Текст книги "Lost"

Автор книги: Chris Jordan

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

“You saw me through the louvers.”

“Nah, man, I sensed you. I got the magic, man. I got the power.”

“But you’ll let them go.”

“Sure,” Ricky Lang says with a shrug. “Why not?”

He stands up, tucks the Glock in his waist. “Let’s get you that cold washcloth, then I’ll take you to them.”

20. What Gods Provide

Live or die.

The choice has become that simple. During the dark and endless hours she has come to understand that dying would be easy. Just give up, let go. Stop drinking from the jug of water. Stop eating the ridiculous peanut butter sandwiches her captor left in a plastic bread bag.

Famished, she had demolished several of the awful sandwiches, gagging with every bite, the soft white bread tasting of greasy fingers. Worse than any of those icky hospital meals because it has been touched by the unclean hands of her tormentors. And yet she had consumed the awful things because to refuse would have been to become weaker. Again, very like the conscious choice she’d made as a nine-year-old. Deciding to be strong and resolute and not give in to her illness. Summoning all of her strength, willing her body to overcome the ravages of radiation treatments and chemotherapy. Fighting for her life by refusing to die.

Kelly had been a voracious reader, even at her sickest. Partly because books were an escape, entry into another world where she could, if she wanted, be a warrior princess fighting dragons, or Harry Potter’s friend Hermione, or just a normal healthy girl having fun with her friends. An early chapter book stuck in her mind because of the vivid illustrations. Myths of The Ancient World. All about the battles between gods and heroes.

Especially resonant with Kelly was the way gods liked to play tricks on the heroes and punish them horribly for what seemed like small infractions of rules. Lying in her hospital bed, weak from whatever the nurses and technicians had inflicted on her small body, she could readily identify with the fire-giver Prometheus, chained to the ground so a vulture could eat his liver. And then overnight his liver would grow back and the vulture would come again, its great beak gleaming like steel. Or poor Sisyphus, being made to push a giant rock up a steep hill for all eternity, only to have it roll down, having to start all over, shoving and pushing forever and ever.

She invented her own tormented hero. The great, tragic and stunningly beautiful Chemo, trapped in her bed, held down with tubes and bags of fluids, having to endure the torments administered by the gods of Sloan-Kettering. Striving to be good and brave and true so the miserable disease would give up and leave her alone.

Chemo the Brave, Chemo the Magnificent. Chemo who fought death to a standstill and won back her life. Hadn’t thought about her in a long time. No need. But now in the muggy darkness of her little prison, Kelly summons her back. Not to suffer tragically, but to fight and win.

First requirement, a weapon. Other than her hands, teeth and fingernails, what is there? She numbers the objects in her mind.

1. Plastic water jug.

2. Small plastic lantern.

3. Five-gallon bucket. Three things, and none of them is exactly a loaded gun.

She decides to examine each object, with the aim of devising a weapon. The water jug is smooth and flimsy. She rejects it. The battery-filled lantern is fairly heavy, it feels sort of substantial, but the shape makes it awkward to throw. Leaving the bucket. She loathes the bucket, the humiliation of having to use it for a toilet. Could it become a weapon? Fling it hard enough at her captor’s head, the next time the door opened, maybe it would stun him, give her time to slip past him.

Gingerly touching the bucket, her hand encounters the handle, reclined against the side. The handle is nothing more than a curved piece of stiff metal rod, with ends that hook into the side of the bucket. Exploring the handle inch by inch, she discovers that the hooked end is sharp. Not razor sharp by any means, but she can feel the edge.

Her hands shaking slightly with excitement, Kelly unhooks the handle. Straightening it as best she can, she begins to rub the sharp end of the handle against the floor of her prison. Steel against steel.

After a few minutes the metal rod warms in her hands. It begins to have the feel of a weapon. Something sharp and strong. Something she can plunge into the heart of the next man who comes through the door.

21. Strictly Stiltsville

The Glock is within reach, Shane decides. Ricky Lang having nonchalantly tucked the weapon in the waistband of his cargo pants. As if, the issue of releasing his captives having been settled, there is no need for guns.

The only trouble, if Shane does manage to get his hands on the Glock he will undoubtedly have to shoot the guy, thereby complicating the task of recovering Kelly Garner. Not that Shane is convinced Ricky Lang is telling the truth about letting his captives go. Truth being a relative term to a man who believes he can make himself invisible. Probably thinks bullets won’t hurt him either, but Shane is pretty sure a.45 caliber slug, discharged at close range, will kill him. Rendering him useless in a search for the victims.

