Ransom Read online

  “The more I think about it, I don't trust them with the boy. If they hurt him, or kill him accidentally, we're screwed. I'm not sure their baby-sitting skills are quite what they should be. I'm relying on you to protect our principal asset.” They were turning out to be more violent than he thought they would be. All they needed was for one of them to get out of control. It wouldn't take much to kill the boy, and they might be dumb enough to do something like that. And with only one child to bargain with, Addison didn't want to take any chances. “I want you to go up there,” he said firmly.

  It was the last thing Peter wanted to do, but he could see Addison's point. And he knew that if he was there, he could keep an eye on Sam. “When?”

  “No later than tonight. In fact, why don't you go now? You can keep an eye on them. And the boy. When are you going to make the call to his mother?” He was just checking. They had worked out all the details before he left. Although he certainly didn't expect them to kill four cops. That was not part of the plan.

  “In a day or two,” Peter said. It was what they had planned and agreed on.

  “Call me from there. Good luck,” he said, and hung up, as Peter sat in his hotel room staring at the wall. Things were not going according to plan. He hadn't wanted to go anywhere near Tahoe while they were there. All he wanted was his ten million dollars and to get out. He wasn't even sure he wanted that. The only reason he was doing this was to save his daughters. And going to Tahoe to be with Waters and the others put him at much greater risk for being caught. But he knew, as he had from the beginning of this mess, there was no way out. He tried not to think of Fernanda and what she must be going through, as he picked up his bag of toiletries and shaving gear, the two clean shirts and underwear he'd brought in a paper bag, and walked out of the motel ten minutes later. But whatever she was feeling now, or how terrified she was, one thing he was sure of, with a hundred million dollars at stake, they'd be sending back her son. So no matter how sick she was over it, it was going to turn out all right in the end. Peter reassured himself with that thought, as he left the motel and hailed a cab. He had it drop him off at Fisherman's Wharf, where he took another cab to a used car lot in Oakland. He had left the car he'd been using for the past month in a back alley in the Marina. He had removed the license plates and dropped them in a dumpster before walking half a dozen blocks to the motel, where he had paid cash for the room.

  In Oakland he bought an old Honda, paid cash for it, and an hour after his call to Phillip Addison, he was on the road to Tahoe. It seemed a lot safer to use a different car than he'd been using while following her for the past month, in case someone in the neighborhood had seen him. Now that Waters and the others had murdered four cops, the risk was greater for all of them, and for Peter, going to Tahoe increased the risks further. But he knew he had no choice in the matter. Addison was right. Peter didn't trust them with Sam, and he didn't want anything worse to happen than already had.

  Long before he reached Vallejo, photographs of Peter and Carlton Waters had been circulated all over the state on police computers. Peter's now-abandoned license plates and the description of his previous car were circulated with them, along with extreme confidential warnings not to publish any information, as there was a kidnap in progress. Peter didn't stop along the way, and drove within the speed limit, to avoid incident. And by then, Addison was already under surveillance by the FBI in France. And all Fernanda needed now was a phone call from the kidnappers, so the police and FBI could find Sam.

  Chapter 15

  All the police photographs they needed had been taken by that night. The men's families had been notified, the bodies were at funeral parlors, what was left of them. The wives and families had been told the circumstances, that a child's life was hanging in the balance, and no one could talk, or tell the truth until the boy had been released by his captors. They understood, and all had agreed. They were good people, and as cops' and agents' wives, they knew the difficulties of the situation. They were dealing with their own and their families' grief, with the help of trained psychologists in both departments.

  By then profiling experts were at work on Peter Morgan and Carl Waters. Their respective rooms had been searched extensively, friends interviewed, and the manager of the Modesto halfway house had supplied the information that Malcolm Stark and Jim Free, both parolees, had left with Waters, which spawned fresh investigations, and the dispersal of more mug shots, profiles, and APBs over the Internet to law enforcement agencies around the state. The FBI profilers in Quantico were adding their expertise to that of the SFPD. They had spoken to Waters's, Stark's, and Free's parole agents and employers, Peter's parole agent, who said he scarcely knew him, and a man who claimed to be Peter's employer but appeared not to know him at all. Three hours later, the FBI profilers had ferreted out the fact that the company that alleged to employ Peter was actually an indirect subsidiary of a company Phillip Addison owned. Rick Holmquist correctly suspected that Peter's job was a front, which made sense to Ted as well.

