Power Play

27

The others had no idea what kind of trouble we were in.

I'm sure they figured, like I did at first, that this was just rotten luck: a rowdy bunch of hunters, lost and hungry and larcenous, had stumbled upon an opulent lodge full of rich businessmen, miles away from anything else, no cops around to stop them.

But I was sure this was something far more serious. At that point, of course, I was going on nothing more than vague suspicions and instinct.

Still, my instinct hadn't failed me yet.

Russell, the ringleader of the hunters, ordered the crew-cut one, Wayne, to go upstairs and search all the rooms. "I have a feeling we're gonna find laptops and whatchamacallits, BlackBerrys and all that good stuff upstairs," he said. "See what you can find. Anything that looks interesting."

"Yup," Wayne said. He clumped across the floor and thundered up the stairs.

"Bucky, will you please make sure none of our executives here…'forgot'…anything in their pockets? Now, I read something about opening remarks by the Chief Executive Officer. That's the boss, right? Which one of you's the boss?"

He looked around the table. No one said anything. Buck started at the far end of the table, frisking Geoff Latimer.

"Come on now, gotta be one of you guys."

Silence.

Then Cheryl spoke up. "I am."

"You're the Chief Executive Officer?" He looked skeptical, took a few steps in her direction.

Cheryl swallowed. "That's right."

"Chick like you? You're the boss?"

"Chick like me," she said. Her mouth flattened into a straight line. "Strange but true." The slightest quaver.

"A lady CEO, huh?"

"It happens," she said, a little starch returning to her voice. "Nowhere near often enough, but it happens. How can I help you, Russell?"

"So all these guys here work for you? A woman orders them around?"

Her nostrils flared. "I lead," she said. "That's not quite the same as ordering people around."

Russell grinned. "Well, that's a good point, Cheryl. A very good point. I have the same philosophy. So maybe you can tell me, Cheryl, what you're all doing in this godforsaken fishing lodge in the back of beyond."

"We're on an offsite."

"An offsite," he said slowly. "That's like-what? A meeting, sort of? Chance to get out of the office and talk, that it?"

"That's right. Now, may I say something?"

"Yes, Cheryl, you may."

"Please, just take whatever you want and leave. None of us wants any trouble. Okay?"

"That's very kind and generous of you, Cheryl," Russell said. "I think we'll do just that. Now may I ask you something?"

She nodded. Her bosom rose and fell: She was breathing hard.

"A lady CEO gets the same money as a man?" he said.

She smiled tightly. "Of course."

"Huh. And I thought I read somewhere how women CEOs only get sixty-eight cents for every dollar a man CEO gets. Well, live and learn."

Cheryl looked momentarily flummoxed. "They pay me quite well. Not as much as some other CEOs, it's true."

"Still, it ain't chump change. Bucky, what do you take home on your welding job?"

Buck looked up. "Good year, maybe thirty-eight grand."

"You make more than that, Cheryl?"

She exhaled slowly. "If you want me to apologize for the inequities of the capitalist system, you-"

"No, Cheryl, not at all. I know how the world works. I've got no beef with the capitalist system. I'm just saying you might want to spread some of that around." Now he was standing directly in front of her, only the table between them.

"Our corporate charitable contributions last year totaled-"

"That's awful nice, Cheryl. But I think you know that's not what I mean."

She looked exasperated. "I don't carry much cash, and you're taking my jewelry."

"Oh, I'll bet you got plenty more."

"Not unless you plan on leading me to a cash machine at gunpoint so you can empty out my checking account. But I don't think you're going to find an ATM very close by."

Russell shook his head slowly. "Cheryl, Cheryl, Cheryl. You must think you're talking to some rube, huh? Some ignorant Bubba. Well, don't misunderstand me. You run a very big company. Makes a lot of money."

She pursed her lips. "Actually, we haven't been doing all that well recently. That's one of the reasons for this meeting."

"Really? Says in that book there you have revenue of ten billion dollars and a market capitalization of more than twenty billion. Those numbers off base?" His thumb pointed at the long table stacked with loose-leaf binders.

She paused for a few seconds, caught by surprise. "That's not my money, Russell. The corporation's assets aren't my own personal piggy bank."

"You telling me you can't get your hands on some of that money? I'll bet you can make one phone call and send some of those…assets…my way. Right?"

"Wrong. There are all sorts of controls and procedures."

"But I'll bet you've got the power to do it with one phone call. You're the CEO. Right?"

"It doesn't work that way in the corporate world. I'm sorry. I sometimes wish I had that kind of power, but I don't."

He slid his pistol out of its holster and pulled back the slide. It made a snick-snick sound. He raised it, one-handed, leaned across the table, and pointed it at her left eye. His index finger was curled loosely around the trigger.

She began blinking rapidly, her eyes filling with tears. "I'm telling you the truth."

"Then I guess you're of no use to me," he said softly.

"Don't!" Ali shouted. "Don't hurt her, please. Please!"

Tears trickled down Cheryl's cheeks. She stared right back at him.

"Wait." A male voice. We all turned.

Upton Barlow.

"We can work something out," he said.

Russell lowered the gun, and Cheryl gasped. He turned to Barlow with interest. "My friend Upton, with the good taste in wallets."

"Let's talk," Barlow said.

"I'm listening."

"We're both rational men, you and I. We can come to an agreement."

"You think so?"

"I know so," Barlow said. "I have no doubt we can work something out to your satisfaction."

"Kind of a win-win situation," Russell said.

"Exactly." Barlow smiled.

"So you're the go-to guy. You're the man."

"Look," Barlow said, "I just hammered out an offset deal with South Korea on a fighter plane. A coproduction agreement. Everyone said it couldn't be done."

I remembered that offset arrangement. Basically he arranged for Hammond to transfer billions of dollars in avionics and proprietary software to Seoul so they could build our fighter jet for us. Which meant we gave the Koreans everything they'd need to build their own fighter jet in a few years. It was a monumentally lousy deal.

"You sure you got the juice to make it happen?" Russell said. "Your boss says she doesn't, but you do?"

"There's always a way."

"I'm liking the sound of this, Upton."

"And in exchange, you and your friends will agree to move on. Fair enough?"

"Now we're talking."

"So let's get specific," Barlow said. "I'm prepared to offer you fifty thousand dollars."

Russell gave that low husky chuckle again. "Oh, Upton," he said, disappointed. "And here I was thinking you were the man. Guy who makes things happen. But we're not even talking the same language."

Barlow nodded. "Do you have a figure in mind? Why don't we start there?"

"You think you can get us an even million, Upton?"

Barlow examined the table. "Well, I don't know about that. That's a huge amount."

"See, now, that's too bad." Russell strolled along the table, head down as if deep in thought. When he reached the end, he circled around behind me, then stopped. "What if I kill one of your friends? Like this fellow right here? You think that might get us to 'yes,' Upton?"

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck go prickly, and then I realized he'd put the gun against the back of Hugo Lummis's head. Lummis started breathing hard through his mouth. He sounded as if he were about to have a heart attack.

"Put that gun down," Cheryl said. "Aren't you the one who was talking about 'no unnecessary violence'?"

Russell went on, ignoring her: "You think you can dig up a million bucks, Upton, if it means saving Fatso's life?"

Droplets of sweat broke out on Lummis's brow and his big round cheeks and began dripping down his neck, darkening his shirt collar.

"Yes," Barlow shouted. "For God's sake, yes! Yes, I'm sure it can be arranged if need be."

But from my other side came Ronald Slattery's voice. "No, it can't. You don't have signing authority for that kind of money, Upton."

"Signing authority?" said Russell, keeping the barrel of the Glock against Lummis's head. "Now, that's interesting. What's that mean? Who has signing authority?"

Slattery fell silent. You could tell he regretted saying anything.

"For God's sake, Ron," Barlow said, "the guy's going to kill Hugo! You want that on your conscience?"

"You heard the man, Ron," said Russell. "You want that on your conscience?"

"Give him the goddamned money," Lummis pleaded. "We've got K &R insurance-we're covered, situation like this. Good God!"

"All right," Barlow said. "Yes, I'm sure we can arrange that. We'll make it happen somehow. Just-please, just put down the gun and let's keep talking."

"Now we're cooking with fire," Russell said. He never raised his voice, I noticed. He seemed supremely confident, unflappable.

He lowered the gun. Walked up to Upton Barlow and stood behind him. "This is starting to sound like a productive conversation. Because if you can get me a million dollars, company like yours, you can do better."

After a few seconds, Barlow said, "What do you have in mind?"

"Upton!" Cheryl said warningly.

"I'm thinking a nice round number."

"Let's hear it."

"I'm thinking a hundred million dollars, Upton. Twelve of you here, that's"-he paused for maybe two seconds-"eight million, three hundred thousand bucks and change per head, I figure. Okay? Let's get to 'yes.'"

Ali looked at me, and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was: This nightmare was only beginning.

28

The stunned silence was broken by Ron Slattery.

"But that's-that's impossible! Our K &R insurance coverage is only twenty-five million."

"Come on, now, Ronny," Russell said. "Aren't you the CFO? The numbers guy? Read the fine print, bro. Gotta be twenty-five million per insuring clause. Twenty-five million for ransom, twenty-five million for accident and loss coverage, twenty-five million for crisis-management expenses, another twenty-five million for medical expenses and psychiatric care. That's a hundred million easy. Did I add right?"

"This is ridiculous," Cheryl said. "You're dreaming if you think our insurance company's going to write you a check for a hundred million dollars."

Russell shook his head slowly. "Oh, no, that's not how it works, Cheryl. The insurance companies never pay. They always insist that you folks pay, then they pay you back. Legal reasons."

"Well, we don't have access to that kind of money," she said. "No one does."

Russell sidled up to her, his head down. "Cheryl," he said softly, "Hammond Aerospace has cash reserves of almost four billion dollars. I just read it in your notebook over there."

"But those funds are tied up, impossible to access-"

"You know what it said, Cheryl? Said 'cash and marketable securities.' I'm no money guy, Cheryl, but doesn't that mean it's liquid?"

"Look," said Ron Slattery, turning around to look at Russell, "even if we could somehow access that kind of money, how the hell do you think you're going to get it? Cash, unmarked bills, all that?" His slash of a mouth twisted into a sneer. "I don't even know where the nearest bank is."

"Turn around, Ron," Russell said.

Slattery wheeled around quickly.

"Now, you see, Ron, you're talking down to me, and I don't like that. Obviously I'm not talking about stacks of bills. I'm talking about a couple of keystrokes on the computer. Click click click. Electronic funds transfers and all that. Takes a few seconds. I do know a thing or two."

"Not as much as you seem to think you do," Slattery said.

Russell gave a sly smile.

"We have controls in place," Slattery said. "Security codes and PIN numbers and callback arrangements. Things you can't even begin to imagine."

"Thing is, I don't need to imagine it, Ron. I've got you right here to explain it all to me."

"And which account do you imagine this hundred million dollars would go into? Your checking account? Or your savings account? Do you have any idea how fast you'll have the FBI up your ass?"

"What I hear, the government doesn't do so good with offshore banks, Ron."

Slattery was quiet for a few seconds. "You have an offshore account," he said. A statement, not a question.

"Anything can be arranged," Russell said. "If you know the right people."

"Please." Slattery smiled. "Setting up an offshore account is a complicated legal process that can take days, if not weeks. And it's certainly not something you can do from here."

"Ronny, you ever heard of something called the Internet?"

Slattery's smile began to fade.

"These days, Ronny, all you need's a laptop. There's websites out there that wanna sell you ready-made shell companies, incorporated in the Seychelles and Mauritius, places like that. Couple hundred bucks. You pay an extra fee, you can get the whole thing done in a day." He shook his head. "You mean I know more about this stuff than a professional money guy like you?"

"Well, be that as it may," Slattery said, "it's all theoretical anyway. We don't have the authority to move money like that."

"You don't?" Russell took a folded piece of paper from a pocket in his vest and held it up. "Says here you folks are the 'Executive Management Team' of Hammond Aerospace. CEO, CFO, Treasurer, Controller, blah-blah-blah. All the top guys in the company. You're all here. You telling me you guys-and gal, excuse me-don't have the 'authority' to transfer corporate funds? I don't buy it."

Slattery shook his head. His bald pate had begun to flush.

"Russell." It was Upton Barlow.

Russell turned. "Yes, Upton?"

"What you're really asking for is ransom, isn't that right?"

"Ransom? I don't know whether I'd call it that, Upton. I'm just looking to make a business deal here. Call it a transaction."

"Well, call it ransom," said Barlow, "and all you've got to do is call our headquarters in Los Angeles and make a demand. We have kidnap-and-ransom insurance. The company will have no choice but to pay you the money, then you can be on your way, simple as that. Everybody wins. Except maybe Lloyds of London."

Ali and I exchanged glances again. She seemed to be as astonished as me that one of our own would actually suggest a ransom. But then, as I knew well, fear could do strange things to people.

"Well, Upton, I do appreciate the suggestion," Russell said pensively, as if he were a fellow executive helping to hash out the details of some complicated marketing strategy. "But kidnap-for-ransom, as I see it, is for amateurs. Or banditos in Mexico or Colombia. That might work in some foreign country where you've got the cops in on it with you, taking a piece of the action. But it never works here."

"But the difference is, we want to cooperate with you," Barlow said.

What an idiot, I thought.

Ali rolled her eyes.

"Sorry, Upton, but I won't play that game," he said. "I don't really feel like having this beautiful old fishing lodge turned into-what was it?-Waco or Ruby Ridge. You think I want me and my buddies trapped in here with SWAT teams all around, shouting at us through megaphones, using us for sniper practice, helicopters circling and all that? Uh-uh. No way, Josй. That's for idiots, Upton, and I'm not an idiot."

Barlow seemed momentarily stymied.

"No need for all that drama," Russell went on. "Not when we got all the players here who can make our little deal happen."

"I told you, we can't do that!" Cheryl said.

"Now, see, Cheryl, I'm not talking to you. You and Ronald, you seem to be the naysayers around here." He raised his voice, addressing all of us at once. "Okay, kiddies, here's the deal. I'm gonna make a call to an old buddy of mine-a guy who knows how all this stuff works. Meanwhile, Upton, why don't you and your Executive Management Team have a little powwow. A little…offsite, right? Figure out how you guys are gonna get me that money. Hey, Buck, do you think you guys can clear your schedule for a couple of days?"

"Shee-et, I dunno, I'm a busy guy," Buck said. He was using his redneck Deliverance accent again. It must have been some inside joke among the hunters, or whatever they were. "Hain't even finished worming the hogs."

"Want something done, ask a busy man to do it," Russell said. "So why don't you and Wayne check your Filofaxes and see if you can block out a little time for me, could you, please?"

Buck cackled. "Soon's I finish cooking the roadkill beef jerky, boss."

"When you're done searching everybody, I want you to tie 'em all up at the wrists. Hands in front of 'em so they can use the john if they have to." He took out his walkie-talkie and pressed the transmit button. "Verne, you and Travis bring the staff in here, please."

"Roger," a voice said.

"There's no need to tie anybody up," Cheryl said. "Honestly-where the hell do you think we're going to go?"

"Well, Cheryl," said Russell, "you sound very reasonable, the way I'd expect a CEO to sound. But you folks might be here a little while, see, and I never like to take chances." He had the pleasant, confident voice of an airline pilot announcing that we'd just encountered a little "heavy weather" and telling us not to worry about it. "All right, boys and girls, my buddies here will take good care of you. By the time I get back, I'm hoping and expecting we'll all be ready to rock 'n' roll." He smiled and nodded. "Gonna be a kinda carrot-and-stick approach, whatever you want to call it. You cooperate, we do our deal, and me and my buddies pack up and move on."