Shane decides to bide his time. Determine if Lang really intends to lead him to the captives, then take whatever action is necessary.

“You like boats?” Lang wants to know.

“Sure,” says Shane.

They’re detouring around the sapphire-blue pool, heading for the seawall. Shane would dearly love to get out his cell phone and make a few calls but he’s afraid of interrupting the flow, the insane rhythm of the man with the bowl-cut hair. If there had been any doubt as to his mental state, it was confirmed when Lang had ducked into what was obviously a child’s bedroom and waved bye-bye to the empty space.

“My kids,” he’d said, black eyes shining with a ferocious, mind-consuming love. “Alicia and Reya, those are the girls, aren’t they sweet? Troy, the little one, he’s my little boy. Go on, kids, wave to the nice man!” He waits a beat, turns to Shane and says, “Cute, huh?”

Shane had, of course, agreed.

At the seawall Rick Lang produces a small remote control and sets about lowering the sleek red boat into the water. The notion of fishing as a pleasant activity aside, Shane knows very little about boats. This thing, long and narrow and pointy, looks built for speed and nothing else.

“My special baby, a Y2K Superboat,” Lang explains as the winches unwind. “Pure racing machine, custom-built in New York. Turbocharged, seven hundred horse motor with a Bravo One stern drive. Three stage hull. You want to know how fast it goes? Hundred miles an hour, man. Get you to Bimini in twenty minutes.”

“Very impressive.”

Lang’s finger comes off the remote and the winch stops, causing the big boat to shudder in its cradle. “You messin’ with me, man?” he says, his eyes hardening.

Shane, not sure how to react to the sudden change in mood, asks, “Why would I mess with you?”

Ricky Lang snorts, his neck swelling. “The way you said ‘very impressive.’ Like you don’t believe me. Some crazy Indian bragging on his stupid boat, is that what you think? Huh?”

“No, no,” says Shane, trying to assure him. “I mean it. I love the boat. Very impressive.”

“So you know about go-fast boats?”

“Not a thing, no. Comes to boats, I’m dumb as a rock.”

Lang stares at him, then thumbs the remote, resumes lowering the boat.

“This an A-class racer,” he explains, sounding like a man grievously wounded by insult, struggling to be amenable. “Water gets a little rough, it goes faster. Get it balanced right, there’s only about two square feet of hull in the water at any one time. Air under the hull lifting like wings on a plane. Boat rides on the prop, man. It flies, okay?”

“Sounds dangerous.”

Lang chuckles, a sound that, with his pumped-up build and the Glock in his possession, is anything but reassuring. “Oh man, this boat’ll kill you, you don’t look out.”

Lang leaps spryly into the cockpit, holds a hand out to help him aboard.

Shane hesitates. “We’re going to get the captives?”

“Captives?” Lang says, sounding puzzled.

“Kelly Garner. Seth Manning.”

“Not captives, man. Guests.”

“Guests, yes. But they’re okay? They’re alive?”

Ricky Lang grins, showing his square white teeth. “They be better when you come to the rescue, man.”

Biscayne Bay is the color of a mint-green milk shake, little foamy whitecaps marching along in ragged formation, propelled by a hot, southerly breeze. Off in the distance, a land mass connected by a long sliver of causeway. Must be Key Biscayne, Shane concludes. Beyond that, South Beach is a smudge on the horizon. In the heat of the afternoon, with sunlight exploding from every whitecap, it could be a pastel mirage, hastily sketched. Closer to hand are a number of smaller islands, some natural, others created by developers, as well as navigational aids that appear to be extruded upward from the shallow sea bottom.

As the throbbing beast of a boat glides through the intricate channels, heading out into the bay, Ricky Lang smiles and points out the sights, chatting amiably as he drives the big racing machine one-handed. Shane can’t make out a word, and forms the impression that Lang knows this full well. As if he’s performing a pantomime show, impersonating a friendly host. And yet the way he’s ever so casually leaning on his seat, oriented toward his “guest,” would make it difficult if not impossible for Shane to grapple successfully for the gun.

The posture is hardly an accident. Ricky Lang may or may not be delusional, but he’s what the FBI assault teams would call “situationally aware.” Armed, dangerous and playing a part. Or maybe lost in his role, hard to say.

At the end of the channel Lang slots the shifting lever to neutral, lowers the throbbing engine to idle, and raises his voice to make himself heard.

“So you up for a ride, man?”

“Where we going?” Shane wants to know.

