The First 48 Page 9

A single thin ribbon of smoke and a burning stink curled up into the air.

  CHAPTER 21

  Gleason’s muffled scream threatened to tear a hole in his throat. His body shuddered and twisted. Mike pinned his legs with one knee.

  Tom looked at his watch. 17:28:09. Less than seventeen and a half hours.

  It was just three seconds before Mike removed the flame. 17:28:06. Tom blinked and checked his watch again, shaking it. He looked at his friend. Sweat was dripping down Mike’s face now. Tom smelled urine. Beneath the senator was a small dark puddle.

  “You want to tell us something now?” Mike asked, his voice still soft.

  Gleason’s head went around and around. Yes. No. Yes. No.

  “I guess I don’t understand if that’s yes or no,” Mike said. He looked away from Gleason and began to flick the starter again. The flame popped to life. He moved it toward Gleason’s foot. Gleason’s muffled keening mixed with the lingering stench of burned flesh. Mike held the flame between them and stared at him. This time when Mike asked if he wanted to talk, Gleason nodded unmistakably that he did.

  Mike took out a pocketknife and sawed through the tape pinning Gleason’s right arm to his body, then put the pen in his hand and held the notebook up for him to write. Gleason’s hand was shaking so hard that it was difficult to read. Mike snatched it away from him. Gibberish.

  “I don’t want you to write another word that doesn’t tell us where she is,” Mike said. “You’re doing bad and Mr. Fixit is going to have to repair your soul. Now, I’m going to let you write one more word and it better tell me where she is or else I’m going to have to hurt you some more, only this time it’s going to have to last. I’m being very nice to you, but being nice isn’t working . . .”

  Mike put the notebook in front of the senator. Gleason began to write again, trembling.

  THORNE

  “What’s Thorne?” Tom said, reaching for Gleason’s neck with hooked fingers. “Is that who got her?”

  Gleason shook his head yes.

  “Thorne. Thorne who?” Mike asked.

  Gleason wrote: CAN I TALK

  Mike looked at him intently. He stroked his neat little beard and said, “If you make any noise, I’m going to chicken fry your little piggies. Do you understand? I won’t be happy if you do anything but talk.”

  Mike struggled to his feet, then bent over and ripped the tape off Gleason’s face. He removed the rubber ball and the senator gasped desperately.

  “Where is she?” Mike said.

  “I didn’t tell him to kill her,” Gleason said. He sobbed and shook. His voice was tattered.

  Tom felt the world tilt. A deep pit of hatred opened in his heart.

  “Who?” Mike said.

  “Thorne. Bob Thorne,” Gleason said, quavering, bawling softly. “He’s CIA. They gave me his name—I did a favor. I never saw him. ‘Just get my credit card bill. That’s it.’ She was going to write the story. I told him not to hurt her . . .”

  “Where is she?” Tom said.

  “I don’t know, really I don’t,” Gleason said. He shut his eyes and tears fell in the wrinkles. His whole body shook. “I swear, I don’t know! I didn’t do anything. ‘Just my credit card bill.’ You can ask Thorne.”

  “Where’s he?” Mike asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Tom growled low and punched him in the nose. A sharp jab with weight behind it. Gleason coughed and choked. Blood spilled down his face.

  “Oh, God. I have a phone number,” Gleason said, whining, “that’s all. Please.”

  “Where?” Mike said.

  Gleason told him the number and Mike repeated it back to him. Gleason nodded weakly.

  “Where is that?” Tom asked.

  “Close. Western Maryland. I don’t know exactly. I don’t know. . . .”

  “I believe you,” Mike said, plucking the Super Ball up off the floor. “Time for your medicine.”

  “What?” Gleason said. He started to moan.

  Mike jammed the ball back into his mouth. He bound the senator’s face up with fresh tape. Then he lifted him out of his puddle.

  “I’ll get his legs,” Tom said.

  Gleason’s eyelids fluttered. His legs were clammy. They carried him out and down the stairs like a dresser and dumped him into the back of the truck. Tom covered him up with the blanket. He had wondered what Mike wanted with the garbage bags, and now he knew.

