The Gatekeeper
Madison couldn’t figure out what they were waiting for. So far no one had hurt her. In fact they brought her food and water regularly, and cleaned out the bucket as soon as she used it. And they’d left her a blanket. Though the light only changed slightly, she could now differentiate between night and day, the room brightened enough that she could make out the dim edges of her surroundings by sight, and the rest by touch.
She was in a ship of some sort, military judging by the dull gray paint job. The room was a steel box, ten-by-ten, with a cot in one corner and a bucket in the other. Other than that there was no rug, chair, or other decoration. She guessed she was being held in the bowels of the ship, she could hear the occasional slap of a wave against the hull. They didn’t appear to be moving, which she took as a hopeful sign. Maybe it was one of those white slavery rings, and they were planning to ship her off to Saudi Arabia. Madison shuddered at the thought. If she was lucky, they’d kidnapped her for ransom, confusing her with the daughter of someone rich. Maybe they’d realize the error and let her go—she’d only seen one guy’s face, and she’d promise not to tell if they just let her go home.
She had tried to pry the door open, hauling the cot frame across the room to use as a lever. But the minute she exerted some force, the sound of a chair scraping against the floor on the other side sent her scampering back. A moment later the door creaked open. The driver came in and glanced at the cot on its side, shook his head and gave her another shot. She hadn’t tried again. Escape was clearly hopeless: there were no windows, and a guard was stationed at the only exit. She was screwed.
The door suddenly banged open. The driver still didn’t speak, but something about the way he looked at her made Madison recoil. She protested as he crossed the room. Without breaking stride he yanked her up and flung her on the cot. She shrieked and clawed at him, “No, oh please God no…” then paused when he didn’t do anything.
He was holding something inches from her face. A flash, then he left the room.
She sat up, puzzled. He’d taken her photo, so maybe this was about ransom. She couldn’t decide if that made the situation better or worse. Madison pictured her parents’ reaction to the photo, and in spite of herself felt a spark of something like satisfaction. Served them right, the way they’d been ignoring her. If she ended up dying some sort of horrible death, it would be their fault.
She dropped back on the cot and crossed her hands behind her head. There would probably be a huge funeral if she didn’t make it out of here. Even her former best friend Jamie, who had totally screwed her over last year, would probably cry. Chris Dinsmore would be completely devastated that he’d never asked her out. They’d get a choir to sing “Ave Maria,” and hundreds of sobbing people would follow the casket through the streets. They’d all regret how they’d treated her.
But she really might not make it out of here. The guy had let her see his face, which wasn’t a good sign. And her parents didn’t have any money. The whole divorce had been a joke with them fighting over air miles; it wasn’t like they had a fortune hidden somewhere. And once the kidnappers realized that…she’d watched enough cop shows to know what would happen. At the thought she started to shake, teeth chattering. Madison drew the blanket up to her neck and tucked the corners under her heels so her whole body was covered. But it did nothing to stop the uncontrollable shivering.
Jake rolled his head to work out a kink in his neck. He didn’t generally mind flying, but the only seat available on such short notice had been in coach, and his body wasn’t designed for middle seats at the rear of the plane. His knees were jammed against the seat back in front of him, high enough that they prevented him from lowering the tray table. He’d tried to work on his laptop, but the kid on the aisle was playing a handheld video game that bleated nonstop, and the woman in the window seat issued a heavy sigh every few minutes. Another kid hung over the seat in front of him, staring at him while she picked her nose. All in all, the experience was making him seriously reconsider starting a family. Maybe he and Kelly could get a puppy and call it quits.
As they taxied to the gate, the flight attendant announced information for connecting flights, and the woman beside him grumbled something unintelligible. Jake hunched over, waiting for the slow file off the plane to proceed far enough for him to grab his carry-on. Once out of the Jetway he glanced at his watch and flipped open his cell phone.
“Frank? Yeah, sorry about that. My connecting flight at O’Hare was delayed. Where am I meeting you?”
Five minutes later, Jake was stationed in front of a bank of monitors. Frank, an old Agency buddy of Syd’s, shifted nervously at his elbow. Apparently he’d done something bad enough to get shuffled down the ranks of Homeland Security to airport detail. Jake couldn’t imagine what kind of heinous act would result in such a reassignment. Screwing the president’s dog, maybe. Hard to believe anything less would matter to the CIA.
