The Abduction

42

The doorbell rang in the middle of her dreams. Tanya shot up in bed and checked the glowing liquid crystal numbers on the clock on her nightstand: 2:20 A.M. Her heart thumped. Her mind raced with thoughts of her daughter. Bad news, she feared. Nothing but bad news came in the middle of the night. So bad that a phone call wouldn’t suffice. It had to be delivered to her in person.

She threw on a robe and rushed to the living room. The FBI agent who was serving night watch was already answering the door. He opened it. Tanya didn’t know who to expect, but she couldn’t hide her surprise. She’d never met him before, but she instantly recognized her father’s chief campaign strategist from the news and magazines.
“Mr. LaBelle?” she asked in a tone that sounded like What are you doing here?
LaBelle stepped into the foyer, speaking to Tanya in his most polite, southern accent. “Sorry to disturb you at this hour, Miss Tanya. But it’s very important that I speak to your father.”
“He’s asleep.”
“Not anymore,” the general grumbled from the hallway.
LaBelle closed the door, shutting out the cold draft. He glanced at Tanya and the FBI agent. “I’m very sorry to intrude, but would the two of you mind giving the general and me just one moment, please?”
“By all means,” Tanya said with sarcasm. She and the agent shuffled out of the room, he to the kitchen and she to her bedroom.
The general stepped into the foyer, speaking softly so as not be overheard. “What’s going on?”
“It’s important. I didn’t want to risk a phone call to your daughter’s house. Thought someone might be listening. Come on,” he said as he reached for the door. “Let’s talk in the car.”
Howe bristled. “It’s freezing out there, Buck. And there’s a ton of media—even more than usual, since I decided to stay here. What are they going to think? It looks conspiratorial, me sneaking out of my daughter’s house in my pajamas in the middle of the damn night, two men sitting in the back of the limo talking at two o’clock in the morning. It looks bad enough for you to come here.”
“Sir, this is extremely important.”
The general looked around with a pained expression. The FBI agent was fixing himself a cup of coffee in the kitchen. The media were parked on the street. “Come on,” said Howe. “We can talk in the spare bedroom.”
The general led the way down the hall, to the opposite side of the house in which Natalie was sleeping. Tanya’s room was at the far end of the hall. He stepped quietly through the carpeted hallway, trying not to disturb her. The hinges creaked as he opened the door. Tanya had converted the spare bedroom into a combination guest room and home office. LaBelle took a seat on the Hide-A-Bed sofa. The general closed the door quietly, then sat in the swivel chair in front of the computer.
“Talk to me,” he ordered.
LaBelle’s face was filled with concern. “They’re looking for Mitch O’Brien.”
“Who’s looking for O’Brien?”
“The FBI. They’re down in Miami, snooping around the marina, his house, asking neighbors questions. Nobody seems to know where he is.”
The general suddenly had that look on his face—the look of a volcano on the verge of eruption. He drew a deep breath, controlling it. He rose from the chair, as if towering over LaBelle made it easier to question him. “Does the FBI know anything?”
“I don’t know. I guess they suspect something.”
He began to pace slowly, adjusting his stride to accommodate the small room. “What could they possibly know unless they’ve talked to him?”
“Hard to say.”
“Maybe we should beat them to the punch. You know, release the O’Brien story ourselves, like I did with the rumors that the investigation was focusing on my own campaign.”
LaBelle shook his head. “I don’t think that rule applies here.”
“Why not?”
He sighed. “It would be different if the whole thing didn’t unravel at the end. I mean, it would be perfectly all right to say that Leahy’s ex-fiancé came to us before the Atlanta debates and said he was living proof that the attorney general had been unfaithful to her husband. The fact that he offered to take a polygraph is even better. It was like Anita Hill taking her polygraph to substantiate her sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas. Problem is, the polygraph is where our story begins to fall apart.”
“We don’t have to tell anyone he failed the damn thing. We just say he offered to take a polygraph. Period.”
“Too risky. We can’t contain it. Once the FBI or the media gets hold of O’Brien, it’s bound to come out that the guy failed the polygraph and—worse—that we still painted Leahy as an adulteress after we knew he had failed.”
“I still don’t understand why that fool offered to take a polygraph examination if he was lying about him and Leahy having sex.”
“O’Brien was a hotshot criminal defense lawyer. He’s probably seen a hundred lying clients fool polygraph examiners. He probably thought he could, too.”
The general stopped pacing. His eyes were aimed at LaBelle, but he was looking right through him. Finally he came back from the place his mind had taken him. “Have you talked to O’Brien?”
“Not since the polygraph.”
“Any idea where he is?”
“Not really.”
His glare tightened. “There’s only one thing to do, Buck.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Find him. Before the FBI does.”


