The Abduction (15 page)

Harley Abrams caught a few winks of sleep on the airplane, arriving in Nashville at nine o’clock Thursday morning. Tanya Howe’s decision to boot the FBI from her home was understandable under the circumstances, and Harley certainly had known other distressed parents who had buckled to a kidnapper’s demands to shut out law enforcement. Since the first ransom demand had gone directly to Tanya’s home, however, her refusal even to allow the FBI to continue monitoring her telephone could seriously impede the investigation.

Harley arrived at Tanya’s house in an unmarked Bucar with a female agent. They carried none of the trappings of the FBI—just a bag of groceries and a casserole dish. He apologized to his colleague for what might appear to be sexist duty, but it was important to demonstrate to Tanya that the FBI could easily come and go from her house in inconspicuous fashion, playing the part of concerned friends or neighbors who would console a grieving mother by relieving her of simple tasks like shopping and cooking which, in a time of crisis, are no longer so simple.

Harley rang the bell and waited.

“Go away, Mr. Abrams.” It was Tanya’s voice from behind the closed door.

Harley leaned forward. “Tanya, if anybody is watching, it’s going to look a lot worse if you turn us away than if you simply let us in. Just greet us as if we were friends, not the FBI.”

Thirty seconds passed. The chain rattled and the door opened. In role, Tanya embraced the female agent the way she’d greet a loyal friend, then invited them in and closed the door. Her polite expression faded immediately.

“I told you I don’t want the FBI coming to my house anymore.”

“I heard,” said Harley. “May we sit down and talk, please? If you still feel the same after you’ve heard the FBI’s side of it, I promise we’ll respect your wishes.”

Tanya looked skeptical, but she took their coats and invited them into the dining room.

Harley and his assistant sat on one side of the table, with Tanya on the other. He took one look at her stern expression and knew he needed an icebreaker—something to cool her contempt. He forced a yawn.

“Excuse me. Didn’t get much sleep last night. I was up late talking to the attorney general.”

“Is that so?” she scoffed. “Have her spin doctors figured out how she’s going to top my father’s declaration of war?”

“I wouldn’t know about that. But I do want you to know that the FBI had nothing to do with your father’s speech last night. That was completely his doing.”

“Is that what Ms. Leahy told you to come here and say?”

“She doesn’t even know I’m here. As a matter of fact, she and I spent most of the night talking about the abduction of her own four-month-old
daughter, eight years ago. They never found her. Never caught the guys, either.”

Tanya blinked away some of her rage.

Harley softened his voice, sensing an opening. “I’m working on a theory. Just a theory. No evidence yet. Just trying to see if whoever abducted Ms. Leahy’s daughter might also have abducted Kristen. Of course, that will be a very difficult theory for the FBI to pursue if Kristen’s mother isn’t talking to us.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t mess with my mind. Just ask what you want to know.”

“Fair enough. One of the things that troubled me about Ms. Leahy’s case is the manner in which her baby was taken. The abductor broke into the house while she was home, took the baby right out the window. That’s a very unusual taking. Most abductions are in public places—the park, department stores. Often the child is tricked or lured away. A stranger posing as an authority figure, a man who offers a boy twenty dollars if he’ll help him find his lost dog. Something like that.”

“Is that what you think happened to Kristen?”

Abrams shrugged. “Don’t know. We have no witnesses. We do know they took the van and that Reggie Miles was killed. He didn’t drown. Autopsy showed severe head trauma. That’s consistent with a forcible taking. And if both Kristen and Ms. Leahy’s daughter were taken by force, that would lend some credence to our theory that there’s a common thread.”

“I can’t see Kristen falling for some ruse,” said Tanya.

“Did you warn her about strangers, the tricks they might play?”

“Of course. These days, what mother wouldn’t?
But some things you can’t teach. Kristen had good instincts. She’s a very smart girl.”

“Abductors can be clever. Lots of smart kids get abducted.”

She shook her head, then smiled sadly. “Let me tell you what Kristen was like. When she was four years old she came home from her first day of Bible study and told me she’d learned all about Adam and Eve. It was so cute the way she told it. They lived in a beautiful garden and had everything they wanted, but God told them not to eat from this one apple tree. Then one day a big snake in the apple tree told Eve to eat the apple. So she did. And so did Adam. That made God angry, so he told Adam and Eve to go find their own garden.

