For security reasons, the DEA arranged for the children of sensitive personnel to be taken to and collected from school by trusted limo companies. As one of the most respected drivers, Grendon had the contract to collect Mark Merriman’s eldest daughter. Grendon didn’t know what Merriman’s work involved, only that he held some position working for the government, but he knew enough to realize he was now involved in some sort of kidnap attempt.
He followed the silver Nissan east onto a two-lane highway for a few minutes — the usual route. Then it diverted.
“This is a different way to school, isn’t it?” asked Emma. She’s a bright child. Grendon thought about ramming into the Nissan, but Barbara kept flashing up in his mind. He was powerless to intervene. He knew they wouldn’t hesitate to kill his wife.
“It is, Emma. Unfortunately, there’s been an accident on the regular road, so we have to find an alternative route.” Although it made him sick, Grendon convinced himself the government would pay any ransom demand made by these gangsters, and Emma would be released unharmed. She’s in no real danger.
Ten minutes later, the cars left the highway and drove through the gates of a private airstrip.
“What’s happening, Mr. Grendon? Why are we here?” asked Emma. “Can I use your phone to call Mom?” She looked down at the handset. “The phone’s broken.” She began to cry.
The Nissan accelerated toward a waiting private jet. Grendon followed, gripping the steering wheel hard. He said nothing. He couldn’t answer Emma’s questions. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at her. As soon as the cars came to a halt, the man in the Nissan ran to the Honda and grabbed the girl. She began to scream.
Grendon looked at the jet. Scar-face appeared at the door then stepped off the plane. He walked up to Grendon, who started climbing out of the car.
“I thought you were with my wife. I’ll kill you if you have harmed her,” he yelled. Scar-face did not reply. He took out a pistol from his suit coat and shot Grendon in the head. He returned to the jet, where the girl was already under sedation and strapped into a seat. Five minutes later, the jet was in the air.
“Good work, gentlemen,” said Rios, who was sat on board. “Very good work.”
Jivaro’s plan was now in full flow.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Just after ten that morning, Patti Merriman received the call every mother dreads. It was the school principal, calling to inquire why Emma was not at school.
“What do you mean, Emma’s not at school?” said Patti. “She left this morning at the usual time. She should have been there at least an hour and a half ago.”
“There’s probably a sensible explanation for this, Mrs. Merriman. The driver may be stuck in traffic. However, it’s our policy to inform the police as soon as possible in these circumstances,” said the principal, with poorly disguised panic in her voice. “I’ll contact the police while you call the driver. Let’s talk again in a few minutes.”
Patti was shaking when she picked up the phone to call Grendon. The phone kept going to voicemail. She called her husband on his cell phone, but that also went to voicemail. She called Gail, his PA, and asked her to track him down urgently.
Five minutes later, Merriman called his wife. “What’s wrong, Patti?”
“Emma didn’t arrive at school this morning. Bill picked her up as usual, but I heard from the school a few minutes ago that she didn’t arrive.”
“Have you tried calling Bill’s cell phone?”
“Yes, several times, but I keep getting his voicemail.”
“I’m on my way home. Have you called the police?”
“Yes. The school called them. I’ll speak to the school and let you know what’s happening as soon as you get here. Hurry, Mark, please.”
Merriman sent Halloran to Bill Grendon’s house to speak with his wife to see if she’d heard anything from her husband. He asked Karen Camplejohn to contact the police to see if they’d heard anything. A call from the DEA’s office would command a swifter response and at the right level within the police. They’d know this was not just a call from some overly protective parent.
Merriman jumped into his car and put his foot down. On the drive home, he called Patti to see if she’d learned anything. She hadn’t, but she said she might have missed a call as she was continually dialing Grendon’s cell phone.
“Okay. Stay off the phone, Patti. People may be trying to contact us. I’m sure everything’s going to be all right,” he said.
Fifteen minutes later, he arrived home.
“What’s happened to our little girl, Mark?” said Patti, running out to his car.
He hugged her. “I’m sure she’s okay,” he said, struggling to find the right words to comfort his wife.
They went into the house and Merriman’s phone rang. It was Halloran.
“Mark. It’s not good news.”
Merriman felt cold. “What is it, Frank?”
“I’ve just arrived at the Grendons’ home. I rang the bell several times, but there was no answer so I went round to the lounge window to see if anyone was in. It looks like Mrs. Grendon has been shot. The police are on their way.”
Merriman’s breath was knocked out of him. He gripped a chair for balance. “God, no!” Emma’s been taken. “Stay there, Frank. Find out what you can and keep me briefed. I wanna know everything.”
“Of course.”
Merriman told Patti; she fell to the floor.
“This can’t be happening, Mark. What’s happened to Emma? Where is our little girl?” she said, sobbing. Merriman bit his lip; he knew full well what the events meant.
Moments later, he took another call. This time it was from a police officer.
“This is Captain Ryan. We’ve found Grendon’s Honda at Houghton Airfield. It’s bad, I’m afraid, sir.”