"What's the stick?" asked Slattery.

"You," said Russell. "We'll start with you. Thanks for volunteering." He was talking to all of us now, his eyes hooded, nonchalant. "You folks give me any problems, I'm going to kill my little friend Ronald. Call it a penalty for nonperformance, isn't that what you guys say? So I'm hoping you guys do some real creative thinking, okay?"

Slattery went pale as Russell stowed his walkie-talkie, then gazed around the immense room for a few seconds. "I want everyone on the floor where we can see 'em," he ordered his men.

"What do you want us to tie 'em up with?" said Buck.

"Jesus." Russell shook his head. "They're supposed to be doing something called 'ropes courses' tomorrow, whatever the hell that is. Just a wild guess, here, but I'm thinking it might involve rope, Bucky, what do you think?"

Buck gave Russell a look of irritation.

"Well, there you go," Russell said, pointing at the big wooden reel of climbing rope that Bo Lampack had held up at dinner. "And listen, Buck. Pay careful attention to that young guy." He jabbed a thumb in my direction. "I get a bad feeling about him."

29

Watch out for this guy, Glover," the guard said, smiling.

My first day at the Glenview Residential Center. Juvie. My home for the next eighteen months.

"Yeah, I see what you mean," said the second guard. "Better warn Estevez. He's gonna shit in his pants."

Their laughter rang in the cinder-block hallway. The first one said something in a low voice to the second, something I didn't catch. Handed him a clipboard with forms on it. The intake forms I'd had to sign at the bottom of every page.

I looked around, dazed. But watchful: Everything here looked strange, yet familiar. The walls painted a sickly institutional green, the ancient linoleum tiles on the floor, black squares alternating with white, scratched and grooved yet waxed and buffed to a high sheen.

Floor's probably polished by the kids, I thought. The other prisoners.

That sharp, high smell of pine disinfectant everywhere, which would forever summon a cataract of bad memories.

The first guard-I never caught his name-had brought me over from the main administration building, a beautiful redbrick Georgian manor house. With its rolling, manicured two-hundred-acre campus, the place could have been some New England college, or at least as I imagined a college would look.

Except for the discreet sign on the lawn: GLENVIEW RESIDENTIAL CENTER. And the chain-link fence topped by concertina wire. And the guard towers.

I'd been fingerprinted, stripped naked, made to sit on a bench for an hour. Pictures were taken. They sheared off my long hair, gave me a buzz cut. I was issued a set of prison clothes: khaki pants with an elastic waistband, red T-shirt, dark blue sneakers. Everything had my name already stenciled on it. They'd been expecting me.

Glover, the chief guard of D Unit, was a burly blond guy around forty, pale as an albino, white eyelashes. And, I was convinced, bourbon on his breath.

He said only, "Tough guy," and escorted me to the dayroom to meet the other kids.

They stared as I entered. My age, but not my size. Most of them were bigger, tougher-looking: kids sent up from the boroughs of New York City, gangbangers with gang tattoos.

I looked away, scared shitless.

First mistake, I soon learned. Inside juvie, someone stares at you, and you fail to meet his eyes, they assume you're weak, scared, an easy mark.

Glover took me to my room. In the hall on the way a kid about twice my size "accidentally" bumped into me.

I said, "Hey," and stiff-armed him.

The kid smashed a fist into my face. I tasted blood, fell over backwards, cracked my head on the floor. The kid kicked me in the stomach.

Glover stood, watching. Other kids began to gather, laughing excitedly, cheering like spectators at a prizefight.

The kid kicked me in the head. I tried to shield my face with my arms. Desperately looked at Glover, expecting him to stop the assault. He was smiling, his arms folded across his big gut.

I tried getting up to fight back, but the big kid kept kicking and punching until I could barely see: Blood trickled into my eyes.

"Okay, Estevez," Glover finally said. "I think that'll do it."

The other kids complained but began clearing out. Glover watched me struggle to my feet. "That's Estevez," he explained, matter-of-fact. The walls swam around me. "He's the captain of D Unit."

He led me down the hall to my room. "Welcome," he said.

The steel door clanged behind him as he left.

30

The manager, Paul, and his son, Ryan, were the first to enter the great room. Both of them were grim-faced. Paul's face was bruised, and he was limping. The reading glasses around his neck were bent, the lenses shattered. He must have put up a struggle. His lodge: He felt protective. Behind him followed the rest of the hotel's staff-the waiters who'd served us dinner, a pudgy guy with a mustache and glasses I recognized as the handyman, the two Bulgarian girls who did the cleaning, a few others who I assumed were kitchen staff. Then Bo Lampack, a long red welt across his forehead and right cheek.

Behind them came two men with guns. One was like a younger version of Russell, only not as tall and with a weight lifter's build. Prison muscles, I thought. Instead of Russell's long hair, his head was shaved. Had to be his brother. He was in his mid-twenties, with intense greenish eyes. His face was soft, almost feminine, but that delicacy was counteracted by a fierce scowl. The edges of what appeared to be an immense tattoo peeked out of the crew-neck collar of his shirt and ran a few inches up his neck.

The other, probably fifteen years older, was scrawny and mangy-looking, with dirt-colored hair that stuck up everywhere on his head. His face was pitted with pockmarks and cross-hatched with scars that were particularly dense below his left eye, which was glass. Under his good, right eye, three teardrops were tattooed. That was prison code, I knew, meaning that he'd killed three fellow inmates while he was inside. His glass eye told me he'd also lost a fight or two.

Hugo Lummis saw the two scary-looking guys. He slowly removed the watch from his pocket and placed it on the table.

Russell briefed the two of them. The young guy he called Travis; the older jailbird was Verne. Then, taking a compact satellite phone from a black nylon sling, he went out the front door.

Verne, the one-eyed man, took turns with the hunters I now knew as Wayne and Buck cutting lengths of rope, frisking and tying people up, then moving them one by one over to the wall on either side of the immense stone fireplace.

"Palms together like you're praying," Verne ordered Cheryl. He wrapped a six-foot piece of rope several times around her wrists.

She winced. "That's way too tight."

But Verne kept going. He moved with quick, jerky motions, blinked a lot. He seemed to be on speed or something.

Even before Verne got to me, I could smell him. He gave off a nasty funk of alcohol and cigarettes and bad hygiene. I gave him a blank look, neither friendly nor confrontational.

He gave an alligator smile. His teeth were grayish brown, with tiny black flecks. Meth mouth, I realized. The guy was a tweaker, a methamphetamine addict. "Much rather be frisking that babe down the end," he said as he set to work patting me down. He didn't seem to be a professional, but he knew what he was doing.

I said nothing.

"Save the best for last," he said to Buck, and they both leered at Ali.

The steak knife I'd concealed in my shoe had become uncomfortable, even a little painful. I wondered whether there was a visible lump in the shoe leather, but I didn't dare look down and draw his attention to it.

On the one hand, I was relieved that I hadn't left the knife in my pocket, where Verne would have found it right away. But now I wished it were someplace I could get to more easily. As Verne's hands ran down my chest and back, I held my breath so I didn't heave from the smell. My eyes scanned the dining table. The closest steak knife was in front of Cheryl, just a few feet away, but as soon as I made a grab for it, Buck-standing behind me with his revolver at the ready-would kill me. He wouldn't hesitate.

And even if I managed to grab the knife and use it on him, it was still only a knife. A knife at a gunfight, as the old saying goes.

Verne felt each of my pockets and seemed satisfied that they were empty. I didn't have a choice but to let him tie me up.

Now his hands moved down my pant legs, down to my feet.

I held my breath.

All he had to do was to slip his fingers into the tops of my shoes, and he'd discover the knife handle.

And then, if Russell's threat was serious, Buck would shoot. I didn't feel like finding out if Russell meant it.

What had I been thinking?

Once my hands were tied, the knife wouldn't do me any good. It was useless to me. I'd risked my life for nothing.

Verne's hands grasped my ankles. I looked down. His fingernails were dirty.

I tensed. A few drops of sweat trickled down my neck, coursed down my back, under my shirt.

"See that guy over there?" I said.

"Huh?" He looked up at me. "Don't try anything."

"The silver-haired guy with the bloody face. He needs to be taken care of."

He sliced a long piece of rope into smaller sections, using a serious-looking tactical knife. "I look like a doctor to you?"

"You guys don't want to lose him. Then you'll be facing a manslaughter charge on top of everything else."

He shrugged.

"I know first aid," I said. "Let me take a look at him before you tie me up."

"Uh-uh."

"Your friend Buck has a gun pointed at me. I don't have a weapon, and I'm not stupid."

"Let him," Buck said. "I'll keep watch."

"Thank you," I said.

Bodine was sitting with his legs folded. His face was battered and swollen. He looked up at me, humiliated and angry, like a whipped dog. I sat down on the floor next to him. "How're you feeling?" I said.

He didn't look at me. "You don't want to know."

"Mind if I take a look?"

"Lost a couple of teeth," he said, pushing out his lower lip with his tongue. I gingerly felt his face, under his eyes. He winced. "Jesus, Landry, watch it."

"You might have a broken cheekbone," I said. "Maybe a fracture."

"Yeah? So what am I going to do about it now?" he said bitterly.

"Take some Tylenol. Or whatever pain meds we have."

"Not going to happen with these assholes," he said quietly.

"We can try. You think your nose might be broken?"

"Feels like it."

"If we can get some Kleenex or some toilet paper, you should stuff some up your nose. Just to stop the blood flow."

He didn't say anything.

"You got a headache?"

"Wicked."

"What about your vision?"

"What about it?"

"You seeing double?"

"How'd you know?"

"That means he might have fractured the-I forget what it's called, the bone around the eye. The orbit, I think. Anyway, your vision should go back to normal in a day or so. You're going to be okay, but we've got to get you medical attention."

Bodine gave me a fierce look. "Yeah? When?"

"Soon as we can. Soon as this is over."

"When's that going to be?"

He didn't expect an answer, but I was surprised he'd said it. It was a sign of how far he'd fallen, how demoralized he was. Hank Bodine was always in charge.

Buck yelled to me, "Time's up. This ain't a church social."

I said softly to Bodine, "Depends on how we play it."

Bodine nodded once.

I said, "There's blood and stuff all over your pants. Let me see if they'll get you another pair from your room. Least they can do."

Bodine had pissed himself during the attack. I could see the large wet area and smell the urine. I felt a pang of embarrassment for him, and I didn't want him to know that I knew.

He watched me as I got up.

"Hey," he said after a few seconds.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

31

The whole place smelled of cigarette smoke: Verne was chain-smoking at the other end of the room as he frisked Ali, taking his time of it. I had a feeling he was maybe paying a bit too much attention to areas on her body where she wasn't likely to hide a weapon. Her back was to me; I couldn't see her face, but I could imagine the look of grim resolve.

The middle of the room was a chaotic jumble of furniture: tables on their sides, chairs upended on top of sofas. Russell's men had shoved the furniture away from the wall on either side of the great stone fireplace to make room for the hostages.

We sat on the wideboard floor on either side of the fireplace, in two groups. On the other side-which might as well have been miles away-were the manager, the other lodge staff, and Danziger and Grogan. All the lights were on, giving the room a harsh, artificial cast.

Verne had wound the ropes around my wrists a little too tightly, before tying the ends expertly with a couple of overhand knots. "There we go," he'd said. "Try and get out of that. Harder you pull against it, tighter it gets. Give yourself gangrene, you're not careful."

Geoffrey Latimer, next to me, tried to shift his hands to get them more comfortable. "I wonder if I'm ever going to see my wife and daughter again," he said softly. He looked ashen. His face was flushed, and he was short of breath.

Cheryl said, "This damned rope is too tight. I'm already losing circulation in my hands." She looked weary, suddenly ten years older. There was what looked like a dirty handprint on her long, pleated skirt, as if one of Russell's men had pawed her. Without her big earrings and necklace, she looked somehow vulnerable, disarmed.

"I wish I could help you," Slattery said. "But my hands are tied."

If that was his attempt at black humor, no one laughed.

I said, "You want me to call one of them over here to retie you?"

Cheryl shook her head. "The less we have to do with them, the better. I'll get used to it. Hopefully this isn't going to be too long." She paused, looked at me, spoke quietly. "How's Hank?"

Bodine lay on the hard floor, dozing. His closed eyes were bruised and bloodied, his face a patchwork of red and white: Travis, who I had become more and more certain was Russell's younger brother, had thoughtfully taped up some of the more serious wounds with strips of white adhesive tape and a variety of Band-Aids he'd found in a first-aid kit.

I doubted she actually cared, but I said, "He might have a concussion. A broken nose. Maybe a broken cheekbone, too."

"My God."

I smelled her perfume, strong and unpleasantly floral, like a funeral home.

"Could have been a lot worse."

"We have to get the word out," she said. "Somehow we have to tell the outside world what's going on."

I didn't think our captors could hear us. Russell was outside somewhere, and his brother, Travis, was patrolling the room, his gun at his side, a good distance away. The blond crew-cut lunk was upstairs grabbing loot. The other two-Buck, the vaguely sinister black-goateed one, and Verne, ex-con and speed freak, were at the far end of the room.

"How?" Kevin Bross said. "You have a sat phone you're not telling us about?"

Cheryl glared at him. "No, I don't have a satellite phone. But the manager has one. He keeps it locked in his office. I know, because I've used it." She glanced at the stone wall that made up one side of the fireplace. "Maybe one of us can sneak over there."

Bross snorted.

Upton Barlow straightened his shoulders. "Now, isn't that interesting," he said with heavy sarcasm. He'd eased one of his shoes off with the other. I could see his Odor-Eaters insole. "And I thought we were all supposed to be 'offline,' as you put it."

"One of us had to be reachable, Upton," Cheryl said icily. "I am the CEO, after all."

"Hmmph," Barlow said. One little syllable conveyed so much-ridicule, skepticism, condescension.

Cheryl turned slowly to face him. "I wouldn't get too high-and-mighty if I were you, Upton," she said. "Wasn't it you who made Russell an offer-put the whole ransom idea in his head? Brilliant."

"That idea was already in his head," Bross said. "He and his thugs broke in here to rip us off."

"Forgive me for my clumsy attempt to save your life," Barlow said, his syrupy baritone dripping with contempt. "Or maybe you've forgotten that he was pointing a gun at your face at the time? I should have let him pull the trigger."

"Cheryl," said Lummis, "he was about to kill you and me both."

"And wasn't it you who told him about our K &R insurance?" Cheryl turned to face Lummis. "In violation of our strict secrecy agreement with Lloyds of London? Do you realize the policy becomes null and void if you reveal its existence to anyone outside the executive council?"

Lummis's plump, pink cheeks were slick with sweat. "Good God Almighty, I'd say this qualifies as a situation of extreme duress."

The fact that we had a kidnap-and-ransom insurance policy was news to me, too, but I didn't get what the big deal was about revealing its existence. So what? Would knowing about it encourage potential kidnappers to escalate their demands? Hammond Aerospace was a multibillion-dollar company with very deep pockets anyway; who cared whether some insurance company paid us back?

"Hey, folks, let's all just count to ten," said Bo Lampack. The red mark across his face had begun to fade. "I know tempers are short, but we need to work together as a team. Remember, if we all row together, we'll get there faster."

"Oh, Christ," said Kevin Bross. "Where'd this knucklehead come from?"

Lampack looked bruised. "Hostility's not productive."

"In any case," Cheryl said, "it would be grossly negligent of me as CEO to allow us to give in to this extortion. I have a responsibility to protect the corporation."

Lampack, ignored by everyone, now just watched in sullen defeat.

