Take the Fourth Read online

  Jorja’s new office was still sparsely decorated but she made room for her only prized possession—the full one sheet movie poster to “2001: A Space Odyssey,” hanging right next to her poster from “Silence of the Lambs”. This was no ordinary movie poster, oh no, this was indeed a rare specimen. She first laid eyes on the poster when she was on a field trip to New York City and she visited MoMA at the age of twelve. Right there and then she vowed to herself that one day she would own such a work of art. Two years ago she forked out over thirteen thousand greenbacks for her holy grail at an auction down in Dallas. Yes, thirteen thousand—it is that rare. In the collectors’ circle this poster is simply dubbed the “Eye” poster. It consists of a close-up shot of a human eye in orange and blue and the famous Star Child in its pupil, with a tagline that reads “the ultimate trip.” The poster was produced to promote the 70mm relaunch in New York and was supposed to appeal to the movie goers who entered the theater half way through the film stoked by the wacky weed and wanting to finish out their trips amidst the stars and music. The fact that this poster was used for wilding, the act of pasting posters at construction sites, on fences and walls throughout the city, very few survived, very few survived in this pristine of a condition. It cost Jorja another thousand to frame it and protect her investment. The day she got promoted she knew this piece would be making the ultimate trip to her new digs so she could enjoy it each and every work day, which amounts to almost seven days a week in this job. Getting this piece from apartment, to car, through the parking garage, through security, in the elevators, to her wall was comical at best but was worth every smile and light profanity under her breath. As she smiled and stared at her eye, she sipped her morning cup of Joe—jet black, none of this half skim milk double foam mocha latte five dollar a cup crap… she loved the taste of coffee so why mask it with sugars and cream, besides look at all the money and time she saved by not going to some overrated Seattle coffee joint. Time was money as the old saying goes but so was coffee; at about five bucks a day for some glorified handpicked java beans and hot city non-filtered water, that adds up to a little over eighteen hundred dollars a year (weekends included). Place that in a money market account and over twenty years that’s a tidy sum, maybe help finance a boat or vacation home for retirement or even another poster. She sipped her free cup of bitter as she waited for her computer to boot and entered her login, password, and for even more security as opposed by the federal government in regards to biometric scans, she swiped her index finger. Jorja was now plugged into the network, one of the most powerful networks in the world and it was not even seven in the morning.

  Before joining the CIA she worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence as a project manager for some sensitive development projects; her uncle, a Senate Armed Service Committee member recommended her for the job. She entered the CIA eight years ago on her own merit but unbeknownst to her, her uncle might have had a little talk with a certain somebody, given a gentle tap on the back, and paid for a round of drinks—favors are the true currencies in this town—she fully earned the position of Deputy Director of DS&T through her hard work, dedication and smarts—in other words no help from her uncle this time around. Jorja was a smart cookie, always had the flair for electronics, be it computers, cell phones, digital camera, and not once did her VCR ever blink 12:00. She cruised through computer courses at college, got one of her degrees in software engineering, the other in network engineering. She didn’t go to an Ivy League school, though she almost could have if money were not so tight. Her father did the odd jobs here and there to get by and raised his daughter the best he could after her mother was killed in a freak boating accident on the Chesapeake Bay. Her mother had masoned a good solid foundation in her life though common courtesy before she passed on from this world. She died just before Jorja entered school, before her first A, before her first school recital, before Jorja’s first kiss, before her first boyfriend, before the prom, before graduation, before life began. She accepted her mother’s faith early on in life. Her father was not so lucky. He loved both his daughter Jorja and his wife Carolina. Carolina was the love of his life, he truly missed her every day and every day he looked at his daughter and every day the similarities reminded him of his loss, the love of his life, his Carolina. There was no doubt that Carolina and Jorja were mother and daughter. Jorja had her mother’s green eyes, vibrant green eyes; it was the first thing people noticed when she wasn’t wearing her wire frames. She had her mother’s cheekbone structure and wavy sandy brown hair which she wished was straight as all women with wavy hair do. At age thirty-eight and standing at five-eight, Jorja was a spitting image of her mother, there was no hiding that fact. What she did hide was her fit figure, hidden behind unrevealing cloths which seemed to be the norm when working for the government. She also hid the fact of her father’s health. It wasn’t Jorja’s fault but her father fell into a state of depression. Every time Jorja was successful in a turning point of life, her father would dwell on the fact that his wife was not here to cherish in these moments. The more successful Jorja became the more depressed her father became and his broken heart just couldn’t take it any longer. Her father died late last spring.

  She opened her email glanced at the headers and before she got any urges to open them, she accessed the report server and dialed up a report labeled—IP Addresses, She entered today’s date, punched enter on her ergonomic keyboard and waited a few seconds but before she could analyze the report her phone rang, then it rang again, and again, her inbox was starting to fill up, and before she could breathe it was way after lunch. Again she noticed the IP report but again she was interrupted, she noticed a buzz in the air, like chaos was about to erupt. Then an emergency alert appeared on her screen which blocked out her entire desktop. A wave of data is about to be upon us, she thought, the chaos she thought. She picked up the phone and at the same time fired off an alert to her staff—meeting in conference room D in fifteen. Then as predicted, the wave hit and all hell broke loose; news about the shootings had hit the airwaves.