“I can give you a few more minutes, man, but that’s it.” Frank’s eyes shifted from the screens to the door in a constant cadence, like he was watching a tennis match. “Shift change is in a half hour, and I got plans tonight.”
Jake jabbed a finger at the screen. “That’s her right there. Pause and rewind five minutes, then go forward slowly.”
Frank obliged, working the elaborate controls. A few other men were scattered around the room. After their initial appraisal they’d pointedly ignored Jake, which was fine by him. Although it didn’t instill much faith in airport security, he thought, watching them peck away at phones and BlackBerries, periodically casting a token glance at the monitors.
They watched in silence as Madison Grant made her way from a restroom near the gate to baggage claim. The angle changed as Frank shifted from camera to camera. Jake had to admit, he was good at this. Had the tapes cued up and ready to go when he arrived, and despite the employees, the technology itself was state-of-the-art, HD quality.
“Pretty girl,” Frank said. “What’d she do?”
Jake eyed him, not liking his tone. Maybe that’s what the CIA had found so offensive. Syd had fed Frank some backstory about a CI they were tracking. Not very plausible, but then Frank obviously wasn’t the type to ask questions when enough money changed hands. That level of pliability was also not a good sign for air travel, Jake thought. Maybe he should take the train home.
“Zoom in,” Jake said, as Madison approached someone. Big guy, looked yoked even from this angle, six-five easy. A cap obscured his eyes, and the hands holding the sign were large and meaty. Jake frowned as they exchanged a few words, then watched Madison follow him out of the building. The film switched to a line of cars stacked at the curb. Madison climbed into the rear of a sedan. Jake frowned as it drove off.
“Can you get me a printout of that guy, and of the plate?”
Frank shrugged. “Yeah, no problem. Technology is a beautiful thing.”
Jake didn’t respond. He leaned back against an empty console as Frank shuffled to the printer. So Madison Grant hadn’t been snatched, she’d been lured. Not surprising, he’d done plenty of dumb shit himself at that age. And whoever she was meeting must have money, curbside limo service didn’t come cheap. He’d have Syd run the plates, but he doubted that would give them anything. This smelled professional. Someone had spent enough time developing a relationship with the girl that she didn’t hesitate to jump on a plane. And if Syd was right about the dad’s job, there were high stakes involved. Jake shook his head. He was liking this less and less by the minute.
“Here you go.” Frank handed over a stack of pictures.
Jake flipped through them quickly. It didn’t look like there was enough of the guy’s face to run through facial recognition software, but there was a nice close-up of Madison. She was a pretty girl, light hair, big smile. She appeared sweet and trusting and more than a little naive. And right now, she was probably in some shit-hole, scared to death.
“Crap,” Jake said, shifting the photo to the bottom.
“What?” Frank asked.
“Nothing. Thanks for your help.” They shook hands and Jake walked out, blinking in the fluorescent glare. Even without looking at it he could still picture the photo. It was as if Madison was challenging him to try and forget about her. Jake tucked the stack into the outside pocket of his carry-on and headed for the car rental courtesy shuttle. He already knew there was no walking away from those eyes.
Four
Kelly adjusted the surgical mask over her mouth. Rodriguez was growing progressively paler as the medical examiner peeled the skin back from the senator’s face. And she had to admit, she was enjoying his discomfort. Kelly had sat in on more autopsies than she could count. It wasn’t the sort of thing you got used to, exactly, but she’d developed coping mechanisms. Plus this wasn’t a victim that inspired the warm fuzzies. Kids were still tough, she preferred to come in at the end for those results. But this guy, the more she found out about him the less she liked. Not that he deserved to be hacked up, but Duke Morris didn’t inspire a lot of sympathy.
The ME had arranged him on the table like a jigsaw puzzle. Morris’s feet were splayed out, arms and legs canted at angles that would have been impossible were his skeleton intact. A disassembled mannequin, Kelly thought. And an ugly one at that.