  Ted had also called the industrial cleaning service they used at homicide scenes, or the one they recommended. They were tearing Fernanda's kitchen apart that night. They even had to pull out the granite and strip the room, thanks to the weapons that had been used and the devastating physical damage they had caused. Ted knew that by morning, the place would be stripped and no longer elegant, but it would be clean, and there would be no visible evidence, in terms of bloodstains at least, of the grim carnage that had taken place there when the officers were killed and the kidnappers got Sam.

  Four more officers had been assigned to her, all cops this time. Fernanda was upstairs lying on her bed. Ted had been there all day and evening. He never left. He made whatever calls he had to make from his cell phone, while camping out in her living room. And there was a trained negotiator standing by, waiting for the kidnappers' call. There was no question in anyone's mind that it would come. The only question was when.

  It was nearly nine o'clock at night when she came downstairs, looking gray. She hadn't eaten or had anything to drink all day. Ted had asked her a few times, and then finally he had left her alone. She needed some time to herself. He was there for her, if she wanted him. He didn't want to intrude on her. He had called Shirley a few minutes before, and told her what had happened, and that he was going to spend the night with his men. He wanted to keep an eye on things. She said she understood. In the old days, when he was on a stakeout, or working undercover in his youth, sometimes he'd been gone for weeks. She was used to it. Their crazy lives and schedules had essentially kept them apart for years, and it showed. Sometimes she felt she hadn't been married to him in years, not since the kids were small, or even before that. She did what she wanted, had her own friends, her own life. And so did he. It happened a lot to cops and their wives. Sooner or later, the job did them in. They were luckier than most. At least they were still married. A lot of their old friends weren't. Like Rick.

  Fernanda wandered into the living room like a ghost. She stood and looked at him for a minute, and then sat down.

  “Have they called?” Ted shook his head. He would have told her if they had. She knew that, but had to ask. It was all she could think of now and had all day.

  “It's too soon. They want to give you time to think about it and panic.” The negotiator had told her that too. He was upstairs, waiting in Ashley's room, with a special phone plugged into their main line.

  “What are they doing in the kitchen?” she asked with no real interest. She never wanted to see the room again, and knew she'd never forget what she'd seen there. Ted knew it too. He was relieved to know she was selling the house. After this, they needed to get out.

  “Cleaning it up.” She could hear a machine pulling out the granite. It sounded like they were knocking the building down, and she wished they would. “The buyers may want to put in a kitchen,” he said, trying to distract her, and she smiled in spite of herself.

  “They put him in a bag,” she sai
d, staring at Ted. The scene kept running through her mind over and over, even more than the one in the kitchen, which had been unforgettable too. “With tape over his mouth.”

  “I know. He'll be okay,” Ted said again, praying it was true. “We should hear from them in a couple of days. They may let you talk to him when they call.” The negotiator had already told her to ask for that when they did, to prove that he was alive. There was no point paying ransom for a dead kid. Ted did not say that to her. He just sat there, looking at her, as she stared at him. She felt dead inside. And looked it outwardly. Her face was somewhere between gray and green, and she looked sick. Several neighbors had asked what had happened earlier. And someone said they'd heard her scream. But when the police canvased the neighborhood, no one had seen anything. The police had given out no details.

  “Those poor men's families. This must be so awful for them. They must hate me.” She looked at Ted searchingly, feeling guilty. They had been there to protect her and her kids. Indirectly, it felt like her fault, as much as the kidnappers'.

  “This is what we do. Things happen. We take the risk. Most of the time, things turn out okay. And when they don't, we all know that's what we signed on for, and so do our families.”

