I believed her. I needed to.
The twenties and fifties that we culled from the night deposits were funneled through two Canon CR-180 scanners featuring optical character recognition software. When the process was complete, Harry would have two DVDs containing the images—front and back—and serial numbers of thirty-five thousand bills. This, I was told, is what they mean by “marking money.”
“What?” Harry told me. “Did you think we put a little blue dot on the top right-hand corner of each bill?”
I wondered aloud how the banks would be able to read the serial numbers off the bills when the kidnappers started to spend them. Harry rolled his eyes at me.
“They can’t,” he said. “Tracking actual bills is nearly impossible. Remember the Piper kidnapping in ’72?”
I told Harry that I was still eating Crayons in 1972.
“Virginia Piper was kidnapped from her stately manor in Orono,” Harry said. “When her husband came home, he found a tied-up house -keeper and a note demanding one million dollars.”
“It’s nice to see inflation hasn’t hit the kidnapping industry,” I said.
“Her husband was a retired investment banker. He dropped the ransom—all in twenties—behind a North Minneapolis bar. Those bills were marked, too. The next day they found Virginia Piper chained to a tree in Jay Cooke State Park up north.”
“Alive?”
“Yes, alive. But in all the years since the kidnapping, we’ve been able to recover only four thousand dollars of the ransom.”
I gestured at the machines. “What’s the point of all this, then?”
“The point is, when we do catch the kidnappers and find the ransom money on them, we can point and go, ‘Ahh-haa!’ ”
Which seemed like a reasonable plan to me. Except the scanners could only record 180 bills per minute. Our progress slowed to a crawl.
Neil Edward Starr read the time aloud. “Ten twenty-two P.M. You might not believe this,” he said, “but putting all this together in less than eight hours is kind of amazing.”
The currency had been divided among three Star Case 306 aluminum cases with combination locks. The cases were about eighteen inches long, twelve inches high, and six inches deep and were just big enough to contain all the bills: ten thousand fifties in one case and twelve thousand five hundred twenties in each of the other two. I figured the cases must have retailed for about a hundred bucks each, and I offered to pay for them. Starr wouldn’t think of it.
“All part of the service,” he said. “If you had opened a personal savings account, I would have thrown in a free toaster, too.”
I signed a receipt for the money and lifted one of the aluminum cases. As impressed as I had been by the actual bulk of the money, the weight caught me by surprise.
“Each bill weighs about one gram,” Starr said. “There are four hundred and fifty-four grams to a pound. You have thirty-five thousand bills. Do the math.”
“Seventy-seven pounds,” Harry said. He reached down and grasped the handle of the case containing the fifties. “I’ll take the light one.”
“We can lend you an armored truck to take you wherever you want to go,” Starr said.
“That might be just a little conspicuous,” Harry said.
“An armed escort, then.”
“Thank you, sir. We can take it from here.”
We loaded the aluminum cases into the trunk of Harry’s car while Harry retrieved his SIG Sauer.
“Will you let me know what happens with that little girl?” Starr said.
I told him I would.
“I don’t know if I told you, McKenzie, but I have a daughter, too.”
Harry and I lugged the aluminum cases into Bobby Dunston’s house. Bobby met us at the door, and I gave him one of the cases. He seemed as surprised by the weight as I had been. We carried them to the dining room table, set them on top.
“Open it,” I said.
“What’s the combination?”
“I set it for your wife’s birthday.”
I quickly opened my case and stepped back. Bobby was having trouble with his. “Zero six twenty-seven?” he asked.
“Zero six twenty-eight,” I said.
“Shelby was born on June twenty-seventh,” he told me.
“Honestly, McKenzie,” Shelby said. She was behind me and moving toward the table. “How long have we known each other?”
“At least I got the month right.”
All three cases were open, and Bobby, Honsa, and the tech agent joined Harry and me in admiring all that cash. Only Shelby seemed unimpressed.
“I thought there would be more,” she said. “I thought it would be bigger. It should be bigger.”
11
Once I delivered the money, I figured that my part in all of this would be over, that I’d be like Karen and H. B. and the president of my bank, all waiting for the final curtain, hoping someone would tell us how the play finally ended. Except Bobby asked me to stay close. And while Shelby didn’t actually say anything, the way she looked at me prompted my inner voice to repeat the words she spoke earlier—I need all my men to be strong. Honsa thought it was a good idea, too. “It’s possible that the kidnappers want more from you than just money,” he said. That’s why I was in the Dunston home early the next morning when Honsa’s cell phone rang.
“Godammit!” Honsa said. His reassuring smile disappeared. “Godammit. Where the hell did you get your training? The goddamned CIA?”
His outburst caused both Shelby and Bobby to rise from their chairs at the dining room table. They reached for each other the way a tired swimmer reaches for the ladder at the end of a pool.
“I apologize,” Honsa said. “That was inappropriate.”
“What happened?” Bobby asked.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds.”
“What happened?”
“Our agents lost Scottie Thomforde.”
“Butterfingers,” I said.
