generation: he knew how to write computer code; he knew how to buy stuff on the Internet; he knew how to make a billion dollars from intellectual property; he knew how to compare cell phone calling plans; and he knew the specs for a Land Rover.
“Land Rover LR3 series, HSE package. Four-point-four liter V-8 power plant with Bosch Motronic Engine Management System. Four-wheel-drive with electronic traction control, electronic air suspension, and antilock brakes. Terrain Response, Active Roll Mitigation, and Dynamic Stability Control systems. Five-hundred-fifty-watt Harmon Kardon Logic 7 surround sound stereo system with thirteen speakers and amplified subwoofer. Nineteen- inch alloy wheels. Cold climate package, leather seats, sunroof, Bi-Xenon headlights, rack-and-pinion steering, and the Urban Jungle accessory kit, although I’m partial to the Safari kit. Total MSRP, fifty-six-five. Plus transportation and dealer prep fees and add-ons, fifty-seven-five. I can shop this vehicle on the Net and pay forty-nine-five max. Because I’m in a hurry, I’ll pay fifty-one, cash and carry.”
John’s brain dump had Bob’s mouth agape. “But at that price I’m giving it away. Look, I’ll come down to fifty-six.”
“No way, dude. Fifty-two or we’re history.”
“Fifty-five?”
“Fifty-three, and that’s my final offer.”
“Fifty-four.” John turned away. Before he took two steps: “Okay, okay, fifty-three.”
“Done.” John put the phone to his ear. “Carol, you still there? Wire fifty-three thousand to-”
“Plus tax, title and license,” Bob said.
“How much?”
Bob started tapping on a little calculator. “Title is two-fifty, license is one-fifty, sales tax is six-point-seven- five percent times fifty-three thousand…”
To Carol on the phone: “Plus three thousand nine hundred seventy-seven dollars and fifty cents to-”
John held the phone out to Bob, who was still tapping away.
“… that’s three thousand nine hundred seventy-seven…”
“Yes, we know,” John said. “Tell her your bank account number. I need this vehicle in real time.” He pointed outside. “And you gotta take that POS Jeep off our hands.”
Bob hurried off with the cell phone. John turned to Ben.
“And that is how you upgrade to a new luxury SUV.”
Ben was shaking his head in obvious amazement. “What does ‘POS’ mean?”
“Piece of shit,” Jan Jorgenson said. She flung the dried-out marker across her office and into the trash can.
She had come into the office that morning for the first time since the abduction and tried to focus on the long list of young Arab men residing in Texas, but her mind wouldn’t let go of the girl on that soccer game tape. The image haunted her. She felt as if she were quitting on Gracie Ann Brice. But she was not a quitter. Marathon running had taught her to never quit. Twenty miles, you’re in a brain fog, your body is on autopilot, your feet are numb, you’ve lost control of your bowels, and you’re hitting the wall-but you don’t quit; you never quit. If you quit, you never learn the truth about yourself.
FBI Special Agent (on probation) Jan Jorgenson was determined to learn the truth about Gracie Ann Brice.
So rather than running six miles as she normally did during her lunch hour, she was outlining the Brice case on the large grease board in her small office in downtown Dallas. She had written GRACIE ANN BRICE at the top of the
board above five subheadings: GARY JENNINGS… JOHN BRICE… ELIZABETH BRICE… COL. BEN BRICE… DNA.
Under GARY JENNINGS, she had written BriceWare and blood in truck and jersey in truck and 9 phone calls and coach’s ID and child porn. Damning evidence. But still, the FBI’s Evidence Response Team couldn’t find a single hair from Gracie’s head in Jennings’s truck or apartment or on his clothes; or her fingerprints in his truck or his fingerprints on the porn picture; or child porn in his apartment or on his computers. He didn’t come close to the sexual predator profile. Nothing like a child abduction in his background, and a wife and baby and a million dollars in his future, but he chucks it all to rape and murder his boss’s ten-year-old daughter?
As the kids say, I don’t think so.
She had next completed the entries under JOHN BRICE: Ph. D., MIT… marries Elizabeth Austin… moves to Dallas… BriceWare… IPO. Other than his billion-dollar wealth after yesterday’s IPO, a possible motive for ransom, nothing else in the father’s background sparked her interest. Why would someone take John Brice’s child?
She had then written under ELIZABETH BRICE: Born NYC… Smith College… Harvard Law… Justice Department… quits Justice, marries John Brice, moves to Dallas… white-collar criminal defense. Why would someone take Elizabeth Brice’s child?
She was now filling in the life of COL. BEN BRICE: West Point… Vietnam… Green Beret… Colonel… Medal of Honor… classified duty… Viper tattoo. Why would someone take Colonel Brice’s grandchild?
Why would someone commit this crime?
What were possible motives?
She sat back down at her desk, which was covered with information Research had gathered about Colonel Brice from public sources, copies of newspaper and magazine articles, arranged in reverse chronological order. Research had highlighted in yellow each place the colonel’s name was mentioned in the articles. She thumbed through several. One was dated 30 April 1975, about the fall of Saigon, with a photograph of a U.S. helicopter rising from the roof of the American Embassy; a soldier was standing on the skid like a fireman on a fire truck and cradling a small object in his arm.
Another article was dated 7 August 1972, with a photo of President Nixon placing the Medal of Honor around Colonel Brice’s neck in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, awarded because Brice had single- handedly rescued one hundred American pilots from a POW camp; the colonel’s wife stood beside him.
Jan scanned several articles from Stars amp; Stripes, the military newspaper, then came to a front-page article from the Washington Herald dated 12 November 1969. The accompanying photograph showed reporters crowding a grim Colonel Brice outside an Army building, only he wasn’t a colonel back then, but a young lieutenant. Her eyes ran over the article: something about a court-martial over a massacre in Vietnam. Jan Jorgenson was not born until 1980; consequently, the Vietnam War meant no more to her than the Civil War. She was about to move on to the next article when her eyes caught a word in the fifth paragraph of the story: viper.
A shot of adrenaline ricocheted through Jan’s veins: Colonel Brice has a Viper tattoo. The unidentified male at the park had a Viper tattoo. The court-martialed soldiers had been in a special operations unit code-named Viper. She read on.
SOG team Viper, led by Major Charles Woodrow Walker, massacred forty-two Vietnamese civilians on 17 December 1968 in a small hamlet in the Quang Tri province of South Vietnam. Lieutenant Ben Brice reported the massacre. Once the media got wind, Quang Tri became a political cause. Members of Congress opposed to the war demanded that Major Walker be court-martialed. The Army resisted: Charles Woodrow Walker was a living legend. But when a group of senators threatened to hold up military funding, the Army surrendered and charged Walker and his soldiers under Article 118 of the Code of Military Justice: murder.
Lieutenant Ben Brice was the sole witness for the prosecution at the court-martial; he testified that Walker incited the massacre and murdered a young girl in cold blood. Major Walker had only to take the stand and deny the massacre. Case closed. A living legend trumps a lieutenant every time.
The crowded courtroom was silent with anticipation when the thirty-eight-year-old Army major, a strikingly handsome figure from the photo Jan was looking at, stepped to the witness stand in his uniform, his chest covered with medals, and stood erect as he addressed the members of the military tribunal.
“Dying, gentlemen, is a big part of war. People die in war. Men, women, and children. Soldiers and civilians. Enemies and allies. And Americans. Communist forces have killed forty thousand U.S. soldiers in Vietnam- forty thousand, gentlemen! And the Army is court-martialing me over forty-two dead gooks?”
The major sniffs the air like a bloodhound getting a scent.
