The Abduction

Part 2

11

At 5:30 P.M. an FBI field agent met Allison at Nashville International Airport and drove her straight to the soggy banks of the Cumberland River. Night had fallen, and powerful floodlights suspended overhead from cranes created intermittent bright spots on the river and its banks. The glow of downtown Nashville added a hazy blanket of illumination near the Jefferson Street bridge. Low-flying helicopters swept the area with searchlights, while marine patrol cruised up and down the river. Swarms of law enforcement officers paced through patches of gravel and weeds along the river, their crisscrossing paths lighted by flashlights. Several agents gathered by a muddy four-wheel-drive vehicle on the embankment beneath the bridge. They wore the familiar dark blue windbreakers with bright yellow lettering that read, FBI.

Allison stepped carefully down the steep embankment accompanied by a Secret Service agent. She hadn’t had time to change clothes since leaving her rally in Indianapolis, which left her in a business suit with skirt and dress shoes. The arctic chill of the brisk north wind was way beyond the thermal capabilities of her panty hose. She was starting to shiver when she noticed an agent on the bank barking out orders to an exhausted search and rescue team leader.
“I know it’s dark, damn it. But there’s virtually zero visibility in this water even in daylight, and if there’s a body out there, this current is moving it another mile away with every half hour we lose. Just keep running nice and safe shore-based parallel patterns until we get the trapping devices in place. Use the underwater radios, and keep the divers on a short tether. And for crying out loud, move the number one team downstream from Jefferson Street. We’re not looking for spawning salmon.”
A huge man wearing a big orange flotation device lowered his head and turned back toward the muddy river. The swishing sounds of cold, moving river water muffled his cursing. The supervisor breathed a heavy sigh. In the chilly air, he looked as if he were literally blowing off steam.
“You must be Harley Abrams,” said Allison. She was standing at the end of a footpath that wound through the weeds and down the embankment. She could tell from his confused expression that he hadn’t recognized her voice, but with the aid of a flashlight he quickly placed her.
“You must be freezing,” he said, glancing discreetly at her legs. “Here, have some coffee.”
She smiled and took the hot paper cup. “Thank you.”
They’d never actually met before, though Allison had seen his instructional videotapes. Meeting him in person suddenly brought back the eight-year-old memories of how, overnight, she’d gone from collecting Bambi and Snow White videos to Harley Abrams’s FBI lectures on child abduction.
Abrams was actually more handsome in person than on tape, thought Allison. He had “the look,” other agents said, the kind of classic, handsome features that would have served him well in the old days of J. Edgar Hoover. He was an ex-Marine with an impressive stature that commanded immediate respect. At forty-six he was still eleven years away from the bureau’s mandatory retirement age, but he had a youthful energy that seemed part of him for life, making a second career inevitable.
“What do you have so far?” asked Allison.
“We found the school van. A homeless guy living under the Jefferson Street bridge saw it roll down the embankment just north of his cardboard living room. The river current took it downstream, where it sank in this eddy. No victims inside, but we’re taking it slow to maximize evidence recovery. I’ve got search and rescue combing a full square-mile area. No sign of any bodies yet.”
“You think they had an accident?”
“There’s no skid marks off the road, so I don’t think so. My guess is they just changed vehicles and ditched the van.”
“They could have just parked it on the street somewhere. Why go to all the trouble of running it into the river?”
“If they hadn’t, then we wouldn’t have wasted half a day poking around in the mud, would we? They’re probably clear across Kentucky by now.”
Allison nodded, then turned very serious. “I guess I don’t need to tell you that we need this one solved in record time.”
