F-Stop (24 page)

His problem was the first people who came to mind he instinctively wanted to reject out of hand. He didn’t want to think that someone he was close to, did business with, would be involved in something like this.

The wood bar slammed outside, the door opened and Pedro entered. Enrique followed him, carrying a tray with bottled water and the by now dreaded tortillas. He set the tray down against one of the walls, then stood back, arms folded across his chest.

Eli had an urge to pick up the tray and throw it at him, but clenched his fists to keep from making a rash move. By now he’d kill for a steak and they all would have sold their souls for some halfway decent coffee. Even Lissa, who was being so brave and good he was enormously proud of her, said she’d be willing to beg for chocolate. But they said nothing, just waited for the two men to leave.

Pedro raked his gaze over each of them, the malicious smile they’d come to expect twisting his lips.

“Today may be a good day for you,” he said at last. “If everything goes according to plan, that is.”

Eli felt a thread of hope wiggle through him. Was the ransom going to be paid?

Would they actually be released?

“What, nothing today?” Pedro prodded. “You should hope all the arrangements go through as planned. Otherwise,” he eyed Lissa, “I may have to find some other way to provide satisfaction to
El Jefe.
”

Eli reached for his daughter and pushed her behind him. “Leave her alone.”

“Or what?” Pedro laughed. “You aren’t in very much of a position to object to anything,
Señor
Wright. You should just pray your friends come through for you.”

“Who exactly is
El Jefe?
” Eli asked. “And why can’t we meet him? If he’s responsible for this, why can’t I look him in the eye and asked how this happened?”

“He has us to take care of things for him,” Pedro snapped. “He does not get personally involved in activities.”

“I want to see him,” Eli pursued stubbornly.

“Eli,” Sydney cautioned but he ignored her. He’d had enough. He wanted to meet his captor face-to-face.

But Pedro, instead of answering him, reversed his rifle and jabbed it into Eli’s stomach. He doubled over from the pain, fighting the nausea that threatened to erupt from his mouth. He knew it wasn’t smart to keep antagonizing these men but he couldn’t stand to let himself be bullied. Besides, he hoped if he took the brunt of the abuse they’d leave the women alone.

“We are done here,” Pedro told him. “That’s answer enough for you.” He nodded to Enrique and the two men backed out of the door. Then the wooden bar slammed back into place again.

* * * * *

Anthony Delaware sat in silence while Ron Pelley signed the receipt for delivery of the bearer bonds. The messenger from the investment house tore off a copy and gave it to him, nodded and left as quietly as he’d come. Pelley ripped open the thick delivery envelope, slid the bonds out onto his desk and counted them very carefully.

“Is it all there?” the agent asked.

Pelley nodded. “All in order. I had my investment banker sign them so there was a neutral signature.”

“Ten million dollars doesn’t make as big a stack as I thought it would.” Pelley grimaced. “The kidnapper wanted the bonds in large denominations.

Doesn’t take up so much room that way.” He looked up at Delaware. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any luck finding out who this is, have you?”

The agent swallowed a bitter taste in his mouth. “I wish. Whoever this is, he’s obviously done it before and often enough to know how to get around all our technological tricks. And no one on the streets is giving anything up. Believe me, we’ve hit all of our contacts.”

He’d had calls coming in all throughout the previous day and into the evening.

Every agent had pulled in their snitches and pressed them for information. All with the same results.
Nada.

“The problem,” his boss had told him when he called for some added muscle, “is there are so many kidnappings going on all the time it’s hard to sort out one from the other. Last year there were more than four hundred. That exceeds one a day.” The news depressed Delaware even more. He’d also come to the realization that even if they knew something, people were too scared to talk.

“When they’re more afraid of someone else than the big, bad FBI,” Anthony said before ending his phone call, “you can be pretty damn sure we’re dealing with a cartel.

They invented the word vicious.”

He realized Ron Pelley was saying something to him and jerked himself out of his mental wanderings.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I said,” Pelley repeated, irritation in every word, “that I don’t like the idea of just turning this ransom over without some kind of guarantee. You don’t even know where the bonds will be going.”

