Elizabeth was now sitting in Grace’s chair at Grace’s desk in Grace’s room listening to Grace’s voice. It was all she had left of her daughter. She reached over and hit the play button and listened again to her dead daughter’s voice.
Gracie said, “Ben Brice was a hero.”
The big man was shaking his head slowly like Mom did when Sam acted like a little butthead. “Ben Brice,” he said in a soft voice, almost like he was talking about someone who had died. “What are the odds, Junior? We drive halfway across the country to snatch this girl, turns out she’s Ben Brice’s grandkid. Same wave of His hand, God gives you her and me Ben Brice.”
Junior was now looking at the big man like he was from another planet. “The hell you babbling about, Jacko?”
The big man named Jacko said, “The major always said it ain’t no coincidence that the world’s oil is in the Middle East, same place the world’s three religions got started. He said, ‘God put that oil there, Jacko, ’cause one day it’s gonna bring the Jews, Muslims, and Christians back to the Middle East for the final conflict. Armageddon in the desert. God’s master plan.’ ”
“What’s all that got to do with her?”
“She’s my oil, Junior.” Jacko turned to Junior but pointed a gnarly thumb at Gracie. “She’s gonna bring Ben Brice back to me for the final conflict.”
“Who the hell’s Ben Brice?”
Gracie said again, “He was a hero.”
Jacko snorted smoke. “He was a traitor. The traitor got us court-martialed.”
Junior looked at him and frowned. “You mean-”
“Yeah, I mean. He’s the one betrayed the major.”
Junior’s eyes got wide, like Nanna’s that time she hit four numbers at the lottery and won six hundred dollars. He said, “He’s a dead man.”
“Not yet he ain’t,” Jacko said. “But he will be soon enough.”
“But how’re we gonna find him?”
“We ain’t. He’s gonna find us.”
“He ain’t never gonna find us on that mountain.”
“Yeah, Junior, he will. I don’t know how, but he will. ’Cause we took something belongs to him.”
“Now this is my kind of work,” John said as he and Ben entered the Range Rover showroom. A smiling salesman wearing a short-sleeve shirt and a clip-on tie appeared before the glass doors shut behind them.
“Morning, gentlemen. I’m Bob.”
A Range Rover dealership was like a second home to John R. Brice. When he had spotted it from the Jeep, his spirits had soared like a kid on Christmas morning: a new Rover would dang sure get them to Idaho! John walked over to a Land Rover on the showroom floor-Java black exterior-and opened the door-Alpaca beige leather interior. He had seen all he needed to see. He turned back to Bob.
“How much?”
“Fifty-seven,” Bob said. “That’s a steal for this baby.”
Certainly Bob didn’t think he was going to hose John R. Brice on the price of a Land Rover. Like most techno-nerds, John did not possess real world expertise requiring physical dexterity or social skills; he did not know how to lay tile or change the oil or fix a running toilet (don’t even think about a major appliance) or interface effectively with his kids’ teachers or his spousal unit. But he knew all the important things in life as defined by his 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?