THIRTY-FOUR

Mitchell Raines told the waiter to bring him and his friend Del Glickman another bottle of wine. The waiter, whose name was Robert, asked Mitchell Raines if they were celebrating anything. Mitchell Raines said that Del’s son had just gotten accepted into medical school. Which wasn’t true. Mitchell Raines liked to make things up on the spot, get people to stop and look at him to see if he was serious. Saying he couldn’t read or that he had had a fight with someone while they were in the restroom or that he had been Jeanne Tripplehorn’s first husband. The waiter was used to this sort of joking around from Mitchell Raines. But he was glad that Mitchell and his friend had taken a table in his station because Mitch Raines always tipped well.

They had just opened the second bottle of wine when Del Glickman called the mâitre d’ over. The mâitre d’s name was Mark, and Del and Mitchell knew him from La Baguette off Brentwood Boulevard. Mark was British and he usually had something for them.

Del Glickman said, “Mark, tell us what you think of this new French restaurant they opened on Euclid.”

“It’s … acceptable, I suppose.”

“What’t the clientele like?”

“Oh, the usual. Poofs and trollops. They get all a-bother if a fork is dropped on the floor, even though two hours later they’ll go home with a complete stranger and put his cock in their mouth.”

Mitch and Del loved this. Mark could usually deliver. Droll and British. Fag jokes were okay coming from him.

A cell phone rang. Rang again and the mâitre’ d said, “You’re not going to answer that, are you?”

“Yes,” Mitchell said. Then he said, “This is Mitch.”

“Mitchell Raines?”

“Yes. Who am I speaking to?”

“George Hastings. I’m a lieutenant with the St. Louis Police Department.”

“Oh. What can I do for you?”

“A few months ago, you gave a statement to the County Police Department regarding the disappearance of one of your employees.”

“Yes. Gaby.”

“Gabrielle Bersch.”

“Yes. We called her Gaby. Have you found her?”

“No. I’m sorry, we haven’t. You gave a very helpful statement to the police.”

“Did I.”

“Yes. It was very comprehensive. But I’m wondering if there was something else.”

“Like what?”

“Well, the report said that she called her mother and said that she’d had enough and she wanted to come home.”

“Yes.”

“I was wondering if you knew what she wanted to come home from?”

Mitch Raines sighed. “I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

“Did she quit or did you fire her?”

“I fired her.”

“How come?”

“Oh, she was fucking up. She was preaching to the customers, starting arguments. Liberal shit. I mean, that’s nothing new at our shop. But she was getting militant. And it was putting off the clients. It was too bad because she was a real sweet girl.”

“Did you know her roommate, Janet Rusnok?”

“No. Never met her.”

Hastings said, “You said ‘militant’.”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know. Radical. Tree hugging. No, wait. Not tree hugging. It wasn’t about the environment. I mean, like communist.”

“Had she joined some sort of group?”

“She was into something called— Del?”

“Yes?”

“What was that group Gaby used to talk about? The one she said she met up with at Cicero’s?”

“Liberation … Earth?”

“Liberation Earth?”

“No. Not Earth. Fuck.… Front. That’s it. Liberation Front.”

Mitch said into the phone, “Liberation Front.”

Hastings wrote it down on his pad. “Liberation Front. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Did you discuss this with the County police?”

“I don’t think so. It never came up. I mean, I didn’t think it would mean anything. Half of my staff is into weird shit I can’t keep track of. You know how that is.”

“Yeah,” Hastings said. “Thanks for your help.”

*   *   *

Hastings called Gabler on his cell phone.

Hastings said, “Where are you?”

Gabler said, “Craig and I are at St. Louis PD. Craig’s in the interrogation room with your man interviewing Ernie Shavers. I’m on the other side of the glass. Hey, why did you have Klosterman bring the guy here?” Gabler sounded irritated, suggesting Hastings was trying to scoop him.

Hastings said, “I’m sorry about that. It was just something I was having them check out. I wasn’t trying to hide it. I had Murph call you.”

Gabler sighed. “Yeah, I guess you did.”

Hastings said, “How’s it going?”

“Lame. No offense, but I think it’s a dead end. The guy’s got an alibi and even if he didn’t, I don’t think he had anything to do with this.”

“What does Klosterman think?”

“He think’s the same thing,” Gabler said. “You want to ask him yourself?”

“No, I believe you. Listen, write this name down: Jan Rusnok.”

“Jan Rusnok. With a k or a ck?”

“K. R-u-s-n-o-k. Rusnok. She used to be a legal assistant at Tom Myers’s law firm. She got fired a couple of months ago. She knew that Tom would be taking Cordelia to Fisher’s Christmas party.”

