by C. L. Wells
He called Marty to let him know they were on their way and followed them to the alleyway where Marty had lost them. He kept his foot off of the accelerator after breaking as the car carrying J.T. Thornbacker slowed to make the turn down the alleyway. He wanted to coast past the alleyway slowly, without needing to break and possibly draw attention to the van. As the alleyway was almost out of his peripheral vision, he thought he saw their tail lights go on. He quickly pulled over to the curb and got out of the van, walking back in the direction of the alley. He stopped and pretended to be window shopping in front of an old antique store directly across from the alleyway. He tried to be nonchalant as he studied the alleyway’s reflection in the store’s large plate glass window.
The car had indeed stopped. They were close enough that he could tell that one of the passengers in the back was putting something on the head of the man next to him. Then they proceeded down the alleyway. A minute later, his phone rang.
“I see where dey go, Mr. Silas.”
“Yeah, o.k., I’m coming to pick you up.”
As he drove down the alleyway, he stopped right where the other car had stopped, got out of the van, and looked around. There was nothing there. He processed what he had just seen, trying to make sense out of it. In a few moments, it came to him. “J.T. Thornbacker was kidnapped,” he said out loud. He smiled as he jumped back in the van and drove down the alley to pick up Marty.
“Did you see anything unusual about one of the men in the back of the car?” he asked Marty, once he was back inside the van.
“Yes, I did. One of dem had a black cloth over his eyes.”
“Yes!” Silas exclaimed. “This is good.”
“Why is dis good?” asked Marty.
“J.T. was kidnapped!” Silas exclaimed, proclaiming his earlier revelation as if he had just won the pot at a poker game. “Why else would they blindfold him? Ole’ Nick Bartonovich kidnapped J.T. Thornbacker and is using him to get the money out of the bank. That explains why he sent me down here to get the bank documents, the blindfold, the fact that a guard rides in the back with J.T., the whole business. They aren’t in business together; J.T. is simply the key to the piggy bank.” He slammed his hand down on the dashboard of the van for emphasis.
“I am glad you are happy, Mr. Silas,” Marty proclaimed. “Dis is good, yes?”
“This is very good, Marty, this is very good!” Silas responded. “Now I need you to find me the best pick-pocket in all of George Town.”
“What do you need wit a pick-pocket, Mr. Silas? A pick-pocket can never get what is in dat briefcase.”
“Just trust me, Marty. Just trust me.”
James had decided to swim around the yacht to see if he could shake the sense of cabin fever that had been building since they’d arrived. He had become accustomed to the daily exercise regime in Utopia and needed to burn off some energy to calm his nerves. As he swam, he thought about both the future and the past.
He thought about how he was potentially about to get the big score he had dreamed of before, when he was planning a bank robbery. He had thought that would make everything better. He had thought that his problems would be solved by a big wad of cash. Yet now that the big score was potentially in his sight, he only wanted to rewind to a few days earlier when he was serving out the remainder of his sentence in Utopia, headed for a changed life, a life free from being chased by law enforcement officers. He’d just been beginning to believe he could find a better, more peaceful, and fulfilling way to live. Now all of that seemed so far away. How do I get back there? he thought to himself as he swam.
Even if he got the money, he would never be able to go back to the States without looking over his shoulder constantly. And even if he stayed here or somewhere like this, a million dollars wouldn’t last him forever. He would need to find some other way to make money eventually, and being a criminal was all he really knew how to do. He couldn’t think of a way out of it. He knew in his heart that he couldn’t live the rest of his life on the run, but he also knew that he couldn’t survive twenty-three more years in prison – or longer if they threw the book at him once he got back.
As he swam lap after lap, he came to a decision. Whatever the consequences, when this was all over, he was going to turn himself in. If he ever wanted to be free, then he would need to do the time he had been sentenced to serve. Maybe they would be lenient on him, maybe they would even reduce his time for having come back – who knew? And if he ended up getting more time added on, well, he would cross that bridge when he came to it.
He felt a weight lift off of his shoulders as he swam a final lap around the yacht and climbed back up the ladder, where the ubiquitous armed guardian watched his every move. He grabbed his towel and dried himself off.
Chapter Twenty-One
Laura was curled up on a couch in a spacious room on the main deck of the yacht, reading a book when James came in from his swim. He sat down on a chair next to the couch and finished drying his hair.
“Are you getting your hour a day of reading in?” James joked.
Laura smiled as she looked up from her book.
“Yeah, the habit kind of grew on me when I was in Utopia. They don’t have much of a selection here, though.”
“What did you think about the program at Utopia?” James inquired.
“I think it was good for me,” Laura responded. “My life was definitely a mess when I went there. I think the structure was good for me. It helped me level out and clear my head. The twelve step stuff helped me, too. I was a bit weirded out by the whole ‘Higher Power’ thing to begin with, but after a while, that sort of began to make sense to me, too.”
