Abductors Conspiracy Read online

  "So what pulled his chain?" Henry asked.

  "I wouldn't take his case," McCallum said.

  "Nice job remodeling," Henry said, dropping down into the chair facing McCallum's oak desk. "I especially like the bullet hole effect."

  McCallum didn't laugh.

  "Honest," Henry said. "I think you should clean up the dust and leave it just like that. Give your clients something to think about."

  McCallum stared at the holes for a moment, then turned and sat down in his chair. He was still trying to get his heart slowed down to near normal pace. It had been years since someone fired a gun at him.

  "The investigating business must- be really profitable these days," Henry said, leaning back and putting his feet up on McCallum's desk. "Hired a new assistant, remodeled the office, and turned down work. Life must be good."

  McCallum frowned at his best friend. "As Ruth Rendell said in her book A judgment in Stone, 'Some say life is the thing, but I prefer reading.' "

  "Yeah," Henry said. "And I prefer doughnuts. And you're buying lunch."

  Chapter Three

  An unwillingness to believe in impending danger is a very human quality.

  —-HOWARD FAST

  (WRITING AS E. V. CUNNINGHAM)

  FROM THE CASE OF THE POISONED ECLAIRS

  12:56 P.M. JUNE 22.

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  Neda Foster took a deep breath to force herself to relax slightly, then pushed open the huge oak door to her father's office suite. An unsmiling, gray-suited Secret Service man stood in front of Neda's favorite Schefflera, almost as if he were guarding it instead of the vice president in her father's inner office.

  The only other person in the outer office was her father's executive secretary, Mrs. Joyce Crane, who looked up and smiled without saying a word.

  Neda walked up to the Secret Service man and looked him straight in his blue eyes. "Excuse me a moment, please."

  A slight look of confusion passed across the man's face. Neda knew she was an imposing figure to this man. And any man. She stood slightly over six feet, with a solid build. She had long blond hair that she kept pulled back tight in a long ponytail. And she always wore the best clothes. At the moment she had on a blue pants suit with a loose-fitting jacket over a silk blouse. But what most men found imposing was her ability to radiate her will. With a look she could make people sweat and jump into action. And when her anger boiled there was no getting in her way.

  Neda smiled at the Secret Service man's confused look and made a motion with her hand for him to move to the left.

  Hesitantly he did so and she said, "Thank you." Then she gently moved the leaves of the huge plant around, looking for anything she could do to help it grow. She'd given the plant to her father when she was twelve, and she and Mrs. Crane had managed to keep it alive and growing for the last eighteen years. It now stood taller than any person and occupied an entire corner of her father's plush outer office. It was a ritual that when she went downtown to her father's office she always stopped and spent an extra minute with the plant, picking off dead leaves and just basically giving it some attention. And just because the vice president of the United States was waiting for her, that was no reason to change her habit. Besides, it calmed her.

  After a short pause she had picked off one dead leaf. She dropped it into the plant's huge pot and turned, nodding her thanks to the Secret Service man.

  Mrs. Joyce Crane smiled formally at Neda from behind her always-neat oak desk. Joyce had been Grant Foster's right hand for longer than Neda had been alive. And since Neda's real mother had died when she was two, Neda considered Joyce more like a mother than a secretary. But with the Secret Service man standing so solemn and watching them, they both reverted to their roles of rich daughter and father's secretary.

  "They're waiting for you," Mrs. Crane said in her formal voice. Then she raised her right eyebrow at Neda and gave her a little smile.

  Neda smiled back. "Thank you, Mrs. Crane."

  At that both of them snickered. Out of the corner of her eye Neda noticed the Secret Service man didn't even raise an eyebrow.

  With a smile at Joyce, Neda pushed open the door to her father's private office.

  Her father, his stylish long gray hair perfectly combed, sat behind his huge desk. He was leaning back, his hands on the arms of his chair. Neda knew that to be a guarded, but relaxed position. When he saw her he broke into a huge smile and stood.

