The Amtrak train was rushing through deep woods again. Its horn blared loudly. Agent Walsh was keeping track of the stations we’d passed.
Then the Handie-Talkie came to life again. “Get those bags of money and diamonds ready. Open the doors now! And when you toss them — throw them out close together. If you don’t, a hostage will be shot! We’re watching every move you make. You’re very pretty, Agent Cavalierre.”
“Yeah, and you’re a geek,” Betsey muttered to herself. Her pale blue T-shirt was stained darker with sweat. Her black hair stuck close to her scalp. If she’d had an ounce of fat on her before, she’d lost it during the jarring train ride.
“False alarm,” the voice on the radio said with obvious glee. “As you were. That’s all for the moment.”
The two-way went dead again.
“Shit!”
Everyone collapsed onto the duffel bags and lay there breathing heavily. I was trying to keep my brain working in straight lines, but it was getting harder after each false alarm. I really wasn’t sure if I could make another run to the other end of the train.
“Maybe we should get off the train with the money bags,” Walsh spoke from his perch on the bags. “Screw up their timing, at least. Do something they don’t expect.”
“It’s an idea, but too dangerous for the hostages,” Betsey told him.
Walsh and Doud cursed loudly when the two-way came on again. We had almost reached our limit. What was our limit?
“No rest for the wicked,” the voice said. We could hear the pop of a soft drink or beer can being opened. Then a sigh of refreshment. “Or maybe the line should be, rest for the wicked?”
The radio voice screamed at us. “Throw out the bags now! Do it! We’re watching the train. We see you! Throw the bags or we kill all of them!”
We had no choice; no options had been left open to us. It was all we could do to try to throw the bags off close to one another. We were too tired to move as fast as we might have. I felt as if I were moving in a dream. My clothes were soaking wet, my arms and legs sore.
“Throw the bags faster!” the voice commanded. “Let’s see those muscles, Agent Cavalierre.”
Could he see us? Probably. It sounded like it. No doubt he was in the woods with his two-way. How many of them were there?
When the nine bags were gone, the train rushed around a sharp bend in the tracks. We couldn’t see what was happening fifty yards behind us. We fell to the floor, cursing and moaning.
Betsey gasped. “Goddamn them. They did it. They got away with it. Oh, goddamn them to hell.”
The Handie-Talkie came on again. He wasn’t finished with us. “Thanks for the help. You guys are the best. You can always get a job bagging groceries at the local A&P Might not be a bad career option after this.”
“Are you the Mastermind?” I asked.
The line went dead.
The radio voice was gone and so were the money and diamonds, and they still had the nineteen hostages.
Chapter 65
SEVEN MILES AHEAD, Agents Cavalierre, Doud, and Walsh and I stumbled off the train at the next available station.
Two black Suburbans were waiting for us. Standing around the vehicles were several FBI agents with rifles. A crowd of people had gathered at the station. They were pointing at the guns and agents as if they’d spotted the Washington Redskins fresh from a hunting trip.
We were given up-to-the-minute information. “It appears they’re already out of the woods,” an agent told us. “Kyle Craig is on his way here now. We’re setting up roadblocks, but they’ll be hit-and-miss. There is some good news, though. We might have caught a break on the tour bus.”
Moments later, we were being patched in to a woman from Tinden, a small town in Virginia. Supposedly, the woman had information on the whereabouts of the bus. She said she would only talk to “the police,” and that she didn’t much care for the FBI and their methods.
Only after I identified myself was the elderly woman willing to talk to me. She sounded nervous.
Her name was Isabelle Morris and she had sighted a tour bus in the farmlands out in Warren County. She’d become suspicious because she owned the local bus company and the bus wasn’t one of hers.
“The bus was blue with gold stripes?” Betsey asked without identifying herself as FBI.
“Blue and gold. Not one of mine. So I don’t know what the tour vehicle would be doing here,” Mrs. Morris said. “No reason for a bus like that to be out in these parts. This is redneck territory. Tinden isn’t on any tours that I know of.”