  She had a few minutes of air while her staff collected any data prior to the meeting; she thought about replacing her cold coffee but instead glanced at the prompts for the IP report that was still open on her desktop. Having been promoted within the past month she has found many new encumbrances, report reading of IP addresses was not one of them; she simply could not let her old responsibilities fade away. This report was latest and greatest list of all the IP addresses (a number similar to a phone number that identifies the device such as a computer or printer, on a network) that were flooding the routers of the CIA on a daily basis. The report was divided into countries in regards to ordering, whether or not the address was incoming or outgoing, and the number of hits each IP address received. Sure hackers could spoof IP address but not necessarily the traces placed on them from the CIA. Very few people had that kind of smarts—there were other reports for those individuals. At the very top of this report was an IP address with no country and a few hits in the outgoing column—meaning the hits to this machine originated from within these walls. Odd she thought, the address looked familiar, like a federal IP number but if it was a federal number it would have been marked under the United States. Her curiosity peaked. She ran the IP address against a few databases, all coming up blank. Her curiosity piqued even more. She quickly checked her past reports, before she was the deputy director—she saved everything; she was a pack rat. No mention of this IP address anywhere, none. Before she could investigate any further Jorja made her way to conference room D. She gathered what little information there was and laid out her plans to her staff and was back at her desk within forty minutes. The IP Address report was still open but that wasn’t her priority now. Her curiosity was still peaked and she quickly went to the router’s configuration file and blocked access to and from the IP address until she could fully confirm its identity, then she wrote the number down on a sticky and attached it to her monitor. If someone needs it, someone w
ill scream she thought.

  . . .

  Chapter 4

  It worked like a charm, each and every time, he was four for four. He carried a picture of the cutest little puppy, walked up to his little girl and asked her if she had seen Max. He used the name Max because it was the most common pet name in America—learned that one from a Snapple top he did, number 415 to be exact. The answer to his “Have you seen Max?” was always the same of course, “no,” then he would ask her to help find his lost puppy. He carried an empty leash which made it more convincing, not that a five year old would pick up on such a thing but it was just a precaution for any of the adults in the vicinity. He learned this trick from one of the daytime talk shows, probably Oprah, on how to prevent your child from getting kidnapped—daytime television was full of good ideas and the other nice thing was no one could really track what you watched, not like that internet thing—who knew who was watching on that thing or how it could be done. He acted on impulse and did very little planning, it was more of a gut feeling for him. Drive around a little, don’t make it too obvious, look for a playground with lots children and very few parents or nannies, of course. He didn’t want to stake out or learn the habits of an individual, too much risk involved, someone might catch on, someone might see. He didn’t want to be obvious.

  His parked the car out of sight because that was the smart thing to do, and headed out of sight around the corner of a building, all while calling out “Here Max, here boy” and of course the little girl was in tow. He checked and double-checked, even triple-checked and made sure no one was watching. He stopped by the back of his car, squatted down to look underneath, the little girl followed suit.

  “Do you see him?”

  “Mmm, no.”

  He stood up and the little girl followed suit. He then reached into his jacket pocket and fiddled with a zip lock bag, inside the bag was a rag doused with a little bit of homemade chloroform, which he learned was a mixture of bleach and acetone from an old rerun of CSI Miami. In what appeared to be one single motion he lifted the lid to the already unlocked and slightly ajar trunk with his left hand and in his other hand grabbed the rag and from behind his little girl, placed it over both her nose and mouth, all while picking her up and placing her in the trunk. She didn’t put up much of a fight, unlike his last one. He noticed this one was still breathing even though she was out cold, also unlike his last one. Things were going his way this time around. He closed the lid to the trunk, checked, double-checked and even triple-checked, no one was watching. He entered his car, took off his bright red baseball hat and with the turn of the key started the engine. The radio was already set to the news station, his air was on the lowest of temperatures, and his gas tank read a little over half full; he was good to go for his seventy-one mile trip back home, just out of reach of the major city’s network news. He knew that his local news would carry the missing person report, they did so before, but after a day or two they moved on to more important things like the drought or the price of gas or another shooting in the city, they always did. Before he put the car in drive, he donned his out-of-style, knock-off, Ray Bans, put on his favorite Yankee’s cap, checked his mirrors, checked and rechecked and he was good to go. He popped the stick into d and pressed the gas pedal. Shortly thereafter he cursed under his breath calling himself an idiot for he didn’t want to draw any attention.

