They dropped the package at a FEDEX station the next morning, after which Gwen knew it was time to tell Stirg about the demand by the NNs for Anna. Stirg and Nev had not been at the June’s house late the night before when they got the CD, Gwen thinking the time wasn’t right to tell Stirg about the situation with his granddaughter. Now she called him and asked to come to his house. This was the first time she and Roger had been in his house since they had conducted a home invasion a year earlier, at a time when they were enemies. Sitting in the sunroom with him and Nev, she came right out with it. “Gale has been kidnapped by the same group that has Richard. And they have made their demand. They want to swap them for Anna.”
Instantly Stirg stood up. He looked from Gwen to Roger to Nev, and back at Gwen. “The two NNs we had here told us they wanted to kidnap Anna to get to me, who had done something to one of their family a long time ago. But Anna got kidnapped by Jools and Scotilly, for ransom and the opera thing. Now the NNs have kidnapped Gale and Richard, and are demanding Anna in return for them. This is crazy. Scotilly and Jools have Anna, and have demanded a ransom from me, so they don’t want to give her up and lose the ransom. You want Gale and Richard back, but you don’t want to give up Anna either.”
Roger said, “The NNs must think we have influence over Scotilly and Jools, and can make them give up Anna for our friends. But we don’t. You’re right, they won’t want to give up Anna because they are demanding ransom for her from you.”
Stirg said, “I’ll pay them any amount to not give her up.”
Gwen said, “So what we have to do first is to make them think we'll do the swap, but delay that to give us time to find them and rescue Richard and Gale. Right?”
“You promise not to do a deal with Scotilly and Jools to do the swap?”
“We love Anna just as much as we love Richard and Gale. No swap.”
“So how do we find them and do the rescue?”
Gwen thought a moment, then said, “When Jinny told us the story about his visit to SYAMF, he said he asked all the boys there if they knew the NNs, and they said no. He said he wasn’t sure if he believed all of them, but given the circumstances he didn’t pursue it. We have nothing about where to find those guys. When you have nothing, you go back to the beginning and start again. Maybe we should send Jinny back up to SYAMF and see if he can turn something up.”
Roger said, “But he burned the place to the ground. There is no SYAMF.”
“Those rats are somewhere. Jinny’s just got to find their new hole.”
Chapter 56 – Renee Says Yes
The admin assistant carried the four FEDEX packages into the office and set them on the desk with the Junes package on top. Renee Fleming’s manager had alerted her to the delivery and told her it was important. He said thank you, and looked at the envelope on top, where he saw “The Junes” in the sender box. He set this aside and quickly looked at the other packages. One was from Daniel Barenboim, Musical Director of Teatro Alla Scala in Milan. He knew this contained a contract that, on the day it was signed by Fleming, would result in one point five million dollars being deposited into her personal account. He set this aside for attention later. Another envelope was from The White House, which he knew contained an invitation and request for RSVP to sing at a state dinner for the President of China, whoever that happened to be on the date of the event. He set this aside, also. The third box was from the Board of Trustees of Teatro Amazonas, the national opera of Brazil. It contained a letter offering Renee the Directorship of the opera at a salary of one million dollars a year, and residence in the 17th century Palace building in Manaus. He set this box on top of the other two, thinking he would deal with them in a day or two. The June envelope was addressed to Ms. Renee Fleming, but in care of him, so he opened it, and found inside an unmarked CD, but no cover letter. From the phone conversation with Roger he knew what the CD contained. He didn’t know how Renee would react, but for him, this was exciting. He put the CD in his coat pocket, told the assistant he was going to the studio, and walked out of the office. Half an hour later he walked into the Manhattan studio where Renee was listening to the mix of her latest collaboration with Barenboim.
He gave her a kiss on the cheek, took her hand, and put the CD into it. He said, “This is from Paul McCartney. He said it’s important.”
