Molon Labe! (30 page)

The man blows on his sweaty palms for a few seconds, and then dons a new pair of surgical gloves. He wraps the 4'x6' sheet of plywood with the ground tarp and places it on the 6' long dirt shelf. It rests just inches over the pool of NoClog and will act as a roof for the dirt above. He chose exterior plywood, which is chemically treated to resist decay and rot. The wood roof should last at least a year.

He begins to fill the upper pit from the adjacent dirtpile. Bodies buried deeper than four feet will not be disturbed by animal and insect activity.

The man knows these things because he spent months in research.
Measure twice, cut once — measure once, cut twice
as his carpenter grandpa used to say. He knows that the grave will not likely be discovered by hikers, and that the police technology of ground radar enhancement and aerial infrared photography would be greatly hampered by the dense forest — assuming the police ever learned where to look in the first place.

Tamping the earth with a broken log, the pit is filled in 40 minutes. The man knows that a slight depression from settling is inevitable, which increases long-term risk of discovery. It is a fair bargain as the NoClog will have done its work by then. It is more important that Gray's pit not be found for at least a month. The excess dirt he flings about in a 360° pattern. He scatters twigs and leaves over the grave to match the surrounding terrain, then brushes clear his tracks as he steps backwards to his car.

No trace of the pit or his path can be seen.

He listens intently but the woods are peaceful.

Still wearing his gloves, he then bags the shovel. Next he carefully strips the trunk and floorboard of the plastic sheeting and bags it. Finally, he changes clothes and burns his jogging suit. There is little black smoke from the suit as he had chosen cotton over polyester after testing both. The gloves make a bit of smoke as they melt into an indistinct blob. He starts the Lincoln and heads back down the road.

Just a few last errands to do after he leaves the forest. First, he stops behind a grocery store dumpster near the highway, dons yet a new pair of gloves, and throws away the large bag containing the morning's evidence.

All soil evidence from the park and the woods is gone. Once the man gets home he will painstakingly wash and vacuum the car. He feels confident that no trace evidence remained, but thoroughness pays off.

I am 95% homefree
.

He resumes his southbound highway travel.

Sixty miles down the road is an abandoned gas station in North Carolina, behind which the man parks. He puts on today's last pair of gloves. From the rear floorboard he gets a 4-ton floor jack and two pairs of jack stands. He jacks up the car front and rear, suspending it on the stands. Underneath an old faded canvas are the Lincoln's original wheels and hubcaps, which he swaps for the flea market truck tires and rims he has been driving on for two days. He returns the spare tire and jack to the trunk. It takes only 24 minutes. If investigators found any tire tracks by the Maryland park or in the Virginia woods, such would clue them to a ½-ton pickup. A luxury car is the last thing they'd be looking for.

Details. Planning. Success.

I am 98% homefree
.

After a quick sponge bath and final change of clothes, he drives away feeling incredibly refreshed and relaxed. The digital clock reads 11:56.
Got it all done before noon!
the man thinks to himself as he reviews the entire morning in his mind. Something a detective once wrote occurs to him:

In every crime the perpetrator leaves something behind and takes something with him.

He is confident that nobody saw him at the park or in the woods, that he did not leave behind any linkable forensic evidence, and that nothing of Jonathan Douglas Gray remains in his car or on his person. Having tanked up yesterday, there is no gas station video of him between Maryland and his home in North Carolina. Since he had slept in his car in the woods, there is no hotel record. During his trip he made no phone calls.

He ghosted into Montgomery County and ghosted out.

He reviews his intricate planning. He had made no previous contact with Gray, nor had he sent any angry letters to the editor about the Jessup case. His operational notes he never put to paper. He did his planning on computer and saved the encrypted Notepad files only to a floppy diskette, not the hard drive. After he had flawlessly memorized the details, he software shredded the files before burning the internal mylar disk and flushing its ashes down a public toilet.