"You have a responsibility," Barlow said, "to protect our lives. The lives of the people who run this company."

"We wouldn't be in this position if it weren't for your negligence," Bross said to Cheryl.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Cheryl snapped.

"You know exactly what I mean," Bross said.

I caught Ron Slattery giving Bross a quick, furtive look. Annoyed, maybe, or warning: It was hard to tell. I wondered what it meant.

Then Slattery said, in a reasonable voice, "Cheryl, you know, we lost a whole lot more than that last quarter on the telecom satellite we're building for Malaysia, right? If we have to take a hundred-million-dollar charge for an extortion demand, or ransom, or whatever we call it-"

"Which I'm sure is covered by our K &R insurance anyway," Lummis put in.

Cheryl was shaking her head. "This is not how it works, Ron. You should know as well as anyone here. In Latin America, when the secuestradores kidnap an American executive, they never get more than thirty percent of their initial ransom demand. It's expected. If you pay them any more, they'll think they didn't ask enough."

"Well, Danziger handles all the special risk coverage for me," Slattery said. "I don't really get into the weeds."

"The point is, this guy's demanding a hundred million dollars-now," she said. "But the moment we go along with him-the moment we agree to wire out a hundred million dollars-he's going to think, Well, why stop now? If a hundred million was that easy, why not a billion? Why not four billion? Why not demand every last goddamned dollar we have in our cash reserves? And then what do we do?"

I nodded; she was right.

"We don't know that, Cheryl," Slattery said. His glasses were smudged, the frames slightly askew. "He's not necessarily going to escalate his demands. I don't think we have any alternative but to give him the hundred million and take him at his word."

She shook her head. "No, Ron, I'm sorry, but one of us has to say no, and that's got to be me. We're going to hang tough. Refuse to give in to his demands."

A panicked expression flashed across Slattery's face, then disappeared. But he said nothing. You could see his loyalty warring with his survival instinct. Russell had promised that he'd be the first to be killed if we didn't cooperate. Yet he was Cheryl's man, the only one here who owed his job directly to her. Her only ally on the executive council. Except for maybe Geoff Latimer; but La-timer seemed to be the sort who was quite careful not to take sides.

"She's going to get us all killed," Bross said, shaking his head.

"How easy it must be for you to issue orders," said Upton Barlow. "After all, you're not the one he's going to shoot first if we don't cooperate." His eyes shifted from Cheryl to Slattery. He'd sensed Slattery's panic the way a dog smells fear. He'd seen daylight between Cheryl and her toady, and he was determined to widen the crack.

"Oh, come on," Cheryl said. "These buffoons aren't actually going to kill anyone. They're trying to scare the hell out of us, and I can see it's working like a charm on you men. But Russell's not going to carry out his threats."

"Oh really?" Bross said. "And what makes you so sure of that?"

"Human nature," she replied brusquely. "I can read people. They may be thugs, but they're not murderers."

"Oh, Jesus Christ," Bross snapped. "These are a bunch of trigger-happy outlaws with guns. You are so out of your league here, Cheryl."

I agreed with Bross, but I wasn't going to say so. I didn't particularly like the woman, but I sure wasn't going to join the other piranhas circling her because they smelled her blood in the water.

"They're hunters who got lost," Cheryl said. "They're tired and hungry and all of a sudden they see this lodge, and they get the big idea to try a holdup. See if they can pull it off. If it wasn't us, it could have been a convenience store. These men aren't actually going to do anything so stupid as to kill one of us."

"They look mighty serious to me," Lummis said.

"There's a bright line between trying to bully a bunch of unarmed businessmen and cold-blooded murder," she said. "And they're not going to cross that line. They're hunters, not hired killers."

I couldn't hold back any longer. "I don't think they're hunters," I said softly.

"Why don't we find out what your CFO has to say about this," Barlow said with a malevolent smile. "You feel like staking your life on Cheryl's ability to read people, Ron? You're the one who gets his brains blown out first."

Slattery looked at Barlow, that panicked look returning, but he didn't reply.

Bo Lampack was trying to get everyone's attention, so we stopped and looked at him.

"If I may say something?" Lampack said. There was silence, so he went on. "Let's face it-a gun is really a phallus. Men like these who insist on waving guns around are really just waving their dicks around. They're compensating for their inadequacies. To challenge them outright is to emasculate them, which could provoke a really hostile and defensive reaction-"

"Will someone tell Russell to get in here and shoot this guy?" said Bross.

Lampack looked around for support, and when no one came to his defense, he sat back, looking deflated.

"They're not hunters," I tried again, a little louder.

Finally, Cheryl looked at me. "What makes you so sure of that, Jake?"

"For one thing, they're not equipped like hunters."

"And you know this how?"

"Because I hunt. I shoot."

"You shoot?" Bross said. "What, paintballs?"

"You want to hear me out or not?"

"Not especially."

"Let the kid talk," Barlow said wearily. "I've got to get to the john before my bladder bursts."

"Start with their outfits," I said. "The camouflage."

"Plenty of hunters wear camo," Lummis pointed out.

I nodded. "But they're not wearing the kind of camouflage you get at a hunting store," I said. "It's old military-issue." The pattern was the old six-color chocolate-chip camouflage, which the army had discontinued around the time of the first Gulf War. "They're also wearing genuine military tactical vests, with gear clips and mag pouches. Those sure aren't regular hunting vests." Hunting vests were normally made out of smooth acrylic so you didn't get snagged on brush or whatever.

"Well, so maybe they picked up their outfits at some Army-Navy surplus store somewhere," Cheryl said.

"That's possible," I said. "Sure. But they're carrying banana clips on their vests. I've never heard of a legit hunter carrying a banana clip. And that gun that Russell was waving around was a Glock 18C."

"Yeah," Bross said with heavy sarcasm. "We were all impressed by your knowledge of firearms."

"Excellent," I said. "That was my whole point-to impress you, Kevin. Then again, maybe I was trying to figure out how much he knew about it. Maybe even where he might have gotten it." I said to the others: "See, the Glock 18 is banned for sale to anyone who's not in law enforcement or the military."

"What-what are you saying, they're soldiers?" Slattery said. "Ex-soldiers?"

"Were you in the Army?" Barlow asked.

"The National Guard Reserve for a year. But my dad was a Marine," I said.

"Maybe they're one of those homegrown militias," said Slattery. "You know, those crazy survivalist gangs that turn up in places like Michigan and Kentucky?"

"Jesus, I've got to take a leak," said Barlow.

"A couple of them also look like they've done time in prison," I said.

"I wonder if they're fugitives of some sort," Geoff Latimer said. "Who maybe pulled off a bank robbery, and they're on the run. Remember that old Humphrey Bogart movie called The Desperate Hours? These escaped convicts are looking for a place to hide, and they break into this suburban house and they hold the family hostage-"

"What difference does it make who they are?" Cheryl said. "Their threats are hollow."

"You're partly right," I said. She gave me a wary look. "It doesn't really make a difference who they are or where they're from. But their weapons tell me two things. One is that Russell knows what he's doing. He's no amateur."

"More speculation," Cheryl said.

"And what's the other thing?" Slattery asked.

"That these guys aren't here by accident," I said.

32

A long time ago I'd learned that you can pretty much get used to anything.

There was no privacy at Glenview, even at night, in your own room: a surveillance camera mounted near the ceiling, its red eye winking in the dark. No doors on the toilet stalls. But you got used to it.

You learned to create your own zone of privacy, hide your emotions behind a mask of stoicism. To show emotion was to show weakness, and weakness got you hurt.

You can get used to pretty much anything if you have to. The food was inedible-rubbery fake scrambled eggs, bright artificial yellow, sometimes with a coarse human hair coiled around one of the curds; unsalted boiled potatoes with dirt-crusted peel mixed in; slices of stale white bread; rancid bologna, slick and green-tinged-until the hunger pains grew too strong.

If you needed to piss at night, you had to knock on your door until a guard came. Sometimes he'd come, sometimes not. You learned to pee into a towel in the corner of the room.

You learned to fight when challenged. Which happened over and over until your place in the hierarchy was established, until the other kids learned to leave you alone.

But you also learned to respect the natural order.

In the chow hall one day, Estevez "accidentally" bumped into me. I ignored him, kept moving. A mistake: Estevez took it as a sign of fear. But I was hungry, and they only gave you twenty minutes for lunch, which included waiting in line and bussing your tray.

He bumped me again. My orange plastic tray went flying, spilling brown gravy and gristle and peas everywhere.

This time I didn't wait. I drew back and slugged him in the mouth so hard that he actually rose a few inches off the floor. My fist throbbed in pain: A tooth was lodged between two knuckles.

Estevez crashed against one of the stainless-steel tables, spitting teeth. I saw my opportunity, went after him again, and then my lower back exploded in pain.

Someone had hit me from behind. I sunk to my knees, gasping.

Glover was swinging his baton. "Go back to the dayroom and wait for me," he said.

I sat on the bench in the deserted dayroom and waited.

When Glover arrived, ten minutes later, he approached me slowly, as if he were about to confide something. Instead, he grabbed my hair, gave me a hard backhand slap on one side of my face, then the other. Rhythmic, almost: one two.

"Hey!" I yelled.

"How's that?"

He kept at it, one side, then the other. One two. "How's that? How's that feel?"

"I didn't start it," I croaked.

"I want to hear you cry, bastard," he said.

His fist crashed into one side of my face, then the other. One two. Blood seeped into my eyes, from my nose.

"Cry, bastard," he said.

But I wouldn't.

One two. One two.

I knew what he wanted, even more than he wanted me to cry. He wanted me to hit him back. That would get me confined to solitary for three months. But I refused to give him the satisfaction.

"I'm not stopping till you cry, you bastard."

I never did.

33

What do you mean?" Slattery said. "You think they planned-"

But then we fell silent as Verne brought Ali over. He held a gun on her: a stubby little stainless-steel Smith & Wesson with a two-inch barrel. She sat, looking angry and remote.

"I enjoyed that, sugar tits," Verne said with a manic leer. "Let's do that again soon without our clothes, huh?"

Ali gave him a glacial stare. Under her breath, she said, "I'm not really into short-barreled weapons."

He heard it, though, and he hooted. "Whoa, that chick's got a mouth on her! We'll see what you can do with that mouth later."

"Yeah," Ali replied. "I've also got sharp teeth."

He hooted again.

"Hey, Verne," I said.

He turned, eyes wild.

"You touch a hair on her head, and I'll take out your good eye."

"With what?" He smirked. "You can't even take a piss unless I say so."

"Hey," Barlow called out. "Speaking of which, I need to take a leak. Badly."

"So?"

"What the hell am I supposed to do?"

"Wet yourself for all I care," Verne said with a cackle.

"I'm serious," Barlow said.

"So'm I," Verne said.

Barlow gritted his teeth. "This is torture. I'm not going to make it."

I gave Ali a questioning look: Are you okay?

She smiled cryptically, maybe thanking me, maybe chiding me. She seemed more angry than frightened, which wasn't surprising. That was Ali: She was a fighter, not easily intimidated. Maybe that was the legacy of her Army-brat upbringing. I'm sure it was also something Cheryl had recognized in her immediately, a trait the two women shared.

"Excuse me," Latimer called out. He looked haggard. "I need my…insulin."

"Your what?" Verne said.

"There's a kit upstairs in my room. In my dresser. With syringes and a blood test kit and some vials of insulin. Please. Just let me go up and get it."

"You're not bringing a bunch of needles in here. Sorry, guy. Deal with it."

"But if I-please, if I don't get my insulin, I could go into a coma. Or worse."

"Hate to lose a hostage," Verne said, swiveling away.

"At least could I get something to drink, please? I'm dehydrated."

Verne was out of earshot.

"I didn't know you were diabetic, Geoff," Cheryl said. "How serious is this?"

"Hard to say. I mean, it's serious, but I don't have any symptoms yet. Just really thirsty."

"You're late with a shot?"

He nodded. "I usually give myself an injection before I go to bed."

"Did you mean it about going into a coma?"

"If too much time goes by, it can happen. Though I think I'll make it for a couple more hours. If I drink a lot of water."

"Damn them," Cheryl said. She turned around and yelled, "Someone get this man a glass of water now! And his insulin!" Her voice echoed.

Hank Bodine stirred, his eyes fluttering open. He looked around groggily, groaned, then shut his eyes again.

Travis came over, gun leveled. "What's the problem?" he said, scowling.

"Get this man some water," she said. "He's a diabetic, and he needs water immediately. He also needs his insulin shot."

"And I need to use the restroom," Barlow added.

Travis looked at her, at Latimer, and said nothing.

"And will you get Mr. Bodine a pillow, please?" she said. She pointed toward the jumble of displaced furniture. "A sofa pillow, at least."

"That's up to Russell," Travis said. "I'll see." Looking uncomfortable, he turned, crossed the room toward the dining area, and began speaking to the crew-cut guy, Wayne.

"Thank you," Latimer said. "Even if they won't get my insulin, the water should help."

"Will you please not mention water?" said Barlow.

"I still haven't heard why Landry thinks this whole thing was planned," Slattery said.

"Who cares what he thinks?" said Bross. "He's not even supposed to be here."

"Let's hear him out," Cheryl said.

"They're wearing the wrong brand of hunting vest," Bross went on. "A big fashion 'don't' in your world, that it?"

I refused to let him get to me. "They came in here knowing exactly where to go and what to do. They weren't stumbling around. These guys know too much. They knew where everything was the second they arrived-the kitchen, the front door, the upstairs. They knew which exits to cover. As if they'd scoped the place out in advance. It just feels too well planned to be a coincidence-too well coordinated."

"Right," Bross said, heavy on the irony. "This whole thing was planned. Get real. They didn't crash in here demanding a hundred million bucks, did they? That was only after Russell discovered who we are. At first they only wanted our wallets, for Christ's sake."

"And our watches," I said. "Don't forget the watches, Kevin. Even the 'replicas.'"

Bross glared.

"I think they were trying to make it look like a random, unplanned break-in," I said. "Which, in itself, is interesting."

"Why?" said Cheryl.

"I don't know," I admitted. "But I'll figure it out."

"I think Jake may be right," Ali said. "Look at who comes here-mostly rich people and corporate groups. Who else can afford it? All these rich folks out here in total isolation. Sitting ducks. If you're a bad guy looking to make some quick money, you can't do better than this."

"Russell knows too much about Hammond," I said. "All that stuff about our cash reserves-I doubt he figured that out tonight, on the spot, by looking at a balance sheet. He already knew it ahead of time."

"It's all out there on the public record," said Barlow.

"Sure. But that means he did research on Hammond before coming here. Right?"

For a few seconds, everyone was silent.

Then Slattery said: "But how'd he know in advance that we'd be here?"

"You guys come here every year around the same time," I said. "It's no secret."

"Then they must have had a source," Latimer said. "One of the lodge staff, maybe."

"Or they've been here before," I said.

"Excuse me," Bross said. "I don't even know why anyone's listening to you. Did anyone ask you for your opinion? You're not even a member of the executive council, or have you forgotten that? You're a substitute. You're nothing more than a ringer."

Amazing: Here we were, held hostage at gunpoint, and all Kevin Bross wanted to do was one-up me. With Hank Bodine at least temporarily incapacitated, he probably considered himself the reigning Alpha Male. And I was a threat.

"I got news for you, Kevin," I said. "There's no more executive council. Not anymore. Not now. Your life is no more important than mine or anyone else's. Neither is your opinion. We're all just hostages now."

I heard a groan, then a familiar rumbling voice. "Well put, Landry," Hank Bodine said. "When the hell's that pillow getting here?"

