by J K Ellem
“You tell me,” Ryder replied. “Tell me what your instincts are telling you."
Beth thought for a moment. In her head she had memorized every piece of evidence she had. She knew the faces of the dead and the missing as though they were her own family. She had spoken to the families, seen the pain of not knowing on their faces. There wasn’t a waking hour when she didn’t think about finding the person responsible. He was always there, in the background, like some dark omen perched on her shoulder.
Beth turned to Ryder and in a calm voice summarized everything into one profile of the killer. “It’s a male. He lives alone but has no real fixed address, just sleeps in his truck. That makes it almost impossible to track him unless we know the truck. He’s using the interstate as a hunting ground. He likes young girls. He picks them up when they hitchhike or need a ride. He used to dump them so they could be found, but now the bodies have stopped turning up.”
“But you don’t think he really has stopped?”
Beth shook her head. “No.”
“Because he can’t,” Ryder added. “The urge is too strong.”
Beth gave a thin smile, glad that she could finally talk to someone about it.
Ryder continued, “He hasn’t stopped killing; he’s just disposing of them now so they can’t be found.”
Beth nodded. “It’s like he’s torturing the parents of his victims as well. Doesn’t want them to be found.”
“So they spend the rest of their lives wondering what happened to their son or their daughter.”
“A lifetime of not knowing. You believe me, don’t you?”
Ryder could see the sudden desperation in Beth’s eyes. Here was a woman who had tirelessly compiled clues about someone who was a ghost, who had left a trail of destruction and unimaginable loss. She had kept the secret to herself all these years. It was slowly eating away at her, and that was starting to show. She needed to confide in someone, to share her frustration and torment.
Ryder looked at the wall again before she answered. “Yes, I believe you.”
Beth smiled, tears in her eyes. “Will you help me? Help me find him? Find this woman Jessie Rae if in fact he has taken her as his next victim?"
Ryder rose from the chair and stood in front of the wall again, her gaze falling on the photos of the dead and the missing. Smiling faces, happier times. There were so many. When she spoke again, Ryder’s voice was cold, her eyes looking through the eyes of the people on the wall, trying to see what they had seen just before they vanished. “We’ll find him, Beth, and Jessie Rae if he has taken her.” She turned and looked Beth right in the eye. “And when we do, we’re going to kill him.”
Twenty miles to the south Pritchard eased his truck into the holding yard under harsh industrial lights. There were just two workmen on the night shift. They connected thick hoses with steel couplings to the truck’s manifold valve system and started draining the main tank.
While he waited, Pritchard did a quick inspection of the front end of his truck making sure there was no visible damage. The large wrap-around bull bar had taken the force of the impact with just a few minor scratches. The heavy-duty tubular steel was already worn and scarred, so an extra few marks would not be noticed. He was certain the woman in the police car didn’t get a look at his license plate before he smashed into her. He’d turned the high beams on just to make sure.
And there were no markings on the side of his tanker truck; it had no decals or brand names they could trace either. He was an independent contractor not bound to any company. That made it all the harder to find him.
Pritchard did another circuit of the truck just to make sure, but he could see no real damage. Then he saw the bullet hole on the passenger door and swore. Thankfully the pump manifold system was on the opposite side so the workmen hadn’t seen it.
Pritchard opened a steel tool chest and worked some putty into the hole, then smoothed it off. It would have to do until he got back to his shed, then he would paint over it.
While he waited for the tank to empty, he thought about the woman sound asleep in the hidden compartment under the chassis, two workmen standing just inches away from where she lay unconscious.
Twenty minutes later five thousand gallons of liquid was pumped out of the tanker and he was back on the road again, the truck considerably lighter.
The sky in the east was starting to brighten. Pritchard was keen to unload the special cargo he was transporting. Ten miles later, the empty tanker truck exited the highway and threaded along a narrow side road.