The interstate aspect of the operation will greatly complicate matters for investigators. The abduction took place in Maryland, the burial in Virginia, and he lives in North Carolina. The man knew firsthand that the more agencies involved in a case, the greater odds of interdepartmental foot-dragging and disinterest. As the FBI had jurisdiction over kidnapping, the turf-war between the Bureau and any state authorities wouldn't help, either.

There was simply nothing to link him with Gray, much less indicate his involvement in the abduction. The only thing that could hang him was his own tongue, and the man would carry this secret to the grave.

I am 99.9999% homefree
.

There are no absolute certainties in life, but some things are practically 100%. His remaining uncaught was one of them. He knew he had only a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of apprehension. After the FBI had knocked their heads against the wall for weeks, they'd know it too.

He silently congratulated himself on his fine planning and execution. It was just as Sun-Tzu had written — every battle is won
before
it is fought.

The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime.

— Max Stirner

Montgomery County, Maryland

7:41PM

To William Almond, a junior FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) of the Baltimore FO, the Gray disappearance has all the hallmarks of a kidnapping. Gray's term on the bench had seen many controversial cases. He was a prime target for the rash of retribution fomented by Harold Krassny last year.

After searching Gray's home, agents learned that his car was still garaged and that he had not made any phone calls or emails which indicated travel plans. He neither boarded an airplane or train, nor rented a car. His credit card records showed no activity since the previous evening. The morning paper still lay on the sidewalk. Since Gray had phoned a colleague from home after a late dinner, everything pointed to a morning abduction.

His friends all say that Gray jogged religiously in his nearby park, so the agents cordon off the park and canvass the neighborhood for witnesses. They soon get lucky.

A pretty redheaded agent had been transferred from Utah to the Alexandria branch of the WFO
¹
. (All agents had to do a mandatory five years in a top-ten FO.) She liked the area and requested to remain there. Personnel Branch sent her to the Baltimore FO. Because of her outrigger ears she had been nicknamed "Wingnut" years ago. A good agent, she hit paydirt.

One resident across the park thinks she might have seen a white domestic sedan (
"it was boxy"
) parked around dawn, but can't be totally sure.

Now we're getting somewhere
Almond thinks to himself.
The park. That's where I would have snatched him.
He directs his agents to focus on that area of the park and street. The earlier drizzle compounds the difficulty of searching for clues in the dark. They find some large footprints leading from the jogging path to the street, but nothing else. In the street they find the two cigarette butts, but aren't sure if they're connected to the case.

The FBI has a vehicle description which could be anything from a Buick to a Cadillac, and a few footprints — neither of which necessarily had anything whatever to do with Gray. The vehicle description is too vague for an APB (All Points Bulletin) or even a BOLO (Be On The Lookout). Besides, after fourteen hours it could be in Florida by now.

The Asian forensics tech is very good, even though he is only thirty. Lou has been with the Baltimore FO for two years. Almond likes him.

Lou describes the scene. "The plaster casts of the size 12 footprints are too indistinct to identify but they were from running shoes, and very worn ones. The depth of the prints indicate a weight of 350 to 400 pounds."

Almond nods appreciatively. "Either a really fat guy had just taken up jogging or one man was toting something heavy, such as a body."

Lou grins. "Just so."

"What else?"

"OK, Gray came from his home and would have been running north up the path there. Now, look behind this tree. See how the grass has been bedded down? Perfect place of concealment for an ambush."

Almond asks, "Any litter or markings on the tree?"

"No, nothing."

"One perp or two?"

Lou says, "Almost definitely one. There's not enough trampling for two, and very little even for one. He wasn't here long."

Almond thinks for a moment. "That suggests he knew Gray's jogging routine, which means prior surveillance. It was a well-planned abduction, not something spontaneous and opportunistic. This was no park goblin."

"Agreed," says Lou.

Almond asks, "How do you think he took him down?"

