Sufficient Ransom

by Sylvia Sarno

  Ann imagined the joy Reyna Villarreal and her husband must be feeling knowing their daughter was alive, though in a coma. She was hopeful she would be seeing Travis soon.

  Between mouthfuls of orange chicken, Ann plied her husband with questions, most of which he was unable to answer. “I’m sure we’ll hear more as the story unfolds,” Richard said, throwing his napkin down on his empty plate.

  Ann reached for her phone. “I’ll call Tom again. He should have the details.” The detective’s voicemail came on. “Where could he be?” Next, she tried Julian Fox. “Why is no one answering?”

  “Let’s talk about how we’re going to get into the compound,” Richard said.

  Ann’s phone rang. The number on caller ID was familiar. “It’s Tom.” Ann listened to the detective, the blood draining from her face. The phone to her chest, she said to her husband, “They found Kika badly beaten. They don’t know if she’ll live.”

  Richard took the phone from her. “Tom, Richard here. You’ve got to put out a warrant for Todd Pannikin and Chet March’s arrest. They did this to Kika. Pannikin is Kika’s real father and Nora March was her mother. Pannikin gave Kika away to keep her from her atheist mother.” He listened for a moment. “Exactly! That’s why they took Travis. To save him from his own parents. I know it’s crazy. Look at the other families. I bet everyone has a connection to New Way. You knew that already? Look, one of them did this to Kika. We have to get Travis out of there!”

  Ann felt sick. Kika was fighting for her life.

  Her husband hung up the phone.

  “What did he say about Travis?”

  Her husband’s brow was dark over his eyes. “We’re not to do anything. If Travis is in the camp, we could be risking his life.”

  “What’re we going to do?”

  His hand on the back on his head, Richard paced the room. “I don’t know.”

  The excitement of the past hours had carried Ann through to this point. Now that her friend was badly hurt and the police had vetoed their plans to go after Travis, the old feeling of helplessness was creeping back. Ann lay down on the bed, her legs balled protectively to her chest. She wished there was something she could do to help Kika. The social worker had, in a short span of time, become so dear to her.

  “When I get my hands on those bastards,” Richard said, “they’d better pray to their God for mercy. They won’t be getting any from me.”

  When Ann looked up and saw her husband’s determined face, the will to fight coursed through her body like a life-giving fire. She sat up. “I swear as their God is my witness,” she said. “We’ll get Travis back and see those murderers rot in hell!”

  5:30 P.M.

  Chet March was sweating. Neither the cold shower nor the blast of air conditioning in his motel room had done anything to cool his feverish body. Pastor Todd had reserved a cabin next to his own at the retreat site, but Chet couldn’t bring himself to go there. Luckily a vacancy had just opened up at the motel down the street. After what had happened in La Jolla, Chet was reluctant to deal with the eager faces and prying eyes of his parishioners.

  Chet stood in front of the bathroom mirror. His cotton shirt had wilted with perspiration. Beads of it lined his upper lip. The palms of his welt-covered hands were moist and raw from all the scrubbing. He reached into his toiletry case and pulled out a bottle of lotion. He had to be particular about his hands today. If anyone saw even a hint of what had been there…

  He slathered lotion over his hands and wiped his damp face and neck with a dry cloth. His bowels loosened at the thought of what the police would do to him when they found him. He had not one, but two crimes on his hands. He pictured his mother. The look of panic in her eyes when he had choked the life out of her. She had figured out his plan. She was going to tell the police. He had to stop her from ruining everything. The souls of innocent children were at stake.

  His mother had never believed in him. “But I gave you everything, Chet,” she had whined. “My attention, my love, my money. What more do you want from me?” She had acted like she was the victim. His mother had never understood him. The atheist bitch.

  Chet stepped out of his motel room, locked the door, and moved toward his parked car. Inside the vehicle, the air was damp and smelled of sweat and seawater. He cast a hurried glance around the parking lot, hoping no one had spotted him. His hands on the steering wheel, Chet tried to calm his nerves with deep breaths.

