Roses Are Red

Chapter Fifty-Five

There were three executive assistants busily answering phones and collecting mail and faxes for the thirty-six directors working in the famed Chinese Room at the Mayflower Hotel. The assistants loved being out of the office, especially since the home offices were in Hartford, Connecticut.

Sara Wilson, the youngest assistant, saw the fax from the kidnappers first. She quickly read it, then passed it on to the two more-senior assistants. Her face was beet red and her hands were trembling badly.

"Is this some kind of a sick joke?” Liz Becton asked when she saw the fax. "This is crazy. What is this?"

Nancy Hall was the executive assistant to the group CEO, John Dooner. She barged into the board meeting without knocking and called clear across the room. Actually, she needn't have raised her voice. The Chinese Room at the Mayflower had an acoustic problem. The ceiling was a sweeping dome. Even a whisper on one side of the large room could be heard on the other.

"Mr. Dooner, I have to see you right now," she said. She was more agitated and upset than her boss had ever seen her.

The departure of the CEO brought a general lightening of the mood around the room, but the small talk and smiles were short-lived. He was back in less than five minutes. His face was pale as he hurriedly walked to the podium.

Time is of the essence," said Dooner in a trembling voice that shocked the other board members. "Please listen carefully. The chartered tour bus carrying my wife and many of your wives has been hijacked. The men responsible claim to be the same sick bastards who've been robbing banks and taking hostages in Maryland and Virginia during the past few weeks. They claim that the robberies and murders were committed as "object lessons" for the people in this boardroom. They want us to know they are deadly serious about their demands being met and met on time to the second."

The CEO continued, his face dramatically lit by the podium lamp. "Their demands are simple and clear. They want thirty million dollars to be delivered to them in exactly four hours, or all the hostages will be murdered. We don't know how the tour bus was taken. Steve Holding from our Control Risks Group is on his way over here. He's deciding which police agency to involve. It will probably be the FBI."

Dooner stopped to take a breath. The color in his face was returning slowly. "As you know, we have a kidnapping insurance policy that covers up to fifty million in ransom. I suspect that the kidnappers already know this. They seem to be thorough and organized. They're also clear-headed, which gives them an advantage. I think they know that we are the underwriters on the policy ourselves. Therefore, we can get the money and we can get it fast.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, please, we have to talk about our alternatives. If there are any alternatives. The kidnappers have made one thing very clear there can be no mistakes or people will die."