Vanished (30 page)

83.

M
y heart began to pound.

Paladin, of course.

From a blocked e-mail address. I hit
REPLY
. I struggled with the keypad, with how to enter letters. Teenage girls text on their pink Razrs like court reporters on speed—OMG! BRB! LOL! ROTFLOL!

It took me a while. Finally, I was able to enter: “What do you have?”

“What’s going on, Heller?” said Dorothy.

I held the phone, waited.

Then, a minute later, four beeps. A photo appeared on the phone’s display.

My brother.

Taken at an odd angle, in low light. He looked haggard, seemed to have aged five years. But it was definitely Roger.

A picture that could have been taken at any time. Hardly proof of life.

Dorothy said, “My God.”

I entered: “Proof?”

The answer came back a minute later:

No time

Not good enough, I thought. This smelled like a setup. I thought for a few moments, then entered: “What R’s nickname for me?”

If, as I suspected, this was Koblenz’s trap, that would trip him up. He—or whoever was holding my brother hostage—would have to ask Roger. And if Roger wasn’t cooperating, he would either refuse to reply or give a wrong answer.

The four beeps came less than a minute later, and then the words:

RED MAN

“Jesus,” I said aloud. “It’s him.”

“How do you know, Heller? Talk to me.”

“Do me a favor,” I said. “Drive the truck.”

Dorothy took over behind the wheel, and I thought, staring at the phone. What if Roger had used the phrase in some e-mail to me years ago? Had he? I certainly didn’t remember, and it wasn’t as if he’d e-mailed me much at all in the last few years. A couple of times, maybe. But if he had, and they’d captured his e-mails to me and analyzed them…

It wasn’t impossible that they’d discovered Roger’s nickname for me that way. So this wasn’t really proof. Though maybe there was no definitive proof.

I tapped out: “What on back of Dad’s gift to R?”

That they couldn’t know without asking him. No way. He never put anything like that in an e-mail to me. We never talked about the Patek Philippe watch, Mom’s gift to Dad, which he’d handed over to Roger when he entered prison.

The text-message alert took much longer this time. I imagined Roger telling his captors, spelling out the Latin words repeatedly. His frustration at the ignorance of the men who’d taken him prisoner. Men who didn’t know Latin the way Roger did.

If, of course, they truly had Roger.

But then came the four beeps.

AUDNTES FORTUNA JUVT

A couple of typos. Missing a few letters, like the Latin inscription on the pediment of an old building. Typed out rapidly. But close enough.
Fortune favors the bold
.

I entered: “Where?”

The answer came back quickly:

Union Station Center Cafe 6:00 pm Alone

I looked at my watch. It was 4:30. That left me barely enough time to return to Washington and make the arrangements I needed to make.

I texted back: “OK”

84.

I
n normal circumstances, I’d always found Union Station to be one of the most beautiful places in Washington, and one of the most impressive train stations in the world. It was meant to evoke the Arch of Constantine in Rome. The barrel-vaulted ceiling in the main waiting room was almost a hundred feet high, with gold leaf all over the place. Not that long ago—twenty, twenty-five years ago—the station had been boarded up. Mold grew on the ceiling, toad-stools in the bathrooms. Now it gleamed, freshly painted and re-gold-leafed.

Just then, though, it seemed a teeming, chaotic place. Dangerous. The Paladin people had deliberately set our rendezvous for rush hour, when hordes of commuters flowed through the main hall, in and out of shops, up and down the escalators, to and from the train platforms and the metro station.

They wanted to watch me without being seen themselves. Though I wasn’t likely to recognize any of them anyway. The ones who’d already gone after me were probably collecting disability and spending a lot of time in chiropractors’ offices.

I’d found a space on the second level of the parking structure adjacent to the terminal. As had become my habit recently, I’d done a quick check for any concealed GPS tracking devices on the undercarriage of my car. There were none.

I took the escalators down, then went through the sliding glass doors to the mezzanine level. There I stood at the balcony and looked down over the main hall. It was impossible to identify anyone who might be watching me. There were far too many people here, moving in irregular patterns or just standing around and browsing. I descended the winding staircase to the main level and crossed the west hall, past a sports-memorabilia shop.

In my peripheral vision I noticed a man in his sixties wearing an old Baltimore Orioles baseball cap pulled down low over his head and a pair of black-framed glasses. Lt. Arthur Garvin of the Washington Metropolitan Police Violent Crime Branch was inspecting a Washington Redskins coffee mug.

He glanced vaguely in my direction, didn’t acknowledge me, and I kept going.

By the time I returned to the main pavilion and was circling the Center Cafe, my phone vibrated. I glanced at the number, answered it.

