The Program Read online

  Dray made a noncommittal noise of acknowledgment—the one that meant she needed to give something more thought. “What if she’s already dead? What if they killed her and dumped her body somewhere?”

  “Then I’ll find it and give the parents a burial. End their uncertainty—that’s something we were spared.”

  She nodded slightly and turned back over. “I want Sleep Hold.”

  Tim slid down in bed, spooning her, and she responded with a lazy arch of her back. She raised her head, and he maneuvered his left arm beneath her neck. His cheek rested against her hair, his lips just touching her ear.

  Her voice was faint now, skating the edge of sleep. “Tell me something about Ginny.”

  Tim stared at the darkness. He squeezed her instead.

  TWO

  Tim strode down the hall leading to the marshal’s office, his steps hushed by the carpet, his head numbed by the 6:00 a.m. wake-up and the deadening hum of the air conditioner vents overhead. His first return to the administrative offices, located behind the Federal Courthouse downtown, was proving to be even more uncomfortable than he’d anticipated. Shame had overtaken him when he drove past the imposing, wide-stepped expanse of the courthouse, dogging him as he walked this familiar path. He could have spent the past year and the rest of his life as part of this institution. Instead he was stuck patrolling steel warehouses, sipping Big Gulps, spitting sunflower seeds, and knowing every minute that it was entirely his own fault. And knowing that the rent-a-cop job itself was a kind of penance.

  Entering the lounge, he sat beside the antique safe with its faded rendering of a stag—a relic from an 1877 marshal’s stagecoach escort team. The marshal’s assistant nodded at him formally through the ballistic glass, but her eyes seemed to glitter in anticipation of the lunchtime gossip she’d be able to impart.

  The infamous ex-deputy dropping in for the first time since his release from jail. Since the plea bargain he had resisted but taken.

  “He’s expecting you.” She punched at her computer keys with long-nailed fingers. “Go right in.”

  Tannino rose from behind his sturdy desk to greet Tim. They shook hands, Tannino studying him with dark brown eyes. At six feet, Tim had about five inches on him.

  Of the ninety-four U.S. marshals, Tannino was one of the few merit appointees, having served his street time before rising through the ranks. The marshalships, one for each federal judicial district, had traditionally been sinecures, though Homeland Security concerns were changing that rapidly.

  Tannino gestured to the couch opposite his desk, and Tim sat. “What’s his pull?” Tim asked.

  Tannino got busy polishing an already spotless picture frame.

  “You might as well come clean now,” Tim said. “Save me the time.” Tannino set down the photo—his niece wearing confirmation white, drenched in creamy angelic lighting. His sister’s husband had died a few years ago of a heart attack, and Tannino had taken over paternal duties, which seemed mostly to involve interrogating prospective dates and delegating boyfriend background checks to his less industrious deputies. He laced his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, his coiffed salt-and-pepper hair looking even more dated than Tim remembered. “He’s a big political donor—helped raise four mil for Senator Feinstein’s campaign in ‘98.”

  The trail of obligation wasn’t hard to trace—Feinstein, as the senior senator, had recommended Tannino for his position. Though Clinton had rubber-stamped Tannino through, it was Feinstein to whom he owed his career, and the feelings of loyalty and respect ran both directions.

  “So you redeputize me, put me on the trail unofficially, keep the donor’s purse strings loose, and maintain plausible deniability. If I stumble upon the girl and haul her in quietly, no one has to ask questions and a blue-chip case is tied up with a bow. If I screw up, I’m a perfect cutout operative. Tim Rackley, loose cannon and known assassin—shit, he just went off on his own, we weren’t really sure what he got himself into. Mobs rally with pitchforks and shovels, and you help stoke the blaze.”

  “You’re getting cynical in your old age, Rackley.”

  “It’s been a long year, Marshal. I lost my stomach for circumlocution.”

  “I heard Kindell went away for life. I thought that might have lightened the load.”

