He smiled under his dark cloak. “It is something I do not recommend.”
Ndjai grabbed the metal belt and wrapped it around a cement slab that rested near the bloodstained chopping block. After clicking the belt in place, he handed the cement to a nearby guard, who immediately carried it fifty yards from the crowd.
“When you are given your uniforms, you will have one of these belts locked to your ankle. It cannot be removed by anyone but me, and I will not remove it for any reason during your stay on this island.” He reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a tiny remote control. He held the gadget in the air so everyone could see it. “This is what you Americans call a deterrent.”
With a push of a button, the cement block erupted into a shower of rubble, sending shards of rock in every direction and smoke high into the air.
“Did I get your attention?” he asked. “Now imagine what would have happened if your personal anklet were to be detonated. I doubt much of you would be found.”
A couple of the guards snickered, but Ndjai silenced them with a sharp stare. He would not tolerate disrespect from anybody.
“I know some of you will try to figure out how your anklets work, and some of you will try to disarm them. Well, I will tell you now: Your efforts will fail! We have buried a small number of transmitters throughout the Plantation. If at any time your anklet crosses the perimeter, your personal bomb will explode, killing you instantly. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, one more thing. If your device is detonated, it will send a signal to the anklets that are being worn by several other prisoners, and they will be killed as well. Do you understand?”
They certainly did, and the mere thought of it made them shudder.
CHAPTER 13
JONES
returned to his scenic office and locked himself in his massive technology lab. The room cost a staggering amount of money and was filled with high-tech equipment that many police departments would love to have. The most important piece of hardware was the computer, but it was the instrument that cost Jones the least. Built by Payne Industries, the computer was a scaled-down version of the system used at FBI headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and had been given to Jones as an office-warming gift.
Placing the surveillance disc into the unit, Jones quickly broke the footage into manageable data files. He was then able to select a precise frame from the video and put it on his screen in microscopic clarity.
“What should I look at first?” he mumbled to himself.
Then it dawned on him. He wanted to examine the assailant’s right wrist to see if the black mark was, in fact, a tattoo.
Jones scrolled through a number of frames until he found the scene that fit his specific needs. The suspect’s arm was centered perfectly on the monitor, and the gap between the glove and the sleeve was at its widest. Then he zoomed in and sharpened the image.
A few seconds later, Jones smiled in triumph when an elaborate tattoo came into view. The three-inch design was in the shape of the letter
P
, and it started directly below the palm of the suspect’s hand. The straight edge of the symbol was in the form of an intricately detailed sword, the blade’s handle rising high above the letter’s curve. At the base of the drawing, small drops of blood fell from the weapon’s tip, leaving the impression that it had just been pulled from the flesh of a fallen victim. Finally, dangling from each side of the sword was a series of broken chains, which appeared to be severed near the left and right edge.
As Jones printed several copies of the image, his speakerphone buzzed, followed by the voice of his secretary. “Mr. Payne is on line one.”
With a touch of a button, Jones answered his call. “Jon, any news?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing. I went to the police like you suggested and filled out the appropriate paperwork. It turns out that I knew a few of the officers on duty. They assured me that Ariane would get top priority.”
“Even though she’s only been gone a few hours?”
“Her scream on the surveillance tape and Mr. McNally’s testimony have a lot to do with it. Normally, they’d wait a lot longer before they pursued a missing person, but as I said, the evidence suggests foul play.”
“Did they give you any advice?”
“I wouldn’t call it
advice
. I think a warning would be more accurate. These cops know me, so they automatically assumed that I would do something stupid to get in their way. Why would they think that?”
Jones smiled. The cops had pegged him perfectly. Payne was definitely the intrusive type. “Instead of giving you the obvious answer, let me tell you what I discovered.” He described the image in detail, then filled him in on a theory. “I think we’re looking for a Holotat.”
“A Holo-what?”
“Holotat.”
Payne scrunched his face. “What the hell is that?”
“Back in World War Two, German guards used to tattoo their prisoners with numbers on their wrists in order to keep track of them. After the war, the people who survived these camps had a constant reminder of the Holocaust, marks that eventually became a source of inspiration.”
“What does that have to do with Ariane?”
“About five years ago, members of Los Diablos, a Hispanic gang from East L.A., decided it would be cool if they tattooed their brothers in a similar fashion, marking them on their wrists. Before then, gangs used to get their tattoos on their arms, chests, or back, but suddenly this trend caught on. Holocaust tattoos, known as Holotats, started popping up everywhere.”
“And you think the
P
tattoo is a Holotat gang emblem?”
Jones nodded his head. “That’s what it looks like to me. Of course, I could be wrong. It could be a jailhouse tat or the initial of his girlfriend, but my guess would be a Holotat.”
Payne considered the information, and a question sprang to mind. “You said it might be his girlfriend’s initial. Does that mean we’re sure it’s a guy?”
“That would be my guess. The thickness of the wrist suggests a masculine suspect, but to be on the safe side, I wouldn’t completely rule out a female. Of course, she’d have to be a Sasquatch-looking bitch.”
Payne laughed for the first time in a long time. He felt better knowing that Jones was helping him through this. “So, what now?”
“Why don’t you come down here? I have a few more tests I want to run on the video. But I want you to look at the tattoo to see if you notice anything that I didn’t.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
IT took Payne nearly an hour to reach Mount Washington, and the drive was a miserable one. Holiday traffic was starting to pick up even though it was only midday. Payne used his master key to enter Jones’s technology lab and found his friend hard at work on the computer.
“Any new developments?” Payne asked as he picked up a printout of the tattoo and studied it.