“Our agents had watched Thomforde catch the bus on University Avenue and head for work,” Honsa said. “When he didn’t get off at his regular stop, the agents followed the bus all the way into Minneapolis. When he still didn’t disembark, the agents boarded the bus. Thomforde wasn’t on it.”
“Which means he got off the bus and your agents didn’t see him,” Bobby said. “Which means your agents are incompetent or somehow Scottie managed a disguise.” Honsa nodded helplessly. “Which means he knew we were watching.”
“Not necessarily.”
Bobby cut loose with a long list of profanities interspersed with several personal epithets that he never, ever would have allowed his daughters to use. Honsa, to his credit, just stood there and took it. While Bobby vented, Shelby’s entire body sagged. She closed her eyes and gripped the edge of the dining room table as if she were trying to keep from falling. Harry interrupted Bobby’s tirade.
“Mrs. Dunston?” he said. “Shelby?”
She opened her eyes and searched his face, looking for something, anything, that she might hold on to besides the furniture.
“This is a good thing,” Harry said.
Bobby wanted to know, “How do you figure?”
“He’ll call us now.”
You wouldn’t think that hearing from the man that kidnapped your twelve-year-old daughter would be a cause for celebration, but from the expression on Bobby’s face when the phone rang, I was sure he was ready to break out the champagne. Shelby not only stopped trembling, she began looking around her as if she were thinking she should pick up the house, maybe display the good china. I felt relieved myself, although the feeling didn’t last long.
“Yes,” Bobby said into the phone.
“You got the money,” the electronically altered voice said. It wasn’t a question. He spoke as if it were a confirmed fact.
“I have it.”
“See, that didn’t take long, did it? Now listen carefully. What I want you to do—”
“I’m not going to do anything until
I have proof that Victoria is alive.”
Bobby and Honsa had discussed this moment at length, even engaged in some role-playing to make sure Bobby was comfortable with what he was demanding. Only it was apparent that the kidnapper had not planned that far ahead. He hemmed and hawed and tripped over his tongue.
“Proof of life,” Bobby said. “I need to know my daughter’s alive.” Not want, need. “I want to hear her voice.” Not need, want. Bobby and Honsa had agreed they would negotiate this point, maybe have the kidnappers ask Victoria a question only she could answer. The voice on the phone didn’t recognize the nuances.
“I’m giving the orders here,” it said.
“You want the money. I want to hear my daughter’s voice. I want proof that she’s alive. You don’t get dollar one until I know that she’s alive.”
“I’m giving the orders,” the voice repeated.
“You want the money. It’s sitting right here waiting for you. Three nice, shiny suitcases full of cash. But first I’m going to speak to my daughter.”
“Fuck you. Bobby. You’re gonna—”
Bobby hung up the phone. We all stood motionless, watching him. No one spoke. I couldn’t testify that any of us were even breathing. I had never heard silence so loud. A few moments passed. It could have been hours. Finally the phone rang again. Bobby waited until the third ring before answering. “Yes?”
“Who the fuck do you—?”
Bobby hung up again.
Honsa winced and turned his back so no one could see his expression. I don’t think he and Bobby had rehearsed this part.
Bobby sank slowly into a chair. He gripped the arms tightly and lowered his head until his chin was touching his chest. “Oh God, oh God,” he muttered. “What have I done?” Shelby knelt next to the chair. She wrapped one arm around Bobby’s legs and lowered her head into his lap. Bobby released the chair and draped his arms around her.
“He’ll call back,” I said to no one in par tic u lar. Maybe I was talking to myself.
“Of course he will,” Honsa said.
Einstein once said that an hour spent holding a pretty girl’s hand at a party might seem like only a moment, while a moment spent touching a hot stove might seem like an hour—that’s relativity. For the next ten minutes, we were all sitting on a stove. It was very hot and it was very painful and I, for one, wondered how we got there and how we would get off.
And then the phone rang.
And Bobby answered it.
And Victoria Dunston’s voice said, “Daddy?”
Bobby lost it for the first time. “Oh, Vic, Vic,” he said, his voice choking on the words.
“I’m not afraid,” Victoria said. “I told them I’m not afraid. I told them that they’re the ones should be afraid when you come for them.”
We could hear the kidnapper wresting the phone from Victoria’s hand. “Yada yada, yada. Is McKenzie there?”
“No,” Bobby said.
“Get ’im.”
“Why?”
“Cuz we don’t want no fuckin’ irate father playin’ Superman for his kid, that’s why. You got ten minutes.”
Honsa turned to the tech agent. “Anything?” he asked.
“We only have a general location. It looks like the Badlands again.”
Honsa nodded, and the tech agent was quickly on his feet. “What should I do?” he asked.
“McKenzie,” Honsa said. “Do you have an onboard navigation system in your car?”
“Yes, but I never use it.”
“Give me your keys,” the tech agent said.
“My keys?”
“Hurry.”
I tossed him my car keys and asked, “What’s going on?” as he hurried out the front door.
“The navigation system has a GPS component,” Honsa said. “If it’s sensitive enough, we can use it to track your whereabouts to within fifteen to twenty meters.”
“My whereabouts?”
“It looks like you’ll be delivering the ransom.”