“‘Now, Kristen,’ I asked, ‘what’s the moral of that story?’ She thought for a few seconds, then looked up at me with this smart expression. ‘Mommy,’ she said, ‘
never
talk to snakes.’”

Harley smiled with his eyes.

Tanya’s face brightened at the memory, then her eyes clouded. “I can assure you of one thing: Kristen
never
talked to snakes. The only way those monsters could have gotten my Kristen is the same way they got Ms. Leahy’s daughter. By force.”

“Thank you. That’s extremely helpful.”

She looked away, then rose and handed both agents their coats. “I think you should go now.”

Harley and his assistant rose and followed, slowing as they reached the foyer. “I wish you would reconsider and let me bring back my agents. We need to build some trust here.”

“Mr. Abrams, I’m a black woman born and raised in the South. The first time I’d ever heard of the FBI it involved illegal wiretaps the govern
ment had put on the phones of black civil rights leaders. The FBI has a long way to go before it can walk into my living room and expect me to trust it.” She opened the door, showing him the way.

Harley let his assistant go first, then stopped in the doorway. “I can’t defend everything the FBI did in the bad old days under J. Edgar Hoover. But I can tell you this much. The kidnappers are definitely going to contact you. As Kristen might say, you are going to talk to snakes. And when you do, you’re going to wish the FBI was right there with you.” He flashed his most sobering look, then turned and headed for his car.

After a fitful night, Allison ended up oversleeping for her 9:00
A.M
. campaign strategy meeting. It was the first chance for high-level strategists to convene in one place since Tuesday’s abduction. She was twenty minutes late by the time she reached the Leahy/Helmers national campaign headquarters on South Capitol Street.

It tickled her to see that the big “Leahy for President” banner was still blaring its message to the stodgy Washington law firm directly across the street, the one that had rejected her résumé a quarter of a century ago. Thirty minutes with the hiring partner—a blue-blooded Yale man—had made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t about to get the job. Not only was she a woman, but she was from a state school that wasn’t even
geographically
close to the Ivy League. His obligatory offer to take her to lunch had come across like a consolation prize for the small-town girl. Allison declined, then put on her best Ellie Mae Clampet accent and said, “What I’d really like, mister, is to go for a ride on the underground train.” The
moron had actually given her a buck with directions to the nearest Metro station. She’d spent the rest of the day in the Hall of Presidents at the National Portrait Gallery, dreaming.

Allison left her Secret Service agent at the doorstep and rushed inside.

“Morning, Ms. Leahy,” said the young woman at the photocopy machine. “They’re waiting in the war room.”

“Thank you,” she said with a polite smile, then rushed down the hall to the main conference room. She stopped just as she reached the closed door, overhearing some choice words from her strategist, David Wilcox.

“I don’t give a shit how Allison feels about this,” said Wilcox.

Allison kept her place outside the door, just listening.

“The fact is,” he carried on, “Kristen Howe’s abduction is going to decide the election. First the sympathy factor vaulted Howe into the lead. Then those wonderful weepy photos of the general gave us a boost. Now his declaration of war against criminals has put him back in the lead. It’s not a question of whether we politicize the abduction. It’s
how
we do it.”

“I’m not so sure,” came the response.

Allison recognized the genteel southern accent of her vice presidential running mate, Governor Helmers.

“After that speech last night,” said Helmers, “I honestly think that poor girl’s a goner. I’m still on the campaign trail, and Allison should be, too. The pledge she made at her press conference to stop campaigning and focus on the abduction is all wrong. She needs to stay as far away as possi
ble from the investigation. Let the stink fall all over Howe and the FBI when they pull that girl’s body out of the Potomac.”

“We can’t just stand back and wait for that to happen,” said another man, her media consultant. “What if the girl lives?”

Gee,
thought Allison, still standing in the hall.
What a shame that would be.

“No way she’ll live,” said another. “I bet she’s dead already.”

“Okay,” Wilcox replied. “Let’s assume worst-case scenario. She’s dead, but we don’t find out about it until after the election. Then what?”

“What do you mean,
then
what?” replied Governor Helmers. “It’s too late. The election’s over.”

Wilcox said, “That’s my point. We need to be proactive here.”

“What do you have in mind?”

