An official at the brokerage firm told Mony, “The tenants were there just over a month, and we haven’t heard from them so we have no idea if they’re coming back. Right now we’re not sure what to do, and if you have any contact with the people, we’d appreciate hearing.”
Mony, his interest quickening, promised to keep the real estate firm informed. He then visited the property with the woman researcher.
“I know we weren’t supposed to follow up directly,” he told Cooper and the others on the phone. “But that was before we heard the kidnappers were in Peru. Anyway, we’ve found some things we think are important and which made me decide to call you.”
He was telephoning from a café, he reported, about a mile from the empty house.
“First, give us the directions,” Kettering instructed. “Then go back to the house and wait. We’ll be there as fast as we can.”
An hour later a CBA courier car pulled into the Hackensack property, bringing Don Kettering, Norm Jaeger, Teddy Cooper and a two-man camera crew.
As Kettering stepped from the car, he surveyed the old decaying buildings and commented, “I can see why that ad mentioned ‘repairs needed.’”
Cooper folded a map he had been studying. “This place is twenty-five miles from Larchmont. About what we figured.”
“You figured,” Jaeger said.
Mony introduced the young woman researcher, Cokie Vale, a petite redhead. Cooper recognized her instantly. When the temporary researchers first assembled she had asked whether, at the stage they appeared to have reached now, a camera crew would be on hand.
“I remember your question,” he told her and gestured to the crew assembling its equipment. “As you can see, the answer’s ‘yes.’”
She flashed him a dazzling smile.
“The first thing you should see,” Jonathan Mony said, “is on the second floor of the house.”
As the others followed, he led the way into the dilapidated main house and up a wide, curving stairway. Near the head of the stairs he opened a door and stood back while others filed in.
The room they entered was in total contrast to what had been seen elsewhere. It was clean, painted a hygienic white and with new pale-green linoleum covering the floor. Mony switched on overhead fluorescent lights, also obviously new, revealing two hospital cots, both with side restraining rails and straps. In contrast to the cots was a narrow, battered metal bed; it, too, had straps attached.
Pointing to the bed, Kettering said, “It looks as if that was an afterthought. The whole place is like a first-aid station.”
Jaeger nodded. “Or set up to handle three doped people, one of them unexpected.”
Mony opened a cupboard door. “Whoever was here didn’t bother to clear out all this stuff before they left.”
Facing them were some assorted medical supplies—hypodermic needles, bandages, rolls of cotton batting, gauze pads and two pharmaceutical containers, both unopened.
Jaeger picked up one of the containers and read aloud, “‘Diprivan … propofol’—that’s the generic name.” He peered at fine print on the label. “It says ‘for intravenous anesthesia.’” As he and Kettering looked at each other, “It all fits. Doesn’t seem much doubt.”
“Can I show you downstairs?” Mony prompted.
“Go ahead,” Kettering told him. “You’re the one who’s had time to look around.”
Entering a small outbuilding, Mony pointed to an iron stove, choked with ashes. “Somebody did a lot of burning here. Didn’t get everything, though.” He picked up a partially burned magazine, the name Caretas visible.
“That magazine’s Peruvian,” Jaeger said. “I know it well.”
They moved to a larger building. Inside, it was obvious it had been a paint shop. Virtually no attempt had been made to clear the building. Cans of paint—some partially used, others unopened, still remained. Most were labeled AUTO LACQUER.
Teddy Cooper was looking at colors. “Remember when we talked to people who saw the Sloane surveillance? Some reported seeing a green car, yet none of the kinds of motors they mentioned were manufactured in that color. Well, here’s green enamel—and yellow too.”
“This is the place,” Jaeger said. “It has to be.”
Kettering nodded. “I agree. So let’s get to work. We’ll use this on the news tonight.”
“There is one more thing,” Mony said. “Something Cokie spotted outside.”
This time the attractive redhead took center stage. She led the group to a cluster of trees away from the house and outbuildings and explained, “Somebody’s been digging here—not long ago. Afterward they tried to level the ground but didn’t manage it. The grass hasn’t grown back either.”
Cooper said, “It looks as if earth was taken out and something buried, which is why it hasn’t packed down.”
Among the group, eyes shifted back and forth. Cooper now seemed uncertain, Jaeger looked away. If something had been buried—what? A body, or bodies? Everyone present knew that it was possible.
Jaeger said doubtfully, “We’ll have to call the FBI about this place. Maybe we should wait and let them …”
Behind the remark was the fact that after Friday’s National Evening News, the FBI Director in Washington had telephoned Margot Lloyd-Mason and strongly protested CBA’s failure to inform the FBI immediately of new developments. Surprising some at CBA, the network president did not take the complaint too seriously, perhaps believing the organization could withstand any government pressure and was unlikely to be charged in court. She merely apprised Les Chippingham of the call. The news president, in turn, cautioned the task force to keep law enforcement authorities informed unless there was some compelling reason not to do so.
Obviously, because physical evidence was involved at the Hackensack house, the FBI must be advised of the discovery—certainly before broadcast time tonight.
