by Diane Capri
She turned her attention next to the woman. Jill Hill. The name sounded silly enough to be real, but Kim figured it was more likely made up on the spur of the moment when someone asked and Jill wasn’t prepared with a better lie. Because she had the phone out already, she snapped a few pictures of Ms. Hill, too.
Ms. Hill shivered under the blanket the paramedic had wrapped around her. Her blonde hair was matted with blood, probably from a scalp laceration. Scalp wounds bled like faucets. An effort had been made to wipe the blood from her battered, swollen face, but her broken nose was going to require surgery. Maybe her cheekbones were broken, too. It was hard to say given the lighting conditions. When she watched Kim, her pupils were uneven and nonreactive.
Kim was no doctor, but like all FBI agents she’d had extensive emergency first aid training. And what she saw alarmed her. She waved Chief Brady over and reported quietly, “She needs to be transported now.”
Brady said, “We didn’t think she was emergent. We were waiting for FBI to make the call.”
Instead of asking why again, Kim said, “Now's the time.” She understood the protocols for concurrent FBI jurisdiction. But if Jill Hill died for killing this man, Kim wanted that to be a decision made by the justice system and not the result when law enforcement failed to provide treatment.
Gaspar had crouched low, eye-to-eye with the boy, engaged in lively conversation. He was an adorable child who looked maybe a little familiar. Blonde curls, dancing blue eyes, sweetly cherubic cheeks, and a bubbly smile accentuated by a heart-shaped full mouth. Kim noticed only one odd note: Whatever happened here seemed not to have troubled him overmuch.
Kim tapped Gaspar on the shoulder. He looked up and she tilted her head toward the Crown Vic. He nodded agreement. They'd been here too long. The unmistakable whap-whap-whap of a helicopter, no doubt bringing the FBI agents actually assigned to the case, grew louder. If they hurried, they could be gone before the official team disembarked.
The boy glanced at Kim and popped up wearing a drooling grin. “I’m Brook! You’re tall as me!” he said, clearly delighted to find at least one adult occupying space near his vertical dimension.
Kim felt her back stiffen, raised to her full 4'11" height and straightened her shoulders before she teased, “In your dreams, Bucko!”
He giggled as if this was the funniest thing any adult had said to him today. Which, sadly, it might have been. He offered her a high five. She slapped palms with him, somewhat chagrined to realize that his hand was not so much smaller than hers.
Gaspar had struggled out of his crouch. “We’ve gotta go, buddy. I had fun talking to you.”
Young Brook shook hands solemnly with each of them. Then he giggled his glorious laugh and waved while in a singsong voice he said, “Ta-ta! See you in the funny pages!”
“You bet,” Kim replied. Where have I heard that phrase delivered just like that before?
They hastened toward the Crown Vic, not only because of the cold, but because the whapping chopper blades had stopped.
Chief Brady stepped into their path before they reached the Crown Vic. “We sent a couple of cars to collect your team. They should be here shortly. We’ll let you get right to it. Meet up later in my office?”
“That works,” Kim said. “But you never told me why you called the FBI in the first place.”
Briefly, Brady’s brows joined over the bridge of his nose in puzzlement before enlightenment struck. “Why did we know about the kidnapping, you mean?”
Kidnapping?
“We recognized the kid from the classified BOLO.” Brady chuckled like a proud papa. “He looks exactly like his grandfather, don't you think? What a charmer. This kid is likely to be president instead of vice president when he grows up, huh? He’s already got the wave and the farewell line down pat.”
4.
Kim felt about two beats behind while she made the connection. Of course, the boy was former Vice President Brook Armstrong’s grandson. That’s why his farewell words seemed so familiar. Otto and Gaspar had been living so far under the radar, they didn't even know about the kidnapping. Agencies would have been advised officially, but a media blackout would have been imposed until sometime later as a matter of national security. Kids of politicians were protected from the bright world spotlight. But FBI agents would have known.
Gaspar must have been similarly behind the curve because he didn't immediately jump in, either. Half a moment later, they completely lost their opportunity to leave undetected.
