Side by Side (8 page)

14

The North Carolina Piedmont, once a sleepy southern backwater with one hand on the plow, one on a loom, gold ore in its pocket, eyes on the Bible, and its nose to the grindstone, had become over the centuries the nation’s second-largest banking center.

Winter was fond of most of the additions to Charlotte’s skyline in the years since he had come to North Carolina to work in the satellite office of the United States Marshals Service, serving under Hank Trammel. The vast majority of the additions to the skyline seemed to have crossed the city’s “traditional Presbyterian brick-solid” with a sense of whimsy. Towering buildings like Bank of America’s headquarters and the Hearst Tower looked like inhabitable sculpture. Trammel liked to say the city was looking like the set for a Batman movie.

The Westin Hotel, one of Charlotte’s newer buildings, was a sleek glass-skinned structure with the visual warmth of an ice cube.

Winter parked in the deck, grabbed his overnighter from the passenger’s seat, and strode across the courtyard, going inside through one of the glass doors opened by a man in a black suit. At the front desk, he dropped his name and the clerk handed him a pair of electronic keys to room 412. No check-in required. As was his habit, he scanned the lobby for anything worth noting, allowing his mind to sort and file away its impressions.

He took the elevator up to the fourth floor, used the key and entered a room that could have been in any first-class hotel in the world. He set his bag on the bed, opened it, took out his shoulder rig and slipped it on. He unrolled a microfiber windbreaker and put it on over the weapon.

Winter had turned in his federal badge, but thanks to grateful friends in very high places, he had been issued a rare concealed-weapon permit that was valid in any state in the union. Unlike a normal civilian permit, Winter’s allowed him to enter any business, any building or facility, state and federal government structures included, while armed.

As he was opening the note that had been left on one of the beds, he heard raised voices in the adjoining room. Winter opened the note and unfolded it.

Welcome, Massey. Room next door at your earliest.

He moved to the door on his side of the wall, opened it quietly, and knuckle-tapped on the second door. Alexa opened it.

“Good afternoon, Lex,” Winter said. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“No. Please come in. There’s somebody you need to meet,” she said, stepping aside and gesturing him into the room, which was pretty much identical to his.

The bearded man on the couch stood up reluctantly. He was medium height and looked like a man who didn’t waste time exercising. His mouse-brown hair was far thinner than the graying Vandyke beard he wore. Under bushy brows, his bored eyes were light brown, and a Falcon pipe with a dull aluminum stem jutted from between his plump lips. The knit shirt was too snug around his middle, the green khakis too high over his well-broken-in chukkas.

“Winter Massey,” Alexa said, “this is—”

“Clayton Able,” the man said, usurping Alexa’s introduction. He crossed the room with his hand extended and Winter shook it. Able’s palm was warm and damp. “Pleased to meet you,” he said.

“My pleasure,” Winter replied, fighting the urge to wipe his palm on his pant leg.

“I’ve learned quite a lot about you,” Clayton told him. “You are an impressive individual.”

“Alexa said nice things about me?”

“Yes, of course she did. But my knowledge of you is mostly from sources other than Special FBI Agent Keen here. There’s no shortage of material on
the
Deputy U.S. Marshal Winter Massey.” Clayton Able had a manner reminiscent of professors Winter had known; men who were so deeply embedded in academia they believed degrees were not only badges of rank, but accurate measurements of intelligence.

“Nobody regrets that more than I do,” he answered, only partly joking.

At that, Clayton’s eyes reflected the sort of self-amusement that often precedes a smart-ass remark, but none was forthcoming. Instead Clayton put the pipe in his mouth and sucked hungrily on its stem.

Winter turned questioning eyes to Alexa.
Who is this prick?

“Clayton is a colleague.”

“I see,” Winter said, although he didn’t.

“He’s giving us assistance with intelligence.”

“FBI?” Winter wondered.

“Heavens, no. I am a freelance information worm,” Clayton said around the pipe’s stem.

“I’ve utilized Clayton’s considerable talents in the past,” Alexa explained.

“With the Bureau’s blessing?” Winter asked.

“Of course not.” She frowned.

“Not exactly fans of mine,” Clayton snorted. “They resent my success where they have failed. They are not able to utilize the same techniques of intelligence acquisition and therefore resent what they covet.”

“What sort of techniques? You’re a hacker?” Winter asked.

“Guilty as charged on that score,” the man said. “Also I acquire tidbits through other avenues and I swap information with select people.”

“Believe me,” Alexa told Winter, “we couldn’t do this without him. You’ll understand when you see what he’s compiled. We’re not starting from scratch thanks to Clayton.”