“Sure we’ll tell the FBI,” Kettering said. “But first I’d like to take a look at what’s under that ground, if anything.”
“There are some shovels in the furnace room,” Mony said.
“Get them,” Kettering told him. “We’re all healthy. Let’s start digging.”
A short time later it became evident that what they were opening was not a grave. Instead it was a repository of discarded items left by the property’s recent occupants and presumably intended to stay hidden. Some things were innocuous—food supplies, clothing, toilet objects, newspapers. Others were more significant—additional medical supplies, maps, some Spanish-language paperback books and automotive tools.
“We know they had a fleet of trucks and cars,” Jaeger said. “Maybe the FBI will find out what they did with them—if it matters at this point.”
“I don’t think any of this matters right now,” Kettering ruled. “Let’s quit.”
During the digging, videotaping had been started—initially a sound bite by Cokie Vale describing her search of classified advertising and how it led to the Hackensack house. On camera she was personable, expressed herself clearly and was economical with words. It would be her first appearance on television, she acknowledged afterward. Those watching had an instinct it would not be her last.
Jonathan Mony, it was felt, had earned some camera exposure too and repeated his showing of the upstairs room where the kidnapped trio had almost certainly been held. He also was effective.
“If this endeavor’s done nothing else,” Jaeger commented to Don Kettering, “it’s brought us some new talent.”
Mony, having returned from the house, was down in the excavated hole and had resumed digging when Kettering made the decision to quit. About to climb out, Mony felt his foot touch something solid and probed with his shovel. A moment later he had pulled out an object and called, “Hey, look at this!”
It was a cellular phone in a canvas outer cover.
Passing up the phone to Cooper, Mony said, “I think there’s another underneath.”
Not only was there another, but four more after tha
t. Soon the six were laid out, side by side.
“The people who used this place weren’t short of money,” Cokie observed.
“Chances are it was drug money; anyway, they had plenty,” Don Kettering told her. He regarded the phones thoughtfully. “But maybe—just maybe we’re getting somewhere.”
Jaeger asked, “Are records kept of all cellular phone calls?”
“Sure are.” Kettering, who as business correspondent had recently done a news feature on the booming cellular phone market, answered confidently. “There are also lots of other records including a regular phone user’s name and billing address. For these the gang needed a local accomplice.” He turned to Cooper. “Teddy, on each phone there’ll be an area code followed by a regular number, just as on a house or office line.”
“I’m tuned in,” Cooper said. “You’d like me to make a list?”
“Please!”
While Cooper worked, they continued videotaping the house and buildings. In a correspondent’s standup, Kettering said:
“Some may believe discovery of the abandoned American base of the kidnappers is, at this point, too little too late. That may be true. But meanwhile the FBI and others will sift evidence found here while the world watches anxiously, continuing to hope.
“Don Kettering, CBA News, Hackensack, New Jersey.”
Before leaving, they called in the local police, asking them to inform the FBI.
Even before the National Evening News went on the air, Kettering had telephoned a friend high in NYNEX Corporation, operators of the New York and New Jersey telephone systems. Holding in his hand the list of numbers compiled by Teddy Cooper, Kettering explained what he needed—the name and address of the person or persons to whom the six telephones were registered, plus a list of all calls made to or from those numbers during the past two months.
“You realize, of course,” his friend—an executive vice president—informed him, “that not only would giving you that information be a violation of privacy, but I would be acting illegally and could lose my job. Now, if you were an investigative agency with a warrant—”
“I’m not and I can’t be,” Kettering replied. “However, it’s a safe bet the FBI will be asking for the same information tomorrow and they’ll have one. All I want are those answers first.”
“Oh my god! How did I get mixed up with a character like you?”
“Since you ask,. I remember your wanting a favor from CBA once or twice and I delivered. Come on! We’ve trusted each other since business school and never regretted it.”
At the other end, a sigh. “Give me the damn numbers.”
After Kettering had recited the list, his friend continued, “You said the FBI tomorrow. I suppose that means you need to know tonight.”
“Yes, but any time this side of midnight. You can call me at home. You have the number?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
The call came at 10:45 P.M., just after Don Kettering arrived at his East Seventy-seventh Street apartment, having stayed late at CBA. His wife, Aimée, answered, then handed him the phone.
“I saw your news this evening,” his NYNEX friend said. “I presume those cellular numbers you gave me are those used by the kidnappers.”
“It looks that way,” Kettering acknowledged.
“In that case, I wish I had more for you. There isn’t a lot. First, the phones are all registered to a Helga Efferen. I have an address.”
“I doubt if it’s current. The lady’s dead. Murdered. I hope she didn’t owe you money.”
“Jesus! You news guys are cold-blooded.” After a pause, the NYNEX man went on, “About the money, it’s actually the reverse. Right after numbers were issued for those phones, someone made a deposit of five hundred dollars for each account—three thousand dollars in all. We didn’t ask for it, but it went on the books as a credit.”
Kettering said, “I imagine the people using the phones didn’t want anyone sending bills or asking awkward questions until they were safely out of the country.”