  Before leaving for Pine Wood, Chet had hurried to the small beach down the hill from her house and plunged into the Pacific Ocean, fully clothed. Desperate to get that smell out of his clothes and his hair, he hadn’t cared that people were staring at him. After the churning water had cleansed him, Chet had lain on the sand exhausted.

  Back at his car, Chet had brushed the sand from his jeans and shirt and his skin, placed a towel on the driver’s seat, and started for Pine Wood. As they dried, his clothes had tightened around his arms and his legs, like a full body tourniquet. In spite of the air conditioning, sweat drenched Chet’s face and neck. All the way up into the mountains he had simmered in his own smelly juices.

  He had thought of driving to Mexico and disappearing into the desert. Or into one of the many rundown villages off the beaten path. The Lord would keep him safe—Chet was sure of that. But he was tired. There would be roadblocks, German Shepherds, and men with guns hunting him.

  Chet’s eyes felt like pasty stickers. Sweat ran down his collar. It was no use—he had to show up at the opening banquet to account for his time. Please God! Help me get through this. He turned his car sharply into the dirt parking lot inside the compound gates, found an empty spot, and parked.

  Chet surveyed the hundreds of parents and their children sitting at the picnic tables and on blankets in the cool evening. The thought of being trapped with all these people who looked up to him as co-leader of their church, intensified his desire to bolt.

  Pastor Todd nudged Chet toward the steaming vats of food at the buffet. Todd accepted a plate of meat from one of the volunteers and started helping himself to salad, mashed potatoes, and roasted corn. Chet glanced down at his own dish. The smell of food made his stomach turn.

  He accompanied Todd to the long table reserved for New Way’s ministry leaders. After blessing the food, Todd cut into his steak. “Eat, my son,” he said between mouthfuls. “The food is good.

  Chet picked at his food. Bloody juice oozed from the meat, staining the paper plate. He dropped his fork and looked away. He didn’t think he could ever eat meat again.

  8:00 P.M.

  Ann and Richard left their room and went down to talk to the manager at the inn where they were staying. They needed information about the New Way event so they could make their plans.

  Carly, the manager, was a dark-haired woman dressed in the latest fashion—a designer tunic, bootcut jeans, and wedge heels. “There are a lot of kids at these events,” Carly said. “There’s a playground on site. Every year the church hires a local family to set up games. They provide equipment so the kids can fish the lake. The largest families are housed in the white tents at the back of the site. You should see some of these types,” she added, with a knowing look. “Dowdy mothers with a brood of kids in tow. You know the kind… No make-up, wearing the Walmart special. Sort of like the Amish, but less extreme.”

  Ann remembered the boy from her childhood, the one who was beaten to death by his parents with a “biblical rod.” She broke into a cold sweat. What if Travis is living with people like that?

  “What else can you tell us?” Richard asked the manager.

  Carly pushed her hair over her shoulder. “This is the third year New Way’s been coming up here. Every time there are more people. I guess the church is growing. Most of them are fine. Like I said though, the big families are a little weird. It’s also the first year they have armed guards at the gates. Last year they had some trouble with locals getting into the camp, teenagers mostly. Bikes and sports gear were reported missing. I gu
ess this year they didn’t want to be bothered with any of that.”

  Ann and Richard thanked Carly for the information and returned to their room. The door firmly shut behind them, Richard said, “I think Travis is in the camp.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Ann said.

  “The way the manager described the big families,” Richard said. “One of them could have taken Travis in. Maybe even the other missing kids. This is New Way’s big event. If their goal is to raise Travis and the others to be evangelical, what better way to do it? Show the children a good time while they indoctrinate them.”

  Ann thought for a moment. “Remember the night I was worried about Chet? When he didn’t show up at the coffee shop.”

  “What about it?”