  “Camaro, early to mid 70’s, dark green or blue, black vinyl top, big wheels. Kidnapping suspect.” This went out over all the airways, police band, both am and fm radio, and most important television. This was a Levi’s Call, Georgia’s own interpretation of the Ambler Alert System put in place by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). It was named after eleven year-old Levi Frady who was abducted in October of 1997—his killers were never found. This was the best they could do and the detective in charge reassured and promised this was his best line of action. Both mother and father were unconvinced. Ripley was their daughter, their five year old daughter and she has been missing for over two hours and this seemed like an eternity. They both wanted nothing more than to go running up and down the streets shouting her name to help find their precious daughter but they were made to run the gauntlet of emotions down at police headquarters.

  All three family members were stashed in a little brightly lit, tan room with sparse fixings that consisted of a table that has seen better days and a few chairs, the most comfortable being an olive green foam padded chair over metal sitting in the corner and that was occupied by Ripley’s brother. He was holding a can of A & W root beer and didn’t understand one iota of what was going on; he was very well behaved though. The other metal, non padded chairs were arranged in the typical interrogation fashion, two contained the parents of Ripley on one side, the other side by the detective in charge of their case. A pad of yellow lined paper, a pencil, a black phone, and two glasses of water were the only things on the table. Nothing hung on the wall except, well not actually hung, more like mounted was the typical interrogation one-way mirror, which nobody was behind.

  “Why are you both in town today?”

  “Two reasons, I had an early morning meeting, then I was going to meet my wife and children for lunch and all of us were going to take Ripley to her appointment?”

  “Her appointment?”

  “Yes, doctor’s appointment just a few shots for her allergies, we never changed her doctor since we moved. It has been about a year and a half and we wanted to get a little bit further… farther from the city life but still have all the comforts of the city, such as quality doctors, shopping, and whatnot. We never really worried about,” searching for the right words but chose, “ . . . something like this, either when we lived here or our new place.”

  “What type of allergies?”

  Ben knew he was just trying to put them at ease and asking simple questions before he pressed harder, basically trying to trick the emotions so they wouldn’t get in the way of the more difficult task that laid ahead. “She has some really bad food allergies, she has to stay away from anything with peanuts, and pollen makes her wheeze, tree pollen is the worst so thank god it’s almost summer.”

  “Seems more and more kids these days have a peanut allergy, back in my day this was unheard of… probably something to do with all the steroids and peanut oils they use in processed foods now. What line of work are you in?”

  “Tough one really. My full time position is now borough manager of my now hometown, but I dabble a little as a business analyst for some pharmaceutical companies, it’s not steady work but the pay is rather good.”

  “And you?,” directed towards his wife Lindsay.

  “Same line of work, that’s how we met, but mostly I’ve been a mother of two and only work when I want to.”

  “Okay, can you tell me why you took them to this park?”

  “Well, ummm… . Ben’s meeting was just a short distance away and umm, I, we, used to live right up the street, ummm… it was Ripley’s favorite park, Samuel was too young to remember, it just seemed like a logical place to spend some time together.”

  “When was the last time you visited this park?”

  “I don’t know, I… I… I just don’t remember… .,” she was trying not to cry, “Before we moved I think… ummm… yes, before we moved, probably on a Saturday in late October… we moved in November.”

  “Okay,” and the detective took a brief moment, scribbled a few words down on his pad, “Do you have any enemies or people you distrust?” A question from seemingly left field.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I apologize, I have to ask, you just never know.”

  Lindsay was taken back from the question especially the enemies part… she hesitated, stared at her husband Ben then glanced at her son, trying to make some sense, trying to find an answer, “we have a lot of friends, we get along with all of our neighbors,” the words seemed harder to come by, “Both of my parents are no longer with us, Ben’s whole family is . .ummm . .I mean I truly love
them as my own… . I’ve even stayed on good terms with my ex.”

  “Ex? When was the last time you saw or talked to him?”

  “A few days ago, he called me and ummm… told me he was moving to a new townhouse, but… . but I’m sure, no I’m positive he wouldn’t do this…”

  “Don’t be too quick to judge, more times than not a biological parent is involved.”

  “He’s not her father, Benjamin is, my ex is like an uncle to her… . I know what you are thinking, strange that I’m still on good terms, we were just young that’s all, we both had wandering eyes and both wandered quite a bit when we were in our twenties… . but still we have maintained a good friendship, Ben and Terry even go to ball games together.”

  “Can you call him?”

  “Will I call him? Yes, but not now, I just cannnn… can’t at the moment… . I just can’t tell him Ripley is… .”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “I’ll call,” and Ben pulled out his cell phone and dialed but the detective nudged him, “Can you use a land line, we want to tap and record this.”

  Ben felt guilty for Terry was a very good friend to him but he always had this feeling in the back of his mind, you just never know. So he complied with the detective in charge, put his cell away, and dialed a number he knew by heart. “Terry, it’s Ben.”

  “Hey Ben, what’s up? You ready for the game tomorrow night, I’ve got great seats.”