The Cornwalls Are Gone Read online

  A light-red Honda Civic comes into the library lot, moving slowly, very slowly. It parks near a sign that says STAFF ONLY.

  An older woman steps out, carefully closes and locks the door. I look around. There are a couple of houses near some tree groves, but that’s about it. This is a secondary road, not even near a highway.

  The woman moves to the entrance of the library. I put my hand on the door handle of my Wrangler.

  She pauses.

  Opens her purse.

  Roots around inside.

  Pulls out a key, goes to the door.

  The key apparently doesn’t work.

  Back into the purse.

  “Ma’am,” I whisper, “you get that door open or I’m coming right over there with a tire iron to help you out.”

  I’m not sure if there’s a Patron Saint of Librarians, but if there is, he or she has just helped the elderly librarian. The door opens up at the same time mine does.

  CHAPTER 19

  TEN MINUTES later I’m at a computer terminal, having just smiled at the nice librarian and walked by like I’m a local taxpayer, checking things out. Once more I enter the classified computer system, and after poking around in the Fairfax County Police Department, I quickly confirm what I suspect: the Able Carpet van was stolen yesterday out of a parking lot.

  The theft report is a basic document, with no witnesses, no information on who might have stolen it.

  A slight chance, but I had to check it out, in case there was some information as to where the two thieves—and eventual kidnappers of my loved ones—had come from, but there’s no joy.

  I won’t waste my time going back there.

  I call up a site linked to the FAA, and quickly punch in the tail number for yesterday’s Learjet videotape—NS-28312—and wait for its identity to be revealed. This is my best lead, to find out who owns the jet and who’s operating it. There aren’t that many organizations that can own a $1.5 million aircraft or that can rent one for four or five thousand dollars an hour. And I was guessing that it was the owner or owner’s representatives who were flying that jet. An aircraft rental to help along a double kidnapping would raise lots of awkward questions.

  And the FAA comes through for me.

  But not in the way I want.

  NUMBER NOT ASSIGNED.

  I try again, a thick feeling in my stomach getting thicker, from this bit of bad news combined with the fast-food breakfast sandwich I ate an hour ago.

  I carefully look at my notes, carefully punch in the number, and just as carefully, the answer comes back.

  NUMBER NOT ASSIGNED.

  Damn it!

  I log off, clear the cache, and walk away, staring straight ahead. The nice older woman at the curved library counter looks up at me and says, “Did you find what you were looking for, hon?”

  I attempt a smile in her direction. “What a beautiful library you have.”

  I move my Jeep Wrangler out, find a small strip mall, and park underneath an oak tree to give me shade. What does NUMBER NOT ASSIGNED mean?

  It means the Learjet 60, as white as it appeared to me yesterday, is black. It belongs to one of the seventeen official domestic or overseas intelligence agencies that supposedly exist here in the United States—trust me, the number is much higher—or to some off-the-books well-financed group that does freelance work for intelligence groups, so in case something goes sour or appears on the front page of the Washington Post, there’s the ever plausible deniability for the White House.

  Or it might mean that some corporation or billionaire on the boundary between legal and illegal has the money and pull to keep a registration number on that Learjet in the shadows.

  However you want to slice it or dice it, my family—my Tom and my Denise!—were dragged into my world yesterday.

  Damn it once more.

  My burner phone rings, and I’m happy it doesn’t make me jump. It means I’m still focused on the job at hand.

  “Amy,” I answer.

  “It’s Freddy,” she says. Most people in the Army know her as Major Fredericka West, but one drunken night—after we both successfully passed the grueling hell-on-jungle that is Ranger training—she told me her real family name was von Westphal, and her great-grandfather had been a prominent general in World War II, fighting on the wrong side.

  At some roadhouse in Georgia, both of us in muddy fatigues, hair cut crewcut short to keep it clean, she muttered, “He was a good general, but he stuck around too long. Then he joined the other generals to blow up the little crazy Nazi bastard, and he ended up getting garroted by piano wire for his troubles.”

  Now she says, “Under four eyes, huh?

  “The most four eyes you’ve ever seen.”

  Over the years Freddy has researched and admired her great-grandfather’s military skills—even if they were used in the service of evil—and one German phrase she taught me was unter vier Augen, meaning to talk to someone under four eyes, meaning in strictest privacy.

  “What’s up?”

  “Two questions, one easier than the other.”

  “Which one’s easier?”

  I say, “You’ll have to decide.”

  A dry laugh. “Okay. Go.”

  “There’s an airplane registration number that doesn’t appear in the public records. It’s been scrubbed. I need to know who owns the aircraft.”

  “You can’t find it through your usual channels?”

  “Freddy, I’m calling you at home early in the morning using a burner phone. Does that tell you I’m doing anything usual?”

  She yawns. “Good point. What’s the tail number?”

  I read off the letters and numbers to her, and she reads them back to me.

  “All right,” Freddy says. “Question one. What’s number two?”

  “I need to know what installations we might have in a small town in Texas called Three Rivers.”

  “How small?”

  “Last I checked, less than two thousand people.”

