He wondered if GeoGlobal would deposit the money or if they’d do what they usually did and call in a K and R guy. The insurance companies never wanted to pay off on these big policies. And if they did get involved, that meant more communications and more delays. He pulled off his shirt and decided to take a short sponge bath without a sponge. He used part of the only towel in the bathroom and used the rest to try and dry himself off.
Suddenly he heard Eyeshade shouting for Rafael. He dragged the chain back into the bedroom and listened as they jabbered back and forth in Spanish. He easily translated the exchange.
“Hey, Rafael, get in here. We’ve got an answer,” Eyeshade commanded. “It comes not from the first guy, the guy I contacted. This is from another guy. He says he represents the company and wants to get more information.”
“What kind of information? Will they pay? What does he say?” Rafael asked.
Tripp could see through the door that the sidekick was rushing in from the outside, carrying a six-pack of beer that he shoved into the small refrigerator behind the kitchen counter and then pulled up a chair.
Eyeshade was staring down at the small device and read the message again. “Says here that he is negotiating for the company, and he wants to know how we intend to release Mr. Adams.”
“Release him?” Rafael said with a laugh. “We don’t need to release him at all. We just want the money. Once we have it, who cares what happens to that jerk?”
Eyeshade looked over at Rafael. “How long have you been in this business? They always want to know that they’re going to get their people back or else they’re not going to pay. What kind of idiot are you anyway?”
Rafael looked slightly chagrined. “So we give him back. No big deal. He’d never be able to ID us anyway. We’d leave this place and take off. So I guess we can wait and decide what to do with him later.”
“That’s right. That’s what we’re going to do. But now I’m going to send back another message.”
“What are you going to say this time?” Rafael asked.
“I’m going to tell them they have a deadline to get that money to the Caymans. And since they want to negotiate, we’ll negotiate. We’ll negotiate a higher price. Now, it’s fifteen million, and we want it in three days.”
“But it’s the weekend coming up and then there’s Christmas. Do you think they can get it together with the weekend and a holiday? You know how Americans are with their time off.”
Eyeshade swore and turned to face Rafael. “I don’t care if it’s Christmas or Easter or any other time. I want my money, and I want it fast.” He thought for a moment and added, “Three days or maybe we have to get rid of him just the way we got rid of the brother.” He turned his back and started punching in another text.
CHAPTER FORTY
WASHINGTON, D.C.–FRIDAY MID-DAY
Samantha sat on a bench in Lafayette Park across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. She had taken a lunch break, had to make a phone call and didn’t want to do it from her office. She shivered as she pulled her coat tighter around her. The sun was out but it was one of those clear, cold days where the slightest breeze made you want to put on a pair of woolies. She didn’t have any woolies. At least she was wearing a pair of black slacks and a sweater under her coat. She had left her blazer in the office. It felt too bulky to wear under the coat anyway. Besides, she didn’t think she’d be out here that long.
She pulled a pad of paper out of her purse and read the notes she had made last night when she had researched Greyfield, the outfit Tripp had worked for before being recruited by GeoGlobal. The contractor had offices all over the world, and she wasn’t sure where to start looking for Joe Campiello.
Now in spite of shivering as another gust of wind blew through the park, she was determined to make as many calls as it took to track him down. She was pretty sure that was the name of the guy Tripp had talked about so much, his buddy with this private contractor, the one who had “saved his ass” and vice versa many times.
She dialed a number at their home office and was referred to Human Resources and then to a field office in Virginia, near Norfolk. Maybe they have contracts with the Navy, she thought as she dialed yet another number. If he’s in the states, I’m really in luck. After three more tries with three different offices and administrative assistants, she finally got through to what she hoped was the right office.
“Yes, Samantha Reid. That’s right. I’m trying to reach Mr. Campiello. Could you simply tell him that I’m a friend of Tripp Adams … Yes, Mr. Adams used to work for your company a few years ago … Yes, I’ll hold.” She glanced at her watch and held her breath. Finally, she heard a click.
“Campiello here.”
“Joe? Joe Campiello?” she asked breathlessly.
“You got him. Who’s this? They said Samantha Reid. Do I know you?”
“No, you don’t, but I’m a friend of Tripp Adams.”
“Tripp? God damn! How do you know my buddy Tripp?” Joe asked.
“I work here in Washington, D.C., and Tripp was recently transferred here to head up the GeoGlobal office.”
“Yeah, I knew he was with that company. Wait a minute. I read they’ve been having big problems with their pipelines. Explosions, sabotage, whatever. So is he involved in that whole disaster?”
Samantha took a deep breath and told him the story. She explained how she worked at the White House and met Tripp when the lines were first attacked. She went on to tell him about the kidnapping, how they were trying to keep it quiet, and how she had been pressing every agency she could to get some help. She also said that so far they had come up empty handed. She added that White House policy precluded paying off kidnappers because other Americans could meet the same fate all over the world.