Natalie lay awake, wishing Lincoln would come back to bed. Tonight hadn’t been the reunion she had hoped for. He and Tanya had hardly looked at each other when he’d arrived, let alone spoken. Natalie had hoped he might get through the night just tending to his family, without interruption from the campaign strategists.
She should have known better.
The bedroom door opened. A shaft of light from the hallway cut across the dark room. Lincoln entered quietly and closed the door behind him. Natalie lay still beneath the covers, watching as he carefully crossed the room without switching on a light, listening as he tucked himself back into the twin bed beside hers. She saw him check the clock, then heard a deep sigh of exhaustion.
Her voice pierced the darkness. “You promised no politics in Tanya’s house.”
“I know. It was an emergency.”
She propped herself up on her elbow and looked right at him. “What kind of emergency?”
He rolled over to face her, fluffing the pillow. “Campaign emergency.”
“Lincoln, you broke your promise. I want to know why.”
“LaBelle thought it was urgent. Turns out it’s just more about those adultery rumors that surfaced about Leahy.”
“Good heavens. All that adultery stuff doesn’t even seem remotely important anymore.”
He rolled onto his back and sighed smugly, hands clasped behind his head. “You’re right, Nat. In less than two days your Lincoln will be elected president of the United States of America.”
He reached across the space dividing their twin beds, groping for her hand. She pulled away, out of his reach. “I meant the kidnapping,” she said sharply. “The adultery accusations seem silly compared to what happened to Kristen. Not compared to your election.”
He withdrew his hand. “I—uh. Of course that’s what you meant. I was just looking for a silver lining, I guess.”
She got up from her bed, then quickly put on her robe and slippers for a trip to the bathroom. She stopped at the door, looking back at him in the darkness. “Maybe it’s about time you stopped looking for the silver lining and started looking for your granddaughter.”
She waited, expecting him to say something. The lack of response made the room seem darker. She stepped out and headed down the hall.


Tanya sat motionless on the floor, right beside the vent to the heating duct. The air flow to the master bedroom was on a split duct. Part of it led to her room. The other led to the guest bedroom—the room she’d converted into an office. It had been Kristen’s room originally, but her daughter had insisted on moving to the other side of the house after she’d grown wise to the fact that, because of the ducts, her mother could hear everything in there just by putting her ear to the heating vent in the master bedroom. Kristen was a sharp girl. Much sharper than her grandfather.
Tanya glanced at the phone on the nightstand. She was tempted to phone Allison or Harley to help make sense of what she’d heard, but she had to organize her thoughts first.
Find O’Brien—her father’s order rang in her head. What did that mean? Find him and talk to him? Find him and silence him? Find him and kill him?
She took a deep breath, shuddering at the thought, struggling to stay focused. First, Mark Buckley. Dead on the highway after a threat from her father. Now Mitch O’Brien. Apparently hiding from the FBI, maybe hiding from her father, too. Or hiding from the men who worked for her father. Maybe the same men who took Kristen.
Her head was pounding with the horrible possibilities. It didn’t make total sense to her, but this O’Brien character seemed like a logical fit somewhere into the adultery scandal and scarlet letter photograph Allison had briefly explained to her on the telephone.
In all the confusion whirling in her mind, one thing that stood out was the last warning from Harley Abrams. He had pushed her to spy on her father. It was possible, he’d explained, that if Kristen’s taking was politically motivated, the kidnappers might now be content to let the election simply run its course, never following up on their demand for a ransom. That was Kristen’s most dangerous scenario. That made it imperative to do more than just sit around and wait. They needed some offense—something to draw the kidnappers out of hiding.
Her eyes drifted to the photograph on her dresser. The two of them, her and Kristen. The last picture of them together.
She wiped away the tears and rose to her feet. Anger filled her veins, but in anger she found strength. She put on her robe and stepped into the hall.
A crack of light shone from beneath the bathroom door at the other end of the house. Her poor mother and her peanut-sized bladder were undoubtedly making one of the four or five trips she seemed to make each night. Tanya hurried down the hall, taking extra care to be quiet as she passed the FBI agent sitting in the kitchen. She stopped at the bathroom door. She heard the turning of a magazine page. Definitely her mother.
She continued down the hall, past Kristen’s room. The door was closed; her room had been secured like a crime scene. She stopped at the door beside it, the room her mother and father were using. Quietly she opened the door.
The bedroom was dark, save for the glowing face of the alarm clock on the dresser and the horizontal shafts of moonlight that cut through the miniblinds covering the window. Her father lay on the bed by the window, a hulk of man beneath the heavy blanket. She stepped quietly toward him, stopping near the foot of the bed to look at his face. He was deeply asleep.
She moved closer, then knelt right beside him. He was lying on his side, his cheek on the pillow. She crouched down until they were eye to eye and stared into his face. She could feel him breathing. Finally he seemed to sense her presence. His eyes blinked open.
“Don’t move,” she said in a cold, harsh whisper.
He froze, as if she’d put a gun to his head. “What is it, Tanya?” he asked with concern.
“I heard your conversation with Buck LaBelle.”
His eyes became wider. The whites were huge in the darkness. He said nothing.
She whispered, “I think you would stop at nothing to get elected. I think you would kidnap your own granddaughter to get elected. And if Kristen isn’t home before the polls open on Tuesday morning, I’m going on national television to tell the voters what I think.”
“Tanya,” he gulped, “you’re making a horrible mistake.”
“Be still. Those are my terms.”
The door opened. Natalie stepped a foot inside, then stopped. “Tanya?”
She rose slowly, her expression pleasant. “Dad and I were just talking.”
Natalie came to them and sat on the edge of the bed. “That’s a good thing. You two should talk more.”
Tanya glanced at her mother, then back at her father. “Something tells me we will. It seems we have lots to talk about.”
“Wonderful,” said Natalie. “I knew this was a good idea.”
“It was a great idea, Mom.” She kissed her on the cheek, then crossed the room without a sound, stopping in the doorway. “Good night, Father.”
The general nearly bit his tongue, careful not to say anything in front of his wife. “Good night, Tanya.”
The door creaked open, and then she was gone.