A King's ransom

by James Grippando

  “Rey family. Are you there?”

  Alex grabbed the microphone. “Yes. We’re here. Go ahead, please.”

  “Good morning, my friend.”

  It sickened me to hear him call me “friend,” but Alex just rolled with it. “Good morning. We’ve been expecting you.”

  “ ‘We?’ ” he said, his tone slightly suspicious. “Exactly who is there with you?”

  “Don’t worry, no police. Just me and a member of the family. That’s it. I’m their representative. Call me Alex.”

  “All right. Call me Joaquin. I’m sure we will get along just fine. So long as the Rey family is prepared to pay us some money.”

  “We don’t even have a demand yet.”

  “I thought we’d let you open.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You have a member of the family there, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but-”

  “Who is it?”

  “The son.”

  “That must be Nick.”

  It was strange to hear my name, but at least it confirmed that we were really dealing with the kidnappers.

  “That’s right,” said Alex.

  “Perfect. Ask him how much his father is worth to him.”

  “Knock off the games,” she said harshly.

  “It’s not a game. I’m sitting here with his father. Tell Nick to make an offer. If it’s enough, I’ll let his father go free. If it’s not enough, I’ll kill him.”

  I looked at Alex, my heart pounding. “Could he be serious?” I asked softly.

  She spoke into the microphone, “This isn’t the way we do business. The family has come to deal in good faith. I was hoping you would do the same.”

  “Really? Well, how’s this for good faith? I have a pistol to his father’s head as we speak. Make an offer. Make it a good one.”

  “Stop this right now,” said Alex.

  “Are you offering nothing?”

  I gave her a hard look, wanting to make sure she knew what she was doing.

  She said, “We’ve come to listen to your demand. Not to make an offer.”

  “If the family was dealing in good faith, the son would know exactly how much to offer.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He knows what his father is worth. I know what his father is worth. It’s just a question of who is going to be the first to spit out the number.”

  “We’re listening.”

  “No, I’m listening. I want to hear the son say it. If I don’t hear the right number, the next sound you’ll hear is the crack of my pistol.”

  “We don’t play guessing games.”

  “You’ll do what I tell you to do,” he said sternly.

  “Then tell us what you want.”

  There was silence on the line. My hands were shaking. Nearly ten seconds passed. I looked helplessly at Alex. I was sure the gun would go off.

  “Three million dollars,” he said.

  Alex laughed. I snatched the microphone from her hand and covered it so the kidnappers couldn’t hear. “Don’t laugh at him! The crazy son of a bitch is going to shoot my father.”

  “I know what I’m doing,” she said as she took it back from me.

  The kidnapper said, “Do you think I’m joking?”

  “Claro,” said Alex. “Three million dollars? You might as well ask for three billion.”

  “That’s our demand.”

  “Fine. Here’s our demand. We need proof that Matthew Rey is alive.”

  “You get only what you pay for.”

  “No. Before we plunk down a cent, we need proof.”

  “What do you want?”

  I knew what she was going to say. Alex and I had worked this out in Miami. “We want Matthew to answer a question. His son had a dog when he was a child. A golden retriever. What was his name?”

  “Okay. We’ll get that.”

  “You said Matthew was sitting there with you. Ask him now.”

  “Can’t do that.”

  Alex covered the microphone and said, “I knew he was bluffing.”

  This time I wasn’t so sure she really knew.

  “Have the answer at our next talk,” she told the kidnapper.

  “Easy enough. Same time, same place. Four weeks from today.”

  I whispered, but it was still a shriek. “Four weeks!”

  She gave me a little wave, as if to convey that the timetable was reasonable. “Four weeks it is.”

  “Of course, at that time I will expect you to have a commitment from the family to pay us three million dollars.”

  “We’re not going to pay you three million dollars. The family doesn’t have that kind of money.”

  “I know with certainty that they do. They’ll pay it, or Matthew Rey is a dead man.”

  The radio hissed. We didn’t hear another word.

  “He’s gone?” I asked.

  “For now.” Alex switched off the radio.

  “What do you think?”

  “First off, don’t you ever snatch the microphone from my hand while I’m negotiating.”

  “Sorry. When you laughed at his demand, I thought for sure he was going to pull the trigger.”

  “The way I handled it is the way the game is played. I must have told you a dozen times that most kidnappers settle for ten to fifteen percent of the original demand.”

  “I know. This guy just didn’t seem all that open to negotiation.”

  For a split second her tough exterior melted, and I saw a look of concern in her eyes. I asked, “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that you may be right.”

  “What?”

  “You heard how he was talking. The way he stressed that both you and he know your father is worth three million dollars.”

  “So you’re saying what? He knows my father bought kidnap-and-ransom insurance?”

  “I’m saying more than that. I’m afraid he might know the exact amount of coverage.”

