Gone Cold (3 page)

Edie flinched as though I’d made a fist. Her eyes fell away, her jaw hung open. A look I’d seen countless times before.

“Abducted?” The word emanated from somewhere deep in her chest. Pushed past her dentures like a puff of smoke. She leaned back in her seat, raised her fingers to her forehead as though to cross herself, then lowered them and shook her head as if to clear cobwebs. “I sometimes forget I broke away from the Church long ago.”

I nodded but said nothing.

“So, tell me about…”

“Hailey,” I said.

I told her. Told her what I’d told so few people over the past eleven months. Told her how I’d returned to D.C. one day a dozen years ago after chasing down a United States fugitive in Bucharest and learned that my daughter, Hailey, had been taken from our Georgetown home. Told her about my wife, Tasha, poor Tasha, how she’d looked, eyes enveloped in scarlet spiderwebs, hair a fright, spew dripping from her lips, mucous running from her nose; how she’d sounded; how she’d broken down over the following weeks and ultimately taken her own life.

But mostly I told Edie about Hailey herself, how she’d been the most perfect little girl, always worrying about others’ feelings more than her own. I told her about the beauty she’d been, the hints of brilliance she’d shown. Told her how Hailey’s disappearance left a crack in my world that nothing could repair, a gaping hole that nothing and no one could ever refill.

And, of course, I told her about the search. The early days when the FBI made a home in our home and instructed me to sit by the phone in case the kidnappers called. To sit there and wait, do nothing but think and wait and think and wait until something happened. Told her that nothing ever did. One day, there were simply fewer feds hanging around our house, the next day fewer still, and so on and so on, until there were none. Like Hailey’s favorite nursery rhyme, the one about the ten little Indians.

Then Tasha was gone. Overdosed on prescription pills. Painkillers, muscle relaxers, tranqs. The works.

I told Edie about the business I subsequently went into, searching the globe for children kidnapped by their estranged parents; how I circumvented foreign laws, and brought those children home. How always, no matter where in the world I was, I searched for Hailey.

Then this past year.

And finally ending with my call to Kati a few hours ago.

“The world can be terrible sometimes,” Edie said.

She said it in such a way that I knew she meant it. She’d witnessed the world’s terribleness firsthand. I asked her about it and she didn’t hesitate. Described for me in great detail how she’d lost her son in a senseless shooting at a Burger King in downtown Baltimore forty years ago. The killer took off with $267 and was cornered by police in an abandoned warehouse four hours following the armed robbery. Eleven months later he was convicted and sentenced to die in Maryland’s gas chamber. Thanks largely to Edie, however, the killer’s sentence was eventually reduced to life without the possibility of parole. Edie had spent the years since then traveling the country, fighting the death penalty in states such as Virginia, Georgia, Florida, and Texas. She was now seventy-eight years old and still going strong.

*   *   *

“What are you going to do?” Edie said roughly halfway through the flight. “Once we land in Dublin, how are you going to go about finding your daughter?”

I winced. In my head, I’d been referring to the wanted woman as
the girl
because I didn’t quite know who I was thinking about, my daughter or some nameless stranger, some
murderous
nameless stranger.

“I spoke to the authorities,” I said. “An officer graciously offered to meet me at the airport in Dublin, then take me directly to the crime scene.”

After phoning the Garda and being shuffled from one unit to the next, I was finally given a man who, very much unlike the others, seemed anxious to speak with me.

“This is Detective Chief Inspector Damon Ashdown of the National Crime Agency,” he’d said.

“
Britain’s
National Crime Agency?” I asked, incredulous. “Not to sound ungrateful, Detective, but why in hell am I speaking to you? Unless Her Majesty quietly annexed the Republic of Ireland in the past twenty-four hours, the crime I’m calling about falls well out of your jurisdiction.”

“I’m a liaison,” he said evenly. “I was told you’re a British citizen.”

“Dual citizenship,” I said. “U.S. and the UK.”

“And you say you’re the girl’s father?” He had a gruff voice, the voice of a cop who’d spent much of his life on mean city streets.

