Purely by Accident

by Jim Beegle

  “Very good,” the voice said in the tone a teacher would use with a slow student who was not concentrating on the lesson. “Once you find a place, you will call your wife’s cell phone again. We will not answer, but we will take the number from the caller ID and phone you back.” There was a pause and when the voice started speaking again the tone was several degrees colder.

  “You have exactly two hours to call us back. If you do not call within two hours, then don’t bother calling at all. I know you are a smart fellow, but just in case you aren’t thinking too clearly at the moment, let me remind you of a few things. If we have any reason to believe that you have gone to the police, then consider your wife dead. We won’t even tell you where to find the body.”

  Again, just like a teacher using the stick-and-carrot routine to get the students’ attention, once the “stick” had been demonstrated with a great deal of force the voice changed back again to delivering the “carrot” part of the deal.

  “If you will just do what we tell you, how we tell you, and when we tell you, everything is going to all right. We have no desire to hurt your lovely wife. Surely her life is worth more to you than the money?”

  “Yes, it is.” Mark said, because he knew he was expected to.

  “Good, we knew you were the reasonable man we thought you are.” Even though the voice was being altered electronically, it almost sounded as if the man on the other end of the line was purring like a cat. But then it shifted back to the harsher tone and the voice barked at him abruptly, “You have two hours, starting from …” There was another pause. “Now!” Reflexively Mark looked at his watch. It was just before 4:00 p.m. in Dallas, putting it just before five in Ft. Lauderdale.

  “I want to talk to my wife again,” Mark said, finally beginning to regain some of his composure. In reply to his request, the line clicked and went dead.

  Mark was standing close to the men’s room. As soon as the call terminated he rushed through the door and into one of the empty stalls. He dove into the stall, landing on his knees just in time as he vomited up the meager contents of his stomach. He knelt there while his body sought some relief from the shock his system had just taken. He stayed in this position for several minutes.

  When he was sure there was nothing left to empty from his stomach he rose, flushed the toilet, and made his way to the sinks. Filling the basin with cold water, Mark scooped handfuls out and splashed it on his face. The shock of the cold water completed the work that getting sick to his stomach had started. He wiped his face with a rough brown paper towel but, without looking at his reflection in the mirror. Very sure that he would not like what he saw.

  Moving out of the bathroom into the steady stream of people and luggage in the main terminal, Mark was barely able to think beyond walking. He knew without a doubt he was going into shock, but knowing what was happening was one thing, being able to do anything about it was another.

  The slap of the warm, humid late afternoon air of Ft. Lauderdale helped him hang on long enough to hail a cab and direct the driver to take him to the nearest hotel so he could get a room for the night, as well as access to a phone. The cabby called the fare into his main office as he drove.

  “Hey buddy,” the cabby called to him, looking with one eye at Mark in the mirror while using the other to peer forward through the front windshield. Mark brought his eyes around and glanced at the rearview mirror. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t look so hot. You OK?”

  Mark smiled weakly at the back of the driver’s head, “I’m fine. Just a rough flight, ate something that didn’t agree with me, trying to get too many things done before the holidays, you know?”

  “Oh God, do I.” The cabby broke off the conversation while he executed a left turn out of the airport. Then he took up his commentary again. “I see guys like you every day of the year, but the closer it is to Christmas and the end of the year, the worse you guys look.”

  “Well, I’m sure I’ll be all right after a good night’s sleep.” He silently hoped the man would leave him alone and drive.

  “Sure, you will,” the cabby told him, under his breath, in a mocking tone of voice. Then speaking up he continued, “One good night out of how many bad ones? You don’t need a good night’s sleep buddy, you need a vacation.”

  In his mind, Mark had to agree with the driver. “You’ll get no argument out of me on that one.” As he said it his mind wandered back to the promise he had made himself just a few days ago in the shower at Micronix. That promise now seemed hollow and empty, especially when his memory got to the point where he had debated going with or without Amy. Now that decision might be made for him, and it would be entirely his fault that she would not be joining him. The memory caused his stomach to react again. In an effort to regain control of himself he looked out the window and watched Ft. Lauderdale pass by in the rush hour traffic.

  Even now in the midst of panic and fear caused by the kidnapping of his wife, the left side of Mark’s brain continued to process what had just happened while the right side worked frantically to gain control over his emotions.

  The left side worked to analyze the information that was coming in, adding it to the database most people call memories while at the same time comparing information in the current stream of data with the information already in memory. The complex process works this way for several reasons, but the first was by far the most important: self-preservation and survival.

  Driving in the dark of night, especially away from the city, the eye is drawn to any source of light. If it is a flashing or intermittent light, like the light on a police car, the mind is drawn to it that much faster. The memory banks are searched and information about the use of flashing lights on roads is served up for consideration. Memories from either experience or training tell the body that there are several reasons for flashing lights on the road and none of them are good. A traffic accident, a disabled vehicle, road construction—all posed a hazard and the brain moves to prompt the body to enact the needed responses of slowing the car and increasing the level of alertness. All the while it is continuing to analyze new information as it comes in through the auditory system.