“Check out my little guesthouse, what you think? You want to be a hero or what?”

Shane considers the man, the handsome eagle-beak of a nose, the keenly intelligent eyes. How does it reconcile with the Moe Howard hairstyle, the swaggering, almost theatrical way he presents himself? What’s the message here? Is he daring the world not to take him seriously? Does he revel in his clownish behavior, using it as a disguise? Or are these all symptoms of a deteriorating mental condition?

Randall Shane, never a profiler and always distrustful of snap psychological assessments, decides he has no clue as to what motivates Ricky Lang. “I just want to find the girl,” he says truthfully. “And the boy, too, if he’s still alive.”

Ricky laughs. “What are you so worried about?”

“Boats make me nervous.”

“Yeah? You don’t look nervous, man. You look more like you’re planning to jump me, hijack my ride.”

Shane manages to look astonished. “Why would I do that? I want to find the girl.”

“Yeah, but when I take you there, then you’ll jump me, right? Shoot me, arrest me, whatever.”

Shane shakes his head. “Not me. I’m no longer a law enforcement officer.”

“Somebody else then. Snipers. A SWAT team. Shoot me in the back, like at Wounded Knee.”

“Doesn’t have to be that way, Mr. Lang. Take me to the girl, you’re free to go. No one will press charges. It was a simple misunderstanding.”

“You serious? No charges?”

“I swear.”

“Like it never happened?”

“Absolutely.”

Lang chuckles, shakes his head. “Man, you’re a good liar, you know that?”

“Seriously, if the girl is unharmed we can work something out.”

Lang grins, seriously amused. “She’s okay, man. Hang on, I’ll show you.”

He jams the throttle down, pinning Shane to his seat.

For the next two minutes all he can do is hang on for dear life because the boat, as Lang promised, is pretty much airborne. Scudding over the swells, barely making contact with the water as it accelerates. The pitch of the huge screaming engine is a mere decibel below total disintegration. To Shane the sensation is akin to falling down an elevator shaft, except death by elevator would be over by now and at ninety miles an hour across open water, two minutes is a very long chunk of eternity.

With the boat careening around like an Exocet missile, visibility is pretty much nil. Plumes of white spray explode over the bow, only to be crushed back into the sea by the headlong velocity of the boat.

At the last possible minute Shane sees a structure looming. Scabby concrete pilings holding up what looks like a giant shoe box. They’re going to hit it head-on, at nearly a hundred miles an hour, with a thousand pounds of supercharged engine, and who knows how much fuel right under his seat.

No time. That’s the profound thought he has at the very moment of his death.

No time.

Then Ricky Lang yanks the throttles back, killing the motor if not all of the momentum. Shane is thrown forward, whacking his head on the padded dashboard, which starts his nose bleeding in a fresh spurt, and he ends up flat on his back in the bottom of the cockpit confused and dazed.

After a moment, the shoe box resolves into a boarded-up wreck of a house on stilts, way out in the bay. Nothing but blue sky and sunshine and a row of insolent-looking seagulls perched on a railing, staring down at the intruders.

Ricky Lang then looms over him, offering a hand.

“We’re here, man. Stiltsville, or what’s left of it.”

Not a bad spot, Shane is thinking, to stash a captive or two.

22. Small Miracles

Lang insists that Shane disembark by going over the side of the boat.

“You want me to dent this fine machine by tying up to the pilings in this chop? No way, man. You want to be a hero, you can jump the last couple of yards. You gotta ask yourself, What Would Superman Do?”

“It looks abandoned,” Shane says, looking up at the boarded-up shack.

Rick Lang shrugs. “That’s because it is abandoned. Park took over, kicked the people out. Back in the day, this is where they gambled and whored. Put a boat aground on a sandbar two miles from shore and open for business, the law couldn’t touch you. Water’s only three feet deep, you could get out and walk.”

Shane, pretending to tend to his smashed-up nose, calculates his odds. What he’d prefer is to subdue the suspect and then conduct the search, in case the shack is a ruse or a trap, as seems likely. But his adversary is pumped and hyper and despite being a head shorter looks about as easy to subdue as a charging rhino on amphetamines.

Everything about Ricky Lang screams go on, make your move, like he’s been practicing his quick-draw techniques and wants to try them out. Plus there’s the fact that he may be clinically insane, talking to invisible children and muttering about, of all things, Superman. What that signifies, Shane hasn’t a clue. Other than a conviction, born of experience, that psychotic suspects are infinitely more difficult to subdue.