34

Bodine's silver hair was mussed, clumps of it standing on end. His eyes had all but disappeared into the swollen mass of his cheeks. White strips of adhesive tape crisscrossed his face.

"There he is," Bross said. "How're you doing?"

"What do you think?" Bodine tried to sit up. "What's this, they tied me up, too? The hell they think I'm gonna do?"

Bodine's mere conscious presence had reordered the group like a magnet waved over iron filings. You could tell it rankled Cheryl. She needed to take charge. "The issue isn't who they are or how they got here," she said. "The issue is how we're going to deal with it. That's the only thing that counts at this point."

"Tell me something," Lummis said. "Do we even have the ability to do this-to make a funds transfer from here-if we wanted to?"

No one replied for a few seconds, then Ali said: "I'm sure he knows about the Internet connection in the manager's office."

"That's not what I mean. Can it be done from here? Can we really transfer a hundred million dollars out of the corporate treasury to some offshore account, just using the manager's laptop?"

More silence. Cheryl looked at Slattery: She didn't seem to know the answer either. I assumed that the only ones who really knew how the system worked were Slattery, Danziger, and Grogan-but Danziger and Grogan were on the other side of the fireplace, out of range.

"I could transfer funds out of one of our accounts from a laptop at Starbucks," Slattery said wearily, taking off his glasses and running a hand over his forehead. He closed his eyes and pushed against them with a thumb and forefinger, as if trying to massage a headache away.

"You're kidding," Lummis said.

"No, unfortunately, I'm not," said Slattery.

"Hold on a second," Kevin Bross said. "Are you telling me that any lunatic could just put a gun to your head and empty the company's treasury? We don't have any security procedures in place? I don't believe it."

There was something about Bross's tone-he sounded incredulous, but in an exaggerated way-that made me suspicious. Then there was the look of irritation that Slattery gave him in response. Bross, I realized, already knew the answer. He gave a quick, furtive glance at Bodine, seemed to be performing for him. Bodine's eyes were open, but the lids were drooping.

"It's more complicated than that," Slattery said.

"Yes or no?" Bross demanded. "Do we or don't we have at least some kind of security measures?"

"Ron," said Cheryl, "you don't need to get into this. It's beside the point."

"Well, I want to hear it," said Bross. "It's very much the point."

"Don't even dignify that, Ron," Cheryl said.

"The fact is," Slattery said, "the bank's computers don't know if they're talking to a computer inside Hammond headquarters in L.A. or at a laptop in a Starbucks or some old Macintosh in a fishing lodge in British Columbia."

"How is that possible?" said Bross.

"Well, it's-anytime you log on to our system from outside the headquarters building, you're creating a virtual tunnel into what's called the VPN-the Hammond virtual private network. All the bank computers see is a Hammond IP address. An outbound gateway. For all the bank knows, it's getting a message from my office on the thirty-third floor on Wilshire Boulevard."

"Can we move on, please?" said Cheryl. "This is irrelevant."

"Even when we're talking about a hundred million dollars?" Barlow said.

"Doesn't make a difference how much," said Slattery. "It's just a little more elaborate."

"Ron," Cheryl said, "enough."

But Slattery kept going. "For large, sensitive transactions the bank requires two authorized users to make the request. Then on top of that, there's dual-factor authentication."

"Which is?" Barlow said.

"Forget it," said Cheryl. "We're not making any transfer."

"Sounds to me," Hank Bodine suddenly said, "like you're trying to shut him up. I want to hear this."

Cheryl just shook her head, furious. She did seem to want to keep Slattery from talking.

"You enter a user name and password as usual," Slattery said, "but you also have to use a secure ID token. Which generates random, one-time passwords-six-digit numbers-every sixty seconds. You take the number off the token and enter it on the website."

"So, if we don't have one of those doohickeys with us, we can't do the transfer," Barlow said. "Simple as that. I'm sure you don't carry one around with you, right?"

"It's on my key ring, upstairs in my room," Slattery said. "But Russell's probably got it by now."

"These fellas aren't going to know what it is," Barlow said.

Slattery shrugged. "If they know what they're doing, they will. The bank logo's printed right on there."

"Anyone else have a token like that?" asked Barlow. "I don't."

"Just the ones who have signing authority."

"Signing authority," Barlow repeated.

"The ability to authorize a financial transaction greater than, I think, fifty million dollars. Authorized users."

Cheryl turned slowly to Ron Slattery. "I don't believe I have such a token," she said.

"That's because you don't need to dirty your hands with all that financial…plumbing work. It's just for the guys like me who have to, you know, roll up our sleeves and do the operational stuff."

"Such as?"

He hesitated. "You know, the corporate officers who're involved directly with the finances."

"'Authorized users,' as you put it."

"Basically, yes. Officers who have signing authority at that level." Slattery was starting to sound evasive.

But Cheryl was unrelenting. "Such as? Who has the signing authority at that level? Besides me, I mean."

Slattery gave a tiny shake of his head, as if silently cuing her to stop asking.

"What are you telling me?" she said.

"I mean-well, actually, you don't."

"I don't what?" Cheryl said.

"Don't have signing authority," Slattery said. "Not at that level. Not for a one-off cash transaction of that magnitude, anyway."

Cheryl's cheeks immediately flushed. She pursed her lips. "I see. Then who does?"

"I do, of course," Slattery said. "And the Treasurer. The General Counsel, and the Controller. Latimer, Grogan, and Danziger."

"And Hank, I assume."

He nodded.

"Anyone else?"

"No."

"I see," Cheryl said.

"Did I just hear what I thought I heard?" Bross said, his mouth gaping. "You actually don't even have the power to stop us from wiring out the funds, do you? Since you don't have the power to authorize it."

Cheryl looked at him for several seconds, her nostrils flaring. "Perhaps not. But I'm the CEO of this company, Bross. And if I hear any more of your insubordination, you're going to be cleaning out your office."

"If any of us survive," Barlow said.

"We're not wiring a hundred million dollars to these criminals," Cheryl said. "It's as simple as that. Whether or not I have the technical authority to sign off on a payment of that size, the fact remains: I will not allow it."

"Cheryl, please," said Slattery. "We all know what he's going to do if we refuse. Please."

"Once we give in to this extortion, it'll never stop," she said. "I'm sorry."

"You know," Barlow said, "I don't think you have the power to stop us. Am I right, Ron?"

Slattery glanced anxiously from Cheryl to Barlow, then back again.

Cheryl examined the rope around her wrists. "Ron," she said in a warning tone, without looking up.

"Cheryl," Slattery said. "I-" Then he met Barlow's hard gaze, his raisin eyes. "Yes," he said. "Basically that's right."

Still studying the rope, Cheryl said softly, "I expect more than that from you, Ron. I expect your complete support."

Slattery turned to her, but she didn't look up. "I'm-I'm sorry, Cheryl. Forgive me. But this is just-this happens to be the one case where we disagree. We really have no choice but to give the guy the money he wants. But-"

"That's enough, Ron," Cheryl said, cutting him off. You could almost see the icicles hanging down from her words. "You've made yourself clear."

I saw the tears in Ali's eyes and felt the bad wolf start to stir.

35

Correct me if I'm wrong, Cheryl," Kevin Bross said, "but aren't you the reason we don't have a choice?"

Cheryl gave Bross a quick, cutting glance, then looked away. "I think we're done with this discussion," she said.

"We've just begun," Bross said. "Tell them, Ron. Tell them about the security measures you were pushing for. Which Cheryl turned down."

Slattery's sallow complexion immediately colored, but he said nothing.

"Oh, really," Cheryl said.

"Ron?" Bross prompted.

Slattery blinked rapidly, remained silent.

"Go ahead, Slattery," Hank Bodine said. "Let's hear it."

Slattery looked first at Bodine, then at Cheryl, and he said, "It's just that-I had my team draw up a plan to implement much stronger security on the company's website. I was concerned about, you know, hackers from Lithuania or Ukraine being able to get in and do all kinds of damage. Or steal code and blackmail us. This kind of thing happens to U.S. companies all the time now."

"Are we seriously going to rehash all of this now?" Cheryl said. "This is neither the time nor the place-"

"I think this is the perfect time and place," Bodine said, cutting her off.

"I wanted us to install a multilayered access platform," Slattery said. "Change the whole access infrastructure so we had the ability to turn off most functions for anyone who accesses the Hammond system remotely. Especially treasury functions."

"Plain English, please," Bodine said. "You're losing us."

"As I told you then," Cheryl said, "we have executives all around the world who need constant access to our entire system."

"They still could have had access, Cheryl. I wanted the ability to block the finance portals to outside access. All treasury information, all code repositories. No movement of money off campus."

"This is past history," Cheryl said. "We went back and forth on your proposal, and in the end I decided it was too complicated and too cumbersome to implement. And too expensive."

"So you killed Ron's plan in order to save money," Bross said. "And now look at how much money we're about to lose because of you."

Cheryl gave Bross a poisonous look. "Not because of me," she said. "I want to be on the record here-I'm absolutely opposed to giving in to this extortion."

"If it weren't for you," Bross said, "we wouldn't even be able to give in to the extortion. This whole nightmare didn't have to happen."

Cheryl looked down, shook her head. She looked as if she was doing everything she could to restrain herself from lashing out.

"Does the board of directors know about this?" Barlow said.

Slattery was silent.

"They will," Bross said. "They're going to hear about how your mismanagement not only cost the company a hundred million dollars but put the lives of every single top executive at risk. I'd call this an egregious breach of fiduciary duty. Hank?"

"As soon as this is over," Bodine said, "they're going to hear all about it. And then it's not Kevin Bross who'll be cleaning out his office. It's gonna be a no-brainer."

36

Hank," I said, "how about we spare the office politics and concentrate on trying to get out of here alive?"

Cheryl ran a fingernail back and forth in the gap between two floor planks. Ali tried to hide a smile. A couple of the others sneaked glances at me-admiring glances, I thought: no one ever expected me to talk back to Hank Bodine.

I didn't know how he'd react, and at that point I didn't particularly care. But after a few seconds he said: "We don't have a choice but to pay the goddamned ransom."

"I'm not sure that's true," I said. "Cheryl's right: If we give in too easily to Russell's demands, there'll be no reason for him not to keep jacking the price up. If I were in his position, I'd probably do the same thing."

She glanced up at me warily. Her long coral fingernail had dislodged a tiny gray burrow of dust and earth.

What I didn't say, of course, was that I didn't really care how much money Hammond Aerospace paid out in ransom.

"Yet we can't just say no. Because whoever these guys are, you don't carry weapons like that if you're not prepared to use them."

Cheryl arched a quizzical eyebrow. "So what are you suggesting?"

I turned to Slattery. "What's the account number?"

"Which account number?" Slattery said.

"If you want to access our cash management accounts at the bank, you've got to know the account numbers, right? Or at least one of them. You have them all memorized?"

Slattery looked at me as if I'd lost my mind. "Of course not. I keep a list in my office…" His voice trailed off as it dawned on him. "But not here. Yes." He nodded.

"There you go. You need to call in to the office to get those numbers. Right?"

"Excellent," Cheryl said.

"You think he'll let me make a call?" Slattery asked.

"If he wants his money, he will."

"What good does that do us?" Bross said. "That buys us maybe five minutes. That's pathetic."

"It gets him on the phone with one of his assistants or his secretary, Kevin. And then maybe Ron can communicate that everything's not okay here."

"Oh, sure," Bross said. "Right. Russell's going to just stand there while Ron asks his secretary for our bank account numbers, and says, 'Oh, by the way, I've got a gun to my head, so you might want to notify the police.'"

"There's something called a duress code," I said to Bross. I kept my tone calm and reasonable-but condescending, as if explaining to a particularly slow child. "A distress signal. A word or phrase that sounds perfectly normal to Russell but actually alerts whoever he's speaking to that something's wrong. It's like a silent alarm."

"You got a better idea, Bross?" Bodine said.

"Yeah," Bross said. "Keep it simple. These are hicks with guns. All we do is tell him we can't wire money from any computer outside of Hammond headquarters. The way it should be. The way it was supposed to be."

"No," I said. "You don't want to bluff him like that. If he's done his homework, he'll know that's not true."

"Most of us didn't know if we could or not," Barlow said. "Why should he know any better?"

"And what if he has a source inside the company?" I said. "We sure as hell don't want to get caught lying to him. Do we, Ron?"

Slattery didn't reply. He didn't have to.

"Let's not find out the hard way what he knows and what he doesn't," I said.

"Then we just pay it," Bross said.

"And after we pay the ransom," I said quietly, "what makes you think these guys are going to just let us go?"

Bross started to reply, but stopped.

"They're not wearing masks or hoods," I said. "For all I know, they're using their real names. They're not concerned about being identified. Why do you think that might be?"

"Oh, Jesus," said Barlow, realizing.

"There's only one possible reason," I said. "They don't plan to leave any witnesses."

Cheryl's fingernail came to a stop. Lummis exhaled audibly, tremulously.

"I don't have any duress code worked out with my office," Slattery said.

"Just say something unexpected," I said. "Something off. Something that might alert someone who knows you well enough that you're in trouble."

"But what about Grogan and Danziger?" Slattery turned to me. "For all I know, one or both of those guys has our account numbers memorized. They might think they're being helpful and volunteer the information to Russell, then there's no phone call."

I nodded. "We have to get to them, that's all. Make sure they know the plan."

Grogan and Danziger were sitting on the other side of the river-stone fireplace, twenty or thirty feet away. The fireplace jutted out a good six feet. They were so far away that we couldn't even see them.

The only way to speak to them was actually to get up and move around the fireplace to the other side. But the moment one of our kidnappers saw anyone attempting that…

"This is idiotic," Bross said. "All this 'duress code' crap. It'll never work."

"If you have another idea," Slattery said, "let's hear it."

Then the front door banged, and Russell entered.

37

A few months after I got to Glenview, a new boy was admitted to D Unit. He was a scrawny little kid named Raymond Farrentino, in for dealing drugs. He was fifteen but looked twelve, and his voice hadn't even changed yet. He looked like a girl: long eyelashes, a delicate nose. He spoke with a stammer. His laugh sounded like a cartoon woodpecker.

Someone gave him the nickname Pee Wee.

I became his protector, for no reason except that he had no one else, and I felt bad for him. He was easy prey. He couldn't fight. I knew how that used to feel.

But Pee Wee returned the favor many times over. He was smart and clever, and he quickly had the place wired. He figured out how to defeat the electronic door locks on the cells so we could get out at night. He studied the guards' schedules and knew when the halls of D Unit were unwatched, when they went out for a smoke. He devised a method to get drugs inside: He convinced one of the kids to get his brother to stash drugs inside tennis balls and toss them over the fence into the wooded area near the carpentry shop, where they could be retrieved easily. If you wanted to get or hide contraband, like cigarettes or booze, you'd turn to Pee Wee for advice.

It took him a few months, but he found his place in the hierarchy. He became respected for his expertise. He began to smile from time to time. Even, once in a while, to laugh.

One day, though, he started acting different. He became subdued, withdrawn. I couldn't figure it out. I began to notice long, deep slashes on his face, which he refused to explain. After a while, his face became seamed, crisscrossed with angry red scars.

Finally I confronted him, demanded to know who was doing this to him. I told him I'd take care of whoever it was.

He showed me his bloodstained undershorts, told me that Glover, the chief guard on D Unit, was coming into his room at night. He'd switch off the surveillance camera and do things to him that he couldn't talk about.

He said he was thinking seriously of killing himself, and he knew how to do it. Then he showed me the loose steel coil he'd removed from his mattress and sharpened on the concrete floor of his room. He admitted that he was slashing his own face.