The road cut through flat scrub, the stars fading and the sky turning to a purple smudge. He pulled up in front of an old gate, climbed down, undid the padlock and chain, then drove through, locking the gate behind him. Broken asphalt gave way to a flat road of crushed road base that churned under the truck’s tires.
A mile later the truck’s headlights hit a large shed made of timber and sheet iron.
It was the only structure for miles. Pritchard eased the truck next to the shed, killed the lights and turned off the engine. The truck hissed and hunkered down.
The air outside was cold and clear as Pritchard climbed down and went to the side of the truck where the hidden compartment was. The drawer slid out and the woman lay inside, still asleep. He quickly bound her hands and feet with cable ties before hoisting her over his shoulder and carrying her toward the shed.
He needed to get everything ready. He wanted it just perfect for her.
She was going to wake soon. Then she would find herself right in the middle of a nightmare she would never wake from.
35
The next morning it was Shaw’s turn to be the prisoner, to be the person tied to the chair waiting for the interrogation to begin. It was normally the other way around—someone else was supposed to be in the chair, bound, hooded and gagged, and it gave Shaw a certain perspective he would never forget.
The hood was lifted and the gag peeled away by faceless hands. Shaw’s eyes adjusted to the interior of the barn.
He sat in a yellow pool of light, portable lights stood to one side.
A man walked out of the darkness, stepped into the light, and sat down on a chair that was placed opposite Shaw in the same pool of light.
The man was dressed in slim olive chinos, a button-down, blue-striped oxford shirt with a tiny polo rider on the chest, and soft leather slip-on shoes complete with tassels. His sandy grey hair was cropped short on the back and sides, and fashionably long and swept back on top with a straight part. He had high cheekbones and a distinguished look, rugged but refined, early fifties. He was one of those men who would always look younger than their actual age.
Intense blue eyes scrutinized Shaw like an entomologist studying a new species of butterfly caught in their net.
Adam Tanner spoke first, as though reading Shaw’s mind. “Not quite what you expected?”
Shaw offered nothing, just sat, hands and feet bound to the chair, the chair bolted to the concrete floor, a dusty shaft of light clouding the air between them.
“Are you surprised, Mr. Shaw? Have I ruined the stereotype in your head? Your preconceived bias? I’m sure you had a mental image of me. Are you disappointed or just surprised?” Tanner smiled and leaned forward, his fingers pressed together forming a wedge.
Tanner’s words were precise, not condescending, well-spoken by a man in perpetual control who presumed nothing.
No, it was not what Shaw had expected.
“Maybe you pictured me as a longhaired, dark-eyed, bearded Arab or Libyan, perhaps even Somali?”
Shaw held the man’s gaze, trying to fathom the animal in front of him.
“Maybe Egyptian? Maybe Moroccan?” Tanner smiled. “You did have a premonition of me no doubt? I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Shaw, if I don’t look like how a terrorist is supposed to look. Governments all over the world and the media have painted a picture of evil all these years. It is what you and millions of others like you have come to expect.”
<
br /> “I don’t care how you look. I only care about what you have done,” Shaw finally said. Shaw would die a happy man if he could just break free of the restraints and smash the man’s skull repeatedly with the chair until it split apart.
“It’s only the beginning, let me assure you,” Tanner replied. “But how rude of me. Let me introduce myself.”
Before he could, Shaw spoke. “You are Adam Tanner, the senator from Utah.”
“And you are Ben Shaw, ex-Secret Service. I’ve done some digging on you.”
As Shaw sat there, he couldn’t help see the irony, the contradiction of what he imagined the enemy to be. The man who sat before him looked like he was more suited for the cover of a JC Penny catalog, dressed in outdoor clothing with a Labrador by his side.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the word ‘terrorist’ because I’m not.”
“You’ve killed hundreds of innocent people. You use terror to publicize your deranged view of the world. Abasi Rasul was your lapdog, a grunt who carried out your orders.”