Chief Brady’s gaze moved and fixed at a point beyond. “Here’s your team now,” he said.
Otto and Gaspar heard the lead agent speak behind them as she approached and moved into their line of sight. “Susan Duffy. Chief Brady?”
Brady nodded and shook hands and delivered a succinct summary, “Agent Otto here has already sent one injured woman to the hospital. One dead. And the boy is with one of my officers.”
Perhaps Duffy decided to be discreet for the moment. She said, “Otto and Gaspar can catch me up, Chief. My team will come with you to the crash site. There’s another chopper and team on the way to collect the child. I’ll be right there.”
When Brady and the other agents moved out of earshot, Duffy’s congeniality disappeared. Her tone was as cold as the frigid wind. “Why are you here?”
Kim might have attempted conciliation if she hadn’t felt like a complete fool. She hated being ignorant of a major alert for the entire national security team. And Duffy knew too much about Otto and Gaspar already. Belligerence was called for. “Same reason you are. Reacher. Where is he?”
Duffy didn't flinch. “You're confused, Agent Otto. Building the Reacher file is your assignment, not mine.”
Gaspar intervened. “You can do better than that. Maybe this kidnapping isn’t our case, but it’s not yours either, is it? You didn’t tell Grady you’re BATF, so he wasn’t expecting you. Which means Reacher must have called you and that’s why you’re here. What are you worried about?”
Duffy seemed to consider things for a moment or two longer than necessary. Probably running the possible scenarios through her mind, deciding how much to reveal, what to conceal. Kim recognized the signs.
Duffy said, “Our team was deployed to assist with apprehension of kidnapping suspects and the continuing commission of federal crimes.”
She’d chosen the option Kim would have selected and that was a comfort because it made Duffy predictable, which was the best thing an adversary could be. Kim would bet a month’s salary Duffy’s answer wasn’t true, but it was vague enough. The kind of thing Duffy could maintain long enough to do whatever it was she’d come here to accomplish.
Gaspar raised his right eyebrow in response.
Duffy bluffed again, probably because they were in no position to challenge her bluff. “You can check with my superiors if you like before you brief me on exactly why you’re here. I’ll wait.”
Gaspar shrugged like a man who’s played more than one hand of poker, too. “We were in process of our assignment when we approached what we thought was a traffic crash with bodily injury. We stopped to help. Now that you're here and in charge, we’ll head out unless there’s something we can do for you?”
Before Duffy had a chance to reply, an officer from Brady’s team walked up, “Agent Duffy? The medical examiner wants to see you before they transport the body. Please come this way.” Duffy simply followed; Otto and Gaspar tagged along.
The medical examiner was standing beside the covered body when they approached. “We've followed protocols, Agent Duffy. Is there anything special you want me to check before I go?”
“Identifying marks? Scars? Anything?” She asked, as if she thought there might be. Kim realized Duffy hadn’t seen the body. Yet, she didn’t seem to be thinking Reacher had found his match at long last and finally lost. She didn’t seem worried at all.
“Unfortunately, no,” the doctor said. “I've taken extra cheek swabs for DNA in case you have anything to compare at some point. B
ut there is something I wanted to show you.”
The medical examiner knelt down beside the body. Duffy tensed slightly and Kim wondered why; she already knew the dead man wasn’t Reacher. Did Duffy know who the guy was?
He removed the blanket. He turned the burly man's head to the side exposing his ruined skull. “Cause of death appears to be blunt trauma to the skull caused by hitting the broken concrete. The curious thing is how his head landed here with sufficient force to cause this much damage.”
“He’d fall pretty hard, wouldn’t he?”
The doctor wagged his head. “I can show you the computer models later, but the short answer is that’s unlikely. “
Gaspar asked, “Meaning what?”
“Meaning he was pushed and pushed hard.”
Kim felt what was coming in the same way she’d feel vibrations on a train track before the train appeared. Maybe Duffy felt it, too.
