The Abduction (28 page)

The car stopped at the traffic light on Ninth and F streets.

“Good luck,” said Harley.

She grabbed the suitcase and nodded, then opened the door and stepped out.

A steady stream of cars cruised through the intersection. Pedestrians jammed the sidewalks. Briefcase-toting businesspeople charged along with purpose. Camera-snapping tourists meandered toward the sights. The city noises were a reminder that life as usual went on all around her. She knew the FBI was watching her. Maybe even the kidnappers were watching. The whole world could have been watching, and it wouldn’t have changed the sensation.

She felt eerily alone upon taking that first step toward the drop point.

Tanya Howe was putting on her shoes, seated on the edge of her bed, when she saw her mother’s reflection in the dressing mirror. She turned, concerned by the troubled expression.

“What’s wrong, Mom?”

Natalie stepped into the bedroom and closed the door. “I just came from the grocery store. Buck LaBelle stopped me in the parking lot.”

Her concern heightened. She hadn’t said a word to her mother about the high-level conversation she’d overheard last night. “What did he want?”

“He told me what you did, Tanya. How you threatened your father last night.”

“Is that all he told you? That I made a threat?”

Natalie grimaced, then came and sat beside her on the edge of the bed. “Tanya, I know this ordeal must be agonizing for you. But the notion that you can bring Kristen back by threatening your father is just lunacy.”

“How can you say that, Mom?”

“I’ve been married to your father for forty years. That’s how.”

Tanya narrowed her eyes. “Did you know he intentionally smeared Allison Leahy’s reputation with that phony adultery scandal? He and LaBelle cooked the whole thing up with some guy named Mitch O’Brien.”

She blinked nervously.

“Did you know the FBI is looking for O’Brien? Nobody can find him.”

Her hands began to shake. “I—I don’t need to know about that.”

“Did you know he ordered LaBelle to find O’Brien before the FBI did?”

“Tanya, please.”

“Did you know he threatened Mark the night he died in that so-called car accident?”

She covered her ears. “Tanya—”

“Did you know that when I was pregnant he
ordered
me to get an abortion?”

She sprung to her feet. “I don’t
want
to hear it!”

Tanya froze in the chilling silence, her eyes filled with incredulity. “Damn it, Mom. That’s exactly how you’ve managed to stay married to that monster. Ignoring the other women, the brothels overseas. Blocking out the truth. Denying his deceit.”

“Stop it! That’s none of your business.”

“Just listen to me, please.”

“No! You listen to me. Mr. LaBelle is waiting for you. Now you go see him—
right now.
”

She winced, confused. “Waiting to see me? Where?”

“At his hotel.”

“You’re his messenger now?”

Her voice quaked. “I love you, Tanya. And I love Kristen. But I won’t stand by and let you destroy your father’s dreams with this whacked-out theory that he’s behind Kristen’s kidnapping. Now go see Mr. LaBelle. He’s waiting at the fitness center on the second floor of the hotel. And bring your bathing suit. He’ll meet you in the hot tub.”

“Hot tub? What kind of nonsense is that?”

“He wants to make sure you’re not wearing a wire, and having you up to your neck in hot water is the only way to guard against that. He thinks you might take something out of context and use it against your father. He simply doesn’t trust you. And may God forgive me for saying this, but I don’t blame him.”

“Forget it. I’m not going anywhere.”

Natalie’s expression turned very serious. “Yes,
you are. Mr. LaBelle assured me that this will be the most important conversation you’ll ever have in your life. And I believe him.”

A chill went down her spine. She was suddenly eager to go. “So do I, Mother. Somehow, so do I.”

Allison stopped at Fifth Street, midway between F and G streets. The mammoth redbrick Pension Building loomed before her.

“I’m here,” she said into the microphone, trying not to be too obvious about moving her lips.

Harley’s reply buzzed in her ear. “Got you. Go on inside.”

