Rick Mofina - They Disappeared

“Clay, I have to go.”

“But is there anything we can do to help?”

The kidnapper’s phone began ringing.

“Clay, thanks.”

Jeff ended his call and answered the ringing phone.

“State your location,” the robotic voice demanded.

“West Fourteenth Street and Seventh Avenue.”

“Get back on the subway at Fourteenth. Take a number 1 local train north to the Eighteenth Street station. Get off and start walking east on West Eighteenth Street into the three hundreds. Don’t stop.”

“Let me speak to my wife and son now!”

The caller hung up.

Jeff rushed down the subway stairs, swiped his MetroCard, followed the signs to the local platform and boarded a northbound number 1 train. Eighteenth Street was the next stop, so he remained standing.

As the train jerked forward and gathered speed, he made a rough count of the other passengers in the car. About a dozen. He kept close watch until the train decelerated and clattered to a halt at the Eighteenth Street platform.

A few people got off, a few got on. He worked his way around them and rushed to the stairs and surfaced. He followed the caller’s instructions and headed east on West Eighteenth Street.

Parked cars lined both sides of the narrow street.

Traffic appeared nonexistent, as if this part of Manhattan had been abandoned. He walked steadily, taking inventory of the stone buildings, small walk-up apartment blocks, the art deco-facade of a health center, a few arching trees, the plywood-sheltered scaffolding of segments under renovation and businesses shuttered with roll-up steel doors.

Something was catching up to him.

A tidal wave of emotion and fear.

Why is this happening? Am I being punished for what happened to Lee Ann, for wanting to destroy what remained of my family? How could I have been so blind, so stupid? I need them now more than ever.

His anger mounting, his heart pounded in time with each hurried step. He was fighting his urge to cry out for Sarah and Cole when he heard the tick and purr of an engine.

A van was rolling along the street behind him.

He dismissed it as a delivery truck.

But it didn’t pass him. Instead, it slowed, matching his speed.

Jeff took a quick look: a white GMC cargo, with dark windows up front. No commercial markings on the panels. It was a Savana, maybe 2010, 2011, in good shape.

A bearded man wearing a ball cap and dark glasses was in the passenger seat with his window all the way down.

“Excuse me, Mr. Griffin? We need you to step over to the van.” The man tapped a leather wallet to his door frame. A badge glinted.

Cops, Jeff thought, not good. Not now.

“No, you guys take off, I’m handling this!”

The van halted in protest.

“Get over here! We’ve got something to show you!”

Jeff stopped, glanced up and down the street, then, as he neared the van, the side door swung open and his knees nearly buckled.

It was Sarah.

Her mouth and hands were bound with duct tape.

Two men on either side of her wore distorted white ghost masks. One of the men was pointing a gun at him. The other was holding a knife to Sarah’s throat.

Her eyes were huge with terror as they found Jeff’s.

Manhattan, New York City

At the Crime Center, analyst Renee Abbott reached for her World’s Greatest Mom mug, took another hit of strong coffee and whispered another prayer.

It’d been a long time- too darned long -since they’d lost Jeff Griffin near Penn Station. That’s where the roaming signal from his cell phone had vanished. Since then, Renee kept a vigil on her monitor and the huge flat panels on the data wall. She was in direct contact with the IT wireless guys who had cloned Griffin’s personal cell. Renee hit a button on her console.

“I still got nothing, Artie,” she said into her headset’s microphone.

“Yeah, not a bleep, nada,” Artie said. “He must have it off.”

“The leads said Griffin picked up a new cell at the gift shop on West Thirtieth-the suspects left it for him.”

“Yeah, these guys are smart. We can’t find him,” Artie said.

“This is not good. I don’t like it.”

As they spoke, Renee clicked through the new images of Griffin that had been captured by the security cameras at the gift shop. They’d been circulated to everyone operational. These pictures were less than an hour old. Renee zoomed in on Griffin’s face. A handsome, decent-looking guy, under colossal stress, she thought, going to the photos of his wife, Sarah, and son, Cole.

“Heads up.” Artie’s voice betrayed an urgent tone.

Renee’s monitor showed a blip on the map.

“Is that him, Artie, at West Fourteenth and Seventh Avenue?”

“Bingo. He’s back on the personal. He tried a call, now he’s taking a call from a Montana number. I’ll get back to you. I’ve got to advise the leads. We’re so close now.”

Renee checked satellite mapping, geocodes and alerted people in the sector. She’d barely finished doing that when Artie came back on.

“He’s on the move again. Going north, signal strength is spotty,” he said. “I think he’s on the Seventh Avenue Line going north. Yes, it was the subway. He’s already off at Eighteenth. Signal is good.”

“I can see he’s moving,” Renee said. “I’ll get units rolling, stand by.”

Detectives Joe Finnie and Sean Maynard were fresh this morning. First shift on after a few days off, following five nights on.

They’d closed a carjacking beef and an assault in Clement Clarke Park. They were heading out of the Tenth Precinct for a follow-up interview on the assault when their lieutenant reassigned them to the kidnapping. That was just under an hour ago.

“The mom’s a looker. Nice-looking family.” Maynard was behind the wheel of their unmarked unit. He’d glanced again at the photos on the screen of his partner’s netbook. “What do you think?”

“I always wanted to go to Montana,” Finnie said.

“They’ve been circulating this stuff for nearly an hour now. It’s a needle-in-a-haystack thing.” Maynard bit into a bagel as he drove. “What are the odds we’ll see action on this down here, Fin?”

Finnie studied updates on his small computer.

“Better than you think. Turn this thing around.”

“Why?”

“They got something on our guy, on West Eighteenth and Seventh. We’re almost there. No lights, no siren.”

Finnie’s cell phone rang. It was Renee Abbott at the Real Time Crime Center, confirming that their unit was live and unmarked in the hot zone.

“We are,” Finnie said, “and I’ve got your photos and description of the subject.”

“He’s proceeding eastbound on West Eighteenth Street, in the three hundred block. By your twenty, you should have a visual.”

Maynard wheeled their unmarked Crown Victoria onto West Eighteenth Street. They slowed to a near-stop, creeping along in the three hundred block, scrutinizing the sidewalks of the narrow street.

Traffic was nil.

All seemed sleepy here. A van was stopped at the end of the street.

“Who’s that?” Maynard indicated a man approaching the van.

Finnie took small binoculars from the console. He focused on the man and van down the street. He glanced at the photos from the gift shop. Shirt color, pants, body build, all matched.

“That’s him, Sean.” Finnie grabbed his phone, which was still open to Renee at the center. “We’ve got him, please advise?”

Manhattan, New York City

Jeff froze.

Time stood still.

In one surreal instant he inhaled every detail he could.

The van’s rear had no seats, or windows. Sarah was sitting on the carpeted floor between two masked captors near the rear doors with her back against the wall on the driver’s side.