Charlie said, “Five guards caught up with Santi on their four-wheelers, but we took care of them. Only one guard had to be subdued, and he was hurt a little.”
“A little?” asked Jonathan.
“Well, perhaps more than a little, but he will be fine in a couple of weeks,” said Charlie.
“…or months,” I added.
The first call
We arrived at Jonathan’s home forty minutes after leaving the hotel and one hour after delivering the envelope to Rupert Pattinson.
It was 10:10 a.m., time to call.
Terry had been quiet in the basement. I hoped his ordeal would soon be over and that his father would agree to the trade.
Miranda gave us a clean disposable phone, and Jonathan called Pattinson.
Pattinson answered the phone after the first ring. He said, “Hello.”
Jonathan responded, “You know who I am and why I am calling?”
“Yes,” answered Pattinson.
“We don’t want to start delivering Terry’s body parts to you, but we will if you don’t agree to trade the girls for your son.”
Rupert said in a controlled voice, “Do you have any idea what you’re getting yourself into?”
Jonathan interrupted. “Please Rupert, don’t be stupid. Of course we know what we are getting ourselves into. We are the same group that has already taken care of Nicanor Toro, Nancy Smith, and Alexander Coombs.
“Of course we know whom we are going up against; otherwise, we would not be talking right now. So please don’t waste our time and don’t make us waste the life of your son.”
“Well, if you know who you’re going up against, then you know that my options are limited. I cannot let the girls go. They are part of a bigger scheme, an unmovable scheme.
“You have to understand, this is just business. It is nothing personal,” said Pattinson.
“It is personal to us, you arrogant prick! And now we have made it personal for you too,” answered Jonathan.
“Rupert, we know what can be done. We know that you’re the man in charge. We also know that nothing much will happen if you deliver fewer girls to be auctioned. It will just be one small slip-up in your otherwise impeccable record. That is all. You and I know that nothing much of consequence will happen if you deliver five girls instead of ten.
“Anyway, I don’t care one way or the other. Either we have the girls today, or you will never see your son again. It is as simple as that.
“The sooner that you make the exchange, Rupert, the less suffering your son will have to endure.
“We will call you back in one hour, and I hope for your son’s sake that you will have a positive response.”
“I need more than an hour. At least four hours.”
“Rupert, don’t make me waste my time. You have one hour.” Jonathan hung up the phone.
I looked at Jonathan and asked him, “Could you please tell us what you know and what you think of Rupert Pattinson? We need to figure him out. We need to get into his head.”
The fixer
Rupert Pattinson thought of himself as a true American patriot. He considered himself better than the rest of the world and the majority of the American people. He believed that wealth and privileges were predestined to be his as a member of the ruling class.
His family had lived in Massachusetts since the eighteenth century. His surname came from the north of England. It had its own coat of arms and was among the most distinguished surnames. Pat was the patronymic form of the abbreviated form of Patrick, from the Latin “Patricius,” meaning patrician, or “son of a noble father”—a member of the patrician class, the Roman hereditary aristocracy. Patrick was chiefly used in Ireland and Scotland but was widespread in the north of England from the twelfth century, giving rise to a number of surnames including Patrickson, Paton, Patten, Patti(n)son and Pat(t)erson.
From very early on, the Pattinsons were active in trade and finance in the Boston area. The family had chosen wisely during the American Revolutionary War and financed the insurgents, while most of the other banks shared the fate of those backing the losing side.
After the republic was established, Pattinson Bank helped the American colonies achieve financial independence. The bank became synonymous with Boston and Massachusetts. His grandfather’s bank was family owned and stayed within the family for generations.
His father took control of the bank a couple years before his grandfather’s passing.
Ten years later, a group of Jewish bankers from New York bought the shares from the family members right out from underneath him. The governing board ousted him in a bold maneuver. None of his family members would look him in the eye.
He had been blindsided.
That evening, his father came home and into his studio. He lit a cigar, filled a goblet with cognac, and went up to Rupert’s room.
Rupert had always been afraid of his father. When his father walked into his room, he faked that he was asleep.
The cigar and cognac smell were enticing.
His father sat down on his bed next to him and said, “Son, I have to leave you, not because I want to, but because I want you to have a good life. If I stay around, you and your mother will end up with nothing.” He just sat there for a moment and then bent over, and for the first and last time in his life, he kissed Rupert lovingly on his forehead.
He still regretted not opening his eyes or embracing his father in that moment. He didn’t know what he could have said. He probably wouldn’t have changed his father’s mind, but at least he could have tried. He regretted that he didn’t try.
Then his father went down to the studio and blew his brains out.
Standing next to his father’s open grave a few days later, he promised himself that he would never be afraid again.