“So you believe in God?” James asked.
“Yeah, I do. I mean, I look around at all this,” Laura waved her hand at the seascape that could be seen through the windows, “and I think there definitely must have been a creative being that made it all. I don’t think it happened by accident. What about you?”
“My mom believed in God. She prayed to Him to heal her when she had cancer and to help me stay out of trouble – neither one of those prayers were answered. God certainly doesn’t do things the way I would like Him to.”
For the first time since they’d known each other, Laura looked at James and felt empathy with him. She could identify with feeling like things hadn’t worked out the way she wanted them to.
“I guess that’s the reason for steps two and three,” Laura responded.
James looked at her with a puzzled look.
“Steps two and three of the twelve steps,” Laura continued. “Step two is basically believing that there is a Higher Power Who wants to help straighten our lives out, and step three is where we make a decision to turn our lives over to that Higher Power. Thinking back on all of the crappy things that have happened to me in my life, being sent to Utopia was the best thing that ever happened to me. I mean, if I hadn’t been sent there, I’d probably be dead by now.”
“Yeah,” James concurred, “me, too. I mean, I believe there is a God, and I want to be a better person than I was before I went to prison. Like you said, being sent to Utopia was one of the best things that has happened to me in a long time. I liked the reading thing, too. I never really read much, but now that I’m away from Utopia, I miss the books I was reading.”
“What were you reading?” Laura asked.
“It was a book by William Penn – the founder of Pennsylvania. It was called Some Fruits of Solitude. I still remember a quote from the introduction of the book. I wrote it down in my journal and read it over and over. ‘We understand little of the works of God, either in nature or grace. We pursue false knowledge, and mistake education extremely. We are violent in our affections, confused and immethodical in our whole life; making that a burden, which was given for a blessing; and so of little comfort to ourselves or others; misapprehending the true notion of happiness, and so missing of the right use of life, and way of happy living.’”
There was a long pause
after James finished the quote. Laura felt a hint of something inside that hadn’t been there for a while. She felt that James might not be that different from her after all.
“That’s beautiful, James. That quote describes what my life was like before Utopia.”
James turned and looked at her, directly in the eyes.
“What about now?”
“What do you mean?” Laura asked.
“I mean, what about after this is all over and we get a load of cash? Then what? How do we get back on track to learning how to live a better way than we did before? How do we do that, while we’re fugitives? Money can change a lot of things, Laura, but I know enough now to understand that money isn’t going to make me a better person.” James looked down at his feet and shook his head. “I just don’t know what to do.”
There was another long pause, but the silence was broken by the sound of the cigarette boat engine approaching the yacht.
On the boat ride back from the island, J.T. thought to himself about how the run to the bank had followed the same routine as the day before. After they entered the car with the day’s allotment of cash, they had driven to a narrow alleyway where he was blindfolded. Next, they drove for another fifteen minutes before stopping, where he was fairly certain that Nick and one of the commandos got out of the car. After a few minutes, they returned and drove back to the marina, where the blindfold was taken off and they boarded the boat for the return trip to the yacht.
He had been paying close attention to the surroundings today to see where the best opportunity might be for delivering a note to someone at the bank to let them know he was being held prisoner against his will. He thought that the best candidate was likely the receptionist in the atrium. His main concern was what she would do with the information. If she took it to her boss, Mr. Takata, would he tell Nick or go to the authorities? If Nick had paid him off as part of this whole scheme, then Nick would be notified. It was risky either way, but then again, desperate times called for desperate measures. The next hurdle would be to find some paper on the yacht to write a note on. The place had been cleaned out of anything to write on – a move no doubt initiated by Nick in order to prevent just what J.T. was planning to do.
Once they were back on the yacht, the afternoon and evening followed a predictable pattern, even down to the bottle of wine that was delivered to their cabin once they were locked in for the night. He surveyed the room and found a small shelf of books. He immediately went over and began to casually thumb through each book, finally selecting one that had a blank page at the back of it. He could remove this page and use it for writing an S.O.S. note. He turned it back to the front cover and noticed that it was a copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. He smiled to himself as he sat down and began to read. It was a book he had read once in high school and enjoyed immensely. No time like the present to reacquaint himself with it, he thought.
He read for about an hour as both James and Laura each showered and appeared to be getting ready to turn in, each of them dressed in the designer pajamas that Nick had so graciously provided for the occasion. Nick was certainly going out of his way to make everything seem as hospitable as possible. It was an attempt, no doubt, to lure James and Laura over to his way of viewing the situation, and illicit their support. Now it was time to see just how far that effort had gone.
J.T. went over to his bunk and put the book on top of his pillow. As he turned around, he noticed that both James and Laura were reading books of their own. Utopia, it seemed, had had some positive effects on them all. He hoped it would be enough of a common bond to help see them through the difficulties that remained to be faced. “Can we talk about our plans?” he said out loud.
