Ransom Drop

by Mike Sullivan

  * * * *

  Seabury rushed inside, a 9mm Glock cradled in his hands. “Let go,” he shouted at Greer. “Now! Step away from him.”

  Hatcher lay kicking and squirming on the floor in front of the sink, struggling for air, strands of wet, tousled hair flared in a fan across his forehead. His eyes were bloodshot and bulged inside his head about to explode.

  “Now,” Seabury yelled again at Greer, moving closer. “Let him go.”

  Greer released his grip on Hatcher. The elderly man rose gradually and stood over the sink, coughing, choking, and gasping for air.

  As Greer turned back to him, Seabury saw the same tall, lank figure of a boy squaring off with him in a vacant lot after school years ago. The thought of being beaten and humiliated by a younger boy in front of his friends had torn at him for years. Now the thought of facing Greer again frightened him.

  “Remember, I beat your ass once, I can do it again.” A slow, easy smile played across Greer’s mouth as his eyes moved up and down Seabury. The piano wire looped around his fingers. His eyes locked onto the gun in Seabury’s hand. The sight of the gun didn’t seem to faze him.

  “How you want to play this?” Greer asked.

  Seabury pointed the gun at him. “Drop the wire,” he said.

  “I drop the wire, you drop the gun. Just like old times, what’s say, huh? Here’s your chance to make amends for the beating I put on you. If you think you can take me, let’s get it on.” He grinned and scoffed at Seabury, waiting for a reaction.

  The gun shot forward at a high-speed angle and stopped inches from Greer’s face. Greer’s lids stretched back and his eyes bulged wide inside their sockets. The quick, powerful bull rush that slammed Greer’s back against the wall, Seabury realized was a big mistake. He’d gotten too close. Now Greer had the wire in both hands, kneed Seabury’s groin and sent the gun flying out of his hands onto the floor. Darting quickly behind him, Greer slammed Seabury to the floor like a wrestler being pile-driven onto the mat.

  As the wire looped around his neck, Seabury managed to get the thick, blunted fingers of his right hand under the wire. They formed a cushion that prevented the wire from severing his trachea and strangling him to death.

  On the floor the two men grappled hard. They twisted and turned, squirmed and writhed, squealed out in pain as they rolled over on top of each other. Behind him now, Seabury felt the mega-force power of Greer’s hands wrenching down on the wire. Seabury kicked and thrashed. His lungs squeezed shut and cried out for air. But as Greer’s vice-like grip tightened harder on the wire, Seabury discovered something. The harder Greer pulled, the more his head tilted forward and came closer to Seabury’s free hand. His left hand flew out now like the darting head of a snake and seized Greer’s hair. In a wild instant Seabury’s head jerked back and crashed into the middle of Greer’s forehead, knocking him backward.

  Dazed, Greer lunged at Seabury, who had spun around to face him. Seabury jabbed his left hand out at Greer and then followed it a split second later with a powerful right hand. The blow caught Greer flush in the face, broke his nose, shattered his teeth and knocked him squarely onto the floor.

  Seabury picked up the gun and leveled it back on Greer, just as the door burst open and three burly Marines rushed inside the room.

  Pointing guns at Seabury, they shouted, “Back against the wall. Now.”

  One of the Marines tried but failed to get cuffs on him.

  “You’ve got the wrong guy,” Seabury said, noticing that Hatcher had gone and Greer was struggling to regain his feet.

  The Marines circled the two men and marched Seabury and Greer outside and down the stairs. There was commotion and voices squabbling until Wheatley stepped forward and verified Seabury’s identity. Then two cops piled Greer into a cruiser parked outside and Seabury was left on a chair inside the banquet room with two Marines standing guard over him.

  Chapter Forty-One

  At 9:45 p.m. the dinner crowd filed out the front door of the embassy.