His father had been right. The takeover of the bank had left Rupert Pattinson and his mother penniless except for the two properties: their house in Boston and the one in Cape Cod.
The sale of those properties kept Rupert and his mother going, albeit not in the style that they were accustomed to. However, with wise investments and living frugally, there was enough money to allow Rupert to attend private schools and then Harvard University.
After finishing his MA in foreign studies at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard, he took a job at the State Department. The end of the Cold War had opened new opportunities for young and educated professionals who could adapt to the new world conditions, including the end of socialism and globalization.
He took on his responsibilities with a newfound passion. He was soon noticed by the higher-ups, who gave him the opportunity to take on new responsibilities and challenges.
Two years after Rupert had started working at the State Department, one of his mentors invited him to his weekend house. There he met six of the most influential men in politics, industry, and finance in America.
After a pleasant day of skeet shooting and a fascinating dinner conversation about the future of international organizations, he was invited to the library for cigars and brandy. They seated him in the middle of the room facing his host and new friends.
He was surprised and felt blindsided.
They told him that he had been under observation for two years, that they admired his work ethic, dedication, and devotion to the United States of America. They voiced their concerns about the real issues and challenges confronting the United States. They told him that America had to stay under the control of real Americans. However, because of the drug trade, organized crime, and foreign threats, the country was facing very serious challenges from within as well as from outside its borders. The internal problems created windows of opportunities for outside interests, minorities, the Russian and Mexican cartels, the Italian mafia, and foreign terrorists bent on the destruction of the United States.
They could not allow that to happen.
A group of true American patriots had formed a secret group called the Corporation in order to deal
with these issues and confront those challenges in the most effective of ways, even if those ways fell outside the established institutional channels.
They offered him a job in the Corporation.
He could not believe his own ears. These people were his heroes. All of them came from good, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, full-blooded American families. He had always aspired to be just like them. Being offered a job with them was a dream come true.
He accepted the offer.
The following Monday, he went to the State Department and presented his letter of resignation. He was offered a promotion and a higher salary, which he graciously declined. After working the traditional one-month resignation period, he left without regrets.
He was appointed general manager of the Mount Vernon Hotel. However, his key responsibility was to organize the secret meetings of the group, especially the annual meeting where crucial issues were discussed and key policy decisions taken.
After six months of working in his new job, he was informed that he had to look the part of a solid family man.
He needed a wife.
He took this as a work-related problem and, with cold-blooded efficiency, he went out searching for the right candidate.
He found her in Boston, the daughter of a good Protestant American family who had fallen on hard times. She had studied at acceptable middle class private schools and had a bachelor of arts degree from Wellesley College.
She was right for him.
She was not pretty, but she had a fine aristocratic bloodline. She was distinguished looking and properly educated. Four months after their initial contact, they were married at Boston Cathedral. The wedding made it to the socialite pages. Members of the most respectable families on the East Coast attended the wedding. None of his relatives who were involved in his father’s ouster were invited.
The marriage was one of convenience, not of love. However, for the sake of appearances, they had to have children. His first offspring was a fine, healthy girl. Four years later, he had a boy, who, as he grew up, realized that he was homosexual.
His daughter was another matter altogether. She was strong willed, athletic, and fine looking. She was more like the kind of son he would have wanted to have. He could talk to her, reason with her, and plan with her. His conversations with her were rational. However, his communications with his son were always difficult and emotional.
His problem, which he kept to himself, was that he had a weak spot for his son. He loved him to distraction, in an unexplainable manner. His son represented everything he detested in American society: gay, sickly, into drugs and tattoos. However, he could not help it. He would give in to his son every time, all of the time. He could not confront him or force him to change his lifestyle. He actually pampered his son. He was not proud of his son; in fact, he felt a little ashamed of him, but he couldn’t help loving him dearly.
***
During the first annual meeting of the Corporation for which he was responsible, two of the senior members of the Corporation ended up in a dangerous situation with some call girls. They had drunk to excess and assaulted the prostitutes, killing one and severely injuring the other. Rupert made the problem disappear.
The next year, a similar situation occurred with one of the hotel’s cleaning maids. He took care of the problem in a discreet and efficient manner.
He quickly became known as an effective problem solver. If any of the senior members needed a problem to go away, they would call Rupert. He always delivered.
After these two incidents, he knew he had to devise a less risky solution to the needs of his associates. He understood that the founding fathers of the Corporation were not like other men. They needed means of relaxation and distraction on the same order of magnitude as the great responsibilities they carried on their shoulders.
He knew that normal moral, ethical, and legal standards did not apply to these true Americans.
At his third annual meeting, he sent a personal dinner invitation to those members who had been in trouble in the past. During the private dinner, he explained to them that he had formed the DC Companionship Forum. The name was meant as a joke, but it took hold. He told them that he had a surprise for them after the dinner.
