The Abduction

DAY FOUR

FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux gave a little salute to the uniformed guard wearing a Gracie button as the gates parted in front of his sedan. Briarwyck Farms was the American Dream, an upscale community entered through black iron gates, surrounded by a ten-foot-tall brick wall, and guarded 24/7 by a private security force, a place where all the homes cost at least $1 million, all the parents were successful, and all the children were safe.

But these walls and gates hadn’t kept Gracie safe.

It was Monday morning-sixty hours post-abduction-and Devereaux was stumped. He had a command post equipped with phones, faxes, and computers running RapidStart, the FBI’s sophisticated information management system capable of filing, indexing, comparing, and tracking thousands of leads simultaneously-he just didn’t have any leads.

The girl had vanished.

Devereaux stopped at an intersection in front of the elementary school. A crossing guard holding up a stop sign escorted several children across the street; over her long-sleeve shirt the guard was wearing a white tee shirt with Gracie’s image on the back under HAVE YOU SEEN ME? Below her image was CALL 1-800-THE LOST.

The guard waved him on. He drove down the next block and turned right. The uniformed officers stationed at the end of Magnolia Lane recognized Devereaux’s car and were already removing the wooden barricades blocking the street as he turned. When he did, he saw that the media circus had gone national. The networks had arrived.

“Shit. She’s gonna do it.”

“Mrs. Brice, please don’t do this. It’ll bring out every kook in the country. It won’t help. It’s a waiting game.”

“I’m through waiting.”

Elizabeth left Agent Devereaux standing in the kitchen, obviously frustrated with a victim’s mother who refused to play her designated role. Well, too damn bad. The victim had been missing for sixty-one hours now and this mother was through waiting-for a ransom call to come, for the abductor to be arrested, for a dog to track down her daughter’s dead body, for God to save her. This mother wanted her daughter alive or the abductor dead. Or both. So this mother was taking matters into her own hands.

She was dressed for court; her hair was done and her makeup concealed the bags under her eyes. She would not be the pitiful grieving mother today, looking like hell, voice quivering, tears running down her face and makeup giving chase, begging a pervert on national TV to spare her child’s life. Today she would be a tough-broad lawyer negotiating a deal, just like any other day and any other deal: you have something I want; I have something you want. Let’s make a deal, asshole.

She proceeded down the gallery; the familiar adrenaline rush energized her to the coming performance, the same as when she stepped into the courtroom for the start of a trial. All heads turned her way when she entered the library, which now resembled a television studio. The three networks were represented with cameras and behind-the-scenes personnel; the national morning show hosts in New York would conduct the interviews; and the interviews would run live. Those were Elizabeth’s terms.

“Five minutes, Mrs. Brice!” a little twerp wearing a headset shouted while holding up five fingers just in case she was deaf.

She sat next to John in a straight chair positioned in front of the bookshelves, a backdrop that gave the impression more of a law office than a home. Elizabeth had planned this event down to the last detail, the same as if she were about to bargain with a prosecutor for her client’s freedom; instead, she was about to bargain with a pervert for her daughter’s life. And only she would do the bargaining. She had given her husband the same explicit instructions she gave her guilty clients before a plea-bargain negotiation: Keep your fucking mouth shut!

John was dressed in black penny loafers, white socks, jeans, a yellow shirt, and a goofy blue tie with cartoon characters, his most solemn tie; at least he had tried to do something with his hair. He was staring off into space. She leaned into him and said, “Lose the tie.” While he obediently removed the tie, she plucked the tiny wads of toilet paper stuck to his face where he had cut himself shaving-and she saw the evidence of her attack two days ago. Remorse again tried to sneak into her thoughts; it got a foot in the door this time.

Elizabeth sighed. She always hated herself afterward-after the rage had romped. After she had lashed out at John. He didn’t deserve it. But then, he never deserved it. She had cursed him too many times, but she had never hit him. This time the rage had crossed the line… and it scared her. She stared at her husband and wondered if he hated her half as much as she hated herself.

Playing on the color monitor in John’s mind was his image of the abductor-coarse, thick, hairy, dirty, mean, and ugly-a man who, coincidentally, looked just like the Army bullies who had terrorized him as a boy.

He thought of the bullies again, Luther Ray in particular, wondering where his redneck life had led to-no doubt a double-wide mobile home in rural Alabama. John had always pictured Luther Ray sitting in his recliner under a Confederate flag on the wall and looking forward to a big day during which he would drive his piece-of-shit pickup into town to collect unemployment (having been laid off from the local chicken processing plant) and on the way back home he would engage in some curb shopping (checking out rich people’s trash for stuff that might fit the double-wide’s decor). Luther Ray would be hung over from the previous night’s meeting of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter when he opened his morning paper and read that John Brice was a billionaire.

“Got-damn, is that our Little Johnny Brice?” Luther Ray would say to the wife over at the stove fixing grits for breakfast. “That wimp’s a fuckin’ billionaire?” Then he’d laugh and say, “Shit, we used to kick his scrawny little ass just for fun.”

And then his wife (fat and missing a front tooth) would fart and say something like, “Well, Luther Ray, maybe you should’ve been nicer to Little Johnny and he’d’ve give you a good job and me and the kids wouldn’t be livin’ in this goddamn trailer park.” And from then on, every time they fought about money or his drinking (which is to say, every day), his wife would spew forth that flamage like green vomit from the Exorcist girl, reminding Luther Ray for the rest of his cretinous life that Little Johnny Brice had a billion dollars and he had a double-wide.

John had played out varying versions of that scenario at least once a day for the last nineteen years, conjuring it up on his first drive to MIT, when he had set a goal of being a billionaire by age forty, and improving on it each time. He had added the wife a few years back.

And that was why he had been so brain-damaged about becoming a billionaire. With the stock market and real-estate boom, everyone and their mother was a millionaire. But becoming a billionaire in one day like the Google guys-that would still make every newspaper in the country, even in rural Alabama.

But now Luther Ray would be watching him on TV, hearing how his daughter had been kidnapped in a public park with him right there, and he’d say, “No pervert would’ve snatched our Ellie May with me around and live to tell about it, that’s for goddamn sure. Little Johnny Brice got money, but he ain’t much of a man. Never was.” And the wife would nod in agreement.

