They Disappeared Read online

  “Lee Ann’s death undid us. We came here a broken family and I wanted to smash what was left. Sarah wanted to save it. But by the time I realized she was right, she and Cole were gone.”

  Jeff leaned forward and cupped his battered face in his hands.

  “I can’t stop believing that this is my fault.”

  “You can’t blame yourself,” Ortiz said.

  “It started here. I’m the one who wanted to come back here. I’m the one who let Lee Ann slip away from us. I’m the one who wanted to destroy what was left of our family. I had Sarah in my arms this morning, now she’s gone again. And I don’t know where Cole is.”

  They sat without speaking for a long stretch. Jeff’s knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on the bench and the muscles in his jaw bunched as his anguish turned to rage.

  “If those fuckers harm my family, I will find them and I will kill them.”

  Ortiz said nothing and they sat there watching the wind ripple the glass surface of the water.

  CHAPTER 37

  Quantico, Virginia

  The most advanced forensic laboratory in the world was located at the sprawling FBI Academy in the Virginia woods, fifty miles outside of Washington, D.C.

  When the traffic was good, Special Agent Wilfred North could make it to his suburban district home in thirty minutes. He was collecting reports and contemplating the drive at the end of his day when his cell rang.

  It was the deputy director.

  “Glad I caught you, Will. We need an immediate assessment of a component related to a live credible threat in New York. I’ll send you the report from the preliminary work the NYPD did earlier today. We’ve just flown the device to Quantico. I’ve told Chuck I want you and your people to process it. We need to know who made it, who is using it, where it came from, everything you can tell us ASAP. You should have it in minutes.”

  North set aside his reports, then emailed several ATF colleagues, as well as scientists, engineers and technicians who worked with him. He requested that they stand by to consult. Then North texted his wife he’d miss dinner.

  It wouldn’t be the first time.

  As one of the FBI’s top veteran forensic investigators at the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center, his work often involved cases where lives were at stake.

  North was six months from retiring. He and his wife were to meet a Realtor this evening to discuss purchasing a cabin near Canmore, Alberta, in the Canadian Rockies. But North shoved personal matters out of his head while he waited for the device.

  Seated at his workstation, he cleaned his glasses with a soft cloth and reflected on his career. A former U.S. marine before he joined the FBI, North was a certified bomb technician and a crime scene investigator. He’d then worked in counterintelligence before he played a key role at the TEDAC.

  The center was a multiagency branch where North’s team analyzed bomb fragments, components, data and intelligence from explosions, plots and investigations in the U.S. and around the world. The team alerted its domestic partners and international allies with data they needed to find those responsible for an attack, or to prevent one from happening.

  Over the years, North’s work included investigations related to Oklahoma City, the USS Cole, attacks against the World Trade Center, the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania, the London subway attacks and terrorist incidents in Madrid, Athens, Tangiers, Kuwait City and Istanbul.

  North’s computer chimed with an email from the deputy director; a classified copy of the NYPD’s assessment of the device. North had just enough time to read and circulate it to his colleagues when the package arrived.

  He slipped on his lab coat, latex gloves and began. He kept his workstation with its multifaceted computer system and various scopes and monitors spotless.

  North activated the secure encrypted online system, then connected his headset. This accelerated analysis enabled his colleagues in the TEDAC and in labs across the country to see everything he saw in real time while allowing them to simultaneously access their systems to conduct research and offer live commentary.

  Because of the superb preliminary work by Lori Hall at the NYPD, they were up to speed on the item.

  North placed the component on a tray and positioned it with one of his powerful microscopes, equipped with HD webcam capabilities. He brought everything into focus for his colleagues online.

  “What we have,” North said, “is a wafer detonator, microscopic in scale, that was concealed by affixing it to a contact clip in the battery housing of a plastic pull-back toy jumbo jetliner. Can everyone see that?”

  North waited for confirmation before resuming.

  “Now the toy itself was manufactured in China’s Chenghai district and the dominant material was non-phthalate PVC. We need the signature of the component maker. The detonator is a state-of-the-art, highly sophisticated device. Let’s look at all aspects. I haven’t seen anything like this before. Time is working against us. Everyone knows the drill, so let’s get to it.”

  The experts undertook a number of procedures using an array of top-secret databases, secured with layers of passwords.

  They looked into bomb-tracking systems containing more than two thousand reports detailing components used in improvised explosives and incendiary devices in the U.S.

  Repositories on tracing the chain of manufacture, import and sale of industrial explosives and components nationally and globally were scoured. Sister databases recording thefts and losses of materials were checked.

  The TEDAC had received and stored components from bombing attacks made around the world and created a computerized searchable data bank that was a critical tool for all investigations.

  International bomb data centers were accessed and case studies were consulted for telltale elements. They studied global computer banks that monitored patterns and trends of terror networks and internationally known bomb makers.