“So what?”

“Well, it may not mean anything. But Fisher seems awful nervous about her. She was apparently part of some left-wing radical group called the Liberation Front. And she had a roommate named Gabrielle Bersch who disappeared.”

“The Liberation Front?” Gabler seemed interested now. “Was that all? It wasn’t the Earth Liberation Front or the Green Front?”

“No, just the Liberation Front. Why? Have you heard of it?”

“Yeah, I have actually.”

Hastings was standing next to his car again. He put his hand on the roof. “You think we got something here?”

“We might,” Gabler said. “Jesus, we might. Where are you now?”

“West of the city.”

“There’s a file on this group at our field office. Can you meet me there?”

*   *   *

Minutes later, Hastings was racing the Jag down the interstate, the speedometer hovering between eighty and eighty-five, the burble of the engine sounding contented as the red police light on the dash flicked on and off. Driving fast because he could feel that they had something now. Not knowing in fact, but feeling that the prey was in sight, was near. The fear in Sam Fisher’s voice as he spoke of Jan Rusnok, not having any proof that she was connected to it, but being scared that she was, the fear that comes from a gut feeling of dealing with a person. Maybe she was just a misfit. A loser who couldn’t hold on to a job at a law firm even when the managing partner was going out of his way to give her a break. A person could be misguided and self-destructive, but that didn’t necessarily make them capable of kidnapping and murder. We’re all misguided and self-destructive at times, but few of us can murder with ease. At least that’s how Hastings saw it.

But Hastings hadn’t sat across a desk and stared into the hateful eyes of Jan Rusnok. Sam Fisher had, and whatever it was he’d seen, it seemed to have scared him. And Sam Fisher had not seemed, to Hastings, a man who was scared easily. Jan Rusnok had rattled him, though. Enough that he had felt it was important to tell Hastings about it tonight. And then a roommate of hers had disappeared.

Janet Rusnok. What was she? A loser? Or part of something bigger, scarier? What would the FBI have on this group that she was associated with?

“Oh, shit,” Hastings said aloud.

The guy who telephoned Judy Chen had called himself Carl. A pseudonym, right? But there was Karl Marx and there was a disgruntled girl who had joined a radical, left-wing group that the FBI had a file on. Maybe it was just a coincidence. A piece of a puzzle that wasn’t really a piece, but something that Hastings wanted to fit. Deduction, my dear Watson. Deduction, bullshit. What if they were all off the mark? Desperate, well-meaning men grasping at straws because, as Edie Penmark had said, they hadn’t yet found Cordelia.

They had been concentrating on her. Who was in Cordelia’s life? Who was near to her, near enough to know who she was and track her, prey upon her? Using that premise hadn’t gotten them anywhere. Now, they were presented with a theory that just had a couple of pieces, just a handful that could mean something. And the presumption this time was not that they knew about Cordelia from Cordelia’s world, but from Tom Myers’s world. Tom Myers, a young ambitious lawyer, a social climber who might have been using Cordelia. Not for sex, but for the status she could bring him and for her money. Who at his law firm would not be aware that he was courting Cordelia Penmark? What an accomplishment that was. She wasn’t a raving beauty, but she was one of the richest of the rich, a penthouse away from a young lawyer from a modest background. Being with her gave Tom Myers a pass; a bypass of sorts over the Sam Fishers of this world, over the middlemen. Would Tom Myers have let people know that? If not directly, then indirectly? Cordelia’s roommate had indicated that Tom Myers was a run-of-the-mill toady. Perhaps smarter and better-looking than most, but a toady all the same. He would kiss up to those above him and ignore or bully those below. Kiss up to Sam Fisher, at least for the time being, but treat the legal assistants like field hands.

To Tom Myers, maybe Jan Rusnok was a field hand. But maybe she was the sort who remembered and wrote down grudges in her own little book.

The book. Murph had once explained that concept to Hastings. He said it was an Irish thing. If someone wronged you, you didn’t necessarily have to get vengeance right away. But you would remember. It would not be forgotten. “It’s in the book,” Murph said.

An SUV up ahead caught the flashing police light in its rearview mirror and moved out of the passing line. Hastings pressed the accelerator a little harder. Forest Park passed by on his left now, the Arch coming into view.

*   *   *

Kubiak and Gabler were in a workroom, files and photographs spread out on a conference table. There was something in the air, an anticipation of sorts. A lead that might finally mean something. It was Kubiak who spoke to him first.

He said, “Lieutenant, you may have hit on something. You ever hear of something called the Liberation Front?”

