Enigma (FBI Thriller 21)

PROLOGUE

People couldn’t move out of his way fast enough, some of them even crossed the street to avoid getting too close to him. He realized, on some level, that what was going on in his head was making him look and act crazy, but he couldn’t help that. Maybe the blur of his thoughts, the dizziness, the weakness he felt would get better. His brain tripped away from that thought so fast he couldn’t catch it long enough to consider what it meant.

At least he’d managed to get what he needed from Morley’s Gun and Sports. He’d broken in, found the AR-15 he was looking for displayed on a wall, and was aware enough to wrap it in a bag along with the Remington cartridges so people wouldn’t see he was carrying an assault rifle. And he’d found some hunting clothes on a display table, grabbed up chinos, shirts, boots, and socks. It had felt strange to be putting on real clothes, clothes that sort of fit. He’d left his green drawstring pants, smock, and slippers on the floor.

He put one foot in front of the other on the street, focused only on moving on. He waved down a passing bus and held out the money he’d stolen to the bus driver and let him pick out what was owed. The bus was a gift. Maybe he wouldn’t be too late. He sat down, breathed slowly in and out, and whispered his mantra over and over so he wouldn’t forget: I’ve got to save her; I’ve got to get to her in time.

1

GEORGETOWN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

SUNDAY, MID-JULY

Dr. Janice Hudson clutched Savich’s arm, her words tumbling over one another. “Thank goodness you were home, Dillon, and you came. Listen, I was outside weeding my impatiens when I saw a man ring Kara’s doorbell. She opened the door and he started yelling at her, waving his arms around, and then he shoved her inside and closed the door. I heard her scream.”

“Did he see you?”

“No, no, he didn’t. He’s a young man, Dillon, unkempt, baggy clothes, and he had a long package under his arm. I thought it could be some sort of gun.” He wanted to tell her that was unlikely, but he’d known Dr. Janice Hudson all his life; she’d been a close friend of his grandmother’s. She’d also been a psychiatrist for more than forty years, and he could only imagine what she’d seen in that time. He’d trusted her instincts enough to drop everything and run over when she’d called him.

“I called 911, too, but I don’t know how long it will take them to get here. You have to help Kara, she’s such a sweet girl. Like I told you, she’s pregnant; the baby is due in one week. She’s been renting the house for nearly six months and—”

She drew a deep breath, got herself together. “That’s not important. Dillon, when I saw his face, and the way he moved, stumbling and weaving when he stood in place, he seemed severely disturbed, probably medicated. Every now and then he screams at her—there, listen!”

It was a young man’s voice, a mad voice overwhelmed with panic. “You’ve got to understand! You have to come with me; we have to get away from them. I know they’re coming and they’ll take you. You’ve got to come away with me before it’s too late!”

“Who will take her? Before what’s too late? He sounds paranoid, delusional. He’s been yelling about the baby, ranting and cursing about some kind of gods, making no rational sense. He hasn’t said who those gods are, but I’m frightened for Kara, especially if he’s armed. I’ve dealt with people as disturbed as he is too many times in my life not to be. Dillon, you’ve got to help her, now.”

Savich turned to see a police car pull up, a Crown Vic behind it. Two officers piled out of the squad car, and behind them Detective Aldo Mayer, a man other cops called Fireplug behind his back, hauled himself out of the Crown Vic, looking harassed. Savich could let Mayer deal with this. Mayer had experience, and he’d clearly been close when the call came in. Savich saw him wave to the two officers and motion them over.

The man screamed at them through the front window. “I know they sent you, but how did they find me so fast? It’s too soon! You stay away, I’ve got a rifle. Stay back!”

He pushed the barrel of an AR-15 assault rifle out from between the drapes and fired. The cops scrambled for cover as bullets struck the side of the Crown Vic and the patrol car. There was silence again, except for the sirens in the distance.

“Dillon, they’re not cops to him, they’re here to take him to the people he fears. If he snaps, he might hurt Kara and the baby. His paranoia is out of control, he’ll do whatever he thinks he has to do.” She leaned into him. “I know a way you can get into Kara’s house without anyone seeing you. What do you say?”

Another cop car pulled up to the curb, the officers quickly taking cover. Detective Mayer shouted through a bullhorn, “Sir, we’re not here to do you any harm. There’s no reason for anyone to get hurt. We can talk, we can figure this out. Tell us the problem, tell us how we can help you.”

“Don’t lie to me! I know who you are. They found me and sent you. I can beat them, at least for a little while. Leave or I’ll kill you, all of you if I have to! Do you understand me? They don’t know everything. I figured it out; I fooled them! I got away from them. Get back!”

Savich heard tears bubbling in his shattered voice. And a deep well of madness, and fear.

The man screamed, “I’ll kill everyone to stop them, do you hear me? I’ll kill all of us!”

He fired off another half-dozen rounds through the small space between the tightly pulled drapes. A front tire on the lead patrol car burst, and bullets shattered the passenger-side window of the Crown Vic, sending Detective Mayer to his belly.

They couldn’t return fire, they had no idea where Kara Moody was.

The distant sirens were closer now, and soon there would be pandemonium in the street. Savich would lose his chance. Dr. Janice was right: He had no choice. The man was unpredictable and dangerous, and he had an assault rifle. Savich felt the familiar weight of his Glock on his belt clip and hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. He saw Sherlock’s beloved face, remembered Sean’s manic laughter when he’d beaten his father at a new video game, and prayed he wouldn’t take a bullet. Savich said to Dr. Janice, “Tell me how to get in the house.”

As she spoke to him, Savich texted Metro detective Ben Raven.

Urgent. Come to 2782 Prospect Street.

Hostage situation. Mayer here. Bail me out.