  Freddy whistles. “Pretty hard to hide a base or depot there.”

  “That’s not what I’m looking for,” I say. “I’m looking for a safe house, a bunker, a dry-cleaning business that might be a front for something.”

  “A black site?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know those are illegal, even in countries that used to welcome them. Like Poland or Estonia.”

  “Sure, that’s what we’re officially told, but this is still very unofficial,” I say. “I need a deep and thorough search. Property ownership that doesn’t make sense. Utility bills paid by a law firm in Maryland. Parking tickets for vehicles belonging to the Agriculture Department’s regional office in Boise. Anything that gives a hint of a place that might be used to hide a high-value target.”

  Freddy says slowly, “That’s a pretty big shopping list, Amy.”

  “Yeah, well, I remember a pretty big whining session a few years back from someone who was going to give it up and go find a Motel 6 to take a hot shower.”

  “Jesus, Amy, how many times do you want me to pay you back for that?”

  I bite my lip. Damn it, why are my eyes welling up?

  “Last time, I promise,” and my voice shudders, and Freddy, a major and executive officer for the Second Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, picks up on it instantly.

  “Amy,” she says sharply.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s going on?”

  I keep quiet.

  Freddy says, “Amy…is this professional? Or personal?”

  I talk through the tears. “As personal as it gets.”

  CHAPTER 20

  IN THE plain but comfortable office at Fort Belvoir with a sign on the door that says LT. COL. DENTON COMMANDING/297TH MILITARY INTELLIGENCE BATTALION, he sits at the wide and clean desk, slowly rubbing his hands against the polished surface, knowing that if a subordinate were to walk in, right at this moment, he or she would give him an odd look, but he doesn’t care.

 
A clean desk to call your own is one of the perks of getting this high up the ladder, this high up the pecking order, that slippery pyramid of command and responsibility.

  Oh, yes, responsibility indeed.

  Lots of burdens of command, both professional and personal, and while the professional burdens are widely known, evaluated, discussed, and probed, the personal are never examined. It is like a big crack in a home’s foundation that is never talked about, for fear it will bring something rotten into the open. Like the dreams, the memories of sharp explosions, the taste of someone else’s blood on your lips, and the trembling that sometimes happens so fast and so hard you retreat to the nearest latrine so no one can see you.

  Best to ignore it, and hope no one else sees it.

  Transferring this unit from Fort Gordon three years back was a logistical and personnel nightmare, but one does what one has to do, especially when the dim higher-ups dragged them here from Georgia to make some assistant secretary of defense or congressman happy.

  So he did what had to be done. Which is always a good way to manage one’s life in the Army.

  The phone in the plain and powerful office rings.

  He picks up the receiver.

  “Yes?”

  “What’s going on? It looks like it’s falling apart.”

  He knows his caller is thousands of miles away, and he’s amazed once again at how clear and crisp the voice is.

  “It is falling apart,” he replies.

  “What are you doing about it?”

  He says, “I’m fixing it.”

  “You better.”

  The caller hangs up.

  No matter.

  He moves his hands across the desk again.

  So smooth and powerful.

  CHAPTER 21

  CAPTAIN ROSARIA Vasquez is sitting in her government-issued GMC sedan, balancing a cup of Cumberland Farms coffee in one hand while flipping through the service file of Captain Amy Cornwall, reading and reflecting, looking for those little bits of information that will stand out, make her take notice, that little thread she hopes she can pull that will lead to a string out there somewhere, and not just a bit of nothing.

  But so far, nothing is what she’s finding.

  Born in Maine, joined the Army after high school, finished college in Maine, had a variety of schools and assignments, assigned to an infantry unit, one tour in Iraq, went through the sixty-two-day Ranger school—one of only a few women who managed to pass—and then ended up in military intelligence.

  Two tours in Afghanistan—including the last one that resulted in the death of a Taliban prisoner—but otherwise reasonably routine.

  Rosaria goes through the file, again and again.

  Different schools—one thing about the Army is that if you want to learn, they are ready to offer it to you, one of the reasons she loves her service so—and it all seems routine. Scratch that, Captain Cornwall is a fine officer, with a bright future ahead of her.

  So why did she bail out with her husband and kid?

  Over the Afghanistan investigation?

  Doesn’t make sense.

  Nothing she saw of Cornwall in this folder stands out, all her time is accounted for—the different dates, the different schools and assignments. Everything—

  Hold on.

  She flips through the pages again.

  Odd.

  Just before her last deployment to Afghanistan, she went on an exchange mission, to Fort Campbell in Kentucky, one of the largest Army bases in CONUS—continental United States.

  What kind of mission?

  Hard to tell.

  Lots of abbreviations and acronyms.

  It looks like it was a unit assigned to work with an Air National Guard section that had deployed from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

  What was Captain Cornwall doing in Kentucky?

  And the biggest question…she was assigned there for six months.

  Left after four.

  Ahead of schedule.

  But why?

  She smiles when she sees a familiar name attached to another form.

  CAPT. A. MITCHUM.

  She closes the folder.

