Ransom

“For a while there,” the captain said to Ted before he left, “I thought you were crazy. It turns out they are.” He hadn't seen anything as grisly in years, and he had asked Ted immediately if Fernanda had heard or seen anything that could help them, like the license plate, or their destination. But she hadn't. They had all been wearing ski masks, and said little or nothing. She had been too frantic to even notice details about the van. All they knew was what they'd known before it happened. Who it might be, and who might be behind it. There was nothing new, except that two policemen and two FBI agents had died, and a six-year-old boy had been kidnapped. Detectives had gone to Peter's Tenderloin hotel within minutes of Fernanda's call to Ted, but the desk clerk said he'd gone out that morning and not come back. Peter's guests of the night before had gone out a service entrance and never been seen or linked to him. The police were staking out his room, but there was no sign of him, and Ted knew there wouldn't be. He was gone for good, although what seemed like all his belongings were still in the room. And there were coded all points bulletins out for Peter and Carlton Waters, and Peter's car. Everyone knew they had to act with extreme caution so as not to alert the kidnappers or jeopardize the boy.

Carlton Waters and his two friends had called Peter as soon as they crossed the Bay Bridge and were driving through Berkeley. They used the new number he'd given them, on his brand-new nontraceable cell phone.

“We had a little problem,” Waters said to him. He sounded calm but angry.

“What little problem?” For a terrifying moment, Peter was afraid that they'd killed her, or Sam.

“You forgot to mention she had four cops with her, sitting in her kitchen.” Waters sounded livid. They hadn't expected to have to kill four cops to get to the kid. That was not part of the deal. And Peter hadn't warned them.

“She what? That's ridiculous. I never saw them go in. She had a few friends in the other day, but that was it. There was no one with her.” He sounded certain. But he had also left before ten o'clock the night before, maybe they had gone in after he left. He wondered if that was why he hadn't seen much of her for the past few days. But there was no one to tip her off to what was happening. No way for her to know. Nothing had happened, except Addison getting himself arrested for tax problems. But nothing about that could have warned the police or the FBI, unless he had said something inadvertently. Peter knew he was too smart for that. He couldn't figure out what had happened, or what had gone wrong.

“Well, whoever wasn't with her is no longer a problem. If you get my drift,” Waters said, spitting a wad of chewing tobacco out the van window. Stark was driving. And Free was in the back seat. The boy was in the bag they'd put him in, in the back of the van, with their weapons and the groceries. Free had an M16 at his feet, and an arsenal of handguns, mostly .45-caliber Rugers and Berettas, both were semiautomatic weapons. Carl had brought his favorite, an Uzi MAC-10, a small fully automatic machine gun he'd grown fond of and learned to use before he went to prison.

“You killed them?” Peter asked, sounding stunned. That was going to complicate everything, and he knew Addison wasn't going to like it. Nothing like that was supposed to happen. He'd been watching her for over a month. How the hell did four cops get into the picture? And who had they been watching? Suddenly, Peter felt a chill run down his spine. As Addison had said, there was no such thing as a free lunch. All of a sudden, Peter knew he was about to earn his ten million.

Carlton Waters did not comment on Peter's question. “You'd better warn the cops not to say how those guys died. If they put any of this in the newspapers, we'll kill the kid. I told her that, but maybe you'd better remind them too. We want everything nice and quiet, till we get the money. If they put it on TV, every asshole in the state will be looking for us. We don't need that too.”

“Then you shouldn't have killed four cops. Christ, what am I supposed to do here? You can't expect me to keep them quiet.”

“You better do something fast. We left there half an hour ago. If the cops talk, it's going to be all over the news in the next five minutes.”