Under the glare of the overhead lights his skin was pale, suggesting he spent more time on the Beltway than in his home state. A protruding gut attested to plenty of pricey dinners, and his body was covered with an alarming amount of hair. His eyes and mouth were closed, and the hair plugs along his forehead stood out in stark relief. Kelly flipped open the file. On top was a professionally taken photo of Morris in front of an American flag, robust and strong, grinning obsequiously at his constituents. He possessed that air of smug satisfaction common to men who took money and power for granted.
“So officially, gunshot wounds were the cause of death?” Kelly finally asked. Over the years she’d learned that MEs came in all shapes, sizes and levels of ability. This one didn’t seem half-bad, but whether it was the pressure of working on such a high-profile corpse or his own habitual pace, this autopsy was taking a hell of a long time. She pulled back the sleeve of her surgical smock to check her watch: nearly 5:00 p.m. Her stomach growled, reminding her that they’d missed lunch.
The ME peered up at her. “Yes, I’d say so. Two to the back of the head, fired at a downward angle.”
“Execution style,” Rodriguez noted faintly.
“Any way to tell how long they waited before using the machete?” Kelly asked.
The ME shook his head. “No blood around those wounds, so he was definitely dead. That would put it anywhere from a few minutes after his heart stopped beating to several hours. Time of death was around midnight last night.”
Kelly nodded. That matched what they knew about the senator’s schedule. He’d attended a fundraising dinner at the Hilton in downtown Phoenix. His wife thought that afterward he’d gone to a private men’s club, but according to his credit card receipts Morris had actually whiled away those hours with a blonde from a local escort service. And not for the first time, according to both the lovely, gum-snapping Trixie and a trail of charges on his government-issue card. Kelly repressed a sigh—politicians, always so predictable. Apparently stamina wasn’t one of Morris’s strong suits. After spending less than half an hour in the room, hotel cameras captured him strolling out the lobby doors while adjusting his tie.
If the ME was right, Morris had been waylaid somewhere between the hotel lobby and the lot where his Cadillac was parked. And the next time he was seen, it was in pieces in front of the capitol building.
“I voted for him,” the ME said contemplatively as he draped the sheet over Morris’s body.
Kelly closed the file. “I hear he was a real pillar of the community. When will you have the full report?”
He shrugged. “A few hours. Initial tox screen shows he’d had a few drinks, but no illegal substances or anything that points to him being drugged.”
“Make sure to scan for everything and fax the results to this number.” Kelly handed him a card and left the room, tossing her mask and gloves in a bin.
“I’m kind of surprised you let the hooker go,” Rodriguez grumbled as they strolled back out to the lot.
“Why?” Kelly asked.
“She might have been in on it.”
Kelly tilted her head to the side. “But then why not drug him in the room and take him out the back stairs? No cameras there, and it would have been easier than trying to grab him on the street.”
Rodriguez shrugged noncommittally. “I’m just saying,” he said. “She smelled funny to me.”
“She’s a prostitute, they don’t usually smell very good,” Kelly replied wryly. She slid into the driver’s seat and glanced at him across the interior. Rodriguez’s face was still too round for his body, definitely a former fat kid who’d worked off the residual pudge in the gym. A few more years would probably take care of that. He wasn’t much taller than her, maybe five-nine, and his high cheekbones and light eyes pegged him as closer to a Spanish-Mexican lineage than a Mayan one. Based on his file she knew he was twenty-seven years old, had entered the Academy straight out of Princeton, and spent his childhood in Los Angeles. Aside from that, not much there. Which lent further credence to the OPR rumors. His constant second-guessing of her decisions was irritating. Plus, every time he called her chief it was getting harder not to smack him.
“So what next, chief?” he asked casually.
Kelly gritted her teeth. “Don’t call me chief.”
“You prefer boss?”
Kelly decided not to get drawn into a pissing match, dinner was coming up and she didn’t want to lose her appetite. “You make any progress on those gang files?”
