But Sam's confession the night before about his mother's finances put a new spin on things for Peter. It had never occurred to him that she was broke. Although he had raised the question once or twice, Peter had never seriously believed that she was. Now he felt differently about it. Something about the way Sam had repeated what he'd overheard told Peter that it was true. It also explained why she never went anywhere, or did anything, and there was no help in the house. He had expected her to lead a far grander life. He thought she just stayed home because she loved her kids, but maybe there was more to it than that. And he had the feeling that the conversations Sam had heard between his mother and her lawyer were all too real. Still, having “no money” was relative to different people. She might still have some left, but not as much as they had once had. The suicide note was interesting though. If that were true, there might really be nothing left of Allan Barnes's fortune. Peter was profoundly worried, thought about it all day, and what it might mean to him, and the others. And worse yet, Sam.
They sat around for two more days, and then finally decided to call her. All four of them agreed that it was time. They used Peter's untraceable cell phone, and he dialed her number. She answered on the first ring herself, and her voice sounded hoarse. It cracked as soon as she heard who it was. Peter spoke quietly, silently aching for her, and identified himself by saying he had news of her son. The negotiator was listening on the phone, and they were already frantically working on tracing the call.
“I have a friend who'd like to speak to you,” Peter said, and walked into the back room while Fernanda held her breath, and gesticulated wildly to Ted. He already knew. The negotiator was listening on the line with her, and they were recording the call.
“Hi, Mommy,” Sam said as tears filled her eyes and she held her breath.
“Are you okay?” She could hardly talk, she was shaking so hard.
“Yeah. I'm fine.” Before he could say more, Peter took the phone away as Waters watched. Peter was afraid that, to reassure her, Sam would say he had been nice to him, and he didn't want the others to hear it. Peter took the phone back, and spoke clearly to her. He sounded well spoken and cool, which surprised her. From what she'd seen in her house four days before, she expected them to be goons. And this one obviously wasn't. He sounded educated, and polite, and oddly gentle in his tone.
“Your son's bus ticket home will cost you exactly a hundred million dollars,” Peter said without batting an eye, as the others listened to him and nodded their approval. They liked his style. He sounded businesslike, polite, and cool. “Start counting your pennies. We'll be calling you shortly to tell you how we want it handled,” he said, and cut the line before she could answer. He turned to the others, and they sent up a cheer. “How long do we give her?” Peter asked. He and Addison had talked about a week or two at the most, to complete the transaction. At the time, they had agreed that longer than that was unnecessary, but after what Sam had said, he wasn't sure that time was the issue or would make a difference. If she didn't have it, there was nowhere she could dig up that kind of money. Even if Barnes had a few lingering investments. Maybe she could cough up a million or two, if that. But from what Sam was saying about her debts, and his father's suicide, Peter even wondered if she had that. And even a couple of million divided five ways was pointless.
The other three got drunk that night, and he sat talking to Sam again for a long time. He was a sweet boy, and he was sad after talking to his mother.
And at her end, Fernanda was sitting in the living room in shock, looking at Ted.
“What am I going to do?” She was in the depths of despair. She had never dreamed they'd ask for that kind of money. A hundred million was insane. And they obviously were.
“We'll find him,” Ted said quietly. It was the only choice they had now. But they hadn't been able to get a trace on the line. He cut it off too fast anyway, although with the device they had, they could have, if he'd been calling from a traceable line. But he was using a cell phone that couldn't be traced. It was one of the few that couldn't. They obviously knew what they were doing. At least she had talked to Sam.
She called Jack Waterman while Ted was talking to the captain. She told him what the ransom was, and he sat in stunned silence at his end. He could have helped her come up with half a million dollars, until she sold the house, but beyond that, she had almost nothing in the bank. She had about fifty thousand currently in her account. Their only hope was finding the boy before the kidnappers killed him. Jack prayed they would. She told him the police and FBI were doing everything they could, but the kidnappers had gone underground. All four of the men they knew about had vanished. And the regular network of reliable informants knew nothing.
Two days later, Will called home, and he knew the minute he heard her voice that something had happened. She denied it. But he knew her better. Finally she broke down and cried, and told him that Sam had been kidnapped, and he begged her to let him come home from camp.
“You don't need to do that. The police are doing everything they can, Will. You're better off in camp.” She thought it would be too depressing and upsetting for him at home.
“Mom,” he said, sobbing into the phone, “I want to be with you.” She called Jack and asked him to go up and get him, and the following afternoon, Will walked into the house, and burst into tears as he threw himself into her arms. They stood holding each other for a long time, and spent hours that night talking in the kitchen. Jack had hung around for a while, and finally left, not wanting to intrude. He chatted with Ted and the other men for a few minutes, and they told him there was nothing new. Investigators were combing the state, but so far, no one had reported seeing anything suspicious, the police were looking for the men in the mug shots, but no one had seen them, and there had been no sign of Sam, or anything he owned or had been wearing. The boy had disappeared without a trace and so had they. They could have been anywhere by then, over a state line somewhere, even in Mexico. Ted knew that they could stay underground for a long time, too long for Sam.
