Chapter 9: A Culture of Abduction

When they all took a break, Race went out to check on Jessie and Hadji. A computer had been delivered for Hadji while he had been occupied in the interrogations, and the boy was hard at work. Jessie smiled up at him. "Did you find anything useful?"

"Not yet, Ponchita, what about you?"

"Well, Jose sent us copies of all the information I-1's gathered on them so far, and since Hadji's faster on government systems than I am, I've been looking at their records in school and I've found enough to get them all kicked out of their colleges."

Race raised an eyebrow. "Do tell."

"Not one of them attended the high schools they say they did. There's some superficial evidence on the records, but if you start looking deeper, at class rosters, attendance and immunization records, none of them shows up."

"Really?"

Jessie nodded. "All four of them are large high schools, really impacted. If they ran into any kids who went to the same high school they claim they did, it would be believable that they didn't know them."

"Ng said he was born at Memorial Hospital in San Francisco. Can you look into that?"

"Sure. Hospitals can be a little harder to break into –" She broke off, looking guiltily up at him.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, Ponchita." He glanced around. "Where's your mother?"

"She went out to get us some dinner. I think she said she was getting Mexican." He looked out the window, hoping she'd get back soon. "Dad?" Jessie said in a small voice. Race looked down at her and saw that her expression was serious, almost scared. "That was a lot of blood."

He sat down next to her. "Yeah, that it was."

She leaned against his side. "He's not dead? We're sure?"

Race made it a policy never to lie to the kids, and never to make promises he couldn't keep. "As sure as we can be, Ponchita."

"They've never been missing this long before, have they? Hadji said . . ."

"What did Hadji say?"

"Just that they've never been gone this long. I think he's scared, too." Race looked over at Hadji. The kids were some distance apart, due to the location of the wall outlets. Hadji was concentrating, brow furrowed, on the screen in front of him. Race knew him well, he could see the tension in his shoulders, the worry in his eyes. "He tried to meditate earlier, I think to calm down, but he couldn't."

Hadji was always so calm, so unruffled, it occasionally wasn't real obvious when he was upset. Race cursed himself for not thinking, and for not paying enough attention. His father and his brother were missing. He had to be frantic even if he didn't show it on the surface. He wished there were three of him. One to sit with Jessie, one to sit with Hadji and one to make those wretched kids in those holding cells tell him what he needed to know.

"No, they've never been gone this long." Race wondered what Dr. Quest must be thinking. What was happening. What he could be doing differently to find them faster. Giving Jessie a kiss on the forehead, he stood up. "So it's a new record," he said, trying to lighten the tone.

She smiled up at him, but he could tell it took a real effort. "Yeah. A record."

He touched her shoulder and went over to Hadji. "How you holding up, kid?"

Hadji looked up at him, and Race saw that his eyes were bloodshot. "I am very worried."

"Did you sleep at all last night?"

Shrugging the boy said, "I have not slept since you called me." Seeing Race's concerned look, he added, "I will be fine. I could not sleep, even if I tried. They have been missing for more than forty-eight hours now. I am hoping that they have escaped and have merely been unable to call us, but I cannot bring myself to believe it."

"I know." He squatted down next to him. Unlike Jessie, who was sitting on a bench, Hadji was sitting on a single chair. "We're going to find them."

"I know we are. I just hope we are in time." Hadji bit his lip. "I need to keep working, Race. It will keep me calm."

Race stood up and squeezed the boy's shoulder. Hadji reached up and squeezed his hand. "I have no doubts that we will find them, Race," he said. "I just worry that something will happen before then."

As Race headed back toward the inner sanctum of the jail, Estella walked in carrying two enormous bags of takeout. "So, did you get any useful information yet?"

"Not yet," Race said. "I'm going back in. Keep an eye on Hadji, would you?"

"I have been." She looked over at the boy. "He's practically simmering with worry." He turned away. "Aren't you going to eat?"

"Not hungry. I'll catch something later."

He went through the door as she said, "But Race –" The door closing behind him cut her words off.

Diana came out of the restroom as he walked past toward the conference room they were supposed to be meeting in after their break. "How are the kids?" she asked.

"Holding up as well as can be expected," Race said. "Jessie's found some dirt. Not one of them went to high school where they said they did."

"Really?"

"Hadji's working the government agency end of things, and I've got Jessie checking out that hospital the Ng boy said he was born in."

