Utopian Day (15 page)

Nick looked at J.T. and a wild look was in his eyes
as he spoke. “You never asked how I made it happen in the old days,
J.T. How the votes of all the board members seemed to line up
magically, how the regulators always approved the sales. You never
asked because you didn’t have the stomach for it!” Nick’s look was
one of contempt as he continued. “Now you’re getting a taste of it,
my friend.”

He walked up to J.T. and grabbed him by the hair,
forcing his head to turn and face Laura.

“
Do you see that?! That, is what
will happen to all of you if you try anything else before I’m done
with you!” He nodded at Mia as he finished his sentence.

Mia moved the stun baton to shock Laura again, but
James shot out his leg and kicked the prod away as he shouted,
“No!” Mia’s eyes flashed for only a second, and then she spun
around and kicked James in the solar plexus, landing back in the
same place she’d started from. With James gasping for air, she
easily advanced the baton to its intended target and Laura let out
another shriek.

“
AHHHH! AHHH! PLEASE STOP!
Pleeeease staaahhhppp!” Laura continued crying and sobbing, tears
streaming down her face.

Nick backed up and surveyed his handiwork.
Apparently satisfied that he had made his point, he addressed the
commandos.

“
Cut those two loose and take them
to their cabin. They won’t be joining us for dinner
tonight.”

The commandos dutifully cut James and Laura loose,
and escorted them down the stairs and to their cabin. Once they
were gone, Nick turned his attention back to J.T.

“
J.T., I really had hoped to avoid
such unpleasantries. I hope, as you spend the day up here on the
top deck, out in the sun, that you will reconsider your actions and
avoid disrupting my plans further. Oh, by the way, that gentleman
who wrote you the note won’t be helping you anymore. I’ve taken
care of him.”

Nick stepped closer to J.T. so that they were mere
inches away from each other, face to face. His countenance was
showing malevolent anger as he spoke his next words.

“
Just to be absolutely clear, if
you try anything like this again, I’ll break Laura’s legs so badly
that she won’t be able to walk again. Is that clear?”

J.T. stared straight back as he responded, “Crystal
clear.”

Nick’s countenance changed, a slight smile coming
across his face as he backed away. “Good,” he responded. He turned
and began walking towards the staircase leading down to the deck
below.

“
I pity you, Nick,” J.T. said as
Nick was leaving.

Nick turned around, curious. “Why, pray tell, is
that?” he asked.

“
You are using your considerable
talent to gain a pile of money that won’t make you any happier. If
twenty million won’t make you happy, eighty-eight million won’t
either. You’re going about it all wrong. You can change, though… I
still believe you can change.”

“
If that is supposed to make me
let you all go, give up the money, and join a twelve-step program
to find inner peace, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed,”
Nick retorted. “However, since you appear to be so concerned with
my happiness, I’ll let you in on some information. Money is a means
to an end, and happiness is a state of mind. I enjoy what I do. To
use your word, it makes me happy. I like the game. It’s exciting.
You might say I’m an adrenaline junkie. Being a saint is…boring.”
With that, Nick turned and walked away, leaving J.T. to bake in the
scorching afternoon sun.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The sun beat down on J.T. Thornbacker as he sat on
the top deck of the yacht. He found that he could just barely sit
down on the decking, even with both of his hands secured with
plastic restraints to the railing running around the edge of the
deck. He had been able to move his shirt over the top of his head
so that it provided some shade for his face, but there was no
coverage for his arms. He was sure to get some nasty burns if he
was left up here until the sun set. Thankfully, he had put on some
long cotton pants before being herded onto the deck and lashed to
the side railing. He had been on deck for about two hours now. He
was sweating and thirsty.

