draw their weapons before being taken out, and kicked both guns away from their bodies. “It was good to see you again,” he said as he stood over the two men.
EIGHT
AGENT DAVIS MOVED through the packed convention floor. It was the most direct path to the front of the arena and the path she had to take if she was going to have a chance at stopping what appeared to be a kidnapping. Her gun was holstered inside a black jacket she kept unbuttoned over a white shirt, which she’d tucked into black pants. The outfit looked like something out of an Ann Taylor catalog.
As she pushed her way past Keller’s delegates, supporters, and critics, Jami could overhear some of the comments people were making. They were wondering where Keller was. The fact that Billings
had left the stage so awkwardly when the senator was supposed to join him created some concern.
She thought about announcing that she was a federal agent and asking, no, demanding the people in the crowd to get out of her way, but she also didn’t want them to panic. And she didn’t want the media to go crazy like a pack of sharks finding a trail of blood in the water. She knew that if she didn’t find Keller, that was exactly what would happen.
Five minutes later, Jami emerged and ran to the front of the arena. A woman was near the turnstiles, speaking with security, and made eye contact with her. It was RNC Chairwoman Debra Stewart. She was visibly upset and had the building’s security scrambling.
“What’s going on here? Senator Keller was supposed to be on stage fifteen minutes ago,” she said.
“Ms. Stewart, please, not right now. I need to speak with security,” said Jami.
“What do you mean not right now? We just came from Keller’s suite; he’s nowhere to be found. Now you show up here, without the other agent and without the senator, and you don’t want to tell me what’s happening? I’m in charge of all of this and I need to know what the hell is going on here,” Stewart pressed.
“He’s missing, okay?” Jami admitted. “Were not sure what happened. Agent Jordan and I are trying to locate him. We can talk later. Right now I need you to let me do my job.”
Jami walked over to the off-duty cops who were working the event as security. They were huddled together and discussing the situation as Debra Stewart had already told them she couldn’t find the senator anywhere.
Music began to blare from the stage and the crowd started to roar, believing it meant that they were moments away from seeing their presidential nominee walk onstage. Jami turned around and saw smiles come to what were previously concerned faces. Many began to clap along with the beat. Four days had all led up to this moment.
Or so they thought.
