Ransom (31 page)

“She doesn't have any,” Sam said quietly, watching Peter, as though trying to figure him out, which he was. He almost liked him, but not quite. He was one of the kidnappers after all. But he'd been nice to him at least.

“Any what?” Peter asked, looking distracted. He was thinking of other things, like their escape. Their plans were set, but he was nervous about it anyway. The other three were heading to Mexico, and from there to South America with false passports. Peter was going to New York, to try to see his daughters. And then he was going to head for Brazil. He had some friends there from his days of dealing drugs.

“My mom doesn't have any money,” Sam said softly, as though it was a secret he was supposed to keep, but was sharing with Peter.

“Sure she does.” Peter smiled.

“No, she doesn't. That's why my dad killed himself. He lost it all.” Peter sat on the bed and stared at him for a long moment, wondering if he knew what he was talking about. He had that painful honesty and sincerity of kids.

“I thought your dad died in an accident, he fell off a boat.”

“He left my mom a letter. She told my dad's lawyer he killed himself.”

“How do you know?”

Sam looked embarrassed for a minute, and then confessed, “I was listening outside her door.”

“Did she talk to him about the money?” Peter looked worried.

“A lot of times. They talk about it almost every day. She said it's all gone. They have a lot of ‘bets’ or something. That's what she always says, there's nothing left but ‘bets.’” Peter understood better than he did. She was obviously talking about debts, not bets. “She's going to sell the house. She hasn't told us yet.” Peter nodded, and then looked at him sternly.

“I don't want you to say this to anyone else. Do you promise?” Sam nodded, looking very somber.

“They'll kill me if she doesn't pay them, won't they?” Sam said with sad eyes. But Peter shook his head.

“I won't let them do that,” he whispered. “I promise,” he said, and then left the room to go back to the others.

“Christ, you spend a lot of time with that kid,” Stark complained, and Waters looked at Stark with disgust.

“Just be glad it's not you. I wouldn't want to do it either.”

“I like kids,” Jim Free volunteered. “I ate one once.” He laughed uproariously at that. He'd been drinking beer all night. He'd never been convicted of hurting a child, and Peter assumed it was bullshit, but he didn't like it anyway. He didn't like anything about them.

Peter didn't say anything to Waters till the next morning, and then he looked at him with concern, as though he'd been worrying about something.

“What if she doesn't pay up?” Peter asked him directly.

“She will. She wants her kid back. She'll pay whatever we ask.” They had actually been talking the night before about asking for more, and taking a bigger cut.

“And if she doesn't?”

“What do you think?” Carl said coldly. “If she doesn't, he's no use to us. We get rid of him, and get the fuck out.” It was what both he and Sam had feared.

But Sam's confession the night before about his mother's finances put a new spin on things for Peter. It had never occurred to him that she was broke. Although he had raised the question once or twice, Peter had never seriously believed that she was. Now he felt differently about it. Something about the way Sam had repeated what he'd overheard told Peter that it was true. It also explained why she never went anywhere, or did anything, and there was no help in the house. He had expected her to lead a far grander life. He thought she just stayed home because she loved her kids, but maybe there was more to it than that. And he had the feeling that the conversations Sam had heard between his mother and her lawyer were all too real. Still, having “no money” was relative to different people. She might still have some left, but not as much as they had once had. The suicide note was interesting though. If that were true, there might really be nothing left of Allan Barnes's fortune. Peter was profoundly worried, thought about it all day, and what it might mean to him, and the others. And worse yet, Sam.

They sat around for two more days, and then finally decided to call her. All four of them agreed that it was time. They used Peter's untraceable cell phone, and he dialed her number. She answered on the first ring herself, and her voice sounded hoarse. It cracked as soon as she heard who it was. Peter spoke quietly, silently aching for her, and identified himself by saying he had news of her son. The negotiator was listening on the phone, and they were already frantically working on tracing the call.

