24 Hours (35 page)

“Of course.” The banker made a hasty exit.

Chalmers dialed a number on Moore’s phone.

“The leader’s name is Hickey,” Will said. “Joe Hickey. He has my wife with him, and he’s one clever son of a bitch. Do you know where they are now?”

“Driving toward Jackson International Airport.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry. They’re not going anywhere. We’re watching them from a helicopter, and we’ve got men in the airport. Hang on.” Chalmers spoke into the phone. “Chalmers here. I’ve got Dr. Jennings with me...He’s on board with us...Yes, sir. Any word on the little girl?” Chalmers gave Will a thumbs-up.

“I want to talk to him,” Will said, standing.

“I’ll tell him,” Chalmers said, and hung up. “The SAC has a lot on his plate right now, Doctor.”

“What’s happening?”

“SWAT found the cabin.”

“The green pickup truck?”

“It’s parked under the trees.”

Will closed his eyes and began to pray.

Eight FBI agents in camouflage ninja fatigues and black headgear crept silently through the trees toward the cabin, their Heckler and Koch submachine guns tight against their bodies. A ninth agent was already under the structure, scanning the small floor plan with a supersensitive microphone and headphones. Their leader was Special Agent Martin Cody, and Cody was in radio contact with the agent under the house.

“Got anything?” he said into the microphone mounted inside his ballistic glass face mask.

“Not yet.” Special Agent Sims Jackson was observing the cabin through a thermal imaging camera. “Nothing but a hot water heater.”

Cody didn’t like that. The truck was there, but the people weren’t? Was there a root cellar of some kind? Could the tango have detected their approach and fled into the woods? It would be tough carrying a five-year-old girl, but Cody had been told the man was big. He could also have killed the little girl and fled alone, but even if she’d been dead a couple of hours, there should still be enough heat in the corpse to register on the thermal imaging device.

“Cody to tracing van,” he said into his mike. The CellStar van was seventy yards back up the logging road. “Has the cell phone moved?”

“Negative. Still in the same position.”

“We’re going in,” Cody said into his mike. “Prepare for explosive entry. Stun grenades through the windows, ram on the front door. It looks thin as paper, but you never know.”

A staccato burst of mike clicks answered him.

“Shoot high,” Cody reminded them, though they knew the drill already. “This kid probably isn’t much over three feet, which is a good break. Okay . . . deploy.”

What followed was a ballet the team had rehearsed hundreds of times. Men moving forward without sound, carrying weapons they could dismantle and put back together in absolute darkness. In thirty seconds the team had deployed around the cabin, grenades and HKs at the ready.

Agent Cody had a bad feeling about the assault, but he often got those just before contact. He checked to make sure his ram team was in position to hit the door. It was.

“On my five-count,” he said. “Five-four-three-two-GO!” The cabin windows shattered one second before the front door went down. Even in daylight, the blue-white flash of the stun grenades lit up the windows, followed by ear-shattering bangs. Cody saw his men vanish into the cabin. He charged forward and went through the front door five seconds behind them.

The raised cabin floor shuddered under the impact of boots. The interior was filled with smoke, but it cleared quickly through the broken windows. There were no cries of “FEDERAL AGENTS!” because no one could have heard them after the stun grenades.

“Bedroom! No joy!” cried the speaker in Cody’s helmet.

“Kitchen, no joy!”

“Bedroom closet’s empty!”

Cody checked the corners of the front room, in case the girl was lying dead in one of them. He found nothing.

“Cell phone!” someone shouted. “Cell phone in the kitchen!”

“Got another one!” cried someone else. “Landline in the bedroom!”

Landline?
Cody had been told there was no landline in the cabin, and he had seen no wires outside. Maybe there was a buried cable running to the building. He went into the kitchen and saw one of his men holding the cell phone. He was about to take it when the phone began to ring. Cody yanked off his helmet, stared at the phone for a few seconds, then took it and hit SEND.

“Yeah?” he said, hoping the caller would mistake him for whomever he had tried to call.

“Do you have Prince Albert in the can?” asked a male voice.

Cody stood dumbfounded for a moment. “Who is this?”

He heard wild laughter; then the caller clicked off.

Cody put his helmet back on and keyed his mike. “Tracing van, did you hear that call?”

