Fallen Angel (26 page)

Tess flipped through the pages of J. J.'s NIV Bible and found a passage marked with yellow highlighter, Psalm 144:1–2:

Praise be to the L
ORD
my Rock,

who trains my hands for war,

my fingers for battle.

He is my loving God and my fortress,

my stronghold and my deliverer,

my shield, in whom I take refuge,

who subdues peoples under me.

Tess raised her trembling hand, interlaced her fingers, closed her eyes, and prayed for J. J., the team, and Moyer's family.

The phone rang, startling Tess so much she nearly knocked her teacup over. She glanced at the clock. She had been praying for half an hour; it seemed like moments.

It rang again, its sound foreboding.

Tess set her hand on the cell phone and raised it. It took another second for her to tap the talk key. "Yes."

"Tess? It's Colonel MacGregor. I need you."

"My husband—"

"No change in status. I'll see you soon." He hung up. Mac was never one for pleasantries.

Two minutes later, Tess was out the door.

CHAPTER 30

"YOU'RE THINKING AGAIN, COLT."

J. J. looked up from his uncomfortable seat near the FedEx truck's rear door. "How can you tell, Shaq?"

"There's smoke coming out your ears."

"Sorry, I forgot to oil my mental gears."

"So what's got you so preoccupied?"

Now everyone in the back of the van was looking at him. He was certain if Lev could pull it off, he'd turn around in the driver's seat and stare too.

"What? A man can't think?"

Moyer spoke, breaking thirty minutes of silence. J. J. had seen the man in every kind of situation. He saw Moyer when he was deep into his beer, when he was leading the team in physical training, when he faced off with high-ranking officers, and when he was in the heat of battle. But nowhere, at anytime, had he seen the mask of neutrality the team leader had been wearing since he received word about his abducted daughter.

"You're the thinker of the group," Moyer said in a flat tone. "When you think, we all get nervous."

"Hey!" Pete said. "I think. So does Doc. Shaq, well never mind."

"You know you're within arm's length, don't you, Junior?" Icicles hung from Rich's words.

"Can it, guys." Moyer didn't bother to open his eyes. "We still good, Lev?"

"No. There's a vodka shortage in the cab."

"When this is all over and if we're not moldering in some field, I'll buy you a vat of the stuff so you can drown yourself in it. I ask again, are we still good?"

"Yes, Mr. Boss. The Russians are still well ahead of us. They can't see us, but I can see the dust they're kicking up."

"Good." Moyer opened his eyes and directed them at J. J., who not only saw this but somehow felt it. "Okay, Colt. Spill it. You got a sermon to share or something?"

J. J. laughed. "Preaching isn't part of my skill set, Boss. The last thing you need to hear is me preaching."

"Uh-huh. So what's on your mind?"

"Just batting ideas around."

"You're avoiding the question."

"Yeah, Colt," Shaq added, "you're avoiding the question."

J. J. grew nervous. "I was thinking about your situation, Boss. You and your family."

"What about it, Colt?" The words were hard.

J. J. smiled. "I've been thinking about a phrase I heard in a song. It's been haunting me."

"What phrase? What song?"

"The song's been covered by several people, but I keep hearing Rufus Wainwright. The song is 'Hallelujah.'"

"Leonard Cohen wrote it in 1984." Crispin removed the earbuds. "Colt's right, at least a half-dozen people have recorded it. It was in one of the
Shrek
movies. That made it famous."

All eyes shifted to Crispin.

"Hey, I know a little bit about music."

"Carry on, Colt," Moyer said.

"The song uses biblical stories. To be honest, it's sort of a mishmash of things that raises more questions than it answers. Sometimes the singers change the lyrics. For example, Cohen uses the phrase 'the holy dove.' Wainwright and others use 'the holy dark.' That's the phrase I've been thinking about. 'Holy dark'."

"Does this go anywhere? What does that have to do with my . . . situation?"

"Okay, here's where it gets preachy. People—by which I mean guys like me—always associate holiness with light. Nothing wrong with that. Saying 'the holy light' just sounds right and fits with what the Bible teaches, but the reverse—although it doesn't sound right—is true."

"Holy dark," Moyer muttered.

"Yes, Boss. What I've been thinking about is that God might be in the dark as much as in the light. My brother once preached a sermon about Solomon building the temple in Jerusalem. When he finished Solomon said, 'The Lord said that He would dwell in thick darkness'—a holy dark."

"Deep stuff for such a shallow mind." Rich delivered the words with a grin.

"All I'm saying is that God is in the darkness with you. There is a holy dark."

"Thanks, Colt. I know you mean well, but I'm just not feeling it. I can only feel one thing right now: fear for my daughter."

"Understood, Boss. I'm just sayin'."

"I hear ya, Colt. Maybe it will mean something to me someday."

Lev's voice wafted to the back. "If the church service is over, I should tell you we're coming up to the coordinates you gave me. What do you want me to do now?"

Moyer moved from his seat in the back and leaned into the cab. "Leave the road. Drive as far as you can. We need to conceal the truck."

"I can see a stand of old trees fifty meters up the slope."

"Do it. We'll go the rest of the way on foot."

"Won't that slow you down?"

Moyer put a hand on the Russian's shoulder. "We like to be fashionably late."