“I have a friend who'd like to speak to you,” Peter said, and walked into the back room while Fernanda held her breath, and gesticulated wildly to Ted. He already knew. The negotiator was listening on the line with her, and they were recording the call.

“Hi, Mommy,” Sam said as tears filled her eyes and she held her breath.

“Are you okay?” She could hardly talk, she was shaking so hard.

“Yeah. I'm fine.” Before he could say more, Peter took the phone away as Waters watched. Peter was afraid that, to reassure her, Sam would say he had been nice to him, and he didn't want the others to hear it. Peter took the phone back, and spoke clearly to her. He sounded well spoken and cool, which surprised her. From what she'd seen in her house four days before, she expected them to be goons. And this one obviously wasn't. He sounded educated, and polite, and oddly gentle in his tone.

“Your son's bus ticket home will cost you exactly a hundred million dollars,” Peter said without batting an eye, as the others listened to him and nodded their approval. They liked his style. He sounded businesslike, polite, and cool. “Start counting your pennies. We'll be calling you shortly to tell you how we want it handled,” he said, and cut the line before she could answer. He turned to the others, and they sent up a cheer. “How long do we give her?” Peter asked. He and Addison had talked about a week or two at the most, to complete the transaction. At the time, they had agreed that longer than that was unnecessary, but after what Sam had said, he wasn't sure that time was the issue or would make a difference. If she didn't have it, there was nowhere she could dig up that kind of money. Even if Barnes had a few lingering investments. Maybe she could cough up a million or two, if that. But from what Sam was saying about her debts, and his father's suicide, Peter even wondered if she had that. And even a couple of million divided five ways was pointless.

The other three got drunk that night, and he sat talking to Sam again for a long time. He was a sweet boy, and he was sad after talking to his mother.

And at her end, Fernanda was sitting in the living room in shock, looking at Ted.

“What am I going to do?” She was in the depths of despair. She had never dreamed they'd ask for that kind of money. A hundred million was insane. And they obviously were.

“We'll find him,” Ted said quietly. It was the only choice they had now. But they hadn't been able to get a trace on the line. He cut it off too fast anyway, although with the device they had, they could have, if he'd been calling from a traceable line. But he was using a cell phone that couldn't be traced. It was one of the few that couldn't. They obviously knew what they were doing. At least she had talked to Sam.

She called Jack Waterman while Ted was talking to the captain. She told him what the ransom was, and he sat in stunned silence at his end. He could have helped her come up with half a million dollars, until she sold the house, but beyond that, she had almost nothing in the bank. She had about fifty thousand currently in her account. Their only hope was finding the boy before the kidnappers killed him. Jack prayed they would. She told him the police and FBI were doing everything they could, but the kidnappers had gone underground. All four of the men they knew about had vanished. And the regular network of reliable informants knew nothing.

Two days later, Will called home, and he knew the minute he heard her voice that something had happened. She denied it. But he knew her better. Finally she broke down and cried, and told him that Sam had been kidnapped, and he begged her to let him come home from camp.

“You don't need to do that. The police are doing everything they can, Will. You're better off in camp.” She thought it would be too depressing and upsetting for him at home.

“Mom,” he said, sobbing into the phone, “I want to be with you.” She called Jack and asked him to go up and get him, and the following afternoon, Will walked into the house, and burst into tears as he threw himself into her arms. They stood holding each other for a long time, and spent hours that night talking in the kitchen. Jack had hung around for a while, and finally left, not wanting to intrude. He chatted with Ted and the other men for a few minutes, and they told him there was nothing new. Investigators were combing the state, but so far, no one had reported seeing anything suspicious, the police were looking for the men in the mug shots, but no one had seen them, and there had been no sign of Sam, or anything he owned or had been wearing. The boy had disappeared without a trace and so had they. They could have been anywhere by then, over a state line somewhere, even in Mexico. Ted knew that they could stay underground for a long time, too long for Sam.

