Half laughing and half crying, Laurie bombarded Grover and Colt with a hundred questions while JJ continued his slumber in her arms.
“Tomorrow or the next day or the next will be time enough for your questions. For now let us say that he had been treated extraordinarily well by a woman who apparently loved him dearly.”
With a huge smile on his face thanks to this sudden, happy turn of events, Jack asked the two kidnapping consultants if they’d like to come into the house. But Grover and Colt gracefully declined, saying that they had to return their equipment to CRT before rousing their legal defense team and paying a visit to the police. “We have to confess the sins we committed in rescuing JJ sooner rather than later, although we won’t be admitting to them all,” Grover said with a wink. “And thanks for allowing us the opportunity to get your son back.”
“You’re thanking us?” Jack questioned with disbelief.
EPILOGUE
APRIL 1, 2010
THURSDAY, 10:49 a.m.
NEW YORK CITY
Detective Captain Lou Soldano surprised himself by finding a legal parking place on Laurie and Jack’s street just two doors away from their house. Both had taken an indefinite leave of absence from OCME after the trauma of John Junior’s short but emotionally traumatic kidnapping. Although Lou had not seen them face- to-face since that fateful Friday, he had spoken with them on the phone on several occasions, the last time being the previous evening when Lou had set up the current meeting for today. Until now, he had felt they needed their privacy.
After climbing the five steps to the stoop and ringing the bell, Lou checked his watch. It was now ten minutes before the onset of the raids, which were going to occur simultaneously at their three separate locations. The knowledge that they were about to take place gave Lou a great sense of satisfaction as well as excitement. At the same time, he felt a bit badly about not participating, but since there was no way he could be at all three locations at once, he’d decided to be at none and celebrate their occurrence with Laurie, since she was most responsible for the raids taking place. It had been a combination of her intuition, doggedness, and investigative forensic intelligence that had made her see a homicide where others saw a natural death. She had been the one to connect the homicide to organized crime—specifically, the working relationship existing between the Mafia and the Japanese Yakuza.
The door opened, and Jack and Lou greeted each other warmly. “You don’t have to schedule a formal visit,” Jack admonished as they climbed the stairs. “You can always just drop in.”
“Under the circumstances, I thought it best to call,” Lou explained. “Kidnappings are rather unique emotional events, to say the least. How is everybody doing?”
“Everybody is doing fine, except for me,” Jack joked. “JJ seemed entirely normal as soon as he woke up from his anesthetic, and has been normal ever since, provided you believe the behavior of a normal one-and-a-half-year- old is normal.”
“I vaguely remember,” Lou said. Both his kids were out of college.
“The only problem is that Laurie continues to blame herself for the kidnapping episode, no matter what anyone says. And now she’s having this internal battle about whether she wants to be a full-time mom or a mom who also happens to be a world-class medical examiner. Please talk to her. I can’t, because I’m happy either way. I want her to do what she wants to do.”
They passed the kitchen and walked into the family room. Laurie got up from the couch and gave Lou a sustained hug, thanking him profusely for suggesting that they use Grover and Colt of CRT.
“It made all the difference in the world,” Laurie said, tears coming to her eyes and embarrassing Lou in the process.
“I just thought they could get JJ back faster,” Lou mumbled, trying to downplay his role in the affair.
“Faster!” Laurie blurted. “They got him back the very next day. It was like a miracle. If they’d not helped us, I’m convinced JJ would still be in the hands of the kidnappers.”
“No doubt,” Lou said. “Did Grover and Colt confirm to you why JJ was snatched?”
“No, we only spoke to them once, and that was on Monday. They called briefly, just to check in on JJ. We haven’t spoken to them since, because they told us they were off on a case in Venezuela that very evening.”
“Just as they had guessed, the kidnapping was done as a late, desperate effort to deter you from working on the Satoshi Machita case. Any ransom demand was going to be mere icing on the cake. They were afraid of you, Laurie, not OCME in general, just you.”
“That’s hard to believe,” Laurie said.
“And it doesn’t speak very well for the rest of us at OCME,” Jack said, trying to inject an element of humor. Jack bent down and picked up JJ, who felt ignored by the grown-ups and was letting everyone know.
“It might seem hard to believe to you, Laurie,” Lou said, “but not to those in the NYPD, the FBI, CIA, and Secret Service. Your recent work with the Satoshi Machita case combined with JJ’s kidnapping resulted in the formation of the most efficient task force I’ve ever been part of. Since Sunday, this task force has accomplished months’ worth of highly successful investigation, such that . . .”
Lou paused to look at his watch. It was three minutes before eleven.
“Such that what?” Laurie questioned.
“This is super-secret,” Lou said, lowering his voice for effect, “but in two minutes at three locations, representatives of the four agencies I just mentioned will be raiding three private companies: iPS USA, headed by Benjamin Corey; Dominick’s Financial Services, headed by Vincent Dominick; and Pacific Rim Wealth Management, headed by Saboru Fukuda. All computers, storage devices, and documents will be confiscated, and all the principals will be arrested, including CEOs, CFOs, COOs. This is going to be a big deal. I can feel it in my bones. It’s going to have a big effect on Mob cooperation with the Japanese Yakuza, if it doesn’t sever it completely. It’ll seriously reduce the ballooning crystal meth problem here in the Big Apple. Thank you, Laurie. You are an asset to the city, so when you consider whether you want to be just a mom or a mom with a career, please keep in mind that you will be sorely missed if you choose the former.”
Laurie glared at Jack, feigning anger. “Have you been talking about me?”
“I always talk about you,” Jack confessed, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “But I assure you I had zero input into Lou’s assessment.”
FBI Special Agent Gene Stackhouse had been selected as the overall leader of the task force comprising representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service, and the New York City Police Department. He, like the other agents except for the group from the NYPD, was dressed in a dark blue uniform with black lettering indicating his agency. Most carried weapons, either Glocks or M15 rifles. The NYPD agents, all SWAT team members, were dressed in the usual black and carried a wider variety of firepower. Everyone wore helmets and bulletproof vests. Everyone had been fully briefed and were impatient for the word “go!”
Special Agent Stackhouse was particularly wired and ready to explode into the highly choreographed activity he’d planned the moment the second hand of his chronograph reached twelve. The start time was to be exactly eleven o’clock a.m. at all three sites to eliminate any chance of one company calling another to hide evidence.
“Masks on!” he yelled, as the second hand of his watch passed three. A small microphone clipped to his shoulder epaulet flap conveyed his voice to all nine unmarked vans: three at each location, with six people in each van, for a total of fifty-four law-enforcement officers.
Gene Stackhouse was in the passenger seat of the first van at his location, which was on the left side of Fifth Avenue just north of 57th Street. The two other vans were directly behind. When the second hand swept past the number eleven, he counted: “ten, nine, eight . . .” He unsnapped his holstered Glock pistol. “Four, three, two, one.
