by Jack Mars
It was unsigned, but Luke didn’t have to think very hard to guess who had sent it. The mercurial Kevin Murphy, former Delta operator, former SRT agent, hell in a gunfight. He and Murphy had never been friends, but they had a rough sort of respect for one another. It wasn’t clear what “endless opportunity” was supposed to mean, but what it certainly didn’t mean was boredom. If Luke weren’t married, if he didn’t have a child, he would be sorely tempted to join Murphy on his adventures.
“Becca said you were in New Jersey on Friday,” Audrey said now. “A training with the Drug Enforcement Agency, was it?”
Here came the lies. The lies were bad enough on their own. When Audrey forced them into existence, it was always somehow worse.
“Oh, I was there with Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Not DEA. It was at an outdoor facility in the woods north and west of Paterson. My partner Ed and I were guests brought in to do an assessment of…”
“Were you at the drug raid on the house in Newark?”
Luke shook his head and looked out at the deep blue of the bay.
“No. We heard about it. People in the ATF were talking. It’s a…”
“It’s a shame,” Lance said. “A young boy like that getting killed by the police.”
“We saw it on the TV news,” Audrey said. “They said one of the officers was shot as well, though his identity was kept a secret. The secrecy made us think of you. We were wondering if you were there.”
She eyed Luke closely.
“No,” Luke said. “And I’m glad I wasn’t.”
“It’s always a tragedy when an innocent life is taken,” Audrey said.
CHAPTER SIX
March 27, 2006
10:05 a.m. Eastern Standard Time
The Headquarters of the FBI Special Response Team
McLean, Virginia
“I’ll admit I don’t get this operation,” Mark Swann said. “A missing persons case doesn’t seem very SRT. Not to be uncouth here, but it is just one girl.”
Luke glanced down the conference table at Swann. Luke often didn’t know what to make of Swann. The guy was clearly super smart, but sometimes his mouth ran far out ahead of his brain.
Swann looked at Luke. “Usually we’re saving the world around here, aren’t we?”
Swann was tall and thin, wearing a black T-shirt with the logo of the old punk rock band The Ramones. The logo was made to look like the Seal of the President of the United States. He was wearing a pair of yellow-tinted wraparound aviator sunglasses, and his long hair was pulled back into a ponytail.
There were exactly five people in the conference room. Swann, Luke, Ed Newsam, Trudy Wellington, and the man himself, Don Morris.
“Swann,” Don Morris said. Don was dressed in a blue dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to his thick forearms. Don’s eyes were like those of a tiger, something that hunted weaker animals for a living. And those eyes were focused on Mark Swann.
“What would you say is your job with the Special Response Team?”
Swann shrugged. “I’d say I’m a tech guy. Communications. Data acquisition, you might say. I’ve heard some people call it spying.”
Don nodded. “That sounds right to me. And you’re pretty good at that. Now what would you say is my job?”
Swann smiled and shook his head. “I’d say you’re the boss.”
Don pointed at him. “Exactly right. And what types of things do you suppose that includes?”
“Hiring and deploying personnel,” Swann said. “Setting policy.”
Don was grinning now. “Yes, indeed. What else?”
“Uh… choosing missions?”
“Beautiful,” Don said. “So let’s do this, okay? I will do my job, and you do yours.”
Swann nodded. “Good idea.”
“The truth is,” Don said, “this isn’t technically an SRT mission. That’s why there’s just a few of us here. And for now, what we will discuss is for the eyes and ears of the people in this room only. We are doing a favor for some people I know, very likely a small favor because others are already working on the problem. Consider it a good deed. So if Swann has no more objections…”
He looked Swann’s way.
Swann shook his head.
“Then I will ask Trudy to begin again.”
Trudy nodded, eyes owlish behind her red glasses.
She began. “As you know, this weekend Don asked me to look into a missing person case in North Carolina. I’ve spent several hours on it last night and this morning, contacting a few people with knowledge of the situation. I also had the assistance of Swann, who got me some details that haven’t exactly been made public yet.”