Savich heard the man yelling again, his panicked madness giving way to something like dete

rmination, and acceptance. “I mean it! It has to stop. I won’t let them hurt her. Leave. Tell them they can’t have her!”

Savich climbed over Dr. Janice’s fence and dropped onto Kara Moody’s side yard. There were only three high windows on the near side of the house, no chance the man would see him. Savich pushed through a planting of red petunias and white impatiens, cut through a huge star jasmine that covered a root cellar door at the back of the house. Dr. Janice had lived next door for fifty years and knew the original owners had dug out the space to use as a bomb shelter, something from another age.

He moved the jasmine away, saw the moldy wooden door Dr. Janice had described to him. It wasn’t locked. The rusted handle creaked and groaned as he pulled it open and looked down at rotted wooden stairs that disappeared into blackness. He pulled out his cell phone to use as a light, and carefully stepped down the stairs until he felt the rotted wood begin to give way, and jumped, knees bent, to the dirt floor. He felt a rat carcass crunch beneath his boot, breathed in stale, nasty air, cooler than outside, and nearly coughed, but managed to hold it in. He doubted anyone had been in this shelter since the Nixon administration. His cell light haloed spiderwebs draped from open beams, crisscrossing the space, and more rodent carcasses littered the dirt floor. Jars were lined up on warped wooden shelves, covered with mold, dirt, and spiderwebs. Straight ahead another set of sagging wooden stairs led up to a door. Dr. Janice had told him it opened into a closet in the second bedroom, the baby’s room.

He thanked heaven for small favors when the stairs held his weight. He tried the narrow door at the top. It was locked. He grabbed the wooden rail to steady himself, reared back, and slammed his shoulder against the lock. It held. He reared back again and this time he kicked it, nearly lost his balance, and felt his heart do a mad flip. The door popped open. He prayed the man hadn’t heard him.

He shoved the door slowly outward, pushing aside cardboard boxes stacked against it, until he had enough of a path to pass. He eased the outer closet door open slowly and looked into a room painted a light blue. A bright mobile with the name Alex hung over a crib, and next to the crib was a rocking chair with a blue throw and a dresser painted with Walt Disney characters. Everything was ready for the baby’s arrival.

He stepped quietly into the hallway, guessed he was thirty feet from the living room when he heard the man screaming at the cops again. “Bastards! They sent you, didn’t they? But they don’t want me dead, not yet at least, so he told you not to kill me.”

Savich heard Kara Moody’s voice, soft and low, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying. She sounded controlled, trying to keep him calm. He prayed she could hold herself together a bit longer. It might help keep the man from shooting her . . . and then possibly himself.

Savich held his Glock at his side and walked as quietly as he could through the updated kitchen toward an arched opening to the dining room. The L-shaped living room was beyond it, and he saw Kara Moody first, her ankles and wrists duct-taped to a chair, her long straight dark hair straggling around her face. A burgundy Redskins T-shirt covered her big belly and her loose white cotton pants. Her narrow feet were bare. She was in her midtwenties, and pretty. Her eyes were fastened on her feet, trying to avoid the man’s eyes, and his attention. Savich moved forward, saw the man standing by the window in profile, the assault rifle held loosely at his side. Savich wondered where he’d gotten hold of that killing machine. He was swaying back and forth. Was it from stress or drugs? Probably both. He’d sounded young, but still, Savich was surprised to see he was no older than twenty-five, slight, maybe one forty, and no taller than five foot nine. There was a light beard scruff on his narrow face. He might have been good-looking if rage and fear weren’t contorting his face. He wore a wrinkled shirt over baggy chinos that looked like he’d lived in them since he’d escaped from wherever he’d been held, from the people who’d probably been trying to take care of him. Were they the gods he was running from, the gods he believed had found him so quickly and sent the police to bring him back?

Savich flattened himself behind the dining room wall, next to the arched opening, and calmed his breathing. He heard Detective Mayer’s voice on the bullhorn trying to reason with a man who had no tether to reason, offering to provide him whatever he wanted if he didn’t harm Ms. Moody.

The man screamed, “You’re a liar! I don’t believe you, not a word! I won’t let you take me, or take her. Do you hear me?” He let out a high, mad laugh. “I will not let you win!” He screamed the words again, wailed them. Then he stopped, turned to face Kara Moody, and whispered, “I don’t know what to do. I’ve got to figure this out. I want what’s best for you, I do, only not how you’d think. But maybe it doesn’t matter now.

He began shaking his head, and his free hand tugged at his hair. He was ready to break and yelled, “What am I going to do?”

Kara Moody raised her head, and Savich realized she knew as well as he did it was crunch time and she had to try. “Please listen to me. Please tell me who you are and why you want me to go with you. Go where? Who is after you? After us? Can’t you see I’m pregnant?”

He ran to her, leaned forward, cupped her chin in his hand, and jerked her face up. “Of course you’re pregnant. Why do you think I came? Did you call them? Did you tell them I was here?” He stopped again, shook his head, as if trying to straighten out his thoughts. “No, you didn’t call them; I didn’t let you. I had to tie you up, you know that, don’t you? You’d have run before I could convince you to come with me. Wait, then who called them? I don’t understand. I don’t understand!”

Savich couldn’t act, the man was too close to her, his face nearly touching hers, close enough to kiss her. Her voice remained amazingly calm as she whispered into his face, “No, I didn’t call them. I don’t like them, either. I don’t want them to get near me. Who are you? Have I seen you before? Were you in Baltimore?”

“Baltimore,” he repeated, as if trying to make sense of it.

He reared back and screamed at her, spittle flying, “I’m an enigma. He keeps telling me that’s what I am, that is what we are. I can’t let them take me, can’t let them take you! It’s evil, a monstrous evil!” He shoved himself back away from her.