“Where are we going?” Phillip mumbled, his mouth still full of toast.
“Down to the city. We’re gonna buy a car.” Phillip gulped the remainder of the toast down with a swallow of milk, and then followed his father to a yellow taxi that was waiting near the front door. He stopped abruptly when he saw Carlos, who was standing beside the taxi and talking to the driver. He was terrified by the man’s tremendous size and scarred face. He trembled before the gold skull and cross-bones dangling from the bottom of the heavy gold chain around Carlos’s neck.
“Come on, son,” Servito shouted from the back seat. “If you’re not in here in three seconds, we’re going without you.”
Phillip ran to the taxi and climbed into the back seat beside his father. Carlos closed the door behind him, and then got into the front seat beside the driver.
The taxi took them down the mountainside and into the business section of Caracas, where it came to a full stop in front of the Banco National Venezolano, a modern, three-story concrete building with a massive front wall of bronze tinted glass. Carlos and the driver remained in the taxi while Servito and Phillip got out and climbed the concrete steps leading to the bank’s front doors. One of the doors was opened by a short, plump man in his early sixties. His head was devoid of hair and he was neatly dressed in a brown, pinstriped suit, white shirt, and a brown bow tie. “Mr. Servito!” the man exclaimed, smiling and shaking Servito’s hand. “Welcome back to Caracas. It is indeed a pleasure to see you once again.”
“It’s good to be here, Alfred,” Servito replied. “I want you to meet my son, Phillip. He’s come to live with me.” He placed his hand on Phillip’s shoulder. “Phillip, this is Alfred Schnieder. He’s the president of this bank and a very good friend of mine. I don’t know what I would have done without him all these years.”
“You’re very welcome here, young man,” Schnieder said, smiling broadly and displaying a large number of gold teeth. He had a sharp German accent that made Phillip feel tired. “You may have need of my services, some day.” He extended his hand.
Phillip shook Schnieder’s hand.
“Please come to my office and have a drink,” Schnieder said, pointing the way. “We have much to talk about.” He led his guests to a large, tastefully decorated office filled with expensive furniture and numerous South American works of art.
While Phillip amused himself by looking at the hundreds of glass statues and trinkets blown and shaped by Venezuelan artists, Schnieder hurried to his enormous bar. He poured three large brandies and opened a cola for Phillip. After downing one of the brandies, he took the remaining two and the cola to his hand-carved, French Provincial desk. “Help yourselves to the drinks, gentlemen,” he said, flashing another golden smile. After seating himself with another brandy, he said, “Now, my friends, let’s talk.”
Servito finished his brandy in one gulp, and then plunked his briefcase on the desk. “This is for you, Alfred,” he said.
“What have we here?” Schnieder asked.
“Open it.”
Schnieder snapped the brass latches on the briefcase. “Very impressive,” he said as he stared at the neatly stacked and bound bundles of cash in the briefcase. “How much?”
“A quarter of a million.”
Schnieder removed one of the bundles and casually flicked through the bills. “Would you like it placed in your account?” he asked.
“No. I want the equivalent in Bolivars.”
Schnieder frowned. “Surely you’re not serious. The equivalent will fill at least four briefcases.”
“I’m very serious, Alfred. Phillip and I are going to buy a car today, and cash has more horse power, as I’m sure you well know.”
“As you wish,” Schnieder conceded. He replaced the bundle and closed the briefcase. “Excuse me, gentlemen. I shall return in two minutes.” When he returned, he handed a sheet of paper to Servito. “The exchange rate and the equivalency calculation are typed on the paper. Before you leave, my assistant will give you that amount. Please consider the briefcases a gift from me.”
Servito nodded to signify his approval.
Schnieder turned to Phillip. “Now, young man, your father has asked me to talk to you and to look after your financial affairs. I know you don’t have a great deal of money at this point in your life, but some day you will. Your father is an extremely wealthy man and for many years he has honored me with the responsibility of looking after his financial affairs. I am completely familiar with every detail, no matter how minute, of his personal and business financial activities. God forbid, should anything should happen to him, you will come to me and I will continue that responsibility with you… do you understand what I have said?”