Puffing up proudly, Clayton added, “I have gathered up a basket of goodies from the FBI, CIA, DEA, ATF, Interpol, Military Intelligence, and the NSA.”

On its face, Able’s claim sounded to Winter like that of someone suffering from delusions of grandeur, but Alexa vouched for him.

“Tell him what you just told me,” Alexa told Clayton.

“Military Intelligence is aware of the Dockerys’ abduction, and they know that Judge Fondren intends to let Bryce go in order to get them back.”

“So why doesn’t M.I. just notify the FBI? The Bureau will step in and the Attorney General will prevent that ruling. Then the FBI can get to work on the kidnapping,” Winter said.

“M.I. can’t tell a soul,” Clayton said.

“Why?”

“Because they learned it from a wiretap they have on Hailey Fondren’s telephone to gather intelligence on Bryce’s trial.”

“They tapped a federal judge’s phone?” Winter was stunned. Not because Military Intelligence did it, but because Clayton knew about it. If it was true, Clayton was plugged into a golden source.

“They can’t share their information with the Attorney General or the FBI or anyone else without admitting to the source of that intelligence. M.I. has a very big stake in this case. If you two don’t find the Dockerys, people in the highest places will have to make sure Judge Fondren convicts Bryce anyway. There are two factions within M.I. Those who want Bryce freed for profit reasons and to keep him from selling them out to save his own skin, and those who want him convicted so they can get the names of his accomplices.”

“This military interest in the trial judge doesn’t fit,” Winter objected. “Colonel Bryce wasn’t a member of the military when he killed the ATF agent. What am I missing here? Does Bryce have classified information he’s threatening to disclose?”

Alexa said, “This is a bit more complicated than I may have mentioned. I didn’t want to go into this until you were here.”

Winter ran his hand through his hair and inhaled. “Lex, you know how much I hate surprises. Let’s get everything out in the open.”

“The reason for kidnapping Lucy and Elijah Dockery is to free Bryce,” Alexa said. “We can’t sweat Bryce for the names of his accomplices because if he knows we’re on this, the accomplices will too and they’ll kill the Dockerys and sanitize everything.”

Clayton said, “Bryce was in the process of dealing military weapons when he killed that agent and was arrested.”

“What sort of weapons?” Winter asked.

Clayton said, “The good stuff. First-rate, latest military weaponry probably being sold to less-than-America-friendly people. Weapons directly from military stockpiles. No Stinger missiles yet, but just about everything else. The weapons will be shipped out of this country in containers to South America and the Far East and you can guess into what sorts of pipelines after that. We’re potentially talking about drug cartels and terror groups. Bryce has connections inside the Pentagon to make this work.”

“Man,” Winter said. “That’s insane. A soldier doing that is just crazy.”

“Crazy profitable,” Alexa said. “That kind of danger, times scarcity, plus value to the recipients, translates into tens of millions.”

“You can imagine that breaking Bryce’s smuggling operation is more valuable to the Pentagon than any two lives. What else do you need to know?” Clayton asked.

“I don’t suppose M.I. wants Bryce convicted so he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison,” Winter said.

“We all know it’s more likely they want him facing life in prison so they can cut a deal with him,” Alexa said. “What Bryce has been doing couldn’t be done without brass involvement, and Military Intelligence wants those names.”

“And the people involved with him want him freed,” Winter mused. “Even if he walks, they’re not going to be able to keep doing business with him.”

“Don’t bet on it. There’s a power war going on above this, and both sides have a short trip to the door if they fail,” Clayton said. “That is fascinating, but irrelevant. I could expound on it if you’d like.”

“I couldn’t care less,” Winter said.

Clayton Able couldn’t hide his surprise that someone didn’t crave more information. “But . . .”

Winter locked eyes with Clayton. “I could care less where who is doing what to whom unless they are going to be doing it between me and the Dockerys. Anything that doesn’t impact what Alexa and I have to do is drama for somebody with too much time on their hands. The only thing I want to know is where do we start.”

“If we don’t find them, Lucy and Elijah will be killed,” Alexa said grimly. “Even if Judge Fondren did call the FBI, they’d be too late to break this open.”

“But Mr. Able does,” Winter said.

“I do,” Clayton said, smiling. “I put it together from several different sources that, despite what the government says, do
not
share information with each other unless specific requests are made through proper slothish channels. Don’t worry about M.I. They can’t afford to interfere with your investigation. They will want you to succeed. Well, those of them who want Bryce to take the fall for a murder he committed will. Nobody else knows where the Dockerys are being held, or even who took them.”

“M.I. is aware of what
we
are doing?” Winter asked.