  A chill ran right through me. “So my instinct is right? It’s no coincidence that the policy was for three million dollars and he asked for the same amount?”

  “It’s possible it’s a coincidence. Three million is a nice round figure, and kidnappers always demand millions for Americans, usually somewhere between one and five.”

  “But you don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

  “I’m reading between the lines, but I think he was telling us that much.”

  “My God. What could be worse than a kidnapper who knows we have a three-million-dollar policy and an insurance company that refuses to pay?”

  She looked away. She clearly didn’t have an answer for that one. And neither did I.

  The morning sun was burning brightly now, but I still felt cold. We packed up the radio and started back down the mountain.

  26

  I returned to Miami with one priority: resolve the insurance coverage issue.

  The situation was touchy. My law firm represented Quality Insurance, the Bermuda company that had written my father’s policy. I knew the realities of life in a big firm. Not even the partners who liked me would dare tell a paying client to do right by Nick Rey or take their big book of business elsewhere. I was Lawyer Number 1,826 in seniority at a firm so riddled with turnover that nameplates were fastened to office doors not with glue or nails but magnets, as if second-year associates were as secure in their position as refrigerator art. My only hope was that just one lawyer with clout would have the backbone to arrange a meeting at which I could at least plead my case to the right set of deaf ears. Duncan Fitz was my best shot.

  Before my trip to Bogota, Duncan had promised to make some inquiries with Quality. I followed up first thing Monday, my first day back to work since the kidnapping. I felt guilty about resuming normal activities with my father still in captivity, but my mother encouraged it, and our financial situation required it, especially if we ended up without insurance to pay the ransom and Alex’s expenses. Besides, I could think
of no better way to get to the bottom of the insurance issue than to plant myself right in the hallowed halls of the law firm that represented the insurer.

  The door to Duncan’s office was open, so I poked my nose inside.

  “Got a minute?” I asked.

  He looked up from his computer screen and waved me in. “How’d the trip go?”

  I closed the door and took a seat in the wing chair facing him. Perched on the corner of his desk, he seemed eager for an update. Over the next few minutes I recapped the details, with a nifty tap dance around any mention of Alex. Since the insurance company had officially pulled her off the case, she didn’t want it known that she was helping me nevertheless.

  “Wow,” he said. “Three million dollars. That’s a lot of money.”

  “I guess if you’re a Colombian guerrilla, you think every American’s a millionaire.”

  “I don’t mean to insult, but I assume that if this insurance problem isn’t worked out, your family doesn’t have that kind of money.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” I said. “Did you find out anything?”

  He rose and walked around to the credenza. “I like you, Nick. But this firm is even more tightly allied with Quality Insurance Company than you may realize.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “We don’t normally tell associates which partners serve as officers or directors of our clients, but in this case I’ll make an exception. Maggie Johans is a vice president and general counsel for Quality Insurance Company. As a partner, I owe a duty of loyalty to every client, but you can see how the duty to Quality is, shall we say, heightened.”

  “I understand.”

  “That said, I’m not going to leave you twisting in the wind.”

  “Thank you.”

  He leaned forward, hands atop his desk, peering out over the top of his spectacles to look me right in the eye. “To be blunt, the partners in New York are calling for your head. Maggie is practically apoplectic. As a favor to me, she picked up the phone and lit a fire over there to get your father’s case moving quickly. Imagine how she felt when her own investigators called to tell her that the Rey family was pressing a fraudulent claim.”

  “Fraud?” I said, nearly choking on the word. “Is that what they think?”

  “They apparently uncovered evidence of collusion with the kidnappers.”

  “That can’t be. What is it?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that. It’s a matter of attorney-client privilege.”

  “This is ridiculous. Three of my dad’s crew members were killed in the attack. Another one saw him pulled from Cartagena Bay by Marxist guerrillas. There’s no collusion. He was kidnapped. He was lucky he wasn’t killed.”

  “The insurance company isn’t so sure it was luck.” He lowered his eyes as he spoke, as if he were embarrassed to have said it.

  “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”

  “I couldn’t believe it either. But that’s where we are. Your claim is being denied as fraudulent.”

  The silence between us was growing uncomfortable. The news was bad, but I didn’t want to lose Duncan’s support. I had to reel him back in somehow. “This may sound paranoid, but I suspect that the FBI might be behind this whole problem.”

  “How?”

  “If I share this with you, can I have your word that it will be kept in strictest confidence?”

  “Of course. I consider this whole conversation to be friend to friend.”

  “I had a meeting with a couple of hard-nosed FBI agents last week. They seem to think that my father’s business partner in Nicaragua may be engaged in illegal activities. Essentially, they’re blackmailing me. The FBI refused to help with my father’s kidnapping case unless my whole family promised to cooperate in the Nicaragua investigation.”

  “What kind of illegal activity do they suspect?”

  Already I was having serious second thoughts about going down this road. “They were narcotics agents.”

