R
OBIE PULLED THE CAR TO
the curb and cut the engine. He turned sideways in his seat to look at her.
“Your
child
? You have a kid?”
“She’s grown now. I was only seventeen when I had her.”
“I didn’t know about that.”
“It’s not part of my ‘official’ file. But the doctor who examined me back at the Burner knew.”
“How?”
“I had to have a caesarean. She could tell by the scar.”
“But how would these Nazi wannabes know anything about this?”
Reel wiped her eyes. “Because their leader is the father of my child.”
Robie’s features betrayed his astonishment at this admission.
She looked at him and noted this. “He raped me, Robie. It was not consensual. I was only sixteen. I carried the child and gave birth to her three days after the FBI came down on the group. They went to prison. I went into WITSEC.”
“And the baby?”
“I had to give her up. They said I had to.”
“Who did?”
“The powers that be, Robie. I was seventeen. I was in Witness Protection. I was moved around six times in less than a year. I had to testify against these scum. And I did.” She snapped, “You can’t exactly raise a kid with all that going on, can you? I could take care of myself. What I couldn’t take care of was an infant.”
“So it was your choice, to give her up?”
“I told you, I didn’t
have
a choice.”
“But if you’d had one?”
“What does it matter? I gave her up.”
“You said the leader of the neo-Nazi group is the father. He raped you.”
She nodded. “Leon Dikes.”
“You said he had a good lawyer and didn’t go to prison for all that long.”
“Even though I knew he’d ordered the murders of at least six people.”
“But he never knew where you were?”
“Not until I walked into that damn prison in Alabama. They must have been waiting. Followed us. And now they have Julie.”
“Do you even know where your daughter is now?”
Reel didn’t answer.
Robie said, “Do you know—”
“I heard you! But do you really think I’m going to bring her into something like this? Why do you think Dikes wants her, Robie? To tell her how much he loves her? To shower her with money and a wonderful life?”
“I don’t know what he wants with her. I would imagine he wants to kill you.”
“Not nearly as much as I want to kill
him
.”
“He probably doesn’t know
what
you are, though.”
She glanced at him. “What do you mean?”
“He knew you were in WITSEC. He doesn’t know who you are now. Or he never would have done what he did.”
She nodded slowly. “But how does that help Julie?”
“I don’t know. And if they had followed us, why not just try to take you? Why go after Julie?”
“Because he may know where I am, but not where my daughter is. And he knows I’d never tell him.”
“So Julie is the bait. Put your daughter in danger or Julie dies.”
Reel put her face in her hands and started to weep, her body shuddering painfully.
Robie reached over and put his arm around her shoulders.
She finally calmed and wiped her eyes clear.
“There is no way out of this, Robie. The only thing I can do is offer myself for Julie. That’s it.”
“And if he won’t let Julie go?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
She closed her eyes and looked down.
He said, “They have to have a way for you to contact them somehow.”
Reel straightened. “That was in the code too. There’s a number to call.”
“There are no numbers on the paper,” said Robie.
“We didn’t use numbers in the code. Too obvious. We had letters represent numbers.”
“How would you know whether they were numbers or the actual letters, then?”
Reel pointed at the paper. “When a line begins with ‘TNF,’ that means ‘the numbers follow.’ That’s how we distinguished them.”
“The number’s probably a burner phone, untraceable.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“So they want you to call? When?”
Reel held up her phone. “Now.”
“So what are you going to say?”
“That I’ll trade myself for Julie.”
“And if they don’t agree to that? And they probably won’t.”
“What else can I do, Robie? The fact is, I don’t know where my daughter is now. It’s been over twenty years. I wouldn’t even know what she looks like,” she added miserably.
“But you’d recognize this Leon Dikes?”
“I’ll never forget him,” she said coldly. “If it’s possible, he’s even worse than my father.”
“Well, that is saying something.”
Reel ran her fingers along the edge of the dash. “So what do we do, Robie? We have to get Julie back. I’ll give my life for that to happen.”
“I know you would,” he replied quietly. “And so would I. But maybe it doesn’t have to come to that.”
