“… and in the Quincy district of Alexandria, Virginia, a gas station owner found two flags — Old Glory and the flag of Virginia — lying on the dusty pavement. An accident? Wind damage? No. Someone had deliberately taken a brick and knocked the cleats off those poles. Now, why am I whining about vandalism when there are murderers and terrorists on the loose? Two words — no respect …”
Aiden frowned. Why did that story sound so familiar?
All at once, he was out of his seat, practically dancing around Agent Ortiz. “We’ve got to get home! Now!”
Ortiz raised an eyebrow. “What’s the big hurry?”
He knew it would sound crazy, but he had to say it anyway: “I think I know where Meg is.”
In the shadow of the swing set where he and Meg had once played, Aiden confronted the FBI agent who had contributed more than anyone else to the Falconer family’s sorrows.
Harris listened patiently as Aiden told him of the incident at the school where Meg had brought down the American flag.
The tall man took a sip of his coffee. “An accident — freak hit with a baseball bat.”
“Now the same thing has happened in Alexandria,” Aiden persisted. “Two flags, side by side. That can’t be a coincidence.”
Harris shrugged. “Vandalism. Happens all the time, especially in a district like Quincy that’s all factories and warehouses. Nobody lives there. The whole area empties out at night. There’s nothing to connect that act to Meg.”
Aiden was growing frustrated. “You’re not listening. Meg got into a lot of trouble over that flag thing. She knows I’d remember. This is a message from her. I’m positive.”
The FBI man tried to be kind. “I hear what you’re saying. But you have to admit it’s pretty flimsy. Ever been to Quincy? It goes on for miles — hundreds of buildings, half of them abandoned. It takes manpower to search an area like that — manpower I don’t have and couldn’t get if I asked for it. Not on a hunch.”
Aiden knew his theory sounded far-fetched. But there was something inside of him — something tied to Meg — that was sure this wasn’t just a hunch. “Picture it, Agent Harris. She gets away from her kidnappers for just a few seconds. No one’s around; everything’s closed; no way to reach a phone. And then she sees these two flagpoles.”
Harris hesitated. It was a long shot — the kind of conjecture that could only come from a desperate family member. Yet there was a tiny part of the improbable story that rang true. As fugitives, the Falconer kids had depended on each other 1,000 percent — so much so that they were often thinking with a single mind. If Meg had the chance to send a message, it made perfect sense that she’d send it to her brother. If the kidnappers were near, she couldn’t use a signal they’d be able to catch. She’d have to choose something only Aiden would know was a signal….
“Tell you what,” he said finally. “I’ll call over to Alexandria PD. I’ll let them know what’s going on, ask them to keep an eye open.”
“That’s no good!” All of Aiden’s frustrations exploded. “That’s like saying while you’re writing parking tickets, if you happen to notice a kidnapped girl tied up in the backseat, report it! If you won’t do this right, I will! My dad and I will go over to Alexandria and search those warehouses ourselves!”
“Your father,” Harris reminded him, “has agreed to play things my way, because that’s what’s best for Meg. I know you think we’re all idiots at the FBI. But this is not my first kidnapping. A case like this requires calm professionalism, not going off on a wild-goose chase after a lead that’s probably nothing.”
Aiden’s face twisted with anger. “I don’t know why I bothered coming to you! You don’t care what happens to my sister! Our family is nothing to you but another promotion!”
Harris watched him turn on his heel and stomp away. The degree to which the Falconer kids hated him always stung a little. Not that he blamed them.
The truth was the more he thought about the conversation with Aiden, the more he felt the boy’s theory deserved attention. It was clearly a stretch. And yet —
For two months, those two kids had avoided capture by the law and murder at the hands of a trained killer. Their survival had depended on unpredictable desperate acts just like the one Aiden was describing. Sending a message by breaking flagpole cleats? Totally crazy. And also totally Falconer.
But if I call Quantico and ask for twenty agents to search the area around a pair of dropped flags, I’ll get laughed out of the Bureau. The higher-ups would never go for it.