“One of my team just phoned and told me about Grendon’s wife.”
“It gets worse. The driver of the Honda has also been shot. He’s dead. We think it’s Bill Grendon, but we’ve yet to confirm that. There’s no sign of your daughter, sir. I’m sorry.”
“She’s been kidnapped. I’m certain of it. This has all the signs of a professional team.”
“It looks that way. She must have been put on a plane from Houghton. We’re checking flight logs as we speak.”
Merriman called Patti’s sister, who lived thirty miles away, to ask if she’d come over and look after her. While he was gripped by fear, he knew he’d be more useful working with the police back at his office. There, he’d have access to government security and intelligence systems to assist in the search for his daughter. He didn’t want to leave Patti, but he understood how important quick action could be in these circumstances.
As he drove back to the office, Merriman thought about who was likely to be behind his daughter’s disappearance. He was virtually certain it was the work of the Caruana cartel. Although he’d made many enemies in his work, the coincidence of timing, right after the seizure of assets, the recent murder of his parents, and the professional nature of the morning’s events all pointed to the cartel. If Safuentes touches one hair on her head, I’ll hunt him down and kill him.
When he arrived at work, most of his team were there waiting to help. Halloran came rushing in and gave a report on what he’d found at the Grendons’ home. The police had allowed him access to the house, where he found Mrs. Grendon bound to a chair and gagged. She’d received a single pistol shot to the back of the head.
A police team joined Merriman’s meeting in one of the conference rooms. Captain Ryan briefed everyone on what they knew so far. It was clear the Grendons were held hostage overnight. There was evidence to support this. It was likely that threats to Mrs. Grendon were used to coerce Mr. Grendon into going along with the abductors’ plans. Mr. Grendon was found dead next to his car at a small, local, private airstrip. He’d been shot once in the head. Shortly after eight thirty a.m., according to witnesses, a private jet, registered in the Bahamas, had taken
off and headed south. There was no record of a flight plan.
Merriman looked at his watch and said, “It’s just after one. They’ll be in Mexico by now.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Merriman?” asked Ryan. “Do you know who these people are?”
“I think we all know this is the work of the Caruana cartel. It’s payback for our having seized their assets recently,” he said, looking round the room at his team. They nodded in agreement.
He spent the next hour briefing the police officers on the DEA’s investigations into the cartel and the recent success in seizing Caruana’s assets. It was plenty motive enough for them to abduct his daughter.
After the meeting, Merriman walked back to his own office and shut the door. He slumped into his chair, rested his elbows on his desk, closed his eyes and massaged his forehead with his fingers. He exhaled. Not our little girl, please.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Almost at the tip of Mexico’s one thousand mile long Baja California peninsula sat the city of La Paz. In recent years, its population had grown to almost a quarter of a million on the back of its successful tourist industry. Land prices had tracked that success.
Jivaro was one of the first to spot the city’s early growth prospects. He bought up huge tracts of land around the city years ago and, gradually, built up a chain of hotels and tourist attractions as part of his increasing real estate investments.
Further out from the city, south along the coast, lies some arid, undeveloped land, served only by dirt tracks. The tracks lead to some of the most spectacularly beautiful coastal views. Jivaro owned this too.
Set back about two hundred yards from the coast was a derelict house on Jivaro’s land. It was accessible only by boat; none of the tracks ran to the property. Eight hours after the private jet took off from the Virginia airstrip, Rios and his two henchmen carried the sedated young girl from the speedboat, across the beach, and into the house. Once they had her safely locked away in a back room with no windows, Rios made the call to Jivaro.
“We’ve got her. She’s at the agreed location. Everything went according to plan. We left no loose ends.”
“Fine work, Miguel. Make sure you take good care of our prized asset,” replied Jivaro. “She is not to be let out of your sight.”
Jivaro left it a further twenty-four hours before making contact. Merriman hadn’t managed any sleep since Emma had been taken and, by the time the call came in on his direct line, he was already expecting the worst. He knew most ransom demands were made in the first twelve hours so he was braced to hear Emma had been found murdered.
He picked up the phone after three rings, delaying answering to give the police team time to start tracing the call, even though he knew this would be futile.
“I have your daughter. She’s beautiful. She looks just like your wife,” said Jivaro.
“You do anything to her, and I’ll kill you. D’ya hear me?” said Merriman. He didn’t care about the police team sitting with him.
“You’re in no position to issue threats, Mr. Merriman. Remember what I did to your parents. It wouldn’t trouble me to do the same to your daughter.”
“Where is she? I want her back here today. You got that?”
“You’ll have her back, but first you must return something of mine.”
“What do you want?” He knew full well what Safuentes wanted, but he was doing his best to drag out the call.
“You have forty-eight hours to release my assets and to provide a legal waiver to any future claims over them.”
“I don’t have that power.”
“You took the assets so you must find a way of returning them. It’s your problem. I’ll have one of our lawyers contact you to agree the transfer and wording of the waiver. Once my lawyer is satisfied, you’ll have your daughter.” Jivaro finished the call.