She looked at the CD and then back at her manager. “What is it?” He shrugged, but smiled. She looked at the recording engineer and said, “Stan, can we take a break? Would you mind putting this on?” A minute later Paul’s unmistakable voice began singing Mad World from her Dark Hope CD. She said, “My god, he’s singing Mad World.”
The engineer said, “That’s Paul McCartney.”
The manager said, “He’s not just singing Mad World, he’s singing Mad World like you sing it. He’s imitating your voice. Sort of.”
She said, “Jesus, he is singing like me. But with his voice there too. It’s unbelievable.” Then came In Your Eyes, which had made the manager cry the first time he heard Renee sing it. Literally shed tears. She said, “Same thing, him and me together. I hear my voice and his voice, together.”
The manager said, “I hear your voice, Renee. Your style. He knows your style, and he’s playing on it. How does he do that? No one in the world can sing like you.”
The engineer said, “How can anything that was recorded so poorly sound so beautiful?”
Then came the two new songs from the opera, again with Paul singing like her, both in vocal mimicry and style. Renee said, “What are these songs? Have you ever heard them? God, the second one is called Hey Renn. Who is that? Me? Did he write a song for me? About me?” She turned to Stan and said, “Again please.” And then, “Again please, Stan.”
After the third time Stan said, “There’s something else on the CD. Should I play it?” She nodded. And they heard Paul speak his message to her, telling her about the four songs, and about the opera he was working on in Charleston, and asking her to sing with him in four concerts, to be performed in two months. The message was short, but oh so sweet.
The manager said, “One more time please, Stan. All four songs.”
They listened to them again, and she said, “I’ve had weird and wonderful things happen to me in my life, but this is at the top. He can sing like me, and he sings with his voice, and Hey Renn is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard, and then the message in that sexy British accent. I’d have to be on the far side of dead and gone to say no to this. Wouldn’t I?” she said, looking from her manager to the engineer. The manager said, yes, and the engineer nodded, and she said, “Whatever I have going on over the next two months, cancel it.”
"What about the White House gig?"
"Tell them I'll be in Charleston, if they want to come down there."
Chapter 57 – Back in the Hut
The boys had spent half the day before at the Waffle House, going over their strategy and tactics, and the other half hanging out at the new rathole the former SYAMF owner had set up to serve the needs of his varied clientele. It had been a long and unpleasant day for Richard and Gale, who spent it chained to the Ford engine block in the quonset hut. The boys had padlocked one end of a twenty foot chain around one of their legs, and the other to the block. Within the twenty foot length of the chain, they each had an army cot, a plastic chair, the table with a few old issues of Guns and Ammo on it, a loaf of Wonder bread and a jar of peanut butter. When they had left about noon, the NSSMIBC had leered and said, “Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do.”
They both leafed through the magazines for half an hour, and then did what the boys wished they had done. Several times, despite the discomfort of the springs on the cots, which they had pushed together to form a not very luxurious double bed. They had to do something to kill the boredom and keep up their moral, and in this they were successful.
While this was going on in the hut, and after eating
the ‘meat lovers special’ at the Waffle House, which consisted of deep fried bacon and sausage piled high on a waffle and drenched in butter and syrup, the NNs went over their plan. The BMIBC said, “So we restrain ourselves with the woman because what we really want is the Stirg bitch. When we do the swap and have her, we then demand the five mill from Stirg. While we wait for that, we have all the fun we want with the bitch.”
The MSMIBC said, “Why can’t we do the bitch we have and then do the other bitch too? This trip down here has not been much fun so far.”
“Because we got to give her up to get the second bitch, and she’ll squeal on us, and maybe Stirg won’t pay all the five mill for his granddaughter, him thinking we can’t be trusted. Just wait. We’ll get all the good stuff when we get the second one. Remember, we want to piss Stirg off bigtime, so he comes looking for us up in the ‘Ho, where we’ll use his money to set up our nation and our national defenses, and hope he brings his Jew boys up there, and we get into the little war we all know needs doing, and winning. Right?”
