The Abduction (13 page)

At 8:30
P.M
. Lincoln Howe arrived at the studio, dressed in a dark suit befitting a funeral. Secret Service agents flanked his sides. The general showed no expression as he marched down the hall to the backstage area. He stood to the side, surveying a set that normally served a local talk show in Arlington, Virginia. The interviewer’s desk had been moved to the center of the room, with a large projector screen behind it. Two men were carrying a couch off stage. A tangled mess of wires and cables lay around the perimeter. Hundreds of floodlights dangled from the ceiling. Five cameras were in position.

Buck LaBelle approached. “Just about ready, General,” said the campaign manager.

Howe nodded. “What about coverage?”

“From the technical standpoint it’s like the debates. CNN will serve as the pool organization, and anybody who wants to pick up the broadcast can subscribe. All the major networks are covering it, and some international. You could have a hundred million viewers.”

Howe glanced at the Secret Service agent, who seemed to have overheard. “I’m not concerned about the number of viewers, Buck. I want broad coverage so the kidnappers will see it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Two minutes!” shouted the program director. “Two minutes to silence.”

“You’d better take your place,” said LaBelle.

The general walked across the set, then seated himself behind the desk. A makeup artist powdered his face, then quickly disappeared. Howe sat pensively, orienting himself to the camera, lights, and TelePrompTer.

“Fifteen seconds,” shouted the director.

He licked his lips, calming his nerves.

“On the air!”

The general paused two seconds, then spoke directly into camera 1.

“Good evening, my fellow Americans. As you all know, the Howe family has suffered a terrible tragedy. Kristen Howe, my daughter’s only child, was abducted yesterday morning. This afternoon, my wife and I received a ransom demand of one million dollars.

“What the media did not report to you, however, is this: The kidnappers threatened to kill their hostage if the ransom demand was made public.”

Howe turned in his chair. Camera 3 moved in for a closer shot.

“I don’t know how the ransom demand became public. It certainly wasn’t leaked by the Howe family. I trust it wasn’t leaked by law enforcement. I’m told that the FBI is currently investigating whether it was leaked by someone in the attorney general’s office. We will simply have to wait and see. For the moment, however, I have just three things to say.

“First, to my opponent, Allison Leahy. If the ransom demand was leaked by you or your supporters for political gain, this is the most despica
ble act ever committed in the history of American politics.

“Second, to the cowards who have put a price on the head of an innocent child: I don’t have a million dollars, and I wouldn’t give it to you if I had it. Unlike my opponent and her millionaire husband, my wife and I subsist on a modest military pension.

“Third, to the American people…”

The general rose, then walked to a projection screen at the back of the set. It lit up as he reached it, revealing a wall of photographs, floor to ceiling, each an individual photo of a child. The camera panned the photographs, then returned to General Howe.

“Every one of the young children you see on this wall is missing, the victim of a child abductor. It happens every hour of every day, in every community in the country. In 1990 the Justice Department estimated that as many as 4,600 children were being abducted by nonfamily members each year. Three hundred children were either detained for a long period of time or murdered. Ten years later, the problem is only worse. Much worse.”

He walked to another screen. It too lit up—more photographs, men of all ages.

“Each of the men on this board is a known child abductor. More to the point, each of these men is currently roaming the streets of America, preying on young children. We know who they are and what they’ve done. Law enforcement simply does not have the resources to find them and bring them to justice.”

He faced the camera.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I devoted my life to
protecting the national security of this country. Nothing threatens our national security more than a direct attack against our children. Politicians talk about the war against crime. I know what it means to be at war. Believe me. We are
not
at war. But we should be.

“Although the military has shrunk in size over the past ten years, the United States of America now has the most skilled and highly trained army ever assembled on the face of the earth. We should put it to use.

“Tonight, I’m calling upon President Sires, in the final weeks of his service as commander in chief, to sign an executive order that will authorize and direct the use of military personnel to assist in the search for and apprehension of child abductors. If I am elected president, I promise you I will sign such an executive order. In the interest of full disclosure, I also promise that there will be no more important assignment than the apprehension of those responsible for the abduction of Kristen Howe.

