Like the Public, Scott remembered being horrified and outraged when he first heard about the weird account of The Finders. That was decades ago. He read it in a newspaper, and the lack of justice and intervention troubled him. If he could help one of the alleged victims now, he’d make it a priority. But he still didn’t know if there was a modern connection. To get some facts, he read the report taken by the State Police, which included her place of employment, so he decided to check out this mysterious woman himself. Besides, after a restless night, he could use a cup of coffee, and he missed the excitement of field work. Lately, he felt more bogged with administration duties.
Once inside the brown and white establishment with frilly curtains containing images of coffee pots, the tantalizing aroma hit him. He caught hints of hazelnut and vanilla. It definitely put him in the mood for a drink. A few customers stood in front of him while three employees busily worked behind the counter. They were too preoccupied to pay him any particular attention, so he did his usual casing of the place. He kept the customers in his periphery, including those trickling in, while noting all the doorways and any potential dangers before returning his observation to the staff.
His attention immediately focused on the attractive woman who seemed deep in thought. She had a thin figure, almost waifish. Her movements were somewhat odd as if a little clumsy from nervousness or pre-occupied by other matters. Maybe a little self-conscious. He made a mental list of her attributes. Dark hair contrasted very pale skin, as if hidden away from the world, but it was those eyes that arrested him. Penetrating, forceful like a laser, her glare sliced through him. But he didn’t look away, so she didn’t either. It was as if she challenged him back, as if she meant her unfriendly glare as a warning to his apparent curiosity. Perhaps, she was silently telling this stranger not to dare hit on her like too many men tried to, but they both were magnetically drawn to the other despite resistance on both parts. Almost intimate, they shared a silent moment, wrapped in mistrust and a strange tinge of desperation.
Who was this strange creature named Ninon? She had a hidden strength behind a misleading fragility and brooding mood. What terror has she seen? Her wide, barely blinking eyes spoke about a trauma that her heart-shaped lips wouldn’t. Maybe he was reading too much into it.
When it was his turn to order, a young guy with acne scars asked to take his order. He paid for a cappuccino and then placed his card back in his wallet, sensing her attention on him, but he didn’t overtly return it. As a tall dirty blond with chiseled features, he was used to women staring at him. In this particular situation, he wondered if it wasn’t attraction, but a sense of danger that she found emitting from him. He had a forceful disposition that came with Law Enforcement, and he didn’t want to intimidate her any more than he had to, so he headed to the end of the counter to wait for his order and glanced out the large windows at the row of stores across the street. There was a Mexican restaurant, a pharmacy, and a busy dollar store. While wasting time, he fought the urge to look back at her. When his order was ready, he didn’t answer right away. He eventually took one of the cups awaiting their owner and dared to turn in her direction. Staring at him like a wounded animal at a hunter, she parted her lips as if to say something, but then shut them. He simply gave her a disinterested nod as if to a service worker and headed out.
Later that afternoon, Jan Martin and Robert Ballard met with Scott. They revisited the story about the lawyer, who told his side of the story to the troopers and about the woman glaring at him for trying to save her. He described a new model Escalade, but he had been more focused on the woman in a life and death struggle to remember much about the vehicle. Definitely a needle in a haystack. To be thorough, they also did a background check on Hill and it came back negative. If Ninon would cooperate, they might get a sketch artist.
“How are we doing on finding that black Escalade?”
“Not good. There is quite a list, but we’ll somehow narrow it down,” Ballard remarked, taking notes. “Do you think it was a government vehicle?”
They exchanged uncomfortable glances. No one answered that, knowing what it implied.
“There is no reason to expect that,” Jan said, stretching in her chair after long hours of getting nowhere. “Time for field work. I need some fresh air.”