Rodriguez shrugged. “The machete thing has been popular in L.A. for a few years, originally started by the Salvadoran gangs like MS-13. But then it caught on with everyone else—there have been incidents with immigrants from Sierra Leone, Somalia, Mexico. It’s a cheap weapon, and chopping someone into bits sends a pretty strong message. There weren’t any tags near the bodies, and according to the local Gang Task Force no specific group or gang is claiming responsibility. Which is kind of weird. Something high profile like this, you’d figure folks would be coming out of the woodwork to build their street cred.”
Kelly shook her head. “Probably not with something this big. A mayor, maybe, but a senator? They’d have to know the government would throw their whole weight behind this one. Death penalty for sure.” Which made her wonder again why she’d been assigned such an important case. Either the brass had more faith in her skills than they’d let on, or they knew this was a stinker. Still, it gave her a team of fifty agents doing everything from running down Morris’s staff history to canvassing door-to-door. With that kind of man power, she wasn’t complaining.
“Maybe ballistics will turn something up.”
“Doubtful. Shot with a .45, no casings, and you heard the ME—the bullets ricocheted around his skull, they’re a mess. If we find the gun we might get a match, but I’d be surprised if it turned up.” Surprisingly clean for a gang hit, Kelly mused, unless they were well organized or got extremely lucky. Now that they had a rough idea where Morris had been snatched, Kelly had a team of agents combing through video surveillance footage from 10:00 p.m. to midnight. That was their best shot, to get a grainy image of a license plate, anything that would provide a lead. Barring that, without a specific group claiming responsibility, her list of suspects ranged from environmentalists to illegals to single parents, all of whom Morris had recently managed to piss off.
Rodriguez’s cell buzzed an electronic version of some pop song. He flipped it open and barked, “Rodriguez!”
Kelly shifted irritably, waiting for him to finish. Until they got reports from the ME and the tape squad, there wasn’t much more they could do. Time to call it a night. She repressed a yawn and idly wondered whether room service would be available at the hotel. She’d love some Mexican food—she could almost taste a burrito dripping with cheese and guacamole.
Rodriguez snapped his phone shut, a triumphant expression on his face. “We got the gun.”
“What?” Kelly snapped awake.
“Phoenix P.D. got an anonymous tip today about a local MS-13 stash house. They raided it, turned up a stack of weapons. And one of them is a .45.”
“There are a lot of .45s out there. How do they know it was used in our killing?”
“Because it had Duke Morris’s name right on it.”
“What, literally? We inventoried his guns, everything was accounted for.” And what an armory it had been: the entire wall of Morris’s study was a display case with everything from handguns to paramilitary weapons. All registered legally, his wife hastened to point out, and licenses backed that up. Had the fighting ever gone house to house, Duke Morris would have been ready.
Rodriguez shook his head. “Not this one. Gift from a grateful lobbyist. It’s a beautiful 1911, bone handle with his name carved in it. Phoenix P.D. already checked with the wife, she said he probably hadn’t gotten around to registering it yet.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it just slipped his mind. And he was in the habit of taking it to fancy dinners?”
“This is Arizona, Agent Jones.” Rodriguez looked bemused. “Carrying concealed is considered a God-given right in these parts.”
“Remind me never to move here. Jesus.” Kelly furrowed her brow. And they wondered why the gun fatality rate was through the roof. “So whoever snatched him shot him with his own gun?”
“And then that gun turned up in an MS-13 stash house,” Rodriguez concluded. “MS-13 loves machetes. They’re questioning the gang members downtown, said we could observe if we like. Looks like this case might be open-and-shut after all.”
“Looks like it,” Kelly said. She punched the Phoenix Police Department’s address into their GPS and silently kissed her burrito goodbye. While she waited for the machine to calibrate their course, she nudged away the feeling that something was off. Hell, she was due for an easy one, Kelly reminded herself. And the less time wasted on a scumbag like Morris the better, as far as she was concerned. It made sense: a gang composed primarily of illegal immigrants targeted a loudmouth who was making their lives difficult. Still, she’d feel a lot better with a confession, or footage of them hauling an overweight senator into a van.
Randall Grant was clearly having a bad day, Jake thought as he took the man in. Honestly, he was having a hard time understanding what Syd saw in the guy. Tall and thin, slightly gawky-looking. Maybe under normal circumstances he had a sparkling personality.
