Just inside the edge of the forest, the young bear’s natural chase reflex had fixed on the ATV. The animal sprinted energetically after it, bounding easily around trees and through underbrush.
When the phone rang, Harris leaped across the hotel room, jostling the room-service cart and upsetting a large carafe of coffee.
“What have you got for me?”
It was Jacobson from the cyber task force. There was progress to report in their remote examination of Spidey’s computer.
“We finally unraveled the path the ransom demands followed before they came to bloghog.usa. Let me tell you, those messages were world travelers. They were forwarded through more than two hundred dummy e-mail addresses in thirty-nine countries. Led us a merry chase. Brilliant, really — not amateur night.”
“My prisoner said they were working through some kind of web expert,” Harris supplied.
“The last stop on the chain was a high-security offshore e-mail account,” the tech went on. “The messages went straight from there to the Blog Hog site.”
“Whose account is it?” the agent demanded.
“We don’t know.”
“When will you know?”
“It’s a problem,” the tech admitted. “The e-mail suffix was dot-mc. That’s Macao, a small island near Hong Kong. Tricky laws, competing jurisdictions. Not soon. Maybe never.”
“So we’re nowhere.”
“Here’s the thing,” Jacobson told him, and Harris could hear the man’s excitement over the phone. “We found another e-mail. This one didn’t come from the confiscated laptop. It went straight from the Macao address to bloghog.usa. Listen: The time is now. This is your daughter’s last chance …”
Breathlessly, Harris reached for a pad and pen and scribbled down the contents of the message.
It was the kidnappers’ final instructions to John and Louise Falconer.
* * *
Digging a Ford Taurus out of two feet of snow with an ice scraper was like trying to chop down a redwood with a plastic knife. At least it felt that way to Mike Sorenson. Every time he’d shoveled enough to give his tires a chance to find some traction, a suddenly gust would erase much of the past hour’s work.
The howling wind abated long enough for him to notice his ringing cell phone. He was only too happy to pause in his labors and answer it.
He heard Emmanuel Harris’s voice reading the text of the latest e-mail.
“What are you talking about?”
“That message was sent to the Blog Hog site this morning,” Harris explained.
Sorenson was shocked. “You think it means the kidnappers have recaptured the girl?”
“It could be a bluff,” Harris admitted. “But bluff or not, it worked. I’ve been trying to call over to the Falconer house. No answer.”
Another gust blew snow in his face. “The parents are on the way there?”
“Couldn’t have been hard to get past the squad car at the curb.”
“That’s not the point,” Sorenson said in alarm. “They don’t have the ransom money. What do they think the kidnappers will do when they show up empty-handed?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time a family got tired of standing around and did something desperate.”
Sorenson ignored the barb. “Do we know anything else about the e-mail?”
“It came from the same place as the others — offshore,” Harris told him. “Something dot-mc — Macao. Our tech people say it’s a dead end. What’s your status? How soon before you’ll be here?”
“I — ” Sorenson hesitated. He didn’t want to admit that he’d driven into a ditch. He’d look like a fool. “The roads are worse than I thought,” he said finally. “There’s still a lot of snow blowing around.” That much was certainly true.
“I can’t wait for you,” announced Harris. “I’ve got to get to that mine by five if I can.”
“What — without a car?”
“I’ve got the snowmobile,” Harris replied readily. “That’s the best way to travel now, anyway.”
“But what about your prisoner?” Sorenson persisted. “What about Aiden?”
“They’re coming with me. I’ll need the prisoner to identify his accomplices. And Aiden — well, you know that kid. Do you honestly think he’d stay put with his whole family mixed up in this?”
The lead agent gestured helplessly with his scraper. He didn’t like the idea of Harris doing his job for him. This was going to look horrible to the bosses in Quantico.
On the other hand, five o’clock was fast approaching. If Sorenson couldn’t make it to the mine on time, Harris had to try.
“Go.”
* * *
The Black River mine was located in a deep valley in the mountains a few miles south of the cabins where Meg had blundered herself back into captivity. Fifty years earlier, the place had been a hub of activity. Trucks riding low with heavy loads had lumbered along the access road day and night. Now, decades after the mine had surrendered its last chunk of anthracite coal, that route was unlit and unplowed. Beneath the snow, what was left of the pavement was crumbling.
The sky was still light, but the sun had long since disappeared behind the surrounding hills when the ATV roared into the clearing. It had been a miserable ride with the huge tires churning up a whirlwind of powder. Whatever warmth Meg had been able to store up during her hours in the cabin was gone now. She and her captors were soaked to the skin.
Spidey undid her wrists, and she collapsed into a drift. She was so stiff from being squeezed between the kidnappers that she could barely stand.
He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her roughly to her feet. “Let’s go.”
Abutting the rock face was a tall structure that looked like a hopper for loading trucks. Spidey dragged her toward the smaller, more dilapidated building beside it. Most of the windows were either missing or broken. There was a sign, but it was so faded that Meg could not make out any of the words except coal co.
“A coal mine?” she asked.
“That’s not for you to worry about,” Tiger said sharply.
