Chapter 28 – Getaway
They headed north out of West Chester as fast as the speed limit would allow. Carlos could tell that Gloria was pissed at him for not finding the cell phone when he frisked the woman, but he knew better than to say anything. One of the men in the back seat started to open his mouth, but Carlos shook his head at him. After a few more minutes Carlos couldn’t stand it any longer. “So what’s the plan, Sissy?”
“Shut up! I’m thinking. And don’t call me by my nickname.”
“We passed an old gas station back there. The windows were boarded up, so no one is there.”
Gloria answered after a short pause. “Were there any houses close by?”
“There was one across the street, but it was boarded up too.”
Gloria drove for another couple of miles, then turned around and headed back to the Gas Station. After driving past to check it out herself she did another one-eighty and turned into the gas station. After another quick look, she drove around to the back and parked the van out of sight. “See if you can get in that back door, Carlos.”
It was padlocked, but a couple of whacks with a piece of pipe took care of that. When he looked back at the van Gloria yelled at him, “Well, don’t just stand there. Go inside and check it out.”
Carlos thought for a second that she would drive off and leave him if he went in, but he didn’t think she was that pissed so he went inside. The place smelled like grease, mildew, and dirty restrooms, but it was tolerable. There was light coming in through the ceiling skylights. He walked around the car repair bay and checked the roll-up door in front. It was locked and rusted shut, so their captives couldn’t escape that way. He tried the sink in the bathroom and found it working. There was even an old vending machine in the corner with an assortment of ancient candy bars and chips. He broke out the front glass and helped himself to a Milky Way. It was dried out and hard to chew, but the machine contents would provide enough food for a couple of days. He went to the back door and signaled Gloria to bring the others in.
Dave, Antonio, and his chief of security, Lou Rossi, sat in the CSIC conference room laying out various future event possibilities and their best response to each of them.
“Dave, how do you expect they will want the ransom delivered?” Antonio asked.
“The most common method is like you see on television cop shows. The kidnappers will call and tell the money carrier, probably Antonio in this case, to come alone and bring the money to some location they specify. When he gets there they look for signs that he was followed. Then they call the again and send him to another location. They may do this two or three times to make sure that it’s not a trap. When he gets to the last stop they will tell him to put the money somewhere out of sight and leave. After watching the drop location long enough to be sure there aren’t any police, they pick up the money and run.”
“What about Gabrielle . . . and Lynn if she’s still alive. How do we get them back?”
“The kidnappers will usually tell us up front that, once they have the money, they will call – or email – where they are.”
“What are the chances we’ll get her back alive?”
“Fifty-Fifty . . . if we’re lucky.”
“So . . . What? We just sit and wait until they call?”
“No, there are some preparations we need to make. I’ll have my techs outfit the car with a hidden GPS locator so we can track you, Antonio. I’ll have another one – one of our special tiny cell phones – inside the money container. As we speak, they’re hiding one inside the lining of a briefcase, and another inside one of Gabrielle’s school backpacks.”
Lou spoke up. “What if they transfer the money to another bag and throw the briefcase or backpack out the window?”
“When they tell us how they want the money – usually in small, unmarked bills, as they say on TV – we will insert another phone inside one of the wrapped money packs as a backup.”
Antonio looked at Dave over the top of his reading glasses. “If you’re going to deliver five million dollars in small bills, you’ll need something bigger that a briefcase or backpack.”
“Good point. I hadn’t thought about that. Just how much space would it take up?”
Antonio did some quick calculations in his head. “In twenty dollar bills, the volume would be about nine cubic feet – a little larger than a two feet by two feet by two feet box – and it would weigh over a hundred pounds.”
“So much for the small bill theory; it wouldn’t fit in briefcase or a backpack, and a hundred pounds if too heavy to lug around. I wonder if they know how big that would be?”