“They’re in the shack,” Shane says, watching Lang’s hands. “Kelly and Seth. Alive?”

Ricky Lang grins. “Only one way to find out, man. Because you ain’t got X-ray vision, that’s obvious. You had X-ray like me, you’d already know.”

Shane makes his decision, slips over the side. Ready to duck under the hull if Lang reaches for the Glock. Instead he slams the gear into reverse, leaving Shane standing, as promised, in waist-deep water.

By the time Shane wades over the soft, mucky bottom to the stilts beneath the shack, the big racing machine is nothing but a white rooster tail fading into the hazy distance. He’s pulling himself up a rusty iron ladder when he remembers that the cell phone is in his pants pocket, and therefore has been submersed in salt water.

Great, perfect. And maybe that’s what Ricky Lang intended all along. Neutralize the larger man with promises, put him off balance with feigned insanity, then dump him in the water a couple of miles offshore and make an escape.

Crawling up the ladder, Shane shakes his head. Still doesn’t make sense. No need to play games when Lang had the Glock. One bullet does it, either to disable or kill. No need for mind games or boat rides or stories about superheroes.

Unless his captives are really stashed in the shack. Alive or dead.

At floor level Shane hauls himself up through an opening in what remains of a narrow porch that runs around the entire building. The seagulls have fled, but unless the birds are big beer drinkers, the shack has a history as a party destination. Empty cans and bottles strewn everywhere. The windows and doors have been securely boarded with heavy plywood by Biscayne National Park, which has stenciled warnings all over the plywood.

No Trespassing

Condemned Property

Criminal Penalties Apply

This Means You!

Shane, dripping and no longer hopeful, bangs a fist on the plywood. “Kelly! Seth! Anybody there?”

He puts his ear to the plywood. Hears a moaning. Not human, but wind whistling through the building. Which means there must be an opening. He lopes around the deck, scuffling through the party debris, searching. Finds, on the side facing the sea, a section where the plywood has been unfastened along the bottom edge. Leaving a gap of an inch or so, more than enough for the wind.

Shane braces himself, heaves against the heavy plywood. Not quite enough leverage. He repositions his feet against the base of the wall, leans back, using his legs.

With a mighty screech the sheet of plywood comes loose, yanking screws and through-bolts through the softened wood frame. Shane lands on his ass with his hands full of splinters and the plywood in his lap.

Catches his breath, shoves the plywood aside, and crawls through the dark opening.

Shane stands up.

The floor is spongy underfoot. There’s a stink he associates with nesting birds. A few slashes of sunlight penetrate through the galvanized metal roof and under the eaves. As his eyes adjust he’s able to determine that the shack is basically one big room, bare to the wood frame walls, stripped of anything that’s not nailed down.

Empty. No place to hide a captive, every indication the shack hasn’t been occupied in years.

He resists the impulse to pound his fist through the wall. Because now he knows what Ricky Lang was up to, taking him for a boat ride. He’s buying time. Whatever is going down, it’s going to happen while Shane is stranded in an abandoned stilt shack a mile or two from the nearest shoreline.

He’s been played.

Shane hurries outside to the porch, finds his cell phone in a soggy pocket. Shakes off the salty moisture, flips it open. Before daring to activate it, he blows the keys dry with his own breath, offering up a prayer.

Small miracle, the screen light comes on, the phone boots up. He waits impatiently while it searches for a connection. “Come on, you little beast,” he urges. “I’ll buy you a new battery, promise.”

The screen resolves. The bars climb. Connection established. Carefully he punches in a number, watches it play out across the screen.

“Special Agent Healy? Can you hear me? Good, excellent. This is Randall Shane. I’ve got a situation. You’re gonna love it, trust me.”

Part III

Dead Or Alive

1. Giving The Finger

For me, fear is like the flu. It starts in my belly and the small of my back and makes me want to hide in bed until the flu, or the fear, is over.

No bed today, no hiding. As much as I dread confronting Edwin Manning, it has to be done. My idea is to start by ringing his doorbell, assuming he has one, but the uniformed security guard in the lobby has other ideas.

“Sorry, miss. Only way you get upstairs is if they call down, put you on the access list.”

“This is a matter of life and d-d-death,” I stammer.

“Sorry, miss, those are the rules.”

I’m looking past him, wondering if I can make a dash for the elevators. He senses my desperation—or maybe he doesn’t want to waste batteries Tasering me—and offers to call the penthouse, make an inquiry.

“What do I say?” he asks me, wanting to be helpful.

“Tell him this is Jane Garner and if he doesn’t talk to me his son will die.”