It was an eerie spot — isolated, abandoned, forgotten. Whatever hope Meg still harbored that Mom and Dad were on their way faded quickly. This decaying ruin could not be the venue for a happy family reunion.
This is where you come when someone wants you to disappear.
They entered through a battered door that was stuck in the half-open position. It probably used to be the workers’ entrance, Meg decided. The outer chamber had once been an office area — there were still a few old desks and filing cabinets. A rear hall led to a locker room. She couldn’t tell what was beyond that, but the air inside — dank, cold, stale, and unmoving — told her that the opening to the abandoned mine tunnels could not be far away. It was not the wintry chill coming in from outside. It was a musty, ancient smell — the smell of the belly of the earth.
What future could possibly await her here?
Aiden hung on to the Ski-Doo for dear life, clinging to Mickey, who clung to Emmanuel Harris. A few motorists had ventured onto the road, skidding and sliding as the snowmobile roared past on the unplowed shoulder. An abandoned mine! The mere thought of it was enough to frost Aiden’s blood.
“Don’t let your imagination get the better of you,” Harris had warned. “It’s just a deserted place for the ransom exchange. These things rarely go down in Times Square.”
Mickey had fallen for the agent’s confident tone, but Aiden hadn’t missed the tall man’s grim expression, the tightness of the skin around his cheekbones. And there was certainly no mistaking the urgency behind his checkered-flag driving. This was a dire emergency.
There was only one reason to hold a meeting in an old mine, one advantage to such a location — murder.
You can kill somebody and dump the body in miles of underground tunnels where it will never be found.
All at once, the snowmobile’s breakneck speed seemed not nearly fast enough.
* * *
r /> Waiting.
Meg had never been good at it. Patience was Aiden’s strength, not hers. And here, shivering in the steadily darkening office of the old Black River mine, the tension was almost unbearable.
She was not the only one feeling the pressure. Spidey’s nervousness mingled with his permanent bad mood to form a toxic cocktail. “Are you sure the Falconers are on their way?” he snapped.
“Everything’s going according to plan,” Tiger assured him.
“But how do we know? Did you get a phone call?”
She glared at him. “First of all, we’re in a coal mine. Do you think there’s cell service here? And second, why would I give my number to the enemy? So the FBI could trace it?”
“Did the web guy get in touch with us?” Spidey persisted. “Is that how we know the parents are coming?”
Tiger was exasperated. “Let me worry about that.”
“I have a right to be told what’s going on! It’s my money, too — and my carcass that could go to jail, same as yours!”
“You’re not paid to think,” she reminded him. “I’m the one who does the thinking around here.”
He reddened. “Well, you’ve done a pretty lousy job of it! You told me this was a simple snatch and trade — the girl for the money, forty-eight hours, tops! That was a week ago — we don’t have a penny in our pockets, and every cop alive is after us! We’ve lost our number three, who could be spilling his guts to the feds right now! And we’re standing at the entrance to a hole in the ground, waiting for people who might not even be coming!”
Meg watched, fascinated as her captors argued. It was a clash of the two forces that had tormented her for the past week: Spidey’s raw anger versus the cruel intelligence of Tiger’s razor-sharp tongue.
“They’re coming!” Tiger insisted. “Trust me. If we keep our heads — ”
Suspicion edged into Spidey’s rage. “That’s how you talk to the girl when you’ve got something to hide.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tiger scoffed.
“You can’t know the money’s on its way if somebody didn’t tell you,” Spidey pressed on. “Who’s working with you? Is it Sean? Have you two got an angle to cut me out of the payday?”
In a whirl of motion, shocking in its swiftness, Tiger whipped the pistol out of her jacket pocket and pointed it at Spidey’s chest. “Don’t think I’m afraid to use this!”
Cowed, the burly kidnapper backed up a step.
“You have no idea how I’ve been looking forward to this moment!” Tiger exclaimed, eyes burning. “This whole week, cooped up with a goon and a fool.” She gestured at Meg with the weapon. “She’s the only one worth respecting — she’s a brat, but at least she’s got guts!”
“Are you crazy?” Spidey seethed. “What are you doing?”
“You wouldn’t have a prayer of comprehending it,” she spat at him. “A punch in the face — that’s what you understand. You call yourself muscle — the muscle goes all the way to the top of your head!”
Spidey was sputtering with rage. “You’ll never pull this off by yourself! What are you going to do? Ride out on that motorized tricycle, juggling three million bucks?”
“Just what I’d expect from a thug like you,” Tiger sneered. “Do you honestly believe I’d be crazy enough to strand myself in a place like this with no exit strategy?”
“It’s Sean, isn’t it? The backstabbing jerk!”
“That idiot? Don’t make me laugh!” Tiger regarded him in genuine pity. “You’re incapable of seeing the big picture. This is just about money to a small-time hood like you.”
Meg’s bewilderment matched Spidey’s fury. This latest twist was almost too much for her to process. How had Spidey gone from captor to captive? And who was Sean? Could that be Mickey’s real name? Was he in cahoots with Tiger?