  Mike was carefully taping the dark plastic to the inside of the barn door windows. He checked them from the outside, then slammed the camper door shut. Tom nodded his approval.

  Mike disappeared briefly back into the Fun House. When he returned, he had the Home Depot bag in one hand. With the other, he was dousing the doorway with the can of lighter fluid. When it was empty, Mike shook it and tossed it back into the clown’s gaping mouth. He flicked the starter and lit the propane torch again. When he reached the top of the stairs, he turned and rolled the flaming canister back toward the entrance. The puddle of fluid ignited with a thud. Mike jogged down the stairs.

  “Motorcycle Gang 101,” he said as he climbed into the cab. “When in doubt, burn all evidence.”

  In the silence, the faintest of sounds could be heard from inside the truck. Gleason moaning.

  Tom sighed and said, “Jesus, Mike, he deserves it, but we burned the man.”

  Mike raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

  “Not really,” he said, drawing out a fresh stick of gum.

  “Mike, I smelled it.”

  “That was my hair.”

  “What?”

  “My hair,” Mike said. “Smells just like burning flesh. Powerful suggestion. I pulled a couple hairs out of my head, let him feel the warmth of the flame and smell the stink. You did more damage punching him.”

  “I could have done worse,” Tom said. “I wanted to.”

  “He’s fine,” Mike said. “I don’t know what the hell we do with him now, though.”

  “We can decide after we find Thorne,” Tom said. “‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’”

  “Should we put him someplace?” Mike asked.

  “Right back there is probably the best place to keep him,” Tom said, firing up the big diesel engine. “Your truck is like your home. The cops can’t search it without a warrant.”

  “Good. Now if we can get an ISDN or a phone line somewhere,” Mike said, “I can reverse-directory for that phone number and get an address. It’s a Maryland area code so it can’t be too far.”

  Tom looked at his watch. 17:17:09. He showed Mike his wrist.

  “Seventeen hours and change, Mike,” he said, glancing in his side mirror at the black billows of smoke surging up into the morning sky behind them.

  “I know,” Mike said, “but the last six have been pretty goddamn productive. We keep going like this and we’ll have her back by dinner.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Tom drove them onto the highway and went west for two exits to a Budget Host motel. Tom went in and got a room in back for thirty-nine dollars in cash. They parked just outside their door and left Gleason in the back of the truck. Mike pulled the phone line out of the phone and snapped it into the back of his computer.

  Tom watched him do a reverse-directory search on the number. The address that came up was 1771 Edinger Road. Oldtown, Maryland. Mike searched MapQuest. Bob Thorne lived in a rural part of western Maryland. It was the narrow arm of the state, squeezed in between West Virginia and Virginia under the shadows of the Buchanan National Forest.

  They got on Route 70 and headed west to 68.

  Tom checked his Ironman: 16:24:12. But they were already driving along a country road, looking through the trees, seeing glimpses of a twelve-foot chain-link fence that apparently surrounded Thorne’s property. When they got to the driveway and the gate, Tom stopped the truck and stared. It was topped with concertina wire.

  “Go up there, okay?” Mike said.

  Tom drove another thousand feet up t
he road and pulled over at the corner of the fence. Mike leaned over the seat and fished around in his bag until he came up with a pair of binoculars.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Mike said. The truck door squeaked as he opened it. “I think I know what this is, but I want to be sure. Come on.”

  Tom got out and followed him through the trees. The sunlight glared down, baking them, even through the canopy of leaves. The air was still. Stifling. They came to an opening. Beside the fence, wild grasses sprouted knee-high, still damp with warm dew and shedding ripe seeds down the legs of their pants. They walked along the perimeter of the fence until they came to a high spot where they could see a house and a detached garage through the trees. The buzz of a locust pierced the stillness. Mike put the binoculars to his face and studied.

  “Hmm.”

  “What?” Tom asked.

  “There’s no furniture,” Mike said, handing the binoculars to Tom. “It’s a safe house.”

  “A safe house?” Tom said.