“Did you get the license number, or at least a part of it?” I asked her.
She seemed annoyed by the question. “I had no earthly reason to check the license number. Why would I do that?”
“Mrs. Morris, then why did you report the bus to the local police?”
“I told you, if you were listening before. There’s no reason for a tour bus out here. Besides, my boyfriend is on the local citizens’ patrol hereabouts. I’m a widow, y’see. He’s the one actually called the police. Why are you so interested, may I ask?”
“Mrs. Morris, when you saw the tour bus, were there any passengers on board?”
Betsey and I glanced at each other while we waited for her to answer.
“No, just the driver. He was a large fellow. I didn’t see anyone else. What about the police? And the infernal FBI? Why are you all so interested?”
“I’ll get to that in a minute. Did you notice any identification on the bus? A destination sign? A logo? Anything you might have seen would be a help to us. People’s lives are in danger.”
“Oh, my,” she said then. “Yes, there was a sticker on the side: Visit Williamsburg. I remember seeing it. You know what else? I think the bus might have said Washington on Wheels on the side panel. Yes, I’m almost sure it did. Washington on Wheels. Is that any help to you?”
Chapter 66
BETSEY WAS ALREADY on another line talking to Kyle Craig. They were making a plan to get us to Tinden, Virginia, in a hurry. Mrs. Morris continued to talk my ear off. Bits and pieces were coming back to her. She told me that she had seen the tour bus turn onto a small country road not far from where she lived.
“There are only three farms on the road, and I know ’em all very well. Two of the farms border a deserted army base built in the eighties. I’ve got to check this funny business out for myself,” she said.
I interrupted her right there. “No, no. You sit tight, Mrs. Morris. Don’t move a muscle. We’re on our way to you.”
“I know the area. I can help you,” she protested.
“We’re on our way. Please stay put.”
One of the FBI helicopters searching the nearby woods was brought over to the railroad station. Just as it was arriving — so did Kyle. I’d never been so glad to see him.
Betsey told Kyle exactly what she hoped to do in Virginia. “We take the chopper in as close as we can without being spotted. Four or five miles from the town of Tinden. I don’t want too large a ground force involved. A dozen good people, maybe less.”
Kyle agreed to the plan, because it was a good one, and we were off in the FBI chopper. He knew the agents at Quantico he wanted involved and he dispatched them to Tinden.
Once we were on board the helicopter we reviewed everything we had learned during the previous bank robberies. We also began to receive information on the area where Mrs. Morris had seen the bus. The army base she mentioned had been a nuke site in the 1980s. “ICBMs were kept underground at several nuke bases outside Washington,” Kyle said. “If the tour bus is on the site, a concrete silo could shield it from heat-seeking search helicopters.”
Our chopper began to settle down onto an open area near a regional high school. I glanced at my watch. It was just past six o’clock. Were the nineteen hostages still alive? What sadistic game was the Mastermind playing?
Bright green athletic fields stretched out behind an idyllic-looking two-story redbrick school. The entire area was des
erted except for two sedans and a black van waiting for us. We were four or five miles from the state road where Mrs. Morris had seen the Washington on Wheels bus.
Isabelle Morris was sitting in the first sedan. She looked to be in her late seventies, a stout woman with an inappropriately cheery, false-teeth smile. Somebody’s nice grandmother.
“Which farm should we go to first?” I asked her. “Where might somebody be hiding?”
The old woman’s bluish-gray eyes narrowed to slits as she thought. “Donald Browne’s farm,” she finally said. “Nobody lives there these days. Browne died last spring, poor man. Someone could hide out there easy.”
Chapter 67
“KEEP GOING. DRIVE BY,” I told our driver as we reached the Browne farm on State Road 24. He did as I asked. We curled around a bend in the road about a hundred yards farther on. Then the car eased to a stop.