“I can’t say that for certain,” I told him. “I haven’t seen my daughter in twelve years.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line and I thought I’d lost him. But then he said, “Tell me if I have this right, Mr. Fisk. You were born in London but moved to the States with your father as a child?”

I froze. That was something I didn’t recall telling anyone in the past half hour and it sent a sudden chill through me. Was I wanted somewhere in the EU? Was this all a ruse? Was this going to go down the way it had in Paris two years ago?

But then, maybe I
had
told someone earlier. After all, I was exhausted, on no food and little sleep. The Irish coffee had gone straight to my head. Sure, Kati’s e-mail had spurred me into action but much of the past hour was still a blur.

“That’s right,” I finally said.

“And your father’s name?”

“Alden Fisk.”

I could hear him scratching something down on a pad then tapping away at a keyboard.

“Your mother’s maiden name?”

I allowed a bit of edge into my voice. “I’m sorry, Detective, but this is relevant how exactly?”

“Please, sir, bear with me just a little longer.” He paused. “Any siblings?”

“A sister.”

“Her name?”

I sighed, long and loudly. “Tuesday. Like the day of the week.”

“Please hold.”

I held. I held for a damn long while, wondering whether this entire evening was a setup. I couldn’t imagine Kati taking part in any plot against me. But then, I hadn’t asked her how she’d obtained this photo of the wanted girl; I’d been too taken with its possible meaning. And even if she wasn’t in on it, it was fathomable that someone had discovered I was working with her. Maybe even her husband, the detective in Connecticut. Who knew what connections he had in Europe? It’s a small world after all. And getting smaller by the minute.

Was Interpol running the show?

Had a Red Notice been issued for me?

Did this have something to do with the mess I left at the gangster Kazmer Chudzik’s lake house in Poland two years back?

My mind took me down several possible roads, each darker than the last. Ashdown seemed to know about my childhood, something I rarely volunteered. I wasn’t so much
brought
to the United States by my father as I was
taken
. Taken from my mother, Tatum, and my sister, Tuesday, neither of whom I’d seen or heard from since.

Had I uttered something about my background to one of the Irish cops I’d spoken to previously? Had the information been passed on down the line to Detective Chief Inspector Ashdown? Or was Ashdown reading from an exhaustive investigative file on me and my overseas activities?

In the end, I knew it didn’t matter. Any chance I had of finding Hailey—or even discovering what happened to her—inevitably passed the test of risk versus reward.

Finally Ashdown reappeared on the line.

“All right, then. Let’s plan on meeting as soon as you arrive.”

“I’ll catch a taxi to Garda Headquarters,” I told him. “Are the Guards still located off North Road in Phoenix Park?”

“That won’t be necessary,” he said. “Just provide me your flight information. I’ll meet you direct at Dublin Airport as soon as you land.”

Chapter 5

Seven and a half hours after takeoff our 777 touched down in Dublin. As we sluggishly taxied toward the terminal, I kept my head down, my belt buckled, did my damnedest to remain calm.

I was seated in the rear of the plane. Soon as we reached the gate, I watched dozens of passengers spill into the aisles and open overhead bins to retrieve luggage that should have been checked. I remained seated, my breathing quickening, pulse racing, legs shaking as if there were a band. Edie slipped me a page torn from her book.

“My mobile,” she said. “I’ll be three days in Dublin visiting friends then retiring to my flat in London. Do please contact me if there’s anything in the world I can do.”

I thanked her. Folded the page and stuffed it in my wallet.

When the aisles finally cleared I stood and raced toward the front of the plane, knowing damn well there might be a pair of handcuffs waiting for me in the terminal. It was a risk I’d often calculated and had always been willing to take.

But when we emptied into the terminal I found no uniforms waiting.

I swept the area to get my bearings. Dublin Airport had been a frequent stop these past twelve years, but rarely a final destination.

After a few moments, I followed the crowd. The airport was clean and modern and bustling as usual. During the day this terminal was brimming with sunlight (or at least what passed for sunlight here in Ireland). But due to the time difference and the seven-and-a-half-hour flight, it was already full dark when we arrived, and the artificial light felt unusually harsh on my eyes. I was still tired, I realized; in fact, I was downright exhausted.

