He hit the disconnect icon on his phone. His mind was racing. How had Sasha been kidnapped? Why was J.T. being pulled into this? He could only speculate at this point as he drove as fast as he could to reach the airport.
When Sasha came to, she was sitting in a captain's chair in the back of an RV. Her hands and feet were duct-taped to the chair, and her mouth was gagged. She could tell by the road noise that the RV was on the move. The drapes on the windows were all drawn, and a curtain which separated the cab of the RV from the rest of the vehicle was also drawn. She could hear country music playing on the radio.
She began breathing faster as the fear hit her. She tried desperately to break free of her restraints and to scream. After a few minutes of struggling, she realized that she was getting nowhere, and stopped pulling against the restraints. She started looking around to see what information she could gather from her environment that might help her escape or notify someone that she was a captive.
It was an hour or more before the RV slowed to a stop. Sasha could hear the driver getting up from the driver's seat. She heard the curtain rustle as the driver stepped back into the main cabin. Sasha's chair was turned to face the rear of the vehicle, so she couldn't yet see her kidnapper. A mixture of fear and curiosity gripped her as she waited to see who it was and what they would do next. Silas stepped in front of Sasha and sat down on the couch across from her.
"I'm glad to see you are awake," Silas began. "I'm not planning on hurting you, Sasha. You are simply a means to an end. You see, your daddy has a lot of money. And he owes me. But what you need to know right now is that, as long as you do what I tell you to do, I won't hurt you. On the other hand, if you try to escape or start screaming, then I will hurt you. Do we understand each other?"
Sasha nodded her head up and down to indicate that she understood.
"Good. Right now, we are off of the interstate and pulled over on a side road. There's nobody here to hear you if you scream, so don't even try it. I'm going to let you go now so that you can go to the restroom here in the RV and get something to eat and drink. If you cooperate with me, this doesn't have to be a horrible experience."
Silas produced a knife and began cutting away the restraints from one foot, then the other. He did the wrists last, letting Sasha remove the gag herself. Sasha eyed him warily the entire time, wondering if he was going to assault her or if he was telling the truth. She massaged her wrists where the duct tape had been constricting the blood flow as she walked over to the lavatory.
The bathroom ventilation window was too small for her to fit through and the privacy glass obstructed her view, but she was able to get a look at the surrounding area. All she saw was the woods. After she had relieved herself, she began looking around for anything she might use as a weapon or to cut the duct tape with, but she didn't find anything. She finally decided that she couldn't stay in the bathroom forever and came back out.
True to his word, there was a bottle of water and a pre-packaged sandwich sitting on the table for her when she came out. Silas motioned for her to sit down opposite him, where the food was placed, and she complied. She ate the sandwich, which tasted just shy of edible, and drank half of the water before Silas looked at his watch.
"O.k., time's up, back in the chair; we have a long way to go yet."
"Where are you taking me?" Sasha asked.
"Don't you worry your pretty little head about that," Silas replied.
Sasha thought about making a break for the door on the way back to the chair, but Silas had positioned himself strategically in front of the door as he motioned for her to sit back down in the captain's chair. She reluctantly complied and sat back down. He picked up the duct tape and began securing her to the chair once more. When he was done with the duct tape and gag, he went back to the front of the RV and soon they were back on their way to wherever it was that they were going. As they drove down the road once more, Sasha prayed to God that Nick and Mia would give this man whatever he wanted so that he would let her go back to her family.
Chapter Forty
Nick Bartonovich exited the plane practically jogging down the steps to the awaiting car. Tammy, his local office administrator, was sitting in the back seat. The driver opened the back door for Nick and then sprinted around the front of the car to the driver's side. Nick had prepped Tammy on the phone about what he needed done while he was in the air. He turned to her as soon as the door was shut, hoping everything was taken care of.
"Give me a status report," Nick said.
"He is in the house out on Rum Point. I have a local resource out there right now watching him. Sam was seen this morning watering his garden and hasn't left the house since," she reported.
"Good work, Tammy. Jared," Nick said, addressing the driver, "I want you to come with me to the door just in case the greeting is less than amicable."
Jared nodded as he glanced at Nick's face in the rearview mirror. Jared was one of a few local heavies that worked for Nick from time to time as drivers and/or security personnel. He was a first-rate martial artist, not to mention that he was also a body builder who could probably bench-press a small car.
It took less than fifteen minutes to arrive at the house. Nick didn't wait for Jared to come around and open his door. He exited the car and briskly walked up the ramp to the side door of the house. Jared had to jog the first few steps to catch up. Nick rang the doorbell and looked down at his watch impatiently as he waited for someone to answer the door.
J.T. had just finished his morning coffee and was about to log in to his online brokerage account to check on his investments when he heard the door ring. He glanced over at the security camera monitor that he had installed on the side of his desk before getting up. When he saw who it was, he couldn't believe his eyes. He switched the view on the monitor to single out that lone camera for magnification, just to make certain. His heart started beating faster. He grabbed his cell phone and quickly sent out a text, and then he opened a side drawer and pulled out a Smith and Wesson .45 caliber revolver before he went to answer the door.