  Seabury stared out beyond the door of the banquet hall at a fleet of sleek, black limos that pulled up into the driveway outside. A procession of dark suits and bright flowing gowns traipsed down the strip of red carpet. They entered the doors to the limos, and were whisked off into the silence and darkness of the night. Meanwhile, Bill Wheatley clipped his cell phone shut and crossed the banquet hall toward Seabury. Small, smug, and authoritative, his face constricted in a mix of power and self-importance.

  “What happened?” Wheatley said. “I just got off the phone with Ambassador Hatcher. He said he’d been accosted up in the bathroom on second floor.” He looked around. “Where’s Tory. Have you seen her?”

  “No. Where’s Hatcher?”

  Wheatley’s brow wrinkled and his lips tightened at the use of Hatcher’s surname.

  “Ambassador Hatcher?” he said.

  “Get him down here. I want to talk to him. And while you’re at it, check around for Tory. I haven’t heard from her and I’m starting to worry.”

  Wheatley ordered the Marines back upstairs. One of them came down a few minutes later.

  “Dead, sir,” he said to Wheatley. “Both of them strangled.”

  * * * *

  Wheatley had to sit down. He collapsed like a straw man into the chair next to Seabury, and poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the table. He took a long drink and Seabury glared at him with a look of loathing and disgust.

  “Oh, my God,” Wheatley stammered. “I can’t believe it…Tory.”

  The sound of Wheatley’s tinny voice annoyed Seabury even more.

  “Cut the act,” Seabury snapped. “Fine you care about her now. After the engagement you broke off. But you were already married, weren’t you?”

  Wheatley’s stunned look at hearing the news caused him to sink down further into the chair.

  “I need to talk to Hatcher right now,” Seabury repeated. “Get him down here.”

  Wheatley arched a thin eyebrow. “I’ll need to know the nature of the business,” he said to Seabury, his tone suddenly cool.

  “Nothing that concerns you.”

  “Well…I mean…this isn’t following…protocol.”

  Seabury stared at him and decided not to comment. “Tell Hatcher I want to talk to him about Biff Brannan.”

  “Biff Brannan.”

  “Don’t make me have to repeat myself,” Seabury said with a look of annoyance. “Now get him down here.”

  As Wheatley dialed a number, Seabury noticed a detail of Marines going up the stairs to the second floor with body bags. A while later they came down with two bodies, Tory’s and the dead Marine. A lump of sadness lodged in his throat and then broke off quickly as three paramedics burst in through the front door. Outside, a spiral of red and blue light hurled off the roof of their ambulance and a siren screamed back into the night.

  One paramedic carried an IV bottle. Another carried a stethoscope and the third a large black bag. When they saw the body bags coming down, they stopped quickly inside the lobby.

  “Second floor secure,” a Marine told the third paramedic. “No one else up there.” The paramedic responded with a solemn nod and then helped his co-workers heft the body bags out to the ambulance.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  It was 10:00 p.m. when Hatcher came downstairs. He shook Seabury’s hand and thanked him for saving his life. Then in a moment of reflection he gave Seabury a quizzical look and asked him what he wanted.

  “I’d rather talk alone, upstairs.” Seabury shot Wheatley a dismissive glance, then laid his eyes back on Hatcher. Wheatley left the room and Hatcher and Seabury went upstairs to the second floor.

  The office was at the other end of the hall. Hatcher switched on lights and they entered the room and he door closed behind them. In one corner of the room the American flag stood furled on a stand with a shiny brass base. In the opposite corner, the Laotian flag dropped in a loose bolt of cloth to the floor. Plaques and certificates hung from the walls.
A large oak desk stood at the back of the room. Two cushioned chairs in front of it. The room carried a look of bureaucratic blandness.

  It was hot and stuffy inside. Hatched switched on an air-conditioner then circled around the desk and sat back down. Seabury sat in a chair facing him.

  For a few minutes Seabury said nothing, just riveted his eyes on Hatcher with a hard, steely gaze. A red welt looped the base of Hatcher’s neck and his face flushed, hot with anticipation. His white coiffed hair, combed straight back now, had not a single hair out of place. He had changed into another suit, this one brown and bland-looking. Hatcher stared through the silence, edgy, impatient.