The guard’s mild brown eyes widen in shock.

“I didn’t kidnap his son,” I assure him. “But I know who did. Tell him all of that.”

The guard hands me the intercom phone. “Better tell him yourself.”

The voice on the other end does not belong to Edwin Manning—might be the egg man, I can’t tell—but I nevertheless make my spiel, essentially repeating what I told the astonished security guard and adding, “You’ve one minute. I’m in the lobby.”

Fern says I’m the bravest woman she knows, but surely that can’t be true or I wouldn’t be fighting the impulse to throw up. It’s not that I’m afraid of Edwin Manning or his henchman. That’s not where the fear originates. The fear has to do with not knowing what is going to happen in the next few hours, and how I will survive if it all goes wrong.

What do you do if the world ends?

I’ve no idea and it makes me afraid.

In less than a minute Edwin Manning emerges from the elevator accompanied by Mr. Popkin. Both men look as concerned and uneasy as I feel, but there’s something in Manning’s palpable anxiety that makes me know exactly what to do.

Before he can speak I reach out and take his hand. “You have to come with me,” I tell him. “If you love your son, come with me.”

Our little team has assembled in my suite at the Europa. Randall Shane, looking beleaguered and for some reason ashamed as he holds an ice pack to his swollen face. In addition, Special Agent Sean Healy and his partner, Special Agent Paloma Salazar. All of whom had thought it might be nice if Mr. Manning was persuaded to join us, and agreed that he’d be more likely to respond positively to a desperate fellow parent, which is where I came in.

Acting desperate had not been a problem.

“Who’s this?” Healy wants to know when the egg man comes through the door.

“Salvatore Popkin,” the bald man responds, holding out his left hand for a shake. “I work for Mr. Manning.”

Healy glances at the hand. “You’ll have to wait outside. Family only.”

When the egg man starts to protest, Manning goes, “Do what he says,” without a backward glance.

As Popkin backs awkwardly out the door, dissed and dismissed, I take him aside. “Sally? There’s a nice restaurant out by the pool. Get something to eat or drink, whatever you want. Put it on my room. I’ll let you know when your boss is ready to leave.”

The egg man blushes, not a pretty sight.

Back inside, Manning paces in a tight circle, flexing his hands like he wants to strangle someone. “Don’t tell me,” he says. “It all went to shit, right? That’s why you brought me here, to make your excuses.”

Special Agent Salazar guides Manning to a chair and insists that he sit, relax. She’s about thirty, with big lovely eyes, dark pixie hair that frames her oval face. She’s dressed in a nicely tailored linen suit, can’t be more than a size four, tops, and wearing expertly applied makeup. Only thing wrong with the picture is that she’s wearing flats instead of heels, but for all I know that’s an agency regulation. Makes sense—if you have to chase down a suspect, or stand and fire your weapon, heels are probably not a good idea.

Apparently the arrangement is that she will do most of the talking and Healy will take notes and comment when he sees fit.

In a clear, melodic voice with a slight Latino accent, Agent Salazar informs Edwin Manning that the FBI has information they are obliged to share about his son.

Manning stares fiercely at his hands. “You’re going to tell me he’s dead. Get it over with.”

“Sir, we have no information regarding the physical condition of your son.”

His head lifts. “So he’s alive?”

“We don’t know his status,” says Salazar carefully. “We are in active pursuit of a suspect who confessed to the abduction of your son and Mrs. Garner’s daughter, and then fled. We believe he may be heading for home. Indian territory.”

If Edwin Manning looked sick before, now he looks on the point of death. “I told you people to leave us alone. Begged you. Now look what you’ve done!”

“Has Ricky Lang made contact with you today?”

Manning shakes his head.

“Has he at any time demanded payment for the safe return of your son and/or Mrs. Garner’s daughter?”

“It isn’t about money,” says Manning savagely, his eyes shiny. “Is that all you people understand?”

Maybe it’s just me, but the scorn for money seems kind of strange, coming from a guy who manages an eight-billion-dollar hedge fund. On the other hand he’s obviously been through the wringer, so I decide to cut him some slack. For a moment there in the lobby of his condo I’d thought we were finally in sync. Maybe not—he’s yet to admit to knowing about Kelly, or to acknowledge the fact that I’m as much a victim as he is.

When Shane glances up from his ice pack, he has two slightly blackened eyes that make him look like a melancholy raccoon. “They’re trying to help,” he says to Manning. “I’m the one who screwed up.”

Healy snorts. “You said it.”

