The Abduction (40 page)

“Look, boy, that’s twenty-five million down in that box. You gonna let her die down there, least get the money!”

Junior just glared back at him. Fuck this, Jacko thought. The money would be nice, but the important thing was that the girl, dead or alive, was going to bring Ben Brice to him. Man Jacko’s age, settling old scores was a hell of a lot more satisfying than money. He grabbed the keys to the Blazer off a nail by the door.

“I’m going up to Creston.”

Jacko went back outside and checked the Blazer to make sure no ordnance was still in the back. Last thing he needed was some Canadian Mountie at the border searching the vehicle and finding a nape canister:
Shit, officer, that ain’t my napalm!

He got in and fired up the vehicle and headed down the mountain. Once a month he drove the twenty-four miles into Canada. He had angina; too much booze and red meat and tobacco, the doctor said. Not that he was going to stop any of those habits. So he took nitroglycerin tablets whenever the angina flared up, which was most every day. Hundred bucks a month for his prescription but only half that in Canada. So he bought his nitro over the border. It ain’t like a terrorist group plotting to kill the president had some kind of fucking health plan.

“Dr. Vernon?”

“Yes, Agent Jorgenson, I have the file now.”

There was a connection between Major Charles Woodrow Walker and Elizabeth Brice and Gracie Ann Brice’s abduction, FBI Special Agent Jan Jorgenson was sure of that. But Walker was dead. And only two persons involved with Walker’s case at Justice were still alive: Elizabeth Brice—Jan would talk to her later, face to face—and President McCoy. She didn’t figure on talking to him. So she had called the Idaho hospital where Walker had taken his son ten years ago. Dr. Henry Vernon was still the ER chief and the only other person she knew who had seen Major Charles Woodrow Walker alive.

“That’s not a day I’ll ever forget,” the doctor said, “FBI arresting the most wanted man in America in my ER.”

“Can you describe Walker?”

“Big man, blond hair, blue eyes—I’ll never forget his eyes, the way he looked at me. Sent chills up my spine. Said he’d been out of the country, returned home and found his son like that, rushed him in.”

“His son was dying?”

“Arthropod envenomation. Spider bite. Hobo spider. People always confuse it with the brown recluse because the bite effects are so similar, but recluses are rare up here.” She heard papers being shuffled. “Let’s see, here it is: Charles Woodrow Walker, Jr., white male, fourteen, presented as severe headache, high fever, chills, nausea, joint pain, and a necrotic skin lesion consuming one entire finger, eaten down into the bone. Never seen one this advanced. We admitted the boy, put him on an IV, antibiotics, steroids, and dapsone, but the finger had to be amputated to stop the necrosis from spreading. Right index finger. Boy had gone so long untreated, I didn’t think he’d make it. After the FBI took his dad away, I went in to check on him. He was gone. I figured he’d die on a mountain. No record of him being treated here again.”

Major Walker was dead and probably his son, too.

“Doctor, thanks for your help, I … Doctor, what did the boy look like?”

“Big, like his daddy. Same blond hair, same blue eyes.”

Dicky was pointing down and yelling back to his out-of-town passengers over the engine noise: “Elk Mountain Farms. They grow hops for Budweiser!”

Down below Ben could see farmland dotted with patches of snow lying next to a river snaking through the valley. They had flown over all seven of the known camps west of town and were now flying east.

“Best damn fishing in the country!” Dicky yelled. “Cutthroat trout, rainbow, bass, whitefish! Up in the mountains, big game hunting—elk, moose, deer, even bear!”

Minutes later: “Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge! Three thousand acres, couple hundred different species! Summertime, you can see bald eagles!”

The sheriff had been silently shaking his head. Now he turned to Dicky and said, “Dicky, shut up and fly! You sound like the goddamned chamber of commerce! They ain’t tourists come to look at birds! They’re looking for their girl!”

The phone rang. And rang. And rang.