“Yeah?”

“Nothing?” Garvin said.

“Okay,” I said. “Twenty-two minutes. There’s a couple of stores within direct sight line of the Center Cafe.”

Koblenz, I assumed, was counting on my eagerness to see my brother making me sloppy. I hated to disappoint him. But this whole thing felt more and more like a setup.

I was now convinced that they really did have Roger. Between the photo they’d sent to my cell phone and the two pieces of information, one of which no one but Roger could possibly have known, there was little doubt.

But that didn’t mean that they actually planned to turn him over. As much as Koblenz wanted his RaptorCard back, he wasn’t going to give up leverage like that. At least not so easily.

Instead, they were probably planning on grabbing me, too. He’d use men I didn’t recognize. They’d get me somewhere and stick a needle in me and, finally, they’d be rid of the last threat of exposure.

That was, I assumed, their plan, anyway.

But plans are made to go wrong.

Garvin had his department-issue Glock. I had the Ruger .45 I’d liberated from Taylor, the Paladin guy. It was perfectly good, and if there were any legal complications later, I preferred to have the firearms trace lead back to Paladin rather than to me. The Ruger was tucked into an ankle holster, under a loose-fitting pair of jeans.

Still, it was just the two of us, and Garvin was not exactly in shape. He was a desk jockey. Nor could he call in any of his friends on the force, assuming he still had any. On the off chance that Koblenz’s swap was actually on the level, we didn’t want an unusual police presence in Union Station scaring his men off.

At five minutes before six, I stood in front of the information booth next to the Center Cafe, pretending to study the arrivals-and-departures board. The crowd surged, making it difficult to identify any obvious Paladin types nearby—ex-SEALS or ex–Special Forces guys wearing surveillance earpieces with the distinctive coiled audio tube running down the backs of their necks. Or holding mobile phones to their ears. Or wearing Bluetooth headsets.

There were a number of beefy guys talking into cell phones. Any of them could be Paladin. Or stockbrokers, for that matter.

But none of them seemed to be looking in my direction. Or if they were, they were being subtle.

Garvin was standing at the end of a bar. He looked like he was caught up in an argument with another patron.

At exactly six o’clock, my phone beeped four times, and I checked the text message.

Alone?

I texted back: “Yes.”

I waited. A row of gray statues high above gazed down, solemn Roman legionnaires.

Then another message:

Enter code on reverse of card

I understood at once. They wanted to confirm that I really had the RaptorCard with me, that I wasn’t trying to pull off a swindle. I took out the card and noted the eight-digit serial number on the back, which I assumed was a unique code. Then I entered it on the phone keypad.

And waited.

Then came the four beeps, and a message:

OK Buy ticket Camden Line to Laurel

Tickets to the commuter trains were sold just outside the doors at the back of the main hall. I walked through a set of glass doors and got in the long line that wound around stanchions to a ticket counter. No marble grandeur here; it could have been a Trailways bus station in Poughkeepsie.

About a minute later my phone beeped again.

No time Use machine

They were watching
.

But where were they?

I looked around, saw dozens of people milling around, waiting for trains, standing in line. None of them familiar, none of them obviously a Paladin type. Garvin was in range, talking to a shoeshine guy, laughing. As if he had all the time in the world. But he was watching.

Maybe I’d underestimated him.

On either side of the counter was a bank of electronic ticketing machines. The lines there were much shorter. I chose a machine to the right of the counter. Only one person ahead of me; I had to wait just a few seconds. I inserted my credit card and selected the Laurel, Maryland, stop on the northbound MARC train.

I looked around again, trying to catch someone suddenly looking away, averting his eyes. Someone with a cell phone, punching away at the keys—texting, not talking on it.

But saw no one.

I considered calling Garvin’s cell to let him know where I was going but decided that was too risky. They were watching. Maybe they’d hear his phone ring, see him answer it at the same time that I was placing a call. I didn’t want to endanger him that way. Let him figure out what I was doing.

I’d offered Garvin the use of a tiny Bluetooth microearbud from Merlin’s stash. It was government-grade, used by the Secret Service, not available commercially. You slip it into your ear canal, and it’s just about invisible. But Garvin was old-school, and he wasn’t comfortable sticking something that tiny into his ear. He was afraid it would get stuck.

I wished at that point that Garvin had taken me up on the offer.

The ticket popped out. I grabbed it, found the track number on the departures board. Through the automatic doors at Gate A and outside to the platform. The air was cool and crisp and acrid from uncombusted diesel fuel and smoke. The Camden train was idling, its doors open. Already crowded with passengers. Some of them had put briefcases on the vacant seats next to them. I found a seat in a row of two on the right side, next to an elderly lady. The compartment was just about full to capacity. Passengers started having to take their bags off the empty seats, letting people sit next to them.

