A King's ransom

10

As a lawyer, I was embarrassed to admit it. But I couldn’t lie to my own mother. I’d never heard of kidnap-and-ransom insurance for a fisherman.

That was exactly what Mom had found in the safe-deposit box: a K amp;R insurance policy issued to my father. I’d seen that type of coverage before, but only for the big multinational conglomerates. For companies with employees abroad, it certainly made sense to shift the risk of an abduction to an insurance company. The insurer was then on the hook for paying the ransom and, even more important, hiring a private security consultant to negotiate a safe release. When I thought about it, the concept made even more sense for a small business. A half-million-dollar ransom would do much more damage to Rey’s Seafood Company than would a ten-million-dollar hit to a Fortune 500 company. Until now, however, I’d never realized how affordable it was even for the little guy.

I read the entire policy carefully, first page to last, while seated at the kitchen table with my mother looking over my shoulder. I was at once proud of my old man for thinking of it and excited as hell that he’d actually followed through and bought it. Hot damn! Dad was insured.

“This is good, right?” said Mom.

“It’s fantastic.”

“So I read it correctly? The insurance company pays the ransom?”

“Up to three million dollars.”

Her eyes brightened, and she actually smiled. It was the most upbeat I’d seen her. “I wish your father had told me he had insurance. Why was he so secretive with the safe-deposit box?”

“It says right here in the policy that if the insured tells anyone that he has kidnap-and-ransom insurance, the policy is void. Apparently Dad took that pretty literally. He wouldn’t even tell you.”

“What happens now?”

“I’ll call the insurance company and give them notice. If I read the policy right, they select the negotiator who will handle Dad’s case.”

“Is that better than using the FBI?”

I hesitated to tell her about the disastrous meeting with Agent Huitt. Her spirits were too high. “My guess is that these private consultants are former FBI hostage negotiators and the like. How can it get better than that? We’ll have a skilled negotiator who doesn’t have to work within the box created by bureaucrats and diplomats.”

“If only I’d gone to the bank sooner. But when your father told me to check the safe-deposit box if anything ever happened to him, I thought he meant if he crashed in one of those little airplanes they fly into Puerto Cabezas or was lost at sea in a leaky old shrimp boat. I was so afraid to find something in the box that I wasn’t ready to see, a last will and testament or-”

“I understand.”

“Please be firm with this insurance company. You know how slow they can be.”

I could hear the concern in her voice, her fear that she’d needlessly delayed things by not finding the policy sooner. “Mom, I don’t care what it takes. Before the day’s over, I’ll speak to our negotiator. I promise.”

As it turned out, keeping that promise proved almost too easy. Dad was insured with Quality Insurance Company, a Bermuda-based subsidiary of a worldwide underwriting group. More important, I quickly learned that Quality was a client of Coolidge, Harding and Cash. The connection wasn’t surprising. While scores of companies offered kidnap-and-ransom insurance, the leaders in the industry-and the ones who had pioneered the concept-were the largest insurers in the world. Companies like that were the mainstay of the Cool Cash client roster.

The Miami office had never done work for Quality Insurance, but a woman in our New York office was their go-to lawyer in the United States. She was only too glad to help, which underscored the wisdom of my earlier decision to run a conflict check at my firm before placing a phone call to Quality. Having represented insurance companies myself, I’d anticipated needing to be aggressive, perhaps even a little nasty, to make the elephant jump. However, I recalled a fellow associate in our office who, on a purely personal matter, had written an ugly letter to an appliance discount store on Cool Cash letterhead. The scathing missive eventually landed on the desk of the partner in our Atlanta office who happened to represent that “sleazebag, bait-and-switch, two-bit operation.” Two weeks later my friend was working in the county attorney’s office. I learned from his mistake. Instead of being in the defensive posture of explaining to a New York partner why I was beating up on her client, I had the partner working for me from the get-go. She personally followed through to make sure the case was assigned immediately to a Miami consulting firm, and Duncan Fitz offered to sit through our first meeting in his office, just to make sure that Quality Insurance understood that this law firm had a keen interest in the case.

Thank God for small favors. Twice for big ones. This was huge.

“Alex Cabrera is here,” Duncan’s secretary announced over the intercom.

“Send him in,” said Duncan.

Duncan and I rose as the door opened, both of us surprised to see that Alex was a her, not a him. I’d expected someone like Agent Nettles, but in walked a striking Latina woman with big brown eyes. She was dressed in a fitted gray business suit that was conservative only in color, as it did little to hide the fact that she took very good care of her body. I probably looked a split second longer than I should have. Any man would have done the same, and notwithstanding the one-two punch of Jenna and her dive-bombing seagull on the beach, I was, after all, still a man.

“Alexandra Cabrera,” she said. “Call me Alex.”

“My pleasure,” I said, as we shook hands.

“I’m with Crowell Associates.”

“A fine organization,” said Duncan. “I’ve used your investigators for litigation support.” He glanced at me and added, “They’re one of the largest private investigative and security firms in the world.”

“Actually, you’re thinking of Kroll Associates. I said Crowell.” She spelled it.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“A lot of firms in this business have similar-sounding names. It gets confusing.”

“So you’re based here in Miami?” I asked.

“For the past two years. I spent seven years doing the same kind of work in Bogota.”

“Well, you come very highly recommended by our partner in New York. She says you’re an expert on kidnapping and business extortion.”

“Solving and preventing it,” she said, “not committing it.”