Swann nodded. “Reports filed in a local police database. Information in a high school database. Medical reports at a local hospital. A few other things. Child’s play. I was doing stuff like that when I was a kid.”
“In any event, here’s what we came up with,” Trudy said. “This past Thursday night, there appears to have been an abduction of a girl from Wilmington, a small coastal city in the southeast corner of the state. Charlotte Richmond, a sixteen-year-old, appears to have slipped out of her house, apparently while her mother and her mother’s boyfriend were asleep. She is an only child, and there is thought to have been no one else in the house at the time.
“The girl attended a party at an oceanfront home in nearby Wrightsville Beach. There were about a dozen people at the party, mostly underage high school kids, and alcohol was served there. Some individuals were also smoking pot. The party was hosted by eighteen-year-old Taylor Seifert, whose parents were out of the country at the time. The family are heirs to the original Seifert Beverage fortune, and continue to have a significant minority stake in SBS Distributors Worldwide.”
Don nodded. “Continue.”
“Some time during the night, Charlotte Richmond disappeared. Actually, that’s not quite accurate. She left the grounds of the house with a seventeen-year-old boy named Robert Haskins, and walked down to the beach. Haskins is both the starting tight end and a linebacker on the Hoggard High School football team in Wilmington. According to his coach, he stands about six foot three, and weighs a little over two hundred pounds. He is handsome, or was until last week. He is apparently very popular with teenage girls.”
“Is he a suspect?” Luke said. He found himself lured in by this Peyton Place–style mystery.
Trudy shook her head. “The local police consider him a witness, not a suspect. Also, he’s a victim. Haskins was beaten severely and knocked unconscious by what he says were two men. The extent of his injuries suggest a blitz attack by a person or persons well-versed in the use of violence, who wanted to neutralize a large opponent quickly. Five missing teeth. Broken orbital socket around his right eye. Hairline skull fracture. Four broken ribs. Seven broken bones in his right hand, consistent with a crushing injury. Internal bleeding and minor organ injuries, including to the spleen and kidneys. He remains in the hospital as of this morning. Whoever took Charlotte Richmond beat the hell out of this kid.”
“Did he get a look at them?” Ed said.
Trudy shook her head again. “The statement he gave suggests he didn’t. It was a dark night with only a sliver of moon, he and the Richmond girl were quite far from the house, and there were rip tide and high surf warnings that night. The waves were booming, and Haskins had been drinking beer since early evening. He told the local police he didn’t hear anyone coming. He said that he and the Richmond girl had been flirting in recent weeks, exchanging text messages, and he thought that the night of the party might be the night they… consummated, let’s say… their relationship. They were together on the beach, talking, and were suddenly attacked by persons unknown.”
“And the text messages?” Don said.
Trudy shrugged. “They’ve been subpoenaed from the telephone carriers. The Richmond girl’s phone is gone, and has been disabled or destroyed. Police tried to ping its location, but there’s no signal. Haskins appears to have lost his phone
in the attack.”
“That’s convenient,” Ed said. “So this girl’s been gone since early Friday morning, and now it’s Monday. We are way behind.”
“To be sure,” Trudy said, “a certain amount of time was lost because there was a delay in the reporting of the crime. Haskins was unconscious on the beach until sunrise Friday, when he was found by a local man out walking his dog. Paramedics arrived and took Haskins to the hospital. Police arrived twenty minutes later, questioned the people at the house, but either the kids weren’t aware that Charlotte Richmond was no longer in the house, or they simply didn’t report it. By all accounts, it was quite a party. The fact that Charlotte was missing didn’t become clear until early afternoon, when the high school contacted her mother.”
“Keep in mind,” Don said, “I didn’t even hear about this until yesterday.”
“What about the mother’s boyfriend?” Luke said. “Does he have any relationship to this? An unrelated man in the house—isn’t he the first place to look?”
