Chapter 18 #2
“Do you think that will accomplish anything?” Worth asked.
Ryan glanced up at him. “Maybe, maybe not. Only one way to find out.” He hit the send button.
Less than a minute passed before the announcement that he had mail sounded. Ryan clicked the necessary tabs to open it.
McBride,
Yes, I saw this on the news. It was very exciting.
I feel that you and I together have accomplished the first step.
But I fear that we have not yet shown them just how invaluable you are.
I am certain this ploy will not last if we do not carry on with our mission.
Rescue Trenton, and you will be very close to the end of your trials.
With these final challenges, you will truly be exalted to the glorious position you deserve.
Devoted Fan
“Davis, Aldridge”—Ryan pushed away from the computer and looked to the two agents—“see if you can nail down the location these clues are alluding to. Run the phrasing through the system, particularly the part about justice and injustice. We’re going to have to make every second count on this one.”
“If he follows the same MO,” Grace offered, “the location will be highly visible.”
Ryan nodded. “That’s right. Prioritize your findings with high-profile locations at the top of the list.” He walked to the printer to retrieve the hard copy of the email. “Pratt, as soon as we know who this Trenton is, see if he ties in with either of the other victims.”
“Working on it,” Pratt called out.
“I’ll work with Pratt,” Grace offered. “At least until I have something from Schaffer.”
Ryan nodded, using the opportunity to take a long, unhurried look at her even as she turned her back and walked away.
She’d gone home to shower and change. The burgundy suit was different from the others, tighter, just a tad shorter.
More of those killer shoes, these a perfect match to the suit.
He followed the path of her toned legs from her ankles to just above her knees.
His pulse reacted to the X-rated images of all the things he would like to do to her.
Later . . . when he wasn’t scared shitless that he would let someone die.
He stared at the email, read the puzzling lines once more.
. . . holds life in his hands . . . he is not God . . .
“This Trenton,” Ryan announced, “is a doctor.” He looked from Pratt to Grace. “A doctor with a major God complex.”
Grace looked away first, but not before he saw the glow of pride in her eyes.
At first the idea baffled him, but then he realized what it meant.
She was proud of him. That unfamiliar feeling constricted his chest once more, and he shook his head.
The rookie had latched on to some unexpected real estate that he hadn’t even realized was on the market.
The last time anyone had owned a piece of his heart, he’d been a kid.
He just hoped the lady understood the kind of shitty neighborhood she’d bought into.
Grace abruptly swiveled away from the computer where she worked next to Pratt. “I’ve got him.” Her gaze homed in on Ryan’s. “Dr. Kurt Trenton, forty-eight years old, five eleven, one-sixty, gray eyes, salt-and-pepper hair. Cardiac surgeon.”
“Not just any cardiac surgeon,” Pratt added, twisting around to face Ryan as he evidently landed the info as well. “This guy was one of the country’s leading transplant surgeons. He’s been on Good Morning America.”
“Is,” Grace clarified with a glance at Pratt, “the leading transplant surgeon.” Her attention fixed back on Ryan then. “On Tuesday he’s scheduled to lead a rare triple organ transplant procedure on former Alabama Governor Garrett Shelby.”
“News flash,” Pratt cut in, apparently determined to one-up his colleague, “the procedure got moved up. The surgery’s scheduled for nine tomorrow morning.”
A new load of pressure settled on Ryan’s shoulders. Now there were two lives depending on his ability to pull this off.
“Tell me about this rare procedure,” he said, striding toward where Grace and Pratt worked. “Why can’t someone else do it. What’s the big deal?”
Grace clicked a few keys. “Shelby’s heart issues caused damage to his liver and to his kidneys.
All three organs started to fail. The treatments to help the situation only work for so long.
And that time has passed. Each organ, starting with the heart, has to be replaced.
It’s a very complex, twenty or so hour surgery that takes a great deal of preparation well before the patient hits the OR.
It has to happen tomorrow, or he might not be able to survive the surgery. ”
“If we don’t find Trenton”—Ryan dared to say the words aloud—“then Shelby possibly dies too.”
Worth strode into the conference room. “I just received calls from the chief of police as well as the mayor. Dr. Kurt Trenton’s wife reported him missing one hour ago. Birmingham PD discovered his car in the parking garage of UAB Hospital.”
