Ransom Read online

  The kidnappers had backed up their van to the garage, and no one had seen them do it. They had looked innocuous when they arrived, looking like workmen, went around to the back, broke a window using a towel, unlocked it, and climbed in. They had disabled the alarm and cut the wires before they broke the window pane. It was a skill they had developed over the years and knew well. No one had seen anything. And no one did now, as they opened the garage door to access their van, and she watched them open the back door to throw Sam in. If she had had a gun, she would have shot them, but as things were, there was nothing she could do to stop them, and she knew it. She was afraid to even scream for her protectors, for fear that the kidnappers would kill Sam.

  The man carrying the bag with Sam in it climbed in and dragged him in, bumping Sam across the back bumper. The others threw their weapons in, ran around to the front, as the back door slammed. And seconds later they drove away, as Fernanda stood sobbing on the sidewalk. And much to her horror, no one heard or saw her. The windows of the van had been heavily tinted, and by the time the men took their ski masks off, they had turned the corner, and she saw nothing. She hadn't even seen their license plate and only thought of it afterward. All she could do was watch them drive her son away and pray that they wouldn't kill him.

  She ran back inside, still sobbing then, flew up the back stairs and into the kitchen, across the bloodstained hall carpet, to find the policemen. And what she found there was a scene of total carnage. One with his head bashed in, another with the back of his head blown off by an M16. His brains were splattered all over her kitchen wall. She had never seen anything so horrible, and was too terrified to even cry. They could have done this to her or Sam, and still could. The two FBI agents had been shot in the chest and heart, one of them was sprawled across the table with a hole in his back the size of a dinner plate, the other was lying on his back on the kitchen floor. The two FBI men were holding their Sig Sauer .40 calibers, and the two policemen held semiautomatic .40-caliber Glocks, but none of them had had time to fire off a round before the kidnappers shot them. They had been distracted for just a moment, talking and drinking coffee, and had been taken completely unaware. All of them were dead. And she ran out of the room to use the phone and call someone. She found the card with Ted's phone number, and dialed his cell phone. She was so panicked she didn't think to call 911, and she remembered the kidnappers' warning “not to tell anyone.” That seemed impossible now with four officers dead at their hands.

  Ted answered on the first ring, and was at home, doing some paperwork and cleaning his .40-caliber Glock, which he'd been meaning to do all week. All he heard were strange guttural moaning sounds, like some wild wounded beast. She could not find the words to tell him, and sobbed pathetically into the phone.

  “Who is this?” he said sharply. But he was afraid to know. Something deep in his soul told him instantly it was Fernanda. “Speak to me,” he said, sounding powerful, as she clamped her teeth shut and fought for air, sucking the air through them. “Talk to me. Where are you?”

  “They… toooookkkkk…himmmm …” she finally managed to say, shaking violently from head to foot, barely able to breathe or speak.

  “Fernanda …” He knew it. Even in extremis, he knew her voice. “Where are the others?” She knew he meant his men, and couldn't tell him.

  She sobbed uncontrollably again then. All she wanted now was her son back. And this was only the beginning. “Dead… all dead,” she managed to say. He didn't dare ask her if Sam was too, but he couldn't be. It would do them no good if they had killed him in front of his mother. “They said they'd kill him if I told …” Ted and she both believed them. “I'll be right there.” He cut her off without asking more questions, called central dispatch, and gave them her address and a warning to keep it off the radio to keep the press out of it. They did the dispatch in code. His next call was to Rick, and he told him rapidly to get their media rep to Fernanda's house. They had to control what was said, if anything, so as not to risk Sam. Rick sounded as upset as Ted was, and was running out the door with his cell phone as they talked, and both hung up within seconds.

  Ted ran out his front door, having just reassembled his gun, and shoved it in the holster. He didn't even bother to turn his lights off. He put a red light on top of his car, turned it on, and drove as fast as he could to where she was. But long before he got there, her street was filled with police cars, flashing lights, and sirens. They had sent three ambulances. And there were nine police cars up and down her street, and another blocking the entrance to her block when he got there, only minutes after they did. Two more ambulances arrived as he got out, and Rick was just behind him.

