Passenger 19

TWENTY-SEVEN

Jen was relieved to finally see another person. Less so when she imagined why he might be here.

“Good morning, Jennifer.”

“My name isn’t Jen—”

“Please, please,” said the man, waving his hand as if shooing away one of the room’s tenant flies. “We have known since you arrived who you are. However, it does cause me to wonder — why did you claim to be Miss Stewart?”

Having anticipated this question for days, Jen gave the only answer she’d come up with that would not implicate Kristin. “I don’t know.”

The man looked at her with marked disappointment.

Jen countered with outrage. “Why the hell are you holding me prisoner?”

“Strong language is unattractive in young girls. Didn’t your father teach you that?”

Che, or whoever he was, spoke with a light accent. Jen took him for a Colombian who’d spent considerable time in an English-speaking country. He seemed educated and chose his words with precision. “Is Kristin all right?” she asked, battling yet another wave of nausea.

“Miss Stewart is fine. You, on the other hand, appear to be suffering.” He nearly said something more, but hesitated.

“What?”

He cocked his head to one side, as if making a decision. “I suppose it won’t hurt to say it. As uncomfortable as your circumstances are, you’re far better off than those who remained on the airplane.”

“What do you mean?”

“Soon after you and Kristin were removed, the airplane took off again. That second journey ended tragically.”

“Tragically? You mean… it crashed?”

“Yes. So you see how fortunate you are.”

Her nausea redoubled, and Jen crawled to the bucket just in time. She coughed up bile and the meager contents of her stomach. When the waves passed she kneeled upright, and with spittle on her chin she looked him in the eye, trying to show strength. Jen opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off.

“No — I am not here to answer your questions, Jennifer. I am here to ask one. Very soon I will send a message, one that could lead to your freedom.”

Jen felt suddenly dizzy, but tried to maintain focus. She wanted desperately to understand what was happening.

“What I need from you is a small bit of information, something that is known only to you and your father. It will serve to prove—”

“Prove that you’re holding me hostage?”

Che grinned a disconcerting grin. “You’re a smart girl. That is good for both of us. We must convince your father that you are here and safe.”

Jen shut her eyes and tried to think. Part of her wanted to push back, to deny anything this man asked for. Had the airplane really crashed? Or was he only trying to manipulate her? If it was true — God, what her father must be going through. Then she extended that thought. Air crashes were his specialty. If the jet had gone down, would he find a way to get involved? Could he be in Colombia searching for her at this moment?

Absolutely.

The man shifted his stance impatiently.

Jen was buoyed by the idea that her father might be near. She tried to think of something clever, a coded message to tell him where she was. It was hopeless, of course, because she herself had no idea. There seemed but one option — do as her captor was asking, and prove to her father that she was alive.

“Two weeks ago he took me out to dinner at a nice restaurant, Reynaud’s. He slipped me a glass of wine and told me how proud he was of me for taking this trip. Proud that I was coming here to help people. He said it was the kind of thing my mother would have done.”

A pleased Che said, “Yes, that is good. Very good.”

“So what are you going to do — ask for a ransom? My Dad doesn’t have a lot of money.”

The Colombian nearly said something, but then he checked his response and moved toward the door. With one last glance, he disappeared. The door closed and Jen heard the bolt slide home. She was alone once more.

She got to her feet and used a toe to push the stinking bucket to the far side of the room. Returning to the mattress, she laid down feeling tired and defeated. Her mood turned bleak, and she curled up on her side as a new worry arose — a thought more ominous than all of her other imaginings combined.

For the first time since arriving, she had seen someone’s face. It brought back words from her hostage lecture of last winter. “Only two kinds of kidnappers will show their face — amateurs, and those who know their victims will never live to talk.”

Sorensen drove through the night, and one large café Americano after sunrise she arrived on the outskirts of Raleigh, North Carolina. She was driving her brother-in-law’s car, a midsize Acura with a GPS system, and by half past eight she was nearing her destination. If last night’s search for Kristin Stewart had drawn blanks, locating her mother had been far easier.