“There wasn’t much visual data to work with on the disc, so I focused on the audio. I know it’s hard to believe, but sound can tell you so much.”
“You mean like her scream?”
“No, I mean like background noise. You know, stuff that’s there, but isn’t really obvious.”
“Such as?”
Jones walked to the far side of the room and tapped his hand on a small metallic unit. “I call this device the Listener, and for the last half hour, it’s been our best friend.”
Payne crossed the room for a closer look and watched as Jones typed a specific code into the unit’s keypad. The Listener responded by extending its front tray six inches forward.
“This unit was designed to analyze sound and place it into specific categories. Since we were dealing with a stable environment with little background noise I had the machine focus on a couple of things. The first was her voice. I wanted to see if I could understand what she tried to say after her initial scream.”
“You mean when her voice got garbled.”
“Yeah. My guess is they were probably gagging her at the time, but I was hoping the machine might be able to isolate the sound and clean it up for us.”
“Did it work?”
“Actually, it worked beautifully. Unfortunately, it won’t help our cause very much.”
“Why not? What did she say?”
Jones picked up the transcript and read it aloud. “She said, ‘Help me. Somebody help me.’ ”
Payne closed his eyes as Ariane’s words sank in. He had managed to stay relaxed while Jones explained the features of his computer equipment, but now that the focus of the conversation was back on Ariane, Payne felt the nausea return. What would he do if he couldn’t track her down? Or worse yet, if someone had already killed her?
“Jon?” Jones said. “Are you okay? I asked you a question.”
Payne opened his eyes and turned to his friend. “Sorry. What was that?”
“I wanted to know if you told the cops how many people were involved.”
He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I told them that Mr. McNally saw more than one person, but wasn’t sure how many.”
“Well, thanks to the Listener, I’d say that there were probably three of them.”
Payne sat up in his chair. “How did you figure that out?”
“Simple. I programmed the device to filter out everything but the footsteps, and after listening to the disc, I could hear three distinct sets. But, as they were leaving, I could only hear two.”
“You mean someone stayed inside Ariane’s apartment?”
Jones shook his head. “At first, that’s what I thought, too, but as I listened to the disc again, I noticed a scratching noise in the background. I filtered out all the other sounds, isolating the scratch, and this is what I got.” He pushed his mouse button once, and a rough grating sound emerged from his system’s speakers. “What does that sound like to you?”
“Feet dragging on a carpet?”
“Bingo!” Jones was impressed that his friend had figured it out so quickly. It had taken him several minutes to come up with a hypothesis. “Remember what McNally said? It looked like your girlfriend was snookered because they were practically carrying her to the van? Well, my guess is she was drugged or knocked out. The three sets of footsteps that the Listener originally detected were Ariane and the two assailants. They broke into her place, gagged her, drugged her, then dragged her out. That’s the only thing that fits.”
“But I thought you said there were three guys involved. Where was the third guy while the abduction was going on?” Before Jones had a chance to answer, the solution popped into Payne’s head. “Oh, shit! They probably needed a driver to stay outside in the van.”
Jones nodded. “That’s what most criminals would do.”
CHAPTER 14
PAYNE
and Jones gathered all of the information they’d accumulated and took it directly to the police. When they entered the local precinct, Payne headed for Captain Tomlin’s office. He had met Tomlin a year earlier at a charity golf event that Payne Industries had sponsored, and they had stayed in touch since.
“Do you have a minute?” Payne asked as he tapped on Tomlin’s glass door. The captain, who had curly hair and thick arms, waved him in. “Have you ever met David Jones?”
Tomlin introduced himself, shaking Jones’s hand with a powerful grip. “Jon has told me all about you. I almost feel like we’ve met. I understand that you served under him in special ops.”
“Yeah,” Jones answered as he took a seat next to Payne. “We relied on each other so much we ended up attached in the real world.”
“That happens all the time. There’s something about life in the military that draws soldiers together—a kindred spirit that bonds all warriors.”
Payne winced at the suggestion. “I don’t know about that crap. I think D.J. stuck with me so I could get him a job.”
Jones nodded. “To be honest, he’s right. I actually can’t stand the bastard.”
Tomlin laughed loudly. “So, I take it from your comedy that Ariane’s all right? Where was that gal hiding?”
The comment drained the humor from the room.
“Don’t let our joking fool you,” Jones declared. “It’s just our way of dealing with things. The truth is we’re still looking for her.”
Payne held up his cell phone, showing it to Tomlin. “I’m having all of my calls forwarded. If she tries to contact any one of my lines, it’ll ring here.”
“Good, then you won’t have to sit at home, killing time.”
Payne took a deep breath and nodded. To him, waiting was the hardest part. “How are things on your end? Did you have a chance to send any officers to her apartment?”
“I sent a small crew over. Unfortunately, we didn’t notice anything new. You guys must’ve done a pretty thorough job this morning.”
“We did,” Payne said. “I hope we didn’t step on any toes by entering the scene.”
“Heavens no. I would’ve done the same thing if a loved one of mine was involved in something like this. Of course, my answer as a police officer would’ve been different if I didn’t know you. But you’re professionals, so I trust your judgment when it comes to a crime scene.”
Jones stood from his chair and handed the captain all of the information he had acquired from Ariane’s DVD. “We did get some data on one of the suspects that entered the apartment. He had an elaborate tattoo on his right wrist. Looks like a Holotat to me.”
Tomlin pulled a close-up of the tattoo from the large stack of papers and studied it. “It could be, but very few gangs in Allegheny County use them. They’re a lot more common on the West Coast and down south.”
“That makes sense,” Payne said, “since this person’s probably from Louisiana.”
