The Abduction (23 page)

Vincent Gambrelli stood directly over Repo, watching him wallow in pain. “Hurts, doesn’t it?” he said flatly. “It’s the price you pay for killing my favorite nephew.”

Repo was still on his back, his blood pooling around him. “Johnny Delgado was a moron.”

“Oh, really? That’s quite an indictment from a guy who’s stupid enough to let the girl call her mother. Did it not occur to you that I might be monitoring a cellular phone that I fucking cloned myself?”

Repo grimaced, saying nothing.

“I guess not,” said Gambrelli. “But what can I expect from a guy who leads me right to his door? Those auto security tracking chips are really so easy to follow. You should have at least ditched the car, dumb shit.”

“The cops,” he coughed. “They traced the call. They’ll be here any minute.”

“Not a chance. That phone was preprogrammed to make the FBI think the call came from Nashville. So don’t expect the cavalry to come charging through the door to save your sorry ass.”

Tony Delgado suddenly emerged in the doorway, wheezing, as if he’d been running. His belly protruded from his tight-fitting black pants and
sweater, and he had a pistol in his hand. “She ain’t here. I checked everywhere.”

Gambrelli calmly reloaded his gun. “Looks like we have a little situation here, Repo. Not to state the obvious, but there are just two possibilities. This can be bad for you. Or it can be awful. It’s your choice. So tell me. Where’s the girl?”

Repo breathed hard, reeling from his wounds.

Gambrelli pointed the gun at his good knee. “Three seconds, Repo.”

His lips bubbled with blood and saliva. “She went to spit,” his voice faded, “on Johnny’s grave.”

Gambrelli snarled as he pulled the trigger, shattering Repo’s knee. His body jackknifed, energized for a moment with sheer pain. Then he sprawled across the floor, almost limp, barely clinging to life.

Gambrelli said, “With all those noisy gunshots you fired, I can’t wait around here all night. But the short time you have left can be made to feel like hours. I promise.”

“You’ll never find her,” he said in a weak, raspy voice. “I sent her back to her mother.”

Gambrelli scoffed. “We both know that’s total bullshit. I was listening to the phone call, remember? You said you were keeping her until after the election.” His smirk faded. Slowly he stepped on Repo’s bloody hand, crushing the shattered bones beneath his heel.

Repo winced, trying not to give him the satisfaction of a scream.

Suddenly a loud clatter emerged from outside the apartment, like trash cans overturning in the alley—like someone trying to make a run for it.

Gambrelli looked up, flashing a knowing smile. Tony ran to the kitchen and peered out the window. “It’s the kid!”

Repo cringed—not for himself, but for Kristen.

Gambrelli wiped his bloody shoe on Repo’s shirt, using him like a doormat. “I pity you, Repo. You died a useless man.” He fired a bullet into his face.

“Let’s go,” he said, leading his nephew out the back door.

Kristen ran at full speed through the backyard, past the dilapidated garage that faced the alley. Like Spiderman she scaled the chain-link fence, but her jacket sleeve caught on the jagged post. Momentum carried her over the top, but her arm was snagged. She tumbled into the dark alley on the other side, landing awkwardly on one leg and twisting her knee. She rolled to the ground but bounced up immediately, sprinting and then hobbling another fifteen yards before the pain slowed her to little more than a brisk walk.

She checked over her shoulder. Still no Repo. She’d waited for him by the garage, even though he’d told her not to.
Gotta keep going now.

Behind her, the chain-link fence shook and rattled. She glanced back again, hoping it was Repo. The sight of
two
men ripped her with panic. Repo was dead, she knew it. They were coming for her.

The alley fed into a side street fifty feet ahead, but with her throbbing leg she knew she’d never make it. She ducked behind some trash cans and buried herself in hiding. She tried to be still, but her body trembled. Her breathing was uncontrollably rapid, like the beat of her racing heart. The darkness frightened her, but it could be her strongest ally. If she could just keep still, they might pass right by her.