Shane keeps his silence for the rest of the meeting.

The petite but somehow imposing Agent Salazar remains a study in calm. Perched on the corner of one of the suite’s napa leather sofas, she elucidates her agency’s position deftly, and without a lot of the law enforcement jargon her partner favors.

“Here’s where we stand, Mr. Manning. Two days ago you declined assistance and refused to confirm that your son was missing. We respected your wishes. Then Mrs. Garner and her consultant—he’s the big gentleman over there, I believe you’ve met—Mrs. Garner and Mr. Shane developed evidence that her daughter Kelly was abducted from a private aircraft registered in your name. As near as we can determine she was a passenger on a flight piloted by your son, Seth Manning. We have a witness who will testify that the aircraft, a Beechcraft King Air 350, is being stored in a hangar at an unregistered airfield located within the Nakosha reservation. Therefore we conclude that your son was abducted at the same time as Kelly Garner, and that because of your financial connections to the Nakosha gaming resort, he may have been the prime target, and Miss Garner may simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“At Mrs. Garner’s request we have opened an investigation into the disappearance of her daughter. The investigation is ongoing, but so far our main focus has been on Ricky Lang, a prominent member of the Nakosha tribe. Mr. Lang has no criminal record, but he does have a long and complicated history with the tribe and, more important, with the founding and financing of their new gaming resort. Until recently he was, in fact, president of the tribal council and chief of the Nakosha people. Our working theory is that Ricky Lang abducted your son as a means to force you to intercede with the tribal council on his behalf. Is that correct, Mr. Manning?”

Agent Salazar’s cool, clear recitation of the facts seems to have drained Manning of indignation, if not of anxiety. “Yeah, that’s it. You figured it out. Did you figure out he’s crazy?”

“In Mr. Shane’s opinion, Ricky Lang shows signs of mental instability and may be delusional,” Salazar concedes.

Manning’s expression is one of profound sorrow. “I’ll tell you how crazy he is. Ricky contacted me a few days ago. Wanted to borrow the Beechcraft, said it was a family emergency. He knew Seth would be piloting the plane. He wanted my son, not the plane. Ricky Lang kidnapped Seth, cut off his ring finger, and FedExed it to me.”

Both agents bend over their notebooks.

Meanwhile my heart plummets, drowned by a vision of my little girl being dismembered, one appendage at a time. It’s too much, too awful. I have to banish the image or lose my own hold on sanity.

On instinct I reach out, give Manning’s hand a squeeze.

He looks at me guiltily. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Ricky said if I reported this to the authorities he’d send me pieces of Seth in the mail. I kept my promise, but he cut off his little finger anyway. I went to the council but those bastards refused to help. They claim Ricky is no longer their concern or responsibility.”

Salazar clears her throat. “Any idea why Mr. Lang was fired as chief?”

Manning shrugs. “No one will talk to me. You have to understand, the tribe has always been very secretive. I assume it’s because he became unstable, acting out. I do know he’s been showing up at the casino, ranting at the guards and customers. I was told that he claims to have superpowers. For all I know, he’s hearing voices from outer space.”

Salazar nods. “The casino incidents conform with our information—there have been several confrontations with Mr. Lang, and at least one assault, although no charges have been filed by the tribal police. We also find it interesting that Lang is no longer living on the reservation. He recently purchased a home in Cable Grove, did you know that?”

Manning looks surprised, maybe a little puzzled. “Cable Grove? Well, I guess he could afford it. He’s quite wealthy, you know. They all are. I helped make them rich and this is how they repay me,” he adds bitterly.

Healy perks up. “Are you saying this was a revenge abduction? That Ricky Lang took your son to get even?”

“No, no,” says Manning. “That’s what makes this whole thing so crazy. Ricky had no reason to punish me. We, my staff, we helped his tribe get full recognition. Our relationship was always cordial, very businesslike. On a personal level I liked the guy. He was bright, engaging, and very ambitious for his people.”

“In what way did you help the tribe get full recognition?” Salazar wants to know.

“The same thing we’ve done for other small tribes who want to cash in on gaming opportunities. I arranged to have them represented in Washington by a top lobbying firm.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“Five million and change. Cheap when you consider what they got out of it. The sovereign right to form their own government, their own police force, and of course their own casino.”

“Which made them all wealthy.”

Manning leans forward, making eye contact with the agents. “Last year’s net profit for the casino and resort was over four hundred million dollars. Ricky always said he wanted every member of the tribe to be a millionaire. They are now, no question.”