30

Rocket Man, as they immediately dubbed him, was a wiry, brown-haired, brown-eyed, suntanned ex-con with an expired driver’s license. “Hey, I just forgot to renew it, you know?” he told the agents. “That never happens to you?”

Scott and Kenzie sat across the table from him, while Crow and Sheriff Hughes monitored the conversation, watching a video feed from an adjoining room. Kenzie had recommended a game plan with Scott. Now they were putting it into action.

“What’s your friend’s name?” Scott said, throwing an eight-by-ten picture of Billy Foster in front of Rocket Man, whose name, at least on the expired license, was Frederick Fisher.

Fisher glanced at it. “I don’t know him.”

“You don’t know him? You buy stuff from his shop, don’t you?” Scott said, bluffing.

Fisher shrugged. “So maybe I seen him once or twice. It ain’t like he’s a friend of mine.”

“Who’s all the beer for?” Scott asked.

“So now it’s illegal to buy beer?” Fisher shook his head. “Me and some guys. We’re out enjoying the day, you know? Doing a little fishing. Can’t do much without beer.”

“So where do you fish around here?” Kenzie asked, feigning interest.

“Monocacy River. Or one of the lakes. Farm ponds sometimes.”

“You have a license?”

Fisher’s face darkened. “Look, not everybody does things by the book, OK? It just ain’t gonna happen all the time.”

“Who are these guys you’re out fishing with?” Kenzie asked.

“Just some friends, all right? A guy named Bob, and a guy named Junior.”

“Junior what? Is that his name, or the suffix to his name?”

“What?” Fisher seemed puzzled. He shook his head. “It don’t matter. I just call him Junior. Been calling him that for years.”

Scott rubbed his chin. “Fish biting today?”

“Yeah, man. We’re catching a lot. Sunnies. Bluegill. That’s why we needed the beer, we’re having so much fun, we’re going to stay longer.”

Kenzie opened the folder in front of him and took out an eight-by-ten picture of Zoe. “Mr. Fisher,” she said, rising to her feet and plopping the picture in front of him, “kidnapping is a federal offense. There’s no parole in federal cases, did you know that? And if this child dies, it could be a capital offense. Did you hear me, Fisher? You could be charged as an accomplice in a capital case. That’s the death penalty, Mr. Fisher. The Big Sleep.”

“What? What are you talking about? I never seen this kid!” Fisher’s face turned red. Sweat had formed on his brow.

“Mr. Fisher, it’s ninety-five degrees outside,” Kenzie continued, pressing him. “Fish don’t bite when it’s that hot, especially in midday. They go deep in the water, where it’s cooler. You haven’t been fishing. That beer isn’t for your fictitious friends. You’ve been lying to us, Mr. Fisher, and we don’t like it when people lie to us.”

A drop of sweat ran right down the side of Fisher’s face.

Scott jumped in. “Wait, wait,” he said, holding up his hand to stop Kenzie. “Relax. You know what I think? Mr. Fisher’s a victim, too, I think.”

Kenzie pretended to be disgusted.

“It’s true, isn’t it, Mr. Fisher?” Scott said, looking sympathetically at the man. “Sometimes we can get roped into things, can’t we? We’re with some friends, we go along with the crowd, and suddenly, we’re in trouble.” Scott furrowed his brow. “I don’t think you wanted to kidnap a little girl, did you, Fred? I don’t think that was your idea at all. Am I right?”

“He’s guilty, can’t you see that?” Kenzie exclaimed to her partner. “We’ve got his motorcycle tire treads at that house where they had Zoe!”

“Wait! Stop! He’s right!” Fisher yelled. “I didn’t want nothing to do with no kid! Nothing!”

“Then tell me,” Scott said, leaning forward. “Where is Billy Foster? And where is Zoe?”

Fisher looked up at Scott, then at Kenzie, then back to Scott.

“You tell us where we can find them,” Scott said, softly. “I’ll get you a deal. That’s the way it works. You know that. You’ve seen the TV shows.”

“Don’t let him off the hook!” Kenzie said.

