The Big Bad Wolf (Alex Cross 9)

“Does Senior Agent Nooney know that I’m the director’s one-man flying squad?” I asked Woods. Tell me that he does. I don’t need more trouble down at Quantico.

“We’ll let him know posthaste where you’re going,” Woods promised. “I’ll take care of it personally. Go to Atlanta, and keep us posted on what you find down there. You’ll be briefed on the plane. It’s a kidnapping case.” But that was all Tony Woods would tell me on the phone.

For the most part, the Bureau flies out of Reagan Washington National. I boarded a Cessna Citation Ultra, tan, with no identifying markings. The Cessna sat eight, but I was the only passenger.

“You must be important,” the pilot said before we took off.

“I’m not important. Believe me, I’m nobody.”

The pilot just laughed. “Buckle up, then, nobody.”

It was perfectly clear that a call from the director’s office had preceded me. Here I was, being treated like a senior agent. The director’s troubleshooter?

Another agent jumped aboard just before we took off. He sat down across the aisle from me and introduced himself as Wyatt Walsh, from D.C. Was he part of the director’s “flying team” too? Maybe my partner?

“What happened in Atlanta?” I asked. “What’s so important, or unimportant, that it requires our services?”

“Nobody told you?” He seemed surprised that I didn’t know the details.

“I got a call from the director’s office less than half an hour ago. I was told to come here. They said I’d be briefed on the plane.”

Walsh slapped two volumes of case notes on my lap. “There’s been a kidnapping in the Buckhead section of Atlanta. Woman in her thirties. White woman, well-to-do. She’s the wife of a judge, which makes it federal. More important, she isn’t the first.”

Chapter 13

EVERYTHING WAS SUDDENLY in a hurry-up mode. After we landed I was driven in a van to the Phipps Plaza shopping center in Buckhead.

As we pulled into the lot off Peachtree, it was obvious to me that something was very wrong there. We passed the anchor stores: Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor. They were nearly empty. Agent Walsh told me that the victim, Mrs. Elizabeth Connolly, had been abducted in the underground parking lot near another large store called Parisian.

The entire parking area was a crime scene, but particularly Level 3, where Mrs. Connolly had been grabbed. Each level of the garage was marked with a purple-and-gold scroll design, but now crime-scene tape was draped over the scrolls. The Bureau’s Evidence Response Team was there. The incredible amount of activity indicated that the local police agencies were taking this extremely seriously. Walsh’s words were floating in my head: She isn’t the first.

It struck me as a little ironic, but I was more comfortable talking to the local police than to agents from the Bureau’s field office. I walked over and spoke to two detectives, Pedi and

Ciaccio, from the Atlanta PD.

“I’ll try to stay out of your way,” I said to them, then added, “I used to be Washington PD.”

“Sold out, huh?” Ciaccio said, and she sniffed out a laugh. It was supposed to be a joke, but it had enough truth in it to sting. Her eyes had a light frost in them.

Pedi spoke up. He looked about ten years older than his partner. Both were attractive. “Why’s the FBI interested in this case?”

I told them only as much as I thought I should, not everything. “There have been other abductions, or at least disappearances, that resemble this one. White women, suburban locales. We’re here checking into possible connections. And, of course, this is a judge’s wife.”

Pedi asked, “Are we talking about past disappearances in the Atlanta metro area?”

I shook my head. “No, not to my knowledge. The other disappearances are in Texas, Massachusetts, Florida, Arkansas.”

“Ransoms involved?” Pedi followed up.

“In one Texas case, yes. Otherwise no money has been asked for. None of the women have been found so far.”

“Only white women?” Detective Ciaccio asked as she took a few notes.

“As far as we know, yes. And all of them fairly well-to-do. But no ransoms. And none of what I’m telling you gets to the press.” I looked around the parking garage. “What do we have so far? Help me out a little.”

Ciaccio looked at Pedi. “Joshua?” she asked.

Pedi shrugged. “All right, Irene.”