The Kidnapping

by Aiden Vaughan

  This time Jason fell into a very deep sleep. He didn’t even hear the man call through the door twenty minutes later. When there was no response, the man threatened to come in and kick Jason around so that he would not forget to obey his commands. But Jason was fast asleep. The man just placed the dinner tray on the table and then took the port-a-potty out for cleaning. After returning it to the basement cell, the man left and bolted the door from the outside.

  CHAPTER 10

  TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME

  (Thursday)

  Daniel’s parents were becoming concerned about his mental state. They understood the anguish faced by Jason’s parents, but they were starting to see a similar strain on their son. He went through the motions of his morning activities, but once he got home, he acted in a very lethargic manner—sitting around moping, toying with the computer, and not spending any time playing the guitar.

  Since Gary and Melinda Holmes were both accountants, running a tax and financial services business out of their home, they were acutely aware of Daniel’s day-to-day routine more than most parents.

  “Gary, we have to do something to get his mind off of Jason, even if only for a short amount of time. Have you ever seen him this depressed?” Melinda asked.

  “No, I haven’t, and you are right, Melinda. He needs a break from all of this stress.”

  “Okay, here is what I propose. Take him to the baseball game today. The Giants have a home game at one this afternoon. I can get you two tickets online and I will watch the business this afternoon,” she suggested.

  “That sounds like a great idea, but don’t you want to come along too?” Gary asked.

  “No, I have a lot to do, and I think Daniel is more likely to open up on a one-to-one basis with you. I want you to drive to the game. Everything about Jason’s disappearance is a very sensitive subject to him. If he does open up a little, I think a private setting is needed. You don’t want to be talking about a kidnapping while riding on BART or CalTrain.”

  Melinda’s idea turned out to be an excellent plan. On the drive to the ball field, Gary and Daniel talked sports and other light topics. The game turned out to be a good one, with the Giants finally edging the Astros 5-4. They had both gotten into the game by yelling and cheering. Gary could see that Daniel’s demeanor had greatly improved. On the way home, Daniel finally opened up about how Jason’s disappearance was affecting him. “Dad, I don’t know what to do about Jason. Have you ever experienced a situation like this?”

  His dad replied, “No, I never have been this close to a kidnapping before, but I have experienced the sudden and unexpected loss of a good friend. When I was a senior in high school, my best friend went out drinking with a bunch of buddies and they ended up in a fatal auto accident. He was severely injured in his neck and spine and lingered on for a week of agony before he died. God, that was a wrenching experience! For months afterwards, we beat ourselves up about it. We kept asking ourselves, ‘Why hadn’t we stopped them from going out? Why hadn’t we been with them to help them at the accident scene? Why were we spared and their promising lives taken?’ ”

  “I never knew you had this kind of experience,” Daniel softly commented.

  “Eventually you move on and your mind wants to bury the memory of it. It’s still painful for me to talk about it twenty years later. Eventually you finally realize that the actions of other people are not your fault and that too many good people die young. I’ll never get to be with my friend again, but I will always retain the memory and impact of the good times we had together. Nobody can take that away from me. So, if it turns out that Jason is taken away permanently from us, you, too, will experience the grieving process. It won’t be easy on you, but you will survive. I think your friendship has been a positive experience for both of you. That is what you should celebrate and that is what you should remember. No scumbag criminal can take that away from you.”

  Gary looked over at Daniel and he could see tears welling up in his eyes. For the first time that week, his son was showing an emotional reaction to the fear and worry that had been bottled up inside him. “Let it out, son. You’re not less of a person for loving your friend.”

  Gary turned up the radio and they listened to music all the way home, each lost in their own thoughts.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE WAITING GAME, PART III

  (Thursday)

  Thursday was even more of a downward spiral at the Hunter household. Edith had dark bags under her eyes and her hair was unwashed and unkempt. Bill was unshaven and cranky from lack of sleep, proper food, and exercise. There still had been no word from the kidnappers and the Hunters dreaded hearing today’s report from the police. More and more they sensed that the police were now thinking of this disappearance as an act of a predator who had no intention of returning Jason to his home.

  And the thought of that was too much to bear. Edith had taken to looking through photo albums of family pictures, remembering the happier days of what seemed like a very distant past. It was as if Jason was a ghost already and these few pictures were all that remained of him.

  Bill wanted to vent his anger and frustration but there was no way to do that without upsetting Edith even more than she already was. Over and over Bill blamed himself for not being there for Jason, spending too much time out of town on business, or not doing more things with his son when he was there and had the chance.

  Today’s meeting with Lt. Garcia had not gone well. After Garcia had explained, “The team has gone over the entire area again and re-interviewed park workers and local people. Right now I feel we are at an impasse, a dead end. Let’s call in the FBI to take over the investigation because they will take a fresh look at things. Perhaps they can discover new leads using their much greater resources.”

  “Didn’t we discuss this earlier and you said it was bad to put out an APB and bring in outside help because it would put Jason’s life in imminent danger?” Bill Hunter asked.