She checked her watch. She had ten minutes to get through the building and exit back on F Street. She wasn’t sure why the kidnappers wanted her to walk through it, when she could have just as easily walked around it. Maybe they were watching, and they just wanted to make sure she’d go wherever they sent her. Or perhaps they simply had a flair for the poetic, and they were toying with the woman who dreamed of being president. The Pension Building, after all, had been the site of every presidential inaugural ball since Grover Cleveland’s election.

Allison climbed the front steps and entered the vast open atrium—one of the city’s truly great interiors. The eight central Corinthian columns were the largest in the world, rising to a height of seventy-six feet. The plaster casings were painted to resemble Siena marble, and the entire building had the awe-inspiring feel of the Italian Renaissance. As she passed beneath the arching ceilings,
she felt dwarfed by it all—physically, but not emotionally. The grand and timeless surroundings seemed to mock the significance of any single person doing any single deed at any single moment in time. Allison, however, was undaunted.

This
was important.

She exited on the side, straight onto F Street. She spotted the fireplug the kidnapper had mentioned on the phone. She stopped at the curb, just a few feet from the plug, suitcase firmly in hand.

Harley’s voice was in her ear. “Just stay put. We’re watching you.”

The pay phone rang nearby at the curb. Several pedestrians passed by, ignoring it. It kept ringing. Allison looked around, unsure of what to do. She checked her watch. Exactly ten o’clock.

“Answer it,” said Harley.

She stepped toward the phone and lifted the receiver. “Hello.”

A quick response, a gravelly voice: “Cross F Street to Judiciary Square. Wait at the police memorial.” The line clicked.

She shook her head with confusion, then spoke to Harley. “Did you hear?”

“Yes. Proceed. We’re still watching you.”

She glanced up the sidewalk, then in the other direction, seeing nothing conspicuous.
Nice surveillance,
she thought, then hurried across F Street.

Judiciary Square was exactly what the name implied, the district’s judicial core, home to both the city and federal courthouses. The police memorial the caller had mentioned had to be the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, a three-foot-high wall that bore the name of more than fifteen thousand American police officers
who had been killed in the line of duty since 1794. Allison had attended the dedication in 1991. Another poetic flair, she presumed—a not-so-subtle message that if the cops were tailing her, there might be a few more names on the wall.

She stopped at a panel near the center of the wall. Behind her, a pay phone rang.

This time she didn’t hesitate to answer. “What now?”

“See the subway station?”

She turned, searching. The tall brown pylon marked
METRO
was about twenty meters away. “Yes.”

“Go down the escalator. Take the red line, Wheaton train, to the Forest Glen station. Get out and wait on the platform.”

“Which train?” she said with urgency, sensing he was about to hang up. “They run every few minutes.”

“The
next
train,” he replied. “It leaves at ten past the hour. Don’t miss it. Or Kristen pays.”

The line clicked.

She hung up quickly and looked around, wondering which, if any, of the people milling about the square were her FBI escorts.

“Did you hear?” she asked Harley.

“Yes, wait there. I don’t want you in the subway.”

She started toward the station entrance. “I can’t
wait.
The train leaves in three minutes.”

She was walking fast, almost jogging, as she reached the escalator that fed into the tunnel. She walked down it, speeding her descent. It was a little unnerving, following a kidnapper’s instructions to climb into what was essentially a big hole in the ground. But she didn’t stop to think.

Suddenly a crackling filled her ear.

“Harley?” she asked.

Another crackle, but Harley’s voice was breaking up. Then a click, as if he were switching radio frequencies.

“Allison, can you hear me?”

“Barely.”

“We’re losing radio between ground level and the subway station below, and it’s only getting worse. Forest Glen is the deepest station in the metro system—twenty-one stories straight down an elevator shaft. There’s not even an escalator. I won’t be able to talk to you. Turn back.”

“I’m not turning back.”

“Damn it, Allison, I don’t want you seventy meters underground with some lunatic.”