  Something spoke to him from within. The conversations with Amy and his cab driver had triggered a warning that something important lay within those two conversations. Try as he might, he could not retrieve whatever it was. The right side of his brain was still in a full damage-control mode, trying to create the proper chemistry to keep this overall system functioning and to keep himself in a position to deal with the deadline issued only fifteen minutes ago. The driver took him to the Airport Marriott with no more comments on his present state of well-being.

  “Move,” he silently told his feet as the cab stopped and the doorman opened the cab door. Mark paid the cabby and walked instinctively into the lobby. Checking into a flight without luggage is one thing. Checking into a hotel with only a briefcase and without a suitcase caused eyebrows to be raised.

  “Think”!

  “Speak”!

  It was as if he were merely observing the things going on around him instead of being an integral part of them. He managed to craft a story about the airline losing his bags from Dallas. His credit card was a company-issued card and checked out with and adequate credit limit to gain him access to a hotel room. Mark was well-dressed, although a little disheveled. Within ten minutes of arriving at the hotel, he was standing in front of an elevator that he hoped would carry him to the 10th floor and to the room he had just paid for. He looked at his watch; almost forty-five minutes had passed since the phone conversation.

  He replayed the words spoken to him over and over in his head. The fear descended on him just like the darkness of the night. Once again it caused him to ignore the left side of his brain, which had begun to send messages that vital information in his possession was being missed. His mind was busy trying to order things in a logical sequence; things that could be done and checked off
of an unseen list of tasks. He was trying to find a way through the chaos of the last hour and put it into some form that he found familiar.

  Even if the information he was dealing with was so off-the-wall that he had a hard time believing it, there was at least some order to how his mind was now beginning to process what he knew. He began by taking the first step to clearing his head as he waited for the elevator.

  He had a room, and it would serve as his private phone booth. He would be able to make the call by the deadline as he had been instructed. Having overcome two hurdles forced upon him by the voice on the phone helped to slow his heartbeat and reduced the amount his body was sweating in an effort to throw off excess heat. Things were being accomplished. They were small things, yet nothing that, in and of itself, would get Amy back. Nevertheless, his mind told him they were important steps in that direction.

  He looked up at the posters on the walls of the elevator car, advertising the fun and exciting vacation spots Marriott offered the road-worn traveler. Once again the chemical-electronic signals that the human brain uses to transfer thought in Mark’s mind fired and tried to get him to process the information it was holding. True, this information did not deal with the demands of the moment: trying to decide what to do about Amy and her situation. But it was information that needed to be reviewed and analyzed soon. Once again, however, those signals were overwhelmed as his brain simply tried to keep Mark upright and moving forward toward his room.

  He opened the door and let himself in. The soft hum of the air conditioning was the only sound as he turned on the light in the entranceway so he could see. He walked into the room and stripped off his jacket, tossing it and his briefcase onto the bed. He continued walking toward the phone, finally collapsing into the wingback chair to the left of the small table where the phone rested. Without giving it any thought, he lifted the receiver and listened for a dial tone. He held the phone in one hand and looked at his watch before he started to dial. But call whom? Amy’s phone and her captors, or the police?

  He had been trying to think that one over all the way from the airport. He was in over his head and he knew it. His arrogance had landed his wife in danger, and the blame for it could be laid directly at his feet. But even if he called the police, what could they do?

  It would take him hours just to explain the whole story, and then hours more while they checked it out. Right now all he had was one act to consider and one hour to make his next move. There was no way he could get anyone else involved, at least before he had to place the second call. He was sure the people holding Amy had planned it that way. Apply pressure and make the subject respond in a very short window of time. A classic business technique, but it was made less logical and more diabolical now that the strategy was being used against him.

  Then again, he thought as his mind began the process of sorting strings of data, he could not be sure he wouldn’t find himself in some kind of trouble over the money anyway. He was still unsure if he was free of worry over that aspect of the situation. He shook his head, trying to physically force those kinds of thoughts from his mind. He would have time later to deal with that part of it. Right now he had to deal with Amy and how he was going to get her back. No, going to any kind of law enforcement was out of the question right now; he simply did not have enough time.

  What he needed was to think. His whole being was screaming for some logical direction it could follow. He needed a plan. He had been so clever up until now, he thought mockingly to himself. All of his thinking and planning could very well end up getting his wife killed. But he still needed to think through how he was going to deal with the next conversation. The one he would have with the people holding her.

  The abrupt manner in which he had learned that his wife had been kidnapped had not only forced his body into near shock but also allocated nearly all the resources within him to cope with the crisis. His stomach was void of anything to manufacture into badly needed energy for his system. Add this fact to the process his body had used an hour earlier to empty his stomach and it was easy to understand that his ability to reason was very severely handicapped.

