His mother said, “Okay, take the chair over into the corner, climb up onto it and move the two books off of that narrow top shelf to the shelf below it.” Once he’d done that, she said, “Lift the empty shelf off the brackets that are holding it up.”
Zage did, feeling a little surprised to realize that the shelf was only sitting on the brackets rather than being fastened to them. “What do I do with the shelf?”
“See if it’ll fit in that drawer underneath all the clothes.”
Zage climbed down and went over to the small chest of drawers. Pulling open the drawer that had the clothes, he pulled them forward and found that the shelf did fit inside the drawer. He pushed the clothes back over it. “Like that?”
“Yeah.”
Curiously, Zage said, “What good did that do?”
“Oh, well, hopefully you’ll see in a minute. Climb back up on the chair and see if you can get the brackets that held the shelf off their rails. Usually, all you have to do is push up on them and they pop out of their little slots.”
Zage did it, feeling a little surprised when the brackets came loose. He did have to bump one of them with the base of his palm before it would come loose. “Now what?”
“For now, hide the brackets in the drawer with the shelf. Then, you’ll do the same thing to move the remaining shelves up and apart a little bit so it’s not so obvious that one of the shelves is missing.”
Zage started to work, his mind racing as he tried to figure out what his mother was trying to accomplish. Not having figured it out, after a bit, he said, “So all this was to get a shelf hidden away in the drawer?”
“Well, if you’ll think about it, you could use that shelf as a club if you had to. But a board like that’d be pretty clumsy. If you decide you need a club, that wooden rod the coat hangers are hanging on in the closet would make a better one.”
“Oh. Should I hide it in the drawer too?”
“No, I’d just leave it in the closet. It’s pretty accessible there.”
“No it isn’t! I can’t reach it without bringing the chair over!”
“Oh… sorry.” His mom sounded a little embarrassed. “I’d forgotten you couldn’t reach it. Yeah, you should get it down. But don’t put it in the drawer, Leave it standing in the corner of the closet. It’ll be easier to get to and won’t be such a suspicious place if they see it there.”
“What should I do with the coat hangers?” Zage asked. He’d finished rearranging the shelves, so he picked up the chair and took it over to the closet.
“I’d leave some of them lying on the floor of the closet and put some of them in the top drawer of the dresser."
Zage got the five hangers down, leaving three on the floor of the closet and carrying two of them over to put in the drawer. Going back, he lifted the wooden closet rod down out of its holder and leaned it up next to the door inside the closet. "Now what?"
"Okay, now take one of the shelf brackets back over to the corner of the room and we’ll see if you can use it to scrape a hole through the sheet rock."
His mother had him use the bracket to mark out a rectangular hole between the studs that the shelves were on. Then he started rubbing hard along one of the marks he’d made, surprised to see that underneath the paint was some cardboard and beneath that some powdery white material, “What is this white stuff, Mom?”
“Gypsum. It’s the ‘rock’ in ‘sheet rock.’ As you can see, it’s pretty soft rock.”
“Um, this is making a big mess. If those guys come back in here, they’re going to see it right away.”
“Oh, back out into the main part of the room and let me get a look at it.”
Zage did so.
“You’re right. I was hoping that it wouldn’t be easy to see back in the corner of the room on the other side of the bed. But if even you can see it, being taller, they’ll see it right away… Look around the room again, let’s see if we get any ideas.”
Zage did.
“The table! It looks like it folds up. Let’s see if you can fold it and lean it against the wall over the hole you’re making."
Zage had never seen a folding table, so his mom had to explain to him how to do it. As soon as she started to explain it, though, it seemed obvious and he quickly finished unhinging it. He carried it over and leaned it against the wall under the shelves where it turned out to nicely cover the hole he’d started to make. "Shall I keep working on the hole?"
His mother didn’t say anything for a moment, then she said, “I'm worried because scraping at the wall makes quite a bit of noise. We don’t want them to come check on what you’re doing. Maybe when Amy’s awake, she can create some kind of distraction."
