Chapter 6

Anna had been impressed by the high-tech equipment that the F.B.I. agents had supplied for the stake out, especially the night vision binoculars. She used them to scope out the small one-story office building marked by a gold sign by the door announcing, "Robert J. Wofford, M.D., F.A.C.P., General Medicine." Given the freezing temperature and falling snow, she was happy to have to wait in the car with the heat on until the arrest had been made. This being across state lines well out of her jurisdiction, definitely had its plus side.

A man and a woman, dressed in black like some paramilitary unit, were arrested attempting to kidnap and undercover agent posing as Dr. Wofford. Dr. Wofford allowed them to use his offices for the initial interrogation.

"How did you know we were going to be here?" asked Longridge. He looked as if he already knew the answer.

"We are the one asking questions not you," said FBI special agent Rodriguez.

"Wait, I think it would be a good idea to impress them with our far reaching investigative skills," said sheriff Turner. "It's a funny story actually. Over in Bangor Maine, where I am sure you and your friends have never been, there was a store holdup. A man named Johnny Smith got shot and, this is the strange part, he told his son to tell the sheriff (that's me) that a Doctor Robert Wofford in New Hampshire was going to be kidnapped on a snowy night to help a wounded man, maybe Smith himself. Smith made his son promise to hide and not come out until it was safe. Somehow he seemed certain that the holdup guys were more interested in himself and his son, than in the cash registers of the store. And long story short, lo and behold, here we are with you two arrested for attempted kidnapping of Dr. Wofford. Interesting coincidence, right?"

"We don't know anything about a holdup in Maine or a Smith guy, " the woman snapped back.

Turner noticed the clouded expression on Longridge's face. "Did Smith say something to you?"

Longridge saw his accomplice's scowl and stayed silent. Turner took that as a clue to break up the not so happy couple. She and Rodriguez took Longridge to one of the examination rooms, while the other agents continued their mostly one-way conversation with the woman. She did not appear to be impressed by the assertions that she fit the profile of the Bangor store shooter and that the ballistic match would put the nail in her coffin. In fact, she just wanted to talk to a lawyer.

Turner closed the door behind her, while Rodriguez led Longridge to sit on a stool.

The agent said, "Look, we don't have time to waste. In addition to being caught red-handed abducting Dr. Wofford, we have evidence connecting you to the Smith shooting and kidnapping. Help us find Smith and it will be easier on you. Don't help us and if he dies, you will be up for murder."

"I'm just hired muscle. I don't know much beyond what they told me to do. I really don't know what they wanted from Smith. They just said he could give them some important information. I really thought he was one of their gang who had gone AWOL."

"Maybe you don't know their plans, but you certainly know their location. We need that information before they get suspicious about you guys not coming back and move to a different place."

To the interlude of silence that followed Turner added, "I know that Smith sometimes says things that throw people off balance. He's done it to me. You have that look. Just spit it out."

"We were told to avoid touching Smith because he could sense things about you—I thought it was just mumbo-jumbo—but like the others I followed orders. I never even spoke to him, until today. I had to bring him from his cell back to the inter…, to another room, but he refused to come. I…I didn't hit him. When I pulled him up to stand, I got this weird cold numbing sensation to my hand. He got this strange look. I asked him what the hell had happened, he said my last name and he told me that the boss's plan would kill more people than I could imagine." Longridge stopped and roughly rubbed his face. He continued, "there was no way that he could have heard my name. Then he said that one of the people who would die would be my daughter, he knew her name too. He said that Jenny would be killed a few weeks before her tenth birthday, July 27th. Tell me, please, does what Smith see in his visions always come true?"

Rodriguez turned to Anna for direction. She said, "Usually yes, unless he does something to change things."

"He also said that he saw me kill myself at my daughter's grave," he paused as if expecting Ana to say that Smith had been kidding about that, instead he just got a raised eyebrow. So he went on. "She lives in Chicago with my ex. This is crazy. I was just trying to make some money to start a small business and make myself respectable so that her mom would at least let me visit with Jenny."

"This is all very touching, but nothing is going to change unless you tell us exactly where they are keeping Smith." Said Rodriguez. "We need to know everything: location, number of band members, types of weapons, vehicles."

After not getting much sympathy for expressing his fear that he might get killed for giving this information, Longridge opened up the flood gates. He spewed all kinds of interesting intel. With Longridge and his female accomplice under arrest, there were still five well-armed kidnappers with Smith at an isolated vacation home on a pond about an hour from the town. Smith was mostly kept alone in a locked basement room, with a guard posted outside the door. The rest of the group was usually upstairs in various locations. While the FBI agents got out paper maps and a laptop to view satellite pictures of the location, Anna took over the interview.

"We have eye witnesses, blood, and a bullet casing indicating that Smith was shot at least once," she said. "How badly hurt is he? Did you guys get the other bullet out of him?"

It took a while to get something approaching an honest answer from Longridge who preferred to repeat over and over that he hadn't done anything to Smith.