  The man sitting with his back to her also stood and turned around. She instantly recognized the tall, trim figure of Alan Wallace, the vice president.

  He extended his hand. "I've been looking forward to meeting you," he said, smiling his best political smile.

  Neda wanted to say, I'll bet you are, since I'm the daughter of your richest supporter. But instead she only smiled, took his hand, and said, "Nice to meet you, sir."

  He laughed as his firm grasp held her hand for just a moment too long. "No sir-stuff with me," he said. "At least not in here. My name's Alan. Please?"

  She released his hand, nodding. "All right. Alan it is."

  "Good," he said, continuing his biggest smile.

  Neda could see why this guy was getting all the press. He was charming, handsome in a rugged way, had a warm smile, and his gray eyes could bore a hole through you.

  Neda caught herself staring at him a little too long. If he wasn't happily married, Neda might actually have been interested. And that thought gave her a start. These days, with all that was going on in the lab and around the world, she had no time for relationships, especially a new one.

  Her father pointed to the chair beside where the vice president had been sitting, and without another word they all took their places. Neda smiled at Alan and he smiled back. Then her father began talking.

  Neda knew exactly what was coming next. She and her father and Joyce had practiced it twenty times, going over every possibility. But all the practice hadn't calmed her twisting stomach.

  In twenty minutes the vice president of the United States was going to leave this office thinking she and her father were both total nuts.

  Or he was going to be on their side.

  The survival of the human race might very well rest on the open-mindedness of Vice President Alan Wallace.

  Chapter Four

  Misfortune can happen to anyone. Only the dead are safe from it.

  —-HARRY KEMELMAN

  FROM FRIDAY THE RABBI SLEPT LATE

  2:06 P.M. JUNE 22.

  PORTLAND, OREGON

  Richard McCallum glanced at the bullet holes above his desk before he sat down. It had been a long lunch, with Henry ribbing him about the holes in his wall. And then, after lunch, Henry was mad at him for not pressing charges against Evan Toole. McCallum could see no point in going through all the hassle of pressing charges. Evan had money and he was going to pay for the repairs, plus some. Of that McCallum had no doubt. But pressing criminal charges, and getting messed up with all the paperwork doing so entailed, just wasn't worth it. Besides, Evan might not willingly pay for all the repairs if McCallum pressed charges. McCallum took a deep breath as he sat down and forced himself to focus on the problems at hand. Across his desk sat Arrington Harris, founder of Harris Industries. He was one of Portland's richest men. He was totally bald, with a pure white mustache and white eyebrows. He wore an expensive three-piece suit, but his tie was crooked and he looked very tired.

  McCallum knew why. Everyone in Portland knew why. Harris and his daughter had been making the headlines in the Oregonian over the last week.

  It seemed his daughter, Tina, had disappeared while on a camping trip into the Idaho primitive area with her boyfriend. At this point, from what McCallum could gather from the newspaper, the leads had all dried up and all the searches had been called off.

  The girl had supposedly vanished three or four days ago, just a short time before three other hikers found their abandoned camp. McCallum figured the two kids' bodies would wash up ten miles down th
e river any day now. They had probably gone for a late-night swim and gotten washed away by the cold river. That's the way it usually happened.

  "Mr. McCallum," Arrington Harris said as McCallum scooted his chair up to his desk. "Your firm comes highly recommended."

  "Thanks," McCallum said. "Always nice to hear." And it was. He'd worked hard to make this business work over the past three years, since quitting the force. And having someone like Harris say so felt good.

  Harris nodded, then took a deep breath. "Do you know about my daughter, Tina?"

  McCallum put on his best comforting look and nodded. "Just the little bit I have read in the paper."

  "I'm afraid," Harris said, "that there isn't much more than that."

  McCallum nodded and both men sat in an uncomfortable silence for a moment. McCallum was about to break it when Harris said, "I want to hire your firm to find my daughter."