As I approached Customs, I pulled my weathered passport from my pocket. Stepped to the back of the line and prepared for another grueling wait.

Soon as I did I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned ninety degrees and found a single man in a heavy black overcoat. He looked to be around forty, though I was a hell of a poor judge when it came to guessing the age of adults.

“Mr. Fisk,” he said without flashing identification, “I’m Detective Chief Inspector Damon Ashdown.”

Neither of us extended a hand. I at least for good reason; I was half expecting Ashdown to produce a set of cuffs to take me in.

He had a hard face framed by dark hair, his mouth a narrow straight line, the kind you can’t imagine ever turning up at the corners. He stared at me with piercing blue eyes, as if challenging me to speak.

I scanned the masses moving around Customs but didn’t peg anyone else for a cop.

“I’m alone,” Ashdown said.

I didn’t believe him, not for one second. It made no sense that he was alone.

“Why?” I asked him.

“Because if we officially involve the National Crime Agency to any extent, we’d have to bring her in as soon as we found her, whether it was here or in the UK.”

Not so,
I thought. My plan was to find her first, get her out of the European Union as quickly as possible, and make for a country like Moldova, where we wouldn’t have to worry much about extradition. I needed information, but once I had it, I intended on ditching Ashdown and finding the girl myself.

“If it’s not to arrest her,” I said, “then what’s your interest?”

He hesitated, furrowed his brow as though locked in an internal debate. Finally, he said, “I’m here to help you, Simon.”

“Help me, huh?” I scoped the area again, certain we were being watched. “And why would you want to do that?”

“Because we have a mutual friend.”

The first face that popped into my head was Davignon, the French lieutenant I’d aided in Paris two years ago. No doubt he’d want to help if he knew the connection. But then, how the hell would Davignon have found out?

“A friend?” I said, probing.

Second face to pop into my mind was Kurt Ostermann, a private investigator I’d worked with in Berlin. We had a long history. He knew all about Hailey. He’d seen her photos, including the computer-generated likeness that Kati had sent.

“A woman,” Ashdown said.

At that point I was sure he was referring to Anastazja Staszak, a Warsaw lawyer who’d accompanied me through Eastern Europe during the Lindsay Sorkin investigation. At the mere thought of her I felt movement in the pit of my gut, a flutter that immediately vanished when I pictured the wanted photo of Hailey.

Or whoever the girl in the photo might be.

“All right,” I said. “Who is she?”

I’d told myself on the plane that I wasn’t going to volunteer anything. I was coming to Dublin to gather information, not to relinquish it.

Ashdown hesitated again, a growing look of discomfort on his face. “Someone I think you need to meet for yourself.”

“If this is some kind of game—”

“It’s no game, Simon,” he said with an air of impatience. “Let me take you to her. After that we’ll head to—”

“No,” I said firmly. “It’s my daughter we’re searching for. My daughter, my rules. I want to see the crime scene before anything else.”

Chapter 6

TWELVE YEARS AGO

As we pull up to the curb in front of my house in Georgetown the white haze returns and I feel myself falling into a faint. Terry slaps the left side of my face, gently yet firmly. The haze disappears, replaced by spinning red and blue lights. There are four—no, five—black-and-whites surrounding my house. One sitting in the driveway, three idling in front of us, and one parked around the corner, facing my backyard. All Metropolitan PD.

In his cockney British accent, Terry says, “You want I come in with you?”

By the time he finishes the question I’m already out the door, hurrying up the drive. A uniformed officer holds his hand up but another tells him, “No, it’s all right. This is the dad.”

This is the dad.

Next thing I know I’m being helped over the threshold and then suddenly without thought I’m pulling away, shoving aside a plainclothes cop standing in front of me.

My eyes fix on Tasha. She’s being held up by another uniform. I feel an unprovoked urge to throw him through a wall but I know Tasha can’t stand on her own, so I fall into a kitchen chair sitting just a few feet in front of her. I’m hyperventilating, my knees turning to rubber, just as they did back at Dulles. I can’t seem to pull myself together and it’s killing me. In times of crisis, the strong think clearly. Yet here I am, a professional, and I’m falling apart. Crumbling like a pile of dead leaves.