“Affirmative.”

“Where did it come from?”

“Unknown. We’re checking.”

Cody ripped off his helmet again, pulled a digital cell phone from his pocket, and dialed the private number of SAC Zwick in Jackson.

Will paced back and forth across the banker’s small office. Agent Chalmers sat behind Moore’s desk, speaking quietly to Zwick. Suddenly, Chalmers groaned and covered his eyes with his free hand.

“What happened?” Will asked. “
What happened, goddamn it?
”

Chalmers looked up, his face pale. “The cabin was empty when SWAT went in. Huey and your daughter weren’t there.”

“
What?
” Will searched his mind for an explanation. “It must have been the wrong cabin.”

“It wasn’t. They found the cell phone inside. And someone—probably Hickey—actually called them on it while they were there. Made a joke out of it.”

Will shook his head in disbelief.

“They also found a landline in the cabin, which means Hickey could have given Huey new instructions without anyone knowing. The phone company has no record of that line. It’s probably an illegal tap.”

A landline. He should have known Hickey wouldn’t let Huey operate without some sort of backup. “But the truck was still there?”

“The truck was there, but the battery had been removed. It looks like there might have been another vehicle there. They may have gotten away in it.”

“
May
have? Are you kidding me? They’re gone!”

“Doctor—”

“Give me that goddamn phone!”

Will snatched the phone from Chalmers’s hand and shouted into it: “Are you the guy in charge of this Chinese fire drill?”

“This is Frank Zwick, Doctor. Special Agent-in-Charge. Losing your temper isn’t going to help your little girl.”

“You just tell me, what do you plan to do now?”

“I’m deciding that at this moment. You can help me. Did Cheryl Lynn Tilly mention any possible destination that would require air travel?”

“Costa Rica. She said Hickey has a ranch down there. Or some land, anyway.”

“Costa Rica? You can’t fly direct from Jackson to Costa Rica. And there’s no reservation for a Joe or Joseph Hickey on any flight out of Jackson today. So, he must be flying out under an alias, with a connecting flight to South America.”

“Look, if Hickey called your men at the cabin, he knows you’re involved. You may have just killed my little girl, Zwick.”

“I seriously doubt that, Doctor. Hickey wants two things: his money and his freedom. Killing your daughter won’t help him get either. She’s half his total leverage now.”

“You don’t know what’s going on! It’s not about
money.
Hickey thinks I killed his mother on the operating table. This is about revenge. He
wants
to kill Abby. To punish me.”

There was a brief silence. Then Zwick said, “That’s a disturbing new perspective, Doctor.”

“You’re goddamn right it is.”

“Do you know this Hickey? Do you remember him?”

Will heard another phone ringing. It was the cell phone in his pocket. Cheryl’s phone. “Hang on, I think Hickey’s calling me.” He dug the phone out of his pocket and hit SEND. “Hello?”

“What’s up, Doc?”

Will nodded at Chalmers. “I’m in the bank, getting your money.”

“You’re lying. You called the FBI.”

“Joe—”

“Where’s Cheryl?”

“In the parking lot. I brought the phone in with me.”

“Why?”

“So I could tell you what was happening if you called.”

“Well . . . the plan has changed. Your wife and me are about to take a little airplane ride. And if I see a cop or an FBI agent within a mile of me, I’m going to put one right in her ear. You follow?”

“Joe, I’m getting your money! Just tell me where you want it!”

“We’ll work that out later. You just get it all ready to go. And tell your new friends to keep clear of that airport.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! Joe, where’s my daughter?”

“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?” Hickey laughed. “
Hasta luego, amigo.
Just remember, whatever happens, you called the play.”

The phone went dead. Will felt as though his heart had been ripped out through his chest wall. He picked up the other phone and told Zwick what had transpired.

The SAC said, “I’m going to pull back my men and let them get into the airport.”

“Why? Won’t Hickey be harder to stop with lots of people around?”

“Yes, but it’s possible that this Huey character and your daughter are already inside the airport waiting for him. If we bust Hickey outside, they might just disappear.”

“Jesus Christ. Okay. But if they are inside, what can you do? How can you stop Hickey then? What’s to keep him from putting a gun to Abby’s head?”

“The fact that he’s dead.”

