wrists in order to keep track of them. After the war, the people who survived these camps had a constant reminder of the Holocaust, marks that eventually became a source of inspiration.”
“What does that have to do with Ariane?”
“About five years ago, members of Los Diablos, a Hispanic gang from East L.A., decided it would be cool if they tattooed their brothers in a similar fashion, marking them on their wrists. Before then, gangs used to get their tattoos on their arms, chests, or back, but suddenly this trend caught on. Holocaust tattoos, known as Holotats, started popping up everywhere.”
“And you think the P tattoo is a Holotat gang emblem?”
Jones nodded his head. “That’s what it looks like to me. Of course, I could be wrong. It could be a jailhouse tat or the initial of his girlfriend, but my guess would be a Holotat.”
Payne considered the information, and a question sprang to mind. “You said it might be his girlfriend’s initial. Does that mean we’re sure it’s a guy?”
“That would be my guess. The thickness of the wrist suggests a masculine suspect, but to be on the safe side, I wouldn’t completely rule out a female. Of course, she’d have to be a Sasquatch-looking bitch.”
Payne laughed for the first time in a long time. He felt better knowing that Jones was helping him through this. “So, what now?”
“Why don’t you come down here? I have a few more tests I want to run on the video. But I want you to look at the tattoo to see if you notice anything that I didn’t.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
IT took Payne nearly an hour to reach Mount Washington, and the drive was a miserable one. Holiday traffic was starting to pick up even though it was only midday. Payne used his master key to enter Jones’s technology lab and found his friend hard at work on the computer.
“Any new developments?” Payne asked as he picked up a printout of the tattoo and studied it.
“There wasn’t much visual data to work with on the disc, so I focused on the audio. I know it’s hard to believe, but sound can tell you so much.”
“You mean like her scream?”
“No, I mean like background noise. You know, stuff that’s there, but isn’t really obvious.”
“Such as?”
Jones walked to the far side of the room and tapped his hand on a small metallic unit. “I call this device the Listener, and for the last half hour, it’s been our best friend.”
Payne crossed the room for a closer look and watched as Jones typed a specific code into the unit’s keypad. The Listener responded by extending its front tray six inches forward.
“This unit was designed to analyze sound and place it into specific categories. Since we were dealing with a stable environment with little background noise I had the machine focus on a couple of things. The first was her voice. I wanted to see if I could understand what she tried to say after her initial scream.”
“You mean when her voice got garbled.”
“Yeah. My guess is they were probably gagging her at the time, but I was hoping the machine might be able to isolate the sound and clean it up for us.”
“Did it work?”
“Actually, it worked beautifully. Unfortunately, it won’t help our cause very much.”
“Why not? What did she say?”
Jones picked up the transcript and read it aloud. “She said, ‘Help me. Somebody help me.’ ”
Payne closed his eyes as Ariane’s words sank in. He had managed to stay relaxed while Jones explained the features of his computer equipment, but now that the focus of the conversation was back on Ariane, Payne felt the nausea return. What would he do if he couldn’t track her down? Or worse yet, if someone had already killed her?
“Jon?” Jones said. “Are you okay? I asked you a question.”
Payne opened his eyes and turned to his friend. “Sorry. What was that?”
“I wanted to know if you told the cops how many people were involved.”
He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I told them that Mr. McNally saw more than one person, but wasn’t sure how many.”
“Well, thanks to the Listener, I’d say that there were probably three of them.”
Payne sat up in his chair. “How did you figure that out?”
“Simple. I programmed the device to filter out everything but the footsteps, and after listening to the disc, I could hear three distinct sets. But, as they were leaving, I could only hear two.”
“You mean someone stayed inside Ariane’s apartment?”
Jones shook his head. “At first, that’s what I thought, too, but as I listened to the disc again, I noticed a scratching noise in the background. I filtered out all the other sounds, isolating the scratch, and this is what I got.” He pushed his mouse button once, and a rough grating sound emerged from his system’s speakers. “What does that sound like to you?”
“Feet dragging on a carpet?”
“Bingo!” Jones was impressed that his friend had figured it out so quickly. It had taken him several minutes to come up with a hypothesis. “Remember what McNally said? It looked like your girlfriend was snookered because they were practically carrying her to the van? Well, my guess is she was drugged or knocked out. The three sets of footsteps that the Listener originally detected were Ariane and the two assailants. They broke into her place, gagged her, drugged her, then dragged her out. That’s the only thing that fits.”
“But I thought you said there were three guys involved. Where was the third guy while the abduction was going on?” Before Jones had a chance to answer, the solution popped into Payne’s head. “Oh, shit! They probably needed a driver to stay outside in the van.”
Jones nodded. “That’s what most criminals would do.”
CHAPTER 14
PAYNE
and Jones gathered all of the information they’d accumulated and took it directly to the police. When they entered the local precinct, Payne headed for Captain Tomlin’s office. He had met Tomlin a year earlier at a charity golf event that Payne Industries had sponsored, and they had stayed in touch since.
“Do you have a minute?” Payne asked as he tapped on Tomlin’s glass door. The captain, who had curly hair and thick arms, waved him in. “Have you ever met David Jones?”
Tomlin introduced himself, shaking Jones’s hand with a powerful grip. “Jon has told me all about you. I almost feel like we’ve met. I understand that you served under him in special ops.”
“Yeah,” Jones answered as he took a seat next to Payne. “We relied on each other so much we ended up attached in the real world.”
“That happens all the time. There’s something about life in the military that draws soldiers together-a kindred spirit that bonds all warriors.”
Payne winced at the suggestion. “I don’t know about that crap. I think D.J. stuck with me so I could get him a job.”
Jones nodded. “To be honest, he’s right. I actually can’t stand the bastard.”
Tomlin laughed loudly. “So, I take it from your comedy that Ariane’s all right? Where was that gal hiding?”
The comment drained the humor from the room.