Lev slowed and turned up a grassy slope, accelerating to gain traction. "You know, I'm leaving tracks they can follow."

"They don't know we're here and I've got a feeling they're going to have other things on their minds."

"If you say so, Boss man."

"I say so."

Moyer turned to the team. "Okay, let's see if Colt is right about God being in the dark."

"But it's still light outside," Crispin said.

"It's a euphemism, Hawkeye," Pete said.

"Oh."

ROB HEARD THE SOFT
voice of Special Agent Brianne Lazzaro. "You're not doing yourself any good by watching that tape over and over again."

"I'm not trying to do anything good for me; I'm trying to do some good for my sister."

Brianne sat in one of the dining room chairs brought in earlier when Zinsser and Wallace were going over the video. "We have specialists working on it, Rob."

"So what? Another pair of eyes won't hurt anything."

"I'm worried about you. That's all."

He snapped at her. "Maybe things would work better if you worried about my sister."

She put a hand on his arm. "I'm not the enemy here. You know that. CID and the FBI are doing everything that can be done. Your mother needs you to be strong and to be present, not hiding out here."

He turned to face her. She was gorgeous on a dozen different levels, although older than him by fifteen years. He could lose himself in her eyes—any other time but now. The only thing he could think about was Gina, the times he teased her too severely; the times he made fun of her friends; the times he upset her world by bringing discord into the house.

The muscles constricted in his chest, and for a moment his heart seemed ready to burst like a balloon, leaving ripped tissue fluttering in the center of his chest. Fearing a nervous breakdown, he turned back to the computer. His eyes pointed at the screen but he saw nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

"You all right, kid?" Brianne's hard FBI special agent tone turned nurturing.

"Yeah. I guess. I just keep thinking we're missing some clue in this video."

"You can't see what's not there."

"Something has to be here. No one is perfect. There must be a goof, a mistake somewhere that leaves a clue."

"Rob, let the professionals do this."

"I'm not stopping them."

Brianne opened her mouth to speak again when her BlackBerry went off. She answered, rose, and left the room.

Rob was glad she was gone. She didn't understand. Couldn't understand. To her, this was just another kidnapping, another task to be completed on her to-do list. He would do whatever he could. Minutes mattered.

Minutes mattered . . . mattered. Rob covered his face with his hand to hide the tears he could no longer hold back.

ZINSSER STEPPED FROM THE
car the moment Wallace pulled to the curb. Wallace insisted they return to the office where they would have more assets available to them. It made sense, but Zinsser wanted to check on Rob and Stacy. Wallace acquiesced, clearly weary of arguing. As Zinsser slipped from the passenger seat, Agent Lazzaro stepped from the house, as if she knew what minute they'd be arriving. She had her phone to her ear. She nodded several times as if the caller could see her.

He started to walk past her when she took his arm in an unexpectedly strong grasp.

"Got it. Good work." She put the phone away.

"Do you mind?" Zinsser glanced at his arm.

"Oh, sorry." She let go. "Good news. The video forensic team has made a discovery."

"What discovery?" Wallace joined them.

"They've identified the kind of camera used to make the video."

"That was quick," Wallace said. "Faster than we could have done it."

Brianne shrugged. "Like I said, the president calls the FBI director and motivation sweeps through every corner of the bureau. How did you get such a powerful friend, Agent Zinsser?"

"We like the same kind of pancake syrup." He waited for a laugh but when he didn't get one, he continued. "Long story, one which I can't tell you even if we had the time. What'd your team find?"

"Some video cameras, especially the higher-priced ones, come with a metafile, watermark creator. You know, invisible markers placed in the digital fabric of the video. These can be read with the right kind of software. It just so happens we have that software. The video was made with a Sentratronics XG200 security camera. It comes with a digital recorder that works like a store security camera catching only a few frames every few seconds, or it can be used at regular recording speeds—which our black hats did."

"Okay, but that helps us how . . . They sell these in home-improvement stores?"

"You're getting it, Zinsser. And here's the bonus: These things are at the upper range of the cameras sold in such stores, meaning—"

Wallace jumped in. "Meaning they sell fewer of those than lesser-priced security systems."

Zinsser smiled. "That lowers the number of candidates. There might be hundreds of people who buy two-by-fours, drywall, and white paint. We search for someone who bought those items, maybe some tools, but also the security system."

Brianne nodded repeatedly. "It narrows things quite a bit."

"It's time to pull out the stops." Wallace reached for his cell phone. "Can you get more agents hitting these stores? We're smaller than the FBI, but I'll pull everyone out of the office and get them on it." Wallace looked at Zinsser. "What about the cops? Did you offend them so much they'll refuse a little interagency cooperation?"

"Um, you may want to call them. Detective Angie Wells wants to control everything, but I believe she's a committed cop. Police sergeant Crivello is a stand-up guy. I'd work through one of them."

Wallace turned and started making phone calls.

"How're Rob and Stacy doing?"

Brianne saddened. "Not good. Rob is trying to man up and take charge of things, but he's way out of his depth."

"He's barely eighteen."

"I'm not being critical; I'm giving a report. Stacy has yet to sleep. She looks like she's been run over by a very long train. Gina's friends have gone home. I pushed them out the door so Stacy could rest. She kept fixing drinks and food for them."

"Understandable. The chaplain?"