The Last Hostage (51 page)

Kat shifted the phone to her other ear. "Go on, Roger!"

"I had a buddy on the Chicago force find Taurus and squeeze him hard in the last twenty minutes. The guy was terrified, but he apparently knows nothing else. He says he was told by his boss to do it, and we can't find the boss. In the meantime, I had another friend checking the background of this company, and you won't believe what popped up."

"What?"

"I know I've scared all of you half to death, but you were never in any real danger. The flight was controlled at all times, including my psuedo- acrobatics.

Even the takeoff from Telluride was carefully calculated and never in doubt, although I didn't know I was going to have to go that soon."

"Taurus's sleazy corporation is a subsidiary of a Swiss company that publishes skin magazines in various languages for the European market, and it, in turn, is wholly owned by a private multibillion-dollar publishing empire headquartered in Salt Lake City."

Kat felt suddenly off balance. How many major publishing empires were headquartered in Salt Lake? "What's the name, Roger?"

"NorthLight Publications. And guess who owns NorthLight?"

"Bill North?"

"Bingo."

Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 5:11 P.M.

Kat gripped the cell phone and closed her eyes, concentrating hard.

The idea that Bill North could own a company that was even indirectly involved in distributing sleaze was disturbing, let alone the sudden connection with the SHRDLU2 mailbox. The fact that his offer of help in Salt Lake might have been less than altruistic was also throwing her substantially off balance. She had assumed he was just a concerned citizen before discovering he partially owned AirBridge and was taking care of an investment, but now this?

"Roger, do we have any indication who in North's outfit might be involved? Surely Bill knows nothing about this."

"I don't have a clue, Kat, and without the time to talk to Taurus's boss, the trail goes cold. His company in Chicago is determined not to cooperate, of course."

"Which means we need North's help. Roger, I know nothing about North's operations other than he said he made his money in publishing.

What do you know about him?"

There was a long, telling pause on the other end, and she heard him clear his throat before speaking.

"Kat, I was startled when you said he was helping you. North's holdings include a wild variety of questionable publications overseas. For instance, NorthLight Publications has been under investigation in the Philippines for years for controlling the underground production of hardcore porn of all types, and publishing some really disgusting rags.

He also owns three of Europe's and Britain's shabbiest tabloids, the type that keep the paparazzi in business hounding the famous to death--literally, in the case of Princess Di. He's got legitimate interests, too, but a lot of the guy's money stinks."

"I didn't know any of this, Roger."

"No reason you should, unless you'd been researching the international sleaze merchants like I have. Where's Ken? Is he listening?"

"He's giving a PA. right now, so I don't think so. Should he be?"

"No. Kat, there's one more thing you should know. There's something no one else but me knows about Melinda's final hours. I've held it back, because other than us, only the murderer knows these details, and I always assumed that was Lumin. Look, I'm... not entirely sure why I feel so strongly I should tell you this, but I do. Now that Lumin looks innocent, it's critical information. Don't repeat this to anyone unless you're using it to confirm, understood?"

"Go ahead."

"It'll make you ill, Kat."

"I'm already ill."

"So, folks, please relax if you can. This will all be over in less than twenty minutes. And please know that even though I can never make amends, or ask your forgiveness, I am sorry for what I've put you through."

Ken finished the PA. as Roger Matson finished speaking. Kat closed the cellular phone with deliberate care, trying not to betray the feeling of revulsion that had swept over her as he'd predicted. She thought for a second, the anger rising within, and reached for Rudy Bostich's computer once again, determined to find the key. The reflected hand she had spotted in the picture of Melinda Wolfe was a start. It demanded closer examination.

Something had been bothering her about the hand ever since she'd discovered it, and she ran her eyes now over every part of the image, cataloguing the fact that the hand was Caucasian, obviously male, and somehow distinctive.

She made the picture larger, boosting the size until the hand was an undecipherable jumble of square pixels on the screen before her.

There was a sophisticated photo manipulation program on Bostich's computer, and she used it to enhance the image, slowly watching as the picture coalesced, the computer's tiny silicon brain filling in the blanks with its best guess as to what color and shade each empty pixel should be.

Suddenly the hand filled the entire screen with a startling degree of clarity, showing a distinctive sideways crook in the knuckle of the little finger.

Ken was lowering himself back into the left seat and she glanced at him briefly before returning her attention to the enhanced photo.

One thing for sure: It's definitely not Bradley Lumin, and for that matter, it's not Rudy Bostich.

"What did Matson have to say?" Ken asked. His eyes were on the instruments, unaware of the startled look on her face.

She turned and studied him carefully before replying, aware that he was leveling the 737 at six thousand feet as he aimed for Phoenix.

She repeated the essence of the conversation, along with the fact that the parent corporation of the Chicago sleaze merchant was owned by the man sitting in a Gulfstream several hundred yards to their left.

He looked at her in confusion. "What do you mean?"

She took a deep breath. "Bill North owns the company, Ken, and we need help finding who in his organization ordered those payments for the SHRDLU2 mailbox. Remember, whoever owns that e-mail address is probably the killer, or can lead us to the killer. Of course, I didn't expect this to lead to a company."

The sound of the cellular phone ringing caused her to jump. She swept it open, relieved to hear Frank's voice on the other end.

"Kat, I wanted to update you. The search of Lumin's place in Ft. Collins has been very interesting. They found a cache of porno videotapes, all of them featuring underage girls, all of them meant for commercial underground distribution, and none of them involving any kids currently listed as missing or dead, as far as can be determined.

