The Missing

Chapter 57

At 1300 hours, the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team boarded a private business jet at the Quantico airstrip. They were coming from a debriefing on the Traveler case. This was what they knew:

In late 1992, nine Hispanic and African American women disappeared in and around Denver, Colorado. The lead suspect in the case, John Smith, had packed up and moved by the time police located his address.

Smith's home had been thoroughly cleaned, but forensics technicians for the Denver police recovered a partial boot print that matched a footwear impression found in the dirt next to the abandoned vehicle belonging to one of the missing women. An empty trash can sprayed with Luminol revealed a small area of blood. Analysis yielded two different DNA samples.

The first sample matched the genetic profile of one of the missing Denver women. The DNA profile was entered into CODIS, the FBI's Combined DNA Indexing System.

The second blood sample was also listed on CODIS, but the identity of the person was not made available to law enforcement agencies or forensic laboratories. The sample belonged to Earl Slavick, a member of the Hand of the Lord, a paramilitary white supremacist group whose ethnic cleansing agenda included the overthrow of the U.S. government. The group, it was believed, had played a role in the Oklahoma City bombing, although no firm link had ever been established.

Slavick was also a high-level FBI informant.

Slavick had been given early parole in the beating of a Hispanic woman in exchange for providing the FBI with detailed information of the group's activities at its secluded training headquarters in the Arkansas hills, not far from the Oklahoma border. As a member of the group, Slavick had been undergoing firearms training and bomb making when, in early 1990, he tried to abduct a Hispanic woman at gunpoint. Slavick dragged the woman, Eva Ortiz, into the woods. When Slavick tripped and fell, Ortiz ran away.

The woman had failed to pick Slavick out of a lineup. He was let go by local police.

When word of his botched abduction attempt finally reached the FBI, Slavick was already on his way to Colorado, under the alias John Smith, to start his own racial cleansing movement.

Given the highly sensitive nature of the case, all of Slavick's files were classified. His fingerprints and DNA profile were left on the computer databases. If a match was ever found, the FBI would be alerted to Slavick's whereabouts, while the reporting law enforcement agency or forensic laboratory would only see the code name the FBI had given to the case: Traveler.

Slavick's next stop after Denver was Las Vegas. Twelve women and three men vanished over a nine-month period. A footwear impression matched the one recovered in Denver.

When Slavick moved on to Atlanta in 1998, Special Agent Evan Manning was asked to help assist in the investigation of three missing women. Slavick, posing as a gas station attendant, had attacked Manning, who managed to crawl away before passing out. Like his many victims, Slavick vanished into thin air.

That changed this morning, at 0800, when CODIS matched the blood found at the home of an abducted Massachusetts teenager to the DNA profile of Earl Slavick.

As the jet lifted off, nobody talked. HRT knew they were flying to Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. From there, a Black Hawk attack helicopter would take them to the command post set up in Lewiston.

Team commander Colin Cunney took off his headset. He took a few minutes to review his notes before standing up to address his crew.

'Okay, boys, listen up. The computer-printed map found early this morning was identified by our lab as having come from an online website specifically geared to hikers. Here's where we got lucky. Two weeks ago, the map was accessed by a man living in twelve Cedar Road in Lewiston, New Hampshire. Crisis Management is already on the ground. They did a visual sweep of the house. It's our boy Slavick.'

'Hopefully he'll stay put this time,' Sammy DiBattista said.

Nervous laughter echoed inside the cabin.

'A Black Hawk, courtesy of our friends at the Pease Air Force Base, made a run about an hour ago and got us a few aerial shots of the house,' Cunney said. 'The area's thickly settled with woods, so we can use that to our advantage. There are three buildings: the house, a good-sized garage where he keeps a number of vehicles – so far they've spotted two vans – and a bunker. The entire area is surrounded with fences covered with razor wire, security cameras, infrared trip alarms, you name it.'

Cunney paused for a moment. He wanted his next point to sink in.

'Slavick spent a lot of time at the Hand of the Lord's training camp in Arkansas,' he said. 'Not only does he know how to shoot, he's considered somewhat of an explosives expert. You all know he destroyed a hospital with a fertilizer bomb and a homemade plastic explosive stuffed inside a FedEx box took down to the Boston Crime lab. Our man also killed two of our agents with dynamite packed inside a van. Going in, we've got to assume he's rigged some of the buildings.

'It will be nightfall by the time we arrive. Intel says there are other people on Slavick's property – probably some local weekend warrior assholes he's recruited for his movement. I want to hit him hard and fast. We're not going to have another goddamn firefight, not if I can help it.'

The ghost of Waco passed through the faces.

Cunney looked to his two best snipers, Sammy DiBattista and Jim Hagman.

'Sam, Haggy, you're not to fire until you have the go-ahead from me, understood?'

Both men nodded. Cunney wasn't worried. He had seen these two men in actual combat and knew their capabilities.

'We don't know how many women Slavick's got trapped in there with him,' Cunney said. 'We're going in with the assumption they're alive. Rescuing those women is our primary objective. This is a tactical operation. There will be no negotiating.

'One last thing. This is strictly a home team affair. We don't have to worry about any interference from ATF or the locals. Crisis Management has assembled all the technical and tactical help we need. That's all I have right now. Questions?'

Sammy DiBattista asked the question on every one's mind: 'What do we do if Slavick decides to engage us?'

'Simple,' Cunney said. 'We take the son of a bitch down.'