Phillip nodded, unaware that his mouth had fallen open.
Schnieder handed his business card to Phillip. “Do you have a wallet?”
Phillip reached into the rear pocket of his shorts and pulled out his wallet. “Here it is,” he said, holding it in front of him.
“Very good. Please keep my card in there. Just in case you need me.”
Phillip carefully slithered Schnieder’s card into his wallet.
Servito extended his hand and winked. “Thank you for the hospitality, Alfred. It’s been a pleasure, as usual.”
“The pleasure is always mine, Mr. Servito. Come to my assistant’s office. I’m sure he has something for you by now.”
Manuel Blanco, a diminutive native Venezuelan in his mid-thirties, pointed to four large brown leather briefcases on the floor beside his desk. “Your cash is in those briefcases, Mr. Servito. Would you like to count it?”
Servito laughed. “You gotta be kidding. That’d take all day.” He turned to Phillip and pointed to the briefcases. “You take two and I’ll take the other two.”
Twenty minutes later, the taxi arrived at a luxury car dealership at Sabana Grande in Caracas. After an hour of haggling, Servito succeeded in exchanging two of the briefcases for a slightly used, jet-black Rolls Royce convertible. He and Phillip climbed in and motored up the southern slope of Mount Avila to the base of the cable car. From there they rode to the summit. They walked a short distance to the abandoned Humbolt Hotel, and then continued on to a native fruit stand, where they bought two lemonades. Throughout the day, Servito had tried in vain to make cheer his son. The boy had thwarted every effort—he had hardly said a word.
“Is something wrong, son? Servito asked. “Don’t you feel well?”
Phillip drew a mouthful of lemonade through his straw, and then stared at his father, his big brown eyes wide open. “How come you’re so rich?”
Unprepared for the question, Servito fumbled with an answer. “I… I’m… because I was a good businessman. I bought low and sold high.”
“Will I be rich, just like you?”
“You already are, son. Everything I own is yours, and some day you’ll be able to use our money to grow even richer.” Servito reached inside his jacket and removed his black, leather-bound notebook. It contained the keys to his fortune, the fruit of his crimes, the secrets for which so many people had died. He handed the notebook to Phillip. “Do you have any idea what a lot of money is?” he asked.
“I think a lot of money is a million dollars.”
Servito chuckled. “Chump change,” he scoffed. He pointed to the notebook in his son’s hands. “That book is worth more than three hundred times as much as you think is a lot of money.”
Phillip gazed at the book in amazement. “Can we sell this book for three hundred million dollars?”
Servito chuckled again. “No. The book just tells us where the money is.”
“What money?”
“The money I’ve saved. It’s in banks and businesses all over the world. That book tells us how much money is in each bank and each business. Someday it’ll all be yours.”
“What day?”
“The day I die.”
“Are you going to die?”
“I hope not,” Servito replied, roll
ing his eyes skyward.
CHAPTER 61
“What was that?” Karen asked, startled by the sudden movement of the airplane.
Mike raised himself high enough to peek out the window beside him. “We’re being towed out of the hangar,” he said.
Dale and Liz Casey entered the cabin seconds after the plane came to rest. They waved and smiled at their passengers, and then disappeared into the cockpit without a word. Seconds later, the motors roared to life and the plane started to move slowly forward. After a long and monotonous period of slow and bumpy rolling, the plane finally came to another brief stop. The sound of the motors grew to a deafening pitch, and then the plane lurched forward.
Mike and Karen had been through many take-offs, but never on the floor of an airplane. They gasped as their prostrate bodies were thrust backward and upward at a steep angle. When Mike could no longer stand the sight of the roof of the plane, he climbed to the seat beside him and looked out the window. “We did it!” he shouted, staring downward at the tall buildings of downtown Toronto.
