John Gilstrap - Threat warning

“Do you know where they got it?”

“Not yet, but I’m not hopeful that we’ll learn a lot from that. Just a gut feeling. These guys feel trained to me.”

“Any connection to the mall shootings in Kansas last weekend?” Eight people had been murdered in that incident, with over thirty wounded. When the shooters had been cornered, they’d killed themselves rather than being taken into custody.

“Officially, no. Unofficially, absolutely. They were both invisible teens with jihadist propaganda in their pockets.”

“Arab?”

“Not hardly. One of them had red hair. But not all Muslims are Arab.”

“Are you thinking terrorist cell?”

Irene’s eyes grew wide as she feigned insult. “Good God, Digger. We don’t use the T-word for this. The president has made it clear that there will be no domestic terrorist attacks on his watch.”

Jonathan chuckled. “What are we calling it, then?”

“The last I heard, they were ‘unconnected random acts of violence.’ ” She used finger quotes for the last part.

“Needs work,” Jonathan said. “Way too many syllables.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem. Too many syllables.”

A moment passed in silence before Jonathan said, “You should know that Security Solutions has launched our own investigation into the shootings.”

Irene paused in the middle of a sip of coffee. “Please don’t do that,” she said. “I don’t need you exercising your grudge muscles right now.”

“It’s not about me,” Jonathan said. “Of the twelve killed and sixteen wounded on the bridge, three were friends or associates of my investigators.”

She scowled. “How is that possible?”

He shrugged. “The Washington Metro Area is really just a small town with a lot of people in it. My folks don’t ask stuff like this very often. I can’t say no to them. It’ll all be pro bono.”

“I’m not worried about the money-I wouldn’t pay you anyway. I worry about tainted evidence.” She held up her hand before he could respond. “And before you go into denial mode, remember how long we’ve worked together. I’ve never seen anyone who can taint evidence like you can.”

Jonathan resisted the temptation to point out that a not insignificant amount of the work she was referring to was performed at her request. “This won’t be the clandestine side of the shop,” he said. “It’ll all be by the book.”

Irene Rivers was one of very few people on the planet who knew the dark side of Security Solutions. To the rest of the world, it was an investigation firm that worked for some of the most prestigious corporate names in the world.

She wearily closed her eyes. “What can you possibly bring to the table that won’t already be brought by a dozen government agencies?”

“Maybe nothing,” he said. “Maybe a lot. The only thing I know is that I can’t say no to my staff on this one. If I did, they’d just do it anyway. Doing something helps them cope. Makes them feel empowered, I guess.”

Irene’s phone rang in the pocket of her suit jacket. She issued a deep sigh as she reached for it. “Well, I can’t order you not to,” she said. “But please show restraint. If we find the not-terrorists who are committing these unconnected random acts of violence, I will shit all over you if so much as a speck of dust is rendered inadmissible because of something done by you or yours.”

Into the phone: “Director Rivers.”

Jonathan made a show of not listening even as he zoned in on every word. But she didn’t speak. Instead, she just listened and her face darkened. “Okay,” she said at last. “I can be in the office in a half hour with lights and siren. Assemble the section heads and the SAC in Detroit for a video conference at ten. Meanwhile, get Lee and Jeff on the line. I’ll talk to them from the car.”

When she pushed the disconnect button, she shot a pained smirk toward Jonathan. “Be sure to watch the news over the next couple of hours,” she said. “A jihadist just bombed an elementary school in Detroit.”

As Christyne waited for the gunman to return, the temperature in the tiny room soared past sweltering into the range of frightening-easily ninety degrees, if not hotter. The wall on the far side of the room from the door was too hot to touch, leading her to believe that there must not be any insulation at all between the furnace and the concrete block wall. The best she could figure out was that they used the furnace only during the day, and let the fire die at night.

Or, it could be that the heat was a form of torture?

It had been over an hour since they’d taken Ryan, and in that time, she had heard nothing but the drumbeat of her own heart pounding in her ears. Her mind conjured awful things that could be going on, and the imagined images triggered panic. The kind of panic that clouds your thinking and makes you do stupid things.

She wanted to scream, to call out to him. The warnings from the guards made the difference. They demanded silence. Hadn’t she already brought enough harm to her family?

What could they be doing to him?

She took a huge breath and tried to settle herself. The panicky thoughts were counterproductive. She was powerless to affect the outcome of this nightmare. What would happen would happen.

If she told herself that often enough, maybe it would bring solace.

For now, all it brought was more fear.

They had her son.

After easily ninety minutes of isolation, she heard movement of the lock again. This time, when the door crashed open, she had been anticipating it, and was able not to yell out in fear. The team of gunmen streamed in as before, guns at the ready, all of them trained on her. As four of them stopped six feet away, the fifth one-the man with the threatening eyes-approached another two steps, stopping only when he was face-to-face with Christyne.

“Where is Ryan?” she asked.

“Put your hands behind your back and turn to face the wall.”

“Please,” she begged. “Is he okay?”

“If you make me hurt you, I will,” the gunman said.

Christyne turned and faced the wall, crossing her wrists behind her back as she had seen Ryan do. The plastic loop closed over her wrists tightly enough to restrain her arms, but not tightly enough to hurt. Yet. A moment later, a hood was placed over her head, but to her surprise, it had a mesh front that allowed her to see. Not well, but enough.

“Walk to the door,” the gunman commanded.

The line of gunmen parted to allow her to pass, and as she did, they curled in around her to follow. The air approaching the door was easily twenty degrees cooler than the air inside the cell. She nearly asked where they were going, but then decided not to. They would tell her what they wanted her to know when they wanted her to know it.

Ryan was kneeling on the floor immediately outside the room, facing her, surrounded by at least a dozen of the black-clad gunmen, all of whose faces were covered by masks. Ryan’s hood had been removed. She could see the desperation in his eyes. His left eye and cheek were swollen and purple. The healthy eye showed an emotion she didn’t quite recognize from him. It was as if something inside him had been rewired.

Once she’d been allowed to see, the gunmen slipped the hood back over Ryan’s face.

Behind her, the man who’d been doing all the talking said, “It’s time now to atone for your sins.”

Back in Fisherman’s Cove, Jonathan sat at his desk, with the fickle yet adoring JoeDog sleeping flatulently at his feet.

No matter how much he tried to avoid the soul-stealing administrivia that came with running a company, investigative findings had to be reviewed and approved, checks needed to be signed, and the occasional mega-client needed to be stroked. Most of the truly painful boredom was shared by his lead investigator, Gail Bonneville, and his office manager and technology guru, Venice Alexander. (It’s pronounced Ven-EE-chay, by the way, and she was known to lose patience with people who blew it more than once.) Even with layers of middle management in place, though, the boss was still the boss, and only so much could be delegated.