by Ty Patterson
He asked her to hold a mirror for him and when she did so, he cut his hair.
He dressed her in a pair of trousers that he had bought for just such contingencies.
She looked different when they emerged from Central Park; more like a boy than a girl.
He wasn’t bothered about his own looks. He knew people would be looking for a young girl with a man. It was the girl that people’s eyes would be drawn to.
The girl didn’t look like one anymore.
He walked down Broadway, holding her hand and when he reached Times Square, he found a fast food joint.
He ordered a burger and fries for her, a milkshake to wash them down with, and saw her eyes light up in delight.
He connected to the establishment’s WiFi, went to an apartment rental site and booked one using one of his fake credit cards.
The apartment was near Trinity Church and was expensive. It was worth the expense, he figured. Cops would be looking for hotels and motels near train and bus stations.
The thirteenth day was gray and overcast and when he peered out of the window, the pavement gleamed, freshly washed from a burst of rain.
He padded to the bathroom, showered, and went to the living room where he brought out his laptop and went onto the internet.
He brought up maps and train routes and made calculations. This time the trip would take longer. There would be transfers and car rentals, however, with the girl looking like a boy, he was sure he could pull it off
It was time to teach the cops and the Petersens a lesson.
Chuck Keyser stayed at home on the thirteenth day, watching the news, his Glock within easy reach.
His phone didn’t ring. No one busted his door down.
The news went into an endless loop and he knew the picture would not be broadcast the next day. There were scandals to be covered and politicians to be torn into. A missing girl was important only for a day.
Morning became afternoon. He made a simple meal for lunch. Eggs. Toast. Boiled potatoes. A beer to wash everything down.
He had been to the world’s most dangerous hotspots and seen and done things that most people couldn’t imagine. He hadn’t acquired the taste for fancy food.
He eyed the phone and wondered if he should make the call and set things in motion.
He clicked his teeth in impatience at his indecision. He was a leader. Leaders didn’t prevaricate.
He dialed a number from memory and spoke briefly. He wasn’t worried about his phone being tapped or his calls being monitored. No one would understand what he had said.
The man and the girl took the Amtrak Cardinal Service early the next day, the fourteenth day.
The service originated from Penn Station and ended in Chicago a full twenty-six hours later.
The man didn’t intend to travel twenty-six hours.
The girl bounced in her seat in another Viewliner bedroom and chattered excitedly. Her stories were building up; there would lots to tell Lizzie and Peaches.
He didn’t disillusion her.
Twenty hours later, on the fifteenth day, after riding through horse country, rivers, valleys, and mountains, the train stopped at a small town.
It was still dark, very early in the morning, when the man carried the girl and stepped out on the small platform.
There were no benches, no seating area and he and the girl were the only two people to step out.
Once the train departed with a mournful cry, it felt like he and she were the only humans on the planet.
He placed his duffel on the pavement and sat with his back against a wall, the girl burrowed in his neck.
The message was on Beth and Meghan’s phones when they returned from their run early morning on the fifteenth day.
No progress had been made in the previous five days. The leads from the hotline had proved to be false. No girl and man were found in any of the locations.
‘It’s a city of eight million people,’ Chang was defensive when Meghan had brought up the lack of forward movement. ‘That’s a lot of people to search through.’
She was in the shower when she heard the pounding.
Beth. Who else could it be?
She drew a towel around her and opened the door. ‘You heard of polite knocking?’
‘You checked your phone?’
‘No.’
‘Obviously! I shouldn’t have asked.’
Beth showed Meghan her phone.
Maddie was smiling back at her, standing in front of Connersville train depot.
Chapter Thirty-One
Connersville was a small city in Fayette County, Indiana, on the north bank of the Whitewater River. Its population of fourteen thousand was served by a high school. It derived its name from Conner’s Post, a trading outpost established by one John Conner, who arrived in the Whitewater Valley in the early eighteen hundreds.
The city was once known as Little Detroit and had been home to the McFarlan Motor Corporation.
Meghan read aloud at the scant information spat out by Werner as their Gulfstream cut through blue skies yet another time, heading southwest.
They had hustled to the airport on studying the message and after relaying it the NYPD and briefing them.
By ten a.m. on the fifteenth day, they were wheels up.
The twins were unaccompanied by Pizaka and Chang this time; the two cops staying back to liaise with the Connersville PD. Their detectives would investigate security camera images again, look into train reservations to Connersville and onward.
Werner had already disclosed that the city was served by two Amtrak trains; one heading from New York to Chicago, and the other going in the opposite direction.
Meghan looked at the picture again trying to read any meaning into it. Maddie kept silent, her eyes mirthful, looking straight into the camera.
Beth had tried calling the number back when they had seen the message, it hadn’t rung. Yet another burner phone.
‘This isn’t typical,’ Beth brushed her hair back from her face and fell back in the plush leather seat. A ray of sunlight streamed through a window and briefly haloed her face.
Nothing about Maddie’s kidnapping is typical, Meghan thought.