“I saw somebody on the grounds. He was leaning against a tree. Up near the house. He was watching the road, Kyle. Watching us go by. They’re still here.”
Up ahead, I could see the remains of the old missile site that had once been in operation out here. I figured we would find the tour bus hidden in a missile silo, safe from the Apache search helicopters. I wasn’t so optimistic about the nineteen hostages from MetroHartford. The Mastermind hated insurance companies, didn’t he? Was this about revenge?
I was flashing lurid images of the hostages who’d been killed during the bank robberies; I was afraid of finding a massacre scene at the farm. We had been warned. No errors, no mistakes. The rules had been enforced during the bank jobs. Had anything changed?
Kyle said, “Let’s go in through the woods. We don’t have time to be choosy.”
He made contact with the other units. Then he, Betsey, and I ran due north through the dense woods. We couldn’t see the farmhouse yet, but we couldn’t be seen, either.
The woods came up close to the main house, which was fortunate for us. The brush was mostly overgrown, almost all the way to the driveway. The lights were off inside the house. There was no movement that I could make out. No sound.
I could still see the sentry for the kidnappers. He wasn’t too far away and he had his back to us. Where were the others? Where were the hostages? Why weren’t any lights on in the house?
“What the hell is he doing?” Kyle muttered. He was just as mystified as I was.
“Not much of a lookout,” Betsey whispered. “I don’t like it.”
“Me, either,” I said. It made no sense. Why put out a single sentry? And why would the kidnappers still be here?
“Let’s take him down first. Then we move on the house,” Kyle whispered.
Chapter 68
I GESTURED TO KYLE AND BETSEY that I was going after the sentry. I got to him quickly and with a minimum of noise. I swung out hard with the butt of my pistol. There was a satisfying crunch, and the kidnapper crumpled to the ground. He never made a sound. It was too easy. What the hell was going on?
Betsey was crouched low, coming up to me fast. She whispered, “What the hell kind of lookout was that? They’ve always been careful before.”
A half dozen agents appeared out of the woods behind us. Betsey signaled for them to stop. There still were no lights in the farmhouse and no movement. The scene was eerie and unreal.
Then Kyle gave the order to go, to move on the house. We were quiet as we ran forward. There didn’t seem to be any more sentries or guards. Was this some kind of trap? Were they expecting us to break inside? What about Mrs. Morris? Could she be part of this?
I got to the farmhouse with the first wave of agents and I was filled with a sense of dread. I raised my Glock and kicked the front door open. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had to stop myself from shouting out loud.
The hostage group was there in the farmhouse living room. They were staring at me, clearly frightened, but no one was hurt. I did a quick count: sixteen women, two children, and the driver. All alive. No one punished because we’d broken the rules.
“The kidnappers?” I asked in a low voice. “Are any of them still here?”
A dark-haired woman stepped forward and spoke. “They left sentries around the house. There’s one man by the elm tree in front.”
“Not anymore. We didn’t see any others,” Betsey told the group. “Everybody stay right here while we look around.”
FBI agents were inside and spreading out all over the house. Some of the hostages began to cry when they realized they weren’t going to die, that they’d finally been rescued.
“They said we’d be killed if we tried to leave the house before tomorrow morning. They told us about the Buccieri and Casselman families,” a tall, dark-haired woman said between sobs. Her name was Mary Jordan and she’d been in charge of the tour group.
We did a careful search of the house — no one else was there. There wasn’t any obvious evidence, but the technicians would be here soon. The tour bus had already been found in a shed on the former army base.
After half an hour or so, Mrs. Morris came waddling through the front door. A couple of agents were futilely trying to stop her. The local woman’s appearance was an almost comical punctuation to the stress of the last several hours. “Why did you hit old Bud O’Mara? He’s just a nice fella, works at the truck stop. Bud said he was paid to stand around and wait. Got all of a hundred bucks for the dent in his skull. He’s harmless, Bud is.”
