Die Trying

by Child, Lee

  The three builders worked fast and it took them less time than it might have. But it was already evening by the time they finished. The junior man stayed behind to pack tools and coil cables. The crew chief and the other guy drove north in the dark and parked exactly where the employer had told them to. Got out of their truck and waited in the silence.

  “In here,” a voice called. The employer. “All the way in back.”

  They went in. The place was dark. The guy was waiting for them, somewhere in the shadows.

  “These boards any use to you?” the employer asked.

  There was a stack of old pine boards, way in back.

  “They’re good lumber,” the employer said. “Maybe you can use them. Like recycling, you know?”

  There was something else on the ground beside the stack of boards. Something strange. The two carpenters stared. Strange humped shapes. The two carpenters stared at the strange humped shapes, then they stared at each other. Then they turned around. The employer smiled at them and raised a dull black automatic.

  THE RESIDENT AGENT at the FBI’s remote satellite station was a smart enough guy to realize it was going to be important. He didn’t know exactly how or why it was going to be important, but an undercover informant doesn’t risk a radio message from a concealed location for no reason. So he copied the details into the FBI computer system. His report flashed across the computer network and lodged in the massive mainframe on the first floor of the FBI’s Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. The Hoover Building database handles more new reports in a day than there are seconds, so it took a long moment for the FBI software to scan through and pick out the key words. Once it had done so, it lodged the bulletin high in its memory and waited.

  At exactly the same time, the system was logging a message from the FBI Field Office in Chicago. The bureau chief up there, Agent-in-Charge McGrath, was reporting that he’d lost one of his people. Special Agent Holly Johnson was missing, last seen twelve o’clock Chicago time, whereabouts currently unknown, contact attempted but not achieved. And because Holly Johnson was a pretty special case, the message carried an eyes-only code which kept it off every terminal in the building except the one all the way upstairs in the Director’s office.

  THE DIRECTOR OF the FBI got out of a budget review meeting just before seven-thirty in the evening. He walked back to his office suite and checked his messages. His name was Harland Webster and he had been with the Bureau thirty-six years. He had one more year to run on his term as Director, and then he’d be gone. So he wasn’t looking for trouble, but he found it glowing on the monitor of his desktop terminal. He clicked on the report and read it through twice. He sighed at the screen.

  “Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  The report in from McGrath in Chicago was not the worst news Webster had ever had in thirty-six years, but it came pretty damn close. He buzzed the intercom on his desk and his secretary answered.

  “Get me McGrath in Chicago,” he said.

  “He’s on line one,” his secretary told him. “He’s been waiting for you.”

  Webster grunted and hit the button for line one. Put the call on the speakerphone and leaned back in his chair.

  “Mack?” he said. “So what’s the story?”

  McGrath’s voice came in clear from Chicago.

  “Hello, chief,” he said. “There is no story. Not yet. Maybe we’re worrying too early, but I got a bad feeling when she didn’t show. You know how it is.”

  “Sure, Mack,” Webster said. “You want to confuse me with some facts?”

  “We don’t have any facts,” McGrath said. “She didn’t show for a five o’clock case conference. That struck me as unusual. There were no messages from her anywhere. Her pager and her cell phone are out of commission. I asked around and the last anybody saw of her was about twelve o’clock.”

  “She was in the office this morning?” Webster asked.

  “All morning,” McGrath said.

  “Any appointments before this five o’clock thing?” Webster said.

  “Nothing in her diary,” McGrath said. “I don’t know what she was doing or where she was doing it.”

  “Christ, Mack,” Webster said. “You were supposed to take care of her. You were supposed to keep her off the damn streets, right?”

  “It was her lunch break,” McGrath said. “What the hell could I do?”

  There was a silence in the Director’s suite, broken only by the faint hum on the speakerphone. Webster drummed his fingers on his desk.

  “What was she working on?” he asked.

  “Forget it,” McGrath said. “We can assume this is not interference by a Bureau suspect, right? Doesn’t make any kind of sense in her case.”

  Webster nodded to himself.

  “In her case, I agree, I guess,” he said. “So what else are we looking at?”

  “She was injured,” McGrath said. “Tore up her knee playing ball. We figure maybe she fell, made it worse, maybe ended up in the ER. We’re checking the hospitals now.”

  Webster grunted.

  “Or else there’s a boyfriend we don’t know about,” McGrath said. “Maybe they’re in a motel room somewhere, getting laid.”

  “For six hours?” Webster said. “I should be so lucky.”

  There was silence again. Then Webster sat forward.

  “OK, Mack,” he said. “You know what to do. And you know what not to do, case like hers, right? Keep in touch. I’ve got to go to the Pentagon. I’ll be back in an hour. Call me then if you need me.”

  Webster broke the connection and buzzed his secretary to call his car. Then he walked out to his private elevator and rode down to the underground parking lot. His driver met him there and they walked together over to the Director’s bulletproof limousine.

  “Pentagon,” Webster said to his driver.