  “The woman who came running out of Diane’s place. She reminds me of these families, Carly described. The way she was dressed—she had that look. She was surprised to see me, almost like she knew who I was.”

  “You’ve been in the papers a lot, Ann. People know your face now.”

  Remembering, Ann shook her head. “Chet seemed weirded out too. He wanted to know how long I’d been out there. This woman and the man she was with—they were afraid of me, Richard. Maybe they’re the ones who have Travis.”

  “The more I think about it,” Richard said. “We shouldn’t go along with Tom’s order to stay away from the camp. I don’t want to leave Travis’s rescue to law enforcement alone.”

  The ruthless nature of the plot to steal their son, Nora’s murder, and the brutal attempt on Kika’s life had convinced Ann that Chet and Todd would do anything to see their scheme through. “We can’t take chances with Travis’s life,” she agreed. “No matter how well-intentioned the police are.”

  A small town, Pine Wood was easy to get around on foot. The Olsons crossed the inn’s parking lot, down Main Street, and to Pine Wood Square—a brick-lined expanse bordered with businesses that catered to tourists. People were leaving the restaurants and gift shops. Steep mountains thick with pine and oak trees towered over the edge of the town. The cool air smelled of the woods and sweet earth.

  Stopping in front of a row of stores, Ann watched the guard at the camp entrance, a hundred yards away. He was talking to a man in the small circle of light provided by a giant portable lamp. Behind the fence, a short distance from the gate, the white tents Carly had mentioned glowed in the moonlight, like giant ghosts.

  Ann was about to move in the direction of the gate, when Richard pulled her back. Across the square, Tom Long, Julian Fox, and two strangers had just stepped out of a pub. “Quick!” she whispered. “Before they see us.”

  She and her husband ducked into the closest open doorway. They found themselves in a children’s toy store. A miniature train on display was chugging along a table through a painted countryside. Peering out the shop window at the square, Ann watched the four men walk to the corner, stop, and continue their conversation. Moments later, the detective and the agent turned and walked in the opposite direction. Past the pub, across the lower part of the square, the men were soon out of sight.

  The two strangers—from their short hair and neat clothes, they looked to be local law enforcement—ducked down a small side street off the square, presumably to access the public parking lot behind the pub.

  “Let’s get to the gate and see if we can get in,” Richard said.

  Unlike his peers at the main gate, the guard at the pedestrian entrance did not appear to be armed. “We’re heading in for the night,” Richard called to the guard as he tried to get past him.

  The guard stepped directly in front of Richard, a polite smile on his boyish face. “Sorry, sir. Need to see your pass.”

  “We left our pass in the tent,” Ann said, waving in the direction of the camp. “Way over there.”

  “See that sign?” The guard pointed to a small white poster nailed to the wood fence behind them. “No one gets in without a pass. Now if you like, I can call Pastor Pannikin. He can okay your entering.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Richard said. “We probably left our pass in the car. Come on.” He pulled Ann’s arm. “Let’s go look for it.”

  When they were out of earshot of the guard Ann said, “Let’s go back to the room and come up with Plan B. There’s no way that guy’s letting us in.”

  The air was growing dark with every extinguished light; Pine Wood was shutting down for the night. At the inn’s parking lot, Richard removed a Springfield 9mm pistol, two loaded magazines, two empty ones, and a small box of ammunition from the glove compartment of their Land Rover, and put them in his jacket pocket. “From now on this stays with me,” he said. “I don’t care if it’s illegal.”

  Back in their room, Richard spoke to Ann firmly. “It’ll be hard enough getting one person into the camp. Two of us will attract that much more attention. I’ll try to find where they’re holding Travis and see if I can get him out. I need you to stay here and think through a plan for tomorrow. In case I fail...”

  The thought of sitting around and doing nothing made Ann more anxious. “I’ll wait for you down the road,” she said, a hopeful tone in her voice.

  Richard shook his head. “No. I’ll worry about you. And I won’t be able to concentrate on the job at hand. You have to trust me on this, Annie. You’re staying here.”