He didn't want to look pretty anymore.

38

Who's been smoking?" Russell said.

He sniffed the air, turned toward the dining table. "Verne, that you?"

"What about it?" Verne said.

"I don't want to be breathing secondhand smoke. You take it outside next time."

"Sorry, Russell. Okay if I go out for a smoke right now?"

I had a feeling he was going to do more than smoke a cigarette.

"Make it fast," Russell said. He clapped his hands. "All right, let's get down to business. Where's my little buddy Ronald?"

He crossed the room to our side of the fireplace. "How're you doing there, little guy?"

Slattery nodded sullenly. "Fine."

Upton Barlow said, "I need to use the bathroom."

Russell ignored him. "You have a family, Ronald?"

Slattery hesitated.

"Three daughters, right?"

Slattery looked up suddenly. "What are you-?"

"Divorced, that right?"

"We're-separated. How do you-?"

"You cheat on your wife, Ronald? Is that what happened?"

"We're separated, I said. Not divorced."

"You cheat on her?"

"I don't have to answer this."

Russell patted his holster. "No, you don't," he said. "You always have a choice."

"No," Slattery said. "I'll-I'll answer. I didn't start seeing anyone until after our marriage pretty much-"

"Ronald," he interrupted, shaking his head and making a tsk-tsk sound. "If a man can't live up to his marital vows, why should anyone trust his word? You love your daughters, Ronald?"

"More than anything in the world," Slattery said. His voice shook, tears flooding his eyes.

"How old are they, your daughters?"

"Sixteen, fourteen, and twelve."

"Aw, that's nice. That's sweet. But girls can be difficult at that age, am I right?"

"Please," Slattery said. "Please don't do this."

"Am I right?"

"I love them with all my heart. Russell, please."

"No doubt you do. But they don't live with you, do they? You're probably too busy to have a houseful of teenage girls."

"No, that's not why. My wife and I agreed the girls should live with their mother."

"So Daddy's free to screw chicks in his bachelor pad, huh?"

"That's not it at all-"

"I'll bet their dad's an important figure in their lives anyway."

"Very," Slattery managed to choke out.

"Gotta be tough on the girls not to have a dad around the house. Especially at such an important time."

"For God's sake," Barlow broke in, "will you let me go to the john?"

"They spend every weekend with me," Slattery said, "and every-"

"That the best you can do, Ron? Weekends? But I guess it's better than nothing, right? Better to have a weekend dad than no dad at all."

"Please," Slattery said, "what do you want?"

"I'm counting on you, Ronald. To make sure everything goes smoothly."

Slattery nodded frantically.

"I need to take a goddamned piss!" Barlow shouted abruptly. "I'm about to explode. You want me to do it right here on the floor?"

"Upton, please. I'm speaking with Ronald."

"This is cruel and inhumane," Barlow said.

Russell smiled. "No, Upton," he said patiently. "If you want to see cruel and inhumane, I'd be happy to demonstrate the difference." He raised his arm, flipped his fingers. "Buck, please escort poor Mr. Barlow to the head."

Buck sauntered over at a leisurely pace.

"You doing okay, there, Hank?"

Bodine stared at him and didn't reply.

Russell grinned. "Upton, sounds to me like you've got an enlarged prostate gland. Guy your age ought to be taking saw palmetto extracts. Pumpkin seeds, too. It's the only body you got. You really should take care of it."

"For Christ's sake," Barlow said.

Buck grabbed Barlow roughly by the arm.

Cheryl said, "I'd like to use the restroom as well. I'm sure others do, too."

"Thank you for the suggestion, Cheryl," said Russell. "Anyone else needs to use the facilities, my team will be happy to assist you, one at a time. Now, Ronald, have we figured out how we're going to make this transaction work? Everything clear?"

Slattery swallowed hard, nodded.

"Look," Bross said, "let me tell you something that everyone else is afraid to tell you. We simply don't have the ability to make a bank transfer from here."

"No?" Russell said.

Bross nodded. "No. Online bank transfer requests can only originate from computers inside Hammond headquarters."

Russell looked at him curiously for a moment, tipped his head to one side. "Tell me your name again."

"Kevin Bross."

"Bross," repeated Russell. "Bross balls, huh? Well, Bross Balls, maybe you can explain that to me a little more." He was speaking in that fake-innocent way I'd begun to recognize. I waited for the sting in the tail. "Use small words, please."

"See, every computer has what's called an IP address," Bross said. "And the bank's computers won't talk to another computer unless it has the right IP address."

"Really?" Russell said. "Gosh, that's bad news."

Bross nodded. "I'm sorry to break it to you, but that's just the way it works. Believe me, if we could do it, we would. So if there's some other arrangement we can make-"

"This is interesting," Russell said. He reached into his pocket, and we all froze.

He pulled out a small gray plastic object a few inches long and held it up. At its round end was the bright green logo of our bank; at the narrow end was a digital LCD readout.

"Because when I called your bank about setting up a corporate account, they said I could initiate a wire transfer from anywhere in the world, no problem. Any of your corporate customers can do that, they said. Just a wild guess, Bross Balls, but I'm thinking this here might be an RSA SecurID authenticator."

Bross licked his lips. "Right, but Hammond Aerospace has a whole system of security protocols in place, Russell-"

"I thought you were just telling me how the bank's computers won't recognize an unauthorized IP address, Bross," Russell said softly. "We weren't talking about your internal security procedures, were we?"

Bross faltered for a few seconds. "I'm telling you everything I know, to the very best of my knowledge-"

"You know something, Bross? I'm disappointed in you. But I guess I should have expected you'd try to pull a fast one. Executive Vice President of Sales and all-you probably think you're good at the sell. So now we're gonna have a change in plans. I'm going to have a little talk with each one of you separately. One on one. You're each gonna tell me privately everything you know about how to transfer money out of Hammond. That way I'll know if anyone's trying to pull a fast one on me. See if there's any contradictions. Anyone lies to me, we're gonna have some immediate layoffs. A little downsizing, you might say. Oh, and one more thing. The price just went up. Teach you kids a lesson. It's five hundred million now. Half a billion."

I turned to look at Ali, but all at once the lights went out, and we were plunged into darkness.

39

A shaft of sunlight neatly bisected the office of the Assistant Clinical Director of the Glenview Residential Center, Dr. Jerome Marcus. Dust motes hung suspended in the air. The room was surprisingly small, not much larger than a broom closet, choked with stacks of paper. Something in Dr. Marcus's face hinted at a secret resentment that a man so important would occupy an office so small. The corners of his small oak desk-a child's desk, I thought-were splintered.

"This is highly unusual," he said. He had a gentle voice, a kindly expression. "It's not the standard grievance procedure."

I nodded, swallowed, told him about Pee Wee Farrentino.

Dr. Marcus was a tall, round-shouldered man with a large, prominent forehead, neatly parted gray hair, rimless glasses that sometimes seemed to disappear. His blue button-down shirt was heavily starched and perfectly pressed.

He listened with growing dismay, fingers steepled. He asked me a lot of questions, took notes for a report. He said it was an outrage, that behavior like that must never be tolerated.

As he spoke, I examined the books on the shelf behind him. Titles like Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behavior and Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice and the Physician's Desk Reference. Thin blue loose-leaf binders whose browned labels curled out from their spines.

The bad wolf was urging me to go after Glover, choke the life out of him. The good wolf kept reminding me that if I did, I'd be sent to the hole for months on end. Or worse: Though I couldn't imagine what could be worse.

"You've done a brave thing," he said. He thanked me for coming to see him. His bottom lip, I noticed, was chapped.

Late that night the door to my room opened, and Glover and two other guards came in with batons.

"I know what you're doing to Pee Wee," I said.

"Don't leave any marks," Glover told the others.

40

Where's the manager?" Russell called out.

"Over here." A voice from the other side of the fireplace.

The clear night sky was filled with stars, and the moon was full. The room was bathed in pale gray-blue light. My eyes quickly adjusted. Russell went to the other side of the fireplace.

"What the hell's wrong with your power?"

"I don't-I don't know," the manager said. "Must be the generator."

"Well, who does know? Who fixes stuff around here?"

"Peter Daut," the manager said. "He's my handyman."

"All right, Peter Daut," Russell said. "Identify yourself."

"Right here." A muffled voice.

"What's the problem?"

More muffled voices. The handyman seemed to be talking to the manager, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. Then I heard the manager say, "Yes, Peter, please."

"You want to cooperate, Peter," Russell said. "No power means the satellite modem won't work, which means I don't get what I want. Which means I start eliminating hostages one by one until I do."

"The generator blew."

Peter the handyman, I assumed.

"Water in the fuel filter. Happens a lot. The diesel's always absorbing water out here, and I can't drain the tanks, so I just keep changing out the filters. I was gonna do that in the middle of the night tonight, because I have to shut down the generator engines while I-"

"Where's the remote start switch?" Russell said. "I know there's one inside here."

"That won't do it," the handyman replied. "The fuel filter needs to be changed, out at the shed."

"Wayne?" Russell said.

From the far side of the room came Wayne's high-pitched voice. "Yo, Russell."

"Please take this gentleman outside so he can fix the generator."

While Wayne lumbered over, Russell returned to our group. "Ronald, you're my first interview. Come with me, please."

Slattery struggled to his feet. With his hands tied, it wasn't easy. "Would you mind if I use the restroom first?" he asked.

"When Upton gets back. One at a time. Okay, Travis, Ronald and I are going to have a talk in the screened porch down at that end." He pointed in the direction of the dining table. "Keep a watch on our guests, please."

In the shadows I could make out Travis striding along the periphery of the room, a compact stainless-steel pistol at his side. He'd removed his long-sleeved camouflage shirt and wore only a sleeveless white tee. But his arms were so densely tattooed, mottled and greenish, that at first it looked like he was still wearing camouflage. At the back of his arm, by his elbow, was a tattoo of a spiderweb: another prison tattoo.

"Nice job, Kevin," Ali whispered to Bross. "That was a great bluff. Really genius."

"I didn't see anyone get killed, did you?" Bross said. "He didn't take out his gun. I tried, and it didn't work-big deal. I'm still here."

"You don't get it, do you? Not only did you get the ransom jacked up, but now we're totally screwed. He's going to question everyone separately, and we didn't even get a chance to talk to Danziger and Grogan."

"Go ahead," he said. "Why don't you just walk over there and tell them yourself?"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Ali said. "Have me get shot? And what was your big strategy? That line of crap you gave Russell, which he saw right through? Didn't you listen to a word Jake said? We all agreed to tell him we don't have the account numbers."

"Hey, I didn't agree to anything," Bross said. "And we all know why you're defending this loser."

"Because he obviously knows what he's doing. And you don't."

"The only thing that's obvious is that you two used to sleep together."

Ali was silent for a few seconds. I didn't have to see her face to know it was flushed-with embarrassment or with anger or both.

"I don't think you want be too high-and-mighty about office romances, Kevin," she said, biting off the words. "Or should we ask-"

"Ali," I said.

"Landry?"

"Never let an asshole rent space in your head. The guy's not worth your time. We've got to get to Grogan and Danziger now. Before Russell does."

Bross made a pffft sound. "Who's going to do that, you?" he said.

I didn't answer.

41

I watched Travis, trying to get a fix on his rhythm. I was beginning to think that he hadn't just done prison time; the way he walked convinced me that he'd also served in the military, maybe the Army or the National Guard. He had that soldierly cadence. He'd been broken in by a drill sergeant and done long tedious hours on night patrol.

He was also taking his job seriously. Any of the other hostage-takers would probably have sat in a chair, watching us. But maybe that was a good thing. It meant his back would be turned toward me for at least sixty seconds at a stretch. Given how dark it was in here, Travis could hardly see us: a great stroke of luck. But he'd surely hear and sense any sudden movement.

And for the moment he was the only guard in the room. Wayne was outside with the handyman, would probably be for a good while, until the power was up and running again. Verne had just gone outside for a smoke-and a toke, or a snort-and might be back in a minute or two, even five, if I got lucky and he took his time. Buck would return from the bathroom with Upton Barlow at any minute, depending on how long it took for a middle-aged guy with prostate problems to empty his bladder. I had no idea how long Russell would spend with Slattery. Ten minutes? Half an hour?

So if I was going to get to Grogan and Danziger, it had to be done right away.

The funny thing was, I didn't think twice about doing something so insanely risky. I just did it.

Maybe it was all about the look in Ali's face at the moment she saw me start to move, a look I'd never seen before: part terror, part admiration.

Or maybe it was because I knew no one else would. And if I didn't warn the two men not to remember the Hammond account numbers, my plan was doomed to fail.

Not that it wasn't doomed to fail already. Too many things could go wrong with it. Russell-too canny, too suspicious-might not fall for the phone call thing. He might simply scare the information out of someone at gunpoint: your company's money or your life. I knew what I'd choose.

He might not pick Slattery to do the transfer, especially if he knew that there were five executives-Grogan, Danziger, Bodine, Slattery, and Latimer-who also had the power. Whoever he did pick could easily screw it up, not figure out a way to communicate duress without Russell picking up on it. And whoever was at the other end of the phone might not get it.

And what if he already knew the account numbers?

So the odds of it working, the more I thought about it, were pretty damned slim.

Here I was, risking my life for a gambit that was likely to fail anyway. A gambit that, the more I mulled it over, was already starting to shred like wet tissue paper.

But to do nothing, I was certain, was to ensure that some of us, maybe even all of us, got killed.

Russell was wrong: You don't always have a choice.

Though the two men were only maybe thirty feet or so away, on the other side of the enormous fireplace, it might as well have been a mile.

I waited until Travis had completed a circuit, did his military-style about-face and passed us. And then I tried to get up.

But rising from the floor with your hands tied together, palms in, wasn't easy. I had to swing my knees over to one side, then lean my torso all the way forward. Extend my hands as if I were salaaming. Then I pressed the back of one of my hands against the floor and pushed myself up and to my feet.

It took almost five seconds. Which was way too long.

By the time I was standing, Travis had almost reached the end of the room. There was no time for me to run around the fireplace to the next alcove before he turned around.

Now what? I asked myself. Do I sit back down, wait until Travis's next circuit?

Then a screen door slammed. Not the front door: Verne, back from his cigarette break.

42

I no longer had a choice. I had to move.

I took long, loping strides, as fast as I could, yet at the same time treading as lightly as possible. A matter of a couple of seconds, but it felt like forever.

All the while my eyes were riveted on Travis.

He came to the end of his circuit and turned just as I sank to the floor next to the manager's son, Ryan. He-and everyone else around him-looked in astonishment. I gave a quick headshake to tell them to be quiet.

Travis glanced over but maintained his steady pace. He hadn't noticed.

Verne entered from the back hallway, walking quickly, sniffing, swinging his arms jerkily, humming some tune, amped. When he was out of range, Ryan Fecher said, "What the hell-"

I put a finger to my lips, slid across the floor.

Alan Grogan and John Danziger were seated next to each other.

"Are you out of your freakin' mind?" Danziger said. I noticed the large bald spot under his fine blond hair. His light blue alligator shirt looked as if it had been ironed. He was one of those preppy guys whose clothes always fit perfectly, who had a certain natural, aristocratic ease and economy of motion.

"Yeah," I said. "I must be."

I quickly explained. As I did, he and Grogan exchanged looks-of disbelief, then skepticism and apprehension.

"I don't have the account numbers with me, either," Danziger said. "Why would I?"

"Well, I do," said Grogan. "In my head."

"Figures," Danziger said with feigned disgust. He turned to me, and said, with obvious pride, "Grogan's a USA Math Olympiad gold medalist. Even though he'll never admit it."