Will slept in his own room that night, and the men slept in Ashley's. They could have slept in Sam's, but it seemed sacrilegious to them somehow. At four in the morning, Fernanda still couldn't sleep, and went downstairs to see if Ted was awake. He was lying on the couch, with his eyes open, thinking. The rest of the men were in the kitchen, talking, with their guns in evidence, as they always were. It was like some strange kind of emergency room, or intensive care unit, where people stayed awake all night, wearing guns and waiting to minister to her. There was no longer any clear definition to day or night. It was all the same. There were always people on cell phones, and wide awake.

She sat down in a chair next to Ted, and looked at him with a despairing glance. She was beginning to lose hope. She didn't have the money, and the police hadn't found her son. They didn't even have a single lead as to where they were hiding. And all of the police and FBI were adamant that they couldn't go public. They said it would just confuse things and make it worse. And if they infuriated the kidnappers, it was almost certain they would kill Sam. No one was willing to take the risk. And neither was she.

Ted had gone home for a few hours that night, and had dinner with Shirley. They had talked about the case, and she said she felt sorry for Fernanda. She could see that Ted did too. She had asked him if he thought they'd find the boy in time, and he said he honestly didn't know.

“When do you think we'll hear from them again?” Fernanda asked him once he was back at her house. The living room was dark, and the only light in the room was from the hall.

“They'll call soon to tell you how they want you to deliver the money,” he reassured her, but she couldn't see what difference that would make. They had agreed that she was going to try to stall them. But sooner or later they would realize that she wasn't going to pay. Ted knew he had to find Sam before then. He had called Father Wallis that afternoon himself. There was nothing for them to do but pray. What they needed desperately was a break. Both the SFPD and the FBI were pumping their informants, but no one had heard a word about the kidnappers or Sam.

As it turned out, the kidnappers called her again the next morning. They let her speak to Sam again, and he sounded nervous. Carl Waters was standing over him as Peter put the phone to his ear, and Fernanda could barely hear more than his voice saying “Hi, Mom,” before they took the phone away again. The voice on the phone told her that if she wanted a conversation with her son, she was going to have to pay the ransom. They gave her five days to come up with it, and told her they'd give her delivery instructions the next time they called, and hung up again. Listening to them this time, she was frantic. There was no way to pay. And once again, the call they had made could not be traced. All the police knew was that none of them had reported to their parole agents that week, which was old news. They knew who had done it. What they didn't know was where they had gone, and what they had done with Sam. And all the while, Phillip Addison had the perfect alibi, and was sitting in the South of France. The FBI had checked his phone records out of the hotel. He had made no long-distance phone calls to cell phones in the States, and they kept no records of incoming calls. And from the time the FBI began monitoring his calls, several hours after the kidnap, there hadn't been a single call from the kidnappers. They'd had their instructions, and were handling it on their own. Peter was doing all he could to protect Sam. Carl and the others were getting ever more anxious for the money. Ted and Rick and the networks, agencies, and informants they were using were coming up with nothing. And Fernanda felt as though she were going insane.

Chapter 17

The last call from the kidnappers
came to tell Fernanda she had two days left to deliver the money. And this time they sounded impatient. They didn't let her talk to Sam, and at her end, everyone knew time was running out. Or maybe already had. It was time to make a move, but there was none to make. With no leads whatsoever as to their whereabouts, there was nothing the police could do. They were working every source they had to beat the clock, but without a lead, a tip, a trace, or a sighting they were getting nowhere.

Peter explained the delivery instructions to Fernanda when they gave her the two-day ultimatum. She was to wire the entire hundred million into the account of a Bahamian corporation, rather than the one they'd originally planned to use in the Cayman Islands. The Bahamian bank had already been instructed to deposit it through a series of dummy corporations, and from there ultimately Peter's and Phillip's shares were to be wired to Geneva. The other three shares were being wired to Costa Rica. And once Waters, Stark, and Free reached Colombia or Brazil, they could have it transferred there.