She glanced at him. “Do you have a plan?”
“I have something. I’m not sure it qualifies as a plan just yet.”
“We have to get her back,” said Reel. “We have to. She’s an innocent.”
“She
is
an innocent. I’ve known that for a long time. And we will get her back. So let’s go to my apartment, you make the call, and we’ll see what these bastards say.”
T
HE OLD PLANE BUMPED ALONG
the runway before coming to a stop with its wheel brakes grinding, the fuselage shuddering, and the dual turboprops spinning slower until they too ceased.
The cabin door opened and steps came down.
A man in a black uniform stepped out first, followed by the only unwilling passenger on this flight from hell.
Julie was bound and gagged and a hood was over her head. Since she couldn’t see where to go, the man behind her, also dressed in the same black uniform, lifted her down the stairs. When her feet hit the tarmac he pulled her roughly over to a white van with no windows. Julie was loaded in and the van drove off along roads that quickly went from asphalt to macadam and, finally, to plain dirt.
She slumped against her seatback. She made no attempt to look around since the hood prevented her from seeing anything or anyone. Two minutes after she’d walked into her house she had been attacked. They had been quick and effective. A wet cloth over her face, fumes that made her head spin, and then nothing. The next thing she knew she was coming to as the plane she was in was taking off. And now she was in a van.
She didn’t even know if her guardian, Jerome Cassidy, was alive or dead. She didn’t know why she’d been taken.
Well, she had a guess. It might have to do with Will Robie. Or Jessica Reel. It seemed to her far too coincidental that as soon as she had been dropped off by them she had been kidnapped.
The van drove for another half hour and then stopped. She was jerked out of the vehicle and led through a doorway, down a set of stairs, and through another doorway. It closed behind her. She was pushed into a seat, and through the hood she could sense a light being turned on.
The hood was abruptly pulled off and she blinked rapidly to adjust her eyes to the brightness. She was in a small room with stone walls and a dirt floor. She was seated at a rickety wooden table. On the walls were swastika banners. An overhead bulb crackled and blinked.
These observations were really afterthoughts.
Seated across from her was a thin man of medium height with dyed black hair carefully parted and sharp, angular features. His eyes did not match his hair color. They were pinpoints of shocking blue. Like the other men in the room, he wore a black uniform, but his was different from theirs. It had more stuff on it, Julie noted. Stars and medals and the armbands were a brilliant red, with the black swastika in the middle and three white stripes around it. A military-style officer’s cap lay on the table within the man’s reach.
The man flicked a hand at Julie, and her gag and bindings were quickly removed. He put his hands on the table in front of him.
“Welcome,” he said, a smile flitting across his lips but never coming close to reaching the blue eyes.
Julie simply stared at him.
“I’m sure you are wondering where you are and why you are here.”
“Did you hurt Jerome?” she said.
“Jerome?”
“My guardian. I live with him. Did you hurt him?”
“Not to the extent that he will not recover. Now, getting back to the matter at hand, I’m sure you have no idea where you are or why you’re here.”
She looked him over. “Well, we’re not in Germany. The plane was a turboprop. No transatlantic range. And no plane can take you back in time to, say, the 1930s.” She said this last part with a disgusted look at the swastikas on the walls. She continued, “We were in the air about two and a half hours. So I’d say we’re somewhere in the Deep South.”
He looked bemused by this statement. “Why not the North? You don’t think our brethren dwell there?”
“Your accent is southern.” She glanced down. “And the dirt floor is red clay. Georgia. Alabama, maybe.”
The man’s bemusement receded and he looked stonily at her. “You would make a good detective.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before. What do you want?”
“I want nothing from you.”
“So it has to do with someone connected to me, then?”
The man nodded.
“Do you want me to guess?”
“You’re good at deductions. Continue making them.”
“Your hair doesn’t match your eyes, and your face is way too old for the hair, which means you dye it. With all those age spots on your hands I’d say you’re probably in your late fifties or even sixties. And the type of uniform you have on was worn by Himmler, who headed the SS. He was also the asshole behind the concentration camps. Congratulations. Something really to be proud of.”