"Okay, what should I do?"
"Are you tired? Do you want to take a nap?"
"Mom! You know I don’t take naps!" Then Zage felt a little embarrassed, afraid he sounded like a whiny little kid.
“Okay," his mother said, not commenting on his tone. "Get out one of the wire coat hangers."
She had him bend the hook back and forth until he’d broken off a piece about three inches long. Then she had him bend that piece until it had two prongs that would fit into an electrical outlet. She had him use the shelf bracket to scrape the paint off of the tips of the prongs. He looked at it curiously, turning it back and forth, “What good is this?"
"If you plug it into a power outlet it’ll make a short that should
drop the circuit breaker.”
She started to explain short-circuits and circuit breakers to him, but he stopped her. “I’ve read quite a bit about electrical circuits and even about house wiring.”
There was a brief pause, apparently while his mom came to grips with not needing to explain it, then she continued, “Hopefully, a lot of the electrical equipment in this old house might be on that same circuit breaker so when it goes out, a lot of their lights and other equipment will shut off. Maybe we’ll be able to surprise those guys if we need to.”
“Oh,” Zage said, still looking at the bent piece of wire.
“Get one of the plastic bags out of the bottom of the trashcan and tear a long strip off of it.” Once Zage had done that, his mom had him wrap the strip of plastic around and around the middle part of the bent piece of wire then tie the ends together so that it would stay. “If you need to try to short out the circuit breaker, hold the wire by the plastic wrapping so you won’t get shocked yourself.”
“Okay,” Zage said. “What next?”
“Take the rest of that coat hanger and pull it out straight into one long doubled wire.”
Zage did that, pulling it out so that it had the twist where the hook had been on one end. It folded back in the middle of the straight part of the wire that had been at the bottom of the hanger. He worked at the kinks that were left to make it a long, straight doubled piece of heavy wire.
“Can you twist it a little?”
Zage did, studying it curiously, “What’s this for?”
“Stick it between the mattress and the box springs with just the end of it sticking out. Then, if you need to, you might be able to pull it out and hit one of those guys with it. If you swing it hard, it’ll hurt pretty bad.” After a pause, she said, “But your best weapon would be the closet rod the hangers were on.”
Zage swung the doubled piece of heavy wire through the air with a “zip” sound. He looked at it once again before he tucked it under the mattress, She’s right, I’d hate to get hit with that!
Zage’s mom said, “I’ve got to talk to a policeman. I’ll be back with you again in a few minutes.”
Zage had been comforted by his mother’s presence, talking in his ears and seeing through his eyes. With her gone, he felt more frightened. As he wondered what to do, Amy moaned.
Zage turned toward her…
Chapter Nine
Roger watched Jamieson suspiciously. They’d carried out their mission almost perfectly and Roger’d expected Jamieson to be elated. Instead Jamieson seemed worried, pacing aro
und and muttering. Roger didn’t think he’d even made a call to demand the ransom yet. Finally Roger said, “What’s the problem?”
Jamieson looked startled, as if he’d forgotten Roger was sitting there. “Just… Just trying to figure out how to work the deal…” He blinked, “why don’t you go down there and check on them. Make sure they’re not… about to cause any problems.”
Roger heaved himself out of the chair, thinking, There’s nothing in that room for them to cause trouble with! But he was being well-paid. He’d just as well do what the boss asked.
As Roger stumped down the stairs, Jamieson called up images of the kid and compared them to Ell Donsaii. The images from today, just like the ones from when he’d met the kid in the woods, still made him think she was the kid’s mother. But he was positive the woman downstairs wasn’t Donsaii! How the hell can I make sure the kid is actually Donsaii’s?! He thought of DNA tests, but he didn’t have a sample of Donsaii’s DNA nor a lab to compare the two. Besides, I need Donsaii! Wang would consider the kid a bonus, something to use as a lever to control Donsaii. But what he really wants is the gray matter in Donsaii’s head!