She tucked herself into a tight ball and cowered
beneath the trash pile. She pushed aside a stinky bag of coffee grinds to open a narrow line of vision, just enough to let one eye see down the alley, back toward the garage. The men were just twenty yards away, coming toward her. Both were dressed in black. The tall, scary-looking guy she’d never seen before. The other man seemed vaguely familiar.

“Come on out, Kristen,” he said. “We’re not going to hurt you. We’re with the police.”

She shuddered—it was the voice of the other kidnapper, Johnny’s brother. She’d never seen his face, but she’d never forget the voice—and she knew he was no cop. She burrowed deeper beneath the trash, still watching with one eye as they approached. The scary guy sidestepped a puddle and peered over the fence into the neighbor’s yard. Johnny’s brother checked the trash cans on the other side of the alley, probing the bulging plastic bags with a metal pipe he’d found in the pile. He turned and was looking right at her—or at least at her hiding spot. He kicked the trash can, then poked at the bags. She had to make a move.

She pushed the trash cans with all her strength, knocking him over. She raced down the alley, swallowing the pain that shot from her knee.

“Get her!” she heard him shout.

She was pumping her arms, running faster than she’d ever run before. She tried to scream, but she could barely even breath. Her eyes fixed on the streetlight that marked the end of the alley. Just a little further and she would reach the side street—freedom—but the footsteps behind her were drawing closer. She reached inside for more speed, but her legs didn’t have it. She looked back. The scary
guy was after her. With legs so long he was gaining with ease. A side-stitch was tugging at her guts. Her twisted knee buckled, and she fell hard to the pavement.

He was on her in an instant, driving a knee into her back, pinning her to the ground. A big gloved hand covered her mouth. The cold steel gun barrel met the base of her skull. She tried to wriggle free, but it was futile.

“Don’t fight it,” he said in a hushed voice that chilled her. “No one escapes from
me.
”

Allison received word of the botched arrest almost immediately, in a frank and somber phone call from a beleaguered Harley Abrams. Minutes later, the breaking news was reaching television and radio audiences across the country. It was inevitable that the media would jump all over the story, but a local sheriff who was quick to shift blame to the federal authorities had turned the leak to a flood.

Allison canceled her Saturday-evening campaign rally at the University of Florida homecoming celebration and headed straight for the airport. She had summoned the FBI director, the special agent in charge of the Critical Incident Response Group, and others to a briefing in Washington to figure out what went wrong and what to do next. She would have preferred to reach Washington without addressing the media, but a barrage of hungry reporters was waiting for her at the airport, blocking her way to the gate.

A team of Secret Service agents forged an opening as swarming reporters completely encircled her. Microphones and cameras were thrust in her face. Blinding white lights hit her squarely in the eyes. Shouts came from every direction. The questions ran together, until a bruising, elbow-throwing rookie with a crew cut managed to plant himself
beside her and get a microphone in her face.

“Ms. Leahy!” he blurted in a husky voice.

Allison kept walking, but it was impossible to ignore him. The guy was built like a college jock turned sportscaster, wired like a bodybuilder on steroids. It was as if some desperate newsroom editor had decided the only way to get this story was to send its biggest running back barreling over the goal line.

“Will Mr. Abrams be fired?” he shouted, just two feet from her eardrum. “Will he be pulled from the investigation?”

Allison started say “No comment,” but then it struck that the last time she refused to answer a question she’d been labeled an adulteress. It wasn’t fair to leave Harley twisting in the wind. “I’ve heard nothing to indicate that Mr. Abrams acted irresponsibly,” she replied.

Her response fueled the mob. Smaller but meaner seasoned journalists overtook the neophyte from Muscle Beach. A television reporter came out on top, shouting over the raucous crowd, “Ms. Leahy, do you believe the FBI is acting responsibly when it holds an innocent family at gunpoint in their own front yard?”