He downed what was left of his coffee, wincing at the taste of the grainy sludge at the bottom of the cup. Maybe the FBI would refuse to assign any agents to this. But Hank Brajansky was on vacation this week, just hanging around home. Brajansky owed Harris a favor. And he lived on the Virginia side.
Harris reached for his cell phone.
HELP ME.
MY NAME IS MARGARET FALCONER, AND I HAVE BEEN KIDNAPPED BY TWO MEN AND A WOMAN. I’M BEING HELD IN AN ABANDONED WAREHOUSE. I DON’T KNOW WHERE, EXCEPT THAT IT’S IN VIRGINIA. IF YOU ARE READING THIS NOTE, YOU ARE VERY CLOSE. LOOK FOR AN ELECTRICAL CABLE COMING IN THROUGH A FIRST-FLOOR WINDOW. THAT’S HOW WE GET POWER HERE.
MOST OF THE TIME THEY’VE GOT ME LOCKED IN A WINDOWLESS STOREROOM IN AN OFFICE AREA ON THE MAIN FLOOR. WHEN I’M IN ANY OTHER PART OF THE BUILDING, THEY’RE WATCHING ME, USUALLY HOLDING ON TO ME. THEY DON’T TRUST ME BECAUSE I NEARLY ESCAPED ONCE.
PLEASE CALL THE POLICE. I’VE SEEN THEIR FACES, AND I’M AFRAID OF WHAT THAT MIGHT MEAN.
Meg looked up from the piece of paper she’d been writing on. It was completely blank. The one pen in the storeroom was bone-dry. Her message was hard-etched on the back of a 1978 brochure for children’s hockey equipment. As it was, nobody would ever see it for anything more than an outdated price list for skates and pads. But Meg wasn’t finished with it yet.
On a corner shelf piled high with empty binders Meg had found an old glass ashtray, filled to overflowing with cigarette butts and ashes.
Good old 1978, she thought, sifting through the gray-black dust. The golden age of smoking. She had spent the last hour working at the stuff with her fingers, grinding it into a powder. It was gross and still smelled bad after all these years, but she prayed it would suit her purpose.
Her fingers were now black with ash, but that was the point. When she was sure that the whole load was as fine as she could make it, she dumped the contents of the tray onto her note and began to smear it back and forth across the paper.
The result was even better than she’d hoped. The ash stained the entire page, leaving the etched lettering standing out, stark white.
Now she had the message. But how on earth was she going to deliver it? The closest she ever came to the outside world was when her captors allowed her to use the bathroom. Even then, the woman went in with her and waited right outside the stall. No one was ever going to let her near a door, or even a window.
The kidnappers no longer wore their rubber masks. What would be the point after she’d already seen their faces? Since she had no other names to go by, Meg still thought of them in terms of their disguises. The large, bearded man was Spidey, the younger man was Mickey, and the woman was Tiger. The Three Animals.
Lucky me.
Spidey had a bad temper and an even worse attitude, backed up by the body of a professional wrestler. He was nasty and menacing. Meg had no trouble believing that he was capable of harming her.
Tiger was much less volatile. But in a way, Meg found her even scarier. She went through the motions of being pleasant, reassuring Meg that they meant her no harm and that everything was going to turn out all right. But her eyes were ice-cold, her manner all business. After Meg’s escape attempt, Spidey had ranted and raved and threatened. But it was Tiger who had said matter-of-factly, “Try that once more and you’ll never see home again.”
Mickey was the only one Meg considered a human being. True, he was a kidnapper, a criminal. But he was kind and always se
emed to look embarrassed and regretful whenever he was guarding her.
Meg sensed this and tried to take advantage of it. She started with compliments — how nice he was, how decent, how fair, not like the others. “Why would you risk going to prison for those two? A sweet guy like you wouldn’t last five minutes in jail. Believe me, I know. I was in Juvie, and that’s nothing compared to adult time. My parents tell stories that would curl your hair!”
Mickey didn’t answer, but he didn’t get mad, either. He appeared to be thinking it over.