There was a pause. Allison leaned closer to the door, straining to hear the response. Finally she heard Wilcox’s voice again.

“We should talk about the attorney general’s daughter. Play up the courageous way Allison endured the abduction of her own child. The way she turned her own personal suffering into a nationwide crusade to increase public awareness of the dangers children face. The legislation she fought for. All of the work she did with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Coalition for America’s Children before she became attorney general.”

Helmers said, “She won’t be thrilled about doing that.”

“It’s the only way,” said Wilcox.

“Let me put it another way. She
won’t
do that.”

Wilcox said, “Okay, forget that angle. The truth
is, merely reciting her distinguished résumé isn’t going to cut it anyway. The only way to neutralize Howe’s momentum is to personalize the loss of Allison’s daughter for the American public.”

“What do you mean, personalize it?”

“Resurrect it. Let the people know what Allison went through.”

“Forget it, David.”

“I’m talking subtle things. I don’t know,” he said lightheartedly. “Maybe they can pull her daughter’s old picture out of archives and start running it on milk cartons again.”

Helmers chuckled. “Oh,
that’s
real subtle. While we’re at it, why don’t we trot out a new campaign slogan? Allison Leahy—the scarlet letter president. Don’t think adultery. Think abduction.”

Laughter filled the room. Allison pushed the conference door open and stood in the doorway. The laughter ended.

“That’s a pretty catchy slogan,” she said, glaring at Helmers. Her gaze turned to Wilcox. “But I think I prefer the milk cartons.”

The men stewed in their silence. Finally, Wilcox spoke up. “Allison, we, uh—”

“Don’t even try to explain, David. Just carry on without me. And get used to it. Because win or lose, that’s where you’ll be after this election—without me.” She turned and hurried down the hall.

Wilcox ran after her. “Allison, we need to talk.”

She wheeled and faced him. Her face flushed with anger. “From the very beginning, I laid down one inviolable rule in this campaign. No one was going to make a campaign prop out of my daughter. Did I not say that?”

“Allison—”

“Did I not say that?” she pressed.

“Yes. You said it. But—”

“But you just don’t care. Imagine what it’s like to actually see your own daughter’s picture on a milk carton, or to see her picture on the TV screen at the post office, along with a hundred other kids who’ve been missing for years and who will probably never be found. Imagine going to the mall or grocery store and checking every baby carriage out of the corner of your eye, thinking maybe it’s her. And then imagine—just
imagine
—your own campaign strategist coming up with the brilliant idea of trotting out her memory for political exploitation.”

“I wasn’t serious.”

“You
were
serious. Don’t make it worse by lying to me. Please, just stay out of my sight for a while.” She turned and charged out the door.

A blast of frigid air from the latest cold front greeted her on the sidewalk, along with her Secret Service escorts. She didn’t slow down until she was sliding into her limousine. The car door slammed, and she watched from the backseat as the limo pulled away. Wilcox gave chase along the sidewalk. She couldn’t hear his voice, but his pained expression filled the window. His breath steamed in the cold air as he tapped frantically on the glass and mouthed the words, “Allison,
please!
”

“Step on it,” she told the driver.

The limo burst into traffic, leaving Wilcox at the curb, shivering in his shirtsleeves.

Kristen Howe is not afraid.

Flat on her back in a chilly basement on a too-soft mattress, she kept thinking that same thought over and over again. With eyes shut, the words fixed in her brain like a mantra, just like when she was five years old and afraid to sleep with the light off. Most of the time, the voice in her head sounded like her own. But when the demons ran wild, when her racing heart pushed her to the brink of panic, she would hear her mother’s calming voice.

Kristen Howe is not afraid. It’s only her imagination.

This time, however, she knew she wasn’t imagining. If it was all just in her mind, then how come she couldn’t talk? She had tried to speak aloud—to step out of her mind and actually tell herself she was not afraid—but the tape on her mouth was definitely for real. The metal cuffs digging into her wrist and ankle were real, too. The pain in her bulging bladder was real. The footsteps and strange voices she’d overhead were all too real.

Yet, at times, none of it seemed real.