  TRAFFIC WASN’T BAD, seven-thirty on a June Monday evening. Took about eleven minutes to do the two and a half miles. Webster spent the time making urgent calls on his mobile. Calls to various locations within such a tight geographical radius that he could probably have reached them all by shouting. Then the big car came up to the Pentagon River Entrance and the Marine sentry stepped over. Webster clicked off his phone and buzzed his window down for the identification ritual.

  “The Director of the FBI,” he said. “To see the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

  The sentry snapped a salute and waved the limousine through. Webster buzzed the window back up and waited for the driver to stop. Then he got out and ducked in through the personnel door. Walked through to the Chairman’s suite. The Chairman’s secretary was waiting for him.

  “Go right through, sir,” she said. “The General will be along in a moment.”

  Webster walked into the Chairman’s office and stood waiting. He looked out through the window. The view was magnificent, but it had a strange metallic tint. The window was made of one-way bulletproof Mylar. It was a great view, but the window was on the outside of the building, right next to the River Entrance, so it had to be protected. Webster could see his car, with his driver waiting beside it. Beyond the car was a view of the Capitol, across the Potomac. Webster could see sailboats in the Tidal Basin, with the last of the evening sun glinting low on the water. Not a bad office, Webster thought. Better than mine, he thought.

  Meeting with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was a problem for the Director of the FBI. It was one of those Beltway oddities, a meeting where there was no cast-iron ranking. Who was superior? Both were presidential appointees. Both reported to the President through just one intermediary, the Defense Secretary or the Attorney General. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was the highest-ranking military post that the nation had to offer. The Director of the FBI was the highest-ranking law enforcement post. Both men were at the absolute top of their respective greasy poles. But which greasy pole was taller? It was a problem for Webster. In the end, it was a problem for him because the truth was his pole
was shorter. He controlled a budget of two billion dollars and about twenty-five thousand people. The Chairman oversaw a budget of two hundred billion and about a million people. Two million, if you added in the National Guard and the Reserves. The Chairman was in the Oval Office about once a week. Webster got there twice a year, if he was lucky. No wonder this guy’s office was better.

  The Chairman himself was impressive, too. He was a four-star general whose rise had been spectacular. He had come from nowhere and blitzed upward through the Army just about faster than his tailor could sew the ribbons on his uniform. The guy had ended up lopsided with medals. Then he had been hijacked by Washington and moved in and made the place his own, like it was some military objective. Webster heard his arrival in the anteroom and turned to greet him as he came into the office.

  “Hello, General,” he said.

  The Chairman sketched a busy wave and grinned.

  “You want to buy some missiles?” he said.

  Webster was surprised.

  “You’re selling them?” he said. “What missiles?”

  The Chairman shook his head and smiled.

  “Just kidding,” he said. “Arms limitation. Russians have gotten rid of a bomber base in Siberia, so now we’ve got to get rid of the missiles we assigned against it. Treaty compliance, right? Got to play fair. The big stuff, we’re selling to Israel. But we’ve still got about a couple hundred little ones, you know, Stingers, shoulder-launch surface-to-air things. All surplus. Sometimes I think we should sell them to the dope dealers. God knows they’ve got everything else they want. Better weapons than we’ve got, most of them.”

  The Chairman talked his way around to his chair and sat down. Webster nodded. He’d seen Presidents do a similar thing, tell a joke, tell a lighthearted story, man to man, get the ice broken, make the meeting work. The Chairman leaned back and smiled.

  “So what can I do for you, Director?” he asked.

  “We got a report in from Chicago,” Webster said. “Your daughter is missing.”

  8

  BY MIDNIGHT IN Chicago, the third-floor conference room was set up as a command center. FBI technicians had swarmed all evening, running phone lines into the room and installing computer terminals in a line down the center of the hardwood table. Now at midnight it was dark and cool and quiet. Shiny blackness outside the wall of glass. No scramble to decide which side of the table was better.

  Nobody had gone home. There were seventeen agents sprawled in the leather chairs. Even the Bureau lawyer was still there. No real reason for that, but the guy was feeling the same triple-layered response they all were. The Bureau looks after its own. That was layer number one. The Chicago Field Office looks after Holly Johnson. That was layer number two. Not just because of her connections. That had nothing to do with it. Holly was Holly. And if layer number three was what McGrath wanted, McGrath got. If McGrath was worried about Holly, then they all were worried, and they all were going to stay worried until she was found, safe and sound. So they were all still there. Quiet, and worried. Until McGrath came loudly and cheerfully into the room, making a big entrance, smoking like his life depended on it.

  “Good news, people, listen up, listen up,” he called out.

  He dodged his way through to the head of the table. Murmuring died into sudden silence. Eighteen pairs of eyes followed him.

  “We found her,” he called out. “We found her, OK? She’s safe and well. Panic’s over, folks. We can all relax now.”

  Eighteen voices started talking all at once. All asking the same urgent questions. McGrath held his hands up for quiet, like a nominee at a rally.

  “She’s in the hospital,” he said. “What happened is her surgeon got a window for this afternoon he wasn’t expecting. He called her, she went right over, they took her straight to the OR. She’s fine, she’s convalescing, and she’s embarrassed as all hell for the fuss she’s caused.”