Samantha said she had a friend at the Agency who was using his contacts to try and figure out where Tripp could be, but she hadn’t heard anything from him either. “So, I got to thinking about you and Greyfield, she said. “I wanted to contact you to see if there might be something you could do.”
“Wait a minute,” Joe said. “Tripp’s been kidnapped by some bunch down in Venezuela that’s now asking for a hefty ransom. And you want Greyfield to get involved? I would do anything to get him back. The guy saved my life, you know. We go way back. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m just trying to get a line on exactly what you have in mind here. Is this something the White House is going to contract for? You said they don’t pay ransoms, but still … I can’t quite see their hiring us. If you were calling from the Agency or the Pentagon or even from GeoGlobal, I could see that, but not the White House.”
“Well, no, I don’t mean that the White House would be behind this kind of operation for a civilian. But I have other options.” Her mind was racing. Other options, what in the world was she saying? She didn’t have any other options. Not yet anyway. Maybe she could figure out a few though. “What I mean is, well, first before we get to details, just tell me this. Would it be conceivable that some of your people could possibly mount a rescue operation? I mean, would you have any way to look for Tripp? Find him? Rescue him?”
Joe thought for a long moment. “So let me get this straight. You’re saying that you, or somebody, wants us to put together a rescue operation down in Venezuela. Is that right?”
“Well, yes. Do you think you could do it?”
“I’d do it myself if I could and if I had a clue where he is. But I know I couldn’t pull off an operation alone. And besides, nobody knows where he is, do they?”
“Not yet. No. But GeoGlobal has been exchanging emails as I explained … about the ransom money. They even have this insurance negotiator trying to send messages. But I just heard from GeoGlobal that the last time he did that, the kidnappers got so mad they upped the ransom and put a deadline on it for three days. That’s Monday,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Let me think about this,” Joe said. “GeoGlobal is balking at paying what? Fifteen million? That’s a bunch of horse
shit. They spill more than that over coffee.”
“I know. You’re right.”
“As for us, I do work for a company that could probably mount some sort of operation … we do have teams in South America. We’ve done a lot work down there.”
“You have?” Samantha’s tone brightened. “Then you think you might be able to do something?”
“Trouble is, I work for a private contractor. If I had to put a team together, and I would need a whole team for an operation like this, the company would want to be paid. And I doubt if you have that kind of dough. Right?”
Samantha leaned back against the cold bench and thought of a scheme. “Tell you what. I do have an idea of how we might be able to put a plan together. What if I got GeoGlobal to pay your fee? It wouldn’t be as high as fifteen million, would it?”
“Nope. Probably closer to a million or two, depending on the time involved, the number of guys I’d use, the expenses and all.”
“So they would pay you instead of the ransom. Look, Joe, I’m going to work on this. We don’t have much time, but we do know how to communicate with that gang through Tripp’s cell. We know they have it. So we can send them texts. That’s one in our favor.”
“And if we put this deal together I already have a few ideas about how it could go down.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Let me put some stuff together, talk to some people. You talk to GeoGlobal. See what you can pull off.”
“Could you go to Caracas yourself and head this up?”
“I think so. I’m finishing up a project here in Norfolk, but if we get a contract, I could be on the next plane.”
And so could I.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
EL AVILA–SUNDAY MORNING
“Why do the stations have to show speeches by el presidente all the time?” Rafael asked, switching channels on the TV. “They all have the same speech from some stupid church.”
“So? It’s Sunday. He’s probably trying to get votes from the religious types with the election coming up in a few weeks.” Eyeshade peered at the screen. “Hey, I know that place. My mother used to make me go there when I was a kid. It’s that Santa Catarina church just outside the city. I wonder why he went way over there?”
“Beats me,” Rafael said. “All he does is talk about how he’s going to get more food for everybody. How can he do that when the price of bread is so high now? I had to pay three times as much for the sandwiches than I had to pay last time we were up here.”
“Yeah. That’s why we need the ransom money. To start over somewhere else.”
“Maybe we’ll go to Trinidad and Tobago. They’ve got good beaches, no?”
“Let’s just get the money before we spend it,” Eyeshade said as he reached for the cell. “Here we go again.”
“Another message?”
“Yeah.”
“What do they want now?”
“It’s from that same guy who says he’s representing the company.”
“Why can’t the company people contact us directly? They’re the ones who have all the money,” Rafael asked.
“Maybe. Maybe not. This guy says something about insurance, and he says that he’s working on arranging the ransom.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah, but he now says that because of the Christmas Holiday, he needs a few more days to get it all together, get it transferred to the bank.”
“A few more days,” Rafael said, pacing across the tile floor. He reached inside the small ice box for a beer, popped the top and took a swig. “I don’t like it. They’re just stalling. Maybe we should give them a little incentive.”
“Incentive?” Eyeshade asked. “What incentive?”
“I already planned something that would get their attention. And now, we might need it.”