The doctor gestured toward the burly man’s forehead. “See the redness and swelling here? If he’d lived, he'd have a hell of a bruise tomorrow. He was hit with considerable force and weight, which knocked him backwards at significant velocity. When he hit the concrete the blow was much stronger than a simple slip or push and fall.”
Duffy’s face was a mask of objectivity. But Kim wanted firm, unshakable answers. “Could the woman have hit him hard enough to cause this?”
“I don't know for sure, but in my opinion, no. She’s been described to me as slight and five feet, four inches tall. That makes the leverage wrong. I doubt she could have wielded any weapon with sufficient force to knock this guy down in this way, particularly in her weakened condition after he had already attacked her.” He wagged his head again, “I don't see how any normal-sized woman could have done it.”
“So you're saying someone else killed this guy?” Kim asked, to be clear.
“That's how it looks,” he said.
“What knocked him down?” Gaspar asked.
“Hard to say. Something unexpected, because the deceased didn’t see it coming and duck away. Something hard, heavy, strong. Not that shotgun we found lying there, for sure.”
Duffy interrupted, “Thank you, doctor. Call me from the hospital after you’ve seen the woman, please.” She handed him her business card. Then she turned to face Kim. “Let’s get a cup of coffee. It’s freezing out here.”
Otto and Gaspar walked behind Duffy the short distance back to the Crown Vic. As Duffy had foretold, a second, larger helicopter approached from the east, moving fast, rotors progressively louder, almost within range. Conversational tones became impossible.
Once all three were seated inside the car, Kim turned toward the back seat; Duffy’s gaze met Gaspar’s in the rear view mirror. She said, “You’re looking thoughtful.”
Gaspar started the engine and flipped on the heat before he replied, “Just thinking that what little Brook said to me makes a lot more sense now.”
“What’d he say?” Kim asked, still watching Duffy. What was she thinking?
Gaspar said, “Brook wanted to know why the giant killed the bad man.”
Duffy’s scowl consumed her facial features like a plaster mask. “You’ve jumped to the wrong conclusions again. We need to talk before you get too far off the rails, which wouldn’t be a good thing for any of us.”
Still, Kim examined Duffy’s reaction carefully, challenged. “You’re saying Reacher didn’t kill that guy?”
Duffy’s sigh was barely audible over the rotors’ noise. “It’s not what you think, Otto.”
Kim wagged her head with vigor. “Nothing about Reacher ever is.” Neither Duffy nor Gaspar heard.
Gaspar’s near-shout barely traveled across the increasing cacophony. “Why don’t you enlighten us?”
Duffy projected loudly, “That’s my plan. There’s a diner on Grand Boulevard about a mile past the police station. Head north. I’ll tell you where to turn.”
Gaspar pulled the big car onto the northbound lane and joined the spotty traffic traveling now at normal speeds. New Hope was a tidy town populated with Disney-like storefronts and gaslights and lined with flower boxes still sporting fall mums in yellow hues. The sidewalks were swept clean. The only thing missing were shoppers, but given the weather and the hour and the excitement back at the intersection, an absence of pedestrians was not surprising.
Three miles beyond the crime scene stood a freestanding red brick building with white Doric columns and an impressive double door. Once, it might have been a bank. Now, The New Hope Family Diner advertised breakfast all day. Duffy said, “Park in the side lot. There’s an entrance there.”
Also in the side lot were a dozen vehicles of various makes and models. At the end of the row, Kim noticed a standard issue government black SUV with dark tinted windows all around the back. The driver was clean cut, well groomed, and infinitely patient.
Duffy led the way inside the diner and chose a booth in the back away from the other patrons. Duffy sat with her back to the exit, leaving Kim and Gaspar the best position choice. Surprising, Kim thought, as she and Gaspar sat facing the door.
After the waitress had taken their orders and delivered the coffee, Duffy said, “You’ve been out of the loop on this situation so let me fill you in first. The Vice President’s daughter and her husband are divorcing. The divorce is contentious and not going well for her.”
Kim had heard the rumors. Sally Armstrong had been a wild child when her father was one heartbeat away from leading the free world. Substance abuse was alleged, but never admitted. Marriage hadn’t tamed her.