“Not till today.”

Kubiak slid a photo over to him. It was a picture of Mickey Seften.

“Recognize him?” Kubiak said.

“Yeah. He was the man on the train.”

Kubiak looked over to Gabler.

Gabler said, “God damn.”

“What?” Hastings said.

“These are the jackal bins,” Kubiak said.

Hastings said, “The what?”

Gabler said, “It’s an inside joke of sorts. A small left-wing group was formed over the last couple of years. They call themselves the Liberation Front.” He pushed another photograph over to Hastings. “That’s Terrill Colely. The leader. He was arrested for destruction of property and negligent assault last year by the Portland police. Before his trial, he was busted out. They used a journalist to sneak in a couple of gunmen. Two deputies were murdered, and Colely escaped. After it happened, the local sheriff held a press conference and called them Jacobins, but another journalist wrote it down wrong. Jackal bins.”

Hastings grunted. Hard to laugh now.

Kubiak handed another photograph to Gabler. Gabler looked at it for a moment, then slid that one over to Hastings.

“This is Maggie Corbitt. Also believed to have been involved in Colely’s escape. Probably his girlfriend. Colely grew up in Peoria, but has been traveling the country since then. A drifter, living underground. Maggie Corbitt lived here for a time. A runaway from Arkansas, she’s been arrested a couple of times for prostitution and drug possession. Nothing much stronger than that.”

Hastings thought briefly of Edie Penmark. Then slid her offstage. He said, “What about the other man in the bathroom?”

Gabler said, “We don’t know. Craig’s suggested that he may have been a Canadian, maybe from Alberta. The Portland police said that there was a lot of drug-running activity over the border in the Pacific Northwest. Maybe that’s why they were up there in the first place.”

Hastings said, “Who else?”

“A young lady named Lee Ensler. The journalist. A graduate of Brown University. Comes from a wealthy family. Before the breakout in Oregon, she had no past record of criminal activity. The Oregon State Police think she just fell under Colely’s spell. Terrill Colely’s a handsome dude, apparently, and a practiced con. She visited him once, just once, before helping break him out. And she’s been underground ever since.”

Kubiak said, “We’ve reexamined the ransom message they put on their videotape and compared it with some of Lee Ensler’s writings. I’ve only had time to look at a couple of samples, but I think it was her creation.”

Hastings said, “You think they’re still around?”

Gabler said, “We have to hope they are. They were here for the drop.”

And that was this morning, Hastings thought. Hard to believe it had only been this morning.

Gabler said, “I think you’ve hit on it, George.” He was giving Hastings a look of admiration now, the professional sort. “But we’ve still got to find them.”

Kubiak said, “We can fax photos of the suspects to all the local law-enforcement agencies. Give them to the media tonight. Media will run them starting tomorrow morning. But…” He refrained from saying that the girl might be dead by then.

But Terrill Colely was already a wanted man. He had had two deputies killed in Oregon months ago and no one had caught him for that. He or someone associated with him had killed Tom Myers and then abducted a girl. They had their money, and the history gave no evidence that they were going to show the girl any mercy. It was on Hastings’s mind and he knew it was on the agents’ too.

Kubiak said, “Maggie Corbitt and Jan Rusnok have ties to St. Louis. We have that.”

Hastings said, “Are Rusnok’s parents living in St. Louis?” He had asked about her, not Corbitt, because they had already said that Corbitt was from Arkansas.

Kubiak looked through the file. “Yeah,” he said. “Ten twelve South Gray. That’s near the Bosnian neighborhood.”

Not far from my own, Hastings thought. He turned to Gabler and said, “Why don’t we go there, see what they know?”

Kubiak said, “She’s got a brother too. Lives near the airport. I’ll go talk to him.”

Gabler said, “Craig, it’s your command. Don’t you think it’d be better to send a couple of agents instead? I think you need to be here to coordinate.” Gabler made a conciliatory gesture. “It’s your command.”

“Okay,” Kubiak said. “I’ll send Crider and Dolworth to the brother’s. You guys go to the parents’.” He turned to Hastings. “Can you spare a couple of men to look into Maggie Corbitt?”

“Yeah. I’ll call ’em.”

*   *   *

Gabler and Hastings drove south by southwest on Gravois Road, the street narrow, sloping down under a railroad bridge, the engine increasing volume as Hastings throttled it back up the other side. Soon, the faux German architecture came into view. South Gravois neighborhood, not really German anymore but Bosnian. Fifty thousand refugees having settled there since the Serbians had officially and unofficially declared war on them. They were a tough people, used to harshness, and Hastings wondered if they knocked on the wrong door at this hour of the night, would they be answered with a shotgun blast? A good many of them didn’t speak English.