Grogan glared at Danziger. "Thanks, pal." The moonlight caught the network of fine lines around his hazel eyes.

"Hey," Danziger said, "if that's the only dirty little secret about you that comes out here, you're lucky."

"Very funny," Grogan said, sounding almost peeved.

"Russell doesn't know you have those numbers memorized," I said. "So you don't say a word. We clear?"

Both men nodded.

"If anyone tells him different," Danziger said, "we're in deep shit. The guy's already made it clear he doesn't want to be lied to. And what the consequences will be if anyone does."

"Right," I said. "But if we all agree, then it's the truth. Right?"

Grogan and Danziger looked less than convinced.

"Having a gun pointed at you does funny things to people," Grogan said. "We don't know what the others might do if Russell threatens them."

"That's a risk we're going to have to take," I said.

We sat in silence for half a minute or so while Travis passed by. Then Danziger whispered, "Listen, there may be something else."

I looked at him.

"When you mentioned a duress code-it jogged my memory. You know, I set something up with the bank a while ago, but we never had an opportunity to use it. Never came up. It's sort of a silent alarm-an electronic duress code."

"Electronic? How does that work?"

"It's just a variant authentication code. If you enter a nine before and after the PIN, it trips a silent alarm. Tells the bank officer that the transaction is fraudulent, probably coerced."

"Then what happens?"

"Well, first thing, they freeze the account. Then a whole emergency sequence gets triggered-calls are made to a list of people. My office, the CEO's office, the director of corporate security. Telling them something's wrong: Someone's probably forcing a company officer to access the bank accounts."

"But are they going to know where it's happening?"

"Sure. Our own corporate security people can dig up the IP address we logged in from-where the duress code originated. That'll tell them exactly where we are."

I nodded. "So corporate security or whoever can alert the Canadian authorities. Yes. But would Russell know we tripped an alarm?"

"Not at all. He'll see a false positive response. He'll think the transaction was successful."

"He'll know it wasn't as soon as he checks his account balance."

"True. No way around that."

"So when he sees that the wire transfer didn't go through," I said, "we'll just tell him it must have gotten intercepted along the way. Maybe at some higher level at the bank. Or by U.S. banking authorities. Some line of bullshit-he's not going to know the truth. But by then, the word will be out that we're in trouble."

"Exactly."

"Could work," I said.

"Maybe."

"Right now," I said, "it's all we have."

43

The manager's son, Ryan Fecher, made a psst sound and slid over toward me.

"I recognize a couple of those guys," he said, so softly I could barely hear him.

"From where?"

"From here."

"When? Which ones?"

"Last week, I think it was. We didn't have any corporate groups, just separate parties. That guy-Russell? The leader? And that guy who keeps bring people in and out?"

"Travis."

"I think they're brothers," he said.

"I think you're right. What'd they do here?"

"They kept to themselves, didn't socialize with anyone. Didn't want to do any of the normal stuff like fishing. They mostly hung out here, took a lot of pictures."

"Of what?"

"The inside and outside of the lodge, the grounds, the dock, all that. They said they were into architecture and they'd heard about this place. Wanted to know how many staffers we had and where they lived. If we had Internet and if it was wireless and if it was in all the guest rooms or not. Whether we had landline phones or satellite phones, and whether guests could use the sat phone. How we got supplies like food and stuff and how often we got deliveries and mail. And they wanted a tour of the lodge."

"Inside and out?"

"Everything. Even the basement, but I got busy-we were pretty short-staffed last week-so I just told them to look around themselves."

"They didn't seem suspicious to you?"

"Well, there was the architecture thing-I mean, this is one of the oldest lodges in Canada-and they said they were thinking of opening their own fishing lodge in Wyoming. Which I guess was kinda weird, since they sure had no interest in fishing, you know?"

"You never told me this," his father said.

"I never gave it any thought until now," Ryan said. "Why would I?"

If Russell and his brother had come to the lodge a week earlier to scope it out, they'd been tipped off by somebody.

I asked the manager: "Who knew we were coming?"

He looked puzzled, then defensive. "Who knew-? I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"These guys knew the top officers of the Hammond Aerospace Corporation were going to be staying here. This whole thing was planned. That means they had a source. An informer. Maybe even a member of your staff. That's what I'm wondering."

He scowled. "Oh, come on. You think one of my people was involved? That's just…insane."

"Not necessarily involved. Just talked to someone. Maybe without even knowing who he was talking to."

He was indignant. "The only ones who get the booking schedule in advance are me and my son."

"People have to order supplies."

"I do the ordering. There's no one else. What makes you so sure this was planned?"

"A bunch of things," I said. "How do you get supplies in here?"

"We've got a contract air service out of Vancouver that does a supply run every three days."

"When's the next one?"

"Not until Saturday."

I nodded, wondered whether Russell knew that, whether it figured into his timing. "How'd they get here, do you think? Through the woods?"

He shook his head. "No way. The woods are way too dense. Had to be a boat."

"There must be old hunting trails."

"They're all grown over. No one hunts around here anymore. Haven't for years."

"Since it's been made a wildlife preserve?"

"Before that, even. There's really nothing to hunt. I mean, there's always going to be people who'll break the law if there's something to catch. But the deer are way too small. A long time ago people used to trap beavers. Used to be a grizzly hunt, once, a while back. But not in forever. Years ago the Owekeeno Indians cut trails through the forests, but they're all grown over, too."

"How far's the nearest lodge?"

After a few seconds, he said, "Kilbella Bay, but it's a ways."

"Can you get to it on land?"

"Nah, it's across the inlet."

"So these guys must have taken a boat or a seaplane."

"Would have had to. But…"

"But what?"

"I didn't hear anything. I always hear boats passing by on the inlet, or coming in, and I didn't hear any motors. And I sure would have heard a plane."

"You were busy in the kitchen."

"I woulda heard it, believe me. Always do."

"So maybe they rowed in."

"Maybe. Or took a motorboat in partway, then cut the engines and rowed the rest of the way in."

"Which would mean they probably left their boat down on the shore, right?"

He shrugged. After a moment, he said, "I did hear a gunshot."

"We all did."

"Come to think of it, I haven't seen Josй."

"Who's Josй?"

"One of the Mexican kids. I told him to hose out a couple of the boats earlier tonight, but…"

"Around the time these guys showed up?"

"It would be, yeah."

"He probably ran into the woods," I said.

Paul glanced at me, looked away. "Yeah," he said. "Probably."

I began sidling away, when he stopped me. "This lodge is my whole life, you know."

I nodded, listened. He wanted to talk, and I let him.

"I mean, when it was built, a century ago, it was sort of a madman's folly. A crazy rich guy came out here when there was nothing else around except a couple of salmon canneries and decided to build this huge, beautiful fishing lodge." He shook his head, smiled sadly. "I'm not even the majority owner. He's in Australia, in Canberra. Only comes up here when we have celebrities visiting-movie stars and tycoons. He likes to schmooze with them. I put in the sweat equity. Even in the off-season, I'm always working, doing the hiring, repair work." He closed his eyes. "My wife left me. Couldn't stand the isolation. So now it's just me and my son, and he wants out, too."

"That's not true, Dad," Ryan said.

"This is a time for complete honesty," Paul said to his son. To me, he continued: "You know, my chief pleasure in life is when guests leave happy. I know, you probably don't believe that, do you?"

"I do."

"Or when they write me or e-mail me to say what a good time they had. It makes me feel like a host at a great dinner party. And now…this."

"Some dinner party."

"I don't know what I could have done differently."

"There's nothing you could have done," I said.

He seemed to consider that for a few seconds; he looked unconvinced. "Once he gets the ransom…We're not getting out of here alive, are we?"

I didn't reply.

He closed his eyes. "Dear God."

"That doesn't mean we can't try to do something."

He nodded for a long time. "You know any Hindu mythology, Jake?"

"I'm afraid not."

"There's a story. A Hindu myth. About a king who's given a curse. He's going to die in seven days from a snakebite. And you know-when he hears this curse, he feels…serene. Joyful."

"Oh yeah?"

"See, he knows he's got seven days to live. Seven days to prepare for his death. To devote to the contemplation of Krishna. To prepare for his departure for the spiritual world. He's filled with joy, Jake, and you know why? Because we're all under a sentence of death, and none of us knows when death will come to us. But he knows, you see. He knows. He knows he's going to die, and he's accepted it."

I paused just long enough for him to think I was mulling all this over. "No offense," I said, "but I'm not a Hindu."

I waited for Travis to pass by again.

A thought had occurred to me, and I shifted around to Danziger.

"If we have kidnap-and-ransom insurance," I said, "doesn't that mean we have some firm on retainer that specializes in rescuing hostages?"

Danziger smiled: rueful, not condescending. "That's only in the movies. In the real world, very few risk-management firms actually do retrievals. They do hostage negotiation with the kidnappers and make the payment arrangements. But this isn't a ransom situation. Russell's too smart for that. He knows what he's doing." Danziger paused. "He does seem to know an awful lot about how this all works."

"So do you."

"It's part of my job. At Hammond, the controller is also what they call the 'risk manager.' That means I work with Ron Slattery and Geoff Latimer to arrange for all the special risk insurance coverage. Told you I'd put you to sleep if I told you too much about what I do." He seemed distracted, looked at Grogan. "How does he know so much about K &R, do you think?"

"I've been wondering the same thing," Grogan said. "You remember when Latimer told us about this security firm in California he thought we might want to have on retainer? Some law school classmate of his founded it or ran it, maybe?"

"Right!" Danziger said. "They did recovery and retrieval, not just hostage negotiation. A lot of child abduction cases, I remember-divorces and such. One of their employees got arrested in South America on a child recovery case he was working, charged with kidnapping under the international treaty agreements. Did a couple years in prison in the U.S. That pretty much cooled me on them."

The two men exchanged glances.

I said, "You think that's Russell? That guy?"

Danziger shrugged. "How else could Russell know so much?"

"What do I know so much about?"

A voice with the grit of fine sandpaper.

Russell.

I looked away, stared at the log walls. I didn't want to catch his eye. Didn't want him to notice that I'd moved.

My heart hammered.

"I know a lot of stuff," he said. "Like the fact that you were sitting over there before."

I looked at Russell, shrugged nonchalantly.

"I think you and I need to have a talk, Jake," he said. "Right now. Where's the cook?"

A small woman with a big mop of unruly curly hair, who'd been dozing against the stone side of the fireplace, looked around and said, "I'm the chef."

"Man, I never trust a skinny cook," he said. "How's your coffee?"

"My coffee? We have Sumatra and Kona-"

"How about java? You got java? I'd love a big pot of coffee. Nice and strong."

She looked at the manager, frightened. He nodded.

"He's not the boss anymore, babe," said Russell. "I am. Now, my friend Verne is going to take you into the kitchen while you make us some coffee."

"How do you like it?" she said. "Cream? Sugar? Splenda?"

"Now you've got the right attitude. I like it black. Those artificial sweeteners will kill you."

44

After I'd been at Glenview a few months, Mom was allowed to visit.

She looked like she'd aged twenty years. I told her she looked good. She said she couldn't believe how I'd changed in a few short months. I'd gotten so muscular. I'd become a man. It looked like I was even shaving, was that possible?

Most of her visit we sat in the molded orange plastic chairs in the visitor's lounge and watched the TV mounted high on the wall. She cried a lot. I was quiet.

"Mom," I said as she was leaving. "I don't want you to come here again."

She looked crestfallen. "Why not?"

"I don't want you to see me in here. Like this. And I don't want to remember why I'm here. I'll be out in a year or so. Then I'll be home."

She said she understood, though I'll never know if she really did. A month later, she was dead from a stroke.

45

The screened porch was cool and breezy. It had a distinctive, pleasant smell-of mildewed furnishings, of the tangy sea air, of the oil soap used to wash the floor. It was obviously not a place that saw much use.

"Come into my office," Russell said. He'd taken off his tactical vest and had put on a soiled white pit cap that said DAYTONA 500 CHAMPION 2004 on the front and had a big number 8 on the side.

The moon, fat and bright, cast a silvery light through the screens. The sky glittered with a thousand stars.

He pointed to a comfortable-looking upholstered chair. A glider, I found, when I sat in it. He sat in the one next to it. We could have been two old friends passing the time in relaxed conversation, drinking beers and reminiscing.

Except for his pewter gray eyes, flat and cold: something terribly detached about them, something removed and unnerving. The eyes of a sociopath, maybe; someone who didn't feel what others felt. I'd seen eyes like his before, at Glenview. He was a man who was capable of doing anything because he was restrained by nothing.

I felt a cold hard lump form in my stomach.

"You want to tell me what you were doing out there?" he said.

"Trying to help."

"Help who?"

"I was passing along word from the CEO."

"Word?"

"To cooperate. Telling the guys not to cause trouble. To just do whatever you say so we can all get out of here alive."

"She told you to walk over there to tell them that?"

"She prefers e-mail, but it doesn't seem to be working so well."

He was silent. I could hear the waves lapping gently against the shore, the rhythmic chirping of crickets.

"Why'd she ask you?"

"No one else was crazy enough."

"Well, you got balls, I'll give you that. I think you're the only one out of all of them who's got any balls."

"More balls than brains, I guess."

"So if I ask Danziger and Grogan what you were talking about, they're going to tell me the same thing."

The hairs on the nape of my neck bristled. "You're good with names, huh?"

"I just like to come prepared."

I nodded. "Impressive. How long have you been planning this?"

I registered a shift in his body language, a sudden drop in the temperature. I'd miscalculated.

"Am I going to have trouble with you?" he said.

"I just want to go home."

"Then don't be a hero."

"For these guys?" I said. "I don't even like them."

He laughed, stretched his legs out, yawned.

I pointed to his cap, and said, "I saw that race."

He looked at me blankly.

"That's Junior, right?"

"Huh?" It took him a few seconds to remember he was wearing a NASCAR cap.

"Dale Earnhardt Jr.," I said.

He nodded, turned away, looked straight ahead.

"Junior crossed the finish line a fraction of a second ahead of Tony Stewart," I said. "Yeah, I remember that one. Seven or eight cars just wiped out. Michael Waltrip's car must have flipped over three times."

He gave me a quick sidelong glance. "I was there, man."

"You're kidding me."

"Also saw his daddy get killed there three years before."

I shook my head. "Crazy sport. I think a lot of people tune in just for the crashes. Like maybe they'll get lucky and see someone die."

He gave me a longer look this time, didn't seem to know what to make of me. One of the snotty rich executives who followed NASCAR? It didn't compute. I guess I was doing a decent job pretending to care.

"Nothing like the old days," he said. "NASCAR used to be like bumper cars. Drivers used to race hard. A demolition derby. The old bump-and-run."

"Reminds me of that line from a movie," I said. "Rubbin's racin'."

"Days of Thunder, man!" He was suddenly enthusiastic, his smile like a child's. "My favorite movie of all time. How's it go again? 'He didn't slam you, he didn't bump you, he didn't nudge you-he rubbed you. And rubbin', son, is racin'.' That's it, man."

"That's it," I said, nodding sagely. Bond with the guy. Connect. "Sometimes a driver's just gotta shove another car out of position. Spin the other guy out. Wreck his car. Trade a little paint. But that's all changed now."

"Exactly. Now you race too hard, they sock you with a penalty. Everyone's got to stay in line."

"NASCAR got sissified."

"They turned it into a corporation, see."

"Damn straight."

He gave me another quizzical look. "How come you're so much younger than the rest of the guys?"

"I just look younger. I eat right. Saw-tooth palmetto."

A smile spread slowly across his face. "Saw palmetto. You some-one's assistant or something?"

"Nah, I'm just a ringer. A substitute."