“We’re not that stupid, Mr. Pelley. We have a plan in place.” He nodded to the tech who’d arrived back early that morning. The man stepped up next to the desk, took the stack of bonds, riffled through them and pulled one partway out. From his pocket he took a thin plastic envelope and a pair of latex gloves. Snapping on the gloves, he removed a tiny wafer-thin snippet of paper from the envelope and attached it to the underside of one corner of the bond he’d selected.

“What’s that?” Pelley asked.

“A brand new type of GPS tracker. Developed especially for Homeland Security but they’re letting us give it a test drive. If they run any scanners over it, they won’t find anything because the frequency is so different.”

“And if they do?” Pelley demanded. “They could kill the hostages without a second thought.”

Delaware stared at him, expressionless. “We know what we’re doing, Mr. Pelley.

You just do your thing and we’ll do ours.”

* * * * *

They were still pouring over the aerial shots Andy had sent them when Mark’s cell phone chirped, he checked the caller ID and he flipped it open.

“Okay, Andy. Go. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay, wait.” He pulled his laptop around, clicked on the email icon and a multi-page document opened up. “Okay. Got it. Thanks.

And keep digging.”

Three pairs of eyes stared at him as he disconnected the call.

“Give,” Mike said.

“Andy’s got us a little more information on the three stooges.” They’d left the little printer hooked up in Mike and Kat’s suite, so all Mark had to do was click on the print icon and wait for the pages to spit out. He began handing them around as he pulled them out of the tray.

“Holy crap,” Mike said, scanning the first two pages in his hand. “Ryan Post seems to have gotten himself in a little over his head expanding his spas. He’d already gone through most of his trust fund and tried some quick schemes to get it back.”

“He certainly had some…um…exotic ideas,” Kat commented, reading over Mike’s shoulder. “How does anyone go through a million dollars in that little time?”

“By having his brains in his ass instead of his head,” Mark snorted. “And trying to outdo his very much smarter brother-in-law.”

“So are you saying he borrowed from the wrong people?” Faith wanted to know.

“Looks like it,” Mark told her. “Unfortunately Andy’s still trying to follow the money trail. The paper’s changed hands more times than a deck of cards. If it leads us back to Victor Herrera, we’ve got our answer.”

“Or,” Mike said, scanning the next couple of pages, “it could be Ron Pelley, whose personal net worth has taken a tumble with the economy. He’s been taking some high flyers in some pretty unorthodox ways to recoup his losses and keeping things hidden from Eli Wright. He also has an ex-wife who he pays hefty alimony to who isn’t the kind to be sympathetic to circumstances.”

“Let me see that.” Mark grabbed the sheet out of her hand. “Hmm. You know someone like him, if he found himself under the hammer of the wrong people, could be ripe to approach for a stunt like this. He could even have been pressured to use one of Wright’s companies to move drugs into the country.”

“I don’t like the sound of that. Andy better dig deeper into this.” Mike was reading over his shoulder. “Uh-oh. Look here.” He pointed to part of the report. “This could be an indication he’s trying to fix the problem by diverting Wright International funds into private offshore accounts. A piece of the ransom would get him healthy again in a hurry.”

“And what’s behind door number three?” Kat asked. “The mysterious Rand Prescott?”

“Not so mysterious,” Mike answered, looking at the last batch of sheets from the printer. “Started as an oil wildcatter, then began shuffling and flipping oil leases, expanded into real estate development and is now building in the Middle East and South America as well as the States.”

“How about Mexico?”

“Not that it shows up. But his last two megaprojects were contracted in partnership with Wright. Andy’s chasing the details to see if there’s some money business there. On paper, Prescott looks fine but words and numbers can easily be made to lie. If he’s in trouble, his share of the ransom could fix him up just fine and cover up anything funny he’s been doing with the partnership funds.”

“Well.” Kat leaned back in her chair and blew out a breath. “Before we weren’t sure if any of these men were involved. Now it seems we have no shortage of suspects. Just great.”

Just then the bell on the laptop dinged to announce an incoming email. Mark clicked on the icon to open it and the latest message from the kidnappers rolled across the screen.

“They’ve made no arrangements to turn over the hostages,” Mike pointed out. “I can’t believe the FBI would go for that.”