And they’d be right.

“Mrs. Brice!”

Elizabeth jerked her eyes off John and focused on the task at hand-and the twerp standing directly in front of her; he was bent over, his hands were on his knees, and his round face was not two feet from hers.

“There’ll be a setup piece, three minutes”-he held up three fingers, then pointed to a TV monitor off to the side-“you can watch it there. Then DeAnn will go live with you.” Four fingers. “Four minutes, then commercial break. When I signal break, shut up. Don’t go on or we’ll cut you off.”

When the twerp vacated his position in front of Elizabeth, she found herself looking directly at Agent Devereaux standing back behind the cameras; he was leaning into the doorjamb and staring at her. Hey, fuck the FBI! You haven’t found my daughter!

“Quiet!” the twerp yelled. He pointed to the TV monitor.

The morning show first up was coming back on the air. The host introduced the reporter on the story, live from Texas, standing on the front lawn, a Gracie button on his lapel, the house looming large behind him.

“DeAnn, Gracie Ann Brice is ten years old”-Grace’s soccer picture flashed on the screen-“and she is missing this Monday morning. She was abducted by a blond man wearing a black cap and a plaid shirt after her soccer game Friday night here in Post Oak, Texas, a wealthy enclave forty miles north of downtown Dallas. I am standing outside her family’s three-million-dollar mansion in this community of mansions.”

Playing on the monitor was a video of Briarwyck Farms, the media circus outside, and their home. The reporter’s voice-over continued: “The park where she was abducted now serves as a makeshift memorial to Gracie.” Now the monitor showed shots of the park and the concession building, the banner, and the flowers. “Children have brought flowers and notes of prayer for their friend. A candlelight vigil was held there last night. Hundreds of people turned out to pray for Gracie’s safe return. Her abduction has frightened the residents of this community.”

The distraught face of a neighbor: “This isn’t supposed to happen in a place like this. We’re supposed to be safe out here.”

The reporter’s voice over video of the search efforts: “Searchers have hunted for Gracie for two days without success. Other than her soccer shorts and shoe, which were found by bloodhounds Saturday, there’s been no sign of her. The Heidi Search Center has organized a massive volunteer effort to search fields and farmland on the outskirts of town.”

The monitor played video of people hugging each other and wiping tears from their faces. “We’re here because our child could be next,” one searcher said.

“At Gracie’s school”-a live shot of kids arriving at Briarwyck Farms Elementary School-“parents clutch their children closer today.”

The face of a young woman above the byline, NORA UNDERWOOD, GRACIE’S FOURTH-GRADE TEACHER: “We’re not supposed to pray in school, but we’re praying today.”

And AMY APPLEWHITE, PRINCIPAL: “We’ve brought in crisis counselors for the children to talk to, to talk out their fears.”

Back live to the reporter out front, holding up the flier with Grace’s picture: “DeAnn, friends and neighbors have distributed thousands of these missing-child fliers throughout the area and as many pink ribbons to show their support. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has posted Gracie’s picture on its website at www-dot-missingkids-dot-org, as has the FBI at www-dot-fbi-dot-gov. Her face will be seen around the world. This is a confirmed stranger abduction-the FBI eliminated any family involvement with polygraph exams. The parents are hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. Most children abducted by strangers are dead within a few hours. Gracie’s been missing for over sixty hours. Back to you, DeAnn.”

Elizabeth turned from the monitor and spotted Sam sitting on the sofa in the back of the room and staring stone-faced at a TV monitor. She could see the fear in his eyes. Damnit, where ’ s Hilda? Elizabeth tried to get Sam’s attention to send him out, but the twerp was again gesturing at her and pointing to the monitor. Elizabeth turned away from Sam and looked at the monitor.

Now on the screen was the concerned face of DeAnn, the host in New York, an index finger pressed to her tight lips, a slow sad shake of her well-coifed head. What empathy so early in the morning, Elizabeth thought, and right before she hosts a segment on liposuction. Now she would interview the distressed and tearful parents, who would dutifully slobber and plead for their daughter’s return on national TV, a sure ratings hit. That was the script. That was the way things were supposed to go. Well, DeAnn, hold onto your skirt, girlfriend, because today’s show is going to be a little bit different.

DeAnn, from New York: “We have with us this morning, from their home outside Dallas, Texas, Gracie’s parents, John and Elizabeth Brice.”

The twerp pointed at them; the cameras went live.

“John Brice is the founder of BriceWare-dot-com, which is going public in two days, when he will become another overnight high-tech billionaire. Elizabeth Brice is a prominent Dallas criminal defense attorney. Mr. Brice, your daughter’s kidnapping is a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal today. You were just days from your dream coming true, now your daughter’s been abducted. This must be devastating for you. How do you feel?”

Oh, shit, Elizabeth thought, bracing herself for a blast of John’s goofy geek-speak on national TV, something like, DeAnn, my freaking wetware is fried! I’m talking toast! Some brain-damaged meatbot uninstalled my daughter from my network and that is evil and rude in the extreme!

Instead, John looked into the camera and said softly, “I feel empty.”

Elizabeth stared again at her husband and saw a stranger.

DeAnn, from New York: “Why do you think the abductor left Gracie’s soccer shorts in the woods? And her shoe?”

She was pulling out all the stops to get the tears flowing. But John’s answer momentarily set her back: “I forgot to tie her laces after the game.”

“Well, yes, but this is clearly not a ransom abduction. A sexual predator took your daughter-but Gracie had none of the risk factors associated with children abducted by sexual predators. Why do you think he took your daughter?”

John shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Were there problems at home? Could she have run away?”

“No. She knows we love her.”

DeAnn appeared visibly frustrated now. “Do you think she’s still alive?”

“Yes.”

Still no tears.

“Mr. Brice, were there problems in your marriage?”

“My marriage? ”

The rage stirred and stretched and required all of Elizabeth’s strength to hold it back; if this nationally televised therapy session continued much longer, the rage would escape her grasp. She interrupted.

