Ransom

“When do you want to do this?” Peter asked, slipping the envelope into his pocket, and feeling numb. “What's your target date?”

“If you hire all three men within the next week or two, I think if we watch them for the next four to six weeks, we'll know all we need to know about them. You should be able to make your move at the beginning of July.” He was leaving for Cannes on the first of July. He wanted to be out of the country before they did it. Peter could guess that much.

Peter nodded and looked at him. His entire life had changed in the last two hours. He had an envelope full of money in his pocket with a hundred thousand dollars in it. And by the following week, he would have another hundred thousand dollars, and it meant nothing to him. All he had accomplished in the single afternoon he had spent with Phillip Addison was selling his soul in exchange for his daughters' lives. And with any luck at all, he would keep the Barnes kids alive too. The rest meant nothing to him. The ten million dollars was blood money. He had sold his soul to Phillip Addison. He might as well have been dead, as far as he was concerned. In fact, he was. He turned to walk out of the room, without saying another word to Addison, who watched him go, and just as Peter reached the doorway, Addison spoke up.

“Good luck. Stay in touch.” Peter nodded and walked out of the office, and took the elevator downstairs. It was seven-thirty when he stepped outside. Everyone had left hours before. There was no one else around as Peter leaned over the garbage can on the corner and threw up. He stood there retching for what seemed like a long time.

Chapter 9

As Peter lay in bed in the halfway house that night, he thought about contacting his ex-wife. He wanted to warn her to be especially careful with the girls. But he knew she'd think he was insane. He didn't want Addison pulling a stunt on him, and holding them hostage until he accomplished the task he'd been assigned. But Addison was smarter than that. He knew that if he put Peter's kids at risk or worse, Peter would have nothing left to lose, and would expose him. So as long as Peter did what he had been hired to do, the girls were safe. It was the only thing he had done for his daughters in the last six years, or maybe their entire lives. He had bought their safety at the expense of his own. He was still having trouble believing they would be able to pull it off. But if he picked the right people, maybe he could. It was all about who he hired now. If he picked a bunch of sloppy, careless criminals, they might panic and kill the kids. What he had to find now was the real thing. The smoothest, toughest, coldest, most competent men in the business, if there was such a thing. The men he knew from prison had already proven their ineptitude by being caught, or maybe their plans had been flawed. Peter had to admit that Addison's strategy was very smooth. As long as Allan Barnes's widow had the money he wanted at her disposal. It was unlikely she kept a hundred million dollars in cash at home, in a cookie jar.

He was thinking about all of it, as he lay on his bunk, and his roommate walked in. He was going to look for a room in a decent hotel the next day, nothing too showy or expensive. He didn't want to make a sudden show of wealth he couldn't explain, although Phillip Addison had told him he was going to put him on the books of one of his minor subsidiary companies as a consultant. It was allegedly a market research firm, and was in fact a front for one of his drug rings. But it had been operating for years without a problem, and could be traced nowhere to him.

“How'd it go today?” the roommate asked. He had spent a killing day working at Burger King, and reeked of burgers and french fries. It was only a modest improvement over the way he'd smelled the week before, when he'd worked in a place that served fish and chips. The whole room had smelled of fish. The burger smell was only slightly better.

“It went okay. I got a job. I'm going to move out tomorrow,” Peter said in a dead voice. The roommate was sorry to see him go. Peter was quiet and didn't bother him, and minded his own business.

“What kind of job?” He could see Peter was a classy guy, he just had that look about him, even in jeans and T-shirts, and he knew he was educated. But even with an education, he was in the same boat as everyone else when he got out of prison.

“Doing market research. It's no big deal, but it'll pay rent and food.” Peter looked unenthused. He was still feeling sick about it. He felt like his life was over. He almost wished he was back in prison. At least there, life was simple and he still had hope of a decent life one day. Now he no longer did. It was over for him. He had sold his soul to Satan.