Will slept in his own room that night, and the men slept in Ashley's. They could have slept in Sam's, but it seemed sacrilegious to them somehow. At four in the morning, Fernanda still couldn't sleep, and went downstairs to see if Ted was awake. He was lying on the couch, with his eyes open, thinking. The rest of the men were in the kitchen, talking, with their guns in evidence, as they always were. It was like some strange kind of emergency room, or intensive care unit, where people stayed awake all night, wearing guns and waiting to minister to her. There was no longer any clear definition to day or night. It was all the same. There were always people on cell phones, and wide awake.
She sat down in a chair next to Ted, and looked at him with a despairing glance. She was beginning to lose hope. She didn't have the money, and the police hadn't found her son. They didn't even have a single lead as to where they were hiding. And all of the police and FBI were adamant that they couldn't go public. They said it would just confuse things and make it worse. And if they infuriated the kidnappers, it was almost certain they would kill Sam. No one was willing to take the risk. And neither was she.
Ted had gone home for a few hours that night, and had dinner with Shirley. They had talked about the case, and she said she felt sorry for Fernanda. She could see that Ted did too. She had asked him if he thought they'd find the boy in time, and he said he honestly didn't know.
“When do you think we'll hear from them again?” Fernanda asked him once he was back at her house. The living room was dark, and the only light in the room was from the hall.
“They'll call soon to tell you how they want you to deliver the money,” he reassured her, but she couldn't see what difference that would make. They had agreed that she was going to try to stall them. But sooner or later they would realize that she wasn't going to pay. Ted knew he had to find Sam before then. He had called Father Wallis that afternoon himself. There was nothing for them to do but pray. What they needed desperate
ly was a break. Both the SFPD and the FBI were pumping their informants, but no one had heard a word about the kidnappers or Sam.
As it turned out, the kidnappers called her again the next morning. They let her speak to Sam again, and he sounded nervous. Carl Waters was standing over him as Peter put the phone to his ear, and Fernanda could barely hear more than his voice saying “Hi, Mom,” before they took the phone away again. The voice on the phone told her that if she wanted a conversation with her son, she was going to have to pay the ransom. They gave her five days to come up with it, and told her they'd give her delivery instructions the next time they called, and hung up again. Listening to them this time, she was frantic. There was no way to pay. And once again, the call they had made could not be traced. All the police knew was that none of them had reported to their parole agents that week, which was old news. They knew who had done it. What they didn't know was where they had gone, and what they had done with Sam. And all the while, Phillip Addison had the perfect alibi, and was sitting in the South of France. The FBI had checked his phone records out of the hotel. He had made no long-distance phone calls to cell phones in the States, and they kept no records of incoming calls. And from the time the FBI began monitoring his calls, several hours after the kidnap, there hadn't been a single call from the kidnappers. They'd had their instructions, and were handling it on their own. Peter was doing all he could to protect Sam. Carl and the others were getting ever more anxious for the money. Ted and Rick and the networks, agencies, and informants they were using were coming up with nothing. And Fernanda felt as though she were going insane.
Chapter 17
The last call from the kidnappers came to tell Fernanda she had two days left to deliver the money. And this time they sounded impatient. They didn't let her talk to Sam, and at her end, everyone knew time was running out. Or maybe already had. It was time to make a move, but there was none to make. With no leads whatsoever as to their whereabouts, there was nothing the police could do. They were working every source they had to beat the clock, but without a lead, a tip, a trace, or a sighting they were getting nowhere.
Peter explained the delivery instructions to Fernanda when they gave her the two-day ultimatum. She was to wire the entire hundred million into the account of a Bahamian corporation, rather than the one they'd originally planned to use in the Cayman Islands. The Bahamian bank had already been instructed to deposit it through a series of dummy corporations, and from there ultimately Peter's and Phillip's shares were to be wired to Geneva. The other three shares were being wired to Costa Rica. And once Waters, Stark, and Free reached Colombia or Brazil, they could have it transferred there.
Fernanda knew none of the complicated details. All she knew was the name of the Bahamian bank where she was supposed to wire a hundred million dollars within two days, and she had nothing to send. She was counting on the police and FBI to find Sam before they reached the deadline, and she was ever more panicked that they wouldn't find him in time. Hope was dwindling by the hour.
“It's going to take me longer than that to access the money,” Fernanda said to Peter during the call, trying not to let panic creep into her voice, but it was there anyway. She was fighting for Sam's life. And despite all their efforts and impressive technology and manpower, thus far neither the FBI nor the police had helped. Or at least they had gotten no results.
“Time is running out,” Peter said firmly. “My associates aren't willing to wait,” he said, trying to convey his own desperation. She had to do something. Every day, Waters and the others were talking about killing Sam. It mattered nothing to them. In fact, if they didn't get their money, they thought it a suitable revenge. The boy meant less to them than a bottle of tequila or a pair of shoes.