  “What the hell happened?” Rick ran alongside him as they reached the front steps. There were police already in the house, and Ted could see no sign of Fernanda, the agents, or policemen who had been protecting her and Sam.

  “I don't know yet… they have Sam… that's all I know… she said ‘all dead,’ and then I cut her off, called dispatch, and you.” As they rushed into the house, Ted saw the blood on the steps and the hall carpet, and as though drawn to it, they walked into the kitchen, and saw all that Fernanda had. And as much horror as they had both seen in their careers, what they saw there hit them hard.

  “Oh my God,” Rick said in a whisper, as Ted stared in silence. All four of their men were dead, and their deaths had been brutal and ugly. Animals had done it. That was what these men were. Ted felt rage overcome him as he turned to look for her, and ran back into the hallway. There were twenty policemen in the house by then, all shouting and running, and checking for suspects. Ted had to fight his way past them as the FBI media rep was giving orders to keep the press out. Ted was about to run up the stairs, when he saw Fernanda on her knees in the living room, just lying there and sobbing, with her head on the carpet. She was hysterical when he knelt beside her and took her in his arms, stroked her hair, and knelt there with her and held her. Ted just held her and rocked her and said nothing. Her eyes were wild and terrified as she looked at him and then leaned against him.

  “They took my baby …oh my God…they took my baby …” She had never fully believed they would do it. Nor had he. It was too bold and too outrageous and too crazy. But now they'd done it. And killed four men when they took him.

  “We'll get him back. I promise.” He had no idea if he could live up to it, but he would have told her anything to calm her. Two paramedics walked in then, and looked at him. He didn't think she was injured but she was in bad shape, and one of them knelt beside her and talked to her. She was suffering from extreme trauma.

  Ted helped them lay her down on the couch, and took off her shoes before he did it. There was blood on them, and she had tracked it all over the room. There was no point getting it on the couch too. There were police photographers everywhere by then, taking photographs and videos of the crime scene. It was beyond gruesome. Policemen were crowding in everywhere, some were crying, all were talking, as FBI agents began to arrive by the carful. Within half an hour, there were forensic experts everywhere, collecting fibers, glass, fabrics, fingerprints, and DNA evidence for FBI and SFPD crime labs. And there were already two kidnap negotiators standing by the phones, waiting for a call. The general mood was one of outrage.

  It was late afternoon before they left, and Fernanda was in her room by then. They had put yellow caution tape on the kitchen doorway, indicating that it was a crime scene and had to be left intact, or “sterile” as they called it. Most of the police cars had left. There were four more men assigned to her. The captain had come to survey the damage, and left again looking shaken and grim. They had explained nothing to the neighbors. And barred all access to the press. The official statement was that an accident had happened. And they took the bodies out the back door, after the press left. The police knew without question that there could be no public statement until they had the boy back. Anything said publicly would jeopardize him further. Nothing more could be said.

 
“For a while there,” the captain said to Ted before he left, “I thought you were crazy. It turns out they are.” He hadn't seen anything as grisly in years, and he had asked Ted immediately if Fernanda had heard or seen anything that could help them, like the license plate, or their destination. But she hadn't. They had all been wearing ski masks, and said little or nothing. She had been too frantic to even notice details about the van. All they knew was what they'd known before it happened. Who it might be, and who might be behind it. There was nothing new, except that two policemen and two FBI agents had died, and a six-year-old boy had been kidnapped. Detectives had gone to Peter's Tenderloin hotel within minutes of Fernanda's call to Ted, but the desk clerk said he'd gone out that morning and not come back. Peter's guests of the night before had gone out a service entrance and never been seen or linked to him. The police were staking out his room, but there was no sign of him, and Ted knew there wouldn't be. He was gone for good, although what seemed like all his belongings were still in the room. And there were coded all points bulletins out for Peter and Carlton Waters, and Peter's car. Everyone knew they had to act with extreme caution so as not to alert the kidnappers or jeopardize the boy.