  The eighteen voices started up again, and McGrath let them rumble on for a moment. Then he held his hands up again.

  “So, panic over, right?” he called out again, smiling.

  The rumbling got lighter in tone as relief fueled the voices.

  “So, people, home to bed,” McGrath said. “Full working day tomorrow, right? But thanks for being here. From me, and from Holly. Means a lot to her. Brogan and Milosevic, you stay awhile, share out her workload for the rest of the week. The rest of you, goodnight, sleep well, and thanks again, gentlemen.”

  Fifteen agents and the lawyer smiled and yawned and stood up. Jostled cheerfully and noisily out of the room. McGrath and Brogan and Milosevic were left scattered in random seats, far from each other. McGrath walked over in the sudden silence to the door. Closed it quietly. Turned back and faced the other two.

  “That was all bullshit,” he said. “As I’m sure you both guessed.”

  Brogan and Milosevic just stared at him.

  “Webster called me,” McGrath said. “And I’m sure you can both guess why. Major, major D.C. involvement. They’re going apeshit down there. VIP kidnap, right? Webster’s been given personal responsibility. He wants total secrecy and minimum numbers. He wants everybody up here off this case right now except me plus a team of two. My choice. I picked the two of you, because you know her best. So it’s the three of us. We deal direct with Webster, and we don’t talk to anybody else at all, OK?”

  Brogan stared at him and nodded. Milosevic nodded in turn. They knew they were the obvious choices for the job. But to be chosen by McGrath for any reason was an honor. They knew it, and they knew McGrath knew they knew it. So they nodded again, more firmly. Then there was silence for a long moment. McGrath’s cigarette smoke mingled with the silence up near the ceiling. The clock on the wall ticked around toward half past midnight.

  “OK,” Brogan said finally. “So what now?”

  “We work all night, is what,” McGrath said. “All day, all night, every day, every night, until we find her.”

  He glanced at the two of them. Reviewed his choices. An adequate team, he thought. A good mixture. Brogan was older, drier, a pessimist. A compact man with a tidy, ordered approach, laced with enough imagination to make him useful. An untidy private life, with a girlfriend and a couple of ex-wives somewhere, all costing him big bucks and worry, but it never interfered with his work. Milosevic was younger, less intuitive, flashier, but solid. A permanent sidekick, which was not necessarily a fault. A weakness for big expensive four-wheel-drives, but everybody needs some kind of a hobby. Both of them were medium-term Bureau veterans, with mileage on their clocks and scalps on their belts. Both of them were focused, and neither of them ever bitched about the work or the hours. Or the salary, which made them just about unique. An adequate team. They were new to Chicago, but this investigation was not going to stay in Chicago. McGrath was just about sure of that.

  “Milo, you figure out her movements,” he said. “Every step, every minute from twelve noon.”

  Milosevic nodded vaguely, like he was already lost in doing that.

  “Brogan, background checks,” McGrath said. “We need to find some reason here.”

  Brogan nodded dourly, like he knew the reason was going to be the beginning and the end of the whole thing.

  “I start with the old guy?” he asked.

  “Obviously,” McGrath said. “That’s what I would do.”

  “OK, which one?” Brogan asked.

  “Whichever one,” McGrath replied. “Your choice.”

  SEVENTEEN HUNDRED AND two miles away, another executive decision had been taken. A decision about the third carpenter. The employer drove back to the white building in the crew chief’s pickup. The third carpenter had finished up stacking the tools and he took a step forward when he saw the vehicle approaching. Then he stopped in puzzlement when he saw the huge figure at the wheel. He stood, uncertain, while the employer pulled up at the curb and heaved himself out.

  “OK?” the employer said to him.

  “Where are the guys?” th
e carpenter asked.

  “Something came up,” the employer said.

  “Problem?” the guy asked.

  He went quiet, because he was thinking about his share of the price. A minority share, for sure, because he was the junior guy, but a minority share of that price was still more cash than he’d seen in a long time.

  “You got a saw there?” the employer asked.

  The guy just looked at him.

  “Dumb question, right?” the employer said. “You’re a carpenter and I’m asking you if you got a saw? Just show me your best saw.”

  The guy stood still for a moment, then he ducked down and pulled a power saw from the stack of tools. A big thing in dull metal, wicked circular blade, fresh sawdust caked all around it.

  “Crosscut?” the employer asked. “Good for ripping through real tough stuff?”

  The guy nodded.

  “It does the job,” he said, cautiously.

  “OK, here’s the deal,” the employer said. “We need a demonstration.”

  “Of the saw?” the guy asked.

  “Of the room,” the employer said.

  “The room?” the guy repeated.

  “Supposed to be nobody can get out of it,” the employer said. “That’s the idea behind it, right?”

  “You designed it,” the guy said.

  “But did you build it right?” the employer said. “That’s what I’m asking here. We need a trial run. A demonstration to prove it serves its purpose.”

  “OK, how?” the guy asked.

  “You go in there,” the employer said. “See if you can get out by morning. You built it, right? So you know all the weak spots. If anybody can get out, you can, that’s for damn sure, right?”

  The guy was quiet for a long moment. Trying to understand.