“DeAnn,” Elizabeth said, and the camera zoomed in on her. “We’re not here for marriage counseling. We’re here because a stranger abducted my daughter. He took her, and we want her back. And we will pay to get her back. For information leading to the safe return of my daughter, we will pay twenty-five million dollars, cash.”

Elizabeth imagined viewers across America spitting out their morning coffee; she had just seized control of her audience.

“If you’ve seen Grace, call us and you’re rich.”

A slight pause for effect, but not long enough for DeAnn to break in.

“Another offer, this one to the abductor: release my daughter, alive and well, and we will pay you the twenty-five million instead. We will deposit the funds in a Cayman Island bank account under a pin number-it’s completely anonymous. The IRS cannot trace the money, the FBI cannot trace you. You can wire the money anywhere in the world. You can get on a plane and fly to Costa Rica, Thailand, the Philippines, where you can have all the little girls you want. You’re rich and you’re free to pursue your perverted desires-what more could you want? All I want is my daughter back. My offer remains open until midnight Friday, Dallas time. Twenty-five million dollars for my daughter. It’s a good deal. You’d better take it.”

Now a slight lean forward and her best intimidate-the-witness glare into the camera: “Because if you don’t take this deal, if you don’t release my daughter by the deadline, if you can’t release my daughter because you’ve already killed her, know this and know it well: you’re a dead man. I’m putting a bounty on your head same as the government put on Osama bin Laden’s head: commencing one minute after midnight Friday, we will pay the twenty-five million to anyone who hunts you down and kills you like the disgusting perverted animal you are. And know this: you’re not going back to prison to serve a few years then get released only to violate another little girl-that is not going to happen! You’re either going to release my daughter or you’re going to die. It’s your choice.”

DeAnn, in New York: “Mrs. Brice, this is national TV! You can’t-”

Now, the closer: “Take the deal. Take the money. Give us Grace.”

Elizabeth would repeat the same offer on the other network morning shows.

“Well, ain’t that neat, our own goddamn Powerball lotto!”

The mayor hurled a paperweight against the far wall of his office in the town hall. He had a pretty fair arm for a fat boy. Chief of Police Paul Ryan stood out of harm’s way, watching the mother on TV and enduring another mayoral venting.

“Twenty-five million dollars! That much money, she made goddamn sure her kid stays on national news every goddamn day!”

His Honor let loose with a stapler this time.

“And we’re gonna stay on national TV until you find her body or her killer!”

“You mean kidnapper.”

“I mean killer. She’s dead just like that reporter said and you know it. Goddamnit, Paul, find this pervert!”

“Mayor, we’re rounding up every sex offender in the county but-”

A stiff fat finger in Ryan’s face: “No buts, Paul! Find him, arrest him, and get us off national TV! Or else!”

Paul Ryan exited the mayor’s office, imagining himself driving a golf cart with a flashing yellow light around a parking lot twelve hours a day and wondering what kind of retirement plan Wal-Mart offered its security guards.

“Do you have twenty-five million dollars in cash?” FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux asked the mother.

Without looking at him, she said, “My husband arranged a line of credit. He put up his stock. It’ll be worth a billion dollars in two days. We’ve got it.”

Before the mother’s image had faded from the TV screen, every fax machine in the command post was spitting out paper, every light on every phone was blinking, and a dozen federal agents were logging leads into the computer as fast as they could type:

“You saw her, in Houston?”

“You’re sure it was her? Where in Oklahoma?”

“Arkansas?”

“Louisiana?”

“Mexico? New Mexico the state or Mexico the country?”

Devereaux would personally review the computer’s analysis of the leads and determine which leads to follow, hoping in his heart they were legit but knowing in his head they were worthless calls from people after a piece of the reward, calling in to report every blonde girl they saw, hoping theirs might hit, like buying a lottery ticket.

He heard Agent Floyd’s voice: “Uh, no, ma’am, you can’t get any of the reward for being close. This isn’t horseshoes.”

And Agent Jorgenson’s: “And who is she with?… A man and woman?… And you’re in a grocery store in Abilene with them right now?… I hear someone saying ‘mommy.’ Is that the girl?… Well, ma’am, if the girl is calling the woman ‘mommy,’ maybe that’s her mother.”

Devereaux turned to the mother. “Well, Mrs. Brice, we’ve had almost five hundred sightings in the two hours since you offered the reward.” He was standing in the middle of the command post with the mother.

“Excellent.”

“No, ma’am, not really. At this rate, I won’t have the manpower to clear that many leads.”

The mother looked at Devereaux like she had told a joke and he was too dumb to get it.

“I don’t expect you to. Grace isn’t walking around some shopping mall somewhere-you think he bought her new shorts? If she’s alive, she’s with him. I offered the reward to pressure him to give her up. That’s the only chance we have to get her back alive, and you know it.”

Devereaux had to remind himself of his own rule: getting into a pissing contest with the mother wouldn’t put him one step closer to finding the girl or apprehending the abductor. And odds are, the child’s dead anyway.

“Her body, it is cold.”

Angelina Rojas stood five feet tall and weighed two hundred pounds. She was wearing a pink sweat suit. She had teased her hair into a nice tall mound atop her round face to which she had applied extra makeup. She wanted to look her best today.

Angelina lived and worked in the Little Mexico area of Dallas. Normally at this time on a Monday morning, she would be contacting the spirits of dead relatives of poor Mexicans or reading their futures in their palms or tarot cards. Angelina Rojas, el medium. She was a psychic. At least that’s what it said on her business card.

But yesterday she had opened the Sunday paper and seen the kidnapped girl’s picture on the front page; she had been drawn to the image. She had stared at the picture, then she had touched it. She had felt something and heard something. Something real this time. Something that scared her. “ La madre de Dios,” she had said. Mother of God.

So she had woken this morning, gotten dressed, and made Carlos put on a shirt and drive her out here. When they had arrived at the big gates, she explained the purpose of her visit to the guard, but he refused to let them in. She begged him to call Senora Brice. When he refused that also, Carlos said he was going to get out of the Chevy and kick his fat Anglo ass. The guard decided that making a phone call was a smarter move than having some Hispanic hombre in a low-rider pounding on him with his muscular left arm, the one with the tattoo of the Virgin Mary. So he called, but he got Senor Brice instead. He let them in.