After desperately circling the issue of how to get Donsaii for a while, he thought, Hell, I’ve got three and a half million! Maybe the smart thing to do would be to gather my money, get the hell out of the country, and have Roger turn the kid loose in a couple of days. Then he thought about Wang. Wang himself wasn’t very scary, but Jamieson had a feeling that the people Wang worked for were real badasses. The kind of people who wouldn’t take kindly to his taking their deposit and running. If I can prove the kid is really hers, I could have Roger give them the kid and tell them the kid’s worth the four million they gave me as a deposit? They could use the kid as a lever to try to make Donsaii give herself up to…
Jamieson’s train of thought arrested. I can use the kid as a lever. In fact, if Donsaii responds to me trying to use the kid as a lever, that’ll be proof that he’s actually her son! He stopped pacing and sat down to try to figure out how to make the demand.
***
Shan arrived at the lonely little stretch of road where the kidnapping had occurred. Cop cars were pulled up willy-nilly, flashing lights strobing on their roofs. Crime tape had been stretched all around the shoulder of the road and cops were directing traffic so that it didn’t encroach on the scene.
He saw Ell talking to a man wearing plain clothes, but who, from the way the other police eyed him, must be an officer or detective. Shan started toward her, then abruptly halted. She’s dressed as Ell!
She saw him and waved him onward, turning back to the detective and speaking loudly enough for Shan to hear, said, “This is the boy’s father Lieutenant.” She turned back to Shan, “Dr. Kinrais, your wife contacted me as soon as her AI told her what happened. I rushed right over to offer what aid I could. She’s on her way back from the island right now.”
Shan restrained himself from giving Ell a hug, even though he saw her hand twitch toward him as if she desperately wanted one too. “What’s happened?!”
Though Shan suspected that Ell might know more about what had happened than the detective, she turned her eyes toward the policeman questioningly.
The lieutenant turned to Shan and waved at Amy’s blue Ford Focus, sitting forlornly off the side of the road, surrounded by the crime scene tape. “Ms. Reston’s car was apparently forced off the side of the road in this isolated area.” He waved around the area, “Probably because there’s little traffic and no security cameras on this stretch. We have, of course, downloaded the video record from Ms. Reston’s AI and her car’s radar, lidar, and camera records. These show three cars surrounding hers and forcing her off the road and up to the side of a van. Your son and Ms. Reston were pulled from the car, put in the van, and then driven away.”
Shan glanced around, trying to imagine what had just happened. He tamped down the desire to watch the video himself and said, “Where’d they go?!”
The detective pursed his lips, looking frustrated, “We don’t know.”
“You haven’t tracked the cars?!” Shan said with dismay and disbelief, “I thought you could do that instan…”
The detective was shaking his head, “They’d apparently disabled the AI’s in their vehicles and were driving them on manual. The traffic system doesn’t think any vehicles were actually here.”
“But…!”
The detective shook his head again, “Mr. Kinrais, I know you’re upset and frustrated right now, but please recognize that each minute that passes makes it harder for us to catch these people. What I need you to do is to stop asking me questions, and let me ask you some. I’ll answer any questions you want later, after I’ve found your son!” He raised an eyebrow indicating he was looking for Shan’s understanding
Though his mind was practically gibbering, Shan shut his mouth and gave a sharp decisive nod, “What do you need to know?”
“Your wife left early this morning, correct?”
Shan resisted the temptation to glance at Ell, but did see a minute nod of the head she made out of the corner of his eye. “Yes Sir,” he said, after all, it was true.
“And you got your son up and fed him breakfast, but then left the house yourself shortly after Ms. Reston arrived?”
“Um, yeah.” Shan almost glanced interrogatively at Ell, but managed not to. Years of practice in less stressful situations helped him keep his behavior in line with their story. “How do you know all this stuff already?”