  An hour later, North received everyone’s assessments. But before he completed drafting a preliminary analysis, his deputy director called.

  “FBI HQ needs to know now, Will,” the deputy said. “The White House is pressing with concerns, specifically because of the UN General Assembly in New York where the president is going to participate in forty-eight hours.”

  “I understand,” North said.

  “So give me a verbal and I’ll call HQ.”

  North repositioned his glasses.

  “Bottom line—we’ve never seen anything like this. Something similar has surfaced in an assassination attempt in Pakistan, attacks in Syria, Yemen.”

  “What exactly is it?”

  “The NYPD had it right. It’s a microscopic detonator—advanced, state-of-the-art stuff.”

  “Who made it? Who do we go after?”

  “A number of possibilities. The North Koreans may have developed it, or Iranian scientists. We’ve got some word that it could’ve been Russian made and tested in Syria, before it was offered for sale to terror networks.

  “This device can be used to deploy a powerful nonnuclear bomb and it’s virtually invisible from detection using the normal security procedures.”

  “This isn’t good, Will.”

  “No, and we don’t know how it got here, if there are others already here, or en route.”

  “There are about one hundred and fifty world leaders in New York and each of them is a potential target.”

  “Or all of them,” North said.

  CHAPTER 38

  Amsterdam, the Netherlands

  Aleena Visser was lying to herself.

  With her passport and ticket clamped in her straight white teeth she locked the door to her apartment.

  She adjusted her shoulder bag, hoisted her small wheeled suitcase, with its vibrant zebra pattern, and hurried down the stairs
to the street in time to board the tram as it lumbered through the bohemian district of de Pijp.

  She tried to deflect the worry that was nagging her.

  Looking out the window at the long, narrow streets, she was glad she’d moved from the crowded, expensive insanity of Jordaan. In de Pijp she was more at home with artists and students. She had a grand apartment. She could breathe here and it was better for her work as a travel writer for an online magazine.

  That’s what I am, she kept assuring herself, a travel writer and nothing else. Sometimes I help Joost, that’s all I do.

  Earlier in the day, Joost Smit, her editor, had summoned her into his glass-walled office.

  “I have an urgent assignment and you’re just the person to do it for us.” He printed off a sheet, gave it to her and looked up over his bifocals. “We’ve landed major advertising for an American hotel and restaurant chain and we need a special edition on New York. We’re bumping up the deadline, so you leave today for a week in Manhattan.”

  “Today?” Aleena’s bracelets jingled as she swept back her blond hair.

  “We’ve booked you on a flight from London that gets into Newark in the morning, New York time. Here’s your ticket and a cash advance. Use the company card for other expenses.”

  “What do you need for the edition?”

  “A feature on Central Park, the status of Ground Zero and whatever else you like. And—” Joost reached into his valise and put a small wooden box on his desk “—would you please deliver this for me in Manhattan?”

  It was a ballerina music box.

  “Who’s it for?”

  “My niece. It was handmade in Zurich and belonged to my great-grandmother. I don’t want to risk shipping it because it has tremendous sentimental value.” Joost removed his glasses, then lowered his voice. “It’s very important that it be handled with the utmost care and is delivered successfully. You are the only person I can trust to do this, Aleena. Will you do it?”

  She shifted her attention from him, glanced around the office, then shifted it back and in a near-whisper said, “No.”

  “Aleena, it is imperative this be delivered. We’ll triple the payment.”

  “I don’t care, I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Last one, I promise.”

  “That’s what you said the last time.”

  Joost let the warmth in his face melt as he squinted through the glass toward Aleena’s desk and the framed photo of her with her family.

  “Tell me, how are your mother, your sister and her sweet children?”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “If there were another option, I would use it but we don’t have time.”

  Aleena swallowed her tears and nodded.

  “Good,” Joost said. “I’ll call you with instructions later.”

  That’s how it went with Joost: an assignment somewhere around the globe and a delivery.

  Aleena left the tram and got on the subway. It whisked her to Schiphol Airport where she checked in and passed through security screening smoothly. She bought an herbal tea, settled in at preboarding, then texted Joost.

  Seconds later, he called.

  “Do not write any of this down. You are to make no record of what I am going to tell you, and memorize your emergency contact number, is that understood?”

  “I know how it works.”

  Not long after Joost gave Aleena details on delivery of the music box in New York, she boarded. And as her jet climbed over the North Sea, she resumed trying to convince herself she was a travel writer doing a small favor for a friend, the last favor.

  The first leg of her trip took her to London where she needed to change planes at Gatwick for a direct flight to Newark, New Jersey.

  As Aleena’s bags rolled along the conveyor and into the X-ray scanner a stern-faced female security agent requested her passport and boarding pass. The agent, who had the shape of a male bodybuilder, eyed her with a coolness that bordered contempt.

  At twenty-seven, Aleena was beautiful. With her blond hair, ice-blue eyes, some tattoos and a pierced left nostril with a diamond, she embodied a free spirit.