Elizabeth Austin had been the junior AUSA on the Walker prosecution. An up-and-comer at Justice and slated for a top spot in the department, she had abruptly resigned only two weeks after Major Walker had died in Mexico. Two weeks later, she had married John Brice and moved to Dallas. It was as if she had been running away—but from what? Or whom?

An answer was brewing in the back of FBI Special Agent Jan Jorgenson's head, but she couldn’t give it words yet.

She needed to know more about Elizabeth Brice, so Jan had searched through the file for names of co-workers and found the phone number for Margie Robbins in the federal employee database; she was currently employed as a legal secretary at the Department of Agriculture and had been previously employed at the Justice Department. It was Saturday morning, so Jan was trying Robbins’s residence number. After a dozen rings, a soft voice answered.

“Hello?”

“Margie Robbins?”

“Yes.”

“Ms. Robbins, my name is Jan Jorgenson, I’m an agent with the FBI. I’m investigating the Gracie Ann Brice abduction.”

“Oh, yes, Elizabeth’s daughter. It’s terrible.”

Bingo. “You know Elizabeth Brice?”

“Her name was Austin when I worked for her. I didn’t even realize it was her child until I saw Elizabeth on TV.”

“You worked for her at Justice?”

“For five years. I was her secretary. Did they find her daughter’s body?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I thought the case was closed.”

“I’m tying up some loose ends. Tell me about Mrs. Brice.”

“Oh, Elizabeth was a wonderful person, a bit serious and a bit sad, actually, like something was missing in her life. She never talked about it, except once she mentioned her father had been murdered when she was only a child, said she had never gone to church again. I remember that. But she was brilliant, and so articulate. We all said she’d be the Attorney General one day. But that was before that case.”

“Major Walker?”

“Yes, the Walker case.”

“Ms. Robbins, are you aware that other than President McCoy and Elizabeth Brice, every member of the Walker prosecution team is dead?” The line was silent. “Ms. Robbins?”

“No, I didn’t know that. I read something about the judge, some kind of boating accident? And Mr. Garcia out in Denver. Who else?”

“James Kelly, William Goldburg—”

“Bill? Last I knew, he went home to Ohio.”

“Todd Young, Ted Ellis, with the FBI.”

“They’re all dead?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It’s Walker.”

“He’s dead, Ms. Robbins.”

“His kind of evil never dies.” An audible sigh. “That case destroyed everyone it touched, especially Elizabeth. She was never the same.”

“Is that why she left Justice so abruptly?”

“Wouldn’t you? What woman could just go back to work like nothing happened? When they got her back—”

“
Back?
Back from where?”

“From Major Walker—she was the hostage.”

“Four-hundred-fifty-foot drop!” Dicky yelled. “People come from all over for white water rafting on the Moyie!”

They had flown over three of the four camps east of town. They were heading to the fourth, up north. Dicky was circling over a deep gorge spanned by a two-lane suspension bridge; white water was visible below where the river crashed through the narrow canyon. Ben located the gorge on the map: the Moyie River Bridge. Dicky pointed the chopper east.

They were soon over the next camp. Dicky brought the chopper down, a hundred meters above the trees, and hovered. This camp was not as large as some of the others; there were only seven cabins, several vehicles, and no white SUV. But there was an order to this camp that immediately caught Ben’s eye. The cabins were arranged like barracks, fronting a gravel area where the vehicles were parked. From the air, a security perimeter was noticeable among the trees, embankments spaced fifty meters apart and forming a semi-circle a hundred meters downhill from the cabins; the embankments would not be visible to a force attacking up the mountain. And at intervals along the dirt road leading up the mountain to the camp, metal plates were laid across wide man-made ditches; when the plates were removed, all vehicular traffic would be stymied by the ditches, except perhaps a Patton tank. Ditched roads were standard Viet Cong tactics.

This camp was battle ready.

Ben viewed the camp close-up with the scope, then he circled the location identified as “Red Ridge” on the map. He knew this was the camp they were searching for because of the camp’s order, the security perimeter, the ditched roads, and a branding iron.

