by Jim Plautz
Anton and Raul had themselves a hostage. That was the easy part, now the trick was to get someone to pay the ransom. Agbu headed home to Vitoria-Gasteiz. Collecting the ransom was someone else’s responsibility. He had done his part.
Ten minutes into the trip Bill was blindfolded and ordered to lie down and keep quiet. He tried to concentrate and keep track of time and direction, but soon became disoriented and gave up. What was the boy’s name, Agbu? Bill knew he would not forget the boy’s face. After what seemed like hours, he sensed they slowly climbing into the mountains. What was Susan doing? Had she called the police? She would be frantic. Bill knew she was a fragile woman and worried how she would hold up under the stress.
Anton headed for a cabin on the French side of the Pyrenees owned by two loyal ETA members who had agreed to let them use the cabin. Most of the locals in that area were Basque and strangers were not welcome. It was ideal for their needs. An elderly couple acted as caretakers and had agreed to help baby-sit the prisoner in exchange for a few Euros a week and the promise of a bonus when the ransom was paid. It was a small price to pay.
They reached the cabin just before sunset “We’re here,” someone said as they pulled Bill out of the van. “Did you sleep well?”
Bill didn’t think he had slept, but was surprised at how disoriented he had become from being blindfolded. “Where are we?” Bill asked, not really expecting an answer.
“It’s your home for awhile and maybe forever if your wife doesn’t cooperate,” the man replied as he was led into a house or cabin. He was led through a second door where his handcuffs were removed. He heard the door slam behind him and he was alone. Removing his blindfold, Bill evaluated his surroundings.
It’s certainly not a suite at Ritz, he muttered to himself. There was a cot in one corner, a small table with a water-pitcher, and a commode. Nothing else, not even a lamp. The room was about ten feet square and appeared to be made of concrete block. There was a small window near the ceiling just out of his reach. Bill jumped and caught the ledge, and pulled himself up, but all he saw was trees. He checked out the plumbing and was not surprised to find there was none. The commode was self-contained. The water-pitcher was empty.
“Not bad,” he thought, “it could be worse. I should only be in here a few days, maybe a week at most.”
Two months later Bill had grown a four-inch beard and the elderly couple had provided a wooden chair and kerosene reading lamp, nothing else had changed.
Susan heard nothing for two days and was beginning to fear the worst. The local police interviewed guests and employees, but had not come up with anything useful. Two hotel guests thought they had seen Bill and a young boy getting into an elevator at the time of the kidnapping, but they couldn’t provide a description. Video security cameras in the lobby and hallways showed nothing and the camera in the parking garage was broken. Georges Caron, a French police lieutenant, was put in charge of the case and helped Susan retain her sanity.
“Be patient, Mrs. Peterson, they will contact you. The kidnappers are just trying to make you nervous so that you will cooperate.”
“How do we know they haven’t killed him already?” she sobbed.
“These aren’t killers,” Mrs. Peterson. “They consider themselves businessmen, and your husband is not worth anything to them dead. Trust me, I’ve seen this many times.”
On the 3rd day, Susan finally received a ransom note asking for $10M if she wanted to see Bill alive again. A 10-year old boy had been paid five Euros to deliver the note and could provide no clues to the identity of the kidnappers. Susan had one week to come up with the money.
“At least we now know it’s definitely a kidnapping for money. Most hostages are released unharmed once the kidnappers get what they want,” Caron said in an encouraging tone. What he didn’t tell her was that 30% of the victims never made it home after the ransom is paid.
“But there is no way we can come up with $10M,” Susan blurted out, not even if we had a year. The business isn’t worth that much. Bill’s partners said our shares are worth a million dollars, at most, assuming we could find an investor.”
“How much could you put together by next week?” Georges asked.
“We only have about $200,000 in stocks and cash and maybe $60,000 equity in the house. That’s all, unless we find a buyer for our shares of the company. I’m told a bank won’t lend us anything as long as Bill is missing. They say he is too important to the company to risk a loan.”
“Tell me again what you remember about that conversation in the Tapas bar last Monday,” Georges asked. “Did you or Bill ever mention how much the company was worth?”
