The Last Hostage

by Nance, John J. ;

  Something had been bothering her about the hand ever since she’d discovered it, and she ran her eyes now over every part of the image, cataloguing the fact that the hand was Caucasian, obviously male, and somehow distinctive.

  She made the picture larger, boosting the size until the hand was an undecipherable jumble of square pixels on the screen before her.

  There was a sophisticated photo manipulation program on Bostich’s computer, and she used it to enhance the image, slowly watching as the picture coalesced, the computer’s tiny silicon brain filling in the blanks with its best guess as to what color and shade each empty pixel should be.

  Suddenly the hand filled the entire screen with a startling degree of clarity, showing a distinctive sideways crook in the knuckle of the little finger.

  Ken was lowering himself back into the left seat and she glanced at him briefly before returning her attention to the enhanced photo.

  One thing for sure: It’s definitely not Bradley Lumin, and for that matter, it’s not Rudy Bostich.

  “What did Matson have to say?” Ken asked. His eyes were on the instruments, unaware of the startled look on her face.

  She turned and studied him carefully before replying, aware that he was leveling the 737 at six thousand feet as he aimed for Phoenix.

  She repeated the essence of the conversation, along with the fact that the parent corporation of the Chicago sleaze merchant was owned by the man sitting in a Gulfstream several hundred yards to their left.

  He looked at her in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  She took a deep breath. “Bill North owns the company, Ken, and we need help finding who in his organization ordered those payments for the SHRDLU2 mailbox. Remember, whoever owns that e-mail address is probably the killer, or can lead us to the killer. Of course, I didn’t expect this to lead to a company.”

  The sound of the cellular phone ringing caused her to jump. She swept it open, relieved to hear Frank’s voice on the other end.

  “Kat, I wanted to update you. The search of Lumin’s place in Ft. Collins has been very interesting. They found a cache of porno videotapes, all of them featuring underage girls, all of them meant for commercial underground distribution, and none of them involving any kids currently listed as missing or dead, as far as can be determined. In fact, one little girl is a known runaway who sells herself for such things over and over again.”

  “He was producing those things?”

  “Producing is too formal a word, but that’s the idea. They found a ledger indicating Lumin would lure them in, pay them, tape them in some remote place, sometimes involving group sex, then market the results.”

  “So there’s no evidence he kills them or tortures them?”

  “No. Some of them, and maybe all of them, were probably tricked or coerced, but other than the sexual exploitation, he didn’t appear to be killing or torturing them. We do believe he was forcing drugs down their throats. They found cocaine in the trailer. But Kat, one of the girls was videotaped in a cabin that looks very similar to the picture Matson described to me.”

  “You mean the same place Melinda …” she glanced at Ken, who was listening through the headset connection. He motioned for her to continue. “It looks like the place where Melinda was held?”

  “It does. I’ve forced my way back into this case by screaming at FBI Headquarters, and I’m having us fax a still shot of that footage to Matson right now for confirmation.”

  “In those tapes, there were none, I suppose, of Melinda Wolfe.”

  “None. Kat, if he taped her, the tape didn’t surface in Ft. Collins. Fact is, though, with all the publicity about her kidnapping, a sleaze like Lumin would have panicked and thrown away the evidence.”

  She thanked him and disconnected, staring through the windscreen in thought for a few moments, trying to make the pieces fit. Lumin made kiddie porn videotapes, but didn’t kill his victims, or even torture them, as far as they knew. Somehow the search of his Connecticut house two years before had missed such tapes. Why? It gave strength to the conclusion that Lumin wouldn’t have suddenly murdered a little girl he’d carefully enticed into his porno web. But had he suddenly made an exception?

  She kept her eyes on the western horizon.

  “Ken, did the police ever determine how Melinda was taken? Was she snatched in public?”

  In her peripheral vision, she could see him shake his head slowly, and she looked over at him, realizing his face was wet.