Gaspar watched Duffy closely while drinking his coffee, but he asked no questions, which was odd for him. His behavior had been erratic since his wife called earlier. Kim continued to worry about his Miami issues, but she could only handle one major problem at a time.
“Go on,” Kim said.
Duffy said, “Six days ago, young Brook Armstrong III was kidnapped from his home in Arlington by his nanny, Jillian Timmer, and an unidentified man.”
“Otherwise known as ‘Jill Hill’ and the dead truck driver I suppose,” Kim said.
Duffy nodded. “Jillian had disabled the surveillance cameras, but she wasn’t aware of additional surveillance inside and outside the Armstrong house. As a result, the Vice President’s team knew fairly quickly that the two had abducted the boy. The kidnapping was well planned and well executed.”
Gaspar wiped his hand across his face and made a strange, almost moaning noise. His voice filled with anger and accusation. “Meaning Jillian executed the kidnapping with the cooperation of one of Brook’s parents, and you were one of the people supposed to keep that from happening, and then the team lost visual contact before they could be apprehended, right?”
Duffy’s annoyance flashed, but she tamped down her temper. The effort cost her. “After that, we worked around the clock to find the boy. None of us has slept more than four hours in the past six days. We expected a ransom demand, but it never came.”
Kim quickly put the timeline together in her head. “So you were working the case three days ago, when we saw you in DC.”
Pieces of the puzzle were clicking into place, but what did the full picture look like?
Duffy had lowered her gaze and drank a few sips of black coffee before she continued. “We got a lucky break today. I received an anonymous tip—”
Gaspar’s fist pounded the table, nostrils flared, a deep flush rose from is collar to his hairline. “Seriously? You expect me to believe that?”
A few diners glanced toward their table, maybe alarmed, maybe curious about the fuss. Duffy cleared her throat and continued as if he’d never spoken. “I received an anonymous tip a few hours ago. Brook was seen riding in a vehicle involved an insignificant rear end collision here in New Hope. While we put everything in place to pick him up here, the truck driver got out of hand. You arrived before we did.”
“What a load of crap,” Gaspar said, angrier than Kim had seen him in their brief time as partner
s. Was he angry because of Duffy’s lies? Or was it something else?
Duffy’s eyes flashed anger now, too. But she remained seated. She drank coffee and, like Kim, waited for Gaspar to settle down. When he did, she handed them a hand-held video device.
“Press the play button,” she said.
5.
Otto and Gaspar watched the scene unfold on Duffy’s video like a silent movie. The video was obviously spliced from images captured by several sources. The early segments were recorded by drones without soundtrack and maybe some kind of interior vehicle cameras. Later portions contained some sound and a bit of dialogue, indicating they were recorded by traffic cams and maybe other sources. The images were good enough. Clear enough to confirm some things. Not clear enough for others.
The sign advising sixteen miles to New Hope’s city limits was four miles back on the road before the video’s start. The hitchhiker was hunched into his jacket like cold and damp and heavy November air chilled his bones even as he trudged westward along the road’s uneven shoulder at a warming clip. Stinging wind assaulted his face so he kept his head down.
Nothing to see, anyway. The bleak landscape was less welcoming than any Kim had traveled before, which was quite a feat. He probably felt the same.
Experience must have told him to keep moving until, maybe, the right vehicle came along. A farmer or trucker could have offered him a ride; maybe that’s how he reached this point. Otherwise, he’d walk another four hours before he found hot coffee and a decent diner and, if he could muster a little luck, a warm bed for the night.
He’d made such trips before and Kim figured he expected more long walks down empty roads toward new towns in his future.
But Kim recognized him immediately because she’d seen him twice before. She recognized his clothes, too. The same heavy work boots probably kept his feet warm enough, dry enough. The brown leather jacket’s collar was turned up and his hair covered his ears, but a cap and gloves would have improved things, weather-wise. Indigo jeans and a work shirt surely weren’t sufficient. She wondered why he didn’t wear something warmer, at the very least.