Clayton removed the pipe from his mouth. “Dear boy. What I do is
trade
intelligence. I only get it as long as I give it back.”

15

Seated on a sofa in the corner of the lobby of the Westin Hotel, Click Smoot played games on his laptop while he monitored the pedestrian traffic. Just about the time the power indicator on the laptop was down to a single bar, someone of interest arrived. A lone man entered carrying a black nylon bag. The man picked up a key folder from the desk clerk, got into the elevator, and went directly up to the fourth floor.

Click was sure the man was connected to the two other people on four. The stranger was close to the woman’s age, was just south of six feet tall, and was built like a man who stayed active. He walked with an erect fluidity that brought to Click’s mind a feral tomcat that made a living catching and eating rodents at the hunting camp. This animal wasn’t afraid of anything on four legs or two, Click was sure of it.

The bastards could sit up there in a room and plot and plan solving this until hell froze over. Even if there were hundreds of FBI agents looking for the Dockery woman and her kid, they’d have to be honest-to-God psychics to connect the Smoots to the kidnapping.

16

Five-letter word for darker than dark.

P-i-t-c-h

The trailer’s windows were covered with something that totally blocked outside light. The constant darkness allowed Lucy Dockery no sense of time, but since she knew the difference between the noises generated by daytime and nighttime television, she could sort of judge her place in a twenty-four-hour cycle.

Periodically a central unit would kick on, causing the trailer to vibrate violently for a few seconds. The forced air made a hissing sound as it exited the register and smelled like a vacuum whose bag was overfilled with dog hair and dust.

So far they hadn’t drugged her again, so maybe they planned to let her and Elijah go as soon as her father paid a ransom. As far as Lucy was concerned, the captors could have every penny she owned. It had to be obvious that she was unaccustomed to violence, and she posed no threat physically to her larger and stronger captors. They had to know she wouldn’t try anything that would risk getting Elijah harmed.

Keeping quite still, fighting back tears, she listened for her son’s voice, hungry to know that he was all right. Sometimes she could hear both the television and a radio, like audio combatants. She could, when the radio and TV both lulled at the same time, hear her son jabbering. The word “no” was prominent in his recent communications. She could also hear the big angry woman barking or cooing at him, but she knew none of it contained any useful information about their circumstances.

Elijah, who walked with confidence, hadn’t been afraid of strangers lately, having passed through a couple of stages where he would react badly to them. Lucy had employed several babysitters and he was long accustomed to strangers caring for him, having his mother in bed, weeping and disinterested. Grief for Walter and for her mother had been like a weight that, for weeks at a time, had made moving beyond her bedroom a Herculean challenge.

Lucy wasn’t afraid for herself. The worst they could do was kill her. And dying couldn’t be any more painful than living without Walter. She wouldn’t have been as terrified if Eli wasn’t there, but his well-being mattered like nothing in her life had ever mattered. Against the terror of Eli being harmed, no fear she had ever felt even rated a mention. She figured that was just how nature wired mothers.

The woman said they were in a trailer.
What’s the difference between a mobile home and a modular home? Wheels.
It dawned on Lucy that not once in her twenty-six years on earth had she ever before set foot inside a mobile home.

Lucy had always believed that, with the possible exception of Gypsies, nobody but people without any alternative would choose to live in a flimsy aluminum-sided crate with a foundation by Goodyear. She wondered if she should regret being prejudiced against something that was merely foreign to her world.
No.
The woman who seemed at home here was a poster child for the worst examples of the trailer-park-trash stereotype. Lucy understood on a visceral level that the violent woman shared the pathology of the aristocratic-hating Madame Defarge depicted in
A Tale of Two Cities.
The woman captor hated Lucy because she
wasn’t
toothless white trash.

She wished she could stop thinking like that. This wasn’t about class, but about human decency—about choices. She knew deep in her heart that she couldn’t depend on their captors’ humanity. If this was about revenge, they were dead. If the kidnappers’ motives weren’t related to gain, and if the authorities had no way to find them, she couldn’t just sit there and wait to see what happened. Since she had seen their faces, she had to assume they didn’t think she could identify them because she’d be dead. And if she died, what would happen to Elijah?

When the woman had opened the door earlier, Lucy had seen that the bedroom she was in was cluttered and wooden crates were stacked against one wall. Might there be something there she could use to facilitate an escape? She doubted she could take on any of them, but could she use her brain to get Elijah away from this place?

Some abductees did escape their captors. The news was filled with examples of all kinds of people getting away from armed captors.

But Lucy knew she wasn’t ever going to get free.

So she wept.