Trudy glanced at her computer. “Usually, sure. And he has certainly been looked at. His name is Jeff Zorn, Jr., he’s forty-three years old, and a self-employed publicist. His father was Jeffrey Zorn, a partner at Goldman Sachs investment firm in New York City. Zorn has been living with Charlotte Richmond’s mother, forty-year-old Joy Simms, formerly Joy Richmond, for the past eighteen months. Zorn is cooperating fully. He was questioned by local police, without a lawyer present. He voluntarily surrendered two cars, a laptop computer, a desktop computer, and two cell phones—a private one and one he uses for business purposes. He is a person of interest in the case, but was not arrested.
“Zorn has a conviction for trafficking in controlled substances—he was selling pills at a nightclub in Manhattan—that stems from more than twenty years ago. He got off with two hundred hours of community service. He has no history of violent activity, is five foot nine, weighs one-eighty pounds, and wears glasses. He is unlikely to overpower a teenage football player. Given that the attack took place miles away from the girl’s home, at a time when Zorn had a verifiable alibi, and given his level of transparency, I believe the case will move on without him.”
“Where’s the biological father?” Ed said.
“Deceased,” Trudy said. She referred to the computer again. “Thomas Richmond. He and the mother divorced when the child was young. He was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer at the age of thirty-two and died at the age of thirty-six, about six years ago. He became severely debilitated in his last couple of years, and Charlotte was shielded from spending much time with him. In a sense, the girl barely knew her father. The paternal grandfather is Miles Richmond, a high-powered DC lobbyist. He apparently took over providing financial support for the child after the death of Thomas Richmond.”
Luke glanced at Don. His face didn’t change in the slightest at the mention of the lobbyist.
“I’ve been looking into that angle,” Trudy said. “But so far I haven’t come up with anything. Richmond is known to play hardball and almost certainly has enemies. But the world of lobbyists isn’t the Mafia. They don’t kidnap each other’s family members. As of this moment, the Richmond connection seems like more of a coincidence than anything.”
“And the mom?” Luke said.
“Joy Simms,” Trudy said. “She’s an attorney with Edgemont Prender, a small firm in Wilmington. Local stuff—real estate closings, estate planning, drunk driving cases. By all accounts, she has utterly collapsed since her daughter was taken. Very little of value was obtained in her police interview. She is not considered a suspect.”
“What’s your gut?” Don said. “What happened here?”
“There isn’t much to go on,” Trudy said.
Don shrugged. “Even so.”
Trudy nodded. “Okay. I’m out on a limb, but okay. It was a targeted crime, conceived ahead of time. Charlotte Richmond is a pretty, popular teenage girl. She’s a cheerleader and on the dance squad at the local high school. She spends her time with other pretty, popular girls. Someone in her circle, or more likely someone close to her circle, was aware there was going to be a party. That person was aware that Charlotte, or other girls like her, were going to be at the party, and would likely be impaired. The ferocity of the attack on the Haskins boy suggests a planned assault. Someone knew that Haskins was large and had to be incapacitated instantly. Someone followed the two of them onto the beach, stalked them, and then attacked.”
She looked around the room. “Since there appear to be no leads at the moment, I would suggest widening the search to family members, associates, and most importantly, enemies of the kids at the party. I would look especially closely at men or boys who frequent bodybuilding gyms or are involved in fighting activities like boxing or mixed martial arts. I would look closely at men who have records of violent crime, or have been involved in law enforcement or the military. I don’t believe the attack was a coincidence, or a crime of opportunity. Nothing like that. One or more men just happen upon two young lovers on the beach during a pitch-dark night, quickly overwhelm the male, and abduct the female without a trace? That sounds planned.”
“It’s a kidnapping, in other words?” Ed said.
Ed was looking at Trudy intently. Luke hadn’t connected with Ed before the meeting today, but that look in his eyes—the intensity of it—Luke had only seen Ed that way a few times. Generally, when he was angry, and in danger of boiling over. Or right before combat.