  “No. She apparently went voluntarily to meet the thirteen-year-old boy she thought she’d been writing to. The last e-mail had set up the meeting in a mall. I was out of town. They figured she was snatched there, or voluntarily went with whoever killed her. She might have fallen for some song and dance about taking her to the nonexistent pen pal. I reported her missing immediately, but it was two days before I found the e-mail record and the police recognized a pattern and sounded the alarm.”

  “No ransom demands?”

  “Never. Nothing. It obviously wasn’t that kind of kidnapping. Whoever it was just wanted to use her and throw her away.”

  Kat looked toward Phoenix, seeing nothing, wondering if Lumin had somehow handed off Melinda to someone else—someone who killed her.

  She turned back to Ken suddenly.

  “Ken, if you truly want to catch Melinda’s killer, you’re going to have to abandon this plan to blow your brains out.”

  He looked at her, an unreadable, unfathomable expression of pain and fury creasing his features.

  She tried again. “Ken, do you understand? The key has got to be Bill North.”

  “North?” He asked simply.

  “Yes. North! He can force whoever runs that Chicago company to answer the critical question of who was operating that e-mail address, SHRDLU2. I’ve met the guy. If you’re gone, he won’t do it if it threatens his business interests. But he wants to be the hero who ends this hijacking. He’ll do it for you, Ken.”

  He looked to the left at the Gulfstream for several long seconds, then suddenly rolled the 737 into a steep right turn as he pushed the throttles up and keyed the radio.

  “Ken, what are you doing?”

  He ignored the question as his finger found the transmit button.

  “Mr. North, Ken Wolfe. Are you over there?”

  Aboard Gulfstream N5LL. 5:19 P.M.

  Kneeling between his pilots in the cockpit, Bill North had been mildly embarrassed when Detective Roger Matson suddenly decided to use a cellular line to talk to Kat Bronsky a few minutes earlier, excluding him. He knew his two pilots were wondering what they suddenly had to discuss that North and his crew weren’t supposed to hear. North had been deep in thought when Wolfe’s sudden call cracked through the speakers.

  Bill North nodded to Dane and grabbed the microphone.

  “I’m here, Captain. Where are you going?”

  “We need to talk. Quickly and privately. I need your help in ending this, and I want you to land behind me at Globe, Arizona, just a few miles back.”

  “I thought we were headed for Phoenix?”

  “We were. Now we’re headed to Globe. Please follow me in. If you do, I’ll let the people over here go and come aboard your aircraft, as you offered before. I’ll surrender to you.”

  North hesitated, thinking it over for a split second before replying enthusiastically. “Good! Good, Captain! We’ll be right behind you, and I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. The offer’s still good.”

  “Thank God!” Dane Bailey said as he banked the Gulfstream in pursuit. “I wonder what changed his mind?”

  Bill North was usually quick with an answer, but there was no sound from his boss as Dane steepened the bank and glanced around, startled to see the depth of the wrinkles furrowing North’s brow.

  San Carlos Apache Airport, Globe, Arizona. 5:26 P.M.

  The five thousand eight hundred feet of San Carlos Apache’s only runway was just enough to accommodate a Boeing 737, so the sight of a commercial Bo
eing jetliner swooping in from the west with little more than a quick radio call on final approach attracted the attention of the few employees who hadn’t headed home.

  The Boeing landed and taxied to the end of the runway, where it turned off and moved onto a wider expanse of concrete, its engines sitting at idle as a sleek Gulfstream IV business jet touched down a minute later and taxied alongside the Boeing.

  Two curious mechanics stood by their pickup truck and watched as the sound of the four jet engines began to wind down. A line boy from the corporate air terminal joined them, pushing back his baseball cap to scratch his head.

  “What’s goin’ on? You suppose they need gas or something?”

  “Anybody call you on the radio, Jim?” one of the mechanics asked, his eyes riveted on the Boeing.

  “No”.

  “Well, if they need you, I’m sure they’ll call.”

  “Door’s opening on the seven-thirty-seven,” the teenage boy named Jim observed.

  “Opening on the Gulfstream, too.” The older man turned to his companion. “Say, Don … you don’t suppose—”

  “Suppose what?”