  “He said CIA . . . ,” Mike said. “I staked one of these out about four years ago. Some rich lady from Westchester. Old money. She married this diplomat; they met in Paris or something. Anyway, he was a spook and he had a little thing on the side and he took her to a place just like this out in Bergen County. Weird. I had no idea what the hell was going on. Fence like this one. Vibration sensors. Motion detectors. The fucking works.

  “I thought, No problem,” Mike said. “I could shoot them with a telephoto through the window. Then they go into this place and disappear. There was nothing in there.”

  “So how’d you find out about it?” Tom asked.

  Mike grinned at him and said, “I waited until they left and I cut the power at the pole. Then I strolled in there and checked it out. Everything was underground. Red satin sheets. Movies. Leather shit. I planted a camera in there and three weeks later, voilà. Instant divorce.”

  Mike spit his gum into the grass and pulled another stick out of his pocket.

  “The guy told me all about it,” he said, chewing. “I ran into him the night after the proceedings in a little Irish pub in White Plains. He was drunk, and I wasn’t feeling too bad either. He recognized me from the courtroom and came right up and asked me how I got in. I told him and asked him some questions. He blabbed his head off. It was pretty educational; I actually got lucky. They have backup generators. The one at this place just malfunctioned. Anyway, these things are like rabbit holes—there’s always a second way out.”

  Tom turned and started back for the truck.

  “Tom?” Mike said. “What are you doing?”

  Tom had heard enough. He stopped and looked at Mike.

  “‘Take time to deliberate but when time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in,’” Tom said.

  “Churchill?”

  “Napoleon,” Tom said. “I’m taking the truck right through that gate.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Sticks snapped under Tom’s feet, sending tree dust and the smell of the woods into the warming air.

  “Tom, wait,” Mike said, breathing hard and putting his hand on Tom’s shoulder. His stomach shook as he ran with his little legs.

  Tom stopped and drew the back of his hand across his face, wiping the sweat.

  “‘Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots,’” Mike said.

  “Sun Tzu.”

  “Yes,” Mike said. “Maybe we can get him to come to us.”

  “She could be in there right now,” Tom said, pointing.

  “I know that, but we’ve got to be careful,” Mike said. “It’s not going to do anyone any good if we don’t do this right.”

  “It worked for the Ithaca Police,” Tom said, raising his jaw. “Storm the gates. That’s how we always did it.”

  Tom had taught Mike too well to question the authority of his old unit. The tactics of the Ithaca Police, Tom’s old force, was beyond even Sun Tzu.

  “What about a compromise?” Mike said.

  “What?” Tom said.

  “Let me find the rabbit hole,” Mike said, speaking fast. “The escape hatch. The tunnel. If I’m right, there’ll be one. Give me . . . thirty minutes. Then you bust in there. Like when the ferret goes down the main hole and the rabbit comes out the back—I’ll be waiting. Do you have cell reception?”

  Tom took his phone from his pants pocket.

  “Two lines,” he said.

  “Me too,” Mike said, holding up his own phone. “Give me a little bit. I’ll find it and I’ll call you. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Tom said. “Thirty minutes. That’s it.”

  Tom reached for the door handle of the truck.

  “Wait,” Mike said. He opened the back door, leaned in, and fished a short-barreled shotgun with a black synthetic pistol grip out of his bag. He handed Tom the gun along with three slim boxes of hollow-point slugs. “Here. Nothing against your .38, but this has a little more oomph.”

  “Thanks,” Tom said. He loaded the gun and popped one into the chamber with that slick metallic crackle that distinguishes a shotgun from all other weapons.

  Tom climbed in and waited. Not a single car came down the road. The air grew close. Tom looked at his watch. 15:59:59. He started the truck and put the AC on. At 15:57:03, his phone rang.

  “I got it,” Mike said. He was breathing hard into the phone.

  “Any more ideas about this safe house thing?”

  “Look for a basement door,” Mike said. “In the kitchen or the garage or underneath the stairs going to the second floor. Bring some extra shells and use the shotgun on the lock. There will be a lock. Keep your phone on.”

  Tom put the truck into gear.

