1. ABRAHAM
AbrAHAM
Scanning the perimeter from my peripheral, I moved through the crowd at half-pace, and entered the place of worship.
I had an undefined respect for believers and their temples. The mere pursuit of conviction, holding goodness sacred, entering covenant out of love—one had to acknowledge a force that could elicit that level of devotion.
A man I’d served with, a devout Christian, had once said that the absence of evil didn’t make good redundant, it made it non-existent.
That day, I’d stopped believing the lie that humans were inherently bad.
The truth was, there were levels to bad.
Something I’d learned on my first tour when a bullet passed me and hit my thirty-three-year-old team leader instead.
He’d been a father of four and a husband.
I passed a row of pews where a few women talked to one another and teenagers picked up debris.
Following the instructions I’d been given just minutes prior via text from a number I hadn’t bothered tracing, I headed toward the confessional, opened the door and took the seat in one of DC’s oldest churches’ most infamous relics.
“Forgive me, father for I have sinned.” I slipped the dollar bill with my near-illegible handwriting on the back through the rectangular slot.
The low, accented voice came through the other side of the screen. “How long since your previous confession?”
“Twelve hours.” Twelve hours, thirty nine minutes, twenty seconds and counting.
“Back so soon.”
“Urgent matters,” I said, checking my watch.
There was a pause. “Confess your transgressions and you may be forgiven.”
I hesitated. Over the last several hours, I’d burned every favor and more than a few connections to get this meeting and I had nothing more than instinct to substantiate the suspicions that’d brought an atheist to a downtown DC cathedral. However, now that I was here, there was no reneging.
“Sexual immorality, mostly,” I said, finally, clearing my throat.
“Male or female?”
“Female.”
Another pause. “Pretty, I presume?”
I didn’t have a response for that.
“More than twelve hours since your last encounter with the female?”
“It’s more of a one-sided infatuation,” I lied.
“Hm,” he murmured. “Probably better this way. Yes?”
I checked my watch again. Resisted the urge to clear the dust from my throat or check in with Bishop, who was currently positioned on a high floor of an abandoned multi-tenant building, his sniper rifle aimed at my SUV.
“Men of stronger faith, who are more practiced at impulse denial still fall prey to the seductions of sin. You mustn’t be hard on yourself.
” A long silence ensued. Sweating under the thick knit of a turtleneck I’d never worn before tonight, too aware of the stench of my anxiety, I forced myself still.
“Twelve hours, you say?” he tested.
“That’s correct.”
His cigarette smoke, my fear—our stenches clogged the booth.
I checked my watch.
“Females are more risk than reward, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.”
The man chuckled. “Alright. I issue you one penance of six Hail Marys and after, may I recommend at least ten meters distance. Proximity courts temptation, you know.” To my left, a screen slid closed but not before a small card passed through the slot. “Good luck.”
I heard the door on the other side of the confessional open and only after the muted contact of booted footsteps diluted, did I reach for the card sitting in the crevice.
I unfolded it, finding a standard SIM inside.
Removing it from the adhesive, I closed the SIM in my palm, then tore the cardstock into fourths.
Stepping out of the booth, I exited the cathedral just as the priest stepped out of the diner.
Taking the opposite direction, my boots crunching gravel as I crossed the street, I circled the lot twice before walking to my SUV.
From the center console, I retrieved the burner I’d been using the last few days, popped in the new SIM and then the battery into place, then dialed the only number saved in the contacts. The line rang twice before someone with a deep voice picked up. “How did you get this number?”
“I’d like to confess my sins,” I said, repeating the phrase from the card.
“It’s after hours. Call someone else.”
The line went dead.
Shit.
I waited ten full breaths. Then, trying the number a second time, I re-dialed. Someone picked up, but didn’t say shit.
“one six ten,” I said, giving the referral code.
There was a lengthy pause, some rustling, then to my surprise a female voice came over the other end of the line. “State your case.”
“I was told you help locate missing persons.”
“I guess that would depend.”
“On?”
“Whether or not they want to be found.”
“It’s not like that.”
“This is a secure line, so tell me what it’s like,” she said, firmly.
Starting my engine, I pulled out of the lot. “Twelve hours ago, a woman went missing.”
“How do you know she did not leave of her own volition?” the woman asked.
My knuckles tightening on the steering wheel, I made myself breathe through my nose and reminded myself that under normal circumstances, I’d have appreciated her caution.
“Place was virtually undisturbed. Car in the garage. Purse and keys accounted for. GPS movement unchanged. Alarm activity normal. Security feed looped. No witnesses to corroborate.”
“Let me guess,” the woman said, yawning. “No police.”
In our world we had our very own version of the Ten Commandments, and one of them was that when it came to time sensitive recovery, you never relied on local or federal LE as your only option unless you wanted to ensure you never saw the missing person again.
I’d notified MPD of my wife’s disappearance, but knew they’d wait the requisite forty eight hours before they officially declared her a missing person.
It was ironic, given that that time could mean the difference between rescue and recovery.
I didn’t answer.
“You’ve been to the scene?” she redirected.
“Yes.”
“Assuming I’m keeping up, you have some level of access to the captive. Their patterns, signatures, their place of residence?”
It’d been over a year since Nineah had lived at our home in Loudon County, but I didn’t move to contradict myself.
“That’s correct.”
“Well, if you were tracking them then that means someone could’ve been tracking you. How do you know this isn’t your fault?”
The collar of my shirt tightened. “I don’t.”
The woman’s silence stretched across several minutes. Outside my window, the first leaves of autumn fell like snow and I couldn’t help but equate the sight to a memory of burning drywall and the smell of sulfur.
“Six blocks south of the St. Marten’s Cathedral, take a left and park at the curb outside Washington Charter. I’ll meet you there in approximately forty minutes.”
The line went dead.