Bluff
Chapter 2. Against the clock
21:49, +1h 12min.
"Thank you for coming so quickly," said Jubal, looking into the faces of everyone present.
Almost all of the JOC's own staff, and even some liaisons, had come in the middle of the night.
The situation is this: we estimate that 1 hour and 12 minutes have passed since Isobel Castille was abducted.
Behind him, the screens unnecessarily displayed Isobel's face and her data. Ian put the count up on the screen. In the background, Elise and Scola hurried into the room, the last to arrive.
"Kidnapped. In the middle of the street," said Rina pointed out, indignant, beside him. "An FBI SAC, ladies and gentlemen."
Jubal didn't like how she depersonalized. He crossed a glance with Elise and was sure they were both thinking the same thing. Kidnapped, Isobel.
His mind pushed away again the access of panic that had been trying to take hold of him ever since the NYPD had called him on the phone.
"A young jogger was a witness," he continued. "He tried to stop the kidnapping, but was run over and left lying in the street. It wasn't until he was discovered by another passerby that the police were called. Precious time was lost because of that."
Indeed, Jubal reflected, had it not been for this man's bravery, much more time would have been wasted. If the attackers had not, in their haste to have been discovered, left behind Isobel's bag -and with it her identification as an agent-, the police would have taken much longer to report it to the FBI. And if the young man had decided to look the other way like any ordinary New Yorker, they wouldn't have noticed her disappearance until the next day... Jubal suppressed a shudder of sheer terror.
This cannot go unpunished," Rina took advantage of the pause caused by his brief reverie. The FBI must act with ruthless efficiency. We must come down on them with the full weight of the law.
Jubal looked at her for a moment without hiding his irritation, before looking again ahead.
"We must find Isobel. Alive. That's our priority," Jubal redirected the slant of the speech. This," he pointed to the count on the screen, "is a lot more time than should ever have passed, which means we need to make up as much time as possible. Maggie and OA are at the hospital to try to talk to the witness," he continued without pausing so as not to be interrupted again. Meanwhile, we need every image from the surrounding street cameras, every police report that might be related, every possible angle examined down to the last detail," his tone devoid of its usual dynamism, replaced by an urgent, gloomy timbre. "And we need it by 1 hour ago, people. The S.W.A.T. team is already on standby, in case we need them. Let's get to work."
Everyone plunged into a frenzy of activity. To Jubal's relief, Rina asked him to keep her informed and went to her office.
Obsessively stretching and snapping the rubber band around his left hand, Jubal approached Elise and Scola. They were both dressed up, as if to go to an elegant event or to the opera. Jubal's date was not the only one that had been interrupted by this situation.
"What are you doing here, Elise?" asked Jubal, straightforward.
He had withdrawn her from the JOC a few weeks ago due to anxiety problems. A very justified anxiety, after having been the person to whom Vargas' henchmen had attached a bomb to her neck to get him released the first time they arrested him.
Elise straightened her back and lifted her chin in a gesture of defiance. "Isobel was there for me," she said flatly.
Yes, Isobel stayed until the last minute, to enter the code and defuse the bomb... Or die with her. She risked her career and her life for Elise. Jubal had no objection to Elise's loyalty. He nodded, grave. "Get yourself an empty station." He showed a grateful face. "It will be good to have you here, Elise."
Stuart looked at her full of pride... and something else. The two joined the others and set to work.
Jubal took a deep breath. They had almost no information. They hardly knew anything. The anguish of what they might have done to Isobel, what she might be going through, was getting the better of him.
Maybe she's already dead...
No. He rebelled against his own despair. She was not dead. If they had wanted to kill her they would have done it right there on the street. He suppressed a fit of nausea at the very idea.
No, the motive was different, it was clear. But what was it? It was common knowledge that the FBI does not negotiate in kidnapping cases and, as far as Jubal knew, Isobel or her family was not millionaires. And even if they had been, if whoever they were actually were after the money, they would have known Isobel was an agent, so wouldn't they have preferred a less risky target?
No, it had to be something else.
