James Swain - The Program

“Come and eat,” Renny said, pouring two glasses of OJ.

Wayne sat down at the dining room table. The room was spinning and he felt ready to pass out. He hadn’t gone to hell. Hell had come to him.

The smell of the food on his plate snapped him awake. He plunged his fork into the runny eggs and pretended to eat. He could feel Renny’s eyes burning a hole into his soul.

“He was a bad man. He was going to hurt me,” Renny said.

“I figured as much,” Wayne said.

“There are times when it’s necessary to kill. Do you agree?”

“I guess.”

“Like your mother’s boyfriend. Don’t you think he deserved to die, Wayne?”

Wayne speared a piece of sausage on his fork. It looked as appetizing as road kill. The day he’d pulled the knife out of his mother’s boyfriend’s heart, he’d known his life would be changed, but he’d never expected anything like this.

“Yeah, he deserved it,” the teenager said.

“Would you bring him back, if you could?”

“No. Never.”

“I didn’t think so,” his captor said.

Wayne forced the food down. He had only one option, and that was to play along with Renny, and hope for the best. Otherwise, he’d end up in the refrigerator next to the cream cheese. It would have been funny, if it hadn’t been so sick.

When they were finished eating, he and Renny sat on the couch in the living room, and watched a porno movie on the big screen TV. This one was sicker than the others, and showed a three-hundred pound farmer beating up his two daughters while having sex with them. Not your usual family picture, Wayne thought.

Halfway through the film, Renny put his arm behind Wayne, and rested his hand on Wayne’s shoulder. The teenager wanted to scream, but sucked up his fear instead. He thought of the Big Brother he’d had growing up. The guy had been a dork, but he’d still taken Wayne to ball games and the movies. He found himself missing those times.

The film ended. There were no credits, just a blank screen.

“Did you like that one?” Renny asked.

“The cinematography was outstanding,” Wayne said.

His captor laughed. Then, he slapped Wayne on the leg.

“I think you are ready for the next phase of the Program,” Renny said.

Wayne didn’t like the sounds of that. He turned sideways on the couch.

“What are you talking about” the teenager asked.

“I am going to find you a woman tonight. One you can call your very own.”

Oh, no, Wayne thought.

The FBI’s new building in Jacksonville reeked of fresh paint and new carpet. Like so much of Florida, the surrounding industrial park was also new, and housed dozens of national companies whose names were instantly familiar.

Linderman sat in an empty office flooded with mid-afternoon sunlight. He’d called Vaughn Wood an hour before, and asked for help. Wood had pulled through, and was now assembling his best field agents in the conference room a few doors down.

The coffee he’d bought from the vending machine in the employee cafeteria tasted bitter. It was his fifth cup of the day, and he felt sharp and alert. His mind had stopped playing tricks on him, which he told himself was a good sign.

His cell phone vibrated. Muriel calling.

“Hi,” he answered.

“I was starting to worry about you,” his wife said.

They had a simple pact. When he was on the road, he called his wife twice a day. He hadn’t done that since coming to Jacksonville. He was slipping in more than one area.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Is everything all right? You sound tired and out of sorts.”

“It’s been a long couple of days.”

“You should have called. I was afraid something had happened.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, hearing the agitation in his voice.

“When are you coming home? Or don’t you know.”

“Soon. A few days at most.”

The door to the office opened halfway, and Wood stuck his head in.

“Ready when you are,” Wood said.

Linderman cupped his hand over his cell phone. “I’ll be right there.”

“Take your time.”

Wood shut the door. Linderman took his hand away from the phone. He was going to have to eventually tell Muriel what he’d learned. In person was always better, but waiting was never good. She was his partner, and needed to know what he knew.

“I need to tell you something,” he said. “This morning, I had a conversation with an inmate at Starke prison who knows what happened to our daughter.”

“Oh, God, Ken. What did he tell you?”

“He said that Danni was sold into slavery a few weeks after she went missing. He knew information about Danni’s abduction that indicated he was telling the truth.”

“Slavery?” His wife started to cry.

“Listen to me,” he said. “Danni worked her way into her abductor’s heart. She convinced him not to kill her, so he sold her instead. Our daughter knew what she was doing.”

“What are you saying? That I should be happy?”

“Danni made a choice that saved her life. It was her choice. Be thankful for that. Now I have to find the man that owns her.”

He listened to his wife blow her nose.

“Do you think she’s still alive?” she asked.

Linderman had asked himself the same question a dozen times since speaking to Crutch. There was no absolute way to know. But then he’d reminded himself of something. If Danni could survive the likes of Simon Skell, she could survive anything.

“Yes, I do,” he said.

“You’re not just saying that, are you?”

“No, Muriel. I think our daughter is alive.”

His wife breathed heavily into the phone. Her heart was racing, just like his own, the sound the only punctuation in a world filled with awful silence. It was a sound the parent of every missing child knew. Of a distant heartbeat, waiting to be found.

He rose from his chair. “I’ll call you tonight. Promise.”

“I love you,” his wife said.

Linderman entered the conference room and apologized for holding everyone up. Five clean-cut agents sat at an oval table with bottled waters in front of their laptops. Each agent acknowledged him with a slight dip of the head.

Wood stood at the head of the table with his jacket off, waiting to start. “Good afternoon. I’d like to introduce Ken Linderman, supervisory agent of the CARD unit in the FBI’s North Miami office. Ken is an old friend and trusted colleague. Ken has asked for our help in dealing with an unusual situation. Please give him your undivided attention.”

The five agents shifted their attention to Linderman. Two were Asian, two African-American, one Latino. The FBI had changed a lot since Linderman had joined. Back then, ninety-nine percent of the agents were white, and most gatherings had resembled a sitting for a Norman Rockwell painting.

“This morning I met with an inmate at Starke Prison named Jason Crutchfield, also known as Crutch,” Linderman said. “For the past year, Crutch has been communicating with a serial killer in Fort Lauderdale named Killer X. Mr. Clean has been abducting violent teenage boys, and attempting to groom them into becoming serial killers. Crutch has been helping him.

“During our meeting, Crutch attempted to broker a deal with me. He gave me some scant information regarding Mr. Clean’s occupation. He also offered to give me information about my daughter, who was abducted six years ago by another serial killer named Simon Skell.”

The coffee cup was in Linderman’s hand. Crushing it, he tossed the cup into a plastic pail. Everyone in the room was watching him.

“In exchange for this information, Crutch wants me to leave him alone, and not talk to the parole board next year when his sentence is reviewed,” Linderman went on. “Crutch has good reason for wanting me to stay out of his hair. Since being incarcerated, he’s been linked to twenty-four killings in different parts of the country.