  He reached the gate and backed up across the road, facing the glimmering galvanized metal. He revved the engine. One foot on the gas, the other on the brake.

  The truck howled, straining against the brake, rising up. He let go with his foot and shot forward, rocketing across the road and down the short gravel drive, smashing full force into the gates. The air bag exploded in Tom’s face. The truck bucked up. The gate shivered and snapped, up and over the top of the truck, raking it. Metal shrieked. Tom’s foot went instinctively to the brake and he slid to a stop in a dusty cloud.

  He blinked his eyes and coughed and wiped the white powder from the air bag off his face as the bag slowly deflated. When he could see again, he punched his foot all the way to the floor and shot straight down the drive. The imagined sound of the alarm inside the house was ringing in his head.

  He sped toward the side door that led out to the detached garage, skidding to a stop, showering the side of the house with gravel. When he hopped out he had the shotgun pinned tightly to his leg. The contours of the pistol grip felt good in his hand. He reared back and kicked in the door. Splinters exploded from the frame and the door sagged there. He kicked it again. It burst inward this time and Tom barged in, shotgun leveled. There really was nothing there. No furniture. No rugs. No knickknacks.

  On the other side of the kitchen, Tom saw a metal door, painted white like the walls. He peered down the hall. It was beneath the stairs that led to the second floor. He tried the handle. Locked. This was it. In its center, at eye level, was a fish-eye peephole. He stepped back and fired a blast from the shotgun, punching a nickel-sized hole in the door just beside the lock. He gave it a kick.

  Nothing.

  Tom fired again and again, emptying the chamber. The air was blue with smoke and tangy with the taste of powder. A tight cluster of holes gaped in the door between the handle and the jam. Tom kicked again. This time it gave, but sprang back at him. Something was holding the upper corner. A dead bolt. Tom reloaded the shotgun.

  He kicked the door harder, higher this time. Once. Twice. On the third time, it banged open. He lumbered down the stairs, the gun raised at eye level. He hit the floor below flat-footed, spinning in a circle, searching for a target. His eyes drank in the sight. Rows of books. A table. A desk. A bed. A chair. He stalked
slowly toward the back. His eyes skittered across every possible place that Jane might be. Tied up. Wide-eyed. Waiting for him to rescue her. His chest felt as if it were about to burst.

  He found the bathroom. Empty. Here was a small kitchen. Empty. Beside it, another closet door and a pantry lined to the ceiling with what looked like cans of food and plastic jugs of water. Empty. The place was absolutely deserted.

  But as his eyes adjusted to the gloom of the pantry, he noticed that in the back the shelves protruded at a funny angle. Tom walked in. Quietly. He reached out and grasped the edge of the shelving with his left hand. In his right was the shotgun. He slid the barrel into the dark crack on its edge and eased the entire shelf back toward him.

  The rabbit hole.

  He crouched. Ready to fire. Ready to be fired at.

  CHAPTER 24

  Just a storm sewer. That’s what most people would think. But it was too big and it was bone-dry and it ran in a straight line from where Mike knew the safe house was. Six feet in diameter and emptying out into the side of a natural gully, the tunnel had an iron grille locked across its front. A Master lock. Not faded with rust, but shiny, even under the shadow of the gully’s broken lip.

  Mike knew that when Thorne came out, he would have to pause to unlock the grating. Both hands would be occupied. Mike could press himself against the bank and wait unseen beside the neck of the pipe. When the time was right, he’d slip out in front, his gun aimed for a kill shot if need be. His heart began to pump hard, not so much from the effort of hustling through the woods looking for the escape route, but from nerves.

  Perspiration ran down his temples and he wiped his face on his shirtsleeve, leaving a stain to complement the ones that had already soaked through from his armpits. He took out the Taurus 454 Raging Bull from the waist of his pants and checked the load the right way. The way Tom had always taught him. He tucked himself in beside the massive pipe, plastering his back to the dirt bank. Feeling its cool dampness on the back of his head. Dappled sunlight fell down from above. A red squirrel chattered angrily somewhere above. A chickadee scolded back.