Free The Abduction by Mark Gimenez Page B

on a big city SWAT team, wearing a black paramilitary uniform, packing military style assault weapons, busting down doors to drug houses, beating up gangsters, and fighting the war on drugs. He would take the Dallas Police Academy’s entrance exam for the fourth time this summer.
    Fight back, Johnny-boy!
    Be a man!
    Go on, run home to mommy, Little Johnny Brice, you fuckin’ crybaby!
    All the taunts from all the bullies at all the Army bases came rushing back now. Little Johnny Brice hadn’t been man enough to protect his own daughter at a public park.Just like he hadn’t been man enough back then to fight back against the bullies. When the colonel returned from deployment, Mom would beg him to stop the beatings and the colonel would order the bullies’ fathers to instill discipline in their ranks. But that had only made the beatings worse. He remembered the beatings and his face stung; but from Elizabeth’s hand today and the hurt would not go away.
    Back then, he had gone inside himself, deep into his inner child while his outer child was getting the crap beat out of it. Afterward, he had run home to his room. Mom would always come in and hold him while he cried, and she would cry too; she would doctor his wounds and tell him it would never happen again. But it always happened again. Other kids had spent their childhood outside, learning to hit a curve ball; John had spent his in his room, hiding from bullies and teaching himself computer code.
    Now, he had sought refuge in his home office, secluded on the backside of the house; he was hiding from his spouse and trying to escape the fear and loathing of the real world, as he often did. But there would be no escape this time. Fear and loathing had followed Little Johnny Brice home.
    The phone rang. He let the machine take the call. It was Lou in New York, leaving another message: “John, did you get my earlier messages? Jesus Christ, it’s on the news up here. I’m stunned! I don’t know what to say, buddy. How could something like that happen in a public park? Man, I’m like … shit . Call me.” The machine beeped and went silent.
    Because I wasn’t man enough to protect her, that’s how it happened!
    A Cray supercomputer occupied the space inside John’s skull; his mind was capable of complex calculations and came with a near photographic memory—but he couldn’t remember yesterday.
    Was the game just yesterday?
    Elbows resting on the desk, hands gripping his head, eyes closed, John tried to reboot his memory: he’s sitting in the stands at the soccer field, talking to Lou about the IPO; Elizabeth has gone to the concession stand to find Gracie; then a piercing scream startles him so— Grace! He drops the phone and runs to the concession stand where parents are shouting for their children and panic is racing through the crowd like an e-mail virus until the panic and he reach Elizabeth simultaneously.
    Grace is gone!
    Gone where?
    Taken!
    Home?
    No, goddamnit! Someone kidnapped her!
    He has never before seen Elizabeth panicked and out of control, and it scares him. Then the sound of sirens, the police, the search in the woods. And Gracie was gone. And he might never see her again. And Little Johnny Brice hurt in a place the bullies could never touch.

9:42 A.M.
    “You’ve worked a hundred twenty-seven abductions?” the mother asked.
    FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
    “But no ransoms?”
    “I’ve worked one ransom in thirty years with the Bureau. Not a child.”
    He knew where this conversation would end. These conversations always ended there.
    “Your job is to find abducted children?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “And do you?”
    “Do I what?”
    “ Find abducted children?”
    He gave her the same answer he always gave the parents, hoping they would not ask the logical follow-up question; most parents didn’t because they couldn’t bear to know the answer.
    “Eventually.”
    From the mother’s expression, he could