  Garcia replied, “That was two days ago. Since then not one thing has changed or broken in this case. Maybe we should try some new ideas.”

  Just then Garcia’s pager rang. Looking at it he said, “I have to take this call. Please excuse me.” Then he went into the other room.

  When he returned, he said, “I am sorry Mr. and Mrs. Hunter, but an AMBER Alert has just been issued for northern California and especially for the south Bay Area. I must follow through on this because the law requires our immediate and urgent response. As soon as I am able to, I will return and finish this conversation. In the meantime, our twenty-four hour surveillance team will remain in place here, just in case there is any contact from the kidnappers.”

  CHAPTER 12

  A PRISONER’S LIFE, PART III

  (Thursday)

  Again Jason was up early, or what he thought was early. As onerous as his captivity was, he was becoming more used to it, and starting to think of ways to get some advantage on his side. The first thing he did was eat most of the food that had been left from the previous night. He was amazed to have actually slept through one of the man’s visits.

  Once finished eating, he spent a lot of his early time exercising and stretching. He had a feeling his captors would probably want to keep him gagged for a good portion of the day and he felt that during that time he should just listen to the CD player or rest, instead of fighting against the ball gag. What he wanted was to save what strength he had left for the unknown future ahead, and to ensure he was prepared if an escape opportunity presented itself.

  After a solid hour of exercises, Jason rested for a while, sipped some water, and then decided to do a thorough search of his holding cell. The chain attached to his ankle allowed him to move around most of the room and so he took the opportunity to check out each wall and listen. Also, he wanted to figure out where he could place himself strategically when the door opened so he could see outside the room. Even though he would be putting the bandana blindfold over his eyes, he experimented with how far he cou
ld leave it up and still appear blindfolded. Using this maneuver, he hoped to see something that he most likely wasn’t supposed to see. Jason was blessed with excellent vision and he wanted to use it to his advantage if possible. He felt the man who had come into the room was feeling confident that he was totally in charge and Jason was just a scared and intimidated kid.

  Jason’s chain wasn’t long enough to reach all the way to the door into his cell room, but he saw that the doorknob was on his right, which meant the door would open to the left. Further, he figured if he moved the chair and table back about two feet from where they currently were, he would have the maximum view of what was beyond the doorway. His hope was that he would see some sort of exit door to the outside, besides a stairway to the next floor up.

  It was only about fifteen minutes later that Jason heard the man approach the doorway. As before, the man called out, “I have some food for you. Put your blindfold on now.”

  Jason lowered the bandana, but not all the way, as he had practiced.

  After the man came in and busied himself placing several items on the table, Jason glanced over to the door, which had been left wide open. Through the tiny slit of vision he saw a stairway and two other doors. The only problem was that he couldn’t really determine where those doors went. He hoped he could get a better look the next time the door was opened.

  Meanwhile, the man had left a meal of two doughnuts, a small carton of milk, and a new bottle of water. There were also some more comic books on the tray.

  Since Jason had recently eaten last night’s food, he decided to save one of the doughnuts and some of the milk for later. Calculating carefully, he positioned the chair so he could get another good look at those hallway doors.

  It wasn’t long until the man came back. After he told Jason to put on the blindfold, and Jason complied, the man walked right over to him. Again, as he had feared, the man stuffed the rubber ball gag into his mouth and locked it. “Don’t make any noise in here and don’t resist, kid. If you cooperate, I’ll be back earlier this time to remove the gag.”

  Jason was quiet, not that he really had any choice in the matter. True to his word, the man came back after only a few hours and removed the gag. He also brought an additional reward—a couple of plastic snack cups, one with strawberry gelatin in it, and one with pieces of fruit.

  * * *

  Although it wasn’t a pleasant existence, at least Jason was being treated a little better than before. Thankfully, he could move around, had comics to read, the music player to listen to, and was being given more food. Because he had saved his reading time for when he was gagged, even that part of his day was less burdensome than before. Jason wondered to himself, Where had the comic books come from? They obviously have been read a lot—most likely by kids.

  It was hard for Jason to imagine that another kid was participating in his captivity. One comic book even had writing in it. The letters were faded and not well formed, but someone had written what looked like F-E-N-C-I-N-G in capital letters inside the front cover at the top of an ad for Three Musketeers toy swords and action figures. Jason daydreamed for a while that he had a sword and could slash his way out of his prison cell.

  That evening, Jason was given a real hot meal, with two chicken pieces, mashed potatoes, peas and a biscuit. He was also given a soda with ice and a straw in a cardboard cup with a plastic cap. After the meal, Jason walked around and spent another half hour doing exercises. He cleaned himself with the sponge, soap, and water, especially around his face and the cuff on his leg that had created chafing and minor cuts. For the second night in a row, he was able to get some deep sleep.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE FORCE OF DESTINY, PART 1

  (Friday)

  Friday morning was very quiet at the Hunter household. There still had been no contact from Jason’s kidnappers on Thursday, making the Hunter’s situation even more desperate. But child abduction was a big public topic of interest in the news media.

