Talk (24 page)

"Ah."

"All right then," she said, "close your eye and let me check to see what's going on down here, okay?" He did and she did and found that he needed changing. She went into the bathroom and used the John herself and then headed back to him with the towel that had dried overnight, a washcloth, toilet paper and basin of water, and proceeded to clean him up and change him.

She gave him an ambitious breakfast: half a cup of instant oatmeal with tons of sugar and butter, and aspirin in applesauce. She herself had yogurt and coffee. When he dozed off, she put on her exercise gear and skipped rope for a good fifteen minutes, lifted a few weights and then went to take a shower and get dressed.

He was still asleep. She made her bed and cleaned up the kitchen. When she came back into the bedroom she found him awake, and 'so she went through the whole routine with him all over again.

'"Morning," Cassy said, coming back into her office at nine o'clock.

She had showered and changed into fresh clothes.

As she poured herself coffee, Kunsa filled her in on the track Alexandra and Will were taking, about focusing on calls into the hot line either placed from or regarding sites in New York State.

"Huh," she said thoughtfully when he had finished.

"They could be right, but I don't know. Has there been anything more on that boat that was seen in the vicinity of the lot where the Con Ed truck was found?"

"Not yet. We're still working with the partial registration number."

"What about the helipad?"

"No, that's a definite no. He didn't take her by helicopter."

Cassy sipped her coffee.

"So what do you think? How did he get her out of the city?"

Agent Kunsa looked miserable.

"I don't know that he did take her out of the city."

"But if he did, how do you think he did it?"

"By water or by road."

Cassy sighed, walking over to her desk and sitting down.

"I can't believe we're just sitting here."

"This is what we do," he said.

"Wait until more information comes in from the field."

"I just can't sit here and do nothing," Cassy told him.

"For God's sake. Norm, she's been gone for over sixty hours. And you said if I held that press conference, if I dared him to contact us, he would. Well, I held that damn conference, I dared him to contact us and what do we get? Nothing. And we're nowhere. And now you expect me to just sit around here with you and wait."

When he didn't argue with her, Cassy cinched up the side of her mouth in disgust, turned to her computer and punched a button to boot it up.

"Norm," she said a moment later, sounding alarmed.

"Norm!"

He jumped up from his seat.

"Get over here," she directed.

"Look at this."

He ran around the desk and looked over her shoulder at the screen.

"What is that?"

Plastered across her computer screen was a head shot of Jessica, looking back at them.

"I don't know what this is," Cassy said.

"I don't know where it came from. I just booted up the computer and" They froze as the sound of Jessica's voice came out over the computer speakers.

Jessica: And may I ask if it's Thursday? (pause) Ah, I guessed right about that, too. Good.

There was a long pause; Cassy and Kunsa looked at each other.

"It's a tape," he whispered.

Jessica: I, um, appreciate the quarters. They're very nice. It's very thoughtful of you to make my stay as pleasant as possible, (pause) Would you like to sit down?

Cassy lunged for a pen and paper and frantically started writing in shorthand.

Jessica: Will you be eating with me? Do you want me to cook something?

Or shall we order in? (pause) I'd like the company and you must know how much I order in. (pause) Why don't you surprise me? Bring dinner tomorrow? Say around seven?

When the audio stopped and Cassy had finished writing, she looked back up at Norm in amazement.

"Thursday," he said.

"This tape is from last night. She's still alive."

Tears sprung into Cassy's eyes as she reached to her intercom.

"Chi Chi, get Dr. Kessler in here immediately, please. Tell him there's something on my computer he needs to preserve."

"Can you save it?" Norm asked her.

"I don't know. I don't know what it is." She had punched in another telephone number.

"She's alive, Alexandra, she's alive! We know for a fact that Jessica's still alive!"

"So, Hurt Guy, let me tell you what's happening."

The slit over his good eye was open.

"That nut Leopold is coming to dinner tonight. I figure the nicer I am to him and the more I know about him, the better our chances are of getting out of this alive. Because you will, you know," she told him seriously.