Karen pulled herself to her feet and looked over Mike’s shoulder. “We may regret it. For the rest of our lives,” she said with a frown.
Mike privately agreed. The odds were heavily stacked against them, and he couldn’t help but know it. Was Servito even really in Caracas? Even if he was, and they were lucky enough to find him, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill. “We’re going to need a lot of help,” he said, still staring downward.
“What kind of help?”
“Neither of us has ever been to Venezuela. I hardly know where it is. Do you speak Spanish?”
Karen shook her head.
“We’re going to need an interpreter.”
Within three hours, the sleek gray and gold Cessna was streaking southward over the Atlantic Ocean. The comfort of the airplane and the smoothness of the flight had conspired to dull Mike and Karen’s anxieties. They had just finished their breakfast of apples and tuna sandwiches when the door to the cockpit opened and both Dale and Liz Casey appeared. When Liz removed her extremely dark sunglasses, she revealed a tanned and very attractive face. Her straight, long blond hair hung down over her white turtle-neck sweater, and her well preserved body fit perfectly into her tight, faded blue jeans.
Beside her, Dale was an imposing figure. Tall, handsome, and extremely athletic, he wore a heavy red sweater and baggy beige trousers. His salt and pepper hair complemented his ruddy complexion. “Are you two reasonably comfortable?” he asked with a warm smile.
Both Mike and Karen nodded.
“Who’s flying the airplane?” Karen asked.
“Nobody,” Dale replied with a grin. “It’s flying itself—on autopilot. I just told the on-board computer what to do, and let it take over. It’s far more accurate than me.”
“Dale and I thought we should come back here and get to know our passengers,” Liz said.
“Well, that’s thoughtful of you,” Karen said with a smile. “May I ask, have you been doing this very long?”
“A few years,” Liz replied. “My father owned a ski resort in Aspen for a number of years, and Dale was a ski instructor there when I met him. After my mother passed away, Dad couldn’t handle the stress of running everything on his own. That’s when Dale and I took over. We bought the plane with the idea of selling exclusive and expensive ski vacations. It worked really well until the energy crisis.”
“What did the energy crisis have to do with your business?” Mike asked.
“A real bummer. The price of aviation fuel and the resort’s bottom line went in opposite directions. We had to either sell the resort or do something to supplement our income, so Dale got us started in the private transportation business. He loved this plane so much he couldn’t part with it. The business was small and unprofitable at first, but through Dale’s connections and hard work, it grew. Now it’s in the process of becoming a very lucrative business. There are a lot of very wealthy people who like to travel incognito.”
“When do you expect we’ll be in Caracas?” Mike asked.
Dale glanced at his watch. “We’re going to land and refuel in Nassau in about two hours. That shouldn’t take long. From there, we’ll fly to Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic. If you two don’t mind, we’d like to have dinner and spend the night there. We should land at La Guaira about two or three hours after takeoff tomorrow morning.
“Where’s La Guaira?” Karen asked.
“It’s an airport on the north coast of Venezuela. It’s very convenient, only a short drive from Caracas,” Dale replied.
Casey landed his plane at Las Americas Airport in the Dominican Republic at five in the afternoon. After moving quickly through Customs, the four took a taxi along the Avenida de Las Americas, a fourteen mile journey to Santo Domingo. When they reached the outskirts of the sprawling city, Dale turned to the taxi driver. “Hostal Nicolas de Ovando y Calle Las Damas, por favor,” he said.
The driver smiled and nodded. “Si, senor.”
Dale turned to face Mike and Karen. “We have reservations at the Hostal Nicolas de Ovando. I think you’ll like this hotel. It’s a restored sixteenth-century mansion in the oldest part of the city. It’s comfortable and small—only sixty rooms.”
Mike and Karen proceeded directly to their room after checking into the hotel. They showered together, and then flopped on the bed. They were awakened an hour later by jangling of the telephone. Reluctantly, Mike rolled over and lifted the receiver. “Hello,” he groaned hoarsely.