Julie heard the breathing of the men behind her accelerate, but the man across from her didn’t change expressions. He said, “No, I was speaking of who you might be connected to. Please elaborate on that.”
“And give you intel you might not otherwise have? No, I think I’ll pass.”
“You are a most unusual young woman, not at all like I expected.”
“What, did you expect some timid pre-feminist girly-girl quaking in her boots at the sight of you? Sure, I’m scared. You guys kidnapped me. You have me outnumbered. You have guns. I’m completely in your power here.” She looked at the swastikas again. “And you’re all obviously full of hate and seriously demented. I’d be an idiot not to be afraid. But that doesn’t mean I’ll help you, because I won’t.”
“I actually have no need for you to do anything, Miss Getty.”
“I’m not impressed that you know my name. Easy enough to find out.”
“Do you know the name Sally Fontaine?”
“No.”
“How about the name Jessica?”
Julie said nothing.
“Tall, lean woman with blonde hair?”
Julie still said nothing.
“Your silence speaks volumes.”
“Okay,” said Julie. “So what’s the plan? Me for her? Won’t be happening.”
“Well, for your sake, you should hope that it does happen.”
“It’s not up to me. It’s not up to you. It’s actually not up to her.”
“So you do admit knowing Jessica?”
“I admit to nothing. But let me ask you something, if I may?”
She waited until he nodded.
“You think this Sally Fontaine is the same person as this Jessica?”
“I know that she is, beyond doubt.”
“And how do you know Sally Fontaine?”
“She used to be one of my most loyal followers.”
“Okay, that’s bullshit.”
The man hiked his eyebrows. “And how do you know that? A guess with no factual foundation?”
Julie shook her head but said nothing.
“You don’t seem intimidated by your surroundings. Most people, even adults, would be very distressed at being kidnapped and held at gunpoint.”
“It’s not my first time being kidnapped and held at gunpoint.”
“Really?” he said in a skeptical tone.
“Yeah. The last time was a Saudi prince with serious jihadist tendencies. He nearly killed me.”
“And why didn’t he?”
“My friends came and rescued me.”
“That won’t be happening in this case.”
“Never say never. And you have no intention of letting me go.”
“And why is that?”
“You let me see your face. I can identify you. So, you can’t let me go.”
“We’ll see. As you said, never say never.”
“What is Sally Fontaine to you?”
“As I told you, she was one of my loyal followers.”
Julie snorted at this.
The man pulled out a picture from his pocket. “Perhaps you will recognize your friend.” He showed it to Julie.
It was of a teenage girl standing next to a younger version of the man across from Julie. He was dressed in a similar black SS uniform. As Julie looked closer she could see that the girl was Jessica Reel. And there was something else.
“She’s pregnant,” exclaimed Julie.
“Yes, she was carrying my child. Our love child, as I liked to say.”
“But she looks my age and you were a grown man. Are you a pedophile too?”
The blow knocked Julie out of her chair and she landed on the hard clay. An instant later she was jerked up and thrown back into the chair by the men behind her. The man across from her was rubbing his hand where he had struck her.
“Forgive my outburst of anger. But your words struck a chord deeply in me.”
Julie rubbed the blood off her mouth and stared across at him.
“We were very much in love,” he said. “Despite our age difference.”
She said, “But no longer in love, then.” He cocked his head at her. “If you have to kidnap me to get to her.”
“Time passes and things change, it is true. But my feelings are still there.”
“And the child?”
“Another empty hole in my heart. I wish to rectify that.”
“Did you know Sally’s father?”
“Earl? Yes, a good friend of mine.”
“I’m sure he is. Is that how you got on to her and to me?”
“You really are extraordinarily precocious. I could use someone like you in our effort.”
Julie didn’t bother to respond to this. “So what’s the next step?” she said.
“We have made contact. We expect her to do the same shortly.”
There was a buzzing sound. Julie looked around for a moment before realizing it was coming from the man’s pocket.
He took out the phone and looked at the screen. “Speak of the devil.”
He turned and left the room.