“Right,” they both said, though they really wanted the nooky more than the impending war. But they realized they had to make sacrifices. After this high level strategy session and a third helping of the ‘special’, they felt they had accomplished their work for the day, and headed to the new SYAMF rathole.
At 7pm they dragged their asses into the quonset hut, their libidos thankfully stifled by all the beer they’d drunk in the hole. The MSMIBC dropped a bag on the table in front of Gale that contained four shriveled up hotdogs that had been on the rotisserie since 9am that morning. No buns, no mustard, no onions….just the four dogs, sitting lonely in the bag. Gale looked at them and said, “This how your momma taught you to treat guests? Huh? Y’all are just so sorry. When the Junes come and get us out of this, it’s going to be payback time, you know that, don’t you?”
“Hey, doughn’t get uppity,” said the BMIBC. “We could be passing you around the horn like a bowl of peanuts and a bottle of Jack Daniels, eating and drinking our fill. We been regler gentlemens, and you be thankful for it.”
“That’s how you drink your bourbon? With peanuts? That’s disgusting. You drink it with ginger ale, maybe, make it a little softer so it don’t burn your pussy throats?” She paused. “Maybe it’s not all your fault. Maybe it’s the way you were raised there in Idyho, wherever the hell that is. Maybe I can’t blame you as much as I would like. See, that’s southern genteelism. When the Junes come, maybe I’ll be able to do some schoolin on you boys. How about we start right now, with a little game of cards. Not poker. Something else.”
“What?”
“How about Hearts. You play Hearts up in the ‘Ho?”
The NSSMIBC, pretty blasted but somewhat coherent, said, “We do hearts all right. We eat the hearts of the wolves we kill, like the Aztecs did.” The other two NNs looked at him, wondering where this had come from.
“Yeah, ok, killer,” Gale said. “This is a friendly game. Civilization, that’s where we’re heading.”
“What we gonna bet for in this Hearts thing?”
“We’re going to bet for food and wine. We win, you go get us a steak, baked potato, and salad, with a bottle of cabernet that cost more than twenty bucks. You win, I won’t let Jinny kill you on the spot when he and the others come. Deal?”
All three of the NNs thought this June thing a comin joke was getting old. It didn’t matter. Two hours later, Gale and Richard were eating steak.
Chapter 58 – Renee Arrives in Town
Gwen, Roger and Slev went to the airport in the big white Mercedes to pick up Renee Fleming. Constantine had sent the Gulfstream up to La Guardia early that morning, and her flight down to Charleston had been fast and comfortable. An hour after touchdown she was seated in the June’s kitchen, petting their dog and sipping a cappuccino. She told the Junes she had come to Charleston in the late ‘70s at the invitation of Gian Carlo Menotti, who she had met very early in her career in Spoleto, Italy, and had been waiting for an invitation to sing at the Spoleto Festival here ever since.
Roger said, “It sounds like the pretty girl syndrome, where the prettiest girl in the class never gets asked out because all the guys think she would say no.”
She said, “Well, maybe something like that. But now I’m here, and where is the man who asked me out? Where’s Paul? I want to hear more songs that we’re going to sing together.”
Gwen, Roger and Slev had been dreading this question, and here is was, five minutes into their friendship with Fleming. They had tried three or four different answers among themselves, but they all rang as false as they were. So Gwen was elected to tell the truth. “Renee, we have an unusual situation here with Paul. Everything he has told you so far is true. He is writing songs for an opera, and it will be performed here in Charleston in less than two months. The songs on the CD we sent you are brand new. He recorded them in the last week, here in Charleston. He is completely focused on and dedicated to the opera, and he will be thrilled when we tell him you are here, and willing to participate.” She paused. “It’s just that he won’t be able to meet you immediately. He’s, it’s….it’s an odd situation.”
Renee smiled, a concerted smile, and said, “Tell me. What’s up?”
