Without a Trace
In Deep
Chapter 2
Agent Missing
New York – Present Day
The skyline remains stagnant the deep blue of the cloudless sky euphoric from this rich vantage point the office sounds beginning to now filter through and its midday, the sun streaking through the glass.
Onto the three individuals who are also working this case and the colleagues who I have always relied on day and night. As my gaze drifts slowly to the name in front of me and what has made this case from its start at eight am this morning a critical one.
With it being my colleagues name printed there in bold black type as my head now rises to look at Vivian, Samantha and Martin and what makes this even more sensitive and difficult were it not that already. That it is our very own FBI agent who is missing.
The colleague who failed to turn up, whose vehicle we have found, his blood strewn on the pavement with witnesses, clues and all our normal protocol finding barely anything to go on. Something unaccustomed to our team and the fact the stakes could not be any higher.
That it is a man's and friends life on the line. Someone who we have all turned to at some time or other as my eyes drift without thinking to Martin, knowing how Danny had guessed correctly helping him too and its Fitzgerald.
Who is now searching every part of Taylors past for anything else that might help us now: -
With the obvious routes the personal links to Taylor as Elena, her ex-husband being the first name to come our way and it had drawn a clear blank, his innocence clear enough Elena in the same boat as us and that she too had known Danny way, back.
Her concern and worry quadrupled with her returning to her station, her links to our colleague not what they once were that she has not seen him in over a month for starters. As I look now to the two women of the team.
To Vivian who has always, looked upon him as some sort of adoptive son and whose emotions have signaled the depth of what that one, missing colleague means to each of us. Her eyes telling me so, alone as my gaze in tandem, carefully switches to Sam.
Her professional manner cool as ever with the quietness and the sharpness that she had questioned Elena's ex husband telling me something else. Something that I had not been aware off and what I am still guessing at fully… that in one way or other she has been seeing my Hispanic colleague.
The thought hanging there with Agent Taylor being of beat for the last week, Samantha the complete opposite and though I have still to bring it up with her. She could not have let that relationship get far with it being the individual who is not here now.
That if my assumption is in anyway correct - had been shut out by her and it could only have meant much to him his muted behavior proving as much. As my thoughts now, swivel back to the case with the front-runners, those who could easily have done him any harm.
Being all but eliminated with the enemies those within even the FBI being, quickly scored off and what I cannot doubt. For it is something that is simply part of him that Danny Taylor is not without his enemies.
These last hours drawing them out of every part of his life, Elena herself adding some more as my thoughts now stagger to the crime scene the callousness and calculation of the attack with our colleague standing no chance…
Witnesses none existence technology giving no further shreds of hope and furthermore the only name to come to the fore - had proven fruitless as I hold onto the one sure thing that is certain. It is someone who Danny himself had known…
The hit in all essence professional coming from behind the blood loss extensive his wallet, FBI cards, and mobile phone being nowhere at the scene either. With it only being the keys to the Chrysler that lay on the pavement where they had been, left almost deliberately by his assailant.
Our own agents deriving that and the possibility that there was more than one individual responsible as my thoughts at last cave to where they do not want to go. Delving instead in knee jerk reaction deeper elsewhere to that first day of his.
What landed him in deep water then combined with that overwhelming eagerness to learn and that intensely private persona what defines him yet with that past of his being, what I had also pulled him up on then.
Danny as ever giving nothing away and it was something that still needed to be pushed from him as my thoughts curve aware that whoever has him had wanted him alive. For their own purposes something not boding well in the hours since and the clear hold.
That we have yet to find the agenda of his - prime assailant - someone who has already done our colleague, deep harm and the only further flare of thought that if he is still alive now. Then he is more than likely unconscious and got a head wound to prove it.
With its damage pivotal my thoughts retracting on that score my gaze shifting to the board, what it is usually more marked than this by now. As I look instead at the white space the blanks remaining un-objective: -
Samantha being the last one of us to speak to him last night as my eyes shift to the mounting paperwork on Danny's desk unease deepening of how off step he has been lately his guarded behavior only.
Brushing my own comments about that paperwork aside and in the last week it was something I simply had left him off with even though it had been apparent something was upsetting him deeply as I think again about that crime scene.
What we had all been to this morning the blood trail running cold, his neighbor only hearing him leave and alerting the authorities upon her further discovery. Sam being the one colleague with me at every step and it had taken this recent stake of events to alert to what was really going on between them.
As I remember that apartment of his the look on Samantha's features and what we had found there. The one thing out of place there and even more significant for a recovering alcoholic, the bottle of vodka the glass beside it and the fact it had been touched.