  “How do they live with it?”

  “They just do. A lot of marriages don't survive.” She nodded. Hers hadn't either, in a way. Allan had chosen to bail out rather than face his responsibilities, and left her with a mess, rather than trying to clean it up himself. Instead, he had left her to do it. That had been occurring to her more and more recently. It had occurred to Ted too. And now she had to face this. He felt sorry for her. All he could do to help her was do everything he could to get back her son. And he intended to. The captain had agreed to let him stay at the house for the duration. It was going to start getting dicey once they called.

  “What am I going to do when they ask me for money?” She'd been thinking about it all day. She had none to give them, and wondered if Jack could drum some up. It was going to take a miracle, she knew, depending on how much they wanted. Probably a lot.

  “With any luck at all, we'll be able to trace the call, and move in on them pretty quick.” If they were lucky. If. Ted knew they had to find them fast, and free the boy.

  “What if we can't trace their call?” she said almost in a whisper.

  “We will.” He sounded sure, to reassure her. But he knew it wasn't going to be as easy as he wanted to make it sound. They just had to wait and see what happened when they got the call. The negotiators were standing by.

  She hadn't combed her hair all day, but looked pretty anyway. She always did to him.

  “If I get you something to eat, will you try to eat it? You're going to need to keep your strength up, for when they call.” But he knew it was too soon. She was still in shock from everything that she'd seen and survived that day. She just shook her head.

  “I'm not hungry.” She knew she couldn't eat. All she could think of was Sam. Where was he? What had they done to him? Was he hurt? Dead? Terrified? A thousand terrors were racing through her head.

  Half an hour later, Ted brought her a cup of tea, and she sipped it, sitting on the floor in the living room, hugging her knees. He knew she wouldn't sleep either. It was going to be an interminable wait for her. For all of them. But hardest for her. And she hadn't told the other kids. The police had agreed that she should wait until she heard something. There was no point panicking them, and it would. The local police at both locations had been notified, and they were on standby for both Ashley and Will. But now that they had Sam, Ted felt the other two were safe, and his superiors agreed. They weren't going to try to grab the other two. They had all they needed now with Sam.

  She lay on the rug in the living room, and didn't say anything. Ted sat near her, writing reports, and glancing at her occasionally. He went to check on his men, and after a while, she fell asleep. She was lying there asleep on the floor when he got back. He left her there. She needed the sleep. He thought of carrying her to her room, but he didn't want to disturb her. He lay down on the couch himself sometime around midnight, and dozed for a few hours. It was still dark when he woke up and heard her crying, lying on the floor, too grief-stricken to move. He didn't say a word to her, he just sat down on the floor next to her and held her, and she lay in his arms and cried for hours. The sun was coming up when she finally stopped, thanked him, and walked upstairs to her room. They had cleaned the blood off the hall carpet. Ted didn't see her again until almost noon. They had still heard nothing from the kidnappers. And Fernanda looked worse by the hour.

  Jack Waterman called her that afternoon, the day after the kidnapping. The phone rang, and everyone jumped. They had already told her that she had to answer the phone herself, so the kidnappers didn't get scared off by the cops, although they would suspect they were there, since there had been cops in the house when they came for Sam. She answered and nearly burst into tears when it was Jack. She had been praying it would be them.

  “How's your flu?” he asked, sounding casual and relaxed.

  “Not so good.”

  “You sound awful. I'm sorry to hear it. How's Sam?” She hesitated for an endless moment, and in spite of her best efforts not to, burst into tears. “Fernanda? Are you all right? What happened?” She didn't even know what to say. She just went on crying, while he got increasingly distraught. “Can I come over?” he asked her, and she shook her head, and then finally agreed. In the end, she'd need his help anyway. All hell was going to break loose once they asked her for money.

