(My apology for being tardy with my chapter this week. Thanksgiving got away from me.)
Chapter Thirty-seven
Friday, 0515
(Eight hours, fifteen minutes after Prometheus)
—“Good morning Carol.
“The sunrise over Washington DC this morning is being heralded with the sounds of gunfire. There are helicopters lying where they crashed during the night, and several buildings and a bridge have heavy damage from the crashes and mortars.
“I’ve seen many soldiers hit, and the medical facility must be overwhelmed with casualties at this point as the fighting has been going on for many hours now.”—
The call finally came. Everyone started. Reynolds and Denton turned to Mackenzie who was looking at her phone. She had texted Lopez her new number after Denton had disabled the GPS, and scrambled any link that might give their location. It was a Skype call from Lopez.
Just before she answered she raised her finger, vertically bisecting her lips, reminding them to be quiet.
“Detective Mackenzie,” there was a sneer on Lopez’s face; pernicious and aggressive. He stood back from the camera. He was standing stiff, with the background of brown and white walls and a row of dirty windows framing him.
“Yes.” Mackenzie responded, struggling to maintain a calm professional tone. She was still incensed at his betrayal and deceit, and his face sparked instant anger.
“Are you ready to surrender the flash drive?” His voice, while quiet and steady, had an air of arrogance and superiority which was absent when they had been working together at the precinct. This was a different man, the real Lopez.
“I want to speak with Mrs. Reynolds and her daughter before we go any further.” Her voice was even, with a tone of authority in it. Her hostage training had taught her to be non-confrontational, but this was a unique situation; she knew the kidnapper.
“You’ll get to see them soon enough. The drive first.” He was trying to match her tone, but it came across as more menacing than commanding.
“You know how this works,” she said forcefully. Reynolds and Denton could read the annoyance on her face. “We’re not doing anything until we know they’re safe and unharmed.”
“If you’ve hurt th…,” Reynolds said, not meaning to speak out loud. Mackenzie shot him a glare so powerful he was compelled to stop mid-sentence.
“I’ll do with them as I please until I have what I want.” His voice was demonic now, beyond anything Reynolds and Denton had ever heard; it was as though Satan was speaking to them.
Both Reynolds and Denton were about to respond when Mackenzie raised her hand again. Her manner was so confidently forceful that Denton sat down in the chair at the table and Reynolds stopped immediately, standing quietly; fuming.
“Threatening them is not helping you, Lopez. We’re going to see them before you get anything…”
“Detective. Before you go any further, let me assure you I can’t be intimidated. No one is going to be permanently harmed. But I want you to understand I’m going to get what I want or I will slowly torture these sweet young ladies to death right here for you to see. You do understand that, don’t you?” His voice was cold, sinister, almost inhuman, only his mouth was moving, and his face was like clay. Black empty eyes peered out of reddish-brown flesh. Mackenzie was startled by him, and disappointed at herself. How could she not have seen this in him before. It was like the day her ex had told her he was leaving her—she looked up at her husband and it was as though she had never really seen him before and was now seeing the real him, an adulterer.
She stood silently considering what she was going to say next. Reynolds and Denton both looked at her, Denton with a puzzled expression, and Reynolds imploring, pleading, for her to respond.
Just as Reynolds was about to respond in her place Lopez spoke again, “Do you understand Detective?!” Mackenzie heard a faint hint of anxiety in his voice—she realized at that moment he must be under some intense pressure to retrieve the drive, that a deadline must be looming. This was why she didn’t respond immediately, allowing the weight of the silence to build up in hopes he would leak something; and he had.
“I hear you Lopez. Now hear me. I want Maggie and Jenni in front of me, or we’re done. You must know me well enough to know I’m not going to give you anything until I’m sure they’re alive and unharmed, and your attempts to intimidate and bully me are just wasting both our time. Now, do you understand?”
She knew he had done his homework before he got assigned to her and would have learned from his study she was not someone to be pushed around, and he was now seeing it. She would not cooperate unless they came to terms and he knew it.