  Damn. He still needed a plan and it was not forthcoming. Fifty minutes until he had to call. He replaced the receiver and leaned back, closed his eyes, and tried to make sense of his world, which at the moment was in total chaos.

  It might have been because the travel posters in the elevator were the last visual picture his mind had captured and therefore the first one his mind recalled after he closed his eyes, or it might have been because his system was so close to despair that his brain was polling the entire system, looking for a solution to the current problem. Or maybe it was a combination of both; there was no way to tell.

  Whatever the reason, his mental image of the vacation posters triggered the thoughts that had been urgently nagging at him. For the briefest of moments, his mind allowed them to float to the forefront of his conscious thinking. With his brain resting in neutral, at last, the connection between the brief conversation with Amy’s abductors, the conversation with the cab driver, and the posters in the elevator began to form into something other than three random sets of information.

  His brain, which quickly latched onto the new series of thoughts as a way of restoring order to Mark’s system, began frantically analyzing this new data. The three separate pieces of information were on the surface; a collection of seemingly random data. There was, however, one small thread that linked these unrelated items. At least that was the message his subconscious had been trying to get through him.

  Now, with the unrestricted energy of his mind focused on it, the links formed and expanded quickly. His thought processes shifted within a few seconds from finding the commonality in the data to analyzing it. Within the few seconds that it took to go through the whole process in his head, his body experienced a dramatic change. Breathing slowed, along with his heart rate, and the first signs of calm and order began to be restored to the system. While not fully conscious of it, Mark was already beginning to make the transformation from a victim of events to a person who sought for a way to control things once again.

  He opened his eyes and began trying to the pieces of the puzzle together into a final cohesive model. He completed the now-forming idea. The result of this exercise caused Mark to sit upright in his chair and stare blankly at the soft peach-colored walls for a full two minutes. He started by playing the two conversations, in the airport and in the cab, over in his head. It was almost there.

  He could tell it was forming in his mind’s eye. But the final, completed form continued to elude him. Maybe it would help if he wrote it all down? He reached for his briefcase where he had put his familiar yellow legal pad. As he popped the locks open and looked inside, the final piece fell into place.

  It took a moment for him to realize that not only had he discovered the answer to the question of the three seemingly disjointed pieces of information, but also the bigger question of who was behind all this. Anger flashed through him, partly directed at others, both known and unknown, but also at himself. His hand tightened on the grip of the briefcase causing his knuckles to go white, and his face flushed as he swore under his breath through gritted teeth.

  Unlike the blow his emotions had taken in the airport, he quickly gained control of his rage with a desire to harness and focus it’s energy. Reactions would now have to wait. He hoped at some point in the near future he could call it back up and deal with it, but until then he had a lot to do within a very short time. He glanced at the LED display on the clock by the bed. He still had thirty-five minutes before he had to place his call. Enough time, he hoped.

  The transformation to Mark’s very being was nothing short of remarkable. Now he was a man with a focus, although perhaps not one man who possessed full knowledge of what he was going to do about what he had just learned. He instinctively knew it would take hours to totally form the random ideas bouncing around in his head into a series of logical steps tha
t he could follow. But, he suspected the plan would flesh itself out relatively easily as he went along.

  Now he quickly pulled the yellow pad out and began to write on it, forming fast small letters. Within ten minutes he was almost finished, but he didn’t want to wait until the last minute before making the call to Amy’s cell phone. He stopped his writing, laid the pad aside, and dialed from his newly purchased cell phone. By now the people who had Amy had figured out where he was by simply noting the area code from the first call. But, keeping his exact location a secret was now very important. He was hoping upon hope that Amy’s abductors had assumed he was headed for Miami.

  He picked up the phone in the room and dialed Amy’s cell phone number. The phone on the other end rang five times and once again he heard his wife’s voicemail greeting. He hung up.

  While he waited for the phone in his hand to ring he read over the list he had written. It now covered two pages of the pad. He had left large blank spaces between each line for the expressed purpose of filling in later. It took almost five minutes from the time he dialed his room phone before it started ringing.

  “Hello?” he said connecting after the second ring.

  “Ah, Mr. Vogel, right on time,” said the electronic voice that he had heard for the first time just a little over an hour ago. “I can see that you have decided to take the intelligent way to resolve this. Very wise of you.”

  “I want to talk to my wife,” Mark interrupted.

  “Well, we’ll see what we can do about that in a minute, but first things first.”

  Mark cut him off before he could say anything else. “No ifs, ands or buts. I either talk to her right now or we don’t talk at all. Do you understand?”

  There was a pause before the voice capitulated, “OK, sure. Hang on.” There was a noise on the other end, which Mark guessed was caused by someone removing the electronic device used to disguise the caller’s voice.

  “Mark?” Amy’s voice came through the line into his ear. She sounded fine, but then he wondered what she would sound like if she weren’t fine.