Merriman turned to the police. They shook their heads. They hadn’t been able to trace the call.
“She’s alive,” said Ryan. “At least, she’s alive.”
“If you believe anything that animal says,” said Merriman. “The policy is not to negotiate with criminals. There’s no way we can return his assets, as much as I may want to.”
Merriman left his room, found a quiet office, and rang Ann Laudel. He hoped their strong professional relationship, and their recent successful press conference, might motivate her to help. She had very good senior connections in the government. She’d already heard the news about his daughter.
“Mark, I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you and Patti.”
“Patti’s distraught. I know how this is likely to end, but I can’t bring myself to tell her. I can’t take her hope away.”
“I can understand that.”
“I need your help.”
“How can I help? I’ll do whatever I can.”
“I know all about our policy of never negotiating with criminals and terrorists, but I gotta give it a shot. I owe it to Emma. Is there any way you can find out if we can make an exception here? Maybe release some of the assets. I know it’s a lot to ask.”
“I’ll have a word with my contacts and see what I can do. I don’t need to tell you what the answer’s likely to be.”
“I understand, Ann. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t try.”
A few hours later, the kidnapping was leaked to the media. Some of the US network TV channels picked it up and kept showing footage of the recent press conference, with shots of a proud Merriman describing the record seizure of cartel assets. Even if the government was in a mind to make an exception, in light of the high profile now being given to the case, he knew it would be impossible for them to be seen breaching established policy. The press would be all over it.
Merriman was certain the leak came from the Caruana cartel. It achieved two objectives in one: piling more pressure on him to find a way to release the assets, and sending a clear message to Jivaro’s enemies that he’d not been weakened by the DEA’s seizure. No one was beyond his reach.
The following morning, Merriman took a call from Laudel. She’d made several calls, as she said she would, but she’d been unsuccessful. She told him what he already knew. While he had great sympathy from inside the government, no senior politician would want to be seen arguing for a change to established policy in such a high-profile case.
An hour later, another call came in on his direct line.
“You have twenty-four hours left, Mr. Merriman. My lawyers have made contact, but they’ve heard nothing from you,” said Jivaro.
“I’m still working on it, but I need more time,” replied Merriman.
“You’re in no position to negotiate. My next call to you will be my last.” The line went dead.
Merriman put his head in his hands. What else can I do?
Chapter Fifty-Five
Merriman drove home to be with his wife. He’d run out of options to save Emma. He explained to Patti the attempt he’d made to release some of the assets and how this had failed. He began to steer her expectations toward the awful prospect of losing their daughter. Patti broke down in tears and held their youngest daughter close to her.
An hour later, Merriman answered the door to one of his team, Kerry Donohue.
He took a step back. “Hello, Kerry. What are you doing here?”
“I’m really sorry to intrude at a time like this,” she said.
“Come in.” Merriman led her into the lounge. Donohue said hello to Patti and her sister and apologized again for coming over to the house.
“I looked for you at the office and was told you’d come home. Something really strange has come up. I thought you ought to hear about it as it could be important,” said Donohue, taking a seat.
“What is it?”
“Since we seized the cartel’s assets, I’ve been recording the details of each investment so we have a complete inventory of what we have, where the assets are located and what each item cost.”
“Go on.” He already knew Donohu
e was in charge of logging all of the assets.
“Well, for my own curiosity, one of the things I’ve also been doing is cross-checking the assets we’re recording against a press search.”
“What kind of press search?”
“I put the phrase ‘CBC deal completion’ into my Internet search engine then printed off the results. This gave me the press coverage of all of CBC’s deals in the last couple of years.”
“Where’s this going, Kerry?” He knew Donohue was the most intelligent member of his team; she was thirty-one and had been with the DEA since graduating from MIT in computer science. But she could never just cut to the chase. She had to work through her logic with people step by logical step. It was just the way her mind worked, and sometimes Merriman found this frustrating.
“Sorry. I eliminated those deal completion announcements which related to transactions before Tritona started to use CBC. Then I compared the remaining list of transactions to my record of seized assets. The two should agree, but they don’t.”
“Not all deals may have been publicized.” I hope this is going somewhere.
“I agree, but that’s not how my lists differ.”
“Go on.”
“There’s one very large deal which is covered in the press, but it’s missing from our list of assets.”
“The list came from CBC so how can we have a deal announcement, but no record of the investment on the list? Do you know much about the deal?”
“Yes. The missing investment is something called HS1. It was the very last deal completed by CBC using Tritona’s money. The article I found in the London Evening Tribune mentioned CBC’s investors paid seventy-six billion British pounds for it. That’s over one hundred billion dollars, and yet we’ve no record of it at all. It’s amazing that it’s missing.”
“So where is it?”
“All I know is CBC didn’t provide us with the documentation for this asset. They must still have it, which means, at the moment, it’s not been seized by the US government.”
Martin Bodenham Page 24