Carlos had stayed in the car at the end of the street outside the police barricade; he was nervous due to the fact that he had immigrated to America via the Rio Grande just outside Laredo. She had then walked down the street and up to the front door of the house-it was as big as the office building she used to clean each night, before she had become a full-time psychic. Normally she insisted her clients pay her in cash up front; Angelina did not accept personal checks or credit cards, not that her clients had bank accounts or credit cards. But today she did not care about money. In fact, she did not want money. She just wanted to give them the girl’s message and get back home.

Angelina Rojas was afraid that she might really be psychic.

Now she was sitting in the kitchen across a table from Senor Brice and several other Anglos; her eyes were closed and she was clutching the girl’s white school blouse tightly to her face, trying to feel the child. Another cold chill ran through her considerable body, more intense than the first one. But it was not Angelina who was cold.

“Her body, it is very cold.”

“My daughter is not dead!”

Angelina opened her eyes to a woman she recognized from TV. The mother. She was very beautiful, even when angry, as now.

“No, Senora, she is not dead. She is cold. She is shivering.”

The mother rolled her eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake. We’d do better with a goddamn Ouija board. You’re just here for the reward.”

“No, Senora, I do not want your money. I am here because the girl is cold and because she calls out.”

The mother put her hands on her hips like Angelina’s Anglo landlord did when she was late with the rent money. “Really? And what does she call out for?”

“She calls out for someone named Ben.”

“Ben! Ben!”

Kate Brice is straining to see down the jetway at San Francisco International Airport; six-year-old John is standing next to her. It’s 1975 and Ben Brice is coming home. That damn war is finally over.

Passengers begin appearing in the jetway. Her eyes search the crowd for a green beret, but her mind is dreading a repeat of five years earlier in this same airport. They were walking down the concourse; Ben was wearing his uniform, pushing John in a stroller, and ignoring the whispered “baby killer” comments. A young man with long hair suddenly stepped in front of Ben and said, “My brother died in Vietnam because of officers like you!” Then he spat in Ben’s face. Ben grabbed the young man by the throat and pinned him to the wall, terrifying the young man but Kate more. She had never seen that Ben Brice before; his blue eyes were so dark. He could have easily killed the young man, and for a moment, she thought he would. Instead, the darkness dissipated; he wiped the spit from his face, released the frightened young man, and said, “I’m sorry about your brother.”

They had married three days after he graduated from the Academy. It was a fairy tale wedding in the West Point chapel; afterward, still wearing her white wedding dress, she was escorted by Lieutenant Ben Brice in his dress white uniform through the saber arch, an Army tradition. Her fairy tale marriage lasted exactly three weeks. Twenty-one days a married woman, her husband left her for Fort Bragg and Special Forces school. Ben Brice was going to war. He deployed the day after Thanksgiving 1968. She saw him off at the airport; she never saw that man again.

That damn war destroyed the fairy tale marriage she had dreamed of as a girl. She is praying for a fresh start today.

There! She sees a green beret above a sea of heads… and now his face, tanned and angular, and so handsome. He sees her and smiles.

Ben turned back to her now: the same face, still tanned and angular, and still so handsome. But the smile was gone. He had been walking out to the pool house when she called to him. He came back to her, and they sat on the back porch.

“When will you leave?” she asked.

“When I know where she is.”

Kate studied her husband’s face. “Gracie?”

He nodded.

“You believe that psychic?”

He nodded again.

“Ben, that was odd that she knew your name, but-”

“She’s alive, Kate.”

She calls out for someone named Ben, the psychic said. Why not me? Why not her mother?

But with Grace, it had always been Ben. And Elizabeth had always hated Ben Brice because he shared a bond with Grace that she did not. Now, sitting alone in her bedroom, her thoughts were not angry; her thoughts were of her father and the bond they had shared.

Her memories were of their time together.

Arthur Austin had been a lawyer, but he did not sell his life by the billable hour, so he had time for his daughter. During their last year together, when she was ten, he had taken her to at least one Mets’ game a week, often leaving the office early to make a weekday game. Mother wasn’t good in the heat, so it was just the two of them. She had been so proud to sit next to her handsome father in his suit and tie, his sharp features and head of thick black hair attracting the eyes of other women. But he belonged to her. Those were glorious days she thought would never end.

How could a thirty-five-year-old man be murdered?

She could still close her eyes and see him lying in the hospital bed at St. Mary’s Catholic Hospital, his eyes shut, the white sheets pulled up to his chin (to conceal his wounds, she realized years later), his skin pale and cold, and Mother saying it was time to say goodbye. But Elizabeth Austin, the good Catholic girl, had said, “No, God will save him.” She had knelt next to his bed and held his cold hand; she had prayed to God to save her father. But God had refused. He had ignored her prayers. He had forsaken her. “I will never forgive you,” she had said to God that day. And she never had.

She had missed her father terribly. But somehow she had gone on with her life, always thinking of everything they would never do together. That was before evil had come into her life. Afterward, she had been relieved her father hadn’t been there; it would have broken his heart to see what his happy ten-year-old daughter had become: a forty-year-old rage-filled lunatic forever haunted by her encounter with evil. Just as it was breaking her heart to imagine what her happy ten-year-old daughter would become-if she survived her encounter with evil.

What if she didn’t?

How could this child’s life story end this way? After the way her story had begun? She had given this child life, and this child had saved her life. How was she now supposed to go on with her life without this child? Without Grace? How was Elizabeth Brice supposed to get up one day- when, next week or the week after? — drive to the office, and again care about guilty clients? How was getting a rich white-collar criminal off supposed to fill the empty space inside her?

Her private phone line rang. It was her mother, offering to help in any way she could-which was in no way. It took only a few minutes of pleading to get her to stay in New York.

Mother had been only twenty-nine when Father had died. She had married him right out of high school, while he was in law school. He was her life. After his death, Mother had retreated into her own world, seldom leaving the house, helpless in a harsh world. For all intents and purposes, her mother had died with her father.

And Elizabeth Austin had grown up alone.

“I don’t want to be an only child.”