Garvin, who’d been following me at a discreet distance, walked past my compartment, decided to board the next car down. A smart move: He didn’t want to be recognized.

An announcement came over the train’s P.A. system warning that the doors were about to close. The train was about to depart.

My phone beeped, and I flipped it open.

Get off train now Do not take this train

I sighed in annoyance: I didn’t like being toyed with. But I jumped out of the train just as the doors began to close with a pneumatic hiss. Garvin, in the next compartment, saw what I was doing a few seconds later and pushed at the doors, tried to force them open. The train picked up speed and several seconds later was gone. Along with Garvin.

My phone was beeping again. The message said:

Penn Line train

Across the platform.

I entered: “To where?”

I was getting good at texting. By then I could have given a teenage girl a run for her money.

The answer came at once:

Just get on

85.

T
he Penn Line train was about to depart, a minute or so after the Camden Line. I raced across the platform and found a seat, and my phone vibrated. A call, not a text message.

“Dammit,” Garvin said, “what was that all about?”

“I think that was their way to make sure I’m alone,” I said as quietly as I could.

“Where are they sending you now?”

“I don’t know. This train heads into Baltimore. Terminates in Perryville.”

“Call me back when they tell you which station you’re getting off at,” he said. “I’ll grab a cab or something.”

“I’ll call you when I get off,” I said. “I have a feeling the games aren’t over yet.”

The conductor came by with a handheld punch and asked for my ticket. I didn’t know how far I was going, so I bought a ticket for the end of the line, Perryville.

And for a long while the phone stayed quiet. No text messages; no calls from Garvin.

The train was old and decrepit, the seats worn and permanently soiled. The man next to me kept ripping out articles from the
Washington Post
. I wondered whether he was senile. Very few passengers were talking on cell phones. It was quiet, the silence of people who were depleted after a long day. A few snoozed.

We passed the used-car dealerships in Seabrook, then the landscape became rural. Twenty-two minutes out, we reached Bowie State. Five minutes later, Odenton.

And still no text message with instructions. I’d begun to wonder whether I was being led on a pointless errand, a mind game. The next stop was BWI Marshall Airport. Most of the other passengers got out there, probably to board buses to the airport.

Five minutes later the train stopped at Halethorpe. The suburban outskirts of Baltimore. Tract housing. Residential. A cemetery on the west side.

So maybe they wanted to meet in Baltimore. In seventeen minutes the train would arrive at Baltimore’s Penn Station. But still no text message. I wasn’t going to call Garvin; not yet. Not until I was certain of the destination.

Just three passengers remained in my car. The old man next to me, obsessively ripping out swaths of newsprint. He looked like the kind of guy who lives in a studio apartment surrounded by towering stacks of dusty yellowed newspapers until one of them topples and he’s crushed to death. A young guy, too small and nerdy and fragile-looking to be Paladin. A middle-aged black woman, likely a government worker.

Five minutes later my phone came to life, signaling a text message.

Exit here W Baltimore

An announcement came over the loudspeaker: “Next stop, West Baltimore. Doors open on the last car only. Passengers wishing to depart here should move to the last car.”

I got up, walked into the next car and the one after that, and as I did, I hit redial to call Garvin.

“West Baltimore station,” I said.

“Jesus Christ. I’m at Annapolis Junction. I’ll grab a cab if I can find one.”

The train came to a stop, the doors opened, and I got out along with the middle-aged black woman from my car and a young, black-haired guy in a hooded sweatshirt wearing a backpack.

It was a grim-looking area. Down below, to the left, was an old, abandoned red-brick factory, soot-stained, all of its windows broken. Narrow row houses along a steep hillside, many of them boarded up. The train platform was elevated, traffic running underneath. The black-haired guy clomped down the stairs ahead of me.

A text message popped up:

W Mulberry St to Wheeler Ave

So they were going to lead me block by block.

Twilight had begun to settle. Not many people on the streets. I paid close attention to everyone passing by, vigilant to the possibility of an ambush.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later, my phone beeped again.

R on Winchester St North on N Bentalou St

By then I’d walked about a mile. The streets got more desolate, more deserted. More abandoned buildings. It had that sort of bombed-out, urban-wasteland-of-the-future look you see in some of the old sci-fi movies like
Blade Runner
and
Escape from New York
.