Jean Stewart lived in a neighborhood called Eagle Preserve Estates on the north side of town. Sorensen didn’t see any eagles, and nothing that looked like a preserve, but at the entrance there was an impressive wrought-iron gate attached to an unmanned guardhouse. She arrived right behind a school bus, and as soon as ten elementary-aged children filed on board, she piggybacked with a train of SUVs and crossovers to enter a well-managed community. With the sun barely above the horizon, landscaping crews were already hard at work on common areas, keeping lawns and shrubs in tight command. The houses were new and large, although not over the top. It was a comfortable place: safe, tidy, and indistinguishable from a dozen other developments she’d passed on the way here. She followed the car’s GPS to the back of the neighborhood, and approached 1726 Saddleback Court with a measure of caution.

Kristin Stewart, for reasons Sorensen did not understand, had been issued Secret Service protection. There was no way of knowing if that protection extended to her mother, Jean, or anyone else who lived at this address. Sorensen saw no cars in the driveway, nor any drab sedans slotted carefully along the street or loitering in the nearby cul-de-sac. Just to be sure, she drove past the house, around a curve, and performed a three-point turn in the first driveway. Approaching from the opposite direction, she still saw nothing to raise concern.

Sorensen parked the Acura along the street in front of her targeted address, pointed toward the subdivision’s only entrance. And only exit. She saw a light in a bay window, bright under the slow-waking skies, and another in what had to be a bedroom on the second floor. The home was loosely Colonial, four or five bedrooms, probably one and a half fewer baths. Sorensen hadn’t had time to research whether Jean Stewart lived alone. She’d seen no mention of a Mr. Stewart, or any other children. All the same, it seemed a big place for a single mom who’d recently sent her only child off to college, so Sorensen reasoned there might be someone else.

The path to the front door was paver brick, and there were three garage doors that looked like they’d been taken from a barn, an element of style that had bloomed quickly and would no doubt wilt with equal haste. At the entryway Sorensen sank an elaborate doorbell button shaped like a horseshoe. The door opened a few beats later, and the woman from the Elks Lodge picture greeted her. Jean Stewart was fiftyish, nicely groomed with ash blond highlights and summer skin. She was brightly dressed for a dull Thursday morning in yellow slacks, whose fit could not have been off the rack, a cream blouse, and laceless therapeutic shoes. She was pretty in a manufactured way, the routine battle to subtract years wherein success fell inevitably in arrears to expenditures and effort.

“Yes?” she asked. “Can I help you?”

Sorensen had spent a long night behind the wheel preparing the answer to this question, along with subsequent options based on how things progressed. She quickly flashed her CIA credentials, two fingers loosely obscuring the agency emblem, and with precise wording said, “My name is Anna Sorensen. I’ve come about your daughter, Miss Stewart.”

The use of “Miss” had been a gamble, but Sorensen saw that it didn’t matter. The woman’s smile collapsed. “Oh, God… did you find out something about Kristin? Is she all right?”

“Yes — at least, I don’t have any new information. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. This must be terribly stressful.”

A heavy sigh, then, “Please come in.”

Sorensen walked into a nicely appointed living room, and Stewart recovered quickly. “I’ve made coffee — can I get you a cup?”

“Yes, that would be lovely,” said Sorensen, although she already had the jitters.

“You people never say no.” Stewart disappeared into the kitchen.

“A little caffeine goes a long way,” Sorensen called out as her eyes wandered the room. On a stone fireplace mantel she saw framed photographs of an abbreviated family. Jean and Kristin Stewart on a ski slope. Jean and Kristin Stewart on a beach. Another with what might have been a set of grandparents, and a candid shot of a younger Kristin with a friend — they were making silly faces in the front yard of a much smaller house.

“Is Agent Smithers off duty today?” Stewart called from the kitchen. “She’s usually the one who comes.”

“I’m not sure, I just go where I’m needed. But they did give me a briefing. Perhaps if you tell me what you already know, I can fill in any gaps.”

The hostess came back with a tray presenting two cups of coffee, cream, and sugar. Sorensen took one, added cream, and began to sip, hoping Jean Stewart was the chatty type who enjoyed filling black holes of silence. She was in luck.

“It’s been a nightmare — three days now since that airplane crashed and nobody seems to know anything. All I’ve been told is that Kristin is missing.” Stewart sank into a plush sofa, the tray rattling as she set it down. Her hands began to grapple and she forced them into her lap. “I don’t know how much more I can take. Kristin is all I’ve got — all I’ve ever had. Do you have children, Miss Sorensen?”