"That why you're not on the original guest list?"

So he does have a guest list. From Hammond? It could just as well be someone who works at the resort. Someone who doesn't have the most up-to-date information.

No, it had to be a source inside Hammond: How else could he know so much about Ron Slattery's personal life?

He has an inside source: but who?

"I was a last-minute replacement."

"For Michael Zorn?"

Interesting, I thought. He's keeping track. "Right."

"What happened to Zorn?"

So his information was at least a day or two old. Also interesting: He knew a lot about money laundering and offshore banks, about kidnap-and-ransom insurance, yet he didn't know everything about Hammond's finances. Not, at least, what he needed to know.

"Mike had to go to India for some client meetings," I said.

"So how'd they choose you?"

"I have no idea."

He nodded slowly. "I think you're full of shit."

"Funny, that's what my last quarterly performance review said."

He smiled, turned his penetrating gaze away.

"But if I had to guess, it's because I know a lot about our newest airplane."

"The H-880. You an engineer?"

"No, but I think I met one once."

He chuckled.

"I'm the assistant to the guy who's in charge of building the SkyCruiser. I'm like a glorified traffic cop. Actually, forget the 'glorified' part."

"Any of that traffic include money stuff? What do you know about the payments system-how money's moved in and out of the company?"

"I know that my paycheck gets deposited into my bank account every two weeks. That's about it, though. As much as I need to know. I'm the low man on the totem pole here."

He thought for a while. "That doesn't mean what you think."

"What doesn't?"

"'Low man on the totem pole.' The lower part of a totem pole is actually the most important part, see, because it's what most people look at. So it's usually done by the chief carver. He has his apprentices do the top part."

"Thanks," I said. "Now I feel better about it."

"Of course, the other guys don't know about totem poles. So they treat you like shit."

"Not really."

"I see things."

"I guess I don't. Though they do like to rub it in about how much money they have. Fancy restaurants and golf-club memberships and all that."

"That's 'cause they're not men. They're soft."

"Or maybe it's just that they know I just don't come from their world."

"Well, it's pretty obvious you're nothing like them. They're all a bunch of pussies and sissies and cowards."

He was playing me, too, but why?

"Not really. Some of them are serious jocks. Pretty competitive-Alpha Male types. And they all make a lot more money than me."

He hunched forward in his chair, pointing a stern finger. He spoke precisely, as if reciting something he'd memorized. "Someone once said that the great tragedy of this century is that a man can live his entire life without ever knowing for sure if he's a coward or not."

"Huh. Never thought about that."

He glanced at me quickly, decided I wasn't being sarcastic.

"You know what's wrong with the world today, bro? The computers. They're ruining the human race."

"Computers?"

"You ever see elks mate?" Russell said.

"Never had the pleasure."

"Every fall the female elk releases this musk in her urine, see. Tells the bull elks she's ready to mate. The bull elks can smell the musk, and they start fighting each other over the female. Charge at each other, butting heads, locking antlers, making this unbelievable racket, this loud bugling, until one of them gives up, and the winner gets the girl."

"I've seen bar fights like that."

"That's how the females can tell which bulls are the fittest. They mate with the winners. Otherwise, the weak genes get passed on, and the elks are gonna die out. This is how it works in nature."

"Or the corporate world."

"No. That's where you're wrong." The stern lecturer's finger again. "My point. Doesn't work like that with humans anymore. Used to be, a human who was too slow would get eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. Natural selection, right?"

"Didn't the saber-toothed tiger go extinct?"

A darting look of irritation. "These days, everything's upside down. Women don't mate with the better hunter anymore. They marry the rich guys."

"Maybe the rich guys are the better hunters now."

He scowled, but I had a sense that he didn't mind the fencing. Maybe even liked it. "It's like Darwin's law got repealed. Call it the rule of the weak."

"Okay."

"You think women can tell which men are the fittest anymore? They can't. You see a guy who's really cut and buff and wearing a muscle shirt to show it off, and you can figure he spends all his time in the gym, but you know something? Odds are he's a faggot."

"Or a WrestleMania champ."

Another flash of annoyance; I'd gone too far. "I mean, look at these guys." He waved at the wall, at the hostages on the other side. "This country was made by guys like Kit Carson, fighting the Indians with knives and six-shooters. Brave men. But that's all gone now. Now, some pencil-neck geek sitting at a computer can launch a thousand missiles and kill a million people. The world's run by a bunch of fat-ass wimps who only know how to double-click their way to power. Think they should get a Purple Heart for a paper cut."

"I like that."

"Their idea of power is PowerPoint. They got headsets on their heads and their fingers on keyboards and they think they're macho men when they're just half wimp and half machine. Nothing more than sports-drink-gulping, instant-message-sending, mouse-clicking, iPod-listening, web-surfing pussies, and God didn't mean for the likes of them to run this planet on the backs of real men."

A knock at the door, and Verne came in with a mug, which he handed to Russell.

"Finally. Thank you, Verne," Russell said.

"Now they're all bitching and moaning about how they can't sleep on the floor," Verne said, shrugging and twitching.

"Tell 'em this ain't the Mandarin Oriental. Who's complaining-the boss lady?"

"Yeah, her. And some of the guys, too."

"Pussies. All right, look. No reason to keep 'em there, with the hard floor. I want 'em going to sleep. There's a room with a big rug, off the main room. The one with all the stuffed deer heads on the wall. The game room."

"I know it."

"Move 'em all in there. Tell 'em to stretch out and go to sleep. Easier to keep watch."

"Okay."

"Close and lock the windows."

"Gotcha," Verne said, and he left.

He folded his legs, leaned back in his chair. "Aren't you the one who told Verne you were going to gouge out his good eye if he touched your girlfriend?"

"She's not my girlfriend."

He surprised me with a half smile. "You do have balls."

"I just didn't like the way he was talking to her."

"So how come you know about the Glock 18?"

"I did a year in the National Guard after high school." When no college would accept me.

"You a gun nut?"

"No. But my dad sort of was, so some of it rubbed off."

Dad kept trophy hand grenades around the house, a veritable arsenal of unregistered weapons: "Gun nut" didn't really begin to describe him.

"You a good shot?"

"Not bad."

"I'm guessing you're probably a pretty decent shot. The good ones never brag about it. So you got a choice here. You're either gonna be my friend and my helper, or I'm going to have to kill you."

"Let me think about that one."

"Guy like you could go either way." He shook his head. "I still get a vibe off you like you might try to be a hero."

"You don't know me."

"Thing is, I don't hear the fear in your voice. Like maybe there's something missing in you. Or something different."

"That right?"

"Haven't figured it out yet."

"Let me know when you do."

"I'm thinking you might try something reckless. Don't."

"I won't."

"What I got going here is too important to get screwed up by a kid with more testosterone than brains. So don't think you're fooling me. Don't think I'm not onto you. Someone's gonna have to be the first to get shot tonight, just to teach everyone a lesson. Make sure everyone gets it. And I think it might just be you."

46

If he meant to scare me, it worked. I refused to let him see it, though. I paused for a second or two, then affected a lighthearted tone.

"Your call," I said, "but I'm not sure you want to do that."

"Why not?"

"You think I'm the last guy you can trust? Consider maybe I'm the only one you can trust."

He sat back, folded his arms, narrowed his eyes. "How's that?"

"You said it yourself, Russell. Of all the guys here, I'm the peon. I don't get a bonus. I don't get stock options. I really don't care how much money you take from the company. A million, a billion, it's all the same to me. Doesn't affect me in the slightest. I don't care how much money Hammond makes or loses. I didn't even want to come here in the first place. Most of them didn't want me here."

"You telling me you don't really care one way or another if something happens to any of those guys? Sorry, I don't believe you."

"Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see anyone get hurt. But it's not like any of them are friends of mine. They may be worth more, but their lives aren't worth any more than mine."

"You'd care if something happened to your girlfriend."

"She's a friend. Not a girlfriend." I hesitated. "Yeah, I'd care if anything happened to her. I'll admit that. But I'm cooperating. I want this to be over. I just want to go home."

"Well, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Anything could happen."

"Like I said, I'm cooperating."

His pewter eyes had become dull, opaque, as if someone had switched off a light. "Sounds to me like maybe we're on the same side here."

He didn't mean it, and I knew better than to agree. "I don't know about that," I said. "But I get it that you're not kidding around. So I'll do whatever I can to help you get what you want."

"That's what I like to hear."

"So what are you gonna do?"

"What am I gonna do?"

"Half a billion dollars, huh? That's a shitload of money. What are you gonna do with it?"

His stare pierced through me as if he had X-ray vision and was examining my insides to see what made me tick. "Don't worry. I'll figure something out."

"Half a billion dollars," I said. "Man. Know what I'd do? If it was me?"

A long pause. "Let's hear it."

"I'd take off to some country that doesn't have an extradition treaty with the U.S."

"What, Namibia? Northern Cyprus? Yemen? No thanks."

So he had looked into it. Most people wouldn't know the right countries unless they were serious.

"There's other places," I said.

"Such as?"

Was he still sizing me up, or did he really want to know? "Costa Rica, I think," I said.

"Forget it. That's like trying to disappear in Beverly Hills."

"There's this place in Central America, between Panama and Colombia I think it is, where there's no government. Ten thousand square miles of real outlaw country. Like the Wild West in the old days. Kit Carson stuff."

"You're talking about the Dariйn Gap." He nodded: You couldn't tell him anything. "No roads. Mostly jungle. Full of Africanized honeybees. I hate bees."

"There's gotta be decent countries in the world that haven't signed extradition treaties-"

"Signing an extradition treaty is one thing. Enforcing it's another. Plus, there's a difference between extradition and deportation, buddy. Sure there's plenty of decent places. You can get lost in Belize or Panama. The Cubans won't deport you to the U.S. if you know who to pay off. Cartagena's not bad, either."

"You've done your homework."

"Always. I hope you learn that sooner rather than later."

"Sounds to me like you've been planning this for a while."

A slow, lethal grin. He said nothing.

"I hope you've taken precautions to cover the money trail, too," I said. "You steal half a billion dollars from one of the world's biggest corporations, you're gonna have an awful lot of people trying to track it down. Track you down."

"Let 'em hunt all they want. Once it moves offshore, it disappears."

"You know, our bank's not going to authorize a transfer of five hundred million dollars to the Cayman Islands or whatever. That'll just raise all kind of red flags."

"Actually, I was thinking Kazakhstan."

"Kazakhstan? That sounds even more suspicious."

"Sure. Unless you know how often Hammond wires money to a company in Kazakhstan."

"Huh?"

"It's all there on the Internet. On some-what is it?-Form 8-K on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Seems Boeing buys their titanium from Russia, so you guys buy it from Kazakhstan. One of the largest titanium producers in the world."

"That right?" I'd never heard this. I wondered if he was making it up; I didn't think he was.

"Titanium prices keep skyrocketing, so you guys like to stockpile it. Hammond's got a ten-year contract with some company in Kazakhstan, name I can't remember, for over a billion dollars. So every year you wire hundreds of millions of dollars to the National Bank of Kazakhstan."

"We wire money to Kazakhstan, huh?"

"Not directly. To their correspondent bank in New York. Deutsche Bank."

"How do you know all this?"

"Like you said, Jake, I do my homework. So let's say I set up a shell company in Bermuda or the British Virgin Islands or the Seychelles and gave it the name of some made-up titanium export firm in Kazakhstan, right? Your bank wires it to this fake company that has an account at Deutsche Bank in New York-they're not going to know any better."

"I thought the Germans cooperate with the U.S. on money laundering."

"Oh, sure. But Deutsche Bank isn't going to have it for more than a second or two before it goes to the Bank for International Settlements in Basel. And from there-well, just take it from me. I got this all figured out."

He really did. He wasn't making it up-he seemed to know too many details. "I'm impressed."

"Never underestimate me, buddy. Now, a couple of questions for you."

I nodded.

"That lady CEO," Russell said. "Cheryl Tobin. Most of these guys don't like her, huh?"

"I like her okay." What did he care?

"Well, you're low on the totem pole." A sly smile. "I'm talking about the senior guys."

"Most don't," I admitted.

"How come? Because she's a bitch?"

I paused for a second. Some guys use "bitch" interchangeably for "woman." Men like Russell, I figured. I wasn't going to teach him manners. "Yeah, they're probably not comfortable having a woman in charge. But the fact is, like it or not, she's the boss."

"Boss may not always be right, but she's still the boss, that it?"

"Like that."

He shook his head. "I think it's because they don't want her investigating them. They're scared she might find something. Like a bribe, maybe."

"News to me." Had Slattery told him about the internal corporate investigation? Or someone else-his inside source? "Wouldn't surprise me, though. She's a real stickler for rules."

"They'd love to get rid of her."

"Maybe, some of them. But the board of directors hired her. Not them."

"And she doesn't have the power to fire any of them, does she?"

"Never heard that before."

"There's a lot about your company I know."

"I can see that." And I wondered how.

"She's holding out on me."

"That's her job. Someone has to, and she runs the company. But she'll come around."

"Maybe I don't need her."

"Maybe you do. That's the thing, Russell. You gotta keep your options open. Anyone who has signing authority is someone you might need around. The point is for you to get your money. Not prune the deadwood."

"But she doesn't have signing authority, does she?"

"That's way above my pay grade, Russell."

"Interesting, isn't it?"

"If true. You get all this from Ron Slattery?"

"I have my sources." He winked. "Gotta know who I need to keep alive."

"You never know who you might need."

"Only need one."

I shook my head. "Don't assume that. The amount you're talking, the bank's probably going to require the authorization of two corporate officers. That means user IDs and passwords and who knows what else."

"Once I get the user IDs and the passwords, I don't need 'em anymore."

"Russell," I said, "let's be honest: You're talking about shooting someone to put the fear of God into the rest of us, right? But the thing is, you don't know which names the bank has on their list. What if they insist on a callback?"

"A callback?"

"A phone call to verify the transaction."

"Not going to happen that way. It's all going to be done over the Internet."

"Right, but look at it this way. A request for half a billion dollars e-mailed from some computer outside the country-that's bound to raise all kinds of questions at the bank."

"Not if we're using the right authorization codes."

"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe not. Let's say the wire request goes to some pain-in-the-ass bureaucrat at the bank. Some low-level employee in the wire-transfer room who's seen too many TV shows about Ukrainian bank fraud and doesn't want to lose her job. She calls back the number on file for the Hammond treasury operations office or whatever it's called, but nobody at Hammond headquarters has a record of any transfer request."

"The top guys are all here," he said. He sounded a little less sure of himself.

"So someone at headquarters says, gosh, I don't know anything about that, but here's the phone number of the lodge where all the honchos are. The bank lady, she's thinking she's being such a good doobie, she's gonna get a promotion for sure, maybe even be made deputy assistant supervisor of the wire room, and she calls the number here. Which happens to be the only telephone in the whole place-the manager's satellite phone. Maybe you answer the phone yourself. Whatever. But she asks to speak to someone whose name's on her list."

"They'll talk to her, believe you me."

"And maybe the protocol is, she's got to talk to two senior officers. An amount that size."

"Maybe."

"So you want to have at least two of them around to answer the phone and say, yeah, it's cool."

"She's not going to know who she's talking to. Shit, Buck could pretend he's Ronald Slattery, comes to that."

I shrugged. "And if they have voiceprints? Half a billion dollars, you never know what sort of security precautions they might take."

"Still only need two of them."

"Thing is, Russell, you don't know for sure which names are on the bank's list."

"Huh?"

"Look, I don't know how this works. But what if the bank has a list of two or three names you've got to call if a request comes in for a transfer over, I don't know, fifty million or a hundred million bucks. You're not going to know who's on that list."