“Listen, it’s not too late to get out of this,” she pushed on. “If you let me go, I’ll tell the cops you were good to me, and that you probably saved my life. Don’t risk your whole future — ”
“Shut up!” he exploded suddenly. “You know nothing about my future! You know nothing about me! You think I’m proud of this? You think I put kidnapper when my class wrote essays on ‘what I want to be when I grow up’?”
“Then why — ?”
He cut her off. “For the money, okay? I’m doing this because I need the money, period!”
Meg seized on this. “So this whole thing is for money? You’re holding me for ransom?”
Mickey clammed up and refused to speak anymore.
Her mind was in overdrive. Here it was, the answer to the biggest question of all — the why. This had nothing to do with HORUS Global, or her parents’ imprisonment. These weren’t Falconer haters out for revenge. She had been kidnapped for ransom — a crime for money, pure and simple.
The small measure of relief that came from knowing the truth fizzled in a hurry. Where were Mom and Dad going to get ransom money? They weren’t rich people; they were college professors. Besides, their savings had been blown on lawyers back in the days of the trial.
The anguished words were on the tip of her tongue: We can’t pay ransom! My parents are broke —
She clamped her jaw shut. The kidnappers didn’t know that yet. They probably thought the Falconers were rolling in cash. They were famous. There would be book deals, movie deals, wrongful imprisonment lawsuits, and a big settlement from the government.
Maybe. But right now there was nothing.
Meg hesitated. If the kidnappers realized that, would they let her go?
Don’t be stupid!
She’d seen their faces. She could describe them to the police. At this point, the promise of ransom might be the only thing keeping her alive.
But that won’t last forever. Sooner or later, the kidnappers will figure out that Mom and Dad can’t pay. And then what happens?
She touched the pocket of her jeans, where her SOS letter was hidden.
It was more important than ever to find a way to sneak this out of the building.
Mornings were the hardest for Aiden, even worse than the worried sleeplessness of nighttime. Morning was when he had to lurch out of an exhausted slumber, only to remember yet again the awful truth of what had happened to his sister. The split second of grogginess before that terrible memory kicked in was the best part of his day.
The routine was always the same. He would get dressed and join his parents in pushing scrambled eggs around a plate. Dad invariably burned the toast, but no one complained. No one had any intention of eating it anyway.
But that morning, as Aiden was pulling on his shirt, he heard a commotion from below. Running a hand through his tousled hair, he rushed downstairs to see the usual FBI crew in a state of high excitement. Mom and Dad were right in the middle of it, scrambling into coats as Agent Harris urged them on from the doorway.
“Let’s go!”
“Wait for me!” Aiden threw on a jacket and stepped into sneakers, pulling on the backs as he hopped to keep up. He followed his parents into Harris’s Trailblazer. “What’s happening? Where are we going?”
“There’s been a break in the case,” his father told him tensely. “Someone saw Meg.”
A Taser could not have brought Aiden to such sudden alertness. “Where? In Alexandria?”
“No,” Harris said blandly. “Pikesville.”
Aiden was taken aback. Pikesville was in Maryland, just outside Baltimore. It was nowhere near Alexandria, Virginia. He had been so sure that the flagpole incident had been a sign from Meg.
So the FBI had been right not to act on his warning.
“I know I don’t have to tell anybody here to stay by the car and not to interfere with the operation,” Harris lectured as they drove. “We do our work a whole lot better without civilians getting in the way. Remember, any interference could put Meg in danger.”
“We appreciate your letting us come along,” said Louise Falconer stiffly. “You can trust us, I promise you.”
As Pikesville grew closer, Aiden’s belly tightened. After all the time he’d spent praying for this moment to come, it seemed to be happening too fast. They were heading for a confrontation with the kidnappers, with Meg’s life hanging in the balance. What if something went wrong? What if there was shooting? What if the kidnappers panicked and —
His nervous thoughts were interrupted when the Trail-blazer swung into a cul-de-sac of modest homes and pulled up to a police cruiser that was blocking the street. Harris rolled down the window, and an agent leaned into the SUV. It was Ortiz, Aiden’s escort from yesterday.
“Is the team in place?”