“I’ll deliver the ransom,” Bobby declared.
“You heard him on the phone. There’s a good possibility that the kidnapper won’t allow it,” Honsa told him. “He’s afraid of you.”
“He should be.”
“We don’t want him afraid, Lieutenant. We want him as calm as he can be. If he asks for McKenzie, we’re going to give him McKenzie.”
“It’s my daughter.”
“It’s not our decision to make,” Honsa said. “It’s Thomforde’s.”
“It’s my daughter.”
“I know.”
I knew, too. This was Bobby’s job, Bobby’s place. He must have thought I was usurping his position in his own family. Only it wasn’t my idea. None of this was my idea.
“It’s all right with me if you deliver the money,” I said. “You can use my car.”
“Your car,” said Honsa. “That’s another thing. Your navigation system has a dashboard microphone that allows you to talk to your computer, that allows you to contact emergency personnel in case of an accident. It works like a cell phone.”
“So?”
“We’re going to activate the microphone and reroute the signal to our own receivers so we can hear everything that’s said in the car.”
“Talk to us, McKenzie,” Harry said. “You won’t hear us, but we’ll hear you.”
“It’s my daughter,” Bobby repeated. “It’s my job.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Lieutenant,” Honsa said. “Thomforde is calling the tune now.”
“And we’re all going to dance to it?”
“Yes.” Honsa nodded his head emphatically. “Yes, we are. Until it’s time for us to call the tune. Then we’ll make him dance.”
A moment later, the tech agent returned. He was carrying a softsided toolbox. “The car’s ready,” he said. He hefted the box onto the dining room table. He was looking at Honsa when he asked, “Who gets it?”
Honsa was staring directly into Bobby’s eyes when he said, “McKenzie,” and then, “I’m sorry.”
Bobby nodded.
“Take off your shirt,” the tech agent told me.
“Why?”
The tech agent held up an audio transmitter that was about the size of a wallet with a small whip antenna. “It’s a five-watt body wire. Has a line-of-sight range of about three miles.”
“Thomforde will be looking for a tail,” Harry said. “This will allow us to run surveillance teams parallel to your location. Just tell us where you’re going. We’ll be close enough to intervene if necessary, yet far enough away to avoid detection.”
“I thought you rigged my car for that.”
“We are big believers in redundancy at the FBI,” the tech agent said.
“Besides, there’s no guarantee that Thomforde will let you stay with your car,” Harry said.
The tech agent fixed the transmitter to my chest using white surgical tape.
“This is going to hurt coming off,” I said.
“Let’s step into the bathroom,” he said.
That’s something a guy has never said to me before. “I’m not sure I know you that well, Agent,” I said.
The tech agent held up a sturdy plastic box about the size of a pack of cigarettes. “Real-time GPS transmitter, in case you leave your car, like we said. This one we’ll put between your legs.”
“Is that wise?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, McKenzie,” Harry told me. “It’s waterproof.”
When I returned, Harry was hiding a second GPS transmitter under packets of twenty-dollar bills in one of the aluminum cases. “You never know,” he said.
“We’ll also be able to track you using your cell,” Honsa said. As he said it, the tech agent motioned for my phone. I gave it to him.
“Looks like you’ve thought of everything,” I said.
“We’ll have several teams of agents following you,” Honsa said. “Don’t look for them. They’ll know where you are. Also, our SWAT team, as
well as the St. Paul Police Department’s SWAT team, has been alerted. Listen to me, McKenzie. Are you listening?”
I took my cell from the tech agent and dropped it into the pocket of my sports coat. “I’m listening,” I said.
“Don’t screw around. Don’t be a hero. You get Victoria. You get out. Bring her back here. We’ll take care of the rest.”
“What if they pull something like they did with Virginia Piper? What if they demand that we drop the ransom behind a bar somewhere in exchange for telling us what tree she’s chained to?”
Honsa and Bobby traded glances. Apparently they had already made a decision concerning that possibility.
“We’ll deal with that when they call back,” Honsa said.
“Anything else?” I said.
“I don’t know how to say it but to say it.”
“Go ’head.”
“The girl is everything. Her safety is paramount. It’s essential. You must not do anything that jeopardizes it.”
“I won’t.”
“Whatever Thomforde tells you to do, you do. No arguments. No discussion. If he tells you to jump in a lake, you jump. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“The money is expendable, and so, I’m afraid, are you.”
“Yes.”
“It’s a lousy situation.”
“Tell me about it.”
The phone rang. Bobby waited until the FBI was ready before answering it. “Yes,” he said.
“Is McKenzie there?” the mechanically disguised voice said.
“Yes, but you need to understand something first.”
“I need to understand something? You need to understand, I ain’t takin’ no more fucking orders from you.”
Bobby continued speaking in a flat voice as if the kidnapper had never said a word. “This is going to be a straight-up exchange. Victoria for the money.”
“You put the money where I tell ya to put it. Then I’ll—”
“That’s unacceptable.”
“Unacceptable?”
“You want the money. One million dollars in untraceable twenties and fifties. It’s waiting here for you. All of it. Give me Victoria and I’ll give you the money. One million dollars.”
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