Over the past two hours, he had re-traced his
actions since finding the note in his pocket on to when he’d been
confronted by Nick about trying to set up an escape attempt. He was
wracking his brain, trying to determine how and when he had gotten
caught. Did they have a video camera in the cabin where they were
staying and see him read the note or stash it under his mattress?
Did they see him hide the note at the bank? Or was there something
else in play? Did his would-be rescuer even exist? Was it all some
elaborate ploy by Nick to see what J.T. would do? After all, the
person who had slipped the note in his pocket probably could have
been hired by Nick himself.

J.T. finally decided that there was no way to know
for certain if the mystery man was a legitimate ally or if it was
all set up by Nick as a ruse. He decided that another attempt would
be reckless. He believed what Nick said about hurting Laura if he
tried anything else. Seeing both Laura and James get hurt because
of his failed attempt to get them help this time had been bad
enough. Seeing Laura’s legs get broken was something he was not
prepared to risk. He resigned himself to going along with Nick’s
plan to the end, wherever that might lead them. He still wasn’t
convinced that Nick was telling them the truth about planning to
let them go with a nice send-off and millions to burn – that part
just didn’t make sense to him. Time would tell.

Around four p.m. Nick came back up on the top deck.
He was wearing sunglasses and a broad-rimmed hat which shielded him
from the sun. He was carrying a glass of ice water. J.T. licked his
lips almost involuntarily at the sight of the water. He was
thirsty, very thirsty. The sun had come around in front of him
during the past few hours and he couldn’t shield himself adequately
from its rays no matter what he did. If he covered his face as best
he could with his shirt, his stomach would be exposed. With his
upper-torso covered, his face bore the brunt of the sun’s rays
along with his arms. At this point, he was burned on his arms, and
his face and stomach were rosy as well.

Nick pulled up a chair about ten feet from where
J.T. was tied to the railing and sat down. He crossed his legs and
took a nice, long drink from the glass of ice water that he had
obviously brought to torment J.T. with.

“
How’s it going, old boy?” he said
with a vindictive smile.

“
How do you think?” J.T.
responded.

“
You seem to be holding up well
enough. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you out here too long. I still
need you to be functional enough to go to the bank tomorrow
morning.”

“
Good thing,” J.T.
replied.

“
You intrigued me earlier with all
of your talk about happiness and how I should change my ways and
join you on your new-age spiritual enlightenment journey,” Nick
said mockingly.

“
It’s not new-age,” replied
J.T.

“
Semantics,” continued Nick. “I
want to know more about what makes you tick, J.T., today, not the
you from before. I knew you had gone down the repentant sinner path
and it was useful to know about your bleeding heart to repay our
past victims. I also discerned correctly that you would be
motivated by the threat or use of violence against your two
compatriots down in the hold. But I would like to know more about
why you changed. What was it that made you go soft? It might be
useful to me in the future, and if you are willing to regale me on
the finer points of your conversion,” Nick waved his hand and
performed a mock bow, “I am your willing listener.” When he was
done speaking, Nick sat back in his chair and took another long
drink of ice water.

J.T. considered the request. He knew Nick’s angle –
he wanted to know how he might use whatever J.T. shared in order to
manipulate or control him for his own purposes in the future. He
had just admitted as much. But was there more? Was it possible that
somewhere, deep down, he might be genuinely interested? He decided
it didn’t matter at the moment. The more he complied with Nick’s
wishes now, the more likely Nick mightay be to spare their lives
and be lenient with them once their usefulness to him was
outlived.

“
I’m a bit parched to be telling
stories at the moment,” J.T. responded, looking longingly at what
remained of Nick’s drink.

Nick sipped at the ice water until it was a mere
inch from the bottom before offering the straw to J.T., who eagerly
sipped the last bit of liquid from the bottom of the glass.

“
Let’s hear it then,” Nick probed
as he returned to his seat.

“
The first few years in prison, I
was just upset about getting caught,” J.T. began. “I had the
lawyers exploring every legal option to get me out with a mistrial
or get my sentence reduced. As the years progressed, I began to
realize I might actually be serving the whole stretch. I was
getting depressed. I started taking anti-depressants prescribed by
one of the prison docs, but it made my thinking go fuzzy. I
couldn’t even read the business journal and focus on an article
long enough to finish it, so I stopped taking the
stuff.”