FBI Special Agent Jan Jorgenson jogged out of the federal building in downtown Dallas and across the street to her car in the parking lot. She would spend the rest of her Saturday in Post Oak, Texas.

Major Charles Woodrow Walker was dead. His son was presumed dead. A son who would be twenty-four now, the approximate age of the abductor. A son who had blond hair and blue eyes, just like the abductor. A son who was the size of the abductor as initially reported by the coach.

But there was still a missing finger.

Ben unbuckled his seat belt and jumped out of the chopper before the skids hit the deck. He hunched over to avoid the rotating blades and jogged to the sheriff’s cruiser. He spread the map out on the hood, using the binoculars and the scope to anchor the ends against the prop blast.

The sheriff arrived and said, “I seen a scope like that, on a sniper’s rifle in Vietnam.”

Ben did not respond; instead he pointed to the camp located on Red Ridge and asked, “What’s the drive time to this camp?”

“I’d say an hour maybe, depending on how muddy the road is. You see something?”

Ben nodded. “A branding iron on the door of one cabin.”

“A
branding iron?
”

“Green Beret team carried that same branding iron, V for Viper.”

“And?”

“VC were Buddhists and Confucians, ancestor-worshippers. They believed they would spend eternity with their ancestors, but only if they had a proper burial. If they weren’t buried or their bodies were mutilated, no family reunion. So Special Forces teams cut off their ears, removed body parts, marked them in some way. Viper team branded their foreheads. Psychological warfare.”

The sheriff grunted and said, “I be damned.” And then, “How’d they get the branding iron hot in the middle of the jungle?”

“Lit up a block of C-4 explosive. Won’t explode without a detonator.”

The sheriff leaned against the vehicle, removed his hat, and ran his hand over his head. “I heard rumors about that kind of shit, but I figured it was just that.”

“It was true.” Ben turned back to the map. “I was on Viper team.”

The sheriff stood silently for a time. Ben felt the sheriff’s eyes on him. Then the sheriff said, “Still, Colonel, I gotta have more than a branding iron to get a warrant.”

Ben looked up at the sheriff.

“I don’t need a warrant.”

Coach Wally was eating lunch with his wife and daughter at the kitchen table before leaving for his shift at the Taco House. From his place at the table, he looked out on the front driveway through the bay window. He saw the black sedan pull into the driveway. He saw the young woman get out of the car. He saw her put on a nylon jacket to conceal the gun holstered on her hip. Wally Fagan put his fork down and pushed his plate away. He had suddenly lost his appetite.

“I’m Agent Jorgenson, with the FBI,” the young woman standing on his porch said, and Wally Fagan knew instantly that he had chosen the wrong path. She had come for the truth, and he would tell her the truth. And his life would be forever changed.

“Ben, if you’re sure she’s there, let’s go get her now!”

John was sitting across from Ben at a window table in the local snarf-and-barf on Main Street. Ben shook his head.

“John, we’re not going to drive up that mountain, knock on the door, and drive away with her. They’re not going to just
give her to us. We’re going to take her. And that’s a night op.”

“Then as soon as it’s dark. Let’s don’t waste time at Rusty’s!”

“Son, we’re going to Rusty’s on the off-chance we might get lucky on a Saturday night, get a little intel on those men. We’ll go up the mountain after midnight, recon the camp, plan our attack, and move in at first light. We need the element of surprise—and we can’t take a chance on a stray shot with Gracie in there.”

John leaned back and sighed. Ben was right; this wasn’t his kind of work. He was such a debbie at man’s work. He remembered his mother’s words:
Do exactly what Ben tells you to do, and we might get Gracie back. This is what he knows.

John gulped the foul coffee—
haven’t these people heard of Starbucks?
Outside, the good citizens of Bonners Ferry were strolling by, oblivious to the fact that at that very moment his daughter was being held hostage in the mountains north of town.