She remembered walking toward the high school, taking her usual route from the college campus. She remembered the van following too
close and stopping at the curb. The passenger door opened. The driver’s face was hidden beneath the rubberized Lincoln Howe Halloween mask. A man who definitely wasn’t Reggie grabbed her by the arm. The rest, however, was a total blur. Flying through the air and tumbling to the floor. A thick blanket of blackness over her eyes. A stabbing pain in her thigh like the jabbing of a needle. And finally, a weird, weightless sensation that numbed her body, the way she felt when she’d had her tonsils removed.

The next thing she knew she was waking up, her hands and feet bound, her mouth taped shut. At first, the blindfold made it impossible to discern whether she was really awake. When she closed her eyes, she saw nothing. Eyes open, nothing still. It was yesterday, or maybe the day before, when the blindfold came off for the first time. The sudden burst of brightness had overpowered her eyes, and when she finally focused she saw a man in a ski mask. She nearly screamed, but the gag prevented it.

By the fourth or fifth time it was becoming a routine, something to mark the passage of time, a ritual that reminded her she was still alive. The man would come and remove the cuffs. He’d lead her up a flight of stairs to the bathroom and remove the gag and blindfold, then leave her alone with soap and a washcloth, a toothbrush. Then he’d give her something to eat. It became a little less scary each time, but his ski mask definitely gave her the creeps. Even so, his voice wasn’t mean or anything. He was actually gentle and attentive to her needs, always asking if she was hungry or warm enough. After a few visits, she knew his voice well. When the men talked
upstairs, she could distinguish his voice. So far, she’d been able to pick out three different voices. She couldn’t hear everything they said, especially when the furnace was running. But she’d heard enough to know that he was the only one looking out for her, making sure she was clean, fed, and comfortable. She’d even heard him threaten one of the other men, telling him no one was going to hurt the girl. Repo was his name. One of the men had called him Repo.

“Kristen,” she heard him say. “It’s morning.”

It was that Repo guy, and his voice made her shudder. She cringed as he gently removed her blindfold. Kristen opened her eyes slowly, then blinked at the ceiling. The dim light from the lamp on the dresser cast a nebulous glow across the basement. The shutter on the little window above the sink made it impossible to tell whether it was night or day. She had no idea if it was actually morning. She would just have to take his word for it.

Last night had been weird. He had talked for several minutes, exactly how long she didn’t know. The edge to his voice had made her nervous. He hadn’t said anything bad. But even if he weren’t a kidnapper, she would be inherently suspicious of any stranger who so desperately wanted her to believe she was safe with him.

Her eyes fixed on a crack in the ceiling. Standing before the lamp, the man cast a shadow across the bed, darkening her torso. She didn’t dare look at him, couldn’t find the courage to turn her head in his direction again. Last night, when he’d removed the blindfold, she’d caught a glimpse of him without the ski mask, and she didn’t want to see more. But as the silence lingered, she felt com
pelled to look, the way the young eyes of curiosity eventually peer out from the beneath the covers late at night.

Kristen Howe is not afraid,
she thought, repeating her mantra. Then she turned her head a smidgen to the left.

She caught her breath, containing her fright. She’d seen the same thing last night, but it still startled her. The ski mask was gone. He was wearing a towel or something over his face, letting her see the top half of his face. She looked away and closed her eyes tightly.

Her hands shook as she wrestled with confusion. He was changing the routine, acting more friendly—like he wanted her to talk. She never talked to strangers,
never
talked to snakes. And she knew that “strangers” weren’t just the perverts who hung around playgrounds with slimy drool dripping from their chin. “Say no, walk away, and tell an adult”—that was the rule her mother had drilled into her head. It was a good rule to live by before you’d been abducted. But what’s a kid supposed to do
after
it happens?

“I’m going to take the gag off now,” he said quietly.

Oh, God, she thought. Another switch from the routine. Did he expect her to say something?
Do
something? Her body stiffened as he tugged at the tape, freeing her mouth. She struggled to repeat her mantra and remind herself she wasn’t afraid. But she was too scared to remember the simple words, let alone believe them. She could scream, but that seemed pointless. The only people who would hear were the other kidnappers, the mean ones. At least this Repo
seemed
nice.

Her heart fluttered. Screaming was a bad idea.
He might panic and hurt her. Maybe he’d stay calm so long as she stayed calm—or at least if she acted calm. Acting—yes! That was the key. People always said she could sell snowshoes in Jamaica if she put her mind to it. By turning on the charm, she’d even managed to talk Reggie Miles into letting her walk to the high school.