“Thank you. May God bless America. And its children.”

Tanya Howe sat motionless before the television set in her living room. Her breathing quickened as the rage swelled within. Her eyes nearly burned a path across the carpet as she turned and glared at her mother.

“He just murdered my daughter.” Her voice combined anger and disbelief.

Natalie blinked uneasily, struggling to answer. “Your father is a very smart man, Tanya. He knows what he’s doing.”

“No,
I
know what he’s doing.” She glanced at the FBI agent monitoring the phone. “I want you out of here,” she told him.

Her mother rose. “Tanya, please. Don’t overreact.”

She shook with rage. “The kidnappers have threatened to kill Kristen if the cops are involved. And so what do we do? We have the FBI sitting in my living room and my self-centered excuse for a father declaring war on national television. I’m not overreacting. I’m taking control. Somebody has to.”

Natalie took her hand. “I wish you would just wait.”

“Wait until she’s dead?” she shouted, shaking free. “No, Mom. I’m not waiting.”

She grabbed the agent’s coat and threw it at him, then ran to the door and flung it open. “Get out of my house! Take your guns, your radios, your tanks, your bazookas, and whatever the hell else it is that you and General Howe think it will take to wage war and get my daughter killed. Get out!”

Cold air rushed through the open door, sending a chill through the room. The agent looked at Natalie. “We have to abide by the wishes of Kristen’s mother,” he said, then glanced at Tanya. “We’ll check back in the morning to make sure your decision is final.”

She slammed the door shut as he crossed the threshold. She stood frozen for a moment, alone in the foyer. Her eyes locked on a pair of small, muddy sneakers behind the door—Kristen’s shoes, laying right where she always left them, despite her mother’s nagging.

Tanya picked one up and clutched it. Her shoulders began to heave. She slumped against the door as the tears began to flow.

Allison had watched the general’s broadcast from her townhouse in Georgetown. She was on the telephone immediately, checking with David Wilcox and others to see if anyone in her camp knew about the ransom demand. If the leak had come from within the Leahy campaign, she wanted to deal with it immediately. She left it to her aide to arrange a morning meeting at campaign headquarters, then she retired to her library to prepare a response to the general’s broadcast.

Just after 10:00
P.M
. the doorbell rang. Her maid answered in the company of a Secret Service agent. Allison was on her way to the kitchen for a coffee refill when she saw Harley Abrams standing in the foyer. She stopped in the hall.

“Come in,” she said.

Harley handed his coat to the maid, then followed Allison into the library.

“Would you like some coffee?”

“No, thank you.”

They sat facing each other in matching leather armchairs. Harley scanned the room, seeming to admire its carved mahogany paneling and marble fireplace.
Or maybe he’d gone off the deep end and was checking for hidden microphones.

She crossed her legs and stirred her coffee. “I’ve been feeling somewhat torn about our meeting in your office today. The last thing I wanted you to think was that I played Emily’s audiocassette for sympathy. That was sacred to me, like showing you my soul. But I was getting pushed out unfairly. I knew the only way to earn your trust was to show you in dramatic fashion that I’ve walked in Tanya Howe’s shoes.”

“It was powerful, I’ll say that.”

“Is that what brings you here tonight? Or is this part of the investigation General Howe referenced in his speech?”

“Investigation?”

“Yes. He said there was an investigation underway to determine whether someone from my staff had leaked confidential details about the investigation—specifically, the ransom demand.”

“I suppose you could consider this visit part of that, yes.”

Her brow furrowed. “Could you be a little more vague, please?”

He paused, then said, “Between you and me, I think the allegation is totally bogus.”

“Oh,” she said with a thin smile. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” Her smile faded. “I guess the tape did make a convert out of you.”

“Partly. That, and the simple fact that there was just no way you could have leaked it. You didn’t know about the demand. And I didn’t tell you.”

“You think General Howe leaked it?”