"Can't say for sure. Since nobody heard any gunshots we can probably rule out a firearm. He could have used a suppressor but we both know that's pretty rare. If you want a SWAG
²
, I'd say that he either tasered or sapped him. Quiet, leaving no blood and the fewest clues. It's got plausible deniability, too. If anyone came across them the assailant could say that he found some jogger who collapsed from a heart attack. 'Wait here while I go for help' — that sort of thing."

Almond slowly nods and says, "Yeah, that makes sense. How do you think he got him out of the park?"

"He carried him up there," Lou says. They both walk up the knoll, being careful to flank the flagged footprints.

"Look behind these bushes. See how there's more trampling of the grass? He carried Gray here, set him down briefly to see if the street was clear. Then he either signals his smoking female driver or he carries Gray to his parked vehicle. No discernible tire tracks. Remember, it happened nearly fourteen hours ago, and it's been sleeting off and on all day. Big, white, domestic four-door the lady said?"

"Yeah, but didn't know the make. Didn't notice which state the plate was, either. Our only witness so far. Wingnut's writing up the 302
³
now."

Lou is mildly disgusted. "No make, no state? Typical zero situational awareness. People have no eye for details these days."

"If they did, we wouldn't need
you
, now would we?" Almond counters with a grin. "So, got any ideas on this?"

Lou thinks for a bit and answers, "Well, something like a Caprice or a Sedan deVille would have been smart. Common, innocuous, and with a trunk plenty big enough for a body. Worst thing in this wealthy hood would have been a van or a pickup with a camper. That'd have stood out like denim shorts at the opera. Use a clean, white OldsmoBuick and nobody will ever see you. Toss in Gray and drive away. From taking him down to starting the car meant less than sixty seconds. Two minutes, tops."

Almond is staring far away, pondering this.

Lou continues, "He chose a spot in the park closest to the street, yet with perfect terrain for surprise. And he did it just before dawn when everyone's still asleep and it's too dark to see anything anyway. Very slick. Textbook snatch."

Almond says, "And the weather. I wouldn't be surprised if he even waited for a nasty day like this to obscure any clues."

"Yeah, I was thinking that, too," Lou agrees.

They are both silent for a moment and then Lou says, "Bill, I don't think we're gonna find much more than we already have. We've got no real witness, and the only thing that ties him to this park is the soil on his shoes. I'd be sort of astonished if he's still wearing them. They're probably at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay by now. This guy doesn't seem to be the type who makes many mistakes."

"No, he doesn't, does he?" Almond echoes. Something occurs to him. "You know, he's so meticulous and organized — I'll bet he's a loner."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, I do. I don't think those Virginia Slims have anything to do with this, not that they shouldn't be analyzed.
Female
getaway driver? You know how rare that is."

"Yeah, I see your point," Lou agrees.

Almond continues, "Planned and executed the whole thing himself, including doing his own driving. He's quiet and thorough. He wouldn't trust anybody else. And he won't blab about it down at the Rusty Udder, either."

"What mistakes would you say he
did
make?" asks the tech.

"You mean besides having done it in the first place?" Almond mulls this over for a bit and says, "Well, as far as the op itself, it was damn clean. Although he left footprints and his car was likely seen by at least one witness, I can't see how either were avoidable. But if it were me, I'd have done things differently. Waited for Gray at or in his home, done him inside for privacy, and then driven him away in his own BMW. That way, no suspicious vehicle would have been seen in the neighborhood. It also would have increased his time line by at least a day or two since we wouldn't have known if Gray simply took off on some secret
rendezvous
to shack up with a woman."

Lou says, "Yeah, that'd make my job even tougher."

Almond smirks. "Hell, to
really
muddy the trail, send an email from Gray's computer to his office telling them to cancel his week's appointments because some urgent personal matter came up. Dump the car later, with or without Gray, depending on how you wanted it to look. Get him drunk and put him in it over a cliff, whatever. Yeah, that's the way a
pro
would have done it, if only to enhance the time line and case confusion. So, maybe this guy isn't actually a working hitter. I'm thinking he's an amateur who now has some valuable experience at Judge Gray's expense."