But Scott continued. “There’s no reason you should go down for this, man. It wasn’t your idea! This little girl’s father is a powerful man in D.C., a very powerful man. I know he’d be grateful to anyone who helped get her back.”

Fisher swallowed hard. His eyes darted around the room, like he was looking for a way to escape. Then he dropped his head. “There’s a cabin, up in the mountains,” he mumbled. “I can show you on a map.”

“Where is Fisher?”

Grayson cringed at the sound of Billy’s voice. The man seemed restless, looking out of the window, stepping out on the front porch. Grayson figured he was listening in vain for the sound of Fred’s motorcycle making its way back up the rutted path to the cabin and growing angrier by the minute. And in the short period of time Grayson had known him, he’d learned that an angry Billy was a man to be avoided.

Once again, he tugged at the ropes binding him. Still tight. A motion caught his eye. He looked to his right. Zoe had progressively moved farther and farther along behind the couch until she’d gotten all the way to the far end. Now, she began creeping up the stairs.

The kid was smart. She’d been quiet for so long, everybody had forgotten about her. Now, she would wait for Billy to look the other way, then she’d move up a step. Gradually, she was making her way up to the second floor.

Grayson sighed. The kid had all the luck.

Scott’s eyes were bright as he checked his gun. “All right,” he said. “The SWAT team is suiting up. They’ll be here within the hour. Sheriff, is your emergency response team on deck?”

“Absolutely. They’ll deploy when I call them.”

“All right. We’re going to go scope out this cabin. If it’s what we think it is, we’ll bring them on.” He looked at Kenzie and Crow. “What do you think about asking Alicia to bring Senator Grable to Frederick? I promised him we’d bring him closer once we had a fix on Zoe’s location.”

Kenzie took a deep breath. “I think Fisher’s description of the child and of Chambers makes it pretty clear. At least up until about ninety minutes ago, Zoe was at this cabin.”

Crow nodded. “I agree.”

“All right then.” Scott said. “Check your weapons and your radios. Make sure SWAT is up on A-One. I’ll be ready in a minute.”

The twenty-minute ride up into the mountains would have been beautiful had they been going for any other reason. Kenzie’s mind raced with possibilities and contingencies. Scott would call the shots, but she still wanted to think things out, to test her developing field skills, at least in her own mind.

Scott drove quickly up the curvy mountain road. He followed the sheriff, allowing the man more familiar with the terrain to take the lead.

“What did Grable say?” Kenzie asked Scott.

“He seemed very excited.”

Kenzie looked at the passing trees. The hardwood forest had been uncut for at least half a century; the trees were sixty to eighty feet tall and the forest was dense with underbrush and outcroppings of rock. “Isn’t Camp David around here somewhere?” she asked.

“Yes. For the president, it’s a short hop on a helicopter but a world away from the White House.”

“You’re not kidding.” She looked at Scott. He stayed quiet for a while, concentrating on the road and probably praying, she figured. Suddenly, she remembered Scott giving her a piece of paper the night they’d driven up from Washington. She shoved her hand in her pocket and retrieved it. He’d written a Scripture verse on it: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. Isaiah 43:2”

Scott glanced over at her. Their eyes met. “That’s what I’ve been praying for you, Kenzie. I don’t know why. He’s with you, Kenz. He loves you. Don’t ever forget that.”

Silently, she refolded the paper and put it back in her pocket. It seemed they were nearing the top of the mountain. “So, tell me the drill,” she said.

“The sheriff says that the cabin is in a small clearing in the woods. There’s no real road leading to it. It’s been abandoned for years. We’re going to park near the paved road and hike in through the woods. Then we’re going to watch the place for a while, while the SWAT team gets assembled. When I hear they’re set, if I haven’t seen any reason to wave them off, we’ll do it.”

Despite the fatigue, despite the frustrations, they could be close to ending this thing. Recovering Zoe. Beating the bad guys. “Are you going to be first in?” she said.