“
There was this AA program being
offered in the prison I was in, and the prison doc suggested I
attend. I figured, ‘Why not?’, so I went. I started hearing stories
from some of the other prisoners about their lives. The messed-up
childhoods, the drug abuse, sexual abuse, you name it. Of course,
compared to most of them, I grew up with a silver spoon in my
mouth. I started thinking about my life, what I had before. I began
wondering if I had ever really been happy or if I had simply chased
after what I thought I needed to be happy, chased it so fast and
hard that I had never really slowed down enough to feel the void
that was there all along. I gave that some serious thought. I
didn’t have much else to do, staring at the walls all day. The more
I thought, the more convinced I became that I really didn’t have
any idea what would make me happy, much less content or
fulfilled.

“
That’s when I hit what we call in
the program ‘rock bottom’. Faced with the prospect of being in that
prison until I was an old man and seeing what a mess I had made of
my life, I decided I was ready for a change. I decided that J.T.
Thornbacker didn’t know squat about how to run his life in a way
that would lead to contentment, fulfillment, or peace.”

“
So that’s when you found God and
started your bleeding heart campaign to try and save the world with
our ill-gotten gain?” Nick asked half-heartedly.

“
No. That’s when God found me….
And that’s when I asked this God Whom I knew nothing about to
straighten out the mess I had made of my life. It was a couple of
years later when I got to the point where I decided to use the
money to try and right some of the wrongs I had helped to
perpetrate,” J.T. concluded.

“
And that,” interrupted Nick, “is
when I found the money. I suppose I should thank this god of yours
for that.”

“
God had nothing to do with that,”
J.T. replied.

“
Don’t be so sure, my friend,”
Nick said with a smile. He stood up and moved the chair back a few
feet before walking to the stairs. “Thank you for the conversation.
It has been enlightening,” he concluded before descending the
stairs and leaving J.T. to suffer some more under the discomfort of
the afternoon sun.

Chapter Twenty-Six

At sundown, one of the commandos came up to the
upper deck of the yacht and cut the wrist restraints off, then he
led a thirsty, sunburned, and tired J.T. Thornbacker back down to
the cabin that was his temporary holding cell. The commando
unlocked the door and motioned for J.T. to enter, locking it after
he was inside.

J.T. stumbled in the door and stood for a moment,
stretching his back. James, seated on the couch at the far side of
the room, stood up and crossed the room towards J.T., hitting him
in the face with his fist when he came within range. J.T. staggered
back across the room and hit the bunk beds installed in the wall of
the yacht, stopping his backwards progress. James stood there
scowling at him, waiting for J.T. to fight back. J.T. reached his
hand up and wiped away the trickle of blood trickling down from his
lip with the back of his hand.

“
I deserved that,” J.T.
said.

“
What were you thinking?” James
reprimanded, still staring at him angrily. Laura just stared
reproachfully at J.T. from where she was seated, saying
nothing.

“
Look,” J.T. began, “I apologize
for the trouble I got you two into today. This guy came to me. He
slipped a note in my pocket at the bank, saying he could help get
us out, and I saw a chance to end this. I thought it would be
better if you didn’t know because I thought you might try to stop
me.”

“
At least he’s being honest about
why he didn’t tell us,” Laura quipped sarcastically. “Maybe after
today, you’ll listen to us when we tell you it would be better to
just do what Nick is asking you to do.”

“
I will. I will,” J.T.
promised.

“
How do we know we can actually
trust you this time?” asked James.

“
I know I let you guys down. I’m
sorry about that. I can understand you don’t trust me right now. I
can’t say that I would trust me either if the shoe was on the other
foot. But there’s nothing you can do about it but take my word for
it and wait and see.”