Rescued- The New Rulebook Series #5 ( A Contemporary Christian Romantic Suspense Thriller Series) Kindle Edition

by Joy Ohagwu

  Robert completed the phone call to his boss. Then he sent Ruby a quick text, letting her know they were expecting a call from the kidnappers, knowing she could listen in through the equipment set up in their living room. She’d understand they were ready to engage if necessary, even without him saying so. He asked her not to worry, promising that God was in control and He would work things out for their good.

  She texted back that she was praying and to please be careful. Then she ended with, Please bring our daughter home.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt, I called my son.”- Hosea 11:1

  Gazing at the words tightened Robert’s throat. He recalled the first time he had carried Ritz at the hospital soon after she was born. She had been so small, and he wondered when she would grow taller than the length of his arm. Then as she grew, he wished her to be small and cuddly again, but also grown. Those were the conflicting emotions of any loving parent that he didn’t escape.

  He recalled the sleepless teething nights and the long active play days to help her exhaust her energy before bedtime. Those were the memories he now cherished the most. Of course, there were the times when she said no to everything. Every instruction or warning had met with a no, followed by commensurate discipline.

  He wasn’t of the school of thought to pet his child to destruction, neither was Ruby. They had both determined from the onset what kind of way they wanted to raise their children. Ritz would be a disciplined, but loved and encouraged daughter, they’d prayerfully planned.

  But as a dad, he prayed earnestly for her more than he corrected her because he also knew a change of heart was the most permanent kind of change. Sometimes, he even let Ritz have her way, praying that, as she reached the end of that way and saw that it wasn’t good, she’d trace her steps back.

  Like when she’d insisted on using makeup at fourteen. He had just returned from Aqua. Caught between making up for his wrongful manner of departure and yet cherishing being her dad, he’d found it hard to refuse. So he objected just once, and then he simply became silent.

  Ritz wound up with some scary colors on her face for a couple of weeks. In that time, he prayed that God would show her how beautiful she really was, and how little if any, she needed makeup. He commended her appearance whenever she was without the makeup but remained loving and caring instead of complaining.

  Little by little, the makeup toned down until she stopped. A few weeks later, he asked her why she no longer wore cosmetics. She simply shrugged and said she was beautifully and wonderfully made. And she added that since her parents were proud of how she looked and so were her friends, she never needed the makeup. She said she was trying to fit in to a new gang of friends but discovered they weren’t the best for her. So she stuck to Christiana, her best friend who was also a Christian.

  And now, no thanks to their unknown assailant, Christiana was fighting for her life in the hospital, medically sedated for almost two days now.

  Robert sipped on the cup of tea he made and let the fluid warm him. The air still stung with a slight chill since they’d merely entered a half hour earlier and turned the heaters on. Sitting on a leather swivel seat, he rehearsed their strategy. Once the call came through again, he would request proof of life for Ritz and settle for nothing less than an actual conversation with her.

  Then he would ask her a question only she could answer. Their tech team would try to trace the call. All he needed was a five hundred-mile radius, and one way or the other, he would pinpoint her location or hazard guesses, and they would head off for a search. No result was not an option, and at this point, he was ready to shake things up to buy time on the phone call with the kidnappers. Hopefully, things would go their way, and he wouldn’t need to do so. Lord, please make a way, I pray.

  He set the cup down, stood, and motioned to Charlie, who was assisting one of the officers with tightening his gear when the phone started ringing.

  The kidnappers again.

  Everyone stopped what they were doing and got busy with their assigned tasks. The technical team worked on starting a trace while Robert motioned to Charlie, Newton, and Mike to draw closer.

  “Watch the speaker’s tone.”

  Charlie and the others nodded.

  Robert pushed the Accept button and pressed both palms on the table. “This is Captain Towers. To whom am I speaking?”

  Rushed breathing greeted him on the other end. A girl’s sobbing came to his ears, and his heart constricted.

  “Yes. I know,” a garbled voice replied—garbled. Robert shot a dismayed glance at Charlie, who returned his frown.

  He’d hoped, albeit faintly, to hear an actual recognizable voice. One his team could piece apart until they found its owner. Randolph was good at such.

  “Your daughter is fine. Now, do you have what I asked for? Time’s up in seven and a half hours.”

  Robert dug in his heels. “First, I need to speak with her and confirm your statement. Is she there with you?” Robert asked with a plain voice he didn’t feel. He wished to reach into the phone, grab the man, give him a good shake, and toss him out of the way, then take his daughter back.

  “If I don’t talk to her, I will hang up,” Robert threatened, and he meant it. There was no use engaging with the fellow if he would not produce proof that Ritz was still alive. The risk was too great and time too critical.

  Rustling followed, then a rattling sound like…chains. His belly tightened. His daughter probably in chains?

  “Hello, daddy,” a shaky voice greeted. “It’s me, Ritz.”

  Relief washed over him like a wave. He wanted to reach out and hug her. “Sweetie, are you okay? Did they—”

  “That’s enough. Now, where is my ask?” the garbled voice returned.