“You mean you’ll shoot him on sight? Can you do that?”

“Kidnapping is an extraordinary crime, Doctor. The rules of engagement allow for a great deal of discretion. And an airport is a high-security area. I can promise you this. If your little girl is in there, and Hickey makes a move toward her with a weapon, his brain will be removed from his cranium without benefit of anesthetic.”

“Do you have sharpshooters there?”

“They’ll be in position before Hickey gets inside the building. Now, I have a lot to arrange, Doctor. Put Agent Chalmers back on the phone.”

As Will handed over the phone, several thoughts came to him at once. Any logistics that Zwick had to arrange were in Jackson, not Biloxi. Right now he was almost certainly telling Chalmers to make sure Will stayed right where he was, under FBI control. But Will’s primary concern was Hickey. Even now, the man was controlling the movements of everyone involved in the situation. Five times he had pulled off these kidnappings, and the FBI had never even been told about them. At the cabin he had proved he could stay two steps ahead of the SWAT team and laugh while doing it. Opposing his proven brilliance was Frank Zwick, a man Will knew nothing about. He had to assume that Zwick knew his job, but instinct told him that the events of the next few minutes would not be as easy to control as the SAC believed. The FBI did not really know where Huey and Abby were. They
might
be in the Jackson airport; they might also be sixty miles away. As Chalmers listened to his boss on the phone, Will walked quietly out of the office.

“Where are you going?” Chalmers called. “Doctor?”

Will paused in the hall. “To get the ransom money.”

“It’s no good to you now.”

“You don’t know that. Hickey said to get it, so I’m getting it. I’ll be back in a minute.”

He took the stairs two at a time going down.

Five miles east of downtown Jackson, Hickey turned

Karen’s Expedition onto the main airport access road.

“Where are we going?” Karen asked. She was terrified that Hickey would board a flight to Costa Rica without telling her where Abby was being held.

“You just watch.”

“We’ve got to get to Abby, Joe. Her sugar’s going up.”

“Just shut your goddamn mouth for five minutes. I got everything under control.”

Karen leaned back and looked up through the moonroof. The helicopter was still there. It had stayed practically on top of them all the way from the interstate. Hickey was right. It had to be the police. Or the FBI. She hoped to God Will knew what he was doing.

The SHORT TERM PARKING sign flashed past. Then ARRIVALS /DEPARTURES.

“Are we flying somewhere?” she asked. “Do you have a plane here?”

“Oh, yeah. I got a whole fleet of them.” Hickey glared at her. “You just can’t be quiet, can you? I bet your husband thinks you are one big pain in the ass.”

She sat back and tried to stay calm. Despite the helicopter overhead, Hickey had not ordered Abby harmed. Unless the “backup plan” was to kill her. Karen gripped the handle on the windshield post as Hickey swerved into the LONG TERM PARKING lane. He stopped at the barrier, took a ticket from the machine, then accelerated into the concrete-roofed garage.

He rounded the first turn at forty miles an hour. The brakes squealed as they neared the elevator on the terminal side of the building. Hickey seemed to be looking for signs of police. Seeing nothing, he accelerated around the next curve and almost ran over a young woman in a navy blue skirt suit, who was pulling a suitcase from the trunk of a silver Camry. He screeched to a stop, reversed a few feet, then pulled into the parking space beside the Camry.

“What are you doing?” Karen asked.

He jumped out and closed the distance to the woman in the time it took Karen to turn and look. As the woman gaped, Hickey smashed Will’s .38 into the side of her head. She dropped like a stone.

“
Get out!
” Hickey shouted at Karen. “
Help me!
”

A wave of nausea nearly overcame her, but she forced herself to get out and move to the back of the Expedition. Hickey was bent over the prostrate woman, rifling through her purse.

“What are you
doing?
”

He snatched his hand from the purse with a jangle of car keys and hit the UNLOCK button on the ring. “Get in the backseat of the Camry! Move!”

Hickey grabbed the woman under the arms and heaved her upper body into the Camry’s trunk. There was blood in her hair. The blow from the pistol had torn part of her ear away from her skull. She moaned in pain and confusion, but Hickey took no notice. He stuffed her legs into the trunk, then slammed it shut. When he turned to Karen, his eyes were as cold as any she had ever seen.