Allison stopped and shot him an angry glare. The traveling circus seemed to drop a few decibel levels in anticipation of her statement.

She looked directly into the nearest camera. “Law enforcement acts responsibly when the circumstances suggest that they must act quickly to save an innocent girl’s life, when they rely on the best information available to them at the time, and when they employ measures that allow mistakes to be discovered before a single shot is fired and before a single person is injured. That appears to
be what happened here. Yes, I believe the FBI acted responsibly.” She looked away from the camera and pushed ahead.

The frenzy reignited. A square-jawed correspondent from one of the national networks was right in her face. “We hear reports that the family has threatened to sue.”

“That’s between them and their lawyers,” she said as she breezed past him and approached the gate.

He kept pace. “Is that the reason you’re justifying the FBI’s actions—because you’re afraid of being sued?”

She stopped short again, shooting an even more intense glare. “Never in my life have I let the threat of a civil lawsuit color my independent assessment of government action.”

“Does that mean you’re
not
afraid of being sued?”

“It means that as attorney general I take full responsibility for what took place today. That you can bank on. Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I have a plane to catch.”

A disheveled young woman with a broken heel on her shoe and mussy black hair popped from the crowd, looking as if she’d literally crawled to the front at ground level. A Secret Service agent grabbed her, but she shouted her question as he pulled her aside. “What about the pledge you made to the American people, Ms. Leahy? Your promise to suspend your personal campaigning and to make this investigation your primary responsibility?”

“I believe I kept that promise,” said Allison.

The mob swallowed the reporter, but the question rang in Allison’s ears. “Then why?” she
shouted. “Why were you campaigning in Florida when what could have been the biggest break in the case was underway in Nashville?”

Allison continued toward the gate. A wall of security guards kept the press from surging forward. Allison ducked into the long tunnel that led to her plane, still focused on that lone voice in the confusion.

She heard it again. “Why were you in Florida?”

Her entourage whisked Allison on board. The flight attendant closed the door. The jet engines screamed. But that last question echoed in her mind. What
was
she doing in Florida?

She glanced out the oval window and stared at the runway. The answer escaped her.

General Howe was a blue suit in a sea of tuxedos as he left the historic Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida. He knew the event was formal, but Buck LaBelle worried about how the average voter might respond to a candidate in such aristocratic attire just two days before the election. Better to be out of place at some swanky hotel, he figured, than to be out of step with the millions of viewers who might see him on television.

Outside the lower lobby entrance, members of the media stood shoulder to shoulder beneath a red canvas canopy with shiny brass poles. They surged forward the instant the door opened, shouting a collective, “There he is!”

The general maintained a serious, nearly somber expression, reminding himself to convey the proper level of concern over the FBI’s bungled invasion of the wrong house.

“General Howe,” someone asked, “are you angry about the news from Nashville?”

He kept walking as he talked, heading for his car. “Of course I’m angry. The entire nation should be angry.”

“Angry at who, sir?”

The car door flew open as Howe stopped at the curb. “It is my understanding that this invasion was approved by Ms. Leahy personally. All along she has insisted on controlling this investigation for her own purposes. The end result is the most ill-conceived plan of attack since the Bay of Pigs invasion. Apparently, her only goal is to bring this tragedy to an explosive conclusion on the eve of the election, which she hopes will whisk her into the White House.”

Another reporter jumped in. “We’ve just received word that she has taken full responsibility for today’s events. What do you say to that, sir?”

“I say, it’s not enough for the attorney general simply to
say
she takes full responsibility. Those who assume positions of responsibility must answer not with words, but with accountability.”

“General, are you calling for Ms. Leahy to resign?”

He paused to choose his words. “If Ms. Leahy will not step aside from this investigation, then I’m calling on the president to order her to do so.”

A barrage of questions followed. The general simply waved and nodded as he ducked into the backseat. The door slammed, and the limousine whisked away, headed for the airport.