  “Wasn’t that an AirBridge flight hijacked earlier today?”

  There was a brief hesitation before the mechanic named Don nodded with wide eyes.

  “What do we do?”

  “Call the sheriff for starters. Do it, Jim! Quick!”

  Aboard AirBridge Flight 90, San Carlos Apache Airport, Globe, Arizona. 5:30 P.M.

  Ken silently ran through the items on the shutdown checklist before turning to Kat.

  “Wait in the seat just a second.”

  She saw him deftly remove the .44 from his briefcase and slip it in his waistband again as he got to his feet and opened the cockpit door. She felt the pressure change as he opened the front entry door and heard the whine of the self-contained stairs as they began powering the steps out.

  And she could hear Ken adjusting the P.A. microphone in his hand.

  “Okay, folks. This is where it all ends. I’m sorry to leave you in Globe instead of Phoenix, but I know transportation will be arranged shortly. Other than that, I’ve said all I can say. I’m truly sorry. Please wait until I enter the other aircraft. Then you may depart, all but Rudy Bostich, that is. Mr. Bostich is under arrest, and any attempt to free him is a crime.”

  Ken replaced the microphone and leaned into the cockpit. “Okay, Kat, come on out.”

  She complied, surprised when his left arm encircled her shoulders and neck from behind as they stood at the top of the stairs.

  “Forgive this one last show, but just in case he’s harboring sharpshooters over there, I’ve got to look appropriately dangerous. The gun isn’t cocked, as you know.”

  “But you’re going to aim it at my head, aren’t you?”

  He nodded, a grim expression on his face as he moved her gently into the daylight at the top of the stairs and looked in all directions, the muzzle held to the back of her head.

  “Take it easy, Kat. One step at a time. Together.”

  They moved smoothly to the bottom of the steps, Ken’s eyes darting all around as Kat prayed the sudden diversion to Globe had been unanticipated by her agency or anyone else with guns and the power to create a disaster.

  The Gulfstream sat less than a hundred feet away, its left side facing the Boeing’s left side. The entry doorway was empty, and they climbed the steps slowly.

  “Who up there is closest to the door?” Ken yelled.

  A face popped into the entryway, and Kat recognized the captain.

  “That’s Dane Bailey,” she said over her shoulder. “The captain.”

  “I’m unarmed, Captain Wolfe,” Dane said as he put his hands up and backed into the aircraft.

  “Where’s Mr. North?”

  Dane inclined his head toward the passenger cabin.

  “And your copilot?”

  “Still strapped into the right seat.”

  Ken nodded as he moved Kat through the door and to the right.

  “Any sudden moves, Dane, and I’ll have to shoot her.”

  “No one’s moving suddenly, Captain! Mr. North is waiting for you. He’s unarmed.”

  “He’d better be. Where are you planning to be?”

  Dane shrugged. “Anywhere you want me. We’re just trying not to get in the way.”

  Ken nodded. “Understood. Stay in the cockpit.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Ken Wolfe and Kat Bronsky disappeared in the door of the Gulfstream, Annette began the exodus of passengers from AirBridge 90 with a quick P.A. announcement, unsure what to expect.

  “Please leave the aircraft, and move away from it immediately. Bev and Kevin will be in the lead. Follow them, and follow their instructions. I’ll bring up the rear. Please leave all your carry-on items here. You’ll get them later.”

  She expected quick compliance.

  Except for Blenheim—who almost knocked Bev and Kevin over in his rush to get off the aircraft—most of the passengers began moving up the aisle in slow motion, as if they weren’t supposed to leave so soon, each of them shaking Annette’s hand, or hugging her, or squeezing her shoulder—most asking where Ken Wolfe had gone, and what would happen to him now.

  Suddenly Elvira Gates materialized in front of her, followed by all of her fear-of-flying group.

  “You’ve won our hearts, my dear,” Elvira said. “You acted magnificently.”

  “Thank you, Elvira. Are your people okay?”