But these were obviously not normal circumstances. He looked hollowed out, shoulders slumped, bags under his eyes, the portrait of the tormented father. They sat across from each other in a nondescript café on the outskirts of Livermore. Initially Jake was glad they weren’t meeting in one of the coffee franchises that dominated the Bay Area, but after a sip of espresso he’d changed his mind. Say what you will about Starbucks, he thought. At least they were consistent.
“So why don’t you want to get the FBI involved?” Jake asked. Randall had spent the first ten minutes rambling on about his daughter, including too much information about his divorce and the dance classes she used to take. None of it had direct bearing on the case, but he seemed unable to help himself. Jake wondered whose brilliant idea it was to trust Randall with government secrets, if he spilled this much personal information over a cappuccino.
Randall shook his head violently. “Can’t do it. The people who took her said they had someone high up in the Bureau, that they’d know if I called in outside help. And the minute I did, they’d kill her.”
“And you believed them?” Jake asked, skeptical. It sounded like an idle threat. What better way to keep parents from calling the authorities than to sow distrust of them?
“Did you ever hear of Operation Snow White?” Randall asked.
Jake shook his head. “Nope. Some sort of poisoned apple scheme?”
Randall glared at him through red-rimmed eyes. “I was hoping Syd would be here.”
“I’m sure you were. Unfortunately, I’m the one who needs convincing before we agree to help you.” Jake raised an eyebrow.
Randall sank an inch lower in his chair. “Operation Snow White was initiated by the Church of Scientology back in the seventies. They wanted to purge any records that cast them or L. Ron Hubbard in a bad light. By the time it was discovered, they’d placed operatives in over a hundred government agencies in more than thirty countries. It was the single largest infiltration of the U.S. government in history. They denied it, but I have it on good authority that the FBI was one of those agencies.”
“So, what? Scientologists took your daughter?” Jake had to fight an urge to laugh, he had a sudden mental image of Tom Cruise and John Travolta carting off a struggling girl in a duffel bag.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m just saying, such a thing isn’t outside the realm of possibility.”
“Background checks are a lot more intensive post 9/11,” Jake pointed out. “It’s a whole different ball game now.”
Randall shrugged. “Who says their guy wasn’t already inside? Anyway, I couldn’t risk it.”
“And what exactly do they want from you, in exchange for her life?”
Randall rubbed his eyes with one hand. His jaw was stubbled with at least a day’s worth of growth. “I can’t tell you. It’s classified.”
“You’re considering handing whatever it is over to the kidnappers. So I don’t see the harm in telling me what they’re looking for.”
“Does it really matter?” Randall met his eyes sharply. “Would knowing help you find her?”
Jake shrugged. “Hard to say. I just don’t like going into a case blind. I’m kind of puzzled that they didn’t just snatch you. If you’ve got what they need, why take your daughter instead?”
“Because it’s not like I have it in my head. They need me to requisition things, pinpoint certain…materials…then gain access to transport records. And they want it done over a period of time.”
“So whatever they’re after, they want a lot of it, is what you’re telling me.”
“Essentially, yes.”
“But you can’t say what.”
Randall shook his head. Jake tilted back in his chair and eyed him. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something off about this. “Remind me which department you’re with?”
Randall smiled slightly. “Advanced Defense Capabilities. But Syd would have told you that.”
“Right, Advanced Defense. Any chance that has something to do with nuclear defense? Or are you folks still working on Star Wars?”
“Like I said, Mr. Riley…”
“Right, I know, you really can’t say. And you did your postgrad work in physics?” Randall didn’t answer, dropping his gaze to the table. Jake watched him closely. “What makes you so sure that Madison was abducted? Maybe she ran off with this Shane guy she was e-mailing.”
Randall pushed a photo across the table, keeping his eyes averted. Jake held it up for a better look. It was a close-up shot of Madison Grant, eyes wide and terrified, printed off a JPG onto regular computer paper. She was lying down against a nondescript gray background.
“When did this come in?” Jake looked up sharply.
“This morning. It was in my work account.” Dr. Grant buried his face in his hands and rubbed his cheeks hard. “No one outside the facility has that e-mail address. And I mean no one, any personal exchanges are strictly forbidden.”