The closest major airport to Connersville was Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, sixty miles from the city.
However, the city had its own airstrip, a smaller one, in Mettel Field, that was four miles away from the train depot; Mettel Field was their destination.
A call to Zeb who was in Paris on an Agency task, who had then made more calls to other people, had cleared their landing at the small airport.
Chang called as their aircraft began its descent. Amtrak had confirmed the sale of two tickets to Chicago to two people who fit John Doe and Maddie’s descriptions.
The purchases were in a false name, different from the one used for the Toccoa purchase.
No such person existed.
Amtrak had no record of any other purchase by that false name or the one used for Toccoa. This time no CCTV cameras had captured the two passengers.
No vehicles were rented at Connersville, though the local PD was still checking.
The station’s name board was cordoned off and a forensic team was dusting it.
It was one p.m. when they landed and walked out of the small terminal. A bright blue sky that stretched as far as the eye could see, canopied above them.
On the ground, a black SUV was waiting for them; it had been driven over from Cincinnati, sixty miles to the southeast.
A huge black man, as large as Bwana, straightened and approached them, his bald head gleaming in the sunlight.
His eyes flicked from one sister to the other. ‘Meghan Petersen?’
‘That’s me,’ Meghan shook his hand.
‘Dudley Fields, ma’am,’ he handed the keys over. ‘I’ll be waiting in the terminal.’
Fifteen minutes later they were at Connersville train depot.
They were met by Wayne Call, the Conn
ersville Police Chief, a burly man whose gut was straining against his uniform. He greeted them and briefed them on what his men had found.
They hadn’t found much. The name board had prints; these would be analyzed and compared to the ones found in Toccoa.
No one had seen a man and a girl at the station. The Cardinal Service from New York arrived at three-thirty six a.m. The station didn’t see a lot of traffic at that time.
They walked around the depot, a gray-bricked, red-tiled structure that had a shelter, a small platform, and two tracks that ribboned out into nothingness in the far distance.
Call took them to the name board where a couple of officers were working. The cops nodded at the twins and let the twins go closer.
Meghan felt a frisson of excitement go through her when she saw the red squiggles. They hadn’t been very clear in the picture and while Chang had confirmed their existence, she and Beth had wanted to see for themselves.
The name board had the same red markings that the Toccoa one had.
Connersville now read CO/NNERSVILLE.
Four hours later they were back in the sky, after thanking the police chief and returning the vehicle back to Fields.
They hadn’t expected to find much and hence they weren’t disappointed.
That’s not right, Meghan corrected herself. We know Maddie was here. We know he was here. There is a purpose to their traveling.
‘We just have to find what it is,’ she spoke aloud.
Her sister looked at her questioningly.
‘Why they are traveling? To small cities,’ Meghan explained.
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Beth replied slowly, her phone by her side, Maddie on its screen.
‘What if he isn’t mocking us?’
Meghan felt the words sink slowly inside her and with a sudden certainty, she knew Beth was right.
‘That changes everything.’
‘He’s trying to tell us something.’ Beth rose and paced in the cabin. ‘He’s deliberately reaching out, traveling, and putting himself at risk.’
‘You know what that means don’t you?’
‘Yeah, our starting point and assumptions were all wrong.’ Beth stopped and turned to her sister and smiled when she saw Meghan was on the same page.
‘It means John Doe wasn’t hitting Amy Kittrell.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
They spoke rapidly, completing each other’s sentences, thoughts forming quickly, connections being made.
‘Josh Kittrell is dead, isn’t he?’ Beth was nearly vibrating from the rush of a new line of thought.
‘Yes, we can’t dispute that. We still have a John Doe.’
‘He grabbed Maddie because something happened. Or was about to happen.’
‘Yeah.’
‘He laid low for a while, maybe to follow what we or the cops would do.’
‘Correct.’
‘Maybe he thought we were on the wrong track when we interviewed Mayo and Kane—’ Beth stopped mid-sentence. ‘How would he know?’
‘Easy. He could have followed the news, called the NYPD, put two and two together. Or maybe he has contacts inside the NYPD.’
Beth nodded and resumed. ‘Our questioning Amy Kittrell was not helpful, either.’
‘Yeah, and he could have found that easily enough.’
‘So he went to Toccoa and took the picture.’
‘Uh-uh.’
‘When we still went around in circles, he sent the video. That too didn’t work, so he had to go to Connersville.’
‘I’m with you so far, but what’s in Connersville?’
Beth frowned for a long while, looking out of a window, paying no attention to fluffy clouds and a gleaming wing.
‘Maybe it’s not what was in those cities, but something in those messages.’
‘Werner analyzed those and got nothing.’
‘Werner did what we asked it to do. Maybe we asked the wrong questions.’
Beth pulled out her screen and swiveled it so that Meghan could watch too.
She brought up the Toccoa photograph and placed it next to the Connersville one.
They stared at the pictures.
No answers came.
Beth played the video and they listened to Maddie’s musical voice recite the math problems she was solving.