  Carlton Waters and his two friends had called Peter as soon as they crossed the Bay Bridge and were driving through Berkeley. They used the new number he'd given them, on his brand-new nontraceable cell phone.

  “We had a little problem,” Waters said to him. He sounded calm but angry.

  “What little problem?” For a terrifying moment, Peter was afraid that they'd killed her, or Sam.

  “You forgot to mention she had four cops with her, sitting in her kitchen.” Waters sounded livid. They hadn't expected to have to kill four cops to get to the kid. That was not part of the deal. And Peter hadn't warned them.

  “She what? That's ridiculous. I never saw them go in. She had a few friends in the other day, but that was it. There was no one with her.” He sounded certain. But he had also left before ten o'clock the night before, maybe they had gone in after he left. He wondered if that was why he hadn't seen much of her for the past few days. But there was no one to tip her off to what was happening. No way for her to know. Nothing had happened, except Addison getting himself arrested for tax problems. But nothing about that could have warned the police or the FBI, unless he had said something inadvertently. Peter knew he was too smart for that. He couldn't figure out what had happened, or what had gone wrong.

  “Well, whoever wasn't with her is no longer a problem. If you get my drift,” Waters said, spitting a wad of chewing tobacco out the van window. Stark was driving. And Free was in the back seat. The boy was in the bag they'd put him in, in the back of the van, with their weapons and the groceries. Free had an M16 at his feet, and an arsenal of handguns, mostly .45-caliber Rugers and Berettas, both were semiautomatic weapons. Carl had brought his favorite, an Uzi MAC-10, a small fully automatic machine gun he'd grown fond of and learned to use before he went to prison.

  “You killed them?” Peter asked, sounding stunned. That was going to complicate everything, and he knew Addison wasn't going to like it. Nothing like that was supposed to happen. He'd been watching her for over a month. How the hell did four cops get into the picture? And who had they been watching? Suddenly, Peter felt a chill run down his spine. As Addison had said, there was no such thing as a free lunch. All of a sudden, Peter knew he was about to earn his ten million.

  Carlton Waters did not comment on Peter's question. “You'd better warn the cops not to say how those guys died. If they put any of this in the newspapers, we'll kill the kid. I told her that, but maybe you'd better remind them too. We want everything nice and quiet, till we get the money. If they put it on TV, every asshole in the state will be looking for us. We don't need that too.”

  “Then you shouldn't have killed four cops. Christ, what am I supposed to do here? You can't expect me to keep them quiet.”

  “You better do something fast. We left there half an hour ago. If the cops talk, it's going to be all over the news in the next five minutes.”

  Peter knew his phone was untraceable, but he hated testing the limits. He had no choice though. Waters was right. If the kidnapping hit the press along with the murder of four cops, there would be a statewide search on every freeway, on every road, in every corner of the state, and on every border, even more so than just for Sam, which would be bad enough. But killing four cops added a whole new dimension. Sam was still alive, and the police would know he would be. But four men had died now. That was a very different story. It was against his better judgment, but Peter called a central police number, and asked to speak to a sergeant. He knew it didn't matter where he called, whoever he gave the message to would get it into the right hands within seconds. So he passed on what Carl had told him.

  “If anything about the dead cops or the kidnapping hits the press, the boy is dead,” he said, and hung up. Ted and his captain got the message in less than two minutes. It presented a problem for them because two officers and two FBI agents had died, but a child's life was hanging in the balance.

