Utopian Day (26 page)

“
O.k.,” he said, still looking at
the picture. “Tell me what I need to do.”

“
The kidnapper wants a ransom and
says that you must be the one to deliver it. He will call in about
eighteen hours to give more details. No police or else. I need you
to come back to the States with me. I have a plane waiting at the
airport for us now.”

J.T., still looking at the picture, began to nod.
“O.k., but I have a request, too,” he said.

“
Name it,” Nick
replied.

“
James and Laura will be coming
with us.”

“
I hardly see how they can help,”
Nick replied.

J.T. looked up at Nick with determination in his
eyes.

“
Eight years ago, you used me to
take almost eighty million dollars out of a bank, leaving me a
fugitive from my own country and living under a false identity. Now
you waltz in here and tell me I have a daughter that you have known
about for years but haven’t bothered to tell me about until now. In
addition to that, you want me to risk going back to prison for the
rest of my life to help get her back from a kidnapper.”

“
Back Stateside, you have money,
power, resources, everything. You have your own network of contacts
and hired hands. James and Laura
are
my network. They are
the people I have had to rely on for years. We trust each other
with our lives because we can’t fully trust anyone else. I’m
willing to take it on faith that this girl is who you say she is.
I’m willing to go out on a limb and believe you don’t have some
scheme up your sleeve to lure me back to the States and turn me
over to the feds. Now I’m asking you to trust me a little bit and
bring Laura and James along to help out. I trust them, and if
everything is what you say it is, we need people we can trust to
help us out on this.”

“
O.k., I hear what you are
saying,” Nick replied. “If you think they can help, then bring them
along, but we need to leave soon. She may be your biological
daughter, but she is my adopted daughter and I love her very much.
The clock is ticking and we need to get moving. Where are they and
when can they get here?”

J.T. went to his office to retrieve his cell phone.
He called James and Laura on a three-way call. Once he had them
both on the line, he briefly explained the situation and asked them
if they would consider coming back to the States with him to help
get his daughter back.

“
Wow,” Laura exclaimed. “That is a
huge bombshell, J.T. I don’t want to be the black cloud here, but
are you
sure
she’s your daughter?”

“
Well, the paperwork looks
authentic enough, and then there’s the pictures. She’s not my
spitting image, but the resemblance is pretty strong. I think there
is a good chance Nick is telling the truth. Besides, he could have
turned me in at any time in the last eight years if he wanted to,
or sent his goons to kidnap me again, for that matter. Nick’s
changed too, he’s different somehow. Strange as it is for me to say
this, I think I trust him on this one.”

“
Well, if you feel that confident
about it, I’m in,” Laura replied.

“
What about you, James?” J.T.
asked.

“
With all we’ve been through, I’m
not about to let you two go back to the States alone. I’d be glad
to help you out, J.T. Just tell me when and where.”

“
Be at the airport in twenty
minutes. I’ll text you the gate info on the way.”

J.T. threw some items in a backpack and headed out
the door with Nick. Thirty minutes later, James, Laura, J.T., and
Nick were on an airplane and headed back to New York.

Chapter Forty-One

Silas pulled in to Toakama, West Virginia at about
10 a.m. in the morning. He pulled the RV behind one of the
abandoned buildings and shut off the engine. It had been a long
day. He cut Sasha loose so she could go to the facilities and eat
something, then secured her back to the captain’s chair with a
generous amount of duct tape. She would be uncomfortable and
probably wouldn’t sleep much through the night, but she was young
and would be fine after a day’s rest back home in her comfy bed in
New York City.

Toakama was an abandoned mining town in the middle
of nowhere. It had been a thriving little town until the mine shut
down after an explosion that had killed twenty workers back in the
1950s. The mining company had shut down the mine and moved the
workers to a more profitable location about a hundred miles away. A
few residents stayed around, but without anyone to support the
local businesses, eventually everyone had either died or moved
away.

There was only one road leading into the little
town, making it perfect for this ransom exchange. The road was
about three quarters of a mile long and terminated in a cul-de-sac
that served to allow people to turn their vehicles around and head
back out of town. The road into town crossed over a fifty-foot
gorge just before the city limits. The gorge had a bucolic stream
flowing at the bottom of it and the whole town was surrounded by
forest. The mountains rose behind the town, leading further up into
the Blue Ridge Mountains. A post office, a barber shop, a grocery
store, a hardware store, a diner, and even a small town hall at the
end of the street were among the various brick buildings that lined
the main street that was Toakama.

Silas had liked hiking since he was a kid. He had
discovered this place on a hiking trip that he had taken years
before. Being in the great outdoors helped him clear his head. When
he had begun to plan the kidnapping, this was the first place that
came to his mind as a potential exchange location. It was perfect.
It was surrounded by rugged terrain, he could see anyone trying to
enter the town on the one road in or out, and you could hear a pin
drop in the deserted streets. The buildings offered perfect cover
so he could watch the whole drop-off without being seen. And best
of all, it was in the middle of nowhere, with the next populated
town being twenty-five miles away.

He reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a
six-pack of beer, then headed up the hill about a hundred yards.
From this spot, he could see the RV and the whole town below. He
popped the top on the first beer and enjoyed the view. Not too long
from now, he was going to be a very rich man. He smiled at the
thought and took a drink from the can.

After he had finished three beers, he went back into
the RV and took a nap in the back. Later in the day, he would have
to double check on all the preparations he’d already made, and
there was no sense being tired when he did so. He slept like a
stone and dreamt of buying a nice house somewhere in a tropical
island, and being reunited with Maggie and Tommy when this was all
over.

He woke up about two hours later, feeling an intense
need to relieve himself. He went outside and up the hill a few
yards behind a tree and took care of business. He thought to
himself that he felt like a million dollars. Then he laughed and
said out loud, “I feel like
ten
million dollars!”