My thoughts going into freefall and the signs which I had practically ignored what both Martin and Vivian had seen easily enough that his work had not been up to scratch these last few day. With only my own recent return to work of just over a month, giving no excuse that I should have picked up on it.
Far sooner as I think about last night, our missing colleague leaving first and something I should have addressed then and there with leaving early never being Taylors trait. As my eye now moves, to my blonde colleague.
Knowing she's been at the top of her game up until today and it was indirectly linked to Danny. As my eye slowly drifts to the empty desk feeling the innate responsibility that usually comes only with my own daughters:-
My memories flooding justifiably back to just after the time Martin had been shot. How harsh and hard that I had been on our Cuban colleague then and like some lost loyal son he had taken it along with his own guilt.
Something that deep down he still has never completely put behind him with helping Fitzgerald only partly distinguishing it, as my thoughts come to an abrupt halt thinking instead about the man who is now in my own office.
Who is whole heartedly blaming us and the one person related by blood to the victim Rafael Alvarez Danny's older brother. Plus a man once more out on payroll, his fear for his younger brother apparent enough and even with his help.
We could be here all day and more hunting down those who could want to do Danny harm with Rafael's wife and Danny's two nephews remaining along with him. With our Cuban colleague meaning much to them and as brothers go the old family wounds between them seem to have healed.
With having to notify and tell him, that his younger brother was missing being one of the hardest things in my seventeen years of working here. Vivian taking the toll along with me on being there when I broke the news to them and it made it no easier.
That we have yet to make any progress in trying to find him either dead or alive and he is our colleague. With Sam and Viv back checking any names from any cases in the last year to rat out any other would be enemies.
As I look at the file in front of me with what little stands baring nothing on making a way forward, the mobile phone remaining for now out the picture and switched off. No camera footage being found that would help identify a vehicle in or around the time of the attack.
Plus what prays at the back of mind that if there is more than one individual involved then it could be political or terrorist related, our agent only being used as insurance something I have seen often enough. With the agent dying in the midst of it before it is over.
With there being no ransom or call from who holds him as my dark eyes return to where they had been earlier, to the view that I hardly ever look at. The sun splintering cathedral like onto the skyscrapers in the distance.
The sky now sapphire blue as I yield again to the fear growing inside me looking at the open file in front of me as my thoughts find voice:
"Where are you Danny?"
Only the momentary pause of my thoughts answering as a female voice reaches across in a different way:
"We've got company Jack."
The voice Vivian's as I turn to look in the same direction as her hearing Martin speak at the same time in puzzlement:
"Dad"
With it indeed being his father with him continuing to walk towards me and evidently it is not his son he has come to see. As I am addressed fully the features grave:
"I believe your agent is missing Jack?"
Everybody's head rising to those words as I nod not trusting my voice and wondering where is heading with it as he replies:
"What I am about to share was classified till this morning."
Our eyes now meeting as he takes it as the leeway to speak fully:
"Yesterday three FBI agents of Cuban decent were killed in three major cities Washington was one of them.
There was nothing to link them over and above how they were killed. Until this letter arrived on my desk this morning."
Fitzgerald now giving me a direct look before handing it over to me:
"At first I thought it was our unfinished business Jack and there is no doubt they are part of it."
As I see him now gaze at Martin realizing at the same time what he means by unfinished business, with the man who fled the country and was ultimately responsible for the ambush on Martin and Danny three years ago.
Being back in the United States as I home in on what has been handed to me the address giving away, that Fitzgerald's father is correct. As I look to what is attached to the letter. The photograph recent and its Danny's photo as the feeling of impending terror find's a whole new level.
My gaze falling back at that to the letter seeing what is cruelly on the writing paper to begin with a small motif of the statue of liberty and the fact. It's American letter paper that can be bought at any airport or tourist stand.
With it only being the first address which is written in English, the rest in fluent Spanish as I glance again at Martin's father. Knowing for once he's not breathing down my neck as I study the words, noting Danny's real surname as my grip tightens on the letter.
My heart engulfing in a new type of fear as I read on the letter falling from my hand as my gaze returns to that all too innocent photo of my missing colleague. Before slowly switching back seeing the drawn photo of the bird at the end of the last paragraph and there is no name there to go with it.
As Martin's father speaks first the rest of my team already reading between the lines, Samantha looking now towards the photo her gaze staying there as this man. Who has come all the way from Washington to help us says his piece:
"If those higher up get their own way it would mean more than your colleague's death for three FBI agents have already paid with their life Jack."
TO BE CONTINUED….