Tripp listened intently to the exchange in the other room as the TV droned in the background. So the company was vying for time. At least it sounded like they were working some angle. He prayed they were working out some way to get him out of this hell hole, and it would just take more time.
Sitting on the bed, he wiped his brow. The temperature had soared. With the sun beating down on what he figured was some sort of tin roof, the dusty casita was stifling. He regularly plodded over to the bathroom for water, but even that was warm and usually some kind of a rust color. His stomach was rumbling. They did give him some bread and coffee in the mornings, then it was a plate of beans at night. Much more of this routine and his guts were going to flame out.
Between rants by Rafael, he heard the speech by el presidente about the food supply. That just made him all the more hungry for a piece of fruit, a vegetable maybe. Anything but bread and beans. Then he noticed that the replay of a game came on after the president’s speech. The commentators were talking about how one of the players had racked up his leg.
Tripp looked down at the chain wrapped around his own leg. Even though he had tried to hold it up, it had begun to chafe from all of the times he had dragged it to the bathroom. The skin was blistered and broken in several places. He had taken off his undershirt and tried to wedge it in between his ankle and the chain, but it wasn’t working very well.
So tough it out. You’ve seen worse. He kept telling himself that he’d been in much worse physical shape during some of his exploits with Joe Campiello at Greyfield. But back then, they’d always had an exit strategy. Now, glancing around the dingy room, he wondered if there really would be an end game to this one.
Rafael and Eyeshade were out there drinking beer. At least they weren’t shouting at each other. He heard the TV announcer come back on with a bulletin. “And now we see that el presidente has returned to the church of Santa Catarina. He appears ready to address the second service of the day.”
Oh great. Now we get to hear about his grandiose plans for this socialist paradise all over again.
Tripp lay back down on the bed, put his arms behind his head and did the only thing that had kept him sane for the past week. He dreamed about Samantha.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
SILVER SPRING MARYLAND–CHRISTMAS EVE
“Are you insane?” Angela said as she huddled with Samantha in the small den off the living room of her parents’ home.
“You have to promise me you won’t tell a soul,” Samantha said, almost in a whisper.
“Don’t you know that Greg will find out, you could be fired, or worse yet, you could be kidnapped yourself? This is positively the craziest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. It’s just that I feel I have to do something to get him back. Nobody else is doing anything.”
“What do you mean? You said yourself that the company has some negotiator working it, contacting the kidnappers, dealing with deadlines and all of that. And you think you’re going to go and get into the middle of it all? I’m sorry, my friend, but this time I really think you’ve lost it.”
Samantha sighed and leaned in closer. “But I have to get involved. You know our government isn’t in a position to rescue our people. Well, not usually unless they’re military or something. And yes, okay, GeoGlobal is working on it. But whoever this negotiator guy is, he seems to be screwing everything up. He contacts them, and all they do is raise the price of the ransom. They sound like they’re getting edgy. At least that’s what Godfrey told me the last time we talked.”
“So you went and found this Campiello guy and you think he’s going to mount some Jason-Bourne-to-the-rescue kind of operation? You think Greyfield is going to stick their necks out and figure out a way to find Tripp somewhere in an entire country in South America and bring him out? Alive? And you’re going to go down there and arrange their rescue fee?” She shook her head. “I know I’m repeating myself, but this is the most unheard of thing I ever heard of.”
Samantha stared at her friend. “So, what would you do if you were in my place?”
“I don’t know. Wait. You’ve only known this guy for … what? … a wee
k or more? And you’re going to risk your life and your job and everything else to go traipsing off to a foreign country and try to pull off something our own CIA can’t pull off?”
“So I’ve only known him a short time. But during that time we … well …”
“You’re already in love with him, aren’t you?” Angela said, softening her tone.
Samantha sighed and admitted the obvious. “Yes.”
“Oh boy. Now let’s recap how this thing is supposed to play out,” Angela said. “You found this Campiello guy at Greyfield and he’s agreed to put some sort of team together and head down to Caracas, right?”
“Right. And I’m flying down tomorrow night to coordinate everything.”
“I don’t get why you think you have to go to Caracas. If you’re trying to act on your own and keep all of this from the White House, which, as I just said, is absolutely nutty, why would you leave the country? How are you going to keep this secret? First of all, you know darn well that top White House staffers are watched all the time. By foreign agents, I mean. The Russians. The Israelis. The French. They all have teams that keep an eye on us. Well, maybe not me. I’m not that critical. But people like you. People with your rank and other people on the NSC. They keep track of everybody. And then, the minute you land and you use your passport to get entry into Venezuela, they’ll report it to our Embassy. They always do, you know.”
“I don’t care about the Russians or the others. And I doubt if the Venezuelans have as sophisticated an operation in Washington right now. As for the passport situation, I’ve got that covered.”
“How?”
“I’m using my old passport with my married name on it. We all have two passports. Our White House diplomatic passport and our old one. We didn’t have to turn that one in, remember?”
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