by Ken Fite
As the club repeatedly struck the senator’s body, he thought of the many people he had met over the years in the Senate and the many faces he’d seen over the last year while on the presidential campaign trail. Although his eyes were now closed, the afterimage stayed burned in his mind. I recognize the face.
The club struck Keller’s back. One final blow was delivered to Keller, and he felt his ribs crack before the man turned his back to the senator and walked away. As he did, Keller made the connection he was looking for. I know exactly who the kidnapper is.
FORTY-FIVE
I SPED THROUGH the streets of the west Chicago neighborhoods as carefully as I could. It was a direct shot south from Burnett’s house to the warehouse according to the SUV’s GPS. We were only about eight miles away, but the traffic on Harlem became congested the closer we got to our destination.
I knew we were close to Midway, the smaller of the two airports in Chicago. I figured the proximity to the airport had a lot to do with the traffic, and I knew it would only get worse. At one point we came to a complete stop.
“Maybe we should have taken Route 171 instead,” I said, getting frustrated at the traffic.
Jami disagreed. “It would have taken just as long if not longer.”
Part of my frustration was that this was unofficial business, and because I wasn’t sure who might or might not be tracking us, I didn’t want to turn my police lights or siren on. So we dealt with the airport and rush-hour traffic just like everybody else on the road.
“We’re fine, Blake. We’re close already; we’ll be there in just a few minutes,” Jami said. I felt a little better and noticed she had a calming effect on me. More than once over the last twelve hours she had kept me from doing something I would have regretted. Part of me wished that I was working this operation alone, but I was glad to have her on my side. The voice of reason, I thought to myself.
As we inched our way down Harlem, I thought about all of the mistakes I had made since last night. For being a by-the-book kind of guy, I sure had broken a lot of laws. But this was different. This was personal. My mentor, my dad’s best friend, and a man who was headed for the presidency of the United States was kidnapped on my watch. I wasn’t going to stand by and let anyone else clean up my mess.
This was on me, and it was up to me to make this right. I didn’t care what would happen to me when this was all over. I was pretty sure that no matter the outcome, even if I lived through the rescue attempt, I’d have a hard time keeping my job.
But I also worried about Jami and how her being involved in all of this might ruin her career, too.
And that bothered me. I figured she was sticking around and going against orders because she had let Keller get taken on her watch. But I knew it would have happened no matter who had been given the assignment, including me. I knew Jami was sitting in the car with me and trying to make things right because that was just the kind of person she was.
“You were great back there,” I said when we got delayed by another light.
“What do you mean?”
I smiled and put my hand back on the steering wheel as the light turned green. “With the girl. Maggie. You’re a natural with kids. If you hadn’t been there, I’m not sure Burnett would have turned over the address. We make a good team.”
“We do make a good team,” Jami said, smiling back at me before turning her head to look out the passenger window.
A minute or two passed before she spoke again. “Before Derek and I split up, one of our biggest fights was over having kids. I guess we should have talked about it more before we got married. I wanted to start a family. He wanted to focus on our careers. He told me with my line of work, I’d never be able to do both, have a family and have the career. Maybe he was right,” she said before looking back at me and smiling again before changing the subject. “So what’s the plan when we get there?”
“I’m working on it,” I said.
The truth was I didn’t have a plan yet. We got a break by finding Burnett before the FBI could. We got the address, and as far as I knew, nobody else other than Burnett knew where the senator was. But we were off the grid. Based on Morgan’s text to Jami, I knew that Roger Shapiro had taken over DDC operations. And based on what I knew about the guy, he wouldn’t stop until he had me.
FORTY-SIX
WE PULLED INTO the Harlem Industrial Park. “We’re here,” I said and noticed that the sky was turning dark. The sun that had been shining brightly was now hiding behind large clouds that looked like they would break open at any moment. Jami and I heard the rumble of thunder as we slowly drove by the many abandoned buildings and parked a block away at New England Avenue and Sixty-Second Street.
We parked far enough away from the warehouse on Sayre Avenue where we wouldn’t be spotted or heard, but close enough that we’d be able to easily extract the senator from the building and get him in the vehicle to transport him out of the area. I decided that if the mission was successful, I’d take Keller to DDC to have a medic take a look at him and I’d turn myself in. I couldn’t risk taking him to a general hospital without knowing what was going on or why he’d been kidnapped. DDC was more than capable of taking care of the senator until we could figure out what was really going on.
I also wanted to park the car far enough away where if the FBI and DDC really were following us, they wouldn’t know immediately what building we were in. If they were using a drone, it wouldn’t matter. They’d know exactly where we were. But I still needed to do everything I could to buy as much time as possible since Jami and I had no idea what we’d be dealing with.
“Follow me in,” I said as I turned the ignition off and held the keys in my hand. “We’ll approach from the east. If there are two ways in, then I’ll take the front and you take the back. If not, then I’ll lead and you provide cover.”