“They’re waiting for you,” Ortiz confirmed. He winked at Aiden. “How’s it going, kid?”
Aiden was too scared to do anything but nod.
It did not calm his frazzled nerves to watch Harris swing his long legs out of the SUV and shrug into a king-size bulletproof vest.
“Who called this in?” Harris asked.
“Neighbor,” Ortiz replied. “Said she saw a girl matching Margaret’s description being carried into number sixty-three just after dawn this morning.”
“Okay,” said Harris. “Let’s do it.”
The Falconers stayed with Ortiz at the operation perimeter, scarcely daring to breathe. Aiden stood between his mother and father, the family clinging together for moral support. Their anxiety was almost visible as an aura around them.
Aiden was amazed at the depth of his fear. As a fugitive, he had faced a violent death from point-blank range time and time again. But this — watching from a safe distance — was worse. He had no control over what was going to happen.
There were six agents in the assault team, backed up by two sharpshooters with high-powered rifles. Harris was the leader. In his bulky vest, he had the silhouette of Shaquille O’Neal — an imposing figure as he approached the front door of number 63.
And then the operation was under way — a blur of sound and motion. No warning was given. The door was kicked in, and armed agents swarmed into the house.
“FBI!”
Shouts rang out from inside. Aiden listened intently. It was mayhem, but the noise he feared the most — gunfire — never came.
The agents began to clear the building. A man emerged first, followed by a woman. And then — the Falconers squeezed one another so tightly that Aiden felt genuine pain —
It was a preteen girl with short dark hair. She was the right age, the right height, the right build. But Aiden would have known at any distance that this was not Meg.
A mournful sigh escaped the three Falconers.
It was a false alarm.
When Mickey opened the door of Meg’s storage closet to ask if she needed a bathroom break, he was startled when a paper airplane sailed past his ear.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“Trying to keep from dying of boredom,” she replied, folding a new plane. “It isn’t exactly Disneyland in here.”
His eyes scanned the room. “Where did you get that paper?”
“Some old catalog inserts. I think this place used to make sports stuff for kids.” He looked suspicious, so she added, “Come on, how can a couple of paper airplanes help me escape? Here — watch this.”
With a delicate flick of her wrist, she sent the elabo
rately folded plane through a series of loops and barrel rolls until it landed gently at his feet.
He bent down to pick it up. “There’s no way you could ever do that again.”
“Oh, yeah? Give it here.” The craft’s next flight was almost a perfect duplication of the last.
Mickey’s eyes narrowed. “Give me a sheet of that paper.” He folded a standard model and launched it with a full windup that would not have been out of place on a pitcher’s mound. The plane screamed across the storeroom and flattened its nose against the far wall.
“Not bad,” Meg said grudgingly. “But you’re building for speed and distance. In a small space, you need more finesse.”
Six aircraft later, Mickey still had not mastered finesse. So he went back to his old design, bringing Meg out to the factory floor so their planes could “let it all hang out.”
This was exactly what Meg had been hoping for. She kept her eyes peeled for Spidey and Tiger, but there was no sign of the other two kidnappers. She had heard them leaving earlier that morning and had to assume they had not yet returned. Mickey probably wouldn’t have released her from her cell if they’d been around.
He ushered her out onto the warehouse floor, dead-bolting the entrance to the office area behind them with a key. “No tricks,” he warned.
“Gotcha.” There was no way out of this section anyway — not unless she could summon the strength to tear open a padlocked steel garage door.
Equipped with four airplanes apiece, Mickey and Meg established themselves on a small low platform that had probably once supported a heavy machine and began testing their skills. They flew for distance and accuracy, swapping secrets of flap folding and nose design, and even laughing a little. It all seemed so comfortable, so normal, that Meg could almost forget that her companion was not a friend, but a felon who was holding her for ransom.
But she didn’t forget. The true purpose of all this never left her mind for an instant. As they wrangled over speed versus maneuverability, Meg was very much aware of the SOS note in her pocket. It felt larger than a folded piece of paper, as if its importance to her survival had given it added heft. She scanned her surroundings, searching for a crack or hole large enough to slip the letter through.