Deep Hurt

by Eva Hudson

  “You want me to escalate this? With the embassy? With the Pentagon?”

  “This is Major Gurley, Security Forces.” He turned another few degrees away from her, the handset pressed hard against his ear. “Major Brown thought it best you speak to me.”

  Ingrid scanned the phone on the desk and stabbed at the only button that looked remotely like the right one. A crackle of static filled the room. Followed by an irritated sigh from Gurley.

  “I know what you’re doing. I know you’ll be tracing this call, so I’m going to be quick. You have to listen to me without interrupting.” Foster’s voice was deeper than Ingrid had expected.

  “Go on.”

  “You have to believe that I didn’t hurt Molly. I could never hurt her. I love her and Tommy more than anything in the world. Jesus, until I saw the news reports, I thought she was dead. That’s why I panicked and took Tommy. I had to get him out of harm’s way.”

  “Tell me what you’ve done to him,” Gurley said.

  “I told you not to interrupt. I haven’t done anything. Tommy’s right here with me. He’s safe. I want him to stay that way. In order for that to happen, I need your help. I want to get him to my parents back home. You can arrange that for me, I know you can.”

  “Let me at least speak to Tommy, know for sure he’s all right.”

  “I don’t have time for that. I want him on a flight to the US by the end of tomorrow. He’ll need a chaperone. Maybe one of your female officers. My mom and dad will take good care of him.”

  “We know Tommy was injured. We spoke to the doctor who treated him. What did you do to him?”

  “I didn’t do anything. Aren’t you listening to me? I love my kids.”

  “I think it’s best for Tommy, for you… for everyone… if you give yourself up. We can hear your side of the story then. Take all the… ah… mitigating circumstances into account.”

  “Story? What do you think this is? I’m not telling tales. Jesus. Why won’t you listen to me? I want to make sure Tommy’s safe. And Molly. She looked so tiny wired up to all those monitors. I just wanted to scoop her into my arms and protect her. Take her away with me. But I saw the cop guarding her. I figured she was in the best place. That she was safe. But as soon as she can travel I want her to go to my mom and dad’s too.”

  The door opened and the female sergeant from the outer office held up a sheet of paper with the words: keep him talking, partial location only scrawled across it.

  “A flight to the US and a chaperone will take some organizing, Kyle. It’d be much easier if you and Tommy come to the base, then we can start to put those wheels in motion for you.”

  Foster didn’t reply.

  “Kyle?”

  “You’re lying,” Foster said, eventually. Then the line went dead.

  “Goddammit!” Gurley slammed down the handset.

  A moment later another MP ran in. “He’s in northeast England, within a ten mile radius of the center of Newcastle.”

  Gurley considered the information for a moment. “A ten mile radius?” He paused a beat, glancing up at the ceiling. “That’s an area of over three hundred square miles. For crying out loud, you couldn’t do any better than that?”

  “It took a little while to set up the trace. He hung up too soon.”

  “I want a trace ready to go next time.”

  “You think he’ll call back?” Ingrid asked.

  “We have something he wants: a plane ride home for his son. Of course he’ll call back.”

  “What did you make of all that? He seemed genuinely concerned for Tommy’s safety. And his daughter’s, for that matter. Do you think he was suggesting they’re not safe with Carrie?”

  “Yes—I do think the sonofabitch was suggesting that.”

  Ingrid remembered what Sherwood had told her about Carrie Foster’s ‘baby blues’. Maybe they were a lot more serious than she’d realized. “At least we solved the mystery of the impostor in Molly’s hospital room.”

  “We were so close to him.”

  “And now he’s over two hundred fifty miles away.”

  “How’d he get to Newcastle so fast?” Gurley’s face had reddened.

  “I’d say train, but the local cops should have been liaising with British Transport Police, watching all the local stations and train lines.”

  “Should have been.”

  “We need to check out the CCTV footage they have, maybe we’ll see something they missed.”

  “So damn close,” Gurley said again and thumped the desk with a fist.

  The female sergeant ran into the room again, stopped abruptly in front of Gurley’s desk and stood to attention.

  “Tell me you’ve pin-pointed his location,” Gurley barked.

  “No, sir. It’s something else.” The sergeant glanced at Ingrid, her lips pursed.

  “For God’s sake, you can speak freely in front of Agent Skyberg!”

  “The munitions store have just contacted me. A hand gun and ten rounds of ammunition are missing from their inventory.”

  32

  Ingrid managed to run after Gurley and climb into the passenger seat of the jeep just as he stamped his foot on the gas. He hadn’t invited her to join him, but she’d be damned if she let him shut her out. They made the three minute journey in silence—Gurley clearly too mad to talk.

  The munitions store was on the other side of the base, a single-story concrete bunker with no windows and one double door made of steel. Gurley stopped the jeep without bothering to park it in the demarcated bay and jumped out. Ingrid made sure she was hot on his heels as the metal door opened and an MP stepped out.

  “Sir!” The MP stood to attention.

  “At ease. Show me where the gun was taken from,” Gurley said, stooping low to get through the doorway.

  The MP stepped in front of Ingrid. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Authorized Air Force personnel only.”