  He looked at me with disbelief, which slowly gave way to anger. “I almost wish you hadn’t told me that.”

  “I’m sharing this with you because it’s all a railroad. Everything was going smoothly with the insurance company until the FBI started flexing its muscles.”

  “You’re not suggesting that the FBI is behind the insurance company’s denial of your claim?”

  “Think about it. No one in my family can be forced into playing informant for the FBI if we don’t need their help negotiating with the kidnappers. What better way for the bureau to make sure we need them than to muck up our insurance coverage?”

  “You were right,” he said, scoffing. “That does sound paranoid.”

  “All I ask is that you check and see if anyone at Quality Insurance has talked to the FBI. Do me that one small favor.”

  “I’m not doing you any more favors!”

  His forcefulness took me aback. I tried to respond in the most level tone I could muster. “I can’t sort this out without your help.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have deceived me.”

  “Deceived you? How?”

  “The FBI is investigating your father’s fishing company for running drugs, and you didn’t even bother to tell me.”

  “It’s my father’s partner, not the business. And if Guillermo had anything to do with drugs, my father wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”

  “We’re talking about perceptions. I went out on a limb burning favors for you and your family, calling my partners and colleagues, using my contacts, all to get the FBI and State Department to make your father’s kidnapping a priority. I put my own good name and the reputation of this law firm on the line. Now I’m told that I went to bat for someone suspected of drug smuggling.”

  “You’re missing my point. The FBI is on a witch hunt. My father is the victim here.”

  “No, I’m the victim. You used me and this law firm with absolutely no regard for anyone but yourself.”

  “My father was kidnapped.”

  “That’s a tragedy, but it’s no excuse. You should never have put me in this position without telling me the whole story.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  “ ‘Sorry’ doesn’t cut it.” His voice definitely had an edge to it.

  “Look, I don’t want this misunderstanding to come between us. Tell me what I can do.”

  “Leave,” he said flatly. “The damage is done.”

  On past occasions I’d seen Duncan so angry he could scream. This time I sensed an anger of a different quality, not the kind that passed with a good venting but the kind on which grudges were built.

  I rose and started for the door. He stopped me and said, “I wasn’t kidding about New York.”

  “What about it?”

  “They truly are looking to fire you.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, didn’t know what he expected to hear.

  “And you know something?” he said in a low, threatening tone. “The more I hear, the less inclined I am to stand in their way.”

  Our eyes locked. Then he opened the door and showed me the way out.

  I went from the law firm to the doctor’s office. My mother’s ultrasound was scheduled for that morning, a routine procedure in the fourth month of pregnancy. Of course, Mom didn’t believe anything was routine for a forty-five-year-old expectant mother. She didn’t come right out and say it, but I knew she was worried and wanted me to go with her.

  The technician did a good job of putting her at ease, so it wasn’t necessary for me to hold her hand through the actual procedure. It would have been interesting to stay, I supposed, but there was something vaguely oedipal about seeing the inside of my own mother’s uterus, even if it was just sound waves. I waited in the lobby, surrounded by some very uncomfortable women in various stages of pregnancy, most of them further along than Mom.

  Mom’s preoccupation with the ultrasound did have an upside. Last night when I’d returned, she didn’t ask as many question
s about Colombia and the kidnappers as she might have. Her mind was on her baby. I told her that the ransom demand was high and that we hoped to negotiate it down. She didn’t ask how high. It was almost as if she didn’t want to know how unobtainable it might be.

  The door to the ultrasound lab opened, and the technician called to me. “You can come in now.”

  I put down my three-year-old copy of Parenting magazine and went inside. Mom was seated on the examination table.

  “Well?” I said, a little too cheery.

  She looked at me and clutched a tissue. Her eyes were red and puffy. I feared the worst-no fetal heartbeat. “Is everything okay?”

  She nodded, then sniffled.

  I went to her and held her hand. “Why were you crying?”

  “It just makes me so damn sad that your father wasn’t here to see this.”

  She laid her head against my arm. I held her for a minute, searching for the right thing to say. Before I could get it out, she handed me the picture the nurse had taken of the fetus. It was a ghostly white image against a solid black background, actual size, no bigger than a peanut.

  “Holy cow, it’s another Einstein. Look at the size of that brain.”

  “That’s the placenta, wise guy.”

  I almost had her smiling. “Boy or girl?”

  “I asked her not to tell me.”

  “Oh, come on. You’re going to keep us in suspense?”

  “I’m saving that. Your father and I will find out together once he’s home.”

  Her eyes welled again. Just the mention of Dad in this setting seemed to choke her up.

  “Please don’t cry. You have a healthy baby. That’s a lot to be thankful for.”

  “I’m just so sorry he missed this. I know he’s sorry, too. We didn’t get to do ultrasounds with you or Lindsey. He was so excited about seeing it.”

  “Dad really wanted this baby, huh?”