"I'm not sure how that helps us."

"It gives us something to chip away at their stories with." As they passed, Race glanced into Kathleen Harper's room. "I want them," he added, clenching his fist.

"Calmly, Race. Your anger isn't going to help."

He pursed his lips and sat down, waiting for the mucky-mucks to come in. While he was waiting, he called Phil. After filling him in on their progress, he asked, "How're you coming on that satellite tracking?"

"It's looking promising. They found the boat, but on the thirteenth, not the fourteenth. We're following it."

"Keep me posted," Race said.

"That's my line," Phil said, then hung up.

When Thomas and Kiley came back in, Race looked up. "We've got to break their stories and fast. Benton and Jonny have been missing for forty-eight hours now, and we're not really any closer to finding them."

"Well, I'd say it's time for someone to start pulling on heartstrings, assuming those kids have any," Thomas said.

"Okay," Race said, standing up. "Get me a fiddle."

A few minutes later, he walked alone into Kathleen Harper's room. She looked up, startled as he shut the door behind him. "Your name's Kathleen, right?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Did you know that Jonny and his father were planning to have a movie night on Saturday?"

She blinked. "How could I know that?"

He shrugged. "Well, I figured there was a chance one of them might have said something."

"I didn't see them."

Nodding, he flipped a chair around and sat down. "Yeah, you said that, but the funny thing is, I have trouble believing you." She looked over at the wall, clearly trying to ignore him. "After all, you'd have to be pretty close to get Jonny's blood on your shoe." Her head whipped around and he saw with some satisfaction that her eyes were round with shock. "There's a powerful lot of blood in that kitchen, young lady, and Jonny's not a very big boy." He pursed his lips. "Now, kidnapping and murder are pretty damn serious charges." She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. He gave her a compassionate smile. "And the thing is, you're the only one we can put at the scene. Your fingerprints are at the house in Maine, you have Jonny's blood on your shoe – DNA doesn't lie. Your fingerprints are in the cabin where we found yet more of Jonny's blood . . . you're not stupid, you can see where this is leading."

The young woman lifted her chin. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said, her voice shaking.

Race shrugged. "Your friends aren't stupid either. When they see the writing on the wall, they'll start talking, and if you haven't said anything by then, well, whose story are we going to believe? I don't know what happened at that house, but what I do know is that a twelve-year-old boy lost enough blood to die. And if we don't find Benton and Jonny, we can pin Jonny's murder on you."

Her eyes widened. "We don't need a body, you know," he said. "A lot of people make that mistake, thinking that without a body, murder can't be proven. But there's circumstantial evidence aplenty in your case." She swallowed convulsively. "They'll extradite you to the U.S., and you'll be tried for murder in Federal court. You know, Federal courts can apply the death penalty, and the judge might choose to think of Dr. Quest as a Federal employee. He does a lot of work for the government. He goes that route and you'll fry for sure."

"You're talking nonsense," she said.

"Really?" He shrugged and stood up. "I thought I'd give you a chance. You don't look the sort of girl who'd hurt a little boy and then watch him bleed to death. Maybe I'm wrong, though." When he got to the door he turned back. "I'll just go see your friends, now. The death penalty's a mighty strong incentive to come up with a story that leaves them as accomplices. I don't know what you all were after, but it doesn't really matter, does it? You'll be just as dead."

With that, he left the room. When he got outside, he found Inspector Thomas and Chief Kiley waiting for him. "Not bad," said Thomas. "Your little girl came through with some information while you were in there."

"What?"

"Ng wasn't born in that hospital," Kiley said. Race nodded. "But she did a search on his parents' names."

Race cocked his head. "Go on."

"A Margaret and Arthur Ng had a child named Elizabeth at that hospital in 1980. Doing a cross check – those kids of yours are pretty amazing – she found that there's a missing person's report filed on them in 1983."

"Is it still open?"

"Yup."

"I don't suppose you got them to run the names of any of the other kids' parents through to check for that?"

"She'd thought of that herself," he said. "Pauline Bettencourt disappeared from Ontario with her parents in 1989."

"Shit," Race said. "It sounds like a almost like a cult."

"Dad!" The door from the waiting room slammed against the wall and Jessie came flying in, laptop under her arm, one of the guards behind her. Diana came in a second later and spoke to him quietly and he left. Jessie never stopped, she just marched straight toward him. "Dad, you'll never believe what I've found."