  Five months ago, Roger Kindell, the thirty-six-year-old transient who had killed and dismembered Ginny, had pled to life-no-parole to keep the lethal injection at bay. Black-and-white photos depicting him in the act, stained with Ginny’s blood, hadn’t left the defense many alternatives. At long last, Kindell had run out of loopholes to slip through.

  “Rackley? Rackley?”

  Tim looked up, regained his focus.

  “You’re right on one count. We can’t go after his kid because she’s an adult. Nothing illegal has happened. What we can do is open a quiet investigation on her disappearance and see what options that presents us. If you locate her, maybe you take her into custody quick and quiet and we all get back to more important matters.”

  “Henning’s got money. Why doesn’t he just hire a witch-hunter to kidnap her?”

  “First of all, it’s illegal. Second, those guys are all ex-military machos. Henning can’t risk that visibility. He’s got political aspirations—he’s not feeding money into senate campaigns for the shiny plaques. He’s half retired from the business now, a big name around town, there’s a congressional seat opening up, maybe the governor’s office from there. A botched kidnapping would kill him. You’ve seen firsthand what the press can do.”

  “And it’s a lot harder to campaign with your daughter off spinning in robes at the airport. We wouldn’t want an ally tripping over that hurdle.”

  “It’s not all politics in this room, despite what you may believe.”

  As much as the bureaucratic back-scratching chafed Tim, he had to respect the marshal’s no-bullshit approach to the intricacies of the situation. Tannino was a straight-thinking street operator who’d found himself promoted to a political position; he had to whistle along occasionally, but that didn’t mean he liked it.

  “You were one of the best deputies I’ve ever had. Hell, that I’ve ever seen. And I went to bat for you when the chips were down. I had certain limitations, but I did go to bat for you. Don’t make this all neat and simple and stick a black hat on me.” Tannino took a deep breath, held it a moment. “It’s about time you did something more than guard sheet metal and throw a shadow. Let’s get you redeputized. Our two-year window hasn’t closed, so I can give you a pass on going back to the academy. You can have full reinstatement rights—hell, you and Bear can even go back to swapping lipstick like the old days. I can offer you your appropriate pay grade, GS12, plus availability pay, of course.”

  “Am I back permanently?”

  Tannino sighed. “I’m not gonna lie to you, Rackley. Trying to get you on full-time after the stunts you pulled last year would be like trying to shovel ten pounds of shit into a five-pound bag. We can see how things play, but this is probably a temporary arrangement.” He removed a badge and a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver—Tim’s preferred, if outdated, duty weapon—from a drawer and set them on his desktop. Tim looked at them for a long time.

  “Why didn’t you call me first?”

  “You would have said no. I needed you to meet the parents.”

  “Because Will Henning has such a glowing personality?”

  “No, because they’re real people in real pain.”

  “So you’re willing to forgive me my trespasses as long as the donor deems me useful.”

  “Exactly. You still want in, though. Why?”

  “It may sound trite as hell, Marshal, but I love the Service.”

  “It doesn’t sound trite to me, Rackley. Not at all.” Tannino rooted around in his file cabinet for an oath-of-office form, then stood. “Raise your right hand and repeat after me.”

  Gripping his holstered .357, the badge weighing heavy but comforting in the back pocket of his
khaki cargo pants, Tim headed to the Roybal Center’s Garden Level. After numerous delays and endless bitching, the deputy offices had finally been moved from the shoddier Federal Building next door. It was another temporary arrangement, until the Service took over the third floor from Secret Service, its final step up the ladder of budgetary recognition. The neat lines of desks—cheap, dark wood with shiny faux-gold pulls—and the two waist-high barriers segmenting the room added to Tim’s disorientation on his return. A row of windows to the south overlooked the gardens.

  Maybeck went red in the face when he spotted Tim, but Guerrera covered for him nicely with a nod. Across the room, Denley leaned over and wisecracked to Palton from behind a cupped hand. Tim kept his eyes forward as he walked, pretending his peripheral vision was inoperative. The past year had provided him plenty of opportunity to exercise the oblivious-yet-dignified skill set.