  But Robert was riled. “Okay, wait a minute. First, you take my daughter, issue a deadline, and then tell me after one sentence—which may have been recorded a while back—that it’s enough? Listen here, mister or miss, whoever you are. I say it’s enough when I have sufficient proof of life. I will ask her a question only she can answer. And if she answers correctly, we proceed, that is, if what you want is that important to you,” Robert barked. He hadn’t intended to explode, but this was an opportunity he wouldn’t miss. He was also buying time for a good trace to happen.

  “It’s so quiet here, Daddy. I miss the house, and you and mom,” Ritz returned to his relief.

  She’d dropped one clue.

  “We miss you too, sweetie. By God’s grace, you’ll come home soon.”

  “Ask the question,” the garbled voice yelled in the background, tone laced with impatience.

  “What’s the name and color of your bedroom pillowcase?” Robert asked. Only someone who had been inside their house and in her bedroom would know. It was easy enough.

  “Dora, pink. Daddy, I don’t know where I am, please come and—” She was cut off.

  Robert felt like punching the wall, though he’d never done so before.

  “You got your questions. Now, where is The New Rulebook?”

  But Robert was getting a new idea from the conversation. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re really after?”

  “I want The New Rulebook!”

  “No,” Robert quietly said, “you don’t.”

  “I swear, I will shoot your daughter before this call ends if you push me,” the voice threatened, but Robert didn’t back down.

  Charlie was frowning and waving both hands in the air.

  Robert held up a still hand in silent response to Charlie and continued, “If you were after The New Rulebook, you wouldn’t have taken my daughter. You would have taken me or my wife. Which means, you probably know nothing about it. So, when you choose to say exactly what you want, call me back, and I will talk with you again. Until then, let no hair on my daughter’s head miss. Or you and your entire lineage will suffer unimaginable loss. This is not a threat. It’s a promise. I will find you, and I will make you pa
y. So don’t you touch her. Not. One. Finger.” Robert pushed a button and ended the call while Charlie gaped. By now, either they had a sufficient trace or they didn’t. He wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Captain, I presume you have strong reasons for blowing off a kidnapper and pissing him off?” Charlie’s eyes rounded.

  “Yes, I’ve got a plan if our guys over there have a trace.” He rushed to the tech team. “Did you record the phone call?” They nodded. “Good. Replay it. I think I heard something.”

  Newton stepped forward. “With all due respect, sir, I’m afraid you may have played into their hands.”

  Robert raised a hand to Newton. “I understand your concerns. Give me a minute.” He twisted to the other half of the tech team in charge of tracing the call. “Were you able to trace the call’s originating location?”

  One of them lowered his earphones for listening into the phone call and answered, “Sort of, sir. It got bounced around a lot, but toward the end, a few locations repeated, and I believe I could hazard a good guess down to a four-hundred-mile radius. We can aim for a thousand-mile diameter to ensure more certainty. But that’s still a lot of ground to cover.”

  Robert smiled. “A thousand-mile diameter is less than what I hoped for and just enough to get us started.” His team looked at him like he’d lost it, but he was past caring what anyone thought if he was confident of where he was headed.

  “Gather around.” He spun to Charlie. “Please disconnect the phone line completely, just to be sure.” Charlie did so and returned to the gathering.

  Robert drew on a wide sheet of paper. “This box represents everything we know.” He wrote them out one by one. “First, Christiana was attacked. Two, Ritz got kidnapped. Three, a text message followed.”

  “Then fourth, a phone call,” Charlie added, and his eyes came alive. “I see it now.”

  Robert chuckled. “There you go, my friend. You’re catching on.” Though he didn’t expand to everyone on what the upend of their adversary had been. There was no time to dwell on it until he proved it had worked at the other end, which he couldn’t currently verify.

  He drew a wide circle outside that box. “We can predict their next move, only if we shock it, like I’ve just done. They are now playing our game—we’re not playing theirs. We changed the rules on them.”

  Charlie smiled. “You should be the champion of the next new rulebook if you ask me. Not that there should be one, but I just gained a new level of respect for you. I’m not sure I would risk being wrong if it were my child kidnapped.”

  Robert glanced up at him, solemnity settling on his heart. “You would if the chance of failure was zero.” His gaze rotated to the other men. “We have to succeed at this point because we threw the enemy into unfamiliar territory, a place of uncertainty. They are bound to retaliate if the clock hits eight in the morning and they don’t have their request. We need to be certain we have the upper hand by then and are guaranteed success before they do.”

  “Preempt and overtake. That’s what you taught us,” Newton charged, brimming with renewed energy.

  “Absolutely. And confuse them too where necessary.” Robert wrote on the sheet. “So, who can guess what the fifth step at their end would be?”

  The men thought for a minute. “Double the request or yield?” one of the guys suggested.

  “Move your daughter, perhaps? In case we’re on to them?” another said.

  “Or, I’d hate to be the bearer of bad news, but they could kill her. If they think what they are after isn’t worth getting caught,” a third added.

  “Or they might dig in and just wait you out. Eight a.m. isn’t that far away,” a fourth offered.

  “Bingo. That last option is what I suspect.” Robert pointed toward the sheet. “If they’re smart, they’ll stick with their plan, which I suspect they would do. Killing her would eliminate their only bargaining chip. Moving her would risk them getting caught. Considering we attempted a rescue already, they know we’re sharp and in pursuit when they move.”