  That’s what civvies never, ever understand about military service. You can have friends across the world at various stations and bases, like an archipelago of relationships and friendships. It is odd to be transferred somewhere without having an acquaintance there to welcome you. In a usual time and place, to talk to Captain Aaron Mitchum would take phone calls, emails, appointments, and official paperwork.

  But this isn’t a usual time.

  She checks her watch, takes out her Galaxy phone, starts flipping through various map and travel apps, sees it would take about twelve hours to drive to Fort Campbell in Kentucky. Too long.

  Then air travel it will be, using her government-issued Visa credit card, although the travel vouchers and paperwork will eventually be a pain in the ass before she got reimbursed. But to get from Ronald Reagan International Airport to Nashville…about two hours. Add three hours for additional travel to and from the airports.

  Yeah.

  She looks again at the smeared photocopy and the name Mitchum. Two years ago they dated briefly while they were both taking a course on logistics, and there was one thing that bonded them, even though he was as white as Wonder bread and straight as a ruler.

  Both were orphans who had found a family in the Army, and who would do anything to protect their family.

  CHAPTER 22

  I’M NOW driving on Interstate 75, heading southwest through Tennessee, about an hour south of Knoxville. The highway is two lanes west and two lanes east, with a wide, grassy median in between and lots of open farmland and wooded hills in the distance. Kentucky is north of me and I’m trying not to think about the last disastrous time I was in the Bluegrass State.

  Instead, I’m driving fast and sweet, keeping my speed about five miles above the speed limit, waiting for my burner phone to ring from Washington State and my old friend Freddy. I try not to be impatient. I try not to think of bad things—Freddy having second thoughts, Freddy being in a car accident, Freddy having a sudden aneurysm and keeling over just as she gets the information I need—and keep on driving.

  I also try very, very hard not to think of anything bad that might be going on with my beloveds, my Tom, my Denise. A cold, hard kernel inside of me demands attention, demands me to acknowledge that in most kidnappings, the victim or victims are dead after the initial demand, but I’m trying hard to convince myself that it won’t happen here, because my mysterious caller wants to make an exchange, and he knows that I will demand to see Tom and Denise in good shape before presenting him with…with whoever the hell he wants.

  That mystery man in remote Texas.

  Another bad thought pops into my mind, and I check the burner phone.

  Okay.

  It’s still on.

  I had a bad feeling I had accidentally switched it off or the battery was dead, but no, it’s fine. It’s operating. It’s keeping my presence in the telecommunications world unknown at the present time.

  I pass a Walmart truck, think of where the other burner phone has ended up. No matter. And still, I know I’m violating lots of tradecraft by taking this major highway to my destination in Texas. Here I’m vulnerable, I can be tracked—hell, maybe I’m being tracked at this very moment via drones, surveillance cameras, passing vans and trucks that secretly belong to the DoD and are part of the grand, unknown domestic surveillance system.

  It’s a trade-off. To keep from view and surveillance, I should be taking secondary roads and state roads all the way to Texas, avoid being out in the open on the interstate.

  But that would triple my travel time, and that’s what I don’t have.

  Time.

  My burner phone rings. I switch on the directional and slowly pull over to the side of the road, and then go into the grassy area running parallel to the pavement. No use being parked close to the side of the highway and ha
ving some distracted trucker pancake me and my Jeep into steel, blood, and rubber. There’s a thick grove of trees off to the right.

  “Cornwall,” I say.

  “Amy…ah crap, hold on for a minute, will you?”

  It’s Freddy and I’m eager to learn what she’s discovered—if anything—and what I’ll do about it.

  A voice from past training comes to me: Intelligence is intelligence. It’s neither good nor bad. It’s information to be used. That is all. Stop trying to weld feelings on something that is inherently neutral.

  Intelligence.

  I take a breath. All right, then.

  “Amy,” comes Freddy’s voice. “Another minute.”

  “Sure.”

  I need something to distract me from the roaring traffic going by me and the view of the nearby woods and wide fields. My iPhone is in my hand now. I flick through various prompts and screens, and come to a favorite: Last summer on Virginia Beach. Tom in his black swimming trunks, strongly striding his way back in from the water, standing in front of me, his body an okay body—he can’t get rid of those soft handles around those hips—but it’s his damn smile and eyes that still warm me and tug at me.

  The sound’s off so I can’t hear the sound of the waves or any other ambient noise, but that’s just fine. In the corner of the screen is Denise in a bright-orange swimsuit—she had asked me earlier, “Why such a bright suit, Mom?” and I never told her the truth, So I can always see you, no matter how far you go—digging at something with a yellow plastic shovel.

  Then she dumps out the wet sand in her pail, scoops up a couple of quarts of cold Atlantic water, and starts racing toward her father. She’s giggling and the water is spilling out of the bucket, and something in my voice or attitude must have betrayed me, because Tom looks and sees her approaching, and he stands still.

  He doesn’t tell her to stop.

  He doesn’t try to run away.

  He doesn’t try to spoil her fun.

  Tom stands there and takes it, and grimaces as the cold water strikes his lower back, and Denise nearly collapses she’s laughing so hard.

  My Tom, my little girl.