  McCallum sat back, staring at Harris. He would have guessed that request was coming. In fact, if he had been a betting man he would have wagered on it the moment Harris made the appointment. But McCallum doubted there was much he could do to help.

  McCallum studied Harris. The man's grief at losing his daughter was being held just below the surface. That much was clear. And at the moment McCallum figured there wasn't much reason to bring that grief out. He was sure that would come when they found the girl's body. Right now Harris was a father doing everything he could to find his daughter. And coming here was just one of those things.

  "Before I decide I can help," McCallum said, "I need you to tell me everything you know about Tina's disappearance, starting right from where you think the beginning is."

  Harris nodded and took a deep, almost gulping breath that seemed to settle him a little. "She was camping along the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho with her boyfriend, Jerry Rodale. Her mother and I were both worried about her going into the wilderness like that, but Tina was an experienced camper and so, from what I could find out, was Jerry."

  "Tell me about this Jerry?" McCallum asked.

  Harris shrugged. "Not much to tell. He and Tina met last year in Denver at college. He comes from a good Denver family who are just as crazed over this thing as we are. He was never in any trouble with the law, had good grades, and seemed clean-cut and polite. To be honest, the two times I met him I really liked the kid, and both my wife and I hoped Tina would stick with him."

  "Thanks," McCallum said. He made a note on his pad with Jerry Rodale's name. By tomorrow afternoon he'd know more about Jerry Rodale than Jerry's parents did. But his gut told him Tina's disappearance had nothing to do with Jerry. But he'd check out Jerry just in case. As William Marshall said in his book Thin Air, "Chance discoveries favor those with a prepared mind."

  McCallum nodded for Harris to continue.

  "Tina had been gone only four days when we got a call from the Idaho State Police. Our daughter's things, including all her camping equipment and clothes, had been found abandoned."

  "Was how it was found described to you?" McCallum knew he would read the official report, but having Harris describe it might add something the police missed.

  Harris shook his head no. "I actually saw it. And there are police photographs of the camp, too."

  McCallum's puzzled frown made Harris quickly go on. "I flew into the area by helicopter. They had to land me a half mile upriver from the camp and I walked down to it. The police said nothing had been touched."

  Harris seemed to shudder thinking about the camp, then went on. "Everything looked so normal. Their tent was up, a fire had been built, and two mats were laid out near the fire in an open area. There was a pan of water near the tent and their packs and food were stacked in a very orderly fashion. It looked as if they had already had dinner. It was as if they had simply been there one moment and vanished the next."

  "No clothes down by the river?" McCallum asked.

  "No," Harris said, sounding almost relieved when he said the word. "We checked. And there have been over a hundred boatloads of rafters past that point going down the river since that day. The river level is not high at the moment. If Tina and Jerry had fallen in the river they'd have been found by now."

  McCallum nodded. It had been tough for Harris to talk like that about his daughter. That was clear. Maybe there was more to this disappearance than McCallum had thought from the newspapers.

  "Look, Mr. McCallum," Harris said. "I know my daughter is still alive, somewhere. I can feel it. You know. Parent to child bond. I can't explain it any other way."

  Every parent looking for a lost child said that exact phrase at one time or another. Ninety-five percent of the time they were wrong, but McCallum just agreed with Harris.

  Harris went on. "There isn't much the Idaho State Police can do at this point. And the Wilderness Search and Rescue have called off their people until a new lead comes up. I just can't let the search for my daughter stop cold now."

  "What do you think I can do to help?"

  Harris slouched in the chair, almost as if half the bones in his body were made of rubber. For a man of Harris's place in society, that was not a flattering position. "I really don't know," Harris said softly. "Anything is better than nothing."

  McCallum stared at the man for a moment, then sighed. "All right, Mr. Harris. I'll see what I can do to find Tina."

  It was as if the man's bones had suddenly gained some strength. He sat up and squared his shoulders. "Thank you," he said.

  "Don't thank me yet," McCallum said. "There's work to do. And I'm going to need a lot of your help."