Allison’s flight landed at Washington National Airport just after 10:00
P.M
. A limousine was waiting for her, but it wasn’t her usual car and driver. President Sires had phoned her in mid-flight and summoned her to an emergency meeting. She
made the trip from the airport to Pennsylvania Avenue in record time, thanks to the use of traffic-stopping White House wheels. Secret Service took her directly to the Oval Office, which struck her as odd. Given the hour, she would have expected they’d meet in the residential side of the White House. He obviously wanted his most powerful setting.

President Sires was staring out the window, his back to her as she entered. His weight-of-the-world posture reminded her of that famous photograph of a slump-shouldered John Kennedy staring out the Oval Office window as he pondered the Cuban missile crisis. But the president’s Saturday-evening cardigan sweater looked more like Jimmy Carter during his fireside chat.

Allison seated herself in the silk-covered armchair facing his desk. The president still hadn’t looked at her, was still looking out the window. Finally he faced her and said, “I want you off the Kristen Howe investigation.”

“May I ask why?”

His jaw cocked, as if she’d hit him with a left hook. “Because there’s no other option. You did a commendable thing tonight. You went on record taking full responsibility for today’s mishap. But Lincoln Howe has a point. It means nothing to take responsibility if you don’t also take the consequences.”

“Are you firing me as attorney general?”

“Of course not.”

“Are you suspending me?”

“All I’m asking is that you step aside from this investigation—voluntarily.”

She looked away for a moment, then looked him in the eye. “Respectfully, sir, I won’t step aside.”

“Allison, it’s just one case. It won’t kill you to give in.”

“And if I don’t?”

He moved toward his desk and eased into his chair. His shoulders squared as he laid his folded hands atop the inlaid leather. “Please don’t make me force you.”

She nodded, biting her tongue. The anger was boiling inside, rising, until a bitterness lodged in her throat. “How do you plan to handle the announcement?”

“With as little fanfare as possible. We’ll do a press release, no press conference. I want to get this behind us without making a major protracted news event out of it. The timing is perfect. A simple press release on Saturday night should dilute the impact.”

“You mean a press release from the White House or from the Department of Justice?”

“Both. My staff has already prepared them. Would you like to see the one from Justice?”

He offered, but she didn’t reach for it. “I’m sure it’s just perfect,” she said in a voice laden with sarcasm. “I mean, what better way to run the Department of Justice than to have the White House drafting its press releases? It’s like I always say, a president doesn’t need a pesky attorney general looking over his shoulder anyway. In fact, you don’t even need an attorney general. Why don’t I just do the honorable thing and go back to my office right now and fall on my sword? Except—aw shoot,” she said, grimacing in mock frustration, “I don’t have a sword. I know! Let’s call Lincoln Howe. I’ll bet he can
lend
us one.”

“You’re making a grave mistake by not taking this seriously.”

“I’m taking this very seriously. That’s why I’m not stepping aside from the investigation. So unless you plan to suspend me, I should be leaving now. I have a meeting to attend at FBI headquarters.” She rose and started for the door, hoping for a clean getaway.

“Allison,” he said harshly, stopping her in her tracks.

She turned to catch his eye, saying nothing.

“Skip the meeting,” he said. “I’ve made my decision. You’re off the investigation. That’s final.”

“You’re suspending me?”

“Come on,” he said, “you leave me no choice. You know I hate to do this to you just two days before the election, but look at the polls. You’re losing ground by the hour. Politically you’re a lost cause. If I don’t take you out of this investigation right now, Lincoln Howe will keep on attacking until your negative ratings spill over into every congressional race in the country. It’s bad enough the party is losing the White House. But I’m seriously worried that we’re going to lose control of the House and Senate, too.”

She looked at him with disbelief, her eyes burning. “Silly me, Mr. President. I was worried about finding a twelve-year-old girl.”

Her glare tightened, and the president looked away. She turned and let herself out, never looking back as she walked briskly down the hall, knowing in all likelihood that she’d just paid her last visit ever to the Oval Office.