“Your next call,” Ryan warned him, “will come from the governor.”
A frown drew Worth’s brow into a pucker. “What do you mean?”
Worth’s assistant burst through the door once more. “Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt, but Governor Wiley is on the line for you.”
Timing. It was all in the timing. Devoted Fan had a statement to make. He had just moved from a side note in local news to prime time.
6 hours remaining . . .
Monday, September 11, 3:30 a.m.
Davis rushed to where Ryan sat reviewing schematics of every hospital in the city. He’d already gotten a citywide layout showing where every church was located. Hospitals and churches: the two most likely places for a miracle to happen. And most larger hospitals had chapels.
Worth had been pacing like an expectant father.
The pressure was on. If Trenton wasn’t found, former Governor Shelby would most likely die.
His condition was deteriorating by the hour.
Every member of the team was either reviewing potential sites or making calls.
Still they had nothing, and the time seemed to be flying.
“Sir . . . Agent McBride?”
Ryan looked up, startled at being addressed that way. “Yeah, Davis, what have you got?”
“I may have something on that phrase ‘justice is everywhere and threatens injustice anywhere.’” He shuffled the pages in his hand.
“During his stay in a Birmingham jail, Martin Luther King wrote a letter using a variation on that phrase.” Davis read from his notes, “‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’”
Martin Luther King. Oppression. The fight to be equal. Lines from Devoted Fan’s emails tumbled one over the other into Ryan’s head.
. . . God . . . worships his fame . . . he must be humbled . . .
“I don’t think he’s alluding to a jail.” Ryan studied the wording of the email again. “He talks about God and Trenton believing he is God, holding life in his hands . . . awaits death just as the One he would pretend to be once suffered so selflessly. . .”
Aldridge joined the conversation, tapped the pad where he’d written his notes. “There’s a monument, a statue of Martin Luther King in Kelly Ingram Park.” Aldridge looked from Ryan to Davis and back. “Should we search the park?”
“Wait.” Grace pushed away from her station and stood.
“The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is there. You can’t get any more high profile.
The church is a historic landmark. It was the hub of the civil rights effort—part of Birmingham’s history is written in the blood of four little girls who were killed in that church as part of the movement to oppress blacks. ”
. . . Oppression is evil . . .
But this oppression wasn’t about race, it was about money.
Financial means . . . security. Rich versus poor.
Just like the Byrne girl at that high-society cemetery and the Jones woman at the blue-collar steel mill.
The girl born with the silver spoon in her mouth; the woman who worked hard for every dollar.
Trenton was a renowned surgeon. It would take big money or the right kind of insurance to obtain treatment from a surgeon of such status.
“Okay . . .” Ryan said slowly. “Trenton’s class, in a sense, oppresses the poor by having the best of everything while the working man only gets what’s left over.
” Ryan scrubbed a hand over his stubbled chin.
“Trenton has the God complex we talked about earlier. He, according to Devoted Fan, is in bad need of humbling.”
“His arrogance is documented in a number of newspaper articles,” Grace contributed.
“He holds life in his hands by selecting some patients and turning others away, probably based on their ability to pay,” Ryan considered aloud.
Worth butted in. “Those kinds of statements have to be kept in this room,” he admonished. “We can’t go around disparaging friends of the governor.”
Ryan ignored Worth, locked gazes with Grace. “The church.” He nodded as if he needed that physical acknowledgment to confirm the thought. “That has to be it. Where else would we find the One, capital O if you’ll notice”—he tapped the email—“Trenton pretends to be?”
“You’re right,” Grace agreed, then shook her head. “But not just any church, the church.”
Ryan tossed the email aside, anticipation soaring. “Where the likeness of Mr. King still watches over from the park, reminding all that oppression is evil.”
“Talley,” Worth called out, “find out who the reverend at Sixteenth Street Baptist is and wake him up. We don’t have time or”—Worth’s attention settled on Ryan—“the necessary probable cause for a warrant. We need an invitation to take a look inside that church.” Worth turned to Aldridge then.
“Get Birmingham PD to rendezvous there ASAP.”
To Ryan, Worth said, “You really think this is it? Time is fast running out on us, McBride. We have to find this guy. If we don’t, we’re going to be in a world of shit.”