  “Well,” he said, “what can I do for you?”

  “I want to talk about two things,” said Seabury. “First, the attempt on your life. Second, a U.S. Air Force pilot under your command years ago named Biff Brannan.”

  Hatcher’s face looked hard and edged with irritation. A cold light flickered on and off inside his small blue eyes. He sank back further into the leather cushions of the chair.

  Seabury continued. “First, the attempt on your life, if you’re wondering about the man who tried to kill you, his name is Hyde Greer. I doubt his name means anything to you, but his father’s name might jar your memory.” He told Hatcher about Joe Greer.

  Hatcher shook his head. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard of him.”

  “But you’ve heard of Biff Brannan.” Seabury leaned forward in the chair, eyeing Hatcher across the desk, watching him start to squirm a little.

  A corner of Hatcher’s mouth turned up a wry grin. He held his hand up and sent a dismissive wave back at Seabury. “I won’t go there,” he said.

  “Hiding something?” Seabury said, his eyes narrowed on the Ambassador.

  “I could call Security and have you thrown out.”

  Seabury leaned forward until he was perched on the edge of the chair, tired exhausted. The aches and pains of his fight with Hyde Greer washed over him.

  He was a battery discharging slowly now in a patch of torrid sunlight.

  “You could, but I don’t think you will,” Seabury said, “because if you do, the first thing I’ll do is contact the media. Then your sudden rise to power up the bureaucratic food chain will end faster than the time it took for you to call off the search for Brannan’s plane.”

  “That was a long time ago…nearly forty years. Why bring it up now?”

  “Then you admit responsibility for their deaths?”

  Hatcher’s brow wrinkled and his head snapped back as a look of righteous indignation crossed his face.

  “I didn’t say that,” he said, clearly annoyed at Seabury. “It was a personal matter, a feud if you like, between Brannan and me that went on for years.”

  Seabury made no reply, locked his eyes on Hatcher and leaned over in the chair. Hatcher’s face flushed. Then the corner of his right eye began to twitch.

  “There’s something here you need to understand, Mister Seabury. The flamboyant William ‘Biff’ Brannan, ace U.S. Air Force pilot, wasn’t lily white. No, not by a long shot. He was as much an egomaniac as I’ll admit I was during those years. But what you don’t know is the story behind the story which caused our feud.”

  Seabury sat back, waiting for more.

  “We were in Colorado Springs,” Hatcher said, “at the U.S Air Force Academy. Unfortunately at the time my now, very ex-wife Carolyn Hatcher, had developed a crush on Lieutenant Brannan. They say the man is the last to know about his wife’s indiscretions. It was true in my case and it wasn’t just hearsay either. I hired a Private Eye who took pictures of them together having their cheap, sordid affair.”

  “So you resented him?” said Seabury, his voice low and flat, more conciliatory than the tone he’d used earlier.

  “No,” Hatcher said matter-of-factly. “Back then, I hated him. But not enough to kill him. If you think the affair was hard on me emotionally—it was I admit it—then the divorce was even worse because it left me financially strapped for years. It took me ages to dig myself out of the hole I’d gotten myself into living with a wife who liked to spend more than I was earning each month as a military officer.”

  Hatcher paused to catch his breath. Seabury listened.

  “Anyway,” he said, “Brannan just didn’t go away. He resurfaced during the Vietnam War and later during the Secret War in Laos. I can tell you that Brannan’s insubordination and total disregard for military rules and regulations was nothing short of being ridiculous. You must know then about the Raven Program.”

  It was a rhetorical question so Seabury chose not to respond.

  “The Raven’s pilots were hotshots filled with too much testosterone and bravado. But I’ll admit many of them served honorably and died tragically in the service of their country. But some, a limited handful following the bad example set by Brannan, wanted to do things their own way. To hell with the rest of us back at Tactical Command in Saigon, that was their attitude. They literally rubbed their success in our faces when so much rivalry, bitterness and resentment could have been avoided.”

