The Jungle

There were no vans parked along the street, a favorite observation post, and no cars with overly tinted windows, another dead giveaway. All the lawns were well manicured. It was an important detail, because if a neighbor’s house had been commandeered by the kidnappers to keep an eye on the Lawlesses, they wouldn’t expose themselves by riding a John Deere around the property.

They spent fifteen minutes checking gas meters but at the same time always watching the target house for drapes being moved by someone lurking inside. The few cars that passed them on the quiet street paid no attention and didn’t slow or stop.

“I think we’re good,” Linc said.

Cabrillo had to agree. He scribbled something on his notepad in big bold letters, and the two of them approached the door. The brass knocker had been recently polished and the stairs swept, as if these small domestic chores could take the Lawlesses away from the pain they were feeling. He rapped loudly. A moment later an attractive woman in her mid-fifties opened the door.

He held up the clipboard where she could read it and asked, “Ma’am, we’ve had reports of gas leaks in this area. Have you had any trouble?”

On the clipboard was written: We’re here with MacD. Are you alone?

“Um, no. I mean, yes. No. No one’s here.” Then the reality hit her, and her voice raised two octaves. “You’re with MacD? He’s all right? Oh my gosh!” She turned to shout over her shoulder. “Mare! Mare, get in here. MacD’s okay.”

Juan gently but firmly bustled them inside and shut the door. An Irish setter came into the room to see what the commotion was, its feathered tail wagging excitedly.

“Mrs. Lawless, please keep your voice down. Were the men who took your granddaughter ever in this house?”

“What is it?” a male voice called from deeper in the home.

“No. Never. They grabbed her when I was watching her at a park near here. Brandy, down,” she said to the dog that was trying to lick Linc’s face. Linc ignored the dog and kept watching the bug detector as he swept the entryway. “They told me they would let her go soon but that if I contacted the police they would kill her. My husband and I have been sick with worry ever since.”

Marion Lawless II came around a corner, wearing chinos and a denim shirt. His son was his spitting image, especially the jade-colored eyes and slightly cleft chin.

“Mare, these men are here with MacD.”

Juan thrust out a hand. “My name is Juan Cabrillo. This is Franklin Lincoln. And we’ve been working with your son to rescue Pauline.” As soon as introductions were over, the Chairman called Lawless on a disposable cell and told him it was clear but to come through backyards anyway.

“The last we knew, MacD had quit working for that security company after something bad happened to him in Afghanistan,” the senior Lawless said.

“It’s a rather long, complicated story. I’ll let your son tell it when he gets here. We just wanted to let you know that we’ve located Pauline and we’re going to get her back.”

“And the animals that took her?” Kay asked. From her tone it was clear what fate she preferred for them. She might be a genteel Southern woman, but there was steel in her spine.

“Will never bother you again,” Juan assured her, and she understood his meaning.

“Good.”

“However, once we have her back I’m going to need you folks to disappear for a while until we can roll up the people behind Pauline’s abduction. If you don’t have someplace, we can get you a hotel.”

Mare Lawless put up an arresting hand. “No need. An old friend of mine has a cottage down on the Gulf Coast that he lets us use anytime we want.”

Juan considered this option and decided it was safe enough. He nodded. “That sounds perfect. This might take us a couple of weeks.”

“Take as long as you need,” Kay said quickly, and with the resolve of a woman protecting her own. She turned when there was a knock on the sliding-glass door that led to the backyard patio. She shrieked with joy when she saw her son, standing next to the wicker table and chairs.

She unlatched the door and hugged MacD intensely, tears ru

If he was honest with himself, the scene made Juan choke up some as well.

They stayed for only an hour. Cabrillo wanted enough daylight to locate and study the house the kidnappers were using. MacD explained everything to his parents, only leaving out his treatment at the hands of the Insein Prison jailors, the fact that he’d had a rope bridge shot out from under him, and a few other details he felt it best they not know. It was still a harrowing story that left Kay Lawless a little pale under her tan.

They left amid smiles and more tears. MacD promised he’d come home as soon as they nailed the person behind Pauline’s abduction.

The neighborhood where the videoconference originated hadn’t been adopted by a celebrity or been the recipient of a generous grant. Many of the houses were still boarded up, though, at the very least, most of the trash had been removed. This was the section of New Orleans that was hardest hit when the levees failed and had been a virtual lake in the days following Katrina. Nearby were vacant lots with only crumbling concrete pads to mark the grave sites of families’ homes.

Linc dropped MacD and Cabrillo at a coffee shop not too far from their intended target. In this area, two white men and a black man in the same car would look suspiciously like cops no matter who was behind the wheel. He returned thirty minutes later, and helped himself to the chicory coffee from the pot Juan had ordered.

“Well?” Cabrillo asked after Linc had stopped making a sour face at the bitter taste of the coffee.

“Nasty,” he pronounced. “Okay, the satellite pics we have are a little out of date. The two houses behind the one we’re interested in have been demolished, and the lots are practically jungles. The ones on either side are still there and completely shuttered. There are families living across the street. I saw kids’ bikes chained in their yards, and toys and stuff on the lawn, so we need to be careful there.”

“What about the kidnappers?” MacD asked, his anxiety level spiking.

“Never showed themselves. The shades are drawn in all the windows, but I believe there are tiny gaps at the edges that they can see out of and only a professional Peeping Tom could see in. And Juan, you were right about the lawn. It looks like a goat’s buffet. Those guys are holed up tight and probably go out only at night, to get food from a store miles from here.”

“So was that an attached garage we saw on the pictures?”

“Yes.”

“Did you get a chance to run a thermal scan?”

“No. It would look too suspicious, and it’s still too warm outside. Not enough of a temperature difference to register properly.”

Cabrillo had suspected as much but felt he should ask anyway. “Okay. We lay low and then go in at one and assault at three.” Three a.m. is when the human body is at its lowest ebb. Even a guard on night duty succumbs to the body’s natural circadian rhythms and would be far from alert. “MacD, you cool?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Ah won’t let my emotions interfere with the op.”

Even in such a tumbledown neighborhood, the men couldn’t go skulking around in full combat gear and armed to the teeth. As one o’clock approached, Linc parked the car several streets over from the target house and popped open the hood. Any passing police patrol would see that it was a disabled vehicle and that the driver had left it for the night. A curious cop might run the plates, see that it was a rental, and assume it was a relative displaced by Katrina to Houston, as so many were, back home for a visit.