on the second day, chances are they aren’t going to call at all.
“Anything I can do?” Johnson asked.
Webster nodded.
“You can give me a reason,” he said. “Who would threaten you like
this?”
Johnson shook his head. He’d been asking himself the same question
since Monday night.
“Nobody,” he said.
“You should tell me,” Webster said. “Anything secret, anything hidden,
better you tell me right now. It’s important, for Holly’s sake.”
“I know that,” Johnson said. “But there’s nothing. Nothing at all.”
Webster nodded. He believed him, because he knew it was true. He had
reviewed the whole of Johnson’s Bureau file. It was a weighty
document. It started on page one with brief biographies of his
maternal great-grandparents. They had come from a small European
principality which no longer existed.
“Will Holly be OK?” Johnson asked quietly.
The recent file pages recounted the death of Johnson’s wife. A
surprise, a vicious cancer, no more than six weeks, beginning to end.
Covert psychiatric opinion commissioned by the Bureau had predicted the
old guy would hold up because of his daughter. It had proven to be a
correct diagnosis. But if he lost her too, you didn’t need to be a
psychiatrist to know he wouldn’t handle it well. Webster nodded again
and put some conviction into his voice.
“She’ll be fine,” he said.
“So what have we got so far?” Johnson asked.
“Four guys,” Webster said. “We’ve got their pickup truck. They
abandoned it prior to the snatch. Burned it and left it. We found it
north of Chicago. It’s being airlifted down here to Quantico, right
now. Our people will go over it.”
“For clues?” Johnson said. “Even though it burned?”
Webster shrugged.
“Burning is pretty dumb,” he said. “It doesn’t really obscure much.
Not from our people, anyway. We’ll use that pickup to find them.”
“And then what?” Johnson asked.
Webster shrugged again.
Then we’ll go get your daughter back,” he said. “Our hostage rescue
team is standing by. Fifty guys, the best in the world at this kind of
thing. Waiting right by their choppers. We’ll go get her, and we’ll
tidy up the guys who grabbed her.”
There was a short silence in the dark quiet room.
“Tidy them up?” Johnson said. “What does that mean?”
Webster glanced around his own office and lowered his voice. Thirty-six
years of habit.
“Policy,” he said. “A major DC case like this? No publicity. No
media access. We can’t allow it. This sort of thing gets on TV, every
nut in the country is going to be trying it. So we go in quietly. Some
weapons will get discharged. Inevitable in a situation like this. A
little collateral damage here and there.”
Johnson nodded slowly.
“You’re going to execute them?” he asked, vaguely.
Webster just looked at him, neutrally. Bureau psychiatrists had
suggested to him the anticipation of deadly revenge could help sustain
self-control, especially with people accustomed to direct action, like
other agents, or soldiers.
“Policy,” he said again. “My policy. And like the man says, I’ve got
personal command.”
The charred pickup was lifted onto an aluminum platform and secured
with nylon ropes. An air force Chinook hammered over from the military
compound at O’Hare and hovered above it, its downdraft whipping the
lake into a frenzy. It winched its chain down and eased the pickup
into the air. Swung round over the lake and dipped its nose and roared
back west to O’Hare. Set its load down right in front of the open nose
of a Galaxy transport. Air force ground crew winched the platform
inside. The cargo door closed on it and four minutes later the Galaxy
was taxiing. Four minutes later again it was in the air, groaning east
towards Washington. Four hours after that, it was roaring over the
capital, heading for Andrews Air Force Base. As it landed, another
borrowed Chinook took off and waited in mid air. The Galaxy taxied to
its apron and the pickup was winched out. The Chinook swooped down and
swung it into the air. Flew it south, following 1-95 into Virginia,
forty miles, all the way to Quantico.
The Chinook set it down gently on the tarmac right outside the vehicle