Chris Jordan - Torn

“You mentioned a name.”

“He mentioned a name. Missy. What he says the man called his accomplice. More than once. Missy do this. Missy do that. Missy be quiet. Possibly a nickname or a term of endearment.”

“I ran it. Nothing pops on the list of known Rulers. Not so far.”

“Like I say, possibly a nickname. You’ll keep trying?”

“Of course. Missy and her mystery man, headed for Denver. Possibly.”

Shane sighs. “I know it’s not much to work with.”

Maggie shrugs. “Hey, hey. We’ve started with less, as you know. Just so we’re on the same page, you remain convinced that Haley Corbin was abducted?”

“As opposed to being killed, you mean? Yes. The answer is yes. They went to too much trouble, luring her to the airport, knocking her out, loading her into the jet.”

“If your informant isn’t lying,” she gently reminds him.

“He was eager to share what he knew.”

“I’ll bet he was.”

“I’ve never done that before, Maggie,” he says, feeling ashamed in her presence. “I was desperate.”

“No lasting damage to the little cretin?”

“Nothing a change of underwear won’t fix.”

“And he won’t be pressing charges?”

“Doubtful. I impressed him with the need for silence, for both our sakes. Plus I let him keep the money. He wants to make a recording, thinks he can be the next big hip-hop star. Who knows? He’s ruthless enough.”

She pats his hand, smiles. “No worries, big guy. You did what you had to do.”

“It’s on me,” he says, feeling the need to explain. “If I’d been there, like I should have been, this never would have happened.”

“Or maybe you’d be dead and Haley Corbin would still be gone.”

“They took her alive,” he points out. “They could have shot her and left her by the side of the road, or made it look like an accident. A death, even a suspicious death, leaves fewer questions than a disappearance, so they’re taking a chance abducting her. There has to be a reason. My theory is, her little boy is alive and wants his mother, so they made it happen.”

Maggie says, “Not a bad theory.”

“Any word from your informants?”

She sighs. “Not a word about the boy, not a word about his mother. But ‘informants’ is too grand a term. Our contacts inside are strictly bottom of the heap. This will be happening at a higher level and the Ruler organization is structured in layers of secrecy. That’s part of their appeal. For Rulers, information is everything-the higher you go, the more you learn. All we know for sure is, there are rumors about Arthur Conklin’s health declining, and a succession struggle between factions. Which you already know.”

“Wendall Weems versus Conklin’s wife.”

“So the rumor goes.”

Shane finishes his coffee. At this point in his cycle of insomnia, the caffeine barely blips. “I’m going in. It’s the only way.”

Maggie shakes her head disapprovingly. “And I flew fourteen hundred miles to persuade you otherwise.”

“You can try,” Shane says.

Maggie opens her briefcase, slips out her laptop, taps it to life. “I’ve done a little more in-depth research on Kavashi, the security chief. Turns out that ten years ago he was on the short list of suspects in a couple of murders.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Remember the deal new members make? By joining they agree to ‘share-in’ twenty-five percent of any increase in their net worth? Well, every now and then somebody gets rich and decides it was all their own doing and they refuse to pay the percentage. The contract they sign with the Rulers isn’t enforceable, why give up such a big chunk of their newfound wealth? Blah, blah, blah. So they walk away. Or attempt to.”

“This Kavashi guy is the collector, is that it?”

“More like the enforcer. The Conklin Institute has a forensic accounting division that enforces collections from the members. They know where every penny goes, and who earned what, and therefore what they owe. But human nature being what it is, deadbeats were always a problem, right from the beginning. Refuse to pay and you were banned, shunned, thrown out. All personal and business connections were severed, loans were called in, and a full-court effort was made to ruin you by financial means. Lawsuits, mostly. Fail to pay and you get buried in shysters. Still, some of the deadbeats prevailed, got to keep all the loot. Until Kavashi came into the picture. Then things got untidy for a while.”

“Let me guess. He didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

Maggie nods. “In both cases we know about, explosives were used. First victim was a car salesman from Montclair, New Jersey, who joined the Rulers and within a few years owned a chain of luxury dealerships. In his TV ads he was ‘Mister Mercedes.’ Until one fine day he went to start up his S600 and got blown to smithereens. That was bad. The second victim was way worse. Started up a wholesale jewelry business in Arizona, took it online, eventually sold it to Amazon or eBay, I can’t remember which. Anyhow, he walked away with something like fifty million dollars for his final payday, and decided the Rulers didn’t deserve their cut on this one. So he got necklaced. Cute, huh, a jewelry guy gets necklaced? Maybe you recall the one where the victim walks into a Sedona police station with a note begging the police to shoot him because he’s got this ring of plastic explosive molded around his neck, with a ticking detonator attached, and he hates the idea of his head getting blown off? Parts of the video were all over cable news for a few days.”

“Rings a bell,” Shane says. “The cops put him in a vacant lot, evacuated the area, and sent in a robot. But the bomb detonated anyway, right?”

“It did. And somebody tapped into the video feed from the robot, put it all over the net. The uncensored, not-for-cable-TV-version. My guess is, nowadays when any Ruler decides not to pay, they suggest he or she check out the necklace video. It’s very, very gruesome, in a head-goes-into-orbit kind of way.”

“And these crimes were tied to Kavashi?”

“Tied is too strong a word. He was a person of interest in the investigations. Frankly the investigators knew he did it, or arranged to have it done, but there was no physical evidence linking him to the bombs, and nobody was willing to testify. Therefore no case. Word at the time was that Arthur Conklin wanted Kavashi thrown out of the organization, but that Evangeline backed her buddy Vash and prevailed. In any case, he handles Ruler security and remains as dangerous as ever.”

Shane smiles. “You’re worried he’ll blow me up.”

“I am, yes. Or just have you shot. So you should be worried.”

“I hate getting blown up. Therefore I’ll be very careful.”

“Don’t be flippant, Randall!” she says, fiercely. “I don’t worry easy and you know it.”

He grimaces. “Sorry, Mags. But I’m worried, too, and I don’t see any alternative. The FBI won’t send in the HRT based on my hunch about what might have happened to Haley Corbin.”

“The Hostage Rescue Team? That’s pretty elite. What’s wrong with a field-office SWAT team?”

“Nothing. They’re good, but the HRT is better, and something tells me taking on this bunch of nut bars requires the very best. But even the field-office SWAT needs some sort of verifiable evidence before they can obtain a warrant. Therefore someone has to go in there and find evidence, help make a case. In this case a civilian. Me.”

“What about Colorado Social Services?” Maggie suggests eagerly. “Concern for an endangered child usually rings the right bells.”

“In Texas, maybe, when the suspected abusers are a known polygamist sect. I spoke to the DSS supervisor in one of the adjoining counties, just to see what it would take to initiate an investigation, and she said there has never been a child-endangered complaint filed against the Rulers, not as an organization, anyhow, and not in Conklin County. They’re simply not on the radar. And the DSS is very, very leery of taking on the Rulers without evidence that will stand up in court. They want something solid, something actionable. At the very least I need a credible witness from inside the compound. Which is what I intend to find, once you get me inside.”