  He was at her door ten minutes later, and he was stunned when he walked into the room. Half a dozen visibly armed plainclothesmen and FBI agents were walking around the house. One of the two negotiators had come downstairs for a change of scene. Ted was talking to a small group in the kitchen, which looked surprisingly clean. And Fernanda stood in the midst of it, looking grim. She burst into tears again when she saw Jack. She didn't know what to say, as Ted led the rest of the cops and agents into the kitchen and closed the door.

  “What's going on here?” Jack asked, looking horrified. It was obvious that something terrible had happened. It took her another five minutes to get the words out, as they sat next to each other on the couch.

  “They kidnapped Sam.”

  “Who kidnapped Sam?”

  “We don't know.” She told him the whole agonizing story from start to finish, including Sam's removal in the canvas bag, and the murder of the four policemen in her kitchen.

  “Oh my God. Why didn't you call me? Why didn't you tell me the other day?” He realized now that it had been happening then, when she canceled their date in Napa. He had honestly believed they had the flu. What they had was infinitely worse. He could hardly believe the story she told him, it was too terrifying for words.

  “What am I going to do when they ask for ransom? I have nothing to give them to get Sam back with.” He knew it better than anyone. It was a tough question. “The police and FBI think that the kidnappers believe I still have all of Allan's money. That's what they think anyway.”

  “I don't know,” Jack said, feeling helpless. “Hopefully, they'll catch them, before you have to come up with the money.” It was going to be impossible to find cash for her in large amounts, or even small ones. “Do the police have any leads as to where they are?” For the moment, there were none.

  Jack sat with her for two hours, with an arm around her, and he made her promise to call him at any hour, if she heard anything or wanted company. And he made a bleak suggestion before he left. He told her that she should probably sign over a power of attorney to him, so he could make decisions, and move funds for her, if there were any, in case something happened to her. What he said was as depressing as having watched the police cut her children's hair, for a DNA match in case they were found dead. Essentially, Jack was saying the same thing. He told her he would send the papers over for her to sign the next day. And a few minutes later, he left.

  She wa
ndered into the kitchen, and saw the men drinking coffee. She had sworn she would never go into the room again, but she just had. It was almost unrecognizable. All the granite had been removed, and they'd had to replace the kitchen table, and had with a plain functional one, the four men's blood had soaked into the wood of the one she had. She didn't even recognize the chairs. The place looked like a bomb had hit it, but at least there was no evidence of the horror she had seen there the day before.

  As she walked into the room, the four men guarding her stood up. Ted was leaning against the wall and talking to them, and he smiled at Fernanda as she walked in. She smiled in response, remembering the comfort he had offered the night before. Even in the midst of the agony she was living through, there was something peaceful and reassuring about him.

  One of the men handed her a cup of coffee, and offered her a box of doughnuts, and she took one and ate half of it, before she threw it away. It was the first thing she had eaten in two days. She was living on coffee and tea, and on the edge of her nerves. They all knew there was no news. No one asked. They made small talk in the kitchen, and after a while, she went upstairs and lay on her bed. She saw the negotiator walk past her open door to Ashley's room. She never took her clothes off anymore, except to shower. It was like living in an armed encampment, and everywhere around her were men with guns. She was used to it by now. She didn't care about the guns. Only her son. He was all she cared about, all she lived for, all she wanted, all she knew. She lay on her bed, awake all night, from the sugar and the coffee, waiting for news of Sam. And all she could do was pray that he was alive.

  Chapter 16

  When Fernanda woke up the next morning, the sun was just coming up over the city in a golden haze. She didn't realize it until she went downstairs and saw the paper one of the men had left on the table, it was the Fourth of July. It wasn't a Sunday, but all she knew as she sat and looked at the sunrise was that she wanted to go to church, and knew she couldn't. She couldn't leave the house in case they called. She said something to Ted about it, as they sat in the kitchen a little while later, and he thought about it for a minute and asked her if she'd like to see a priest. It even sounded strange to her. She liked taking the children to church on Sundays, but they had objected to going since Allan died. And she had been so disheartened that she hadn't gone much lately herself. But she knew she wanted to see a priest now. She wanted someone to talk to and to pray with her, and she felt as though she'd forgotten how.