We shared a little smile over her joke, and then she turned serious. “I’m very sorry about your father. But you’ve come to the right place for help.”

Duncan’s secretary brought us fresh coffee. We took our seats, Duncan behind his desk, Alex and I in the wing chairs that faced him.

“Where do we begin?” I said.

“I want to hear your whole story, but I should tell you a little about myself, just so you know you’re not wasting your breath. I was born in Bogota. My mother was Colombian, and I’m told my father was from Italy. I won’t burden you with the details of my childhood, but suffice it to say I grew up very fast. By the time I was a young teenager, I was already caught up in antigovernment activities. At age sixteen I joined Las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia. FARC for short.”

“That might be the group that has my father.”

“It’s one of the largest and last remaining Marxist guerrilla armies on earth. More to the point, it’s probably the biggest kidnapping enterprise that has ever existed. FARC and organizations like it account for over sixty percent of the kidnappings in Colombia.”

“That’s a lot of kidnappings.”

“You have no idea. The more you analyze the numbers, the more ridiculous they seem. One out of every five kidnappings for ransom in the entire world happens in Colombia.”

“How long were you with FARC?” I asked.

“Less than two years. Long enough to learn the kidnapping trade.”

Duncan said, “I don’t suppose you’d find many FBI stiffs with those kinds of credentials.”

“You won’t find any,” said Alex. “I once thought of applying to the FBI, but with my past connection to FARC, I was told not to bother. It’s their loss. My other life is exactly the reason I can help you in ways they can’t.”

“Don’t be offended,” I said. “But I have to be honest. I was expecting my negotiator to be a former law enforcement officer. Not a former member of FARC.”

“First of all, I was sixteen years old when I left FARC. Second, you won’t find a former FBI agent or Scotland Yard negotiator with more experience in Colombia or a better success record than mine.”

“Have you negotiated the release of an American before?” asked Duncan.

“Yes, and some Canadians as well. But if you’re thinking it’s any easier to negotiate for the release of a Colombian, you’re wrong. Generally, these aren’t politically motivated kidnappings. They’re financially motivated. The nationality of the victim is relevant, if at all, only to the extent that it might affect the amount of ransom demanded.”

“You certainly seem to know your stuff,” I said.

“The most important thing is that you have confidence in your negotiator. Under your father’s policy, the insurance company pays for a private consultant only if you use Crowell Associates. But if you don’t like the specific consultant assigned to your case, you’re not stuck. There are others in our organization to choose from. For example, we have a former CIA agent who’s a crackerjack on Mexico. I’m sure he’d do a fine job in Colombia, much the way one of your bankruptcy lawyers would do just fine on a divorce case.”

“I get your point,” I said.

“You can also bypass private security altogether and rely on the FBI.”

“That’s not really an option. I’m at an impasse with them.” I didn’t elaborate in front of Duncan; the threat from the narcotics agents was best kept to myself.

“I’m sorry you had that experience,” she said. “There are a lot of talented negotiators in the FBI who can be of tremendous help to families when the bureaucracy lets them do their job.”

“It’s pretty clear the bureaucracy’s winning this battle.”

“That’s one of the benefits of private security. I’m totally responsive to you, and to you only. My approach is to tell you everything, each step of the way. I’ll advise you of what to do, explain to you the significance of every little thing the kidnappers do, and offer my best guess as to what they might do in the future. Total honesty and openness is the best approach, as in any other relationship. And, believe me, this is a relationship.”

“Not too long-term, I hope.”

She didn’t smile. “Didn’t the FBI even tell you that much?”

“What?”

“The length of time it normally takes to bring a Colombian kidnapping case to closure.”

“He wanted to wait and see who was involved before making any projections.”

“That makes some sense. But you should be forewarned.”

“Of what?” I asked.

“These guerrilla organizations don’t exactly operate at breakneck speed.”

“How long might it take? Weeks? Months?”

“I’ve had a few relatively quick resolutions. But for the most part we’re definitely talking months.”

“How many?”

“The average case, anywhere from six to twelve.”

“A fucking year?” My astonishment was met with plaintive silence.

“I warned you, I don’t sugarcoat.”

“I prefer it that way. Excuse my profanity.”

“No problem. You’ll hear worse from me before this case is over. Assuming you want me on the case.”

I shot a quick glance at Duncan. He seemed to be as impressed as I was. “Absolutely,” I said.

“Great. Now, it’s been very nice meeting you and Duncan, but I’d like to meet with you and the rest of your family as soon as possible.”

“My sister’s traveling, and we haven’t been in touch with her yet. But I can drive you over to my mother’s house right now.”

“Let’s go.”

We rose to leave, but Duncan stole another minute of Alex’s time. He needed surveillance work for one of his cases and wanted to know if Alex had any suggestions. Right. Ever since his divorce, Duncan seemed to draw personal validation from any attractive woman who would smile and talk to him, even if it was purely business from her standpoint.

I waited at the window and looked down thirty stories on the evening rush hour traffic. It was slowly snaking south on busy Brickell Avenue, an endless chain of fuzzy orange taillights at dusk. People were going home, the same old routine, not knowing how lucky they were to have their routines.

Could this possibly drag on for a year?

So much in a person’s life could change in that much time. Look at me and Jenna, engaged one month, history the next. Could my father physically survive that long in some remote guerrilla camp? He’d survived Vietnam, albeit as a much younger man. What would the emotional scars be like, the effects of prolonged captivity? Not seeing him for that long was unfathomable.

Poor Mom, I thought, the reality sinking in. Poor Dad.