“No, not yet. But I’m hopeful.”

“You always hear that there’s nothing worse than losing a child. You nod like you understand when it happens to a friend of a friend, but let me tell you…” She rubbed one eye, trying to hold herself together. “You can never understand until it becomes real.”

Sorensen was sitting on the couch next to Stewart, and she took her hand. As a CIA officer, she was well schooled in contrived gestures. This wasn’t one of them. “You haven’t lost her. There’s still hope.”

“Hope?” Stewart said, her voice breaking. “A tiny airplane goes down in a jungle and everyone is dead, only they can’t find my daughter’s body. You call that hope?”

“Remember, she’s not the only one. There are two girls missing.”

Stewart’s eyes darted up. “What?”

“Nobody told you that?” Sorensen asked, trying to cover her mistake.

“No. I was just told that Kristin had gone missing, that they hadn’t… hadn’t found her in the wreckage.”

Sorensen’s first impression of Jean Stewart had been that of a shallow soul, a woman of vanity and appearances. Now she thought she might be off track. Perhaps this was a woman battling for sanity, clutching elements of normalcy in the face of a mother’s ultimate horror. Looking into a pair of tortured blue eyes, Sorensen no longer had the will to keep up false pretenses.

“I should explain something,” she said. “I’m not with the Secret Service.”

The damp eyes fell puzzled.

“I’m here on the behalf of a man who—”

“Not—” Stewart stuttered, “not Secret Service?” In a transformation that took Sorensen completely by surprise, Stewart’s pain went instantly to anger. “You’re a goddam reporter!” she shouted. “Get the hell out of my house!” She jumped up from the couch and pointed firmly to the door.

“No! No, I’m not a reporter. I work for a different government agency. I—”

Stewart drew a cell phone from her pocket and placed a call. Two touches, like a number on speed-dial. “The number I am calling is not 911! Security will be here in less than a minute. For your own safety, you had better leave!”

“I’m with the CIA!” said Sorensen, pulling out her credentials and displaying them more openly than the first time.

Stewart held fast with her phone, and when the connection was made, she said, “I need help!” She lowered the phone and ignored Sorensen’s ID. “Out!” she repeated, grabbing Sorensen’s elbow and shoving her toward the door.

“All right!” Sorensen said, jerking her elbow away. “Just listen for thirty seconds, then I’ll go if that’s what you want.”

Stewart stood back, venom in her gaze.

“Does the name Thomas Mulligan mean anything to you?”

A hesitation, but no denial.

“He was on that flight with your daughter, and he died. Did the Secret Service tell you how?” Sorensen saw the first crack.

“Thomas was a good man,” Stewart said. “He was there to protect Kristin. But he died in the crash like the others.”

“No, not like the others. Thomas Mulligan was shot twice through the heart.”

Stewart looked at her, stunned.

“There are two girls missing from that flight,” Sorensen continued. “I can’t say that I know what’s it’s like to be in your position, to have a child who might be in mortal danger, or possibly already dead. But I know a man who is in exactly the same position as you — the father of the other missing girl. It just so happens he’s an aircraft accident investigator, and he’s in Colombia right now scouring the jungle for both of them. When he learned about Thomas Mulligan, he called me for help because he doesn’t understand what the hell is going on. My friend is doing his damnedest to find his daughter and yours. But to do that he needs to know why your daughter is getting protection from the United States Secret Service.”

A rush of footsteps on the pavement outside. Sorensen’s eyes remained locked on Stewart as she said, “Jen Davis. That’s the other girl’s name. A nineteen-year-old student with a bright future and a frantic father. Help us, Jean! Help us find them both. Why is your daughter so important?”

Hard footfalls on the front porch. Then a commanding female voice. “Miss Stewart, it’s Special Agent Smithers! Are you all right?”

Sorensen gave a final pleading look.

Jean Stewart made her decision. She leaned forward and began talking in a hushed tone. Sorensen tuned out the shouts from the other side of the door, and when it crashed inward thirty seconds later she stood motionless and stunned — for reasons that had nothing to do with the handgun three feet from her face.