Terrorism, perhaps? Someone trying to make a statement of intent and get media attention? But then why had there been no announcement yet?
What if it was about revenge? Someone from a past case who wanted to punish Isobel for catching him and getting what he deserved? It frightened Jubal to think how far that punishment might go...
What secrets could Isobel know that would be worth the risk of kidnapping her? This was the FBI, not the CIA.
And then it could be nothing more than an opportunistic act. It was unlikely, but they had no evidence to rule it out either. And this possibility was the one that worried Jubal the most: that Isobel was in the hands of anonymous, untraceable psychopaths, who only wanted to make her suffer... And kill her.
For the good of his sanity, a call from Maggie demanded his attention and broke him out of the vicious cycle.
"Go ahead, Maggie," he replied, anxiously. "Tell me."
"We were able to speak with Connor Rogers, the witness. He is conscious and lucid," Maggie reported. "He regrets not being able to call 911 immediately, but he didn't have his cell phone on him. That's why he tried to stop the vehicle. He feels guilty for not being able to."
"A brave guy. He'll be all right, I hope."
"He has a leg injury. He will have to undergo surgery," Maggie replied. "But the doctors' prognosis is good."
"What did he tell you?"
"Although the kidnappers were hooded," OA interjected, "and Rogers didn't get a good look at their faces, he was able to give us a fairly complete physical description. Also of the vehicle, model, make, color, and a couple of license plate numbers."
"Wow. Impressive for a civilian."
"Not exactly. He is preparing to enter the New York Police Academy. Also, according to Rogers, it was thanks to the fact that they didn't manage to catch her immediately, because Isobel fought back as much as she could."
That explained a lot. Jubal made a mental note to get the young man a recommendation.
They hadn't gotten video footage of the actual kidnapping, but with that new information, it didn't take Ian five minutes to locate the car on the city cameras. An unremarkable, ordinary gray sedan. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to track it beyond four blocks. It pulled into an ominous alley and disappeared. They set about looking for an image where, despite the lack of light, the full plate could be read.
In the meantime, they searched for possible suspects from the descriptions but -and although they had been given race, height and weight- neither was particularly distinctive. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
The display indicated 22:07, +1h 36min.
"Boss! I've managed to get the license plate off the car. I had to use multiple images and interpolate- Never mind. The license plate is: Delta Charlie Tango six six two four.
Elise immediately inserted the plate into the system.
"It's a fake, boss," she reported, a moment later with a grimace. "That plate is for a green Nissan Leaf, and it's in the name of a lady in her sixties."
Jubal let out a mumbled curse.
"According to the police," Hobbs added despondently, "a sedan with this license plate appeared in flames a little over an hour ago in a vacant lot." At Jubal's horrified expression, he hastened to add, "It was empty. No bodies."
It took Jubal a couple of seconds to recover from the terrifying images that had assaulted his mind of Isobel burning to death alive inside the car. He swallowed hard.
"All right. Something must have been left in the vehicle," he pressed. "Send a science team over there and see what they can dig up. First thing, get us the VIN number."
"Yes, boss."
"Ann," he turned to the NYPD liaison. "Cameras? Witnesses?"
"Nothing. It is an almost abandoned warehouse area."
"Could some patrols go around the area? Look for any suspicious signs?"
Ann nodded. Count on it.
Jubal closed his eyes and ran his hand over the back of his neck in an effort to concentrate. There had to be more they could try. Pulling the rubber band in his hand, he approached Elise.
"Hey, could you cross-reference the witness descriptions with suspects from cases Isobel has worked on?" he suggested kindly. Maybe she's come across them in the past?"
"Boss, you need to see this," said Kelly, who was suddenly very pale. Jubal rushed over. "We just received a video file."
As he peered at Kelly's screen, Jubal's blood turned to thick mud. The paused image showed Isobel, tied to a chair and gagged. Her beautiful face had been beaten; she had bruises on her forehead and one cheekbone. Jubal gritted his teeth to control his anger.