“Well, for whatever reason, most of the money’s still there. Less than a third was used and that’s because, with one exception, all calls were solely between the six phones and not to other numbers. Local interphone calls get charged, but not all that heavily.”
“Everything points to the kidnappers’ organization and discipline,” Kettering affirmed. “But you said there was an exception.”
“Yes—on September 13, an international direct-dial call to Peru.”
“That’s the day before the kidnap. Do you have a number?”
“Of course. It was 011—that’s the international access code—51, which is Peru, then 14-28-9427. My people tell me that ‘14’ is Lima. Exactly where is something you’ll have to find out.”
“I’m sure we will. And thanks!”
“I hope some of that helps. Good luck!”
Moments later, after consulting a notebook, Kettering tapped out a number for another call: 011-51-14-44-1212.
When a voice answered, “Buenas tardes, Cesar’s Hotel,” Kettering requested, “Mr. Harry Partridge, por favor.”
8
It had been a discouraging day for Harry Partridge. He was tired and, in his hotel suite, had gone to bed shortly before ten o’clock. But his thoughts were still churning. He was brooding on Peru.
The whole country, he thought, was a paradox—a conflicting mixture of military despotism and free democracy. In much of the republic’s remoter regions the military and so-called anti-terrorist police ruled with steel fists and frequent disregard of law. They were apt to kill wantonly, afterward labeling their victims “rebels,” even when they were not—as independent inquiry often showed.
A U.S. human rights organization, Americas Watch, had done a creditable job, Partridge believed, in seeking out and recording what it called “a cascade of extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests, disappearances and torture,” all “central features” in the government’s counterinsurgency campaign.
On the other hand, Americas Watch did not spare the rebels. In a recently published report, open beside the bed, it said Sendero Luminoso “systematically murders defenseless people, places explosives that endanger the lives of innocent bystanders and attacks military targets without minimizing the risk to the civilian population”—all “violations of the most fundamental rules of international humanitarian law.”
As to the country generally, “Peru now has the sad privilege to be counted among the most violent and dangerous places in South America.”
An inescapable conclusion, confirmed by other sources, was that little difference existed between rebel and government forces when it came to random slaughter and other assorted savagery.
Yet, at the same time, strong democratic elements existed in Peru—more real than mere façades, a word sometimes used by critics. Freedom of the press was one, a tradition seemingly ingrained. It was that same freedom which allowed Partridge and other foreign reporters to travel, question, probe, then report however they decided, without fear of expulsion or reprisal. True, there had been exceptions to the principle but so far they were rare and isolated.
Partridge had come close to that subject today during an interview with General Raúl Ortiz, chief of anti-terrorism police. “Does it not concern you,” he had asked the erect, unsmiling figure in plain clothes, “that there are so many responsible reports of your men being guilty of brutality and illegal executions?”
“It would concern me more,” Ortiz replied in a half-contemptuous tone, “if my men were the ones executed—as they would be if they did not defend themselves from those terrorists which you and others seem to care so much about. As to the untrue reports, if our government tried to suppress them, people like you would raise great howls and keep repeating them. Thus a one-day news trifle, forgotten twenty-four hours later, is usually preferable.”
Partridge had requested the interview with Ortiz, believing he should cover the ground, though doubting that much would
be gained. Through the Ministry of the Interior the meeting was arranged promptly, though a request to bring a camera crew was denied. Also, when Partridge was searched before being allowed to enter the police general’s office, a minitape recorder in his pocket, which he had intended to ask permission to use, was removed outside. Nothing was said, though, about the talk being off the record and the general made no objection to his visitor’s taking notes.
General Ortiz’s unpretentious wood-paneled office was one of a warren of similar offices in an old, massive raw-cement building in downtown Lima. High walls surrounded the structure, half of which had once been a prison. Getting inside had entailed clearance by a succession of suspicious guards; then, walking across a courtyard within the walls, Partridge had passed rows of armored personnel carriers, as well as trucks with anti-riot water cannon. While talking with the general, Partridge was aware that beneath them in the building’s basement were cell blocks where prisoners were often held for two weeks without any outside contact, and other cells where interrogation and torture regularly took place.
At the outset of the Ortiz interview, Partridge asked the question uppermost in his mind: whether the anti-terrorism police had any idea where the three Sloane kidnap victims were being held.
“I thought you might have come to tell me that, judging by the many people you have seen since coming here,” the General responded. It was an admission and perhaps a not-so-subtle warning, Partridge thought, that his movements were being watched. He guessed, too, that CBA’s satellite transmissions to New York, as well as those of other U.S. networks were being monitored and recorded by the Peruvian Government, press freedom notwithstanding.
When Partridge declared he had no information about the location of the American captives despite his efforts, Ortiz said, “Then you are aware how devious and secretive those enemies of the state, Sendero Luminoso, can be. Also that this is a country far different from your own, with vast spaces where it is possible to hide armies. But, yes, we have ideas as to areas where your friends might be and our forces are searching those.”