“Then send someone with me.”

“All right, I’m sending agents to pose as riders.”

“Make it quick. I’m boarding the train in ninety seconds.”

“Allison—” His voice cut off. The radio was dead.

She stepped off the escalator and hurried toward the machines that sold Farecards. The line was long and slow-moving. She rushed to the old man at the head of the line and handed him a twenty-dollar bill.

“Buy me a card and you can keep the change,” she said urgently.

The people behind shot dirty looks and grumbled. The old man snatched the crisp bill and inserted it in the slot. The fare was only a few dollars. Allison left him the change, as promised, and grabbed her Farecard. The train arrived as she dashed through a turnstile that led to the plat
form. She elbowed through the crowd of commuters and stopped at the blinking granite lights on the edge of the platform, waiting for the doors to open. She checked her watch. Exactly 10:10. This was definitely the train. Her mind raced. She could abort and run the risk that the kidnappers would kill Kristen when she didn’t show at the Forest Glen station. Or she could just keep going.

The chimes sounded, signaling that the train’s automatic doors were about to close. She swallowed hard and stepped inside, hoping the FBI was somewhere nearby. The doors closed, and the train pulled away from the platform. She glanced out the window. The billboards and signs along the platform became a blur as the train picked up speed, then the view turned to darkness as she entered the black tunnel to the lowest point beneath the city.

She turned and surveyed the crowded car. She wondered if any of the passengers were actually FBI. She wondered if any were actually the kidnapper.

No turning back now,
she thought.

Tanya rode to the hotel in the backseat of her mother’s car, crouched on the floor, hidden from public view by the tinted bulletproof glass. She couldn’t drive her own car without the media following. The only way to get out was to pull another car into the attached two-car garage, crawl into the backseat, and let someone else drive past the mob at the end of her driveway.

They reached the hotel at half-past nine Nashville time. The driver waited with the car while Tanya headed straight for the fitness center.
A guest pass was waiting for her at the reception desk. She checked her coat in the locker room and quickly changed into her bathing suit. The attendant offered her a terry-cloth robe that bore the Opry Land Hotel monogram.

“Thank you,” said Tanya as she slipped it on. “Just looking for the hot tub.”

“Straight through that door,” the attendant replied.

She paused to collect her wits, then pushed open the door.

The room was small, but the mirrored walls on all sides made it seem bigger. Granite tile surrounded the octagon-shaped hot tub. The sun streamed in through the skylight, making the bubbles glisten atop the churning water. Tanya could feel the heat rising from the tub, but the sight of Buck LaBelle still gave her chills.

“Come on in,” he said. He was submerged to his armpits, his thick neck rising from the waterline like an old stump from the swamp. His arms extended out languidly along the ledge. His head was cocked back comfortably, resting against a rolled-up towel at the base of his neck.

Tanya stepped to the edge of the tub and removed the robe. Her bright yellow bathing suit was a bit more revealing than she would have liked under the circumstances. She caught him gawking in the mirror, like a pimple-faced teenager peeking into the girls’ shower.

“Guess you work out a little, huh, Tanya?”

She ignored him, lowering herself into the tub and glaring at eye level across the foamy water. “Okay, I’m here. What’s this about?”

The lecherous grin faded from his face. “Your father told me about your conversation last night.
I don’t know what you think you heard us saying, but you obviously misunderstood.”

“I know what I heard. There’s no misunderstanding. You used Mitch O’Brien to create a phony scandal about adultery, and now you’re out to silence him before the FBI can find him.”

“All your father meant was find him and talk some sense into the man.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well, you’d
better
believe us.”

She looked at him coldly. “Or what, Mr. LaBelle?”

He pulled himself from the water and sat on the ledge. His body was red from heat. His face was even redder, compounded by his anger. “Listen, you may be General Howe’s daughter, but let’s leave that out of this. The bottom line is, you threatened us—your father, me, the entire campaign. Now, it’s my job to respond to threats.”