“Do you?”

She sipped her coffee, thinking before she spoke. “I’ve been thinking about it, trying to figure out what he might have been trying to accomplish. It’s true he’s not a rich man. I’m sure he doesn’t have a million dollars laying around the house. Maybe he thought that leaking the kidnappers’ demand would stimulate private donations and help raise the money. Then he blamed the leak on me so the kidnappers wouldn’t hold it against the Howe family and take it out on Kristen.”

“That’s certainly giving him the benefit of the doubt,” said Abrams. “But a few things make me wonder whether his motives are all that pure.”

Her interest piqued. “What?”

“The first thing is just the whole TV stunt. His declaration of war. It’s the kind of macho move you might see in an action-adventure movie, but not in real life. I have to question whether a man who believed his granddaughter’s life was on the line would really react that way.”

“He is a military man. It may be the only way he knows how to respond.”

“True,” said Harley. “But his attack on you is also curious. The kidnappers told Tanya not to go to the FBI. Then Howe accuses
you
of leaking the ransom demand to the press. He’s basically admitting to the kidnappers that either he or his daughter relayed the demand to the FBI in the first place, against their orders.”

“I can’t fault him there. That’s an inference the kidnappers would make just as soon as the ransom demand became public.”

“Possibly. But if he were really concerned about saving his granddaughter, he would have used his airtime to assure the kidnappers that he and his daughter followed their instructions to the letter. He could have said that no one called in the FBI, and that some slimy reporter must have bugged Tanya’s apartment and overheard her talking to her mother about the ransom demand. Instead, he essentially admitted he called in the FBI, just so he could take another political shot at you. That troubles me, especially when you consider the more subtle points of his presentation.”

“Like what?”

“Most important, the way he talks about his grandchild.”

“How do you mean?”

“I noticed it before, but it really came out in
tonight’s broadcast. He never refers to Kristen as ‘my grandchild.’ He rarely even mentions her name. He refers to her as ‘this innocent child’ or ‘this little girl’ or ‘that poor child.’ It’s a very subtle thing, but I picked up on this about ten years ago when I moved over to CASKU, one of my first cases. A three-month-old baby disappeared. We interviewed the father. He would talk about how happy he and his wife were when they brought ‘
our
baby’ home—how much they loved little Amy. Then, as the interview progressed, he’d talk about how for three months ‘
the
baby’ just wouldn’t stop crying, or ‘
the
baby’ was getting to be a strain on the marriage. You see what I’m getting at? No more ‘Amy.’ No more ‘
our
baby.’ He was distancing himself. Turned out the father killed ‘
the
baby.’”

The thought chilled her. “But how could that be in this case? What about the photographs taken the night of the abduction—the ones of Lincoln Howe crying his eyes out in the back of his limo?”

Abrams was deadpan. “There are two kinds of tears. Tears of sorrow. And tears of regret.”

Their eyes locked.

“Are you saying that Lincoln Howe arranged for the kidnapping of his own granddaughter?”

“I don’t think I’m going that far. Not yet. But think of the possibilities. Some underling stages the kidnapping to push his candidate over the top. Lincoln Howe finds out about it, but he does nothing to stop it. Before he knows it, Reggie Miles is dead and everything’s out of control. In a matter of hours he’s in deeper than Richard Nixon and his Watergate cover-up.”

Allison leaned back, shaking her head in disbelief. “I can’t imagine someone like Lincoln Howe actually doing something like that. We’ve had our
differences, but he’s a man of integrity.”

“He’s a man of ambition,” said Harley. “Immense ambition.”

Allison turned her stare to the logs crackling in the fireplace. Finally she looked back at Harley. “Is this what you came to talk to me about? The possible incrimination of my political adversary?”

“At this point I’m exploring every angle. Including a possible connection between the abduction of Kristen Howe and the abduction of your daughter eight years ago.”

Allison knew the danger of false hopes, but the fact that someone other than herself was even considering a possible link to Emily was the best news she’d heard in eight years. “What makes you think there’s a connection?”