Criss Cross

Chapter 24

By the following evening, as the deadline for the ransom payment approached, I had put aside the extreme irritation I’d felt on learning that Ali had put the Wickr app on my phone without my permission.

I’d checked the app out on the web and saw it was legitimate, but I told Ali he’d better ask me in the future before he put anything on my phone and emphasized that there was to be no “spying” when I was on duty. Ever. He promised, and after a few “secret” messages between us over breakfast, I was able to turn my full attention to the Diane Jenkins case.

An FBI contractor and eccentric tech genius named Keith Karl Rawlins had flown in along with his handler, Special Agent Henna Batra. I’d worked with them before and considered them a formidable team. As I sat in the Jenkinses’ kitchen that night, I felt like we had a decent shot at finding our way to M and to Mrs. Jenkins.

Rawlins, who went by the nickname Krazy Kat or, sometimes, KK, was dressed in green parachute pants, sandals, and an embroidered purple shirt that matched the color of his hair — or some of his hair, anyway. The FBI forgave his free spirit because, with dual PhDs from Stanford and another from MIT, the man was beyond a wizard at a keyboard.

“We good?” Mahoney asked, glancing at the wall clock in the Jenkinses’ kitchen.

Rawlins sat at the breakfast counter chewing his lip and looking at three different laptops set around a much larger screen.

“If historical data reverts to the mean, we have a real chance,” Rawlins said.

Special Agent Batra, a petite woman in her thirties, sat by him. “We would if this were a cash transaction,” she sniffed. “Crypto is an entire paradigm shift.”

“Paradigm shift,” Rawlins sniffed back. “How Y-Two-K of you, Batra.”

“He could be anywhere,” she snapped.

I understood the conflict. Historical FBI data going back to the 1920s strongly suggested that kidnappers interested in money usually remained close to where they’d snatched their victims. Based on interviews with serial kidnappers, investigators knew there were many reasons why. The biggest was to avoid a long drive that might trigger a police stop. Better to take a victim somewhere quickly and make the ransom demand from there.

Being close to the victim’s home also helped when the kidnappers moved to pick up the cash payment. But with cryptocurrency, that seemed less important.

Still, Rawlins had set up digital traps in the operating system of cell towers around Cleveland and in the park where Mrs. Jenkins’s cell phone had gone silent. He’d also buried digital tracking bugs in the metadata surrounding the Ethereum currency.

Jenkins’s iPhone buzzed and rang. On the screen was unknown name, unknown number.

“Here we go,” I said, tugging on wireless headphones linked to Jenkins’s phone.

“Hello?” Jenkins said.

The voice was the same as in the recording — flat, sexless, hollow.

“Are your hands clean, Mr. Jenkins?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Did you notify the FBI?”

“You told me not to.”

“Answer the question.”

“No.”

“You’re lying, Mr. Jenkins.”

“No, I—”

A different voice came over the phone, one that was not distorted. Diane Jenkins began to scream in agony. “No! No! Melvin! What have you done?”

There was a weird heavy noise, like something slamming, and then we couldn’t hear her anymore.

“That was your wife’s wedding and engagement rings coming off, Mr. Jenkins. Along with her finger.”

The horror on Jenkins’s face was complete.

“But I have the money!” he cried. “The Ethereum. Isn’t that what you wanted? Please, just tell me where you want me to send it. Give me the account number.”

Several seconds passed and then M said, “Dr. Cross? You’re there, aren’t you?”

I shut my eyes a moment. After twelve years, he was talking to me directly. I knew I wasn’t hearing his true voice, but before I answered I prayed I could hear his soul.

“I’m here, M.”

We all heard a sigh of pleasure. “I thought so.”

I said nothing.

He laughed. “It’s rather funny, isn’t it? After all these years, you and me? Like pen pals who’ve never met but are profoundly connected. Am I right, Alex?”

“It’s been a one-way conversation so far.”

“Certain things are worth waiting for. And planning for. And anticipating. And now here we are. Talking. At last.”

“Mr. Jenkins has the ransom money. Do you want it or not?”

“Oh, I want it,” he said. “So here are the rules. If you’ve bugged the transfers, Cross, debug them. Now. I will know if the transaction is being traced. Once I’ve received the money, I’ll tell Jenkins where he can find his wife.”

Then he rattled off a sixteen-character code of letters, numbers, and symbols.

“Send the crypto to that account at the Kraken exchange within the hour. If the Ethereum is not in that account by ten p.m. eastern, well, until next time, Dr. Cross. And I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Jenkins.”

The line died.

We all looked at Rawlins, whose eyes were darting from screen to screen.

“Well?” Mahoney said. “Did you get him?”

“I’m stripping out the obvious bugs,” he said.

“I knew you wouldn’t catch him local,” Batra said.

There was an audible ding from the laptop closest to me. Rawlins finished typing, glanced at that screen, and started clapping.

“And yet, Batra, I did just catch him local,” he said.