Back and your brother’s death, that won’t be enough to indict, but it will be enough for them to assign a couple dozen agents to watch you around the clock. You are going to have to lay really low for a while. Dump the car as soon as we’re done tonight, and don’t go back to the garage.” Coleman agreed, and several minutes later he turned onto
Michael’s street. They stopped in front of Michael’s house and O’Rourke jumped out.
Flipping up the black cover on the security pad, he punched in the code for the garage door and it opened. Coleman backed the car into the tight garage, and Michael followed, closing the door behind him. At first they were going to bring Arthur to the cabin, but since it was only fourteen miles from the estate, they thought it would be best to bring him back to the city where they could use the busy traffic and people for cover. Before opening the trunk, Michael and Coleman pulled their mesh masks down over their faces.
Coleman inserted the key into the lock and pushed in. The trunk opened, revealing the bony white body of Arthur. His eyes were glassy and his wrists and ankles tied together with rope. A blue racquetball was shoved in his mouth. Michael dug the ball out and
Arthur moved his jaw. With a deep look of confusion he stared up at the two dark figures.
Michael almost felt sorry for Arthur and then remembered who he was. Coleman grabbed him under the armpits and Michael grabbed his ankles. Together they hoisted him out of the trunk and brought him into the house. The ground level of O’Rourke’s brownstone consisted of a single-car garage on one side and a utility and washroom on the other.
They brought Arthur to the corner of the washroom and set him on the floor with his back against the wall. Coleman went out to the car and came back with a small black case. He set it on top of the dryer and opened it. Inside were two clear liquid vials and several syringes.
Coleman grabbed the vial labeled sodium pentothal, tilted it upside down, and stuck the tip of a syringe through the rubber top. Pulling the plunger back, he filled the syringe about halfway. After putting the vial of truth serum back in the case, he let the bubbles rise to the top of the syringe and squeezed some of the fluid out. Arthur mumbled something, and Coleman ignored him. The chloroform was wearing off.
Coleman grabbed a stick of smelling salts and broke it open. He stuck it under
Arthur’s nose, and the pungent smell forced the old man to yank his head away. Coleman did it several more times and Arthur responded verbally. “What are you doing? …
Where am I?” Coleman ignored him and grabbed the syringe from atop the dryer. Arthur
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looked up at the needle and realized what was going on. “Before you use that, let’s talk for a second.” Coleman kneeled down and grabbed Arthur’s arm. Arthur’s eyes shot frantically back and forth between the head of the masked man and tip of the needle. “I
don’t know who’s paying you, but I’ll double it.” Coleman found a blue vein just under the surface of Arthur’s thin, dry skin. He slid the needle in and depressed the plunger. Arthur watched with a panicked look on his face. “You have no idea what you’re doing. My people will come looking for me ….
They will find you no matter what it takes!” As Arthur shouted, Coleman walked out of the room and shut the door behind him. Michael came down the stairs with a tape recorder, video camera, and a set of small speakers. He handed them to Coleman and went into the garage to grab the mobile scramble phone. When Michael got back, he asked Coleman how long it would take for the drug to take effect, and Coleman told him about another five minutes. Both of them went back into the washroom. The second they opened the door, Arthur began pleading, his voice growing more placid by the minute.
Michael and Coleman ignored him while they set up the equipment.
O’Rourke plugged the two speakers into the mobile scramble phone and attached the voice modulator to the mouthpiece of the handset. Coleman took the video camera and mounted it on top of a tripod. They did a quick test to make sure everything checked out.
Michael waved for Coleman to follow him, and they stepped out into the hallway.
“Remember, I’ll ask the questions. If you want to say something, turn off the tape recorder and camera first. If we end up using this tape, the CIA and the FBI will analyze every little noise.”
“Understood.”
“Is there any chance he’ll be able to lie to us?” asked Michael. “No, I’ve used this stuff in the field before, and you can’t fight it.”
Michael nodded and they went back into the room. Arthur sat in the corner staring up at the light in the middle of the ceiling. Coleman approached, grabbed Arthur’s jaw, looked into his heavily dilated eyes, then told Michael Arthur was ready. Coleman turned on the camera and Michael hit the record button on the tape recorder. Speaking into the modulator, Michael asked, “What is your name?”
Director Stansfield stared at the big board on the front wall of the Operations Center and noted the running time since Arthur’s personal alarm had been sounded.
They were approaching the forty-minute mark, and things were not looking good.
With each tick of the clock, the odds of getting him back got worse. They were still getting a signal from Arthur’s beacon, but the Cobra gunships had found nothing. Navy frogmen were on the way from Norfolk to find out what was beneath the water. At first they thought Arthur’s alarm might have been thrown overboard by his abductors, but the
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AWAC operator told them the bogie had stopped dead in the water. The quick-reaction team had arrived at Arthur’s estate and was assessing the situation. Only one thing was certain: Arthur was nowhere to be found.
Stansfield watched as his people in the Operations Center alerted the Coast Guard, local law enforcement agencies, airport officials, and U.S. Customs agents to be on the lookout for anything suspicious. For security reasons, they didn’t tell anyone the real reason for the alert, only that they were looking for a fugitive. They didn’t want the story ending up in the press. Stansfield knew if they were to get Arthur back at this point it would take luck, and to get lucky they had to hustle.