Reggie?
she thought.
What happened to Reggie?
Sweet Reggie. The grandfather she’d never had. The simple but wise old man who’d said Kristen was twelve going on twenty-one and destined to be a heartbreaker who could talk her way out of anything.

Maybe that was true. Maybe she could talk her way out of this mess, too, charming the snake into letting her go home. To do that, she’d have to talk to him. She’d even have to be nice to him. She might even have to flatter him.

No way!
She was too afraid to pull it off, too afraid to speak. She was lost for the moment, paralyzed with fear. Her mantra, she thought—
say your mantra.
But the words wouldn’t come. Finally she heard it—a message from within.

Kristen Howe, don’t be afraid,
said the voice in her head.

Her spine tingled. It sounded different this time, nothing like her own voice or that of her mother. It was a deeper voice—peaceful and soothing, one that flowed like a friend’s embrace from a faraway place, a safer place, a place beyond. It was only in her mind, but it warmed her entire body and calmed her fears, giving her the courage to do exactly what she needed to do.

She heard the voice of Reggie Miles.

“Time for breakfast,” said Repo.

A lump filled her throat. Did she dare speak?
Listen to the voice,
she told herself.
Listen to Reggie.
Her mouth struggled to form the words—any words, the first thing that came to mind. “Could—could I maybe have some cereal today?” she asked quietly.

“Sure, what kind do you want?”

“Froot Loops.” She cringed inside. She didn’t even like Froot Loops, but it was all she could think of.

“I’ll get some for you.”

A noise rattled above, startling her. A door creaked upstairs, maybe the bathroom or another bedroom. One of the other men was definitely awake.

Repo said, “I gotta go now. No matter what happens, you can’t tell the other guys we talked. Okay?”

She nodded timidly, then held her breath as he gently replaced the gag and blindfold. As his heels clicked on the wood stairs, she counted his steps. The door opened, then closed. He was gone.

That wasn’t so bad, she thought. She’d taken the first step, started a dialogue. Maybe this Repo really was her ticket out of here. Maybe he wasn’t just pretending to be nice. After all, she’d overheard the men talking upstairs, through the old floorboards. She’d even heard Repo stand up to the others, telling them he wouldn’t let them touch her.

Panic suddenly gripped her. She realized her mistake.

Kristen Howe is not afraid,
she told herself, shivering at the thought of what the other snakes might do when Repo went out to buy her stupid Froot Loops.

The limousine stopped at the traffic light near Pennsylvania Quarter. Allison sat alone with her thoughts as she glanced at the mix of condominiums, retail outlets, and restaurants that had rejuvenated a three-block stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol, the district’s most famous parade route. Her stomach was still in knots from the outburst at her campaign headquarters. She still wasn’t sure if she had simply sounded off or if she’d actually just fired her campaign strategist with less than five days remaining to the election.

The outburst, of course, was a cumulative thing, which had begun with the photographs. Maybe it was true that Wilcox had had nothing to do with that bozo-looking character snapping pictures of Allison down by the river in Nashville. But she was less convinced that the Lincoln Howe photos had leaked to the press with absolutely no help from Wilcox.

She shook her head, clearing her thoughts. One thing, however, wouldn’t shake from her mind: the bad joke her running mate had made about Allison, “the scarlet letter president.” Life had become such a whirlwind since Kristen’s abduction, she’d almost forgotten that her precipitous slide in the polls had begun with the bogus adultery charges. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed the two incidents—the adultery accusation and the abduction—were too proximate to be unrelated. And Governor Helmers’s joke had actually sparked a theory on
how
they might relate.

She picked up her phone and rang Harley Abrams on his cellular phone.

“Harley, there’s something I have to show you. Can you meet me at Justice?”

“I won’t be back from Nashville for another couple of hours or so. What is it?”

“It’s—I can’t describe it. You have to see it.”

“Fax it to me.”

“You have to see the original, and I don’t want copies floating around anyway. It’s too confidential.”

“I’ve been known to handle a few confidences in my career,” he scoffed.

“This isn’t entirely business. It has to do with me, personally.”

There was a pause on the line. “Can it wait until I get back?”

“Yes,” she said, reeling in her excitement. “Barely.”