An odd and exhilarating thing happened as several rescue vehicles finally arrived. The hostages started to clap and to cheer. We’d come for them; we hadn’t let them die.
But I knew otherwise: For some reason, the Mastermind hadn’t wanted them to die.
Part Four
HIT AND RUN
Chapter 69
OF COURSE, the case continued to be a full-blown knock-down-drag-out media event. The press had learned about the existence of a “Mastermind,” and it made for sensational headlines. A picture of the Buccieri boy, one of the first victims, was the featured art in story after story. I had begun seeing the little boy’s face in my dreams.
I was working twelve- and sixteen-hour days. The Washington bank robber named Mitchell Brand was still high on the list of FBI suspects. He had been up on the wall of suspects for over a week. We hadn’t been able to locate Brand, but he fit the profile. Meanwhile, crime-scene investigators covered the money pickup site, combing it for evidence. FBI technicians went over every square inch of the Browne farmhouse. Traces of theatrical makeup were found in the sink of the farmhouse. I talked to several hostages, and they supported the idea that the kidnappers might have worn makeup, wigs, and possibly lifts in their shoes.
Sampson and I worked in Washington the first two days. MetroHartford had offered a million-dollar reward for information leading to the capture of the men involved in the crime. The reward was aimed at the general public, but also at anyone involved in the robbery whose take was less than the reward being offered.
The search for the bank robber Mitchell Brand was also centered in Washington. Brand was a thirty-year-old black man who was suspected in half a dozen robberies, but who had never been officially charged and suddenly had gone underground. Once upon a time he had been an army sergeant in Desert Storm. Brand was known to be violent. According to his army records, he had an IQ over one-fifty.
A mountain of evidence was being collected, but the notoriety of the case was also working against us. The phone calls and faxes offering tips never stopped coming at the FBI field office. Suddenly, there were hundreds of leads to follow up. I wondered if the Mastermind was still working against us.
The second night after the MetroHartford kidnapping, Sampson showed up at the house around eleven. I had just gotten there myself. I grabbed a couple of cold beers and we talked out on the sunporch more or less like civilized adults.
“I was hoping to see the little prince tonight,” Sampson said as we sat down.
“He’s coming here to live with us.” I told John the latest news. Some of it, anyw
ay.
He broke into a broad smile, his teeth as large and white as piano keys. “That’s great news, sugar. I assume Ms. Christine is coming as part of the package.”
I shook my head. “No, she isn’t, John. She’s never gotten over what happened with Geoffrey Shafer. She’s still afraid for her life, for all of our lives. She doesn’t want to see me anymore. It’s over between us.”
Sampson just stared at me. “You two were so good together. I don’t buy it, sugar.”
“I didn’t, either. Not for months. I offered to leave police work and I guess I would have. Christine told me it wouldn’t matter.”
I stared into my friend’s eyes. “I’ve lost her, John. I’m trying to move on. It breaks my heart.”
Chapter 70
MY BEEPER went off late the following night at the house. It was Sampson. “All hell is breaking loose,” he said. “Seriously, Alex.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“I’m with Rakeem Powell right now. We’re over at the East Capitol Dwellings. One of his snitches gave us something good. We might have located Mitchell Brand.”
“What’s the problem, then?” I asked.
“Rakeem called his lieutenant. The lou called the Jefe. Chief Pittman has half of D.C. on the way here now.”
I think I actually saw red at that moment. “It’s still my goddamn case. Pittman didn’t contact me.”
“That’s why I’m calling you, sugar. Better burn on over here.”
I met Sampson at the East Capitol Dwellings housing project. According to the snitch, Brand was holed up there. East Capitol Dwellings are what I’ve heard called a “subsidized human warehouse.” Actually, the project looks like a failed prison. Cold, white cinder-block fences surround bunkerlike buildings. It’s thoroughly depressing and not atypical of housing in much of Southeast. The poor people who live here do the best they can under the circumstances.