John squeezed Sam’s shoulder and fought back tears. He had come into Sam’s room to comfort his five-year-old son. Sam had finally begun to grasp the reality that he might never see Gracie again. As had his father.

“I don’t want her room or her stuff,” Sam said. “I just want her to come back. I miss her.” He wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve. “That guy on TV, he said she’s probably dead.”

“She’s not dead,” John said, trying to sound convincing. “She’ll be back soon, buddy.”

“But you don’t know that for a fact, do you?”

“Huh? Well, no, Sam, I don’t know that for a fact.”

“So you’re just saying that to make me feel better ’cause I’m just a stupid kid.”

John beheld his kindergartner son, indisputable evidence that cloning works.

“Sam, A, you’ve got a one-sixty IQ, so you’re not stupid, and B, I’m saying that because I believe Gracie will come home.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you believe she’ll come home?”

Cripes, Sam was like Microsoft after a competitor!

“Uh, well, because I have faith.”

“In God?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s it.”

“So you believe in God?”

John hesitated. Fact is, he wasn’t sure he did believe in God. As a kid, Little Johnny Brice had often begged God to save him from the bullies’ beatings, but God never did. And John R. Brice hadn’t spent much adult time thinking about God, what with getting the Ph. D., hacking code for a killer app, and now working the IPO. And he went to church with the kids only because Mom would be disappointed in him if he didn’t. A week ago, if Sam had asked such a question, he would have automatically clicked into avoidance mode and responded to Sam like a big brother: “Hey, buddy, God is one of those deep philosophical choices that each humanoid must make for himself or herself, kind of like whether to go Windows or Mac. But look, man, don’t worry about that serious stuff now, wait till you’re older, you know, after your own IPO. Hey, let’s go to the kitchen and get down on some Rocky Road ice cream, dude.”

And that was the role he had played all these years for the kids, which was, in fact, the role he preferred: big brother, pal, buddy. Nothing more had been required of him. And besides, with Elizabeth around, the man-of-the-house role had already been taken.

But now, looking into Sam’s eyes, he could see that Sam needed something more from him. At the office, John was the Big Kahuna because he always had the answers to the toughest technical queries posed by his employees. But their questions paled next to Sam’s: Is there a God? The answer couldn’t be found in the online Help menu. John wanted to say, Shit, dude, I don’t have a freaking clue! But his five-year-old son didn’t need the big brother mode; he needed the mature adult fatherly mode. So John lied.

“Of course I believe in God.”

“But you don’t know if there really is a God, do you? I mean, like, you don’t have any evidence that proves He exists beyond a reasonable doubt, right?”

“No.”

“But you believe God is real?”

“Yes.” The second lie required less consideration.

“So you believe Gracie’s coming home because you believe in God and God takes care of kids, right?”

“That’s right.” No consideration at all.

“See, that’s why I decided God is bogus.”

“Sam, don’t say that. God’s not bogus.”

“Well, if God is spending so dang much time taking care of Gracie now, why’d he let that cretin take her in the first place?”

John gave up. “I don’t know, Sam.”

Sam frowned and said, “You think that cretin wants more than twenty-five million bucks to let her go?”

“I… I don’t know.”

Sam stared up at John for a moment, then said, “Your face looks better. From when Mom smacked you.”

“Please take the money.”

Elizabeth touched the image on the computer screen and gently traced the outline of her daughter’s face. She had logged onto the FBI’s website, the Kidnapped and Missing Persons Investigations page at www.fbi.gov/mostwant/kidnap/kidmiss.htm. Two columns of pictures and names of children abducted in Saginaw, Texas; Deltona, Florida; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Oregon City, Oregon; Jackson, Tennessee; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Chicago, Illinois; San Luis Obispo, California; Las Vegas, Nevada.

Where in America are children safe?

She clicked on the image of her daughter. She saw the same photo of Grace enlarged on a page that read: http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/kidnap/brice.htm

KIDNAPPING

Post Oak, Texas

GRACIE ANN BRICE DESCRIPTION

Age: 10

Place of Birth: Dallas, Texas

Sex: Female

Height: 4’6”

Weight: 80 pounds

Hair: Short Blonde

Eyes: Blue

Race: White

THE DETAILS

Gracie Ann Brice was kidnapped after her soccer game at approximately 6:00 P.M. on Friday, April 7, at Briarwyck Farms Park in Post Oak, Texas. She was last seen wearing a soccer uniform, gold jersey with “Tornadoes” on the front and a number 9 on the back, and blue shorts, blue socks, and white Lotto soccer shoes, and a silver necklace with a silver star. Gracie may be in the company of a white male, 20 to 30 years, 200 pounds, blond hair, blue eyes, wearing a black baseball cap and a plaid shirt. He asked for Gracie by name at the park.

REMARKS

Gracie Ann Brice has a muscular build, light complexion, and short hair. Her elbows may have recent abrasions.

The parents of Gracie Ann Brice are offering a reward of $25 million for information leading to her recovery. Individuals with information concerning this case should take no action themselves, but instead immediately contact the nearest FBI Office or local law enforcement agency. For any possible sighting outside the United States, contact the nearest United States Embassy or Consulate.

Elizabeth grabbed both sides of the monitor and put her face against her daughter’s image.

“Take the money! Let her go! Please!”

A child abducted by a stranger warrants a featured slot on the network morning shows and a mention on the evening news. But when the victim’s mother puts a $25 million bounty on the abductor’s head, dead or alive, that’s lead story news.

Under orders from headquarters, FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux had given live interviews on the network evening news, back to back to back. He had protested that he was too busy trying to find the girl, but he had been informed that his orders came straight from Director White himself. The Bureau brass liked its agents-particularly articulate agents like himself-on national TV. Good for PR. And next year’s budget requests.

Devereaux sighed; his investigation had become a goddamned $25 million sideshow.

He was now in the command post, slouched in his chair and alternating between his left and right buttock so as not to put additional pressure on his inflamed prostate while reviewing the latest leads. He had yet to read one that rang true.

“Prostate?”

Devereaux looked up to see Colonel Brice standing there.

“Recognize the butt position,” the colonel said.

“You, too?”

The colonel nodded. “Try saw palmetto.”

“Saul who?”