“Paul has been kidnapped, and is being held somewhere here in Charleston, with his daughter Stella, the fashion designer, and another person, a friend of ours named Anna. They’re in a place where they have instruments and a recording studio of some kind. That’s where he did the two covers of Dark Hope, and where he wrote the two songs for the opera. They’re ok, and we don’t think they’re any danger, even though one of the kidnappers sometimes acts a little strange, and refers to herself as a Taliban trained terrorist She has an English butler, and it’s him we communicate with most of the time.” Gwen asked Roger, “Anything important I’ve forgotten?”
He shook his head, and they waited for her to absorb the story. She said, “Can I have another cappuccino?” and played with the dog while she waited for it. She was tempted to ask for a glass of wine, but decided that might look like she was rattled, which she wasn’t. She just liked wine. After two sips of the coffee she said, “Anything I can do to spring him loose?”
Gwen looked at Roger, who smiled. He liked frisky women. Gwen said, “We’re working on it. But the reality is that he likes it where he is. It seems to focus his attention on something he has wanted to do for a long time, but has gotten distracted from because of his celebrity status. Apparently being confined for a couple months is what it took to get him to write this thing. So, we are looking for him, but at the same time we don’t want to upset the applecart, so to speak, as strange an applecart as it is. We hope you can work with this. Paul wants you to. He really wants you to be here as a founding member of the production. And so do we.” Gwen usually saved her top of the line persuasiveness for guys, but she was pouring it on now.
Renee finished the coffee, patted the dog again, and said, “First I get these songs from him, and the message he sent on the CD; and now I’m getting these incredible vibes from you, a woman I don’t even know. And I’m ready to sell my children to aliens to work with you.” She looked at Roger and said, “She’s your wife.” He nodded. “She do this stuff with you?”
“She used to, but now I know all her tricks. She’s lucky now if she can get me to do the dishes.”
Renee nodded, said, “Yeah, right. Ok, the cops in on this?” They shook their heads, no. She thought for a second, then said, “Paul McCartney and his daughter are kidnapped, and it’s a secret, and he’s writing a rock opera that, based on the two songs I’ve heard, could be greatest composition in the history of rock music, and I’m here to help somehow, but can’t sit with him, and it’s all scheduled to happen is less than two months. Anything else?”
Roger said, “The third person with them is the granddaughter of an ex-Nazi hunter who now is a bi
llionaire, who undoubtedly has killed people in his life, though none recently, that we know of.” He looked at Gwen, wondering if that was enough disclosure.
She, being the type of manager who believes in transparency, said, “There are two other people who also have been kidnapped, friends of ours, and we’re trying to find and rescue them, too.”
Renee said, “Cops?” Gwen shook her head, no. “You doing all this on your own?”
“Yeah. But we’ve also got Slev and her husband Constantine, who you’ll meet soon. They sent the plane for you. They’re from Saint Petersburg. And we have two other friends of ours, Guignard and Jinny, also from Russia. Jinny is one of our hunters, and Guignard is working on the opera. When we get Gale and Richard back, that will be our whole production team. Plus of course the three people in the bunker, Paul and the girls.”
“Gale and Richard are the other kidnappees?”
“Right. Gale is, well, Gale. She likes clothes and wine and men. Richard is Anna’s boyfriend, and just finished making a movie in France with Steven Spielberg. He and Anna did. She was one of the stars.”
“And now she’s locked in a bunker with Paul McCartney, writing a rock opera?” They nodded. “What’s a bunker? That doesn’t sound like the Ritz.”
“We’re not sure, but we think it’s a big concrete structure over on one of our nearby islands built during World War II.”
“You think?”
“We’re pretty sure, but remember, Paul is happy there, wherever it is, because it’s shielding him from all the distractions. So right now we’re concentrating on finding Gale and Richard and the neo-nazis.”
The Kidnapping of Paul McCartney Page 22