  He tapped the pen on the sheet. “They can’t ask for more than the software because more simply doesn’t exist. The person who created it went to jail and was released after serving time, but they probably don’t know that. Which leaves them with the last option. Dig in, call us again, and threaten us. That call is the one you guys will accept if we’re not back by eight. Tell them whatever you need to say to buy us time out there.”

  He spun to Detective Mike. “It’s time for your team to help us out. We need to go on an air scout of that one-thousand-mile diameter based on which locations were pinged during the trace while our team here works out the details and feeds updates back to us.”

  Robert twisted to the waiting team members already designated to accompany him if it came to it. “We leave right now. Good luck, guys. And God-willing, with a miracle, we’ll have Ritz home for dinner by tonight. If you’re a Christian, your prayers will be appreciated. Thank you. Let’s move.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe.” – Proverbs 18:10

  Everyone got busy, and hands were jamming on keyboards as the tech team printed copies of the repeatedly pinged locations and handed them to Robert, Charlie, and Mike. Weapons were being double-checked, and Robert, Mike, and Charlie were heading out while Newton remained in charge of the team working at the station. They moved out and headed from the building toward the back where a chopper whirred, waiting for them.

  Climbing in, Robert clinched his safety belt and turned to Charlie. “I had forgotten to stay and listen to the call playback. Keep me informed on what Newton and the guys get after analyzing the call, okay?”

  Charlie nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Robert exhaled and tried to calm his heart. By his estimation, if his strategy worked, they had barely six hours and some change, to find and rescue Ritz before it was too late.

  “Captain Towers?” Detective Mike called.

  Robert leaned toward him in the chopper. “Yeah?”

  “Newton said President Jacobson is on the line for you. He says it’s important.”

  Why didn’t Newton tell his brother he was going airborne for a mission?

  “Tell Newton to ask him what it’s about. And to let him know I’m out on a mission.” He hadn’t updated his brother yet because he was busy fighting to get Ritz back—within less than seventy-two hours of capture—a near impossibility, but he trusted God for a breakthrough.

  “He said it was about the package he sent you through Charlie,” Mike shouted over the helicopter racket.

  Oh, that? Robert suppressed an impatience huff. “Fine. Tell him I took it home and will open it when everything calms down. Things are a bit stressful right now.” He thought for a second and added, “Oh, and tell him we’re going off comms soon. I’ll talk to him once I get back.”

  He turned off his headset, leaned back, and shut his eyes. Lord Jesus, I commit this mission and everything about it into Your able hands. I cannot achieve this without Your help. Please, help me. Please make a way for me. Please show me how to do this the right way, to achieve the right result. Please favor me. Give Ruby peace of mind. She’s been through so much. We’ve all been through a lot. We want a peace that abides. Please lead me aright on this mission, guide me, Holy Spirit, and get Ritz home safe and sound, without us losing even one man on my team. I promise to praise You with all my heart.

  He prayed for a few more minutes, giving God praise for answered prayers. Then he settled in and pulled out his phone for Scripture. He paused on Isaiah 45 verse 2, which said, “I will go before you and make the crooked places straight.”

  Robert read it over and again and prayed for Ritz as the chopper rose and flew over the quiet city. He shut down his phone and peered out the window, studying the cityscape. Vehicles and buildings appeared smaller the higher they lifted.

  As they whizzed along, his confidence waned. How was he going to pi
npoint where Ritz was being held in the sea of humanity dwelling below, who would be going about their daily business in a couple of hours? Or with the vast distance they were about to cover, which could consume all their remaining time and leave them either finding Ritz or empty-handed when time ran out?

  If he made a mistake, this could cost his daughter’s life. He leaned up. “Charlie?” He waved. Charlie gripped a tough net and staggered to him as the helicopter adjusted. “Can you please have the team send me an audio recording of the call? Maybe I can listen while we fly. I might hear something.”

  “Will do.”

  As Charlie went back to his seat, an officer tapped Robert on his shoulder. “Sir, I just got this update from the trace team. I wrote down the locations they said seemed to be the most viable places where she could be held. Thirteen of them in all. We’re close to one spot. It’s about two miles from here.”

  Thirteen? Robert held his breath until his chest burned. They couldn’t cover so many in such little time. “Call the station. Have them send a second chopper team out, led by Newton. We’ll split the locations in almost half. They’ll take six; we take seven.”

  The man nodded and returned to relay the message to the SSPD.

  A lady officer, another member of the team, drew closer. “Sir, may I?”

  Robert nodded. “Yes, Julie?”

  “Maybe we can do this a bit differently.”

  “I’m listening.” He leaned in.

  “If there are two teams out, and we focus on the areas farther out, it would draw us nearer the center toward the end of the deadline, in case there’s a sharp twist in the situation and support is needed.”

  Her suggestion made sense. Robert nodded. “And that will also bring both teams closer in distance as the search progresses, providing potential backups. Good point. I like that. Tell Detective Bailey about the new plan so he can notify the other team before they lift off from the SSPD.”