David Rosenfelt - Airtight

Emmit took over the meeting and gave out the assignments we had discussed. He would ride herd on them; Emmit was good at that. I saw no reason to tell anyone the seven-day deadline, but Emmit would see to it that they would be very busy days.

It was on the way back to my office when I felt a buzzing sensation in my pocket. All Sergeants and up are given BlackBerries, the purpose being to eliminate any semblance of a private life. The buzzing meant that I had an e-mail.

We are prohibited from using the devices for personal matters, so very few people outside of the department had this e-mail address. The only ones I could think of were Julie and Bryan, three or four prosecutors, an aunt in Florida, and a woman named Jeannie who I dated for four months. I gave it to her because she set what remains the record for my longest relationship, crushing the previous record holder by six weeks. The way things were going, you could say Jeannie was the Joe DiMaggio of my girlfriends.

I took the device out of my pocket and looked at it. I got what felt like a physical shock when I saw that it was Bryan’s e-mail address. My first thought was that it was Julie using it, though it would have been the first time that I was aware of.

I clicked on it.

Lucas … I’ve been kidnapped and imprisoned by the brother of the kid you shot. He said he was going to find you and demand that you do something before he will release me. He is dangerous. Don’t know where I am … he said it was underground. I only have seven days of air. Limited power on computer … don’t want to waste it … will check every ninety minutes.

Tell me whatever you can … please.

Bryan.

I read the message twice. It didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know, but the fact that Bryan sent it was enormously significant. It opened up the possibility that he could aid in his own rescue; there might be something he saw or heard that could help us find him.

There might also be a way for us to locate him through the e-mail itself, though that was way out of my area of expertise. To that end, I wasted no time in heading for Deb Guthrie’s office, which was located one flight up, at the far end of the building. I took the stairs two at a time.

Deb was a state police Lieutenant, as was I, but she occupied an entirely different world. She was in charge of the cybercrime unit, which is to say that I did not understand a single thing that she did. My computer proficiency was such that it was lucky I was able to open the e-mail.

I could see through the glass into her office; she was meeting with some guy in a suit, a meeting that was about to end. I barged in and said, “Deb, I need to talk to you.”

Deb and I have a really good relationship, and she could tell from my entrance and the tone of my voice that this was serious. “Kevin, let’s pick this up later,” she said, and the guy obligingly got up and left.

“What’s up, Luke?” she said when the door closed behind him.

“If someone sends you an e-mail, can you trace it to where they are located?”

“We can get their IP address, if that’s what you mean,” she said.

“I don’t even know what an IP address is. Is it like a real-world address?”

She shook her head. “No, but it’s close. We can certainly narrow it down to a specific area. What have you got?”

“Deb, I’m about to show you something that I need your help on. But in the process I’m going to be putting you in a difficult position, because you cannot tell anyone about it.”

“It’s business?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Does the Captain know about it?”

“He officially knows nothing.”

She smiled. “His favorite official posture. Let’s have a look, Luke.”

I showed her the e-mail, and she took her time reading it. “I assume you don’t want to answer any questions,” she said when she was finished.

“Correct.”

“Luke, the person that e-mailed you can find out the IP address himself, as long as he has Internet access.”

I hadn’t known that, but in any event it didn’t solve the problem. “No good,” I said. “His e-mails might be being read.”

She nodded. “OK. Give me your e-mail password.”

I did so, and she said, “I’ll call you as soon as I have the address.”

I left Deb’s office and went back to my own. By that point logic had overtaken optimism, for a number of reasons. For one, there seemed no possible way that Chris Gallagher had made a mistake in allowing Bryan to have the ability to e-mail. He had to have been completely confident that Bryan would not be able to aid in his rescue.

There was also a very significant possibility that it wasn’t Bryan e-mailing at all, but rather Gallagher using his account. He could be hoping to gain access to information in that manner. I would have to come up with a way to test that theory, and learn if it was really Bryan I was communicating with.

Even if it was Bryan, I had to assume that Gallagher had a way to monitor the account, and read our correspondence.

We still had a lot to learn about Chris Gallagher, but I suspected that we were going to learn he was smart, not the type to have made such a significant mistake. At the very least, he had to believe that he could not be hurt by Bryan being in contact with us, and more likely he saw it as a positive for himself.

As with our investigation, I would play it out the way Gallagher set it up, at least for the moment. I had no other choice. But first I had to answer Bryan.

Bryan … I spoke to Gallagher, and I’m working to get you released. Who was your favorite baseball player growing up?

Jonathon Stengel was a combination idealist/realist.

Certainly the prospect of a financially successful career influenced his decision to go to law school, but that wasn’t all it was about for him. He also respected the justice system, and thought he could do good and worthwhile work within it.

That was a significant factor in his decision, after graduating from NYU Law, not to head for the financial security of a large firm. Instead he was awarded a position as a clerk on the United States Court of Appeals, working for Judge Susan Dembeck.

And the time he spent there was all he had hoped it would be, and more. He got to work with brilliant people, on important matters, all the while getting a look at the intimate workings of the system. He decided he would stay for only a year, leaving when Judge Dembeck left, but felt and hoped that he would someday be back, with clerks of his own.

But Stengel also had a need to earn money, and a clerk’s pay was not going to get it done. Which was why he was susceptible to an approach from a fellow NYU alum, Edward Holland, the Mayor of Brayton, New York.

No money would change hands, but Stengel would supply information to Holland, who was arguing the fracking case before the court. Stengel rationalized it with the knowledge that it was not information that would give Holland an unfair advantage; all it would do was provide a “heads-up” for Holland. Advance information would then allow him to position things politically, since his audience was the electorate.

In return, Holland would use some of his significant connections in both the legal and political communities to aid Stengel in his career path.

A simple transaction with no losers, only winners.

To this point, there had been little for Stengel to provide, but now he finally had something. He did not want to make the call from home, and he certainly couldn’t do it from the court, so he found a rare pay phone on the street.

Holland answered on his home number, and immediately recognized Stengel’s voice. “What have you got?” he asked.