  The top explosive-detection canines, Precious and Chomper, whimpered at Tim’s scent, tails wagging, but they’d been put on a sit-stay, so they didn’t run to greet him. Reacting to his dogs, Supervisory Deputy Brian Miller stood to look over the barrier. The others followed suit, rising to their feet and staring, curiosity overcoming tact. A few new faces made Tim’s hiatus all the more acute.

  A current of whispers followed him to his new desk, empty save a faded blotter and a crumpled Doritos bag. The wood partition provided him momentary respite from the stares. He set the S&W on the blotter and stared at it, weighing for a moment the significance of putting on a weapon again.

  Then he looped several rubber bands around the fore end of the grip, just below the hammer. He slid the gun in the back of his pants above his right kidney, the grip out, ready for the draw. The rubber bands kept it from slipping beneath his waistband.

  He removed the Marshals star from his back pocket and studied it. Last night he’d called to quit his security gig. His supervisor’s only interest had been getting back the uniform and baton. That Tim was so eminently replaceable was apt commentary on the worthlessness of what he’d been doing over the past year.

  A massive thunk hit Tim’s back, startling him from his self-loathing. Bear’s voice boomed over his shoulder. “You know why they put a circle around that star?”

  A faint smile crossed Tim’s lips. “So it’s easier for them to shove up your ass.”

  He turned to stand and was swept up in a turbulent hug. Until last year Tim and Bear had partnered on the warrant squad’s Escape Team and served together on the SWAT-like Arrest Response Team. Though he was nine years older than Tim, Bear looked up to him and Dray like older siblings. A loner with many friends and few intimates, he’d been an uncle to Ginny. Tim had once saved his life and been awarded the Medal of Valor for it. Bear had returned the favor by being the most unerringly loyal friend Tim had.

  Over by the coffeemaker, Denley muttered something and Bear shot him a hard stare over the top of the barrier. “Fuck off, Denley. You got something to say, get your ass over here and say it.”

  Denley held up a sagging coffee filter. “Actually, Jowalski, I was just complaining that some numbnut left the old filter in.”

  Some of the noble indignation leaked out of Bear. “Oh,” he said. Tim smiled for the first time since entering the building. “I really appreciate you easing my transition here.”

  Bear lowered himself into a nearby sliding chair, spilling over it in all directions like a rhino on a unicycle. “Tannino briefed me yesterday. I already followed up the groundballers. There’s nothing on the PI, Katanga. Just vanished.”

  “The girl?”

  “Ran the usual suspects on Leah Henning—phone, gas, power, water, and broadband. All last-knowns trace to an apartment in Van Nuys. Here’s the address. I spoke to the manager—cranky old broad. Leah skipped her lease March fifteenth, left the security deposit behind.”

  Two days after her visit home.

  “No forwarding info, no new bills in her name. She just blinked off the radar.” Bear coughed into a fist. “What do you have?”

  “Not a damn thing.”

  “Well, that’s why you’re here. To make magic outta moleshit.” Bear wiped his hand on his pant leg. “The P.O. box checked out to the San Fernando office, just north of Van Nuys, where the girl lived. I guess if we get desperate, we can sit someone on it, but I’m not sure Tannino’ll give up the manpower for a low-odds angle this early in the game.”

  “The PI already gave it a go with no luck. Let’s save that for a last-ditch.”

  Bear flattened the chips bag with his hand and seemed disappointed to find it empty. “These cults pull some intense shit. Didn’t you do some mind-control mumbo jumbo in Ranger training?”

  “Biofeedback stuff mostly, to teach us to control our thoughts, balance our emotional responses, mediate our pain reactions.”

  Bear wore the dubious expression he generally reserved for discussing political correctness and tax hikes. “How’d they do that?”

  “They stuck us with needles and put probes up our asses. We’d joke that we got lost at the Blue Oyster Bar from Police Academy.”

  The white coats had taught him to focus on his breathing, his heart rate, even his body temperature. Eventually he could lower them at will, even when the techs were giving him mild shocks or pricking his fingertips with needles. They’d kept cardiac leads all over him, hooked into a computer; his task was to lower his blood pressure and make pink dots disappear from the screen. The aim, one walleyed tech bragged, was to regulate his adrenaline response, to disconnect the wiring of his fight-or-flight instinct. Four twenty-minute sessions a day, seven days a week.