“Saw palmetto. Berry from the palmetto tree. Relieves the pain. You can buy it in any health food store.”

“I heard about those places.”

The colonel gestured at the stack of leads. “Anything?”

“Yeah, over two thousand sightings,” he said. “Couple more days, we’ll know where every blonde, blue-eyed girl in the Southwest lives.”

“You think they’re after the money?”

“I’m afraid so, Colonel.” The colonel sat in an adjacent chair; Devereaux adjusted his butt position. “Rewards of a few thousand dollars can be productive, but $25 million-that’s a whole ’nother ball game. Two thousand sightings, we’re wasting too much time chasing too many false leads.” He put his hand on the stack. “What if there is one good lead in all this?”

“May I?”

“Sure. Here, I’ve been through these.” Devereaux pushed a stack of papers toward Colonel Brice and yawned.

“You need some sleep. Give your prostate a rest.”

“I’ll sleep after we find Gracie.”

The colonel gave him a firm look. “You’re a good man.”

“And you were a great soldier.” The colonel did not respond. The silence was awkward, so Devereaux broke it by confessing to an American hero. “I wasn’t. I just wanted to come home. Nineteen days left in my tour and I’m walking point on patrol again and all I’m thinking is, My luck, I’m gonna be the last American soldier to die in Vietnam, when this VC steps out from behind a tree not ten feet in front of me, his weapon on me. I’m a dead man. Except his rifle misfires-it was an old bolt-action piece of shit. I raise my M-16 and shoot him dead. I step over to him, see he’s just a kid, maybe fourteen. I threw up.” Devereaux was too embarrassed to look directly at the colonel. “I’ve carried a weapon most of my adult life, but that’s the only time I’ve ever killed another human being.” He paused and shook his head. “Looks like we’ve both done some confessing now. I’ve never told anyone that story, not even my wife.”

The colonel’s voice was almost a whisper when he said, “Killing isn’t an easy thing to talk about… or live with.”

The two men were silent with their own thoughts of war and killing until Devereaux said, “How long were you a POW?” The colonel appeared puzzled, so Devereaux answered his unasked question. “Agent Randall, he saw the scars on your back, during your polygraph.”

The colonel nodded. “Six months, barely enough time to get settled in.”

“Hanoi Hilton?”

He shook his head. “Outlying camp, San Bie. After we escaped, NVA closed all the camps, moved all the Americans to Hanoi.”

And then it dawned on Devereaux, why the name Ben Brice sounded familiar.

“You’re the one. You’re the guy that rescued those pilots.” He paused and stared at this man. “You saved a lot of soldiers that day.”

Colonel Brice showed no emotion. He broke eye contact and squinted as if trying to see something in the distance. Or in the past. When he spoke, his voice was soft.

“Commander Ron Porter.”

“Who?”

His eyes returned to Devereaux. “One of those pilots, he flies out of Albuquerque.”

“Colonel, they gave you the Medal of Honor.”

The colonel picked up the papers, stood, and said, “So they did.” Then he walked away.

Six months before the day he had walked into the San Bie POW camp in North Vietnam, Colonel Ben Brice had been living in the jungles of Vietnam with the Montagnards, the indigenous inhabitants of the country known to GIs as the “Yards,” a people much like the American Indian. The men wore loincloths; their bronze-skinned bodies were lean and muscular and their facial features were hard and sharply etched, but they were not without humor or intelligence. The tribal elders spoke French fluently, learned when the owners of that language took their ill-fated turn at colonizing Vietnam. Eighteen million people called Vietnam home; the Montagnards numbered one million, scattered among numerous tribes. Ben’s tribe was the Sedang.

When first deployed to Vietnam, the Green Berets’ primary mission was to organize the Montagnard tribes into Civilian Irregular Defense Groups to stem Communist infiltration into South Vietnam along the western borders with Laos and Cambodia. Ben was supposed to teach the Sedang guerrilla warfare tactics; but it was the Sedang who taught him: how to live off the land, how to hunt wild game and Viet Cong on the mountains that rose eight thousand feet and in the thick jungles that covered the valleys below, and how to move through the night like a shadow. The Sedang were natural hunter-killers. He became one of them. They even presented him with a hand-fashioned brass bracelet, which represented membership in the tribe; it was a great honor for a white man. Ben Brice had “gone native.”

They were operating in North Vietnam just inside the Seventeenth Parallel-the DMZ that divided North from South, Communist from free-when they spotted a USAF F-4 Phantom flying low overhead and trailing smoke, hit on a Rolling Thunder raid over Hanoi. The two-man crew ejected just before the jet crashed and exploded in a fireball; both parachutes opened, so Ben and the Montagnards made for the Americans. But they arrived too late; the NVA had captured them.

The NVA marched the pilots north to the San Bie prison camp. On still nights, camped a thousand meters out, Ben heard the blood-curdling screams of the Americans being tortured. The next morning he heard them sing “God Bless America.” Ben and the Montagnards planned a rescue, which required he be captured. The NVA had standing orders to kill their American prisoners in the event of a rescue attempt. The only successful rescue would come from inside, with help on the outside.

Now, six months a prisoner of war, he will escape and take one hundred American pilots with him, with the help of the Montagnards. Ben Brice had taught them a few things too, including the proper use of C-4 explosive. Together they destroyed enemy arms depots, disrupted supply convoys on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, ambushed VC, assassinated NVA officers, radioed in grid coordinates for B-52 Arc Light bombing raids, and snatched that Marine slick driver back from the NVA in Laos. Today they will rescue American POWs.

He remains sprawled in the same position on the concrete floor in which he had been deposited five hours earlier, awaiting the morning guard. He soon hears the familiar sound of keys rattling, so familiar that he knows the guard’s exact location in the hallway outside as he comes closer and closer to Ben’s cell. The guard arrives and bangs on the cell door, then looks in through the small barred opening and sees the American colonel still lying on the floor, the blood on his raw back dried and caked and the rats nibbling at his feet. Ben hears metal grating against metal as the guard slips the key into the rusty lock. The key turns, and the lock releases. The door creaks open. Footsteps, a bit wary, come close; the guard wonders if the highest-ranking American officer in the prison survived the fierce beating inflicted by Big Ug and his fan belt last night. Ben braces himself not to react to the kick that is sure to come and does; he stifles a groan as the guard’s boot drives into his side. The prisoner did not respond, so the guard circles around and squats to check his pulse.