Four more beeps:

Cross st

On the other side of the street was an old brick building as long as a city block. One of the many crumbling remains of Charm City’s long-vanished industrial era. Faint remnants of painted letters on the brick indicated it had once been a meat-processing plant. It was surrounded by a rusted chain-link fence, bent and ruined and caved in here and there.

Another text-message alert:

Go to E side of easternmost bldg and wait by old loading dock

I could see that it wasn’t just one building but an entire factory complex. Three identical block-long buildings parallel to one another, maybe a hundred feet apart, along the west side of the railroad tracks. Each building was four stories high. Broken windows boarded up. Occasional grimy smokestacks. The sort of place that, in a nicer part of a city, would have been converted into condos for yuppies five or ten years ago and named The Meat Factory or something.

I easily stepped over a caved-in section of the chain-link fence.

The no-man’s-land inside was littered with old tires and trash and broken bottles. The wind swirled plastic-bag tumbleweed. The buildings were covered with graffiti and plastered with
DO NOT ENTER
and
CONDEMNED
notices. It took me a good five minutes just to reach the end of the first building. Then over to the third building, where I found an old loading dock, boarded up like all the windows. Each building was at least a thousand feet long. Far longer than an average city block. More like the length of an east–west block in New York City.

And there I waited.

Looked around at the now-dark, desolate landscape, the wind whistling, the distant sound of car horns.

I understood why they’d chosen the location, or at least I had a pretty good idea. From a distance, anyone watching through binoculars could see I’d come alone. I was on foot and had no backup—they’d made sure of that—and the site was so deserted that they could enter and exit and know they weren’t being followed.

I also realized how vulnerable I was, standing here. One man alone, a pistol holstered to my ankle. No one covering me. The Paladin guys could be waiting inside the abandoned building, aiming sniper rifles through the gaps in the boards.

They could take me out in seconds.

But the truth was, they could have taken me out at any number of points if they’d wanted to. Killing me wasn’t going to solve their problems. They could have done that easily, long ago. Instead, they probably wanted to force information out of me, which would require taking me alive, as a hostage.

The way they must have taken Roger. Or maybe they planned something like what had been done to Marjorie Ogonowski.

But what could they want from me if they had Roger already?

Or else they really meant what they said, and they simply wanted the RaptorCard back. It was, in my hands, truly a threat. It would enable me to access their computer files.

So maybe they actually did want to trade Roger for that little piece of hardware. Maybe this truly was a swap. The way East and West used to exchange imprisoned spies on the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin.

Maybe. Or maybe not.

At that point, though, I had no more leverage. Not if I wanted to see my brother again.

I waited a little longer. Reached down and pulled the Ruger from its holster. Thumbed the safety up to the ready position.

My phone rang: a call, not a text message. Garvin.

“Where are you?” I said.

“No goddamned cabs around here. I had to call for one. I’m waiting. Where are you?”

I told him.

“Get out of there,” he said. “Don’t do anything until I get there.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t control the timing here.”

“You can if you want to. Just leave.”

“No. Get over here as soon as you can.”

“Heller, you idiot.”

“Just get here when you can,” I said, and I ended the call.

Then I heard the squeal of tires, and two vehicles careened around each end of the building, the timing synchronized. Two black Humvees barreling toward me.

I stood still.

Looked to either side.

The two Humvees pulled up about thirty to forty feet in front of me, nose-to-nose, two feet apart, their brakes screeching. Dark-tinted windows: I couldn’t see inside. Mud on the license plates.

I waited. The Ruger in my right hand, at my side. The driver’s side door of the Hummer on my right opened, and a guy got out. Tall, bullet-headed, his head shaven down to the skin. Odd-shaped head, too. He looked like a human-sized penis.

In his hand was not a gun but something small and oblong that looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t immediately identify.

“Don’t move,” the guy said.

“I’m not,” I said.

He held up the device. A garage-door opener, I realized, but I knew what it was for.

“Drop the weapon.”

“Convince me.”

“This is a detonator,” the penis-shaped man said. “Do anything sudden, and your brother dies.”

“Just like that, huh?”

“Drop the gun.”

“Drop it? Rather not scratch the finish.”

“Drop it now.”

“Why?”

“You want to find out?”

I didn’t. I lowered the Ruger, safety still off, still fire-ready, and set it gingerly on the hard-packed earth.

He signaled with his free hand, and the back door on the other vehicle opened. I heard it open, didn’t see it. Heard voices. Commands uttered in a low voice. A figure came around the far side of the car, walked between the two vehicles, stopped to the right of the bullet-headed guy.

A figure in baggy, shapeless clothes. Dun-colored overalls that were too big for him, under an old trench coat.

Roger.