  The captain called the chief of police, and what they came to was that a statement would be made to the press that four men had been killed in the line of duty. They were going to say that an accident had occurred involving a high-speed chase. Details would be released at the appropriate moment, to give the families time to notify their loved ones. It was all they could do, and the simplest and cleanest explanation for the deaths of four law enforcement officers, from two agencies, both city and federal. It was going to be tough to cover. But they all knew they had to, until the kidnappers were found, or the boy reclaimed. After that, all hell could break loose and the boy's life would no longer be at stake. The captain wrote the press release himself with the FBI media rep, and Carl Waters heard it on the radio two hours later, while they were still on the road to Tahoe. He called Peter and said he had done a good job. But by then, Peter was facing a serious dilemma, as he sat in his motel room on Lombard. Things had not gone entirely according to plan, and he felt he owed it to Addison to tell him. He didn't tell Carl he was thinking of doing that, although he expected Peter to contact his superiors after what had happened. Waters was still angry at Morgan for his sloppy surveillance, which had led to the problem. The murder of four cops was definitely a problem.

  Peter had Addison's phone number in the South of France, and called him from his cell phone, while Phillip was sitting in his hotel room. There had never been any plan for Peter to join the others in Tahoe. In fact, he was to stay as far away from them as possible, so there would be no link to him, or Addison. He was going to say that his rented house had been broken into, long after they claimed the ransom.

  Addison had arrived in Cannes the day before, and had just begun enjoying his vacation. He knew what was happening, and the schedule they were on. What he wanted to hear about was good results, not problems. He had told them to wait a couple of days before making their ransom request. He wanted to give Fernanda time to panic about it. He knew if they did, she'd pay faster. He assumed she would pay quickly.

  “What are you telling me?” he said as Peter beat around the bush for a minute. Peter hated telling him that Waters and the others had killed four cops. It was also going to be difficult to explain why he hadn't known they were in there in the first place. Peter began by telling him they only got Sam, the others were away.

  “I'm telling you there was a problem,” Peter said, holding his breath for a minute.

  “Did they hurt the boy or his mother?” Addison's voice was icy. If they killed the boy, there would be no ransom. Only headaches. Big ones.

  “No,” Peter said, pretending to be calm, “they didn't. Apparently, four cops got into the house last night after I left. There haven't been any till now, I'd swear to it. There's been no one in the house except her and the kids. There isn't even a maid. I don't know how the cops got into it. But Waters said they were there when he and the others got there.”


  “And then what happened?” Addison said slowly.

  “Apparently, they killed them.”

  “Oh, for chrissake …my God…is it all over the news yet?”

  “No. Waters called me from the road. I called the police and left a message. I said that if anything about the dead cops or the kidnapping hit the press, we'd kill the boy. They just issued a press release on the radio that four officers were killed in a high-speed chase. There were no other details. And there's no mention of the kidnap. Our guys warned her they'd kill the boy if she or the cops talk.”

  “Thank God you did that. They'll be looking for the boy everywhere anyway, but if they warn the public, it'll be that much worse. There would be random ‘sightings’ of the kidnappers from here to New Jersey. All we need are cops combing the state, looking for cop killers. They care a lot more about that than a kidnap. They know you'll keep the boy alive to get the ransom money. But four dead cops are another story.” He was anything but pleased. They both knew that for Sam's safety, the police would keep their mouths shut, so as not to put Sam in even greater jeopardy.

  “It sounds like you handled it, but how stupid of the others. I suppose they had no choice. They couldn't take four cops with them.”

  Addison sat on the balcony of his suite at the Carlton in Cannes for a long moment, watching the sunset, thinking about what to do. “You'd better go up there.” It was a change of plan, but might make an important difference.

  “To Tahoe? That's insanity. The last thing I need is to be identified with them.” Or worse, caught with them, if they did something equally stupid, like rob a 7-Eleven for a sandwich, Peter thought, but didn't mention it to his boss. Addison was upset enough about the four dead cops, and Peter was too.

  “The last thing any of us needs is to lose a hundred million dollars. Consider it protecting our investment. I'd say it's worth it.”

  “Why in hell do you want me to go up there?” Peter sounded panicked.