It is his last living act.

Ben grabs the guard by the throat with hands made strong in the oil fields of West Texas and the jungles of Vietnam and chokes off all sound and jerks him to the floor. Ben Brice does not kill him out of vengeance; he kills him because he must. The guard’s neck sounds like a brittle chicken bone snapping when Ben rotates his head past the breaking point.

Ben stands and surveys his cell for the last time. The thick odor customary to the cell is joined by that of fresh urine and feces as the guard’s body accepts its death and surrenders its dignity. More death will follow. He must kill to save these pilots. He takes no satisfaction in the killing, but he is skilled in the art of killing. It is what he knows.

This is his moment in the great human tragedy known as the Vietnam War.

John ducked under the yellow crime-scene tape and walked into Gracie’s room. He hit the overhead light switch.

“Hiya, pal,” she would always say when he knocked on her bedroom door each day when he got home. He would usually find her on the floor, reading the sports pages or doing her homework or singing a new song. But her room was empty tonight. Her stuff was still there, but without her there was no life in this room. Or in this house. Gracie Ann Brice had been the life of the house.

He turned on the nightlight and turned off the overhead. He crawled into her bed. He pulled the comforter up and buried his head in her pillow. He cradled her big cushy teddy bear. He closed his eyes, breathed in his daughter, and remembered.

“One day you’ll be singing on the radio,” he had said to her once, sitting right here on this bed.

She had frowned and said, “You know how hard it is to get radio stations to play a new artist’s songs?”

“No. How hard?”

“Like, totally.”

“Then I’ll buy a bunch of radio stations and play only yours.”

“You can’t do that.”

“After the IPO I can. I’m gonna buy the Red Sox for Sam.”

“No, I mean it doesn’t work that way. I’ve got to struggle a long time trying to break in so I’ll have material for my songs.”

“Oh, so that’s how it works.”

“Yeah, see, the Dixie Chicks struggled for like, well, a really long time, and they had to move to Nashville. I guess I’ll have to, too.”

“And leave me? No way, girlfriend. I’ll buy a jet, you can fly to Nashville to record. Or I’ll build you a recording studio here, and they can come to you. And they will.”

“Yeah, right. You know how many great singers are out there totally begging to break into country music?”

“No. How many?”

“Well… a bunch.”

He shook his head. “Odds don’t apply to statistically unique occurrences.”

“Huh?”

“There’s only one Gracie Ann Brice.”

She had looked at him with a strange expression, one he had never before seen on her sweet face; he immediately thought, Cripes, I said something wrong! You bogoid, you never could talk to girls! But she abruptly hugged him and said, “You’re the best father a girl could ever want.” When she pulled back, her big blue eyes were wet. “Thanks for not making fun of my dreams.”

He had cupped her perfect face and said, “Gracie, ill-behaved cretins can thrash your user interface, frag your hardware, unplug your peripherals, uninstall your components-but dreams are proprietary technology.”

“Huh?”

“No one can take your dreams away.”

But he had been wrong. Someone had taken his dream away.

Ben was now sitting at the kitchen table and flipping through the stack of FBI lead sheets. By this time of night, he was usually drunk enough to sleep. He wanted a drink now, just one shot of whiskey. Or two. He could feel its warmth inside him.

But there would not be another drink for him. On the drive from Taos to the Albuquerque airport, alone in the pre-dawn hours, he had made a vow to Gracie, a vow that now required he reach back almost four decades to find the strength to overcome: when they had beaten him at San Bie, he thought of Kate and John and found strength; now, when the cravings came, he thought of Gracie and found the same strength.

He went over to the refrigerator, a commercial-sized one concealed behind wood paneling that matched the cabinetry. Inside he found orange juice. Maybe a glass of juice would relieve his craving. He opened several overhead cabinets searching for the glasses; he found a liquor cabinet instead. He stared at the bottles. He reached in and removed a fifth of Jim Beam. Only his third sober night, but looking at the familiar label brought the cravings back. He was still staring at the bottle when he heard, “Ben.”

He turned and saw his wife standing in the door-and the disappointment in her eyes. He replaced the bottle in the cabinet and shut the door.

“I won’t let her down, Kate.”

Nothing is more disappointing to a lawyer than a client’s deal falling apart-all right, next to not getting paid, nothing is more disappointing to a lawyer than a client’s deal falling apart. How many times had a lawyer arrived at the bargaining table ready to close a deal only to have the other party shrug lamely and turn his palms up, empty-handed? No money. Nothing to put on the bargaining table. Can’t close the deal. Lying in bed, alone, as she had felt most of her life, Elizabeth Brice now wondered: What if the abductor can’t close the deal? What if the abductor had nothing to put on the bargaining table? Three-fourths of all children abducted by strangers are killed within three hours. Grace had been abducted seventy-eight hours ago.

What if her daughter was dead?

Patrol Officer Eddie Yates hated working double shifts, especially evenings and deep nights, 3:00 P.M. to 7:00 A.M., mostly because he couldn’t spend four hours pumping iron at the gym. But on the chief’s orders, every cop on the force was working double shifts, rousing out sex offenders around the clock-there were a hell of a lot of perverts out there, Eddie had discovered. He was hoping the girl’s killer was on his list; arresting a child killer would look awful good on the resume he would give the Dallas PD.

He checked the in-unit computer screen for the next pervert on his list: Jennings, Gary M., white, twenty-eight, blond, blue eyes, five-ten, one-fifty-five (heck, Eddie could take this guy with one hand), charged with stat rape eight years ago, pleaded out to indecency with a child, received probation, not even a speeding ticket since. Risk level 3: no basis for concern for re-offense. That’s all the entry said, but Eddie could read between the lines. This boy had been nineteen at the time of the offense, probably in college; he and a girl were partying, ended up in bed, turned out she’s jail bait. But she had to be damn close to legal or they wouldn’t have let him plead out. And now he’s branded a sex offender for life.

