Mac leaned back in his chair, looking at the ceiling, contemplating this turn of events. His quick assessment was he really didn’t have a choice. If the director of the FBI asks you for your help, you give it. “Okay, sir, but I can’t promise you won’t regret this. I tend to … speak my mind.”
“Good, do that, within reason of course,” Director Mitchell cautioned.
“You said a couple of reasons you wanted me to do this. What’s the other?”
“He’s calling you.”
In that moment, Mac understood another of the director’s motivations and immediately liked it, “And this is my chance to speak to him.”
“Correct.”
With that an idea started forming in Mac’s head based on his review of the FBI file on Drake Johnson, how close he was to his sister, how her death obviously haunted him, the impact seeing the photo he found at Randall’s had on him and what he must have learned from interrogating Rebecca Randall. There were buttons that could be pushed. However, before he got too far with that idea in his mind, he looked at his appearance, rumpled clothes, two days of razor stubble and his short hair sticking in various directions. “Director, I’m not exactly presentable at the moment.”
“That’s why that beautiful girlfriend of yours dropped some things off for you. You’ll find them in my personal washroom. She brought fresh clothing options and your toiletries so you can clean up.”
“Sir, if Sally knows about this, the White House does as well then,” Mac warned. “I know you make your own decisions, but how do you think they’ll feel about this?”
“Well, they do know Mac, so if I might quote the president: Tell Mac to give them hell,” Director Mitchell answered with a smile. “Listen, reporters are like any other group of people you run into. Some are straight shooters, asking straight questions, looking for straight answers.”
“And others?”
“Others are pricks who will have a different agenda.”
“Well, funny thing is, Director, I have an agenda too, and if what I have planned works, we’ll need to set a couple of things up.”
• • • •
Sally sipped nervously from her coffee. Sitting on the couch in the Judge’s office, aware of what Mac was trying to accomplish, she was nevertheless terrified, both for Mac and for political reasons. William Donahue would undoubtedly be watching and the Judge forewarned the man he wouldn’t like everything he heard and that Hannah may have been caught up in a vehicular homicide seven years ago. It wasn’t a pleasant conversation. “It is what it is, he asked for our involvement. I put two of the best there are on his daughter’s murder. He’ll have to live with the results.”
“The law of unintended consequences, I guess,” Sally suggested.
“Exactly,” the Judge answered as he twirled a cigar in his fingers, his own nervous tick. The press conference was moments from beginning. Few people knew just how much Mac hated the television media. Newspaper reporters he was okay with, and he wasn’t afraid to occasionally speak to them off the record. Television news media he avoided. He hated and had little time or regard for most of them, save a few, and even them he wouldn’t talk to. “I don’t speak in sound bites,” Mac would often say.
“That’s the only way they talk in this town,” was Sally’s teasing reply. “You better learn.”
“That’s not going to happen, I’m not changing. I’m here because I love you, but I’m not going to love what you do and have to do.”
She never wanted him to, but then again she never figured he’d be handling a press conference on an investigation that suddenly was gripping the nation. “I don’t think he’s ever done this, Judge,” Sally warned for the tenth time. “I’ve never seen him do a press conference. He thinks of most of the news media as fools and he won’t suffer them gladly.”
“He’ll be fine.”
“How can you know? I know him better than anyone and I don’t know that he’ll be fine.”
“Sally, some people are born to rise to the moment. Mac’s one of those guys, he’s done it his whole life. Plus he has a strategy here and that will keep him focused. It’ll cause him to shelve just enough of his attitude and disdain to get the job done. Just take the measure of him when he walks on the podium with Thomas. You’ll know if he’s up to it. You’ll know if his frame of mind is good.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I hope I’m right too,” the Judge replied ruefully. “By the way, how did your off-the-record call with Ms. Foxx go?”
This is when Sally knew Mac was at his operating and manipulative best. How else would she explain him calling forty-five minutes ago asking her, of all people, to call Heather Foxx on his behalf. Mac knew that Sally recognized that Foxx had the hots for him, always had, and Sally’s existence, and his clear devotion to her, hadn’t stopped her from pursuing him. It was a mildly uncomfortable conversation and Sally could have sworn she could hear Heather Foxx smiling on the other end of the phone. When she called to tell Mac she’d delivered his request, she said, “You need to find a new reporter you can trust. I don’t trust her, I don’t like her, and if you ever
ever
ask me to do that again, I’ll break both your legs.”