"Report it to Assistant Director Trenholm and send it on my laptop. I'll see it in my office," he said to Kelly in a hollow voice.
He was terrified of what might have been done to Isobel. His imagination tormented him with situations of indignity and torture. He did not want to risk exposing others to something like that. Whatever it was, he preferred that no one else saw it for the time being.
·~·~·
22:12, +1h 41min
Alone in his office, he let out a shaky exhale, and played the entire video, while snapping the rubber band over and over again.
In the recording, over Isobel's helpless image, a distorted voice said the following:
Well, here we go. As you can see we have in our possession Special Agent in Charge Isobel Castille. As you can see, she is so far unharmed. Or almost. We demand the immediate release of Mr. Vargas.
Vargas! Was he going to try a similar trick again? Using Isobel as a bargaining chip this time? Or was it simply for revenge...?
A man wearing a ski mask appeared in shot. He matched the description of one of the attackers. He approached Isobel with a large bush knife in his hand. Slowly, he brought the blade down on her cheek. Jubal thought his pulse stopped. Isobel's big black eyes were wild, but you could see that she was keeping her fear under control, which caused Jubal great admiration; he himself was on the verge of panic.
The knife did not produce any cuts. So far.
The blade descended, caressing Isobel's slender neck in an aberrantly sensual way, like a lover. Jubal clenched his fists, holding his breath. A slight twist of the wrist and it would slit her throat.
The knife went further down and into the neckline of her blouse. Isobel lifted her chin, defiant. Her eyes had grown fierce, but they were filling with tears.
Overwhelmed by a sense of insufferable helplessness, Jubal stood up abruptly. He clung to the edge of the table.
On the screen, the blade began to cut into Isobel's blouse. It went down slowly, but with chilling ease-demonstrating that it was very sharp-opening a vertical gash in the fabric, inch by inch. The blouse parted, exposing the top of her breasts and the lace of the bra that covered them.
And there it stopped. The knife was withdrawn.
Jubal averted his eyes, ashamed that he had continued to watch.
"Or, as you can see, this could change radically."
Rina entered his office.
"What do we have?"
"We are generous," added the voice on the video, "the exchange will take place in four hours. We will send instructions." Didn't even repeat the threat before the video ended.
Jubal found it impossible to swallow the lump in his throat. He looked at Rina, somber, and played the video for her, but this time he couldn't watch. He waited standing, leaning against a wall.
When it finished, Jubal let his horror show on his face. Isobel was in Vargas' hands, at the mercy of the Durango cartel. On the one hand, he was relieved to have seen her alive. But on the other, he was losing his mind thinking about what they could do to her.
"Sons of bitches..." he muttered, just scared.
Rina went to him, embraced him... and Jubal melted in her arms, longing to find in them the support that would restore his lost strength. But then she drew him into a deep, possessive kiss. He pulled away, resentful he could not count on her even in such a situation.
"Rina, please..." he chided, shaking his head.
She blushed, embarrassed, but didn't apologize. Jubal decided to leave it alone. He didn't feel like talking about it. He tried to focus.
"We'll have to send someone to the MDC to look for Varg-"
"No way! Have you forgotten that the FBI does not negotiate?"
Jubal barely managed to control his irritation. "It depends. There are exceptions," he argued, "such as when bombs were involved. If the risk-"
"That was different. Something like this could end my career overnight. How could you even think of that?" Rina snapped indignantly.
"Is that all that's going through your head?" he asked finally in exasperation. For heaven's sake, Rina, stop navel-gazing for once." Closing the laptop with a thud, Jubal prepared to leave his office.
She stopped him. "All right. Listen," Rina proposed "for time being, have Zidan and Bell go and interrogate Vargas."
"That won't do any good," he agreed to argue, despite his anger. "You know firsthand what Vargas is like. He'll eat them alive."
Rina's face suddenly twisted in anger. Then do your job, Jubal!" she exclaimed. "Find her! You have less than four hours." Passing him like an exhalation, she left the office and slammed the door shut.
Jubal nearly hit something.
22:19. +1h 52min.
~.~.~.~