Eddie sighed. Gary Jennings wasn’t a sex offender; he just screwed the wrong girl at the wrong time. What was it Eddie’s mom used to say? There but for the grace of God? Well, this’ll be a monumental waste of time. But still, why didn’t Jennings register with the police department when he moved to town like he’s supposed to?

Apartment 121, that was Jennings’s place. DMV records showed Jennings owned a black ’99 Ford F-150 pickup. Eddie drove slowly through the apartment complex parking lot until he spotted a black Ford pickup. The plates checked out.

Eddie parked behind the pickup and exited the cruiser; he slid his nightstick into his holster, not that he expected any trouble from Jennings-but he could dream, couldn’t he? He grabbed the big heavy flashlight-actually a sledgehammer with a light on the end, a more effective tool for subduing a reluctant perp, not that he had ever had to. He shone the light inside the cab then tried the door, gently, so as not to set off the alarm. No need-it was unlocked, like half the cars in town tonight. There hadn’t been a car stolen in Post Oak, Texas, since Eddie had been on the force. The place was a regular fucking Mayberry-and he felt like Barney Fife. How can you fight crime when there ain’t no crime? Which was why Eddie Yates yearned for a job with the Dallas PD: they had some real crime down there, the most dangerous city in America.

Eddie opened the door and shone the light around the cab. It was clean as a whistle. He looked in the console and found a cell phone. Jennings wasn’t even worried someone might steal it.

Aunt Bee, you seen Opie?

Eddie checked under the seat. Nothing. He lifted the rubber floor mat on the passenger side. Nothing. He lifted the mat on the driver’s side and-what’s this? A photograph? He picked it up and shone the light on it. It was a photograph all right, like the copy you got when you printed a mug shot off the computer. Except this wasn’t a mug shot of a criminal. This was a picture of a naked girl. A young naked girl. Kiddie porn. Eddie shook his head. Damn, he’d been wrong about this Jennings. He really was a pervert.

Of course, having a picture of a naked girl in his truck didn’t make Jennings guilty of abducting the Brice girl. And how would he explain to the duty sergeant what he was doing inside Jennings’s truck? Eddie thought for a second, then he rubbed the edge of the picture where he had touched it and replaced the picture under the floor mat.

Eddie shut the door quietly then stepped to the bed of the truck. Jennings had a matching fiberglass bed cover, the kind with the little hatch so you could get stuff out without taking the whole damn thing off. Eddie tried the hatch; as he expected, it was unlocked.

Opie’s gone fishin’ with his pa, Sheriff Andy!

Eddie opened the hatch and stuck the flashlight and his head in. He started at the nearest corner of the bed and moved the light around the bed and was about to pull his head out when- What the hell is that? In the far corner of the bed, it looked like a shirt, gold with a number… a jersey.

Eddie’s adrenaline kicked in big time.

He pulled his head out and tried to stay calm and figure out what to do. If he called this in and it turned out to be Jennings’s bowling shirt, the guys would be on his ass for a month. On the other hand, if it was the dead girl’s jersey, he might screw up the evidence, conducting a search without a warrant. He vaguely remembered the training class on search and seizure, something about a plain view doctrine, that if the evidence was in plain sight, that was okay. Eddie wondered, If he had to open the hatch and stick his head in with a flashlight, would that be in plain sight?

Well, shit, no sense in getting ribbed for a month. He would pull the shirt out; if it was a bowling shirt, no harm done. If it was the girl’s jersey, he’d throw it back in and deny ever touching it.

Eddie walked to the patrol unit, opened the trunk, and retrieved a tire tool. He returned to the pickup, stuck his upper body back under the bed cover, and reached for the shirt with the tool. He dragged the shirt along the bed until it was at the hatch opening. He spread the shirt out, holding the light on it, until he could read the blue letters.

Tornadoes.

He flipped the jersey over. A number nine on the back.

Eddie now wondered, Could an on-duty patrol officer claim the $25 million reward?

Inside Apartment 121, Gary Jennings couldn’t sleep. He rolled over close to his wife, his chest to her back-she had taken to sleeping on her side with a pillow between her legs-and slid his hand around her round belly. She was seven months’ pregnant and bigger than he was now, but he didn’t care.

He was going to be a daddy.

Gary wished his own dad could be here to see his grandchild; he had died eight years ago of a heart attack right after that incident in college. His father had died of embarrassment. He had been embarrassed by his son. And Gary couldn’t blame him. Jesus, he had been a real fuckup in college, a frat rat, drinking, partying, playing golf, earning eighteen hours of fucking-off credit per semester, and screwing girls- What the hell was a sixteen-year-old girl doing at a goddamned frat party?

And he’d still be a fuckup today if he hadn’t found Debbie.

Debbie had changed his life. She had said he would forever be a fuckup if he didn’t give up his sinful ways-well, she didn’t say fuckup, she said lost child, which he translated into fuckup. And, man, he was tired of being a fuckup. And she said he’d never have any money. And, man, he was really tired of being broke. So he had figured, what the hell, it was worth a shot. All he had to do, she had said, was go to church, quit drinking beer and smoking dope, and cancel his subscription to Playboy.

And she was right.

Only two years since he had given up sinning, he was married, soon to be a father, and working at a great job. He had hired on six months ago; right now, he was just a code monkey, grinding out computer code twelve hours a day, wired on Snickers and Red Bull.

But the long hours were about to pay off: his stock options vested in six months and they’d be worth a million bucks after the IPO. One million dollars. As soon as the lockout period expired, he would cash out. He would tithe 10 percent to the church, Debbie would insist on that (although he might be able negotiate her down to 7.5 percent), pay 15 percent in taxes, and net about $750,000. He’d put a hundred thousand in an education trust for the baby so she wouldn’t be a fuckup, then he’d buy Debbie a real nice house and use the rest to start his own Internet company.

Lying next to Debbie and looking forward to the future, a slight smile crossed his face. He had finally found his place in this world. Gary Jennings counted his blessings as he drifted off to sleep.

Gary jumped up in bed at the sound of his apartment door being battered off its hinges. Debbie woke and screamed. Men were suddenly inside their bedroom, shouting and shining bright lights and pointing guns, men wearing black uniforms with POLICE in white letters.