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 desperately 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.