  She glanced around, then nodded. “I’m amazed. Some of them may take the bus from now on, but they’ve earned their PhD in this course.” She patted Annette’s hand and headed down the steps.

  Mike Clark, the retired detective, brought up the rear, stopping in front of Annette and searching her face. “Should I try to go over to that business jet and help?”

  She shook her head. “Stay out of it. I have no idea what’s transpiring, but my main concern is getting all of you to safety.”

  He looked at her thoughtfully for several moments before arching his thumb in the direction of the empty captain’s chair.

  “The question is, Annette, who’s going to get that poor guy to safety?”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Aboard Gulfstream N5LL, San Carlos Apache Airport, Globe, Arizona. 5:38 P.M.

  Bill North was on his feet when Ken and Kat entered the plush cabin of Gulfstream N5LL. His eyes followed Ken carefully as the airline captain dropped his arm from Kat’s shoulders. Kat moved toward the chair North had occupied at the rear of the cabin, relieved to see her purse still sitting alongside on the carpet.

  “Why don’t we sit over here, Captain Wolfe?” Bill North said, indicating the couch running along the right side of the cabin between the two swivel chairs.

  “Let’s drop the ‘captain’ bit, okay? Call me Ken. And sit over there.” Ken motioned toward the forward swivel chair.

  “Whatever you say.”

  “I’ve jerked those poor people over there around long enough. They can’t help me anymore. You, however, can.”

  North smiled a thin smile and shrugged. “That’s what I promised. What can I do for you?”

  Ken glanced toward Kat. “You have the name of that Chicago company?”

  She nodded as he repeated the details of José Taurus’s involvement, watching Bill North’s face as it contorted ever so slightly. When Ken was through, North shook his head energetically.

  “I own many companies that own other companies in turn, Ken. I can’t keep track of all of them. In fact, I don’t even know the name of this one. Elysian, did you say?”

  He nodded. “Owned by your Swiss outfit.”

  Bill nodded. “Okay. Let me get my corporate head of the Geneva division on the phone and get some answers quickly.” He hesitated, watching Ken’s eyes. “Can I get up and use the phone?”

  “Where is it?”

  “Near Kat, over there.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He leapt from the chair and cro
ssed to the end of the couch, where he reached for the elaborate desk phone Kat had used. She watched as his hand closed around the handset.

  Kat looked back at Ken and smiled a thin, unconvincing smile.

  Kat forced her heart rate down and looked around at Bill North, who was standing with a hand on his hip, barking orders into the phone in French, demanding an immediate midnight connection with his managing director. North smiled at her briefly, his concentration returning to the call. She let her eyes follow the contour of his custom-made suit against the backdrop of his thirty-nine-million-dollar jet, and wondered what other things North’s money had bought.

  She replayed the mental image of Melinda in the picture.

  North hung up the phone and stalked back to the other chair, where he plunked down heavily.

  “He’ll call me back in three minutes. Bear with me, Ken. We’ll get some rapid answers.”

  Kat Bronsky forced herself to stand up and calmly move toward North’s chair.

  “Bill, things have been developing pretty fast in the last hour. Not all of it came over the satellite phone, so I doubt you’ve heard everything.”

  Bill North shrugged and gestured palms up. “I haven’t been trying to catalogue things, Kat. I was just trying to keep relaying for you.”

  She nodded and smiled. “I appreciate that, Bill. I appreciate all your help since Salt Lake.”

  “Glad to.”

  “Now, however, I want to tell you where we are in this investigation. As Ken has said, we need your help getting information from one of your companies, but while we’re waiting for that, maybe you can help me untangle some of these conflicting facts.”

  He leaned forward, looking slightly relieved. “Sure. What?”

  There was a sturdy, hand-carved walnut coffee table in front of the couch and she sat on it carefully as she folded her hands and looked him in the eye. Ken stood quietly against the left wall of the cabin, the gun still leveled in the direction of North.

  “First, Bill, Bradley Lumin probably did not kill Melinda Wolfe.”

  There was a flicker on North’s face which progressed to a frown and a quick glance at Ken.