They didn't even care that Sam had seen them and could identify them. The unholy threesome were planning to disappear into the wilds of South America forever. They had illegal passports waiting for them just north of the Mexican border. All they had to do was get there, pick them up, disappear, and live like kings for the rest of their days. But she had to pay the ransom first. And hour by hour, day by day, Peter came to understand that Sam had told the truth. She had nothing to wire into the Bahamian account. Peter had no idea what she was going to do. Nor did Fernanda. He would have liked to ask her, but he could only assume someone was telling her what to do.
Jack had already told her that the biggest loan he could get for her, against the house, was an additional mortgage for seven hundred thousand dollars, which she couldn't support the payments on anyway. And not knowing the circumstances, or even if they had, the bank told her they couldn't approve it or give her the money for thirty days. Waters and his friends wanted it in two.
She had nothing to work with, nor did Ted, Rick, and an army of FBI agents, who swore they were leaving no stone unturned, but to Fernanda, they seemed no closer to finding Sam than on the day he was taken. And Peter felt that too.
“She's playing games,” Waters said in a fury after the call ended. And at her end, Fernanda was in tears.
“A hundred million dollars isn't easy to come up with,” Peter said, feeling agonized for her. He could only imagine the degree of pressure this was putting on her. “Her husband's estate is in probate, she has to come up with death taxes on his estate, and his executors may not be able to release it to her as fast as we want.”
Peter was trying to buy her time, but he was afraid to tell them he now firmly believed she didn't have it, for fear they would fly into a rage and kill Sam on the spot. For Peter, it was a fine line to walk. And for Fernanda too.
“We're not waiting,” Waters said darkly. “If she doesn't wire it in two days, the kid is dead, and we're out of here. We can't sit here forever, waiting for the cops to show up.” He was in a black mood after the call, said she was dicking them around, and he had a temper tantrum when he discovered they were out of both tequila and beer, and he said he was sick of their food, and the others agreed.
In San Francisco, Fernanda had been sitting in her room all day, every day, crying, terrified that they were going to kill Sam, or already had. And Will was moving around the house like a ghost. He hung out with the men in the kitchen, but wherever you went, and whoever you talked to, the tension was intolerable. And whenever Ashley called, Fernanda kept up the charade that everything was fine. She still didn't know that Sam was gone, and Fernanda didn't want her to. It would just have made things worse to have her hysterical too.
“They're going to kill me, aren't they?” Sam said to Peter with sad eyes, after they had called his mother. He had heard the men talking, and they were angry it was taking so long.
“I promised you I wouldn't let that happen,” Peter whispered when he stopped in the back room to check on him after the call to Fernanda. But even Sam knew it was a promise he couldn't keep. And if he did, they'd kill Peter too.
When Peter walked back into the living room, they were all particularly unhappy about the lack of beer, as well as the delay in her coming up with the ransom. Finally, Peter offered to go into town for them and buy some. He had the kind of looks that never drew attention. He was just a nice guy visiting the lake on a vacation, probably with his kids. They nominated him to make a beer run, and told him to bring back some tequila and Chinese food too. They were sick of their own cooking, and so was he.
Peter drove into town and past it on the fateful beer run. He drove through three more towns, thinking about what he was going to do. There was no question. Sam was right. They were running out of time. And from all he knew now, the ransom was a lost cause. The only decision left was whether to let them kill Sam or not. And just as he had risked his life in this to save his own children, he knew now what he had to do for Sam.
He pulled over in the van, near a campsite, and picked up his cell phone. The one thing he knew was that he wasn't going back to Pelican Bay again. There was a momentary temptation to just keep driving, but if he did, when he didn't go back, they would kill Sam for sure.
He dialed the number and waited, and as she always did, Fernanda picked it up on the first ring. His voice was polite, and he told her Sam was fine, and then he asked to speak to one of the policemen with her. She hesitated for a moment, looked at Ted, and said there were no policemen with her.
“It's all right,” Peter said, sounding tired. It was over for him and he knew it, and he no longer cared. The only thing that mattered to him now was Sam. He realized as he spoke to her that he was doing it for her. “I assume there's someone on the line,” he said calmly. “Mrs. Barnes, let me speak to one of the men.” She looked at Ted with anguished eyes and handed him the phone. She had no idea what this meant.
“This is Detective Lee,” Ted said tersely.
“You have less than forty-eight hours to get him out of there. There are four men, including me,” Peter said, offering them not only information but his alliance. He knew he had to. For his own sake, as much as hers and Sam's. It was all he could do for them.
“Morgan, is that you?” It was the only one it could be. Ted knew he was talking to him. Peter didn't confirm or deny it. He had more important things to do. He gave Ted the address of the house in Tahoe, and described the layout of the house to him.
“Right now, they're keeping the boy in the back room. I'll do what I can to help you, but they may kill me too.”
Ted asked him a question then, and desperately wanted an answer. The call was being recorded, like the others, asking for the ransom. “Is Phillip Addison behind this?”
Peter hesitated and then answered, “Yes, he is.” It was all over for him then. He knew that wherever he went, Addison would find him and kill him. But Waters and the others would probably do it for him long before that.
“I won't forget this,” Ted said, and meant it, as Fernanda watched, not daring to take her eyes off him. She knew something was happening, and she wasn't sure yet what it was, if it was bad or good.
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