He drove past the Croatian-owned video shop next to the QuikTrip, slowed, then turned down a narrow street with tightly packed little row houses. He made a couple of turns and then he saw the address they needed.

Hastings double parked the Jaguar, blocking the road. He left the police light on. He looked at his watch. It was almost midnight.

They rang the doorbell and rapped on the front door until the porch light came on and they saw an old woman’s face peering at them through the window. Looking at two white men in jackets and ties and a flashing red light in a car in the street behind them. It’s a frightening thing to be awakened in the dark of night by sharp knocking on your door, even if you’re not old, but Hastings hoped that she would see the view through her window and figure out they were police.

She didn’t open the door and now they could hear her raised voice from behind the door.

“What do you want?”

“Police, ma’am. We need to speak to you immediately. It’s an emergency.”

“Let me see your identification.”

They held their badges up to the glass so that she could peer at them. She gave them an old woman’s scrutiny, then took in the sight of the unmarked police car beyond. But said again, “What do you want?”

“Ma’am, it’s about your daughter,” Gabler said. “Please let us in.”

She unlocked the door and chain and opened the door. They walked in. It had the smell of a retired person, the heat turned up. The woman was holding her robe closed at the neck. She looked like she was in her sixties. She said, “Is Jannie dead? Is that what you’ve come to tell me?”

“No,” Gabler said.

The old woman blinked at him. “Is she in trouble, then?”

“She may be,” Hastings said. “We’d like to try to help her. Do you know where she is?”

“I haven’t seen her in a couple of months. What’s she done?”

“We don’t know if she’s done anything wrong,” Gabler said. “But we do need to speak to her immediately.”

The woman looked at the FBI agent and then at the police officer. She said, “Why?”

Hastings said, “A girl has been kidnapped. She may be killed if we don’t find her in time.”

“What’s that have to do with Jan?”

“Maybe nothing,” Hastings said. “But we need to speak to her.”

“You think she’s involved?”

“Maybe.”

The lady’s jaw was quivering now. “No,” she said. “No.”

Gabler said, “You said you don’t know where she is.”

“No, I don’t.”

Gabler said, “When’s the last time you saw her?”

“It was before Thanksgiving. She was supposed to come to her brother’s on Thanksgiving. She knew about it.”

“But she didn’t come?” Hastings said.

“No. She didn’t. She came the year before, though. But didn’t stay long. She said there was no place there for her.”

Jan Rusnok’s mother looked as if this had not surprised her.

Gabler said, “Where is Mr. Rusnok?”

“He died last year.” There was little emotion in her voice then. Perhaps she was relieved.

Hastings said, “Did Jan live here before?”

“She moved in and out. She’d come back here after some boy would dump her. But she never stayed long. She said we were common.”

“But she stayed here?” Hastings said.

The old lady shrugged. “What are we supposed to do?” It was their daughter.

Agent Gabler said, “Ma’am, it’s very important that we speak to her. A young girl’s life may be at stake. And if your daughter is mixed up with the people that kidnapped her, she’s in danger too.”

“Sir,” Mrs. Rusnok said, “I don’t know where she is. She didn’t even come to her dad’s funeral.”

“We’re sorry about that,” Hastings said. “But we have to find her. Please help us.”

The old woman was shaking her head. “She doesn’t…”

“Pardon?” Gabler said.

“She doesn’t talk to us.” The woman looked up at the FBI agent. “She doesn’t tell us anything.”

Gabler said, “You said that she would move out when another man would come along. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

Gabler said, “Who was the last man?”

She was looking down at the ground again, perhaps because of a bad memory. But then they saw that she was trying to remember, trying.

She said, “There was a boy that brought her to Kenny’s that Thanksgiving. He was a loser, you could see that. No manners. A bad egg. His name was Ray. Ray something.”

Gabler said, “Can you remember the last name?”

The woman was shaking her head again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Gabler looked at Hastings and then looked back at the woman. “Excuse me,” he said. He moved down the hallway and made a call on his cell phone.

“Craig, this’s Gabe. Who did you send out to the brother’s house?… Charlie?… Give me his number.… Yeah, we’ve got Jan associating with a Ray something, but we don’t have a last name.… All right.”

Gabler placed another call, to Agent Charles Crider. Hastings turned back to the old lady. She caught his expression and said, “You’re not going to hurt her, are you?”