The director approached the podium with Mac standing behind him to his right. The director started with a statement about the case and the events in Pennsylvania. Sally didn’t even really listen to Director Mitchell. She knew all of that anyway.
Instead, she focused in on Mac. He picked the black suit with the light pinstripe, white dress shirt and sharp sky blue tie. He looked really good, she thought, handsome, sharp, smart and serious. Then she looked at his face, his icy blue eyes in particular, taking stock of his demeanor. He was stoic but his eyes reflected a cool intensity and a purpose. Mac was operating. When he was doing that, he was dangerous—in a good way. A wave of relief washed over Sally before Mac ever spoke. She could tell Mac was plenty ready.
“Mac looks like he’s loaded for bear,” the Judge mused, having been sizing up Mac just as she was.
“I know the look, Judge,” Sally answered, looking to the Judge with a devilish look, the confidence back in her face. “This should be interesting.”
• • • •
“Director Mitchell, when did you determine that the Reaper was Drake Johnson?”
“Yesterday, and we put forward every effort to determine his whereabouts before going public with his name.”
The CBS reporter followed up: “And how were you able to identify the Reaper?”
“Through DNA from blood found on a bullet we recovered in Frederick. Agent McRyan, who will speak shortly, wounded him in the chase from the home of Kelly Drew.”
“Was the DNA a match to Drake Johnson?”
“It was a familial match to a woman named Rena Johnson, his younger sister who was killed seven years ago in a hit-and-run car accident in upstate New York.”
“Does her death have something to do with the present case?”
“I think the best person to answer that question and the others you may have is Special Agent Michael McRyan. So at this point, I’m going to turn the press conference over to him. Agent McRyan joined our investigation a number of weeks ago and has been integral to the progress that we have made. I think he’s the best man to answer many of the questions you have.”
Mac stepped to the podium, cupping the edge of the podium with his right hand. He pointed to a woman from FOX News with his casted left hand.
“Agent McRyan, was it you who shot the Reaper, or should I say Drake Johnson, in Frederick?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have anything additional to add about shooting the Reaper?”
“Such as?”
“A description of how he was shot?”
“No, just that I shot him.” Mac pointed to the reporter from ABC News.
“Was the explosion in Wrightsdale, Pennsylvania, last evening in which Senior Special Agent Gesch and five others were killed, related to the hunt for Drake Johnson?”
“Yes. The cabin belonged to Drake Johnson. It was passed down through his family.”
“Just a follow-up,” the ABC reporter asked. “A property search by ABC News revealed the property belonged to a Richard Tanner, is that an alias?”
“No,” Mac answered easily. “That is Drake Johnson’s grandfather on his mother’s side. Mr. Tanner died five years ago but the property title was never changed over to the Johnson family.” Mac pointed to a reporter from CNN.
“Agent McRyan. Do you know what caused the explosion last night?”
“Beyond the fact that the explosion was detonated remotely, the answer is no. That is being investigated as we speak. There is an FBI forensic team, as well as a crime scene unit from Lancaster County on site, sifting through the wreckage, trying to determine exactly how the explosion occurred.”
“Were explosives involved?”
“Like I said, that is being investigated, although I think it is safe to say an explosive of some kind was used.”
“What can you tell us about the victim last night in Springfield, Virginia?”
“A twenty-seven-year-old woman named Danica Brunner,” Mac answered crisply, moving along, getting some questions out of the way. However, it was time to get to what he wanted to talk about. He pointed to a friendly face.
“Agent McRyan, Heather Foxx, NBC News. Director Mitchell mentioned a Rena Johnson and being a DNA match to Drake Johnson who the FBI is saying is the killer known as the Reaper. Two questions for you: who is Drake Johnson and what does the death of Rena Johnson have to do with the current investigation?”