“We contacted your wife and got permission to download her record of the morning. Unfortunately, she hadn’t really seen anything of interest. Now I’d like to ask you to have your AI send me it’s record of your morning so far,” the Lieutenant lifted an eyebrow.
“Um, sure,” Shan said, speaking briefly to his AI to have it send the record.
“Now I’m sure you’ll understand I can’t take time to watch the entire record right now while time’s of the essence. Is there anything that’s happened this morning that, thinking back on it, might have given you some warning, or for some other reason you think might be relevant?”
Shan shook his head.
“Do you have any idea what these people might want?”
Now Shan had to look at Ell, though he managed to do it while trying to look like he was scanning the scene of the crime. He turned back to the detective, “Actually, I do… but… I’d rather not talk about it here in public. Can we go…”
“Mr. Kinrais!” The cop said heatedly, “Your son’s life may hang in the balance. Might I suggest that you not screw around!”
Shan stepped right next to the policeman and leaned his lips close to the man’s ear. “My wife…” he said, “is Ell Donsaii. She lives her life with me in disguise.”
The detective, who’d started to draw away when Shan invaded his personal space, suddenly froze. As his eyes widened, his gaze jerked to Shan, then around to Ell. “Holy shit!” he breathed.
Ell leaned close to him, “I hope you’ll make an effort to keep our secret. Blow it if you have to, if it’s necessary to save our son, but one of the main reasons we live our lives this way, is to try to keep him from being a target in the first place.”
“Um, yes ma’am,” the Lieutenant said, his mind obviously whirling at the implications. “I’ll do my best… but…”
Ell leaned close again, “Don’t forget, I can bring the resources of D5R to bear on this problem. In fact, I’ll be doing everything I can think of. Don’t hesitate to ask for anything you think we might be able to do to help you.”
***
Zage studied Amy. Though she seemed somewhat awake, and did respond to questions, she looked confused. Her answers suggested that she either didn’t understand his questions, or was just making up answers even if they didn’t make sense.
Just as he was wondering whether there might be anything he could do to truly wake her up, he heard someone coming down the stairs. Zage lay down on the bed next to Amy and did his best t
o look innocent. A moment later, the bolts on the door started turning back. He worried that his captors would immediately see what he’d done to the shelves.
The door opened and, through slitted eyes, Zage saw a man step inside, wearing a mask like the men had worn in the van. The guy looked scary, and Zage wished his mother was still available to provide words of guidance in his ear.
As the man looked around the room, Zage’s heart thumped when it looked like the guy’s eyes stopped in the corner, as if he were looking at the rearranged shelves. Thinking that he needed to distract the man from the shelves, Zage sat up and said, “Who are you?!” Zage didn’t expect him to answer, and if he did answer, he didn’t expect it to mean much. He just wanted the man to look away from the shelves.
“As far as you’re concerned kid, I’m the man who tells you what to do! For now, shut-up!”
The man had taken his eyes away from the shelves, so Zage felt better. Zage thought his voice sounded different than the man who’d cut Zage and Amy’s clothes off in the van. The man started around to Amy’s side of the bed, evidently to see if she was awake. Still wanting to distract him, Zage said, “Leave her alone!”
Glaring at Zage, the man reddened, “I said, shut up! You do not tell me what to do!”
The man started to lift Amy’s blanket, so Zage said, “Don’t touch that!” Trying to sound as appalled as he possibly could, he continued, “She’s naked underneath that blanket!”
“I’ll do whatever I want! And,” the man said, waving at Amy, “if you say another word, I’ll not only smack you, I’ll smack your mother!”
“She’s not my mother!”
Dropping the blanket, the man turned as if to walk back around the bed to Zage’s side. “I said…” Apparently Zage’s words caught up to him at that moment, because he suddenly stopped, turned, and looked back at Amy’s face. Then he looked at Zage’s face, “She is too your mother,” the man said, but he looked uncertain.
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