  “Hey, Major Gurley!” she called after him as he disappeared inside. “Tell him I have full authority.”

  “Not Air Force authority,” Gurley shouted back at her.

  The MP followed his superior inside and shut the door in Ingrid’s face. She slammed a hand against it. Then she took a deep breath and, eager not to feel completely useless, pulled her phone from her purse. She put in a call to Mike Stiller to find out what was happening with the abductee case, got his voicemail and left a curt message, taking her anger with Gurley out on Mike. Which wouldn’t help her get the information she wanted any faster. Then she put in another call to the local cops, requesting they make the CCTV footage from the local train stations available for viewing.

  After that all she could do was pace up and down outside the steel doors waiting for Gurley to re-emerge. When he eventually did, ten minutes later, he ignored her completely and marched back to the jeep.

  “Well?” Ingrid said, running after him. “What did you find out?”

  Gurley crunched the gearshift into reverse and drove a fast wide loop to turn the jeep around. “The last inventory was taken at seven p.m. yesterday evening.”

  “So that means the gun and bullets went missing some time last night.”

  Gurley didn’t respond.

  “Then it couldn’t have been Foster,” Ingrid continued. “He had to be staking out a muddy field in the middle of nowhere last night.”

  “Sherwood didn’t get there until eight-thirty. Foster had plenty of time.”

  “Oh come on, how could he have entered the base without anyone seeing him and then break into the locked munitions store? Stuff must go missing here all the time.”

  “We can’t rule out the possibility that the suspect is now armed.”

  “You just spoke to him—did he sound like a man who’d break into an Air Force base? He’s just interested in looking out for his kids.”

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into you. Why are you so keen to believe Kyle Foster is innocent?”

  After talking to Rachelle Carver and Yvonne Sherwood, Ingrid
wasn’t entirely sure what to think, but she was determined to keep an open mind. “You must have CCTV cameras on the base. Check the footage. You’ll see Foster had nothing to do with it.”

  “The two most useful cameras are out of action. The lenses have been smashed. Glass and small rocks were found at the base of the poles they’re mounted on. Foster could easily be responsible for that.”

  “It still doesn’t explain how he got onto the base in the first place.”

  “What is it with you? Why have you started defending him?” Gurley stamped his foot on the gas and the car lurched forward.

  “I’m not—I just don’t see why he’d do something like that. Has he even had small arms training?”

  “He’s a first lieutenant in the US Air Force—of course he has.” Gurley took a sharp left turn, slamming Ingrid hard against the passenger door.

  Slightly winded, Ingrid grabbed onto the dash and righted herself. “Tell me how he got past the guards on the security gate.”

  “How big do you think the perimeter fence is here?”

  Ingrid shrugged. “A mile… two miles?”

  “Ten. We check and repair it on a regular basis, but it’s possible there’s a hole some place.”

  “A place that Foster just happens to know about?”

  “I’m treating Kyle Foster as an armed suspect who kidnapped his own son. If you want to cast him in a different light, fine. But I’m warning you—I won’t have your out of whack judgment affect the way this operation moves forward.”

  “Guilty till proven innocent, huh?”

  “It’s the military way.”

  “Foster has no reason to arm himself.”

  “Leverage.”

  “What?”

  “You heard what he said. He’s started making demands. Making them in possession of a lethal weapon is a whole different ball game.”

  “But he wants to protect his son, not threaten to hurt him.”

  “Who says he’ll threaten Tommy? Besides, you didn’t believe that bullshit just now, did you? He’s trying to pin the blame for what happened to Molly on her mother. Sonofabitch. The ‘making sure Tommy’s safe’ line is a smokescreen. He’s just trying to protect his own ass. Please tell me you didn’t fall for it.”

  They drove back the rest of the way to Gurley’s office in silence. When they arrived, Ingrid followed him into the building even though he hadn’t bothered to invite her. He was on the phone requesting a helicopter to take them to Newcastle before she’d even sat down.

  “You think that’s really the best way to use our resources?” Ingrid asked when he hung up. She was doing her best not to scream at him for being so gung-ho he hadn’t even considered the facts.

  “There’s no point in looking for him here, is there?”

  “But you said yourself—it’s a lot of ground to cover. The Northumbria police are in a much better position to search for him.”

  “While we sit around doing nothing?”

  “As soon as they have something solid, then we follow up. In a chopper it wouldn’t take that long to get there.” Ingrid wasn’t sure she was getting through to him at all—his expression was completely blank. “Besides, I’d like to see the CCTV footage from the local train stations. I’ve already arranged for the force here to make it available to us.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d like to at least check if he has Tommy with him. Wouldn’t you?”

  Gurley opened his mouth, but couldn’t come up with a counter argument. Instead he picked up the phone and barked at his sergeant to find out who the highest ranking police officer in Newcastle was and to get the sorry-assed bastard on the phone.

  33

  In less than a half hour Ingrid and Gurley were sitting in front of a bank of TV monitors at the local railway hub station. Lined up for their scrutiny on two larger monitors was the footage from the two closest train stations to Freckenham between the hours of eight p.m. and two a.m. the night before. Ingrid had chosen the timeframe without consulting Gurley. She figured Foster was probably watching a muddy field until around nine p.m. and the last scheduled train at either of the local stations was just after midnight. She’d requested a wider timescale for the footage just to play it safe.

