the Machine. They were totally awesome and brilliant. They were all about Western cultural imperialism and the abuses of corporate America.”
“Huh. Sounds fun. Let me guess. Did Jillian turn you on to this?”
He gave me an evasive look. “Yeah.”
“Which song is this?”
“‘Killing in the Name.’ I don’t think you’d like it.”
“No?”
“You wouldn’t get it.”
“Is that the song that uses the F-word twenty times in, let’s see, five lines of lyrics?”
He looked at me, startled.
“You’re right,” I said. “Not my kind of thing.”
“There you go.”
“I’m not a big fan of drop D tuning. But see what your Nana thinks.”
“Nana’s a lot cooler than you give her credit for.”
“I’ve known her longer,” I teased.
He hesitated. “Nick, I—I heard what you were saying to her.”
“You shouldn’t have been listening.”
“She was screaming, Uncle Nick. I could hear her through my headphones, okay? I mean, what am I supposed to do, ignore that? Why’d you have to make her cry?”
I doubted he could actually hear anything through that music. He was eavesdropping, plain and simple.
“Okay,” I said. “Listen.”
But he interrupted: “Where’s Alexa?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“She got kidnapped, right?”
I nodded. “Listen to me, Gabe. You have a special role here. You need to be strong. Okay? This is going to be really hard on your Nana.”
He compressed his lips, his oversized Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Yeah? How about me?”
“It’s hard on all of us.”
“So who’s behind it?”
“We’re not sure yet.”
“Do you know she once got kidnapped for a couple hours?”
I nodded.
“You think it’s the same people?”
“I don’t know, Gabe. We just found out. We still don’t know anything. We’ve seen a video of her talking, but that’s pretty much all we have so far.”
“You don’t know where she is?”
“Not yet. I’m working on it.”
“Can I see the video?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I gave him the answer that has infuriated teenagers since the beginning of time: “Just because.”
He reacted exactly the way I expected, with a tight-lipped glower.
“Hey, how about when this is over I teach you to drive.”
He shrugged. “I guess,” he said glumly. But I could see he was trying not to show how pleased he was.
My phone rang. I glanced at it: Dorothy.
I picked up. “Hey, hold on a second.”
“Who’s that?” Gabe said. “Is that about Alexa?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think it is.”
I gave him a quick hug and walked out toward my car. “What do you have?” I said.
“I talked to Delta Air Lines. Belinda never worked for them.”
I stopped in the middle of the parking lot. “Why would she lie about that?”
“Because Marshall Marcus would never have married her if he knew her real employment background.”
“Which is?”
She paused. “She was a call girl.”
56.
“Why does that not surprise me?” I said.
“I ran her Social Security number. She’s a failed actress, looks like. Took acting classes for a while in Lincoln Park, but dropped out. Employed as an escort”—I could hear the scare quotes—“with VIP Exxxecutive Service, based out of Trenton. That’s three X’s in Exxxecutive.”
“Let me guess. A high-priced escort service.”
“Are there any other kinds?”
“Well, she did good for herself. Married up. She’s not southern, is she?”
“Southern Jersey. Woodbine.”
My BlackBerry emitted two beeps, its text-message alert sound. I glanced at it.
A brief text message. It said only, “15 minutes,” and gave the precise polar coordinates of what looked like a 7-Eleven parking lot .73 miles away.
The message was sent by “18E.” No name, no phone number.
But he didn’t need to use his name. An 18E was a U.S. Army occupation code for a communications sergeant in the Special Forces.
George Devlin was an 18E.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I have to see an old friend.”
* * *
“HOW DID you know I was close enough to make it here in fifteen minutes?” I said. “You knew where I was?”
George Devlin ignored my question. Like it was either too complicated or too obvious to explain. He had his ways, leave it at that. He was preoccupied with angling a computer monitor so I could see it. The screen glowed in the dim interior of his mobile home/office and momentarily illuminated the canyons and rivulets and dimpling of his scarred face, the striated muscle fibers and the train-track stitches. There was a vinegary smell in there, probably from the salve he regularly applied.
A greenish topographical map of Massachusetts appeared on the screen. A flashing red circle appeared, about fifteen miles northwest of Boston. Then three squiggly lines popped up—white, blue, and orange—each emanating from the flashing red circle. One from Boston, two from the north.