image, like he was some sort of vampire whose reflection was never cast in a mirror. Whoever the killer was, he was exceptionally skilled.
Which brought Harvath to Bill Wise and the idea that the man they were looking for was highly trained, possibly even created by the CIA. He certainly wasn’t operating alone, but the idea that Agency personnel could be behind something like this was almost too much for Harvath to swallow. There was, though, more than one person at work here, and whoever they were, they felt justified in committing murder. It was all Harvath needed to know about them. It helped frame how he would deal with them, if he got the chance.
When Harvath arrived at police headquarters, Cordero was already upstairs in her office.
“This just went out,” she said, handing him the police bulletin on their last two missing persons.
Harvath read it over and handed it back.
“The Federal Reserve,” she said. “That’s what they were all being considered to head, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “How’d you figure it out?”
“If you hadn’t told me about Claire Marcourt, I might not have. But when you combine her background in economics and banking with the death of the recent Fed chairman and what I learned from a five-minute Web search about Jekyll Island, it doesn’t take a detective to put it all together.”
“I didn’t tell you about Jekyll specifically, though.”
“No, you said an island off the coast of Georgia. One of the FBI agents mentioned it by name this morning.” Changing tack, she said, “You could have told me that this was about the Fed.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Orders.” Looking at his watch, he asked, “Did the bulletin on Renner and Mitchell make it in time to be included in the morning roll calls?”
“It did. What do you think our next move should be?”
“Well, short of going back to church and lighting a candle, there’s only one thing I can think of to do.”
“What’s that?”
Harvath took a deep breath and exhaled. “We map out every major historical location in Boston and try to figure out where he’s going to strike next.”
CHAPTER 54
Betsy Mitchell had tried all the tricks she knew in order to stay calm. The conditions under which she had been kept were terrible. She didn’t remember much from her abduction. She had been on her way back home from having dinner with friends. There’d been an accident. She had stopped to help. The rest was a blur. Whoever had kidnapped her must have drugged her, too.
She had been kept in some sort of a crate, like a large dog kennel. It was dark most of the time and she was wearing restraints. Every once in a while, a small panel opened in the top and a water bottle and power bars were thrown in. She had not been allowed out to exercise or use the facilities. She figured out fairly quickly that was why the plastic bags had been left in the crate. Despite having double- and triple-bagged her waste, the crate smelled putrid. She could only imagine what she smelled and looked like at this point.
Though she’d been drugged, she remembered the splitting pain in her ears. She had never done well equalizing pressure when flying and normally wore custom earplugs that helped her avoid barotraumas. Wherever they had transported her, they had made multiple stops along the way. When they had reached their destination, the crate had been placed inside some sort of a truck. It had been a diesel vehicle. She could tell by the sound of the engine and the smell of the fumes. The truck had driven for some time until it finally ended up where she was now.
Without a watch or any natural light with which to mark the passage of time, she had no idea what day it was or how long she had been gone. Surely people were looking for her by now. Hopefully they had started looking when she didn’t show up for work Monday morning. The CEO of a successful hedge fund didn’t just go missing without people noticing.
More than once during her ordeal she had chastised herself for not taking her board up on its suggestion that she have bodyguards. She’d always thought the idea ridiculous. If she were a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffett, she might have considered it, but she was Betsy Mitchell. She was an approachable, popular-cause-promoting finance guru. People didn’t want to harm her; they wanted to hug her. Besides, she used