  “We don’t have a lot of time here,” Gurley told the technician assigned to operate the equipment for them. “We have some place else to be.”

  The technician said nothing but made a point of exhaling noisily and shifting in his seat.

  “OK, then why don’t we start with the footage from nine p.m. onwards?” Ingrid suggested. “We have a pretty good idea where Foster was before that.”

  The technician quickly found the right point in the footage and hit play on both monitors. The left hand one showed all activity around the entrance of Newmarket station, the other at Kennett, a much smaller station that was closer to the base. At first Ingrid switched her attention between both screens, but as the uneventful scenes played out for half a minute or so, she started to feel a little nauseous. “Let’s play these at eight times normal speed, I’ll keep my eyes peeled on the left hand monitor, you take the right. OK?”

  Gurley grunted his agreement and folded his arms.

  After running the footage through from nine p.m. to the final trains at both stations with no sign of a man and a boy, Ingrid asked the technician to stop the playback. “Is it possible for someone to get onto the platforms without using the main entrance at these stations?”

  “Possible, but not likely. Security’s been tightened up in the last couple of years—to prevent fare evasion. I suppose if someone is really determined to get in they still can, but it’d mean scaling a ten foot wall with barbed wire strung along the top of it.”

  “Can you get on a train without a ticket?” she asked.

  “If you’ve bypassed the ticket barriers at the entrance you can. The conductor on the train checks that passengers have valid tickets, but he’ll also sell you a ticket if you don’t have one.”

  “Can we get a record of any tickets sold on trains last night?”

  “You can, but it might take a while.”

  Gurley let out another grunt. “We’re wasting our time here. There’s no sign of Foster and Tommy in this footage. Either he didn’t use the main entrance—which seems unlikely—or Foster doesn’t have Tommy with him anymore.” He clapped a heavy hand on the technician’s shoulder, making the man jump in his seat. “Thanks for your time. We won’t take up any more of it.”

  “Maybe we can extend the window, start the footage a little earlier,” Ingrid said, not wanting to give up just yet.

  “I’m leaving, if you want a ride back to base, I suggest you come with me right now.”

  “Let’s give it another fifteen minutes—how will that make a difference to today’s schedule?”

  Gurley shook his head and frowned at her. “Fifteen and no more.”

  “So—you want to see the footage from six? Five p.m.?” The technician looked up at her.

  “No, same time frame as before—start it at nine but play it at four times normal speed. I saw something early on that bugged me for some reason and I’m not sure why.”

  The technician did as he was told. Under twenty minutes into the recording Ingrid asked him to freeze the footage on the left hand monitor. She jabbed a finger at the screen. “There, you see that?”

  Gurley leaned in closer and peered at the blurry image. “What am I looking for?”

  “This guy with the backpack. Can you rewind a few seconds and play at normal speed?”

  The technician complied.

  “See the way he’s walking? Staggering might be a more accurate description. Either he’s so drunk he can’t walk straight, or that pack on his back is throwing him off balance. He’s really struggling to get around.”

  They all continued to watch the man awkwardly make his way to the ticket counter. His right hand flew up and backwards and he seemed to slap the side of the backpack. He then readjusted the weight on
his back.

  “Can you get a close-up of his face?” Ingrid asked.

  “Sure.”

  Although the image wasn’t clear, what was evident was the color of the man’s hair—much darker than Kyle Foster’s.

  “Could that be him?” Ingrid asked Gurley. “He’s the right build and height. He could have dyed his hair.” Ingrid stared hard at the screen. “Pull back again, so we can see his whole body.” She leaned further forward. “Did you see that?”

  “Something moved in that bag,” the technician said, a little excitedly, when Gurley didn’t respond.

  “Hit the pause button again, will you?” Gurley ordered the technician. He turned to look at Ingrid. “Are you seriously suggesting this is Foster and he’s stuffed Tommy into the backpack?”

  “It could be, couldn’t it? The timing fits. Can we get footage from the platform cameras? Which platform would he need if he were planning to head north?”

  The technician took a few minutes to cue up the required recordings and fast forward to the correct timestamp. “There are four cameras on the right platform.” He tapped the four split screen images in turn with a pen.

  They watched in silence as the footage played in real time. They continued to scrutinize the recording for ten minutes until the first train arrived. The man they’d identified hadn’t appeared on the platform in that time. At quadruple speed they watched for another five minutes. Another train arrived. Still no sign of the man with the wriggling backpack.

  “Where’d he go?” Gurley sounded curious and impatient at the same time.

  “Maybe he wanted to cover his tracks a little, took a train some place else, then backtracked,” Ingrid suggested.

  “We can check the other platforms, give me a second to bring up the relevant recordings.”

  “What are we trying to prove here?” Now Gurley just sounded pissed. “This guy may or may not be Foster. Tommy may or may not be inside that bag. It doesn’t get us any closer to finding him.” He shook his head. “Jesus, what kind of man stuffs an eight-year-old kid into a bag anyway?”