Trudy nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
“Is she alive or dead?” Don said.
“Alive,” Trudy said without hesitating. “That may be because I want her to be alive, but I think there’s more here. If she were dead then we’d probably be looking at a serial killer. There are no serial killers thought to be active in that region at this time, and the modus operandi doesn’t fit your typical serial killer. Serial killers rarely attack women who are accompanied by large males. Not that it doesn’t happen, but it’s rare. Usually they go for women who are isolated. In fact, the classic victim of a serial killer is a poor, drug-addicted prostitute, who no one will miss right away. It is definitely not a well-to-do teenage girl who is supposed to be at school in the morning. I think someone wanted Charlotte specifically, and is holding her captive. It may be that they are holding her for their own purposes, or it may be that they took her with the idea of trafficking her. A young, fresh face, fresh body…”
Trudy shrugged again, looking down at her computer screen as if she didn’t want to face them. Everyone in the room knew the implications of what she was telling them.
“I’d say there’s also an outside chance they’re planning to hold her for ransom, considering that she is Miles Richmond’s granddaughter. But as of this morning, no one in the family has admitted being contacted by kidnappers. The more time that passes without contact, the less likely a ransom scenario becomes.”
Don looked around the room now.
“I want to tell you all something. I think most of us have either been touched by something like this in our lifetimes, or have known someone who has. For the loved ones, it is horrible beyond words. I nearly lost my Margaret some months ago, and got her back by the grace of God, and by the efforts of the people in this room. Because of that experience, I’ve agreed to look into this situation. I won’t get into the details of who asked me to do so. But you know the reason why—because we have a reputation for getting things done. We have an opportunity to do a good thing here. Maybe. And if it’s possible, that’s what I want to do.”
“Have the local police called in the FBI?” Luke said.
Don shook his head. “Not so far. And even if they did, you know the Bureau wouldn’t give it to us. We’re on a short leash. All we’re doing right now is quietly feeling around, with the emphasis on quietly. We have no official capacity.”
“Clandestine,” Swann said.
“Yes. If the basic questions will get this done, the local police will do it. We’re going to ask
the questions no one else is asking. We’ll approach the people no one is approaching. If we think all the way outside the box—and I believe that creative thinking is one of the most powerful tools this organization has—we might be able to come at the bad guys from a direction they’re not expecting.”
“Where do we even start, if we’re not supposed to step on the toes of the local police?” Ed said.
“Trudy?” Don said.
She shrugged. “We could work the family, friends, and enemies angle I mentioned earlier. Start close and work outwards. That’s a little bit of snooping, maybe pulling down text and email messages. I imagine Swann could start to put those relationships together in a day or two.”
“I can have some early concentric circles by close of business tomorrow, in all likelihood,” Swann said. “My hunch is we’ll find something pretty close to the middle. If not, as the days go by, we can sweep it all in. Everyone in that city, if need be.”
Don raised a hand like a STOP sign. “That’s enough, Swann. Do what you do, but don’t incriminate your colleagues.”
Swann nodded. “Understood.”
“What about cameras?” Ed said. “You said it’s a rich neighborhood. Would there be security cameras in the community, and would that footage be processed somewhere in particular? A local home security firm, say? Maybe it picked something up, a car, a van…”
“Two guys walking down the street, carrying a girl,” Luke said.
Ed looked at him. Ed’s eyes were still hot, practically on fire.
“I’ll see what I can get,” Swann said. “I’m guessing that if the local cops are doing their jobs, they already have it. If we were officially on this case…”
He looked at Don.
Don shook his head. “We’re not.”
“We can also work the trafficking angle,” Trudy said. “Charlotte is a very specific kind of girl, who would probably appeal to a specific clientele. It was a high-risk move to take her. There are people with histories of committing these kinds of crimes, and such a person may know something about the who, what, and where.”