“They’re working in a delicate political situation here,” Faith pointed out. “I think they’re just hoping a miracle will happen and the hostages will show up on their doorstep.”

“Idiot,” Mike spat. “This is worse than I thought. There’s no mention of an exchange or anything.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I just wish—”

“Wishing doesn’t cut it,” Mark said. “They’ll play games with the FBI as long as they can, just for kicks. You know it will be up to us to get them out, no matter what.” Mark looked at his watch. “Okay. I’m going to touch base with Andy again. We should be hearing from Ed any time now. He said about eleven and it’s almost noon.” As if on cue, his cell phone rang and he flipped it open. “Yeah? About time. What?

Okay, okay. We’re on our way.”

“Something wrong?” Faith asked.

Mark shrugged. “I hope not. That was Ed. He’s at the airport and he says he’s got a surprise for us.”

“A surprise?” Mike lifted his eyebrows. “It better be a damn good one under the circumstances.”

“Well, let’s get going and find out.”

They gathered everything up and were out the door in five minutes.

* * * * *

The email arrived promptly at ten o’clock Central Time in Ron Pelley’s office.

“They want me to go sit in front of the Alamo with ten million dollars worth of bearer bonds like it’s scrap paper and just wait for someone to come along?” Pelley was incredulous.

“I don’t like it much myself,” Delaware said. “But don’t worry. We’ll have agents all over the place and don’t forget the little surprise buried in the box.”

“This says to be there at twelve thirty and someone will get the package from me.

Why do they keep dragging this out?”

“I told you,” Delaware said. “Creates more tension. Makes you dance to their tune.

I hate these bastards. They think they’ve got all the cards.”

“Yeah? Well, right now they do.” Pelley rubbed his face with his hands. “Shouldn’t I call the others? Let them know I got the money together? That things are moving along? What time the pickup is?”

“And if they ask you about the hostages, what are you going to tell them? Let’s just wait until we see what happens. We still don’t know if either of them is involved.”

“And what about the people from Phoenix? We haven’t heard from them and that worries me. Doesn’t Katherine want to know what’s happening with her sister?” Delaware slammed his fist onto the top of the desk. “I’m praying they keep their noses out of this and wait to hear from us but my gut tells us they may be ten steps ahead of us on this.”

“Maybe if we’d kept them in the loop—” Pelley began.

“You don’t keep Phoenix in the loop,” Delaware spat. “You bring them in and they take over. Katherine Culhane wants to know if we’re going to get her sister back and I can’t contact her because the people she’s with are…are…”

“Dangerous?” A funny smile twisted Pelley’s lips.

“Let’s get moving on this,” Delaware said, shoving the bonds into the padded envelope Pelley would carry them in.

“Give me a minute,” Pelley said, heading for the men’s room.

* * * * *

“I think it would have been appropriate for Ron Pelley to touch base with us after this latest email,” Rand Prescott said to Agent Hopewell. “I’m shocked that he hasn’t.”

“I spoke to Special Agent Delaware,” the agent told him. “He’s trying to keep everything contained as much as possible. This whole ransom thing is going to be tricky enough as it is.”

“We were all contacted,” Prescott protested. “We should all be involved.”

“Bad idea,” Hopewell said. “That’s not what the kidnappers want. Right now they’re calling the shots.”

“And we’re doing nothing?” Prescott’s eyes shot up. “What the hell kind of way is that to manage this business?”

“It’s the best way we can under the circumstances. I will be in constant telephone contact with Agent Delaware.”

“I want to know exactly what is happening every minute,” Prescott insisted. “Eli Wright is a good business colleague and he doesn’t deserve to have this happen.”

“No one does,” Hopewell said. “We just do the best we can.” Prescott just shook his head, excused himself and headed for the bathroom. Maybe he could wash away his secrets with a hot shower and no one would ever have to know.

* * * * *

Ryan Post had drunk himself to sleep the night before, risen with the world’s most god-awful headache and now was slugging down black coffee as fast as he could. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to go home the night before. Too many shadows in the vast condo that was much too large for him. Too many things he didn’t want to think about.