  “But you called off the search early, didn’t you? You knew from your lofty perch at Tactical Command Headquarters in Saigon, that if a plane went down and the pilot and spotter weren’t rescued a short time later, their chances of survival were pretty slim. Wasn’t that what happened to Brannan and Greer?”

  Hatcher cracked a faint smile. “There’s a gray area here that you’re not seeing.”

  Seabury sat looking on, still listening, still wondering how much of the story he could believe.

  “What the record shows,” Hatcher said, “is that I had two search and rescue teams on hand. The first team went MIA a few days after I sent them out. Somehow the record of their deployment got destroyed. How that happened, I don’t know. The second team I thought twice about sending out, but in the end decided against it. I figured they would end up the same way as the first team. It was a judgment call, and for that decision I take full responsibility. So maybe that’s why there’s confusion over search and rescue operations being called off early. It just never happened.”

  Hatcher went quiet. Seabury thought he saw a flicker of remorse enter his eyes before they faded back quickly into pools of darkness.

  “It was such a long time ago,” Hatcher said. “The tragedy of that forgettable war and its secrets need to stay where they are, buried in the past. I hope they never reach the light of day.”

  “I bet you do,” Seabury said.

  “Not for the reasons you might think,” Hatcher said.

  “Secretary of State might be a pretty good reason.”

  Hatcher gave him a quick smile which faded fast. “The Vietnam War was a mistake from the beginning,” he said. “I will admit that now. You see Mister Seabury, it took me years to shed the arrogance and the hubris of a young military officer blindly obsessed with the war and totally committed to it. It took years for me to admit that I could have been wrong about everything—the war and the reasons for our involvement there.” He caught his breath and went on. “And yes, of course, even Biff Brannan. Mistakes are what we often see from the work we do and mistakes are part of the lives we live. Unfortunately none of us are immune from making them. I like to believe that over the years I’ve changed into something better than the loud, brash, hard-nosed military officer I’d become during the war.”

  Hatcher checked his watch.

  “It’s late,” he said. “My wife is waiting and I have things to do. I don’t want to worry her.”

  He stood up and walked around the desk, looking at Seabury. “Can I count on you to do the right thing and not get the media involved?” he asked, keeping his voice calm. “I know it’s a lot to ask. But if you do, I can tell you that the lives of my family and close personal friends will change forever. And I’m afraid to admit the results could prove disastrous.”

  Seabury didn’t respond but crossed over and left the room.

  Out in the hall he saw Wheatley coming hi
s way.

  “Is everything alright? Is the Ambassador still in his office? I just received a call from the local police. They want to question you.”

  “Tell them to come to my office in Bangkok. Only, tell them tomorrow…because I’m flying out of here tonight. I have nothing to tell them. You and Mister Ambassador can spin the news of the incident here tonight any way you want. I’m sure the two of you will come up with something.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  When Colonel Maran Tint returned home to his luxury apartment the next day after his tussle with Seabury, he found Kamea’s letter on the kitchen table.

  Stunned, his nose splinted by a metal cone and strips of plastic tape, he sank down in a chair. He changed his mind seconds later and rushed into the bedroom, still holding the letter in his hand.

  The closet was bare, the bureau drawers empty, the bathroom cabinet containing all her cosmetics cleaned out. She’d moved all of her clothes and belongings out. Everything. Returning to the kitchen, he sat down at the table and started to read her letter.

  Dearest Maran,

  I cannot express the way I feel right now. It’s all so complex, like stepping into a tunnel and hoping to find light at the other end. Please forgive me if I’ve hurt you. I’m taking a way out through this letter, because I feel if I can get my thoughts down on paper, the real reason for the sudden departure will become clear to both of us. I hope you will understand my feelings because I am too ashamed and guilt-ridden now to have agreed to meet you face-to-face to express them before I left the country.

  Yes, I know its short notice but these things like career and getting ahead and getting what you want out of life don’t come every day so you have to strike while the opportunity exists, otherwise they pass you by. So when the BBC made the offer, well, I could hardly turn it down.