"I know you must feel like hell, but the change in you has been miraculous. You're going to make it, no problem," she lied.

It looked like a tear forming in Hurt Guy's eye again.

"So when he comes tonight, you'll have to be very quiet. I'll feed you before he comes and that usually makes you sleepy, so with any luck you'll just sleep through it."

The reality of this man's situation was starting to panic her. There was something terribly wrong with the wounds on his right hand and she wondered if what she saw might not be a precursor to gangrene. And although she kept cleaning his wounds with witch hazel, one of them on his head was oozing horrible-looking stuff, and she knew he had needed something to fight off the infection some time ago.

Then she calmed herself, reminded herself that her grandfather and thousands of people like him had sustained injuries such as this in World War II and had survived. (She sorely wished, however, she could get over the feeling that people today, certainly kidnappers--no matter how polite or thoughtful--were not made of the same stuff as her grandfather's generation. ) "I'm going to start reading Small House at Allington to you again," she announced.

"I know you missed a lot of it last night, but you'll catch on." And she sat on the floor, leaned back against the bed and began to read to him.

She had the horrible feeling that Hurt Guy was dying.

"This one, this one!" Will cried, pointing with a shaky hand to a call listing on the computer screen.

4:09 p. m. Salt Springs, Pennsylvania. Resident next to park saw Dodge van midnight parking lot. Park closed. Heard voices. Thought kids, but heard male and female voices. Saw man help staggering

woman into back of van. Went to see if woman was okay, but van took off. Partial plate. New York M4E 8.

"That's right over the New York State border," Will said excitedly to Alexandra and Agent Cole.

"To get there from New York City, they probably took Route 17, and then back roads to Salt Springs."

"So?" Debbie asked.

"So get me the possible plates!" Will cried.

The agent took out her cellular phone and dialed. Then she held out her hand for the call sheet. To Alexandra she directed, "Call up that list of the electric- power people on your computer."

Hurt Guy slept for much of the afternoon. His fever was raging again and Jessica feared what would happen when the aspirin ran out, which, she figured, would be tomorrow morning. She spent most of the afternoon lying on the bed. She needed her rest; she needed to build up her strength. She also knew she needed to get the hell out of here and the only way was going to be through Leopold.

How to play it?

She'd have to kill him.

No way. She couldn't do that.

No, she'd have to tie him up somehow, overpower him and tie him up or lock him up somewhere. If she tried and failed. God only knew what he would do. But if she didn't try. Hurt Guy would surely die and so would she in the end. That twitching hand, skittering eye, turning-his-back thing was not good. She suspected he was going to become sexual very soon. Or try to be. And that she'd probably die resisting him. She had to find a way out of here.

They came bursting into Cassy's office where Cassy, Kunsa, Hepplewhite and Dr. Kessler were huddled.

"We've got him, we've got him, we've got him!" Alexandra cried, rushing in with Will and Wendy.

"It's one of two guys and they're both in upstate New York."

Kunsa's mouth dropped open and he looked to Agent Cole, who had piled into the room behind them.

"I think they have it," she acknowledged.

"Okay, envision this," Alexandra said, standing in the middle of the office.

"Our kidnapper grabs Jessica at Rockefeller Center and threatens her with the fake bomb to get her to go with him. He leads her through the underground passageways to come up by the Sixth Avenue entrance of the NEC building. Wearing Con Edison ponchos and hard hats and boots, they board a Con Edison truck and he drives her to the Twelfth Avenue lot. They leave the truck, he puts Jessica in the back of an unmarked Dodge van and drugs her. He drives up the Hudson River Parkway to cross either the George Washington Bridge or the Tappan Zee, and takes Route

17.

"The kidnapper exits somewhere around Bingham- ton and cuts down to Salt Springs Park, an isolated place where, he knows, in the darkness he can walk Jessica around a bit. The neighbors see the van and Jessica stumbling around and worry it might be some kind of sexual assault. Just in case, they try to get the license number. Yesterday morning they hear our appeal on the air about Jessica's kidnapping and they call in, not knowing if it could be of any help."