“The answer requires a rather long explanation, so please bear with me. By way of background, Drake Johnson is thirty-six years old. He was a police officer, a detective in Ithaca, New York, up until a little over two years ago when he was thought to have died in a one-car automobile accident on a wintery March night. His vehicle veered off the road, down a steep bank and crashed into a large tree, setting off an explosion of the car. By the time the fire was extinguished and the body was removed from the wreckage, it was only identifiable by dental records. The vehicle belonged to Drake Johnson. The dental records for Johnson were supplied by his half-brother, a dentist in Rochester, New York. Johnson’s half-brother has confirmed that he falsified the dental records for his brother. I’ll get to the reason Drake Johnson requested his half-brother falsify the records in a minute.”
Mac took a sip of water and then continued, “As for his investigative record, let’s just say Drake Johnson was a less than stellar officer. Specifically, in his relatively short police career in a town of just over 30,000 residents, several police brutality complaints were made against him, two of which led to formal disciplinary action. Following the last brutality complaint, he was warned he would lose his job were there another.
“Then two weeks before his disappearance, he investigated a domestic assault case. The wife would not press charges. Rather than letting the case go, Johnson engaged the husband at a local bar, and unprovoked, beat him senseless in the back alley. This off-the-job act led to a civil lawsuit against Mr. Johnson, a lawsuit he was almost certain to lose. As a result, not only would he likely lose his job, but also his money, which included nearly a million dollars that he inherited upon the passing of his parents. This was the reason he gave his half-brother for falsifying the dental records. He was seeking to stage his own death, escape with his money and avoid paying the damages that almost certainly would have been awarded in the civil lawsuit. However, as we’ve now learned, his scheme to disappear was clearly about more than asset preservation.
“Shortly before staging the accident and before the altercation and beating at a bar in Ithaca, Johnson, still employed as a detective for the city of Ithaca, investigated a burglary at the home of Rebecca Randall. It was a standard home invasion case. As part of the investigation, we think Drake Johnson stumbled across this photo.” Mac looked backed to an assistant, “Can we get the enlargement placed on the easel? Thank you.”
The assistant placed the photo on the easel.
Mac reached for a laser pointer and moved left to right across the photo.
“The first two people embracing each other are Melissa Goynes, the first victim and the fourth victim, Sandy Faye, who was then known as Helen Williams before she changed her name. The next two are Hannah Donahue, the third victim and Kelly Drew, the woman who has survived but remains in a coma. Next, standing by herself is last night’s victim Danica Brunner. Finally, the last three with their arms around each other are Rena Johnson, the sister of Drake Johnson, Rebecca Randall and Janelle Wyland, the second victim.
“This picture was taken on August 17th seven years ago, the night Rena Johnson was killed.”
“Agent McRyan,” Heather Foxx interrupted, “how was it that Rena Johnson was killed?”
“On the night of August 17th, she attended a rave party south of Auburn, New York. She drank a lot of alcohol, did some weed and Ecstasy and wandered off from the party at an abandoned farmhouse. She found herself walking just past a tight turn on the narrow shoulder of County Highway 5 when a silver vehicle, likely a Dodge or Chrysler minivan or SUV, struck her and projected her some thirty or forty feet until she landed at the bottom of a deep ditch where she was found hours later, dead.”
“Agent McRyan, were the victims of the Reaper involved in Rena Johnson’s death?”
“I think it’s safe to assume Drake Johnson thinks so. However, as best we can tell, all he has is the picture which in and of itself means absolutely nothing.”
“Agent McRyan,” a reporter from FOX News blurted, “did any of the victims have a vehicle matching the description or at least paint of the vehicle that struck Rena Johnson?”
Mac had a theory on this, but not one he was going to share with the media. “No, the FBI has gone deep on the vehicle records for not only the victims but their families as well, and nobody owned that particular kind of vehicle in that window of time, nor did anyone rent one.”
“Were there any witnesses to the accident?” FOX News asked on follow-up.
“No,” Mac replied. “No witnesses that the Auburn police ever found in the investigation. In fact, none of the victims of Drake Johnson were ever questioned as part of the investigation. Their names never came up.”