“Hi Mike, it’s Dale. Liz and I are just starting to dress for dinner. Could you and Karen meet us at the desk downstairs in half an hour?”
“What’s the dress code?
“Casual.”
“Good. See you in thirty minutes.”
The four took a taxi to Meson de la Cava, an upscale and unique restaurant constructed inside a natural cave. While they all enjoyed pre-dinner drinks, Mike turned to Dale. “How do you know Dan Turner?” he asked.
“Both Liz and I have known Dan for years. He’s been coming to our resort for a long time. It’s through him that we got a lot of our passengers.” He winked. “Which brings us to you and Karen. I don’t suppose you’d like to share why you’re going to Caracas?”
Despite his reluctance to answer the question, Mike took a chance. “Sure. Maybe you know someone in Caracas who could help us.”
Dale gave Mike a suspicious stare. “Are you running or looking? Maybe you should tell me.”
“Looking,” Mike replied, acutely aware that he and Karen were doing both. “We’re looking for Karen’s son. Her husband kidnapped him and we believe he took him to Venezuela. We’re going to try to bring the boy back to Canada.”
“Have you asked the police for help?” Liz asked.
Mike shook his head. “The police are out of the question.”
Having learned from their previous business experience when to stop asking questions, Dale changed the subject. “I know only one person in the entire country. If he can’t help you directly, I’m sure he’ll know someone who can. He’s very well connected.”
“I’ll take all the help I can get,” Mike said, sitting up straight and twisting to face Dale.
“His name is Adi Blankenship. I’ll call him and set up a meeting for you when we get to La Guaira. We go way back.”
“Thanks, Dale. It’s extremely kind of you to do that,” Karen said, thrilled and relieved to know she and Mike would have an immediate foothold in Caracas. The relief made it possible for her to enjoy a sumptuous dinner, which was followed by dancing to live Latin American music, into the night.
CHAPTER 62
As the gray Cessna roared into the sky the following morning, the passengers’ anxiety escalated with each passing minute. Soon they would be in a country neither had ever seen. Soon they would be looking for a man who would be delighted to kill them.
When Casey landed his plane at La Guaira, the mid-day sun had heated the air to just over ninety degre
es. All four emerged from the plane and walked briskly to the air-conditioned refuge of the terminal. Liz, Karen, and Mike waited in the airport coffee shop while Dale telephoned his old friend.
“Did you talk to him?” Mike asked the second Dale reappeared.
Dale nodded, then wrote Adi Blankenship’s telephone number and address on a paper place mat. “I told him as much as you told me about your situation,” he said, handing the place mat to Mike. “This is Adi’s phone number and address. He said he would be happy to help. He’s invited you and Karen to have dinner with him at his house tonight. At six. He also suggested that you stay at the Residencias Anauco Hilton. It’s an apartment hotel in Parque Central—your taxi driver should know where it is.”
Karen frowned. “Aren’t you and Liz staying?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, we can’t. We have to go to New York and pick up more passengers. Sincerely, we both wish we could stay here and help you. It looks like you’re going to need all the help you can get.”
“We have no right to ask more of you,” Mike said, extending his hand to Dale. “You’ve already done far more than we—”
“Forget it,” Dale interrupted. “Liz and I enjoyed this trip more than any we’ve ever taken. Good luck to you.”
Liz hugged Karen. “I hope you find your son,” she whispered.
“So do I.”
After leaving the terminal and returning to the stifling La Guaira heat, Mike gazed eastward at the haunting and beautiful beaches lined with coconut palms, hotels, and the warm, turquoise water of the Caribbean Sea. “God it’s hot!” he complained, swiping beads of sweat from beneath his eyes.
A decaying purple Chevrolet taxi screeched to a halt beside them. The driver honked his horn twice, leaned out of his window, and waved frantically. “You go to Caracas?” he shouted.
“Yes,” Mike replied. “How much?”
“Twenty dollars.”
“Let’s do it.” Mike jumped into the back seat and shut the door, with Karen close behind.