"We were missing two numbers from the plate," Will continued, "but we knew it was a New York combination plate--so it could travel on truck routes and car only roads. The computers spat out the possibilities and Dr. Kessler narrowed it down to the vans fitting the description and we came up with ten possible vans, all belonging to a fleet owned by the Niagara Power Project upstate. Then we ran a cross-check with our visitor and maintenance logs for West End and we got two hits with the Niagara Power Project--Mark Brewer/ forty- three, master electrician with Kraskow Development Corp."

"Kraskow Development Corp helped to build West End," Kunsa said.

"So he would have had access to the blueprints."

"Exactly."

"And the other?"

Alexandra's eyebrows went up.

"James T. Plattener, deputy commissioner of the department of energy for New York State."

Cassy had picked up the telephone and was dialing a number.

"Zat milquetoast?" Dr. Kessler burst out. Considering that many of Dr.

Kessler's best employees in the Nerd Brigade might fall under this loose categorization, this comment got everyone's attention.

"You know him?" Will said.

"Of course I know him," Dr. Kessler said.

"Ask Cassy. We have to deal with him on our power supply and he keeps trying to rescind our tax breaks."

Cassy said something into the telephone and then looked over.

"The city and state offered Darenbrook Communications a package of tax breaks for the first twenty-five years if they built the headquarters here in New York City. There were also guarantees about our power supply and the rate for that power. Every time there's a change in government, though, the new guys try to find loopholes to reinstate some of those taxes, and this year they've been on us about surpassing our power projections. I know Plattener too, and the idea that he's our" -She shook her head. And then she paled.

"You know--he was just here. The other day. At the sponsor tour."

"The day the marker holder was left in control room B," Hepplewhite said.

"Good God, Dirk was right," Cassy said.

"He was here that day."

"A milquetoast, would you say?" Agent Kunsa asked Cassy.

"How are his social skills?"

"Pathetic," Cassy said.

Kunsa looked at Debbie.

"He could be our man." To Alexandra, "What's his connection with Niagara Power?"

"He was the division head of the technology unit until he was tapped for the department of energy."

"So where are these guys?" Hepplewhite wanted to know.

"Brewer's in Niagara Falls, Plattener's got a house in Buffalo and an apartment in Albany."

"Get on the phone with Niagara Falls, Albany and Buffalo," Kunsa said to Agent Cole.

"Tell them we're on our way, but fill them in and tell them to keep surveillance on both of them until we get there."

"Jackson's plane is at your service," Cassy said.

"And I just checked.

You can get a lift to the airport from the helipad down the street. "

;

Promptly at seven, Leopold slid the bolt back on the j parlor door. | "Come in!" Jessica called. She was back at the card |

table, working on the puzzle, listening to Hootie and the Blowfish.

The door opened and there he was. Dressed in a suit and tie again, hair freshly washed and combed nicely, chin freshly shaved. She could see a bit of toilet paper stuck on his throat where he must have nicked himself.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," he said, averting his eyes. He held a large white bag forward.

"I brought Chinese."

"Oh, great," she said, standing up.

"I'm really hungry." She gestured to the dining table.

"I set the table for us."

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"I didn't have any fresh flowers so I took the liberty of using that bowl from the bedroom as a centerpiece."

"It looks very nice." He withdrew a short, round, solitary candle from his pocket. The kind one might use on an altar.

"Oh, that's great. I'll put it here," she said, placing it on the table.

He gave her matches, too.

"Are you hungry?" she asked him.

"Would you like to eat right now?"

He nodded, almost shyly.

"Then why don't you sit right down there and just let me go wash my hands. I'll be right back."

She made sure he was settled in a chair before she left. She opened the door to the bedroom, closed it behind her and went over to crouch by Hurt Guy's ear.