“Is he involved in the kidnapping, Mr. LaBelle, or isn’t he?”

“Where in the world would you get the idea that he is?”

“A lot of little things. And they all add up to one thing. My father would do anything to be elected president.”

“That’s absurd. If that was true, why hire somebody to kidnap his granddaughter? Why not just hire somebody to blow Allison Leahy’s brains out?”

“Too obvious, for one thing. People might immediately suspect his campaign was behind it. And even more important, if you know my father, you know he doesn’t want a meaningless victory over a dead opponent. He wants a mandate. He wants to be
elected
president, even if it means
killing his own granddaughter—anything to win, so long as it
appears
that his victory was fair and square.”

“You’re psycho, you know that, girl?”

“Maybe. But if my daughter isn’t home by tomorrow morning, this psycho is going on television to tell everyone what she thinks
really
happened.”

His eyes blazed. “It’s just like your daddy said. You’re nothing but a troublemaker.”

“I didn’t make this. You did.”

“Horseshit. You took one conversation out of context and used it to blackmail your father into doing whatever it takes to get your daughter home before the election. He should have taken you out back and slapped the shit out of you. But he’s such a decent man, his only response is to agree to pony up a million-dollar ransom. That’s a generous move on his part. And maybe it will even help get Kristen back. But let me tell you straight. You and your threats are hurting a lot of people other than your father—people who, up until now, may have been feeling pretty sorry for you and your daughter. You fuck with us, we may not be feeling so charitable.”

“Don’t you dare threaten my daughter.”

“I’m not,” he said with an icy glare. “I’m threatening
you.
” He leaned back and flipped off the power switch, stilling the waters between them.

Scores of commuters had come and gone in the several Metro stops between Judiciary Square and Forest Glen station. Allison hadn’t moved from her seat on the right side of the aisle, third seat from the rear. She had a clear view of the entire car. A few empty seats, but most were taken. It
was the typical mix of Washington riders. Shoppers with parcels from the downtown stores. Teenage boys clad in baggy clothes listening through headphones to what was undoubtedly rap music. Businessmen and women reading the
Washington Post
or the latest tell-all bestseller by a fallen Washington star.

Allison watched discreetly from behind her sunglasses. She wasn’t sure which of the riders she might need to remember. She made it her job to remember them all, noting for each a distinguishing feature—the cleft on the chin, the wart on the hand. In the end, however, her eyes drifted back to the far end of the car, toward the homeless guy wearing a tattered army coat, asleep in the seats reserved for the handicapped.

She figured by now the FBI was somewhere on the train, definitely all over the Forest Glen Station. The two-way radio, however, had been out since boarding. Too far underground, she guessed. Or maybe Harley had just stopped trying, fearful that if he kept changing frequencies he might hit one the kidnappers could easily intercept.

The speeding train was somewhere between stations in the long, dark tunnel. She checked the subway map posted above the window. Forest Glen was the next stop. The deepest station in the Metro system, according to Harley. They were going down. She could actually feel the descent. Twenty-one stories beneath the surface. Seventy meters of earth and cement. A million-dollar ransom in the suitcase beside her. A kidnapper waiting at the station ahead. A killer maybe in the seat beside her.

They killed Reggie Miles,
she reminded herself.
She clutched the suitcase and quietly held her breath.

One of the teenage boys rose from his seat. The pant legs of his baggy jeans dragged around the expensive Nike high-top shoes. The long sleeves of his bulky jacket covered his hands. A Georgetown Hoyas cap was backwards on his head. He strutted down the aisle, eyeing Allison as he approached.

She watched cautiously, avoiding eye contact, hoping he’d pass.
A scraggly mustache,
she noted, the kind worn by teenage boys who had never shaved in their life.

He stopped beside her. Her pulse quickened.
Big for his age,
thought Allison. Like a basketball player.