Realizing how difficult it would be to pinpoint the correct vehicle from the list, they went to the spot where the car had spun around, looking for evidence such as burnt rubber or signs of a struggle such as left behind jewelry or a piece of clothing. Though the State Police already searched the area, the FBI managed to find a tire track when the car left the road and had turned around on the edge of a clearing before the woods, so technicians took a plaster cast of it. Some broken glass got their attention. The techs also found droplets of dried blood on the pavement and some by a tree. Not much else was uncovered, though they found something strange which might be connected.
Coming out of the woods, Robert shared pictures, saying, “There is chalk on one of the trees. It looked like someone tried to wipe it off, so I’m not sure if it is kids or someone trying to relay messages.”
“Worth looking into,” Jan agreed, “Any gangs or cults in the area?”
They already knew that there were several, but this didn’t seem like their M.O. There were no occult symbols or paraphernalia. No graffiti either.
“So, nothing much,” Jan sighed, kicking dirt. “Ugh.”
Back at headquarters, Ballard checked back in with Scott, who was getting ready to leave for the night. The man in casual clothes had made strong coffee for them, so they took a few minutes to chat. They had worked on several cases together and usually saw eye to eye on things. The broader man was slightly older, but still had a notable Active Duty sense about him. Both of them had very controlled and concise movements. They pulled out their notes and got down to business.
Scott told him about Tobe Terrell’s book and quoted, “‘This book is about some who lived their lives as unorthodox experiments in an effort to reject the values of their culture and create new ones.’”
“I did some reading too,” the shorter man told Scott, “Get this. MPD Sgt. John Stitcher reported that the CIA ran The Finders as a front group gone bad. As you know, Ramon Martinez investigated the original case in 1987, recounting that the CIA interfered with the investigation. In 1993, the DOJ put an inquiry into the group, but Stitcher died right around that time and the allegations were never verified.”
Scott sipped the steamy liquid while digesting Robert’s words along with it. They didn’t go down well. He leaned against his desk, mulling over ideas. Finally, he spoke, “I don’t think it was a front group. Here’s one source about that. I came across Wendell Minnick, author of Spies and Provocateurs: An Encyclopedia of Espionage and Covert Action, who spent two years researching The Finders. After running up loads of debt looking into them, he said that they ‘would love you to think they’re a CIA front, but I would say they’re really nothing.’ I found this next part interesting too.”
He showed Robert his notes, where he wrote, “Minnick added, ‘You’re going to hear a lot of bullshit on the Finders, because they lie. These are dysfunctional adults, but they’re all working their asses off. They’re constantly working on some project. If you have a cult, the best way to control people is to keep them busy, to keep their minds occupied—if you have people standing around doing nothing, then they start thinking.’”
“You know what they say when someone protests too much,” Ballard told him with a nod.
“Yeah, I read Hamlet too. What else do you have?”
“Hold on,” Ballard grumbled, flipping through papers until he found one of his notes. He cleared his throat and added, “This is one source that rubbed me the wrong way. An author named Mark Riebling wrote a 1994 book, Wedge: The Secret War Between the FBI and CIA.”
Scott frowned. He didn’t buy into all of that and made a hand gesture as if to brush it away.
Undeterred, Ballard continued, “‘Just before Christmas 1993, both agencies were embarrassed by a Justice Department investigation into whether the CIA had improperly used the FBI to cover up its connections to a computer-training cult called Finders, which had been accused but acquitted of child abuse.’”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. More stories like that. If we drop the ball with this woman, we’ll get blamed for this in the Press. It isn’t looking good, especially if anyone tries to shut this investigation down as well or twists the truth.”
“I hear ya,” Robert said, scratching his head. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
“Just get me what you can and I’ll run this up the chain.”
“If Ninon is all we have right now, we need to break her,” Ballard said matter of factly, “She knows something.”
They both had a Military background, though Ballard had experience interrogating terrorists and not kidnapping victims.
“If she is a victim, my fear is that she is already broken. I don’t know if she will be of any use to the investigation.”
“I’ll let Jan work on her for a while, but I’m afraid that if we don’t jump on this while we have an opportunity that it will all go back under the rug.”
“I’m thinking the same thing. Time might be running out.”