“No, I didn’t have any idea how much the company is worth until I asked Bill’s partners. Bill might have said something; he was having a pretty good time. I do remember him saying something about doing an IPO and raising millions, but this was just bar talk. Nobody takes that literally, do they?”
“Someone might have, Susan. It’s our best lead. Let me ask you, did the guys Bill was talking to even know what an IPO is? I assume it means an Initial Public Offering of your stock.”
“That’s right. The only reason I know is that a few months ago Bill explained that this is how they were going to get rich, but he figured we were two or three years away before we could take the company public. I do remember someone asking Bill how much money he expected to raise by going public.”
“Can you recall what Bill said?”
“I’m not sure that he gave a specific answer. I think he said something like, ‘Bill Gates raised over $200M when he took Microsoft public, but we’ll settle for a little less.’ He was just joking,” Susan said, but realized Georges wasn’t laughing.
“Okay Susan. We are staking out that bar as well as the other bars you visited that night. We will start looking for someone with a financial background, although there are a lot of people that play the stock market and know about IPOs. In the meantime, I suggest you see if you can raise a little more money. I’m not sure they will settle for $250,000 after thinking they would get millions.”
“Do you think they will kill him?” Susan asked, voicing her fears for the first time.
“I don’t think so Susan,” Georges answered, “although I am worried about one thing. This doesn’t seem like it was a well-planned operation. The people that did this are amateurs, and you never know how amateurs will react.”
“It is going to be difficult to wait another week. I can’t help but wonder how they are treating him.”
Three weeks later there was no progress. The kidnappers had dropped their demands to $5M but insisted they would go no lower. The most Susan could raise was $1M tops, thanks to an offer from Bill’s three partners to buy his shares in the company. They were at a standstill.
“Georges, I can’t stay in Spain forever, I am going home tomorrow. Please let me know if there are any new developments.”
“I will, Susan. Trust me, I will keep trying.”
As Susan boarded the plane the next day, she couldn’t help but wonder if her return trip would be happy or sad.
Pete had tasted success and returned to practice Monday with renewed enthusiasm. He wanted more and looked forward to getting revenge against the boy that beat him, but that could wait. He had a lot of work to do.
They spent the first hour on groundstrokes, cross-courts and up the line from both sides. The emphasis was hitting the ball deep. Anything that bounced near the service line was a miss. Pete was on today, particularly off his backhand and Gregg was particularly pleased with his footwork and preparation.
“Nice work, Pete” Gregg said. “You’re moving your feet real well. That’s the key. Tennis is easy if you get to the ball early. Let’s try some serve and volleys.”
Pete served and came in behind it, doing a split-step at the service line to prepare for the return. If the serve was in, Gregg drilled a second ball at Pete’s feet. After 20 minutes Pete walked to the net after missing his third volley in a row.
“Gregg, my forehand volley sucks. Do you think I came into the net too much Sunday? Maybe I should just stay back and rally. That’s what Borg did.”
“Pete, there was only one Borg, and tennis has changed in the last 20 years. Even the Spaniards are coming to the net. You are going to be a big kid in a few years, and you will want to serve and volley. It needs to be a strength, not a weakness. Let’s keep at it.”
After practice, Gregg walked over to Mary who had caught the last 15 minutes of the workout. “Hi Gregg, good workout?”
“It was, Mrs Simpson. He really was into it today. I’m thinking another tournament will do him some good.”
“Me too. He obviously likes it and I think he needs the competition as well as the drills.”
“There’s a tournament coming up in two weeks at Innsbrook in Palm Harbor. It’s close and will probably have a strong draw. The Bollettieri and Saddlebrook kids will probably be there.”
“That’s okay. Let’s see how he stacks up.”
“Okay, I’ll enter him. In the meantime, I’m going to try to schedule him to play matches against a couple of the best players in the club. Dave and Clint will give him all he can handle. Pete could use some practice returning good serves.”
“How do you think Pete will do?” Mary had played Dave a couple of times and could only get a few games off him, never a set.
“I wouldn’t expect too much, but it will be good learning experience.”
Chapter 8
Rescue