  1:00 A.M.

  Richard returned to the inn alone. His jacket sleeve was torn, the front of his jeans caked with dirt.

  Ann jumped from the bed where she’d been biting her nails bloody. “What happened?”

  Richard relayed his story as he undressed. “I found a tear at the bottom of the fence a few hundred yards north of the gate. I squeezed under it and picked my way through the woods. I crossed a field and then a second wooded area. On the other side were the big tents we saw, near the pedestrian gate. I was thinking of entering the tents and calling out for Travis, but the barking dogs foiled my plan. Two men with flashlights were walking by the back fence, close to the tents. I realized I could be putting Travis at risk. So I made my way out of there as quietly and as quickly as I could.”

  Ann was crestfallen. “What do we do now?”

  “I’ll go back in the morning. With all those retreaters up and about they’ll have no reason to suspect me. They’ll think I’m one of them.” Richard glanced at his watch. “Just a few short hours till H Hour. Let’s try and sleep, Annie. We’ll need mental clarity for what’s to come.”

  Ann didn’t want to have to wait until morning. “I’ll head over there now and see what I can find.”

  Her husband guided her to the bed and reached for the light. “You won’t accomplish anything in the dark. Besides, you need sleep.”

  Ann sat on the edge of the bed, her shoulders slumped. “Tom Long called,” she said.

  Richard stood still. “What did he say?”

  “The first time he called I was afraid to answer,” Ann said. “I didn’t want him interfering with our plans. In one of his messages, he said they were working to find Travis. I called him back to get the details.”

  “And?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me. He said they’d know more in the morning.”

  “Which basically means they know nothing, yet,” Richard said, kicking off his sneakers.

  “He asked where we were staying,” Ann said. “What we were up to. It’s like I thought, he wants to keep an eye on us.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  She shook her head. “I said we were staying at some place down the mountain. I just made something up. He wanted to talk to you. I said you were sleeping. He didn’t seem to believe me. I feel bad lying to Tom. He’s been good to us.”

  Richard scratched his head, thinking. “If I can’t get to Travis in the morning, we should probably let him and Julian handle things.”

  Ann lay in the stillness, a pillow propped under her head. “I called the hospital. Kika’s in intensive care.”

  Richard reached for her hand. “I hope she pulls thro
ugh.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Thursday, November 1

  5:30 A.M.

  Careful not to wake her husband, Ann dressed, gathered her purse and keys, and left the room. She planned to be back at the inn before Richard got up. His few hours of sleep had been restless. Another hour of rest would better prepare him for what lay ahead.

  Ann sprinted across the parking lot, unlocked her SUV, and slipped behind the wheel. She headed for the outskirts of town, to a bakery she had spotted on the drive in, the day before.

  After ordering and paying for the food, Ann decided that she had enough time to drive past the main entrance to the camp to see whether the guards were at their posts. Afterwards, she would return to the hotel room and report her findings to her husband.

  5:45 A.M.

  Richard yanked his watch off the nightstand. “What the hell!” He leaped from bed and ran to the window. The Land Rover was gone from the parking lot. When he called Ann’s phone and voicemail came on, he checked his impulse to throw his phone across the room. It’s just like her to take off without telling me a goddamn thing! He grabbed his jacket and felt for the gun. Thankfully it was still there.

  After dressing, Richard loaded his spare magazines and put them into his pants pockets. The remaining rounds went into his backpack. He hoisted the bundle to his back and reached for his baseball cap, sunglasses, and phone. He stepped into the hallway, locked the room, and ran down the back stairwell.

  6:10 A.M.

  The first day of November promised to be warm. Curled brown leaves clung to thinning trees, yellow and orange ones dusted the roadside. Ann’s foot eased off the gas pedal. The main entrance to the Pine Wood Conference and Resort Center came into view. The compound gates were shut—the guards, dogs, and table gone.