“So you recognized Rasul and took it upon yourself to go all vigilante and interfere.”
“Because I knew he would lead me to you.”
“Rasul led you to no one,” Tanner retorted. “You took his phone thinking we were dumb enough to leave clues. Don’t insult me, Mr. Shaw.”
“But here I am.”
“You’re here because I allowed you to live, nothing more. I hate loose ends.”
“So are you going to cut my head off?” Shaw asked. “Film it and put it on the Internet?”
Tanner shook his head. “I’m not a terrorist. I’m not a jihadist. I prefer to see myself as a sympathizer—an extreme sympathizer.”
“You’re a murderer,” Shaw replied, “plain and simple.”
“The United States is the biggest murderer on the planet, Mr. Shaw. We’ve killed millions of innocent people over the years.”
Shaw could see where this was going.
“It’s called war,” Shaw replied.
“No, Mr. Shaw, it’s called killing with impunity,” Tanner corrected him.
“Shit happens. Collateral damage.” Shaw pulled at the restraints for the millionth time.
“That’s fine for you to say. Maybe I should drop a bomb on your family then say, ‘Too bad, shit happens’.”
This was an argument Shaw wasn’t going to win.
Tanner stood up. “I’m an American, like you. Born here, raised here, educated here. I have no Middle Eastern heritage or Islamic grudges.”
“So why did you do this?”
Tanner cocked his head. “Why do you think?”
“Because you’re pissed off. You watch too much Al Jazeera or visit too many anti-American websites. You see women and children being pulled from the rubble in Syria or the Gaza Strip or Afghanistan. You think Americans need to feel the pain and suffering in their own backyard, the same pain they have rained down on other countries for years.”
Tanner seemed amused. “Keep going.”
“So you want to balance things. Give Americans a taste of their own medicine, so to speak. You think it’s unfair. The world is corrupt and we’re all hypocrites.”
Tanner looked up toward the ceiling of the barn in silent contemplation, his eyes focused on a spot that didn’t exist. Finally he turned back to Shaw. The man had definitely caught his interest. He was different, and this made him more dangerous than he had first anticipated. Maybe Hoost should have killed him yesterday.
“Do you know what real power is?”
The question caught Shaw off guard. “Killing innocent people?” Shaw laughed. “Does that make you feel powerful?”
The answer caught Tanner by surprise. “No, that’s not power. I can walk down the street with a gun and kill a few people. Will that make me feel powerful? Hardly.”
“So you tell me. What do you get your kicks from?” There was a cutting cynicism in Shaw’s voice.
Tanner scoffed, “It’s not the pathetic symbolism this country desperately clings to. It’s not our country’s flag; that’s just a sign of oppression.”
“Or liberation,” Shaw countered. “Democracy. Independence. Liberty.”
“Yes, we’re such the great liberators aren’t we?” Tanner paced back and forth. “Just ask the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. We come in peace but leave the country in pieces,” he said mockingly.
Shaw felt like he was in church listening to a sermon from the pulpit. But it was the devil dressed in preacher’s cloth who stood before him.
Tanner continued his rant. “Power is not the sight of a B2 bomber doing a stadium flyover before kick-off. That’s a symbol of fear, the symbol of a nation that is fearful.”
“Fearful of what?”
“Fearful of its own existence,” Tanner quipped. “So we must build machines that can rain death upon the earth.” His eyes flared with passion as he glared at Shaw, his demeanor altered, his face hard, a thin smile, his voice low. “No, my friend. Real power is power you cannot see, power that can be unleashed without you knowing where it came from.”
In that exact moment Shaw realized the man was insane, drunk on the power of senseless destruction and the killing of innocent lives.
“So you hide?” Shaw shifted in the chair, the bindings digging into his skin. “You hide in the shadows, get others to do your dirty work for you while you keep the blood off your hands.”
Tanner stepped closer. “I’m an honest, hardworking American.”