No, impossible! Mickey’s a good guy now. He helped me escape …
But Tiger was telling the truth about one thing: The cunning criminal was far too clever to maroon herself here with no way out.
She has a secret partner — someone to whisk her away when all this is over.
But who? Even more important, if Meg’s abduction wasn’t about ransom money, then what was it about?
She had endured a week of captivity — days of terror and dread, but also excruciating boredom. Most of that idle time she had spent figuring every possible angle of what might happen next.
Yet right then, she didn’t have the faintest idea what the coming hours would bring.
* * *
Agent Mike Sorenson glistened with snow as he got behind the wheel of his Taurus. He threw the car into low gear and gave it a little gas. The wheels spun, then grabbed. The sedan began to climb the slope in fits and starts.
“Come on,” he growled. The tires slipped and caught. He was moving, but backward as well as forward.
In frustration, he gunned the motor. And that turned out to be a mistake.
The car fishtailed on the grade. The front wheels found some traction and plowed out of the shoveled path into deep snow. Sorenson worked furiously at the brakes and gas, but he could not prevent the Taurus from sliding back down into the ditch.
He sat there for a long time, pounding on the steering column, fuming. Who knew how long it would take to get a tow truck to a spot like this on the day after a huge blizzard?
A twelve-year-old girl was in jeopardy. And not just her — now the parents seemed to be involved.
He had a bad feeling about that. Why would two trained criminologists believe that going to a ransom exchange empty-handed could do anything but hurt their daughter’s chances?
An odd thought occurred to him: What if they weren’t empty-handed? He remembered that Rufus Sehorn had been trying to raise money through his website. Was it possible that the Blog Hog had actually managed to come up with three million dollars in just a few days? It seemed farfetched, but anything was possible, especially over the Internet.
There must be some way to find out for sure …
Sehorn had mentioned a PayPal account. That meant PayPal should be able to confirm whether or not a large withdrawal had been made. He dialed the 800-number, and spent a long time on hold, as the company verified that he was the FBI agent he claimed to be. He supplied his badge number to four different PayPal employees, before he found himself on the line with the supervisor on duty.
“It’s a collection for the ransom of a kidnapped girl — Margaret Falconer,” Sorenson told her. “I need to know if a withdrawal has been made.”
He could hear the clicking of a keyboard as the woman searched for the right records. “I don’t see anything,” she replied finally. “How recent a transaction are we talking about?”
“Within the last twenty-four hours. It would be a large withdrawal — something on the order of three million dollars.”
“Three million dollars!” the supervisor blurted. “No, that’s quite impossible. I’m showing a balance of just under a thousand.”
“Really?” The agent was bewildered. “They were trying to raise three million!”
“That may be so,” she told him, “but unless there’s a major change in the rate of donations, that kind of money will never be there.”
“Are you sure you have the right account? It’s a man named Rufus Sehorn. He might be using his Internet name — Blog Hog.”
“We don’t have any name at all,” the supervisor informed him. “The only contact we have is an e-mail address —
[email protected]”
It was as if dazzling sun had appeared on the horizon after a long, dark night.
[email protected] Dot-mc! Macao!
This was the secret address that had been sending the ransom demands to the Blog Hog site! Rufus Sehorn had been e-mailing himself!
Barely able to stammer out his thanks, he ended the call. It all made sense.
The Blog Hog was working with the kidnappers!
The elation of solving the puzzle quickly tur
ned to horror. This was vital information. He was the only one who knew it.
And I’m stuck in a ditch.
A priority evacuation — that’s what he needed. The FBI manual, however, said a priority evac was only authorized when the agent was in immediate danger. Sorenson had been shaken up. He was cold and wet. He certainly wasn’t at death’s door.
People’s lives are at stake here!
But what about the rules? To Mike Sorenson, rules were everything. He had based an entire career on going by the book. No heroics. No running off half-cocked. Just good solid police work. The manual clearly stated —
“To heck with the manual!” he shouted suddenly.
His words were still echoing as he dialed the emergency number.
* * *
It was the most difficult ride Dr. John Falconer could remember — tougher, even, than the drive in a steel-clad Department of Corrections bus that had delivered him to federal prison to serve a life sentence.
The thought of his little girl in the custody of desperate criminals was nearly impossible to bear. Yet this — a chance to get her back, but only a chance — was pure torture. He reached over the gearshift console to grasp his wife’s hand. Their fingers intertwined next to Sehorn’s pea soup. But he took no support from her, and her none from him. They were both just too frightened.
At least, Aiden was safe with Harris somewhere. It was their sole comfort.
The Blog Hog tried to be encouraging, and succeeded in driving them insane. “Don’t worry, we’ll make it there by five. We’ll get her back — that’s a promise.”
The Falconers’ gratitude to the blogger was almost without limit. Still, John couldn’t help wishing the man would shut up and leave them to their silent agony.
“Look!” Sehorn pointed to a sign as the Range Rover roared past. “Monkwood — twenty miles. We’re almost there. Last chance if you want soup.”
“No, thank you,” Louise managed to croak.
John looked at his watch. Sehorn was right. They really would be there on time. And the rest — that was up to fate.