“We’ll do our best. But if it weren’t bad enough that we’ve got every nut in America running around in Halloween costume, the Nashville playing field definitely favors the abductor. The river winds like a snake, and at least a dozen bridges would make convenient drop points for anyone trying to unload a body. The two major lakes nearby—Old Hickory and Percy Priest—are so big it’s conceivable they’d never give up their dead. You’ve got twelve states within a two-hundred-fifty-mile radius, with three major interstates running out of the city in six different directions for a convenient getaway. And the international airport can take you just about anywhere—over a hundred different cities. It’s like Atlanta in the early eighties, when we were trying to find the black child murderer.”
“That was before my time,” she said.
“That’s why the FBI has the CASKU and people like me in it. I’m not saying this to be disrespectful, but the riverbank is no place for the attorney general.”
“Director O’Doud has already made that clear. But let’s just say I have a special interest in this case.”
A sudden flash of light startled her. A photographer emerged from beneath the bridge. His red hair was shoulder length, but he was bald on top. Allison thought of Bozo with a perm gone limp.
Abrams scowled. “Hey, buddy. Didn’t you see the police tape? No press allowed.”
“I’m not the press.” He squinted into his camera, focusing. “If I could just get a couple more, Ms. Leahy. Just so Mr. Wilcox has a few good shots to choose from.”
Abrams asked, “Who the hell is Mr. Wilcox?”
A combined rush of anger and embarrassment swept over Allison. “He’s my campaign strategist.”
Abrams bristled with disbelief. “Is that what you’re here for? A campaign photo op?”
“Not at all. I promise you, this is not what it looks like.”
“Politics never is,” he said dryly. “If you’ll excuse me, Ms. Leahy, I have work to do.” He turned and walked away.
Allison cringed. The last thing she needed was to lose credibility with the point man on the investigation. She was about to pursue him, but enough had been said in the presence of a photographer. She stepped closer to the river, out of earshot from the photographer and her own Secret Service protection, then pulled her portable phone from her jacket. She dialed David Wilcox.
“Allison, where are you?” he asked.
“You know damn well where I am. I’m at the river—where you sent that photographer to take pictures of me on the front line of the investigation.”
“I didn’t send any photographer.”
“Don’t get cute, David.”
“I’m not being cute. I’ll check with my aides. Maybe they sent him. When you think about it, it’s not a bad idea.”
“It’s a terrible idea.”
“Come on, Allison. Haven’t you seen the polls? In just four hours, the sympathy factor has blown us off the map. The only way to neutralize this disaster is to do exactly what you’re doing. Roll up your sleeves and get right into it. Just leave the spin to me.”
She shook with anger. “You don’t spin when a twelve-year-old girl’s life is at stake.”
“Bullshit. You think General Howe isn’t spinning this? The man has sent eighteen-year-old boys marching straight into machine gun nests, all in the name of a higher cause. He’s a big-picture guy, Allison. Every war has casualties.”
“Have you lost your mind? We’re talking about his granddaughter.”
“We’re talking about the presidency of the United States! That’s what we’re talking about!” He sighed heavily, as if suddenly embarrassed by the shrillness in his voice. “Just work with me, will you, please? I’ll get to the bottom of this photographer situation. But keep an open mind on it. I’ll call you later.”
The line clicked.
As she tucked the phone in her coat pocket, she was disturbed by his desperate tone. She’d never known David to be a liar, at least not to her. The way he’d immediately latched onto the idea of a photo shoot, however, made it difficult to believe he had nothing to do with hiring the photographer. Then again, it wouldn’t have been like David to hire someone stupid enough to start snapping photos right in front of Harley Abrams and the rest of the FBI.
Maybe, she thought, the photographer could bring matters into focus.
She turned and looked back to the grassy patch on the embankment where he’d been standing. He was gone. She looked down the riverbank, then toward the bridge. No sign of him. Anywhere.
An FBI agent passed by.
“Have you seen a photographer?” she asked. “Short guy. Long red hair. Bald on top.”
He shook his head. “Sorry, Ms. Leahy. You want us to look for him?”
“No, that’s not necessary.”
She turned toward the river, mulling over her thoughts. Who the heck was that weird-looking guy? And just what did he intend to do with the pictures he’d taken?