  Satisfied that Aleena matched her passport photo and everything was in order, the agent returned the documents and Aleena passed through security. As people located their seats on the jet, Aleena assured herself she was not doing anything wrong by helping Joost.

  Just believe what he told you.

  As the 747 lifted off and greater London unfurled below, Aleena’s stomach knotted. She pressed her head back into her seat, blinked at the ceiling.

  I can’t keep doing this.

  Aleena wrestled with all of her rationalizations until her conscience forced her to admit the truth. She was not a travel writer. Not really. That life ended long ago.

  Aleena Visser was a professional smuggler.

  I admit it.

  I am an international criminal.

  How did this happen to me?

  She’d met Joost Smit at a conference for journalists in Madrid, oh, so many years ago. He was a seasoned reporter who’d worked for Le Monde, Reuters, Interfax and AFP. He was retiring to launch a travel magazine and offered Aleena a position that paid her double what she was earning as a general assignment newspaper reporter in Rotterdam.

  Joost had huge financial backing and incredible contacts around the world. In a few short years, Aleena had set foot in most every country on earth, writing wonderful travel features and loving her life.

  While on assignment it was common for her to deliver an item or two to one of Joost’s ex-news pals, an ex-cop, diplomat, professor or some all-around shadowy figure. If the contact failed to show, she called the emergency number she’d memorized. Aleena was impressed by how many people Joost knew in exotic places from his journalist days. Joost paid her well for the favors. Of course, she’d heard the nasty rumors and jokes in the office about Joost’s mysterious past—that he was connected to the underworld. It gave rise to her own suspicions in the wake of some of her deliveries, but she’d always dismissed them. She was seeing the world, writing about it, making incredible money and having fun.

  Until a recent trip to Turkey.

  She was writing about Istanbul where she delivered a watch to Yuri, a former reporter with Interfax, the Russian wire service.

  “And how is Joost, my old spy friend?”

  After reading the shock on Aleena’s face, Yuri, who had obviously been drinking but was not that drunk, took her to a quiet café and, while hitting on her, confidentially told her, “reporter to reporter,” that Joost had once worked for Russian intelligence. All of Joost’s spy world friends knew that his magazine was a front for several global smuggling networks, specializing in small, critical items.

  “For all you know—” Yuri tapped the watch Aleena had given him before laughing “—you may have just delivered the key to unleashing a biological weapon, or nuclear device.”

  Yuri’s laughter haunted Aleena.

  Later, when she confronted Joost, he let a long disturbing silence pass.

  “Yuri’s weakness will get him killed one day,” Joost said before he confirmed everything: he was a smuggler. Then, very pleasantly, he asked about Aleena’s mother, her father, her older sister and her three little nephews, stating specific addresses and personal information that chilled Aleena.

  Joost then subtly suggested how Aleena was implicated and it would be better for her to keep secret things secret. He knew about her bank account in Luxembourg, where she’d been hiding the large payments he’d given her for making deliveries.

  The truth was sickening, overwhelming.

  She wanted to get out of this business, get away from Joost.

  But how?

  Now, somewhere over the Irish Sea, Aleena confronted her guilt.


  All those items I delivered…what were they? Who was at the other end of the emergency contact numbers? Did anyone ever die because of me? I can’t keep doing this…I just can’t….

  She took the ballerina music box from her bag, looked at it. There was nothing unusual about it. What could it be? She opened it and played the most beautiful version of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

  Tears streamed down Aleena’s face.

  Will I have blood on my hands?

  CHAPTER 39

  Somewhere in New York City

  Cole forced himself not to cry.

  That bearded guy just killed the man who wanted to kill me. Just shot him in the head.

  Tiny prickles of sensation kept running up and down Cole’s body as he stared at three fat rats across the factory floor. They were licking the fresh blood streaks where the dead guy had been dragged away.

  It got all quiet after they got rid of his body.

  And the awful burning smell, whatever it was, was nearly gone now, but Cole was afraid, not knowing what the kidnappers were going to do next.

  He didn’t want to cry.

  His mom held him, rubbing her cheek against his.

  “We have to brave, sweetie,” she whispered. “Think of all the fun things we’ll do with Daddy when we get out of here. Okay?”

  She kissed the top of his head where they had jabbed him with their guns.

  “Okay?”

  Cole nodded, keeping his face pressed to his mother.

  Cole wouldn’t cry. Not with one of the killers sitting in the chair about ten feet away. The guy kept scratching himself and yawning. Looking at him with disdain, Cole kept twisting the links of his chain; running his fingers along it was calming.

  He just wanted this to be over.

  When it all started he thought it was a movie or TV show, like some kind of joke. It happened so fast with these strange men showing them guns, shoving them into the car and sliding hoods over their heads.

  This can’t be real, Cole had thought.

  But it was real.