Before he made his rounds to check on all of the
items he had prepared for the ransom exchange, he went back into
the RV and took Sasha’s gag off to give her a drink of water. After
all, he told himself, he was no monster. When that task was done,
he went to work.

He walked behind the row of buildings on the
upper-side of the town’s main street. He could see the
tarpaulin-covered Jeep from where the RV was parked. It looked just
the way he had left it a few months before, except for the generous
dusting of pine needles and small twigs on top of the
tarpaulin.

After he removed the cover, he reached far under the
seat and retrieved the keys, checking first to make certain there
were no black widows or other creatures lurking underneath. He
popped the hood, connected the battery, and jumped in the driver’s
seat. He had brought an extra battery just in case, but he hoped he
wouldn’t need it. He turned the key and the engine tried to turn
over twice, then roared to life. He smiled. Everything was going
according to plan.

He un-holstered his .38 revolver, which he carried
in a shoulder sling, and checked the ammunition. It was good to be
prepared when you were in the woods by yourself. You never knew
who, or
what
, you might run into. He left the jeep running
to warm up the engine and went back inside to get Sasha. He walked
her out and put her in the passenger’s seat, leaving her hands
bound and putting on the seatbelt for her. He couldn’t afford to
leave her here alone – she was his ten million dollar ticket.

He climbed up in the driver’s seat and put the Jeep
in gear, driving up a mountainside road that looked like little
more than a trail. He needed to make sure this old logging road
hadn’t been blocked by any fallen trees during his absence. It
would be a shame to get stuck trying to remove a tree from across
the road with ten million dollars in the back of his vehicle. He
was under no illusions about what he was about to do. He knew Nick
Bartonovich would come after him as soon as he knew his daughter
was safe. Having a quick escape route available was essential.

He drove for about thirty minutes up the winding
road before he had to stop and remove a small tree that had fallen
across the pathway. Luckily for him, it had cracked in two when it
hit the road, making it easy to roll out of the way and down the
hill into the woods to the left of the road. He had a small chain
saw in the back of the jeep in case he needed it, but rolling the
broken parts of the tree downhill was even easier. He got back in
the Jeep and drove for a few more minutes without encountering any
obstacles, and decided he had come far enough. He turned the Jeep
around and headed back to town.

Back at the RV, he let Sasha sit at the table inside
while he cooked some hamburgers for them on the stove. He waited to
remove the duct tape from her hands until they were ready to eat,
just in case. She ate like a horse. Silas thought to himself that
it must be the mountain air. He was hungrier than usual himself and
cooked them both another hamburger.

“
You eat pretty good for a girl,”
Silas said, putting down the second hamburger in front of
Sasha.

“
Thanks for the second hamburger,”
she said as she began eating. “Why are you doing this?” she said at
last.

Silas looked up at her from his hamburger and
smiled, “You mean, besides the money?”

“
Yeah, I guess,” she replied
hesitantly.

“
It’s complicated. I gambled, I
lost a lot of money on a crooked gambling site that your dad ran, I
lost a good job, my wife left me, yada, yada, yada.” He took
another bite from his hamburger and washed it down with a swig of
beer. Sasha didn’t say anything, just waited.

“
I guess at some point I decided
that I deserved a better hand than the one I had been dealt. I was
a cop, at one time, and I saw a lot of crooked guys get away with a
lot of money while I was keeping the law and struggling to pay the
mortgage.” He shrugged his shoulders. “So I decided it was my turn
to walk away with some of that money.”

He looked at Sasha. “It’s nothing against you, but
whether you know it or not, Nick and J.T. Thornbacker didn’t get
rich because they were nice guys. This money they are paying me
with was stolen from some other people.”

Sasha’s anger got the better of her and she said
without thinking, “Nick is not a crook!”

Silas looked at her for a minute before he spoke.
“Listen, Sasha, I don’t expect you to agree with me. But enough
about me, it’s time for dessert.”

Silas went to the refrigerator and took two ice
cream bars out of the freezer, handing one to Sasha before sitting
back down at the table. She took it from him and opened it up,
thinking how strange it was for this man who had just kidnapped her
to be giving her ice cream. They ate dessert together in
silence.

After they were finished, Silas said, “O.k., time
for you to go back in the chair. I can’t have you running off now,
can I? Go to the bathroom first, though; it may be a while before
you get a chance to go again.”

Sasha reluctantly got up to go to the tiny RV
bathroom. Silas remained in his seat while she did. When she came
out, Silas was still seated, finishing up his beer. She walked over
in the direction of the captain’s chair, resigned to being
restrained with duct tape again. When she got close to the door and
noticed Silas wasn’t out of his seat yet, she suddenly saw an
opportunity to escape. She lunged for the door, opened it up, and
dashed outside before Silas could stop her.

Silas realized his mistake too late, jumping up and
heading out the door, running after her. Sasha had a good
head-start on him of about fifteen feet. Silas had never been much
of a runner, and he knew he couldn’t outrun her if all things were
equal. Just as Sasha began opening up a bigger lead, she tripped on
the exposed root system of a large oak tree and fell down. Silas
didn’t miss his opportunity, closing the distance between them
before Sasha regained her traction.

He reached down and grabbed her arm. Sasha turned
and bit him as hard as she could. Silas released her and let out a
yell, but he shot out his leg and kicked her in the stomach before
she could stand up. She buckled to the ground with a groan as Silas
briefly looked at his bleeding hand to assess the damage. Silas’
days as a cop subduing suspects on the streets of New York had been
fine-tuned over the years. No uptown socialite teenager was going
to get the better of him in a street brawl.