Subtraction. Division.
Meghan’s eyes flicked to the pictures that were minimized at the top of the screen.
Something tugged at the edge of her memory.
She turned away and let Maddie’s voice enter her mind and blow away the baggage and the noise.
Nope. Not working. It’s still elusive.
Subtraction. Zero. Division.
Subtraction. Division. Zero.
Her eyes flew back.
‘Got it,’ she yelled.
Beth winced and turned off the video.
‘Got what?’
Meghan knew she was grinning goofily, but she couldn’t help it. ‘All those subtraction problems she’s doing, what do they end in?’
‘Zero. It might be quicker if you tell me—’
‘Nope. We’ll do it my way. And the division ones?’
‘Not one answer there.’
Meghan enlarged the pictures and sat back waiting for Beth to connect the dots.
A sudden widening of the eyes and gasp was Beth’s reaction. ‘TO/CCOA. CO/NNERSVILLE. Subtraction. Division. Zero.’
‘He was pointing us to those two Os and that slash…’
‘Dividing Zero!’ Beth exclaimed, completing Meghan’s sentence.
She high-fived Meghan, grabbed her screen and instructed Werner to dig into the term.
They waited. Meghan cracked her knuckles. Beth opened a bag of nuts and crunched through them.
Werner hadn’t returned any answers by the time they landed in New York at eight p.m. on the fifteenth day.
They flagged a cab, discussed the two words and their possible meanings.
‘Let’s ask him,’ Meghan said finally, when they got nowhere.
‘He might be sleeping. It’s past midnight in Paris.’
‘Zeb?’ Meghan laughed. ‘He’ll be awake.’
Beth texted Zeb. Have you heard of Dividing Zero?
Her phone buzzed the next moment, an incoming call. Zeb.
She put it on speaker and briefed him.
‘Rings no bells,’ he said, when she had finished. ‘It sounds like a term the military would use. You know who to ask.’
‘Will he know?’
It was Zeb’s turn to laugh. ‘If he doesn’t, he’ll know who to ask.’
‘When are you back?’
‘Tomorrow. Bwana, Rog, Chloe, and Bear are returning tomorrow too.’
General Klouse answered promptly, his voice alert, as if he had been expecting their call.
He probably was. Zeb must have messaged him; Meghan thought and listened while Beth outlined their direction of thought and their finding.
The National Security Advisor kept quiet for several moments. Above the hum of tires and the honking of the city’s traffic, they heard a clink, as if a cube of ice had dropped into a glass.
Scotch. He loves fine whiskey.
‘Can’t say I remember any such name.’ The general’s voice came back. ‘Leave it with me, though. There are folks I can ask.’
‘Discreetly, sir.’
‘Of course.’
They hopped out of their cab outside their office, paid the fare, and disappeared inside, without a backward glance.
If they had, they would have spotted the tail.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The National Security Advisor called them at ten p.m. as Meghan was readying for bed.
‘Would you ladies be up for a short flight? Now?’
Meghan glanced at the clock and at her inviting bed.
What the heck. We can sleep just as well in D.C.
‘We’ll be there, sir. It might be midnight.’
‘I’ll be awake.’<
br />
She called Beth and told her to haul ass and in half an hour they were heading back to the airport, back to the Gulfstream where the pilots were waiting.
Beth stifled a yawn and leaned back in the cab, ‘He has something, hasn’t he? Otherwise he wouldn’t have us fly to D.C.’
‘Only one way to know.’
‘Where are we staying? You booked any hotel?’
‘You ever stayed with a National Security Advisor?’
Beth’s eyes widened. ‘You mean –’
‘Stick with me, kiddo,’ Meghan smiled smugly. ‘You’ll have life experiences of the kind you’ve never had.’
Beth snorted and jabbed her with an elbow, however, she couldn’t contain her excited grin.
Washington D.C. was half asleep when they landed at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport two hours later.
A voluble cabbie pointed out the sights to them as he drove them to Georgetown where General Klouse had his residence.
They made good time since the streets were empty; politicians needed their beauty sleep and had retired to their comfortable mansions long since.
General Klouse lived in a whitewashed brick Georgian-style house, separated from its nearest neighbors by a leafy garden surrounding the house.
It was fenced and had an obvious security detail.
The guards checked the twins’ credentials and one of them escorted them to a black door.
The door opened before he could knock, General Klouse filling it. ‘I’ll take it from here, Brad,’ he thanked the guard.
The general was in his sixties, had iron-gray hair that was cut short, eyes that matched his hair, and was fit. He had a barely discernible limp on his left leg; the only sign that the general had seen active duty.
He starts his day with a five mile run at five a.m. Ends it with half an hour of CrossFit.
Meghan started when Beth nudged her. The general was addressing them.
‘Dinner? A drink? ‘
‘We are good, sir,’
The gray eyes pierced her as if seeing through her, and then the craggy face relaxed. ‘It’s good to see you ladies. Zeb keeps you away from me; he probably thinks I will want you on my staff.’