Jami was busy loading a mag into her Glock 17 and I reached for my 22. She liked using the 17, it had less recoil and better control for her small hands, but required several hits to take a man down due to the smaller size of the bullets.
“Got it,” she replied. “I’m ready.”
A streak of lightning flashed across the dark sky. It looked like evening instead of midmorning. We felt the thunder from the lightning bolt that struck somewhere close to us as we sat in the car getting ready. The reverberations lasted for about ten seconds and grabbed our attention to remind us of the seriousness of the moment. This was it. We were about to rescue Senator James Keller.
“We need to move,” I said and opened my car door, and Jami followed suit. With our weapons drawn, we jogged west on Sixty-Second past two large warehouses that took up the entire length of the block on both sides of the street. I wondered how large the warehouse was where Keller was being held and how we were going to pull this off all by ourselves. As we approached Sayre, the building we needed to enter came into view.
I crouched down and Jami did the same. I pointed to the building at the end of the street. “There’s a door to the right of the bay. I’ll take that and you go around to the right. See if there’s another way in.”
Just then, the sky opened up and heavy rain started to fall. “Don’t wait for me,” Jami yelled over the loud rain hitting the street. “We’ll either meet inside or I’ll come back around to follow you in.”
It was hard to hear her. I thought the sound might help us enter the building without being heard.
I looked behind us to make sure we weren’t being followed. There was nobody there. Not yet, anyway.
We stood and started jogging toward the building. I went straight to the door and Jami split off and ran down Sayre Avenue. I saw her climb and jump over a fence to get to the back of the building. I tried the door, but it was locked. I couldn’t kick it in because it opened from the inside. I walked over to the bay door and saw a padlock on it. I tried pulling it anyway, but it didn’t budge. I decided it must have been locked from the inside as well. I was going to have to shoot at the door’s loc
k.
As I stood against the building in between the bay door and the large rusty metal door, preparing myself for the fallout from the noise my weapon would make that the rain wouldn’t be able to hide, I noticed movement in the distance, far down Sixty-Second Street. I saw a police car park, followed by two black SUVs that looked exactly like mine. They’re here. I turned around and fired three shots at the lock.
FORTY-SEVEN
THE DOOR POPPED open. I was in. I knew I wouldn’t have much time before the agents down the street got here. I didn’t know if they knew where my exact location was or not. But it didn’t matter. They were here.
I walked into the warehouse with my gun drawn and found myself inside a large empty bay area. It was definitely big enough to fit the van. But it wasn’t here. The only thing inside was a generator lighting the area. After clearing the room, I glanced at the concrete floor and found something unsettling.
A trail of smeared blood led from somewhere inside the warehouse to where I was standing. Is this Keller’s blood? Was the black van parked inside the bay, and if so, where is it now?
I realized that the trail of blood wasn’t going into the warehouse. It was coming from inside. Keller had been beaten or maybe killed, dragged into the van, and taken away.
If the van had passed Jami and me as we approached, I’d have noticed. I stood there trying to put the pieces together in my head and understand what might have happened. What could have spooked the kidnapper to make him want to leave? If he killed David Mitchell because he knew his address, why would he feel like he couldn’t stay in this spot any longer? Did he know that the FBI had Mitchell’s laptop, and was he worried that they’d find his address—was that why he left so quickly?
“Damn,” I said under my breath, hoping I was wrong and Keller was still here somewhere.
I kept pressing forward, walking beside the trail of blood, past the generator and through another door that led to a small hallway. I passed a room that looked like a makeshift office or command center. I entered inside slowly and quietly, the heavy rain outside muting the sound of my footsteps. It was helping me move around without making much noise, but it also meant I wouldn’t be able to hear if someone was moving toward me, either. I confirmed that the room was clear and I moved on.
I stepped back into the hallway and found a bloody handprint on the wall in front of me, as if the person being dragged was trying to brace himself and stand back up. That gave me hope that Keller might have still been alive when he was dragged out of here, if that was what had happened. I touched the blood with my finger and it came off easily. It was fresh, no more than thirty minutes old. I just missed them.
There was a lantern turned on inside the larger room, the same kind I’d seen in the room I thought the kidnapper had been working from. The lantern in that room was turned off for some reason. Maybe he was sleeping when something happened, I thought to myself as my mind raced and I tried to put the puzzle together.
The lantern was bright and lit the room, but the hallway that took me there was dark, damp, and cold.
This room was much larger. I looked all around as I walked inside. The ceilings were high, ten feet maybe. Besides the lantern, there wasn’t anything else inside.
I looked down again and followed the smeared blood from the hallway and saw that it led all the way to the edge of the wall inside the room I had walked into. The trail ended next to a long metal pipe that came down from the ceiling and exited outside at the base of the wall. This is where he was being kept, I thought and wondered where Keller was now. The pipe had scratches on it in one section. I wondered if the senator had been handcuffed to it.
Suddenly, I heard a noise from behind me.
I spun around and aimed my Glock in the direction of the room I hadn’t been to yet.