He spoke quietly, but loudly enough to be heard by both James and Laura. He sat down beside Laura, who reluctantly put down her book. James came over and sat down on the other side of Laura so they could communicate with a minimum of volume.
“I have a plan,” J.T. began. “There is some danger involved, but I think it just might work.”
“Let’s hear it,” James responded.
“I was able to get a pen at the bank yesterday, and I found some paper that I can use to write an S.O.S. note on. I think I can deliver it to the receptionist at the bank without being noticed. If so, and if she helps us, she could contact the authorities and let them know we are being held captive.”
“And then what?” Laura replied. “We wait for the police to storm the boat and rescue us? Have you forgotten we have four armed guards and that lady guarding us while you are gone? They may be able to rescue you on land well enough, but out here, anyone getting within a mile of this boat will be seen. James and I are likely to be killed in the process.”
“Like I said,” J.T. continued, “There are risks.”
“Why don’t we just go along with Nick’s plan?” James mentioned. “I mean, he seems like he has no intention of harming us. Once he’s done with us and lets us go, we can do whatever it is we want, right? Why go ahead and risk getting killed on an escape?”
“Yeah,” Laura agreed, glad to have James thinking along the same lines as she was. “What’s the rush?”
“The rush is,” J.T. proceeded, “that Nick may not intend to let us live once this is all over. Why would he give us eleven million dollars just for our cooperation when he can just as easily put a bullet in our heads and dump our bodies in the ocean? This man is a thief, remember that. Secondly, I’m concerned about recovering the money. He’s taking it somewhere; he’s not storing it on the boat. If I lose track of it now, I may never get it back.”
“So that’s what this is about?” Laura said angrily, raising her voice to a level which risked their being heard by the guards.
“Keep your voice down. Laura!” James whispered cautiously.
Laura lowered her voice, but not her intensity as she continued. “This is all about you getting that stolen money back, isn’t it?! And you are willing to put us at risk to do it!”
“Look,” J.T. lobbied, “you have to remember that is money that I’m using to pay back the people who got fired or lost their pensions when Nick and I destroyed the companies they worked for. That money is being used to pay mortgages, provide college tuition, pay medical bills. If I lose it now, I may never get it back. I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
The fire ebbed in Laura’s eyes and her voice toned down as she responded. “O.k., I get that. But I’m not willing to risk my life so you can make amends for the things you did. Remember that program you talk so highly about? I seem to recall that amends are only to be made when you won’t be hurting someone else, or have you forgotten that?”
J.T. was silent for a moment as he recalled the ninth step of the program, the steps he had tried to live by the past few years.
“You’re right,” J.T. said in a subdued tone, “I guess I forgot about that in the process of trying to think about how to save the money. But the first part of what I said is still a good reason to think about it. What if Nick’s plan is to kill us when he has all the money? I still think it is worth the risk, but I won’t try it unless we all agree.”
He paused and waited for James and Laura to consider what he had said. Finally, James spoke.
“There’s another possibility.”
“What’s that?” J.T. queried.
“You could get caught trying to deliver the note. Then Nick might not be as accommodating as he has been. Who knows what he might do? We already know he is willing to kidnap the three of us and risk being caught doing it by the FBI. If we try to blow the whole deal for him now, he may decide to go back on what he promised us and kill us after all.”
“James is right,” Laura added, “I don’t like our chances. I say we wait it out and take our chances on Nick keeping his word.”
J.T. sat back and let out a long sigh, running a hand through his hair as he did. He was obviously disappointed.
“O.k.,” he said, resigned, “I guess I’m out-v
oted. I’ll continue to go along with Nick’s plan and hope for the best.”
As J.T. lay awake in bed that night, he considered the possible outcomes that might befall them. Losing the money was regrettable, but the possibility of being killed within the next ten days was front and center. As he lay in the darkness, he uttered a silent prayer.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” And with that, J.T. Thornbacker drifted off to sleep.
Nick opened up his laptop and quickly reviewed the transcripts just delivered to him on the USB thumb drive by the man in the radio room. With so much riding on this operation, he was leaving nothing to chance. The video and audio devices he’d had installed in the cabin where his new guests were staying ensured that any movements and any conversation, no matter how hushed, would be captured for his review. A note at the end of the transcript indicated that nothing unusual had appeared on the video feed for the evening. As he re-read the transcript of the conversation that had just taken place, he smiled and congratulated himself. The psychological dossiers he’d had prepared on each prisoner at Utopia had helped him choose just the right accomplices to his plans.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The next day, the routine of the previous two days continued. J.T. and company arrived at the bank and went through the withdrawal process. They got in the car and went on their way as they had done previously. The car exited the narrow alleyway per the usual route and circled around to the third road before exiting the round-about.
No one in the vehicle thought anything about the man at the end of the road who was walking slowly along the sidewalk. Silas had positioned himself so that he would have a perfect view down the street and be able to tell if the car turned anywhere.