In fact, one little girl is a known runaway who sells herself for such things over and over again."

"He was producing those things?"

"Producing is too formal a word, but that's the idea. They found a ledger indicating Lumin would lure them in, pay them, tape them in some remote place, sometimes involving group sex, then market the results."

"So there's no evidence he kills them or tortures them?"

"No. Some of them, and maybe all of them, were probably tricked or coerced, but other than the sexual exploitation, he didn't appear to be killing or torturing them. We do believe he was forcing drugs down their throats. They found cocaine in the trailer. But Kat, one of the girls was videotaped in a cabin that looks very similar to the picture Matson described to me."

"You mean the same place Melinda..." she glanced at Ken, who was listening through the headset connection. He motioned for her to continue. "It looks like the place where Melinda was held?"

"It does. I've forced my way back into this case by screaming at FBI Headquarters, and I'm having us fax a still shot of that footage to Mat- son right now for confirmation."

"In those tapes, there were none, I suppose, of Melinda Wolfe."

"None. Kat, if he taped her, the tape didn't surface in Ft. Collins.

Fact is, though, with all the publicity about her kidnapping, a sleaze like Lumin would have panicked and thrown away the evidence."

She thanked him and disconnected, staring through the windscreen in thought for a few moments, trying to make the pieces fit. Lumin made kiddie porn videotapes, but didn't kill his victims, or even torture them, as far as they knew. Somehow the search of his Connecticut house two years before had missed such tapes. Why? It gave strength to the conclusion that Lumin wouldn't have suddenly murdered a little girl he'd carefully enticed into his porno web. But had he suddenly made an exception?

She kept her eyes on the western horizon.

"Ken, did the police ever determine how Melinda was taken? Was she snatched in public?"

In her peripheral vision, she could see him shake his head slowly, and she looked over at him, realizing his face was wet.

"No. She apparently went voluntarily to meet the thirteen-year-old boy she thought she'd been writing to. The last e-mail had set up the meeting in a mall. I was out of town. They figured she was snatched there, or voluntarily went with whoever killed her. She might have fallen for some song and dance about taking her to the nonexistent pen pal. I reported her missing immediately, but it was two days before I found the e-mail record and the police recognized a pattern and sounded the alarm."

"No ransom demands?"

"Never. Nothing. It obviously wasn't that kind of kidnapping. Whoever it was just wanted to use her and throw her away."

Kat looked toward Phoenix, seeing nothing, wondering if Lumin had somehow handed off Melinda to someone else-someone who killed her.

She turned back to Ken suddenly.

"Ken, if you truly want to catch Melinda's killer, you're going to have to abandon this plan to blow your brains out."

He looked at her, an unreadable, unfathomable expression of pain and fury creasing his features.

She tried again. "Ken, do you understand? The key has got to be Bill North."

"North?" He asked simply.

"Yes. North! He can force whoever runs that Chicago company to answer the critical question of who was operating that e-mail address, SHRDLU2.

I've met the guy. If you're gone, he won't do it if it threatens his business interests. But he wants to be the hero who ends this hijacking.

He'll do it for you, Ken."

He looked to the left at the Gulfstream for several long seconds, then suddenly rolled the 737 into a steep right turn as he pushed the throttles up and keyed the radio.

"Ken, what are you doing?"

He ignored the question as his finger found the transmit button. "Mr. North, Ken Wolfe. Are you over there?"

Aboard Gulfstream N5LL. 5:19

Kneeling between his pilots in the cockpit, Bill North had been mildly embarrassed when Detective Roger Matson suddenly decided to use a cellular line to talk to Kat Bronsky a few minutes earlier, excluding him. He knew his two pilots were wondering what they suddenly had to discuss that North and his crew weren't supposed to hear. North had been deep in thought when Wolfe's sudden call cracked through the speakers.

Bill North nodded to Dane and grabbed the microphone.

"I'm here, Captain. Where are you going?"

"We need to talk Quickly and privately. I need your help in ending this, and I want you to land behind me at Globe, Arizona, just a few miles back."

"I thought we were headed for Phoenix?"

"We were. Now we're headed to Globe. Please follow me in. If you do, I'll let the people over here go and come aboard your aircraft, as you offered before. I'll surrender to you."

North hesitated, thinking it over for a split second before replying enthusiastically. "Good! Good, Captain! We'll be right behind you, and I'll take you anywhere you want to go. The offer's still good."

"Thank God!" Dane Bailey said as he banked the Gulfstream in pursuit. "I wonder what changed his mind?"

Bill North was usually quick with an answer, but there was no sound from his boss as Dane steepened the bank and glanced around, startled to see the depth of the wrinkles furrowing North's brow.

San Carlos Apache Airport, Globe, Arizona.5:26 P.M.

The five thousand eight hundred feet of San Carlos Apache's only runway was just enough to accommodate a Boeing 737, so the sight of a commercial Boeing jetliner swooping in from the west with little more than a quick radio call on final approach attracted the attention of the few employees who hadn't headed home.

The Boeing landed and taxied to the end of the runway, where it turned off and moved onto a wider expanse of concrete, its engines sitting at idle as a sleek Gulfstream IV business jet touched down a minute later and taxied alongside the Boeing.

Two curious mechanics stood by their pickup truck and watched as the sound of the four jet engines began to wind down. A line boy from the corporate air terminal joined them, pushing back his baseball cap to scratch his head.

"What's goin' on? You suppose they need gas or something?"

"Anybody call you on the radio, Jim?" one of the mechanics asked, his eyes riveted on the Boeing.