FORTY-EIGHT
I HEARD SOMEONE approaching. “Blake?” said Jami.
“In here,” I replied and lowered my weapon.
“Clear,” she said as she walked in, letting me know the area she’d walked through was secure. She was drenched from the rain and holstered her weapon as she walked in. “Oh my God,” Jami said as she looked at the blood on the floor and followed the trail past where I was standing and saw that it continued down the hallway.
“He’s not here,” I said, and Jami closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.
“I’m sorry.”
Jami walked around the warehouse, examining everything. “Whoever was here wasn’t planning on staying long,” she said, seeing how empty the place was.
“If we had DDC’s support, we could have called the address in and had a satellite repositioned to send a feed to my phone. Maybe we could have followed the kidnapper wherever he went.”
“I know, Blake. Morgan could have done that, no problem.” She walked farther down the hall, following the trail of blood.
“It’s fresh,” I said. “There’s a print on the wall, I’m sure it’s from him. It’s still wet. They left right before we got here, no more than half an hour ago.”
Jami looked at the print and walked into the next room.
“I saw agents arrive down the street right before I came inside,” I added. “They’re going building to building. They’ll be here soon.”
Jami nodded.
I stayed inspecting the area where I was sure the senator had been kept while Jami looked around. I stood next to the metal pipe and looked at the entire room from where Keller would have been chained, looking for clues and grasping at straws. He would have left me a sign if he could, I thought.
“Blake, you need to see this,” said Jami.
When I walked in, I saw she was holding a flash drive. “I lifted up the air mattress and found this,” she said and handed it to me. I looked around the room more closely than I had the first time I went through. There were two monitors on a desk with a docking station, but no laptop. The kidnapper had left in a hurry, and in the rush, he had lost the drive. We started turning everything over, looking for more clues.
“If we had access to Morgan still, we could have him scan it and figure out who this guy is,” I said.
Jami thought for a moment. “I know someone who can help us,” she said, and just then we heard a noise from the warehouse bay. We looked and saw a bright light. It was the door opening. They’re here.
“Go. I’ll stall them. Find out what’s on this,” I said, handing her the drive. As she took it, Jami placed her other hand on top of mine and squeezed. Her way of letting me know we’d be okay after the dust settled. I smiled and handed her the keys to the truck. As she grabbed them, one of the men spoke.
“Blake Jordan—we know you’re here. Come out with your hands up,” I heard a man yell, and his voice echoed throughout the empty building.
“Go,” I said again, and she headed out the back exit.
Jami was now my only hope. And whatever might be on that flash drive—if anything—was the only thing that could save Senator Keller now. As I saw her disappear, I knelt down in the same spot where I knew my friend and mentor had been chained over the last twelve hours. There was no way out of this, and I knew that in a moment, I’d be arrested and turned over to Roger Shapiro.
I put my hands behind my head and faced down. Four men rushed in and two aimed their guns at me. One just stood there, the man in charge of the operation, I assumed. It was the FBI. One of the men grabbed my hands and pulled them behind my back and handcuffed me. Then I noticed something. On that metal pipe, just to the left of the scratches that I knew had come from Keller’s handcuffs, was another marking. There were initials scratched on the pipe. I blinked to refocus my eyes. It read ML.
FORTY-NINE
THE MAN STOOD in front of me. “I’ve got Jordan,” he said into his earpiece. A few seconds later, I heard more cars pull up and park outside the building. The heavy downpour outside had turned into a light drizzle, making it easier to hear what was going on outside the warehouse walls.
“You need to let me go,�
� I said. “Please. Senator Keller is in trouble. I believe he was severely beaten before being dragged out of here.”
The man stepped closer to me. “But we worked so hard to find you.”
I looked at the agents to my side, then back at the man. “So that was you tracking me. How’d you know about the warehouse? Drone?”
The man looked confused. “It didn’t get that far. DDC contacted us a short while ago and let us know you had gone off the grid. I spoke with Roger Shapiro. You know him?” he asked and flashed a sarcastic smile at me. “He said he tried to locate you, but couldn’t. Said he needed our help. So why’d you go dark, Jordan?”
“I was being tracked. I removed the battery in my phone. So if you weren’t tracking me, how’d you know to come here?” I asked, hoping to get more information from the agent.
“A kid tipped us off. He said he was here with the senator and escaped. He called the police and told them he knew where Keller was. We came straight here and also sent a car to bring him here to identify the building. But we got here first, and that’s when we saw your vehicle parked a block away. We called it in and confirmed it was yours.”
The operative put his arms behind his back and paced the room. “How’d you know he was here?”
I could tell by the expression on his face and the tone of his voice that the man thought I might be involved in the kidnapping somehow. I thought about it from the FBI’s perspective. I had been in charge of the security detail for the senator and he was taken on my watch. I was asked to step back and disengage from the operation, but I didn’t. I went dark and showed up here, where Keller had been held.
My thoughts drifted to Jami. If more agents were showing up outside, would she have been able to get past them?