Two beautiful eighteen-year-old girls were auctioned. He explained that nobody would be looking for these girls, so they could express their sexual fantasies without fear of exposure. They would be bidding against one another. The purpose was not to raise money, but to allow them a momentary escape from the demands of their work and responsibilities as American leaders. The money paid for the girls would then be used to cover the costs of the future procurement of untraceable girls. The first two girls were Swedish au pairs who had been kidnapped in New York.
The auction was an immediate success.
He did not have any moral qualms or guilty feelings about the girls. He considered them merely a means to an end—the natural cost of achieving a higher purpose and acceptable collateral damage for the good of the greatest nation on Earth.
The next year, he auctioned three foreign girls he had managed to secure through his contacts in California. The auction was a major success. Additional members of the Corporation had been discreetly informed, and every year, there were more auction participants.
Rupert needed to devise a formal mechanism.
At his fourth annual meeting, he brought up the subject of the auctions. He told the members that the Companionship Forum needed a reliable mechanism to ensure continuity with security and discretion.
He unveiled his plan. The man responsible for Latin American operations would be charged with finding the right kind of girls for the auctions through his Latin American contacts. He proposed that they should start with five girls, none of whom would be American. In addition, for security reasons, none of the girls would be nationals of the country where they were abducted.
Years later, as the membership to the DC Forum expanded to include some European and Asian countries, the number of girls to be auctioned was raised to ten, with the man in charge of European operations responsible for getting three girls and his Asian counterpart for two.
The DC Companionship Forum had been working fine for several years—until now.
***
Rupert Pattinson was proud to be part of the Corporation. Even though he was not privy to the group’s deliberations and policy decisions, he knew that he made the proceedings possible through his efficient organization. He also knew that the United States would be a very different country if it had not been for the sacrifices and difficult choices that this group of true American patriots had been making year after year for more than forty years.
He was a very wealthy man. After each successful annual meeting, he was given a success fee in the form of shares in the Mount Vernon Hotel.
He was now the largest shareholder, controlling 30 percent of the hotel’s stock. One day he would have more than 50 percent of the shares.
Rupert had felt himself untouchable. However, recent events proved that his was a false sense of security.
The hotel was guarded 24-7. All the guards were ex-military or ex-policemen. None of the guards were African American, Hispanic, or Jewish. All of them were white American. Not all were Protestants; some were Catholics of Polish and Irish descent.
The breech of hotel security in which a complete stranger had gotten close enough to him to deliver an envelope was unacceptable. He could have been shot, or a bomb could have been placed in the hotel, murdering some of the most influential people in the world.
Of course, the guard and the dining room director were to blame. The guard should have never let the intruder enter, and the director should never have hired an unverified worker. The guard was now in a hospital in Intensive Care for the severe beating that he had suffered at the hands of the perpetrator, and the director was now at home without a job.
Nevertheless, not all of the blame could be placed on them. A significant part was his, and his alo
ne. He knew that no place is 100 percent secure 100 percent of the time. The only way to minimize the possibility of a breach of the hotel’s security system was to constantly be aware of potential threats and put in place measures to prevent them. He had gotten careless and less vigilant after more than thirty years of managing the hotel without having to deal with a credible threat.
He had been blindsided.
How should he deal with the problem? It was obviously not going to go away on its own.
He could not go to anybody else with the issue. People came to him for solutions to their difficulties. He did not go to others for resolutions to his problems.
He had three alternatives.
The first alternative was to inform the Corporation’s top echelon and let them decide the best course of action. He didn’t like this option because he knew that the kidnappers would never give in. They would sacrifice his son without a second’s hesitation. It would also reflect badly on him that something like this could have happened on his watch. All of his decisions from now on would be severely scrutinized. He could also be dismissed and disposed of. He could not accept that.
The second alternative was to go after the kidnappers. The risk of this option was that eventually, there would be a leak along the chain of command, and senior Corporation members would be informed. And even if he could contain the information leakage, it would be impossible to find his son’s kidnappers in time. The hotel staff who had seen the waiter and the other two men who had aided him had no clues or solid information that would help him find the perpetrators in time.
The third alternative was to give in, to trade the girls for his son and keep it quiet. He could try to get some replacement girls from one of the tourist areas near Washington, or simply deliver five girls and blame the shortage on tropical storm Manuel and Alexander Coombs, which was true. The complete Latin American cell had to be reconstituted. It was the arrogance and stupidity of Coombs that had placed him and the Corporation in this mess. He could also try to negotiate with his son’s kidnappers and give back only the Canadian or only the Russian girls but not the five of them. He could also go looking for the kidnappers after he had recovered Terry, take the girls back, and dispose of them.
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