Her face in itself told a story. Not a clueless old lady, but probably pretty sharp. She knew that her daughter was capable of being involved in such a thing. Hastings wondered how long the woman had been able to see her daughter clearly, how long she had resisted closing her eyes to it. She was maybe sixty, but the despair made her look older. Her words told more. You’re not going to hurt her, are you? Resignation in that question, a hard acceptance of what her daughter had become. She had likely seen the same hatred and nihilism as Sam Fisher had seen. She had lived with it and was decent enough to wonder if she’d had some part in forming the girl’s character.

Hastings said, “We don’t want to.”

The woman was looking directly at him now, in a way that almost shamed him. Though he didn’t know why.

Mrs. Rusnok said, “She wasn’t always that way.”

Hastings didn’t say anything. He heard Gabler say, “Oh, that’s great, Charlie, that is great. Okay. Call me if you need anything.”

Gabler walked back to Hastings. He said, “Ray Muller. That’s the guy’s name. Charlie’s calling Craig now.”

Hastings looked at Mrs. Rusnok. He said, “Does that sound right?”

She said, “I still don’t remember. He never told me his name. I guess Kenny remembered, though.”

Hastings said, “Would you mind if we took a quick look through her room?”

“Go ahead.” She seemed very tired now. “But it’s not really her room anymore. I doubt you’ll find anything.”

She was right about that. Her daughter hadn’t left any clothes or personal effects or notes to Ray Muller with a home address. It was a free hotel room for Jan Rusnok and little more. Soon they were finished and walking through the kitchen, where Mrs. Rusnok was sitting at a small red covered kitchen table. She looked up at them, wondering if they could share anything with her, and they couldn’t.

Hastings said, “Thank you for your cooperation. We’ll let you know if we need anything else.”

She didn’t respond.

Five minutes later, they were back in the car, heading back downtown.

*   *   *

Craig Kubiak was standing behind another agent, who was sitting in front of a computer screen. Agent Crider and his partner, Shelly Dolworth, got back to the field station just a few minutes before Hastings and Gabler; they still had their overcoats on. Kubiak turned to make eye contact with Gabler.

Kubiak said, “We’ve got him.”

“Ray Muller?” Gabler said.

“Yes,” Kubiak said. “He’s drawing a government disability.”

“For what?”

Kubiak said, “He was in the army and he got stabbed. Not in combat, mind you. A fight with another soldier. Listen, he was trained in electronics and telecommunications. He was discharged in ninety-eight and he’s been drawing the disability since. He’s thirty years old. County records show that he’s divorced and actually had custody of his son for a couple of years. His ex-wife was paying child support to him until she proved to the court that he was spending it on himself and leaving the kid with his mother. A turd.”

Craig Kubiak in his white shirt and spectacles was sounding more like a beat cop now than a federal agent. He said, “The disability checks are sent to a farmhouse in Illinois. Near White Hall. Off State Highway 9.” Kubiak looked at Hastings. “You know where that is?”

Hastings nodded.

Gabler said, “Have you called Shellow?”

“No,” Kubiak said. “Not yet.”

Hastings said, “What’s the problem?”

Gabler said, “We want all the toys, we have to get authorization. Probably from our SAC. At a minimum, our ASAC.”

“For what?” Hastings said.

“Explosive entry, Hostage Rescue Team, stun grenades, and vehicles disguised so that we look like we’re delivering flowers or some shit.”

Hastings sighed.

Gabler said, “Listen, about fifteen years ago, a bunch of FBI agents tried to take two guys armed to the teeth after a vehicle pursuit. Two, that’s all. All but one of the agents were killed in the firefight. This was before Waco, before Ruby Ridge. Ever since then, they’ve more or less taken … conservative approaches. They don’t like agents getting killed.”

The agent at the computer screen was turned around in his seat. Agents Crider and Dolworth were still with them, Hastings the only Metro cop.

Hastings said, “Well, how long will it take to get authorization?”

“It’s not so much the time,” Kubiak said. “It’s what we have to get authorization. Or don’t have.” He looked at Hastings now. “I wonder if it’s too—speculative. A girl who used to work with Tom Myers…”

Hastings said, “We’ve got more than that and you know it. Craig, it’s right there in front of you. I know you see it.”

Kubiak looked around the room at the other agents and read their expressions and body language. He returned his eyes to Hastings.

Kubiak said, “Are you going to go around me?” Meaning to St. Louis PD and the Illinois State Police. Craig Kubiak wasn’t trying to talk tough now and his tone was not disrespectful. He was asking a straight question.

“I’d rather not,” Hastings said. “But you need to make a decision. Now.”

A few moments passed, no one in the room saying anything.

Then Kubiak said, “Okay. I’ll get the authorization.”