Shaw couldn’t believe the hypocrisy sprouting from the man’s lips. “You’re another homegrown terrorist to contend with. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“I detest the label,” Tanner replied. “America is my home. It is also my battlefield. I’m not homegrown, as you say. I just am.”
Am? The guy was nuts.
“I hide in plain sight, Mr. Shaw. I’m right in front of you. I hide from no one. I’m not off-the-grid, as you say. I’m very much on-the-grid.”
“Then reveal yourself,” Shaw said. “Stop hiding.”
“You see, you’ve made a career of searching around the edges, at the periphery, looking for people who hide, people who don’t want to be found.” Tanner squatted down in front of Shaw. “I’m right here in front of everyone, right in front of you, yet you, the police, the authorities can’t see me.”
Suddenly it hit Shaw like a sledgehammer. He understood the point Tanner was making, the kind of terrorist he actually was: the worse kind. Billions of dollars were spent each year fighting the war on terror overseas in faraway countries while a new form of terrorism was taking root at home, right under the noses of the authorities. Whatever you call it—domestic terrorism, homegrown terrorism, or Americans killing Americans—it often is misinterpreted as US citizens becoming radicalized. Even the FBI admitted that there were over 20,000 actively maintained websites that supported and encouraged terrorism and more than 80% of these websites were on US-based servers.
Tanner hadn’t become radicalized. He hadn’t read the Koran. He didn’t need to travel to Syria or Iraq for training. He trained at his local gun range, standing right next to his fellow Americans. He could walk right into his local gun store, throw his driver’s license on the counter, and walk out with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle five minutes later. He was a law-abiding citizen with second amendment rights. He had a permit to conceal carry. Tanner had access to better weapons, better choice of weapons, and better training than could be offered in any terrorist camp in Syria or Iraq or Pakistan.
Tanner slowly nodded, as though he could see the lightbulb finally go off inside Shaw’s head. “Yes, you now see it, don’t you?”
Shaw pulled against the restraints, his muscles tensing.
“I’m not a terrorist. But I am your neighbor. I am your co-worker. I am your brother. And I’m standing right in front of you.”
“Where’s the woman? What have you done with her?” Shaw demanded.
Tanner gave a puzzled look. “I have no ide
a. It was only you I was interested in. I have no interest in the woman whatsoever.”
“Let her go,” Shaw snarled. “She has nothing to do with this. You can take me as hostage.”
“Let me assure you, I have no idea where she is.” Tanner was being truthful. “And please, Mr. Shaw, you are not my hostage. You are my guest.”
“Then I’d like to leave now,” Shaw replied sarcastically.
Tanner grinned to himself, turned, and walked back into the shadows, leaving Shaw alone and tied to the chair.
Outside, Tanner made his way back to the homestead, enjoying the clear morning sky, amused by the charade of lies he had just spun.
36
Jessie tried to touch her face, but she couldn’t locate her head. She imagined the movement in her mind but couldn’t physically manage it. With her eyes still closed, she could sense something heavy at the top of her neck where she thought her head would be. She waited a few more seconds.
Just breathe, she told herself.
She was draped in a heavy blanket, and her head, wherever it was, was pounding, a dull throbbing pain that bounced off the inside of her skull and behind her eyes. She felt separated, in parts, her body not quite connected together.
She tried again to touch her face, that basic need to make sure everything was all right. Her arm moved up then forward but stopped in mid-air. She tried again. Someone grabbed her hand at the wrist, clamped around it with a firm grip and soft fingers.
She opened her eyes, thin gritty slits at first, unaccustomed to the light, unsure of what had happened, her mind searching desperately to locate the last thing she could remember.
She blinked awake.
Softness underneath her, a raked timber ceiling above. She tried to sit up, but the person grabbed her other wrist, then both ankles at once.
Confusion set in. Were there two people restraining her?
She tried to pull herself into a ball. Her ankles and wrists felt the sharp tug limiting her movement.