  Yesterday’s AMBER Alert had been all over the news both Thursday afternoon and evening with carryover into the morning news shows. The story was a tragic one about a broken family and neglected kids at the core of it. A young mother and her new boy friend, who had a background of gang-related violent activity, had gone to her ex-husband’s house where her two kids were living with their father and grandmother. They had stormed the house and taken the kids away at gunpoint, after shooting up the place and wounding the father. The father had had full custody of the kids because the woman had drug-addiction problems and as a result had neglected the two kids. This had been a big point of contention during their divorce proceedings and afterwards, because the husband hadn’t wanted their children exposed to his ex-wife’s lifestyle any further.

  The kids were grabbed in the Contra Costa County town of Martinez, and reports had the abductors driving them through the Bay Area and back to the San Jose area. There were several high-speed chases reported during their escape. Each time the police had to back off because the man was using the kids as human shields and constantly had them in harm’s way. Finally, the couple had ended holed up in a rundown house, south of San Jose where there was a long standoff that took over eight hours to resolve.

  Because of the location, Lt. Garcia’s missing persons team was heavily involved during the stand-off stage. The team was exhausted and they were pulled off the shifts at the Hunter home that they had maintained since late Monday. Instead, the communications at the Hunter house were being manned by their technical assistant, Samuel Washburn, who had been asked to camp out there until relief could be arranged.

  Around 9:15 a.m., a call came into Bill Hunter on his cell phone from Ellie Planting. “How are you doing, Bill? Has anything positive developed yet?” When he replied no, she continued, “I am so sorry to bother you, but a big sales opportunity has come up and I need access to the special safe.”

  “What’s going on, Ellie?” Bill asked.

  “Mr. Ricardo called and has finally decided to buy the Albioni necklace. He wanted to come in and complete the transaction this morning because he was leaving town this afternoon.”

  Ricardo was an eccentric, elderly collector, who had been a customer for the past several years. Each sale took some time to complete because Ricardo would often waver in his decisions just at purchase time. It usually took four or five meetings to complete a single transaction. But he had ended up purchasing several very expensive items and the commission on this sale would keep the business running for several months.

  “I could just brush the guy off if you don’t want to come in, or tell him that you are still out of town on business, but I know you have been trying to make the sale for a long time,” Ellie commented.

  “That’s okay, Ellie. I think I will come in for a little while. I will deal with this, check on a couple things, just to get away, if even for a short time. I really need a little break from the horrible frustration I am experiencing here at home.”

  After disconnecting, Bill went to Edith and explained to her what was going on at Hunter & Sons. “I hate to do this, but I really have to go. I’ll just be gone for a little while and then come right back. If there is a call for ransom, you know Samuel will have it recorded. If it is a live person, be sure to make them put Jason on the telephone so you can hear his voice.”

  About fifteen minutes later, after shaving and making himself more presentable, Bill got in his car and headed downtown to the Hunter & Sons store. When he got there, he used his key to get in the back door. From there Bill went into the front area. The sales room hadn’t opened yet when he walked in so Ellie immediately went up to Bill and again expressed her sympathy and concern.

  “Ricardo hasn’t gotten here yet. I will page you when he comes in. Oh, and a package just arrived for you. I put it on your desk,” she explained.

  Bill thanked her then went into his private office and closed the door. He sat down at his desk, started up his computer and checked his email.

 
The package on his desk was medium-sized and addressed to William Hunter from the Asmodean Art Gallery in Chicago, Illinois. When Bill opened the package his jaw dropped. Inside were four things: Jason’s baseball mitt, a picture of Jason in captivity, bound and gagged and squinting in the flash of the camera, a 7 x 10 inch manila envelope, and a note that looked as if it was printed from a home computer on plain paper.

  The note read:

  Mr. Hunter.

  As you can see we have your son Jason. If you want to see him alive again, you have only this one chance to get him back. To do this, you must follow these directions exactly and immediately. You must get $50,000 in unmarked bills without calling any attention to yourself. That means absolutely no contact with any tellers or bank officials. We know you have the resources to do this. Place the cash in the brown manila envelope we have provided for you. Put the envelope in a small briefcase along with some business papers. Then you are to go to the public library on Second Street. Go to the oversized book collection in the basement. Find catalog number M1503.V484 F72, which is an opera score entitled The Force of Destiny by Giuseppe Verdi. When you find the book, you will discover that it is hollowed out when you open it. You are to place the envelope containing the money, this note, and the picture of your son in the insert, and return the book to the shelf in exactly the same place. Make sure that no one follows you or sees what you are doing at either location. Then return to your home and wait for news of Jason’s release. Do not tell the police anything about what you have done. Do not talk to anyone you know about this before or after you do it. Your son will be killed if you do not comply exactly and completely with these instructions.