  When Tim finished, his core body temperature stayed at ninety-seven degrees.

  “There is a shadow government.” With effort, Bear pulled himself up off the chair. “Page me if you need me. I gotta chase down some jackass who walked out of an Inglewood halfway house after banging a cohabitant. Remember, it ain’t all glamour.”

  He thundered off, hefting his pants by his belt.

  Tim sat for a moment, elbows on his knees, head lowered. It took a while for the juices to get flowing, but the instinct returned like a remembered melody. He plucked the phone from the base, called the L.A. Times: Valley Edition and then the Weekly, asking for Classifieds. Newspapers were notoriously fastidious when it came to confidentiality, so he introduced himself both times as Lee Henning and complained that he’d been overcharged for a moving-sale ad he’d placed in the papers a few weeks ago. He was additionally pissed off because they’d misspelled his name. Neither paper could locate an ad. He came up blank at Pennysaver and Recycler but got a hit at the New Times, a lower-circulation rag that catered to students and the younger set.

  “Yeah, right here,” the clerk said. “Leah Henning.” A hiccup of a giggle. “Bet that confused the buyers, huh? It just ran once. You should’ve been charged thirty-five bucks.”

  “If memory serves, I was charged fifty.”

  “Nope.” The sounds of fastidious keyboard clicking. “Got the bill right here.”

  “Can you fax me a copy of it? And the ad, too, while you’re at it?”

  He waited, fingers drumming on the desktop, until he heard the fax machine whirring across the room. Reluctant to ask his way around the new office, he followed the noise through the maze of desks. The papers awaited him in the tray.

  A notation on the bill showed that Leah had paid the bill with cash, which struck Tim as odd and inconvenient. Tim had run through some specifics with Will last night while walking him and Emma to their car, and Will had mentioned he’d cut off Leah’s credit cards. But she still, presumably, had a bank account with a checkbook. Unless she’d signed that over to the cult in addition to her trust fund.

  Leah’s ad, which had run nearly a month ago, offered a bureau, two nightstands, a bookcase, a mattress and frame, her bicycle, and an array of computer equipment. The sell-off fitted the profile of either a fugitive preparing to go underground or someone moving overseas. The latter, a distinct possi
bility, worried him. He didn’t want to have to inform the Hennings that their daughter was hoeing fields in a cult colony in Tenerife.

  More focused now, he headed out, mumbling to himself and drawing a few glances from his colleagues.

  THREE

  Tim worked the phone on the drive up the coast, networking through contacts and eventually placing calls to the Leo J. Ryan Foundation, the Cult Information Service, and the American Family Foundation. When he informed the phone counselors that he needed to bring his teenager in for postcult therapy in Los Angeles, the same name topped all three referral lists: Dr. Glen Bederman, a UCLA psychology professor, one of the country’s foremost cult authorities.

  Tim dialed the number, keeping an eye on the winding road.

  “You’ve reached the office of Glen Bederman. If this is a harassing phone call, please leave all slurs and deprecations after the beep. If you’re suing me, please phone my lawyer, Jake C. Caruthers, directly at 471 -9009. Process servers looking to locate me, here is my calendar for the week....” Listening to Bederman’s lecture schedule and office hours, Tim couldn’t help but smile. “I’d like to close with Articles Five and Eighteen of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: No one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, and everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. Good day.”

  After the prolonged beep that indicated a surfeit of messages, Tim introduced himself briefly and mentioned he’d try to catch up with the professor later that day.

  Next he reached the postal inspector in charge of San Fernando—a nasally voiced fellow who introduced himself as Owen B. Rutherford.

  “Yes,” Rutherford said with thinly disguised irritation, “I recall fielding questions about this particular already.”

  “I was just wondering if you’d consider—”

  “You should know better, Deputy. Bring me a warrant and I’ll arrange a time to see to your concerns.”