“After SWAT. And you can be right behind me. Well, behind Crow. I think he’ll want to be in front of you.” He shifted in his seat. His eyes, fixed on the road, were squinted in tension. “When you were at the Academy, did you see that training video about the Miami shootout? ‘Firefight’?”

“Sure.”

“Do you remember what that agent said?”

She looked at him quizzically.

“ ‘If you lie down to die, you will die.’ Whatever happens, Kenz, don’t lie down. Don’t quit.”

“Why are you saying that?” she asked, alarmed. “Do you know something I don’t know?” But he wouldn’t respond.

The sheriff had pulled into a fire trail, moving far enough from the paved road to hide their cars. Scott’s SUV bounced over the ruts. When Sheriff Hughes parked his car behind a stand of trees, Scott pulled up next to him. “It’s go time,” he said, turning to Kenzie.

She nodded. Her mouth felt dry. Scott was freaking her out.

The heat seemed particularly oppressive this August day. Thunderstorms were in the forecast. Kenzie looked around. A couple of leaves on the poplar trees had already turned golden yellow, foretelling the coming of fall, but it would be another six weeks before the cool weather would arrive.

Poplars, oaks, pines, and dogwoods covered the mountainside. Half a century before, to create the Catoctin National Forest, the federal government seized land owned by families for generations. They paid them well, but some people had never gotten over the loss of the homesteads, the hunting cabins, and the mountain farms.

The cabin where they were going was a two-story rural retreat once owned by a wealthy Maryland political family. They had used it as a summer respite from the heat in Washington. The government had never bothered to tear the old place down. The locals, knowing it had been abandoned, sometimes appropriated it for themselves for short-term use. The locks were long gone.

To get to the place without detection, the agents had to walk a good twenty minutes up a steep mountain incline. The ballistic vests the four were wearing were heavy and hot, and it wasn’t long before all of them were sweating. Kenzie’s head ached and a couple of times as they went over some of the more precipitous rock outcroppings Crow turned around and gave her a hand up.

They were paralleling the rutted path leading up to the cabin. A couple of newly cut trees and neatly stacked wood were indications a local Boy Scout troop maintained the path as a hiking trail.

Kenzie tripped as they went down into a ravine. Crow caught her, his hand gripping her arm. They came up the other side, walked about fifty feet more, and then the sheriff motioned for them to stop. He pointed forward. There, through a thick stand of cedars, they could see the cabin.

Scott wordlessly motioned them to move to where they could see what appeared to be the front porch. The cabin, old as it was, still looked sturdy. Four steps led up to the covered porch. Another porch ran along the back. The two-story structure had windows on both levels. A car and one motorcycle sat parked out front.

“I don’t see any electricity or phone lines, or any other utilities,” Kenzie whispered.

“That’s right,” said the sheriff. “If you come up here, you’ve got to port your own water and use the woods as a latrine.”

“That car is the same make and model as Grayson’s mother’s car,” Crow said quietly.

“Let’s move around,” Scott said, motioning toward the back of the house.

The four of them crept through the woods, careful to keep a screen of vegetation between them and the cabin. Crouched back in the forest, binoculars trained on the house, they finally got their break.

“There he is,” the sheriff whispered. A large man stood silhouetted in the kitchen window. “That’s Billy.”

Kenzie froze. All the stress and dashed expectations of the last couple of days coalesced into a charge of adrenaline so potent she trembled. They’d found them. Was Zoe alive?

When the figure moved away, Scott motioned to them to back off. Time to call for reinforcements. They moved back toward the rutted path with Scott in the lead. Kenzie was following him, and the sheriff and Crow trailed slightly behind. He was leading them back to a place they could regroup and make a plan. They’d call in the SWAT team and figure out the best way to extricate Zoe.

Kenzie’s neck was slick with sweat and she felt slightly light-headed from the heat and the tension. She focused on the yellow-orange “FBI” on the back of Scott’s ballistic vest. A bee buzzed around her head and she swatted it away.

Suddenly, Scott stopped. “FBI!” he yelled. He whipped his gun out of his holster and crouched into a shooting position. “Put down your gun! Put it down!”