He blinked and then said, “Standby,” and hung up. Mackenzie knew Lopez was furious but she was counting on his desperation. She hoped her aggression had him focusing on her and not Maggie and Jenni. It was a risk. He might do something to them. She had experienced this kind of menace before, so she knew the one thing the hostage-taker wants is to feel in control, and if that’s taken away they tend to lash out. But in this case she gambled he wouldn’t do anything extreme now because it would unnecessarily complicate things and he wanted the drive as quickly as possible. She had realized they were mirroring each other, that she was holding a hostage as well. One he too wanted desperately.
After Lopez hung up Reynolds turned to Mackenzie with a look that took her aback. He was angrier than she had seen him before; His face was red with rage.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!” Reynolds screamed.
She paused for a moment to allow his anger to diminish a little, and to give her a chance to compose herself as she was herself angry with Reynolds’s repeated interruptions. She understood why he was acting emotionally, but she could only repeat so many times that emotionalism was not going to be productive, and might even get his wife and daughter killed.
“Matt, trust me. I’ve dealt with this situation before. For him this is a business transaction, a negotiation. He’s going to do whatever he thinks will get him what he wants,” she spoke in a voice that was as calm and quiet as Reynolds’s was angry and loud.
“Trust you! I hardly know you, and I’m not sure you understand me. If I have to give him the drive in order to get my family back then that’s what I’ll do! Do you get that!?”
“Yes. I understand your primary concern is your family.”
“You obviously don’t understand. My only concern is my family!” He had calmed his tone a little but the intensity with which he looked at her showed his anger had not subsided at all.
“Okay. I get it. But you need to understand something too. People like Lopez, they don’t operate like you and me. He is cold-bloodedly focused on his assignment. He has a job to do and he will do what ever is necessary to complete it. If that means he has to pretend to cooperate with us, then he’ll do that,” she paused momentarily as she could see he was listening and that he wanted her to be right, because he had no idea what to do; he needed her help.
“You’ve pissed him off. He might hurt them just to make his point.”
“He might, but I think he’s more likely going to try and deceive us,” she said as she looked at Denton, hoping he understood and would support her, but she could see he felt the same as Reynolds. “I’ve known people like him, and in this case I’ve the added advantage I never had with any other case; I’ve worked with him.
“Yeah, this maniac was right under your nose and you didn’t know it,” Reynolds returned. “He fooled you before, how will you know if he tries again?”
“Yes, it’s true he was able to hide from us for years. But that level of deception is practiced,” she paused to read Reynolds’s and Denton’s faces. “Don’t you see? He tried intimidation and it didn’t work. He believes in his ability to deceive, and he’ll go back to his strength. He’ll try to convince us he can be trusted so he can get us near enough to take everything: you, me, the drive. If he harms them, he puts us even more on guard, and he wants to lower our guard. That’s why he’s submitting. He thinks it will convince us to go along.
“However, you’re right that he’s likely very angry and may have wanted to take it out on them, but I’ve made it personal now. He’s a psychopath. That means he’s capable of compartmentalizing his anger until later. He now wants to be able to take his anger out on me.” Mackenzie stopped in order to let her argument sink in, and to see if he would accept her tactic.
Reynolds walked to the door and looked out at the dark blue pool covered in soot, his posture relaxed a little. “You’d better be right,” he replied after a moment.
Denton stood up and walked over to his friend and put his arm around his friend, and when Reynolds turned to look at him he nodded in agreement.
“Matt, she’s trained in this stuff. We don’t have any idea how to deal with someone like this. I mean, do you have a plan other than to give him what he wants and hope he doesn’t kill us all?”
Reynolds considered this and replied, dejectedly, his dropping, “No.”
“Okay then. Let’s let the Detective take the lead here. If it looks like it’s not working then we change our strategy. What do you say?” Denton gave a slight smile of reassurance as he squeezed his arm.
Reynolds turned back to Mackenzie. His face had gone slack. Then he said, bitterly, somberly, quietly, “You’d better be right.”