"What, Ponchita?"

"Pauline Bettencourt's maternal grandparents are still alive. They have a horse ranch in southern Ontario, not far from Toronto."

"What?"

"And they're still offering a reward for information about Pauline and her parents. There's a notice on the internet." She opened up the laptop and showed them.

It was a picture of a young family, a blond woman sat next to a brown-haired man with a girl of about six on her lap. They were all smiling. Underneath it said, Louise, Michael and Pauline, Missing since March 1989, but not forgotten.

"Can I borrow this, Ponchita?" Race asked.

"Sure. Are we going to contact them?"

"You leave that to us, little lady," Thomas said. "You're doing a great job."

Jessie grinned under the praise. "It's not just me, you know. Hadji, too."

Thomas went to a phone and, checking the web site, phoned Alan Foster. Race stood by, listening on an extension. When he heard that his granddaughter was in jail in New Brunswick, he said he'd be there in two shakes. He put one of his daughters on for directions while he went to get some clothes packed.

When they were done, Race turned to Thomas. "Do you suppose we could get ahold of the police reports in the case?"

"Already called," said Diana. "The police in Toronto are faxing them over when they locate them."

"Great," Race said. "I'm going in to have a little chat with Pauline."

"So you think her parents' disappearance and this one are connected?" Thomas asked. "That was thirteen years ago."

Race put the laptop on the table. "Look here," he said, pointing at the biographies of the parents. "Michael Bettencourt was a biochemist, and Louise Bettencourt was studying for her PhD in physics."

"Hell," Thomas said. "That does look like a connection, especially since they went missing with their child."

"Yeah, doesn't it." He put the laptop down.

Diana raised an eyebrow. "I find myself wondering, if Mrs. Quest was alive, would she be missing, too?"

Race grimaced. "Dr. Rachel Quest, the microbiologist? Probably."

"Oh."

"Give me a minute," Race said, walking into the room that held Benjamin Ng.

The boy looked up mulishly. "I don't know anything," he declared.

"Humor me for a minute, kid, what does your father do? I mean, what's his profession?"

The boy blinked. "He's in medical research," he said slowly.

Race nodded. "He have a degree?"

"He's a doctor."

"And your mother?"

"She has a bachelor's degree in computer science."

"Thanks." He left and checked with each of the others. When he came out, Kiley, Thomas and Diana looked at him curiously. "They're all professionals, and more specifically, all well educated. Interesting, wouldn't you say?"

"I would," said Kiley. "Is it some kind of intellectual cult?"

Race shook his head. "I don't think it's a cult," he said. "Not the more I hear. It just doesn't feel right somehow. I think it's a brain trust. They use the kids to control them."

"Well, then why are the kids doing this?" Kiley asked.

"Obviously the kids have been indoctrinated," Diana said. "Pauline was what, six, when she went missing? That's a really impressionable age."

"And if what happened to Jonny is at all typical," said Thomas slowly, "those kids start out in pretty bad shape. That's fertile ground for brainwashing."

Race's rage built up abruptly and he took a deep breath to control himself. "Yeah," he said. "But with Jonny they weren't getting some kid who's never faced a bad guy. They got a kid who thinks he, and his dad, are invincible."

"Which means they may kill him trying to prove he's not," Kiley said.

Race felt all the blood drain from his face, and he leaned against the wall. "Don't say that," he said, staring at nothing.

"Are you okay?" Thomas said. "You seem to be getting a little close to this."

"He's been Jonny's bodyguard since he was six," Diana said.

"What the devil is he doing on this investigation, then?" demanded Kiley.

"It's my job," Race said. "I've pulled them out of more bad situations than you've face in your entire career. That kid's got more combat experience than some vets."

"Then you're doing a swell job as his bodyguard, aren't you?" Thomas growled.

Race felt something explode inside him. Diana stepped in between him and the object of his rage. "Okay, boys, time out."

"I'm sorry," Thomas said, shaking his head. "I don't know why I said that."

"I do," Kiley said. "You've been having a crappy week, between that multiple homicide in Kedgwick and the serial rapist that still hasn't been caught."

Serial rapist? Race thought. No, I don't have time.

Thomas sighed. "I am sorry, Agent Bannon."

"The stress is getting to all of us," Race said.