He was silent for five, ten seconds. Looked around the porch. Moths fluttered outside. Some big insect-a june bug, maybe-kept colliding with the screen. The crickets seemed to be chirping louder and faster, but maybe that was just my imagination. It was brighter outside than in here: I could see the glimmering of the moon on the waves, the silvery wooden dock, the boulders and rocks of the shore.

"You're pulling all this out of your ass, aren't you?" he said.

"You bet."

He nodded, smiled. Then his smile faded. "Doesn't mean you're wrong, though."

"And another thing? One of the hostages needs his insulin."

"That guy Latimer."

"He could go into a coma. He could die. You don't want that."

"I don't?"

"He's the General Counsel. He might have signing authority, too. Don't dynamite any bridges you might need to cross later on."

He nodded. "Why're you being so helpful?"

"Maybe I want to save my ass."

"If you're trying something, I'll know."

"I told you. I just want to go home."

We looked at each other for a few seconds. It felt like an hour. The roar of the ocean, the lapping of the waves against the rocks on the beach.

"Stay on my good side," he said, "and you'll make it out of here alive. But if you try anything-"

"I know."

"No," Russell said. "You don't know. You think you know what's happening here, dude, but you really have no idea."

47

Russell's words echoed in my head as Travis followed me out of the screened porch and through the great room.

You think you know what's happening here, dude, but you really have no idea.

He took me to another room I hadn't seen before, some kind of parlor or reading room with antlers and moose heads mounted on the walls. The floor was covered with a large Oriental carpet, where some of the hostages were stretched out or curled up, and others sat in clusters, talking quietly. For a moment it reminded me of kindergarten, when all the kids would lie down on little rugs at naptime.

A Coleman lantern on a trestle table near the door gave off a cone of greenish light. Nearby, two guards on duty, sitting near each other in railback chairs, murmuring to each other: Buck, the one with the black hair and goatee; and Verne, the ex-con with the teardrop tattoos.

Only one door, I noticed. There were windows, but they were shut and, I assumed, locked.

I wondered how long they'd keep us here. It was early Thursday morning already. I assumed that Russell would be interrogating people throughout the night: the large pot of black coffee.

Travis shoved me to the floor. Then he called Geoff Latimer's name. Latimer was lying on his side, pale and exhausted.

"You're in luck," Travis said, helping Latimer to his feet with a gentleness I didn't expect.

"Thank God," said Latimer.

Travis and Latimer left the room, and the two guards whispered. Verne, twitchy, jiggled his foot up and down. They obviously weren't worried about us-unarmed, our hands bound.

The room was mostly quiet. Bodine and his guys were speaking in low voices. A few of the hostages whispered to one another-Bodine, Barlow, and Bross, the Three Musketeers, off in one corner, conspiring. I noticed that Ron Slattery had joined them.

Others had fallen asleep already, worn out by the stress and the long day and the late hour. A few snored.

"Jesus, Landry."

Ali was sitting ten or fifteen feet away with Cheryl and Paul Fecher, the manager, and the manager's son. I looked over at the two guards at the other end of the room, their faces half washed out by the lantern's light, half in shadows. I couldn't tell how closely they were watching us, whether they were really paying much attention.

Slowly, I slid across the rug.

"We were worried about you," Ali said.

"It was fine."

"When he caught you on the other side of the fireplace-"

"It was a little tense," I said.

"What'd he want to know?" Cheryl asked.

"Well, he figured out pretty quickly I didn't know anything useful. Mostly he seemed to be sizing me up. He asked about you and…" My voice trailed off. The manager and his son were sitting near Ali, watching us talk, but no one else from Hammond was within earshot. "He knew about the investigation."

Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second, then narrowed. "How in God's name? Why would anyone tell him?"

"I'm pretty sure he has a source inside Hammond."

Cheryl nodded. "He knows too much, that's for sure. Danziger also thinks he may be a professional, in the K &R business."

She glanced over her shoulder. Danziger was lying on his side by the wall, asleep. "He also briefed all of us on the duress code."

"Much better than my original idea," I said.

"At least you had a plan," she said. "I owe you an apology."

"Why?"

"I misread them. You had them pegged. And the way you stuck up for me-I won't forget it." She seemed embarrassed. "This isn't easy."

"This isn't easy for any of us," I said.

The door opened. Travis entered with Latimer, then called out Danziger's name. Latimer sat near us. He looked much better, now that his diabetic crisis had passed.

He smiled, mouthed Thank you.

I just nodded.

Suddenly the lights in the room went on, as abruptly as they'd gone off. Lamps and wall sconces blazed to life. A number of people woke up, looked around.

"Guess the generator's fixed," Latimer said.

I nodded.

"You know, what you did before-getting over to the other side to talk to Grogan and Danziger?"

"Stupid, huh?"

"Brave, Jake. Guys with guns strutting around here. You could have gotten yourself killed."

"I don't think so."

"You're a brave guy, Jake."

"Just a survivor."

"More than that."

"Well, you know, a wise man once said that one of the great tragedies of our century is that a man can live his whole life and never know if he's a coward or not." I smiled, held up a forefinger. "Russell told me that."

"You know what the definition of a coward is?" he said. "A coward is a hero with a wife, kids, and a mortgage."

"So maybe that's it," I said. "No wife, no kids. And I don't have a mortgage. I rent."

There was a noise at the far side of the room. Wayne, the crewcut one, entered with Peter the handyman, a small, pudgy man with a bushy gray mustache, receding gray hair, and thick aviator-frame glasses. He was sweating profusely.

Wayne whispered to the other guards for a few minutes, then led the handyman to the back right corner of the room.

A minute or so later, Russell and his brother entered, John Danziger in front of them.

Danziger looked terrified.

Russell cleared his throat. "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen," he announced. "We have a little business to transact." He unholstered his Glock.

"Some of you guys apparently think you're gonna be clever," Russell said. "Try to throw a little sand in the gears. Try to screw things up for everyone else. Like I'm not going to find out." As he was talking, he popped out the Glock's magazine and held it up, scanned it to see if it was full. It seemed a strange thing to do. He must have known the gun was loaded. "Didn't some guy say that we all gotta hang together or we'll hang separately? Like, George Washington or one of those guys?"

"I believe that was actually Benjamin Franklin," Hugo Lummis said.

Russell looked at Lummis blankly for a moment. "Why, thank you, Hugo." He nodded. "Not many of you got the balls to correct a man with a loaded gun."

"I'm not correcting you," Lummis said hastily. "I'm just-"

"Quite all right, Hugo," Russell said. "I like learning stuff. Not everyone does, though. People get ideas stuck in their heads. That's why you're all gonna have a little lesson right now. A seminar. Shouldn't take too long, though." He seated the magazine back in the butt of the pistol with a quiet click.

"John," he said gently, "could you please kneel right here? Yes, that's right. Right there. Not on the rug-on the wood. That's good."

"Please, don't," Danziger said. He knelt, his eyes darting around the room, his face frozen.

"Now, John," Russell said, "you and I are going to give all your colleagues here a lesson they're never going to forget. See, the best lessons, I figure, the teacher learns right along with the students. So even though I'm teaching this lesson, we're all gonna learn something. Everyone but you, John. I'm thinking it's probably too late for you. You're just gonna have to be the demonstration."

"Please," said Danziger. He knelt on the wooden floor, facing us, his torso perfectly erect, his hands bound in front of his flat belly. He could have been in church. His light blue alligator shirt had big dark sweat stains under the arms.

Russell strode up to Danziger at an angle, like a veteran teacher approaching a blackboard. His Glock was in his right hand.

On Danziger's other side stood Travis, also holding his gun.

Danziger's eyes moved frantically. For a brief instant he looked into my eyes.

Russell's voice was calm and quiet. "So, John," he said, "what's a duress code?"

48

We watched in terror.

"A 'duress code'?" Danziger said. "You mean, like a burglar alarm, when-"

"I don't think we're talking about a burglar alarm, are we, John?"

"I told you, I don't know what you're talking about," Danziger said.

"You did, didn't you? So I guess you really can't help me." Russell lifted his pistol and placed it snugly behind Danziger's right ear. He snapped back the slide.

I shouted, "Russell, don't do it!"

Someone-Lummis, maybe?-screamed, "No!"

There was a sudden commotion: Alan Grogan struggling to his feet. "Please!" he called. "I'll talk to you. I'll tell you anything you want."

"Is that Alan?" Russell said without even turning to look.

I watched, riveted and angry, my mind spinning. Russell wouldn't actually pull the trigger. Especially not after the talk we'd had.

But if he really intended to, there was no way to stop him. Not with my hands bound, not sitting this far away. And not with four other armed men nearby.

Grogan zigzagged across the carpet, around the other hostages. He tripped over something but got right back up, with a jock's agility. His face had gone crimson.

"You don't need to do this," Grogan said.

Travis raised his gun and aimed it at Grogan, then the other two did the same.

"Alan," Danziger said, "sit down! You've got nothing to do with this."

Russell turned to Grogan, a cryptic half grin on his face. "You wanted to tell me something? Try and save your friend?"

"Anything you want to know," Grogan said. "Just put the gun down."

"Alan, sit down," Danziger said. "You don't know anything about this."

"I think he wants to help you, John," said Russell. "He doesn't want me to blow your brains out."

"John, just tell him!" Grogan shouted. "Please. It's not worth it. Please."

"It's not worth it, John," Russell said. "Do you know what's going to happen when I pull the trigger?"

"Don't," Danziger whispered. "Please. I'll tell you everything I know about the duress code. Anything you want to-"

"It's not pretty," Russell went on. "It's not like on TV. A nine-millimeter bullet has a muzzle velocity of, like, a thousand feet per second. First thing it does is punch out a round piece of skull, see. Drives the bone fragments right into your brain, okay? Then, at the same time it opens up a nice big cavity in your brain. Like a cave. Builds up pressure inside there. Your brain actually explodes, John."

"Russell," Grogan said, coming closer, "you don't have to do this. He'll tell you everything you want to know, and so will I. No one's going to use any duress code, I promise you. That was just an idea, we talked about it, but it's not going to happen!"

But Russell would not stop his sadistic monologue. "Where I'm aiming, see, the bullet's going to travel right through the brain stem. Kill you instantly. For you, it's lights out. But for everyone else, it's grisly, I gotta tell ya."

Danziger was talking, trying to talk over him. "The duress code is nothing more than a couple of numbers," he said. "You type in a nine before the-"

"They're gonna see blood and tissue," Russell went on, "little gobs of gray matter, spurt out the exit wound. Might even see something called backspatter, contact wound like this. The gray matter shoots out the entrance wound, too. It's not pleasant. Not for me, anyway. I might get some of your brain tissue on my clothes."

Danziger was shaking, sobbing silently. Tears were streaming down his face. Sweat had soaked most of his light blue shirt.

"Stop!" he shouted. "I'm telling you! Please!"

"Russell," Cheryl called out, her voice trembling, "do not do this. You do not want to face murder charges. There's no reason to do this. No one's going to try to stop the wire transfer. You're going to get everything you want."

"He's telling you!" cried Grogan. "Listen to him. What else do you want?" He, too, was weeping now.

"Alan, I want you to stay right where you are," Russell said. "Don't come any closer."

"Russell, please listen to me." It was Bo Lampack. He struggled to rise, fell to his knees, then rolled upright. "Help me help you." He stood tentatively, walked toward Russell. "I'm Bo," he said.

"Sit down, Bo," Russell said.

Yet Bo kept approaching. "I want you to know that we're all on the same page. All of us. We all want to resolve this. We all want to give you what you want."

"Don't come any closer, Bo," Russell said, staring him down.

"I'm just saying," Bo went on, coming still closer, "that you should understand that you're completely in control. And we, all of us, have the deepest respect for you. We understand completely that you're a human being with needs just like all of us-"

Russell swiveled, slammed his pistol against Bo's face. Bo screamed and fell over backwards, his face bloodied.

Then Russell placed the Glock back behind Danziger's right ear. "Do you want to tell me what happens after you type in that duress code?" Russell said very softly.

Danziger closed his eyes. "It triggers a silent alarm," he said, his voice trembling. "It tells the bank that the transfer request is being made under compulsion."

"Okay, good," said Russell. "Now, John, tell me something. Is there any other duress code? Besides the nine, I mean."

Danziger mouthed the word No but no sound came out.

"I can't hear you," said Russell.

"No," Danziger gasped.

"No other way for someone to sneak in a duress code?"

"No. Nothing else."

"That's it? No other tricks that you know of? Nothing else your buddies might try to screw this up?" Russell twisted the Glock, swiveling the muzzle on that same spot behind Danziger's right ear.

Danziger's face was contorted and dark red. "I-can't think of anything else," he whispered.

"You'd be the guy who'd know, isn't that right?"

"Yes," Danziger said. "There's no one else who…" His voice was choked by sobs.

"Who what?"

"Who knows the-the systems-"

"So that's it, then?" Russell said. "No other tricks?"

"Nothing. I swear to you."

"Thank you, John," Russell said. "You've been very cooperative."

Danziger gasped for air, nodded. He closed his eyes, looked drained.

"Thank you," he whispered.

You could almost feel everyone breathe a collective sigh of relief. Russell was a sadist, but not a murderer. He had tortured the information he wanted out of Danziger, so there was no need to kill him.

"Oh, thank God," breathed Grogan. Tears were streaming down his face as well.

"No," Russell said softly, "thank you. Good-bye, John."

He squeezed the trigger and the gun jumped in his hand and filled the room with a deafening explosion.

Danziger slumped to one side.

The gunshot seemed to echo for an instant, though it was merely an auditory illusion: My ears rang with a high-pitched, wavering tone. I stared, unable to fully comprehend what I'd just seen.

Then the silence was broken as someone let out a gasp.

People began to scream, others to cry.

Someone vomited.

A large chunk of the right side of Danziger's head was missing.

Russell wiped his left hand over his face to smear off the red spatter. Verne let out a loud whoop and pumped his fist.

"Yeah!" he shouted. "You see that?"

A number of people dove to the floor. Some tried to cover their eyes with their forearms, ducked their heads. Ali buried her head between her legs.

I wanted to shout, but I couldn't. My throat seemed to have closed.

Russell stood up, lowered the Glock to his side, backed up a few steps. Travis stared furiously at his brother.

Over the cacophony, the shouts and the keening, I heard Russell tell his brother, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

Hank Bodine bellowed, "Goddamn you!"

In all the chaos, my eyes were drawn to Grogan. He was on his feet, stumbling forward to Danziger's body. His face was red and crumpled, and he was crying, his head shaking. He knelt next to Danziger's body, reached with his unsteady fettered hands to lift his friend's ruined head, trying to cradle it.

His mouth was moving as if to speak, but no words came out, just deep gasps, like hiccups. Blood oozed between his fingers.

A slick of blood and something viscous had pooled on the floor next to Danziger.

Then Grogan leaned over and kissed the dead man's lips, and suddenly everybody understood.

I couldn't see Grogan's face. I could only see his shoulders heaving.

He lowered Danziger's head gently to the floor and knelt there for several seconds as if praying. Slowly he rose to his feet as a terrible anguished scream welled up from his throat, and he staggered toward Russell, his face contorted with rage and grief.

"You goddamned son of a bitch!" he shouted, spittle flying.

He lunged at Russell, jabbing his tethered hands at Russell's face as if to throttle him. "God damn you to hell, you goddamned son of a bitch!"

"Alan?" Russell said in a matter-of-fact voice as he stepped to one side, out of the way.

"Why?" Grogan gasped. "Why in God's name-?"

"You, too," Russell said, and he fired one more time.