“Probably not. If they ask for small bills we’ll explain the problem. Maybe they would settle for thousand dollar bills. Then the volume would be less than a cubic foot with a weight of under three pounds. Since they probably have no way to use thousand dollar bills without suspicion, they might want it in hundreds, which would be a box about fifteen inches on a side and would weigh a little over twenty pounds.”
“Antonio, can the bank put together a package of both thousand and hundred dollar denominations so we’ll be ready to leave as soon as we hear from them?”
“I don’t know, you’re talking about ten million in cash. Coming up with that amount quickly will be an issue. I’ll have them put it together in hundreds. If they want it some other way tell them they can have it in hundreds within a couple of hours, or they can wait a day for us to get it together.”
Just then the de Luca’s assistant called him. “Sir, I’m forwarding a call to you. It’s from the kidnappers.”
Antonio put his phone on speaker and set it in the middle of the table. When it rang he pushed the button to accept it and answered “This is Antonio de Luca. Whom am I speaking with?”
A low-pitched woman’s voice replied, “It doesn’t matter what my name is, I’m in charge here. Do you have the money?”
“You didn’t specify how you wanted it – what denominations. I can’t put it together until you tell me.”
She paused, “We want it small, unmarked bills with random serial numbers – tens and twenties.
“Are you aware how much space that would take up? You’re talking about a container at least three feet on a side.”
“So? . . . Put it in a box!”
“That many bills will weigh over one hundred and fifty pounds. It will take at least two people to lift it.”
They could hear the woman cover the mouthpiece and relay the information to someone else. They couldn’t quite make out what the other person said, but then he shouted “Damn it, Gloria! You should have thought of that. . . . Tell them to put it in a suitcase with wheels.”
“Did you hear that, Mr. De Luca? Pack it into a wheeled suitcase.”
“I have the money ready to deliver, but it’s in hundred dollar bills. It will be more manageable than . . .”
“Hold on.”
They heard some more mumbling in the background then the woman came back on the phone. “The hundreds will be good. Now get your ass in a car and bring it. You have three hours. . . . Goodbye, Mr. de Luca.”
Antonio shouted “No. Wait. Don’t hang up! Where do we deliver it to?”
There was a pause – long enough that they thought she hung up.
“Uh . . . yeah, I forgot that part. I’m new at this. I will call you back.”
Dave had one of his technicians on another line. “Did you get a trace on that, Jimmy?”
“No sir, it was a cell phone. The best I could do is identify the cell tower it originated from.”
“Where is that?”
“Give me a minute . . . there’s the tower. It’s about twenty miles north of Westbrook.”
Dave turned to Lou. “Can you get some of your people up to that area to standby until we get more information?”
“How large an area are we talking about?”
Jimmy answered immediately. “The maximum range of a cell tower is twenty-two miles. So if you draw a circ
le that big on the map around the location of the tower, they would have to be in that area. And the map shows four main roads in the area.
Lou replied, “If I put four teams around the perimeter, on the highways, the one closest to where they are would be no more than thirty minutes away.” De Luca nodded and Lou made the call to his men.
Dave turned to de Luca. “What else do we know about the kidnappers? I get the feeling we’re missing something. Do we know what kind of vehicle they’re using?”
Tom answered that as he came into the room. “We do. I got the video from the Hotel du Pont parking garage. Let me throw it up on the screen. . . See this white van parked in the shadows? The same van has been parked in that spot for the past three days. You can see some movement through the windshield, but no one gets out of the van. I think they were on a stakeout, waiting for something to happen.
“This next camera monitors the exit from the hotel into the garage. This footage was taken just as Gabriella and Lynn came out and got into the limousine. Next we’ll move to the camera that captures all vehicles entering and leaving the parking garage. Thirty seconds after Leonardo drives out onto the street the same white van follows them. It may mean nothing, but the timing is suspicious.”
“Did you get a license number?”
“Not on this shot. But I backed the video up to when the van showed up at ten after seven this morning. As they came down the entrance ramp the camera caught the license plate for less that a second. I’ve got the tech people trying to freeze and clarify it. We should hear from them any minute.”