  "Anything," Harris said. "Just tell me what. I've felt so useless since this all happened."

  "First," McCallum said, "I need you to go get a stiff drink and then come back and tell a tape recorder out there in the outer office every detail you can remember of the campsite. Then I want you to tell that same tape recorder every detail you can think of about your daughter's habits, likes, and dislikes. Third, anything you know about Jerry, his family, and your observations of him. I know that won't be easy, but it needs to be done."

  Harris nodded, but said nothing.

  "Then," McCallum said, "by the time you finish that I will have maps of the area Tina vanished in. I want you to pinpoint on those maps exactly where Tina was when she disappeared. I need to get a sense of the area. All right?"

  Harris nodded, his eyes bright with the prospect of action and the return of a little hope again.

  "Also," McCallum asked, "are you up for another trip into the area?"

  "If it will help," Harris said.

  "It might," McCallum said. "Does your firm have its own jet?"

  Harris nodded.

  "Good. Have it standing by tomorrow morning at dawn. And give me the name of that helicopter service and I'll get us booked for tomorrow morning. I need to see the location of the camp."

  "The jet will be ready,!" Harris said, standing. He reached across and shook McCallum's hand. Then, with a nod, he turned and headed for the door.

  "Harris," McCalium said.

  Harris stopped and turned.

  "Don't forget the drink first."

  Harris stared at him for a moment, then with a half smile headed for the front door.

  Forcing himself to not look at the bullet holes in the oak over his desk, McCallum moved to his office door. He waited a moment for Harris to clear the front door, then shouted, "Arthur! My office. Now!"

  The kid looked up from his desk, startled, like a deer caught in the headlights. His face flushed, making his freckles stand out even more.

  McCallum managed not to smile before he had his back to the kid and was headed toward his chair.

  Chapter Five

  Publicity is like power… it's a rare man who isn't corrupted by it.

  ——ANTHONY PRICE

  FROM COLONEL BUTLER'S WOLF

  3:30 P.M. JUNE 22.

  PORTLAND, OREGON

  Claudia Young watched as Portland Mayor Janet Osborne strode toward her. A
round them the wide marble corridors of city hall buzzed with normal daily activity, the sounds of city government in action a dull roar that seemed to echo in the long halls.

  Claudia leaned against a smooth stone pillar and waited for her boss. She had been Janet Osborne's assistant and right hand for the past three years and she loved her job. At least most of the time.

  Right at the moment she wasn't so sure.

  Janet had been very secretive about a family meeting this morning and Claudia always hated it when Janet kept secrets from her. Any secret.

  And now, this afternoon, Janet had three back-to-back meetings with state senators up from Salem. Yet she had called the office and wanted to see Claudia over coffee for some "unofficial" business. "Outside the office."

  The word "unofficial" made Claudia even more nervous than the "outside the office" part.

  A young couple Claudia didn't recognize stopped Janet ten feet short of her. The mayor smiled her best "keep-them-all-happy" smile and nodded as the man said something to her. She had the ability to make anyone think what they were saying was the most important thing in the world. She was doing that now to this young couple.

  Janet Osborne stood barely five feet tall, eight full inches shorter than Claudia. While Claudia looked tall and trim, the mayor looked powerful, with strong arms and solid legs. She had dark brown short hair that always seemed to be in perfect position, while Claudia's hair was pitch-black, long, and, more often than not, in her face.

  They had originally met when Claudia interned at the state senate while attending the University of Oregon. Janet, at that time, was a freshman senator from Portland, not far out of college herself. They hit it off at once, and Claudia had been on her staff ever since graduation. Some people around Portland called Claudia "assistant mayor," but never to her face.

  The mayor made the young couple laugh, then shook both their hands and made it the last ten feet to Claudia. She handed Claudia a manila folder she had been carrying and said, "Coffee. Quick."

  "You're going to be late," Claudia said. "Senator Oltion won't like that."