Nick was reaching his finger down to depress the doorbell once more when the door finally opened. J.T. was standing there with the gun in one hand, pointed down at the floor. He said nothing, but stared at Nick warily, waiting.
"Hello J.T.," Nick said without smiling, "I need your help."
J.T. was shocked a bit at Nick's introduction. This wasn't the Nick he knew from years before, who demanded cooperation at the point of a gun.
"What are you doing here, Nick?"
Nick reached his hand into his coat jacket pocket. J.T. started to raise the pistol and Jared started to grab Nick to pull him to the side of the door, out of range of the gun. Nick put out his free hand and said, "Hold on, I'm just going to retrieve my phone."
Once J.T. lowered the gun, Nick slowly retrieved his cell phone and pulled up a picture of Sasha. The resemblance to J.T. was unmistakable. He turned the phone around and handed it to J.T.
"J.T., this is your daughter, Sasha. She is also my adopted daughter. She has been kidnapped, and I need your help to get her back safely."
J.T. slowly reached forth his hand and took the cell phone from Nick. He looked down at the face smiling back at him on the phone and felt like he had been hit with a sucker-punch in the stomach.
"Come in," he said as he turned around, still clutching the phone in one hand and the gun in the other.
He walked slowly over to the couch. Once they were seated on the couch, J.T. took his eyes off of the phone and looked up at Nick.
"This is impossible. This is a young woman. She would've been born sometime when I was in prison," J.T. said.
"True," Nick replied.
"Assuming this is true," J.T. continued, regaining some of his composure, "who is the mother?"
"Katrina Byers."
J.T.'s mind recalled back almost nineteen years before, to when he had
met a young woman who'd worked for Nick. She was an accountant who would give J.T. information from Nick that was deemed too sensitive for email or other forms of communication. They had hit it off instantly. She was funny and vivacious, full of life. J.T. asked her out to dinner after their second meeting. It was a risk that they might be seen together and his connection with Nick might be discovered, but she was worth it.
Then the investigation began. Nick and J.T. terminated communication with each other. They wanted to avoid being discovered working together, bilking the company that J.T. was currently working for as a CEO. He and Katrina continued to meet on the weekends at a hideaway in the countryside so they wouldn't be discovered together. During one of their rendezvous, Katrina had asked J.T. what he thought about starting a family one day and what he thought about children. J.T., always the self-confident, self-centered business man, told her that he didn't think that would fit in with his plans. He didn't want children, he said.
He remembered the fight they had after he made that statement. She accused him of not loving her. He said that he wanted to be with her, but that love, marriage, children - those weren't things he was interested in. She stormed out of the house and drove back home that night. J.T. tried to contact her, but she didn't return his calls. Shortly after, he was arrested, and he never heard from her again.
"How do I know you are telling the truth and that this isn't just another one of your scams?" J.T. said warily. "And if this girl whom you claim is my daughter is in so much trouble, why isn't Katrina here to help convince me all of this is true?" he demanded.
"Katrina is dead, J.T." Nick replied somberly.
J.T. could tell Nick was telling the truth. Nick was many things, but in all the years he had known Nick, J.T. could never remember one time that Nick had lied to him.
"How?" he asked.
"Kidney failure. She died eight years ago. It's a long story that I don't have time to get into, but Mia and I got married. We helped watch Sasha when Katrina was sick. Katrina asked us to adopt her when she knew she wasn't going to make it. We did. It's all here." Nick put his briefcase on the table and opened it up, dumping out a set of papers that included Sasha's birth certificate, the adoption papers, pictures of Sasha with Katrina, Katrina's death certificate, and pictures of Mia, Nick, and Sasha together. He waited as J.T. looked through the information. Finally, J.T. looked up at Nick.
"This isn't the Nick Bartonovich that I knew," he said finally.
Nick paused, trying to decide how to best answer that charge. Honesty, he decided, was the best approach. "Look," he began, "I got cancer. I had an operation followed by a long recovery?it changed me."
J.T. was looking straight into Nick's eyes, looking for some sign of deception.
"If I could go back and do things differently? there are a lot of things I would change," Nick continued, "but right now, I don't have time to go through all of that. Sasha needs our help and I'm asking you to please help me."
J.T. picked up a portrait-sized picture of Sasha. He could see the eyebrows and mouth were his, no doubt. The nose was thankfully Katrina's. He remembered Katrina's perky nose. He smiled. If there was any way this girl was his, and she certainly looked like she was, then there was no way in hell he was going to pass up the chance to help her. He wanted to get to know her, to make sure she was o.k., and to have some kind of relationship with her.
"O.k.," he said, still looking at the picture. "Tell me what I need to do."
"The kidnapper wants a ransom and says that you must be the one to deliver it. He will call in about eighteen hours to give more details. No police or else. I need you to come back to the States with me. I have a plane waiting at the airport for us now."
J.T., still looking at the picture, began to nod. "O.k., but I have a request, too," he said.
"Name it," Nick replied.
"James and Laura will be coming with us."
"I hardly see how they can help," Nick replied.
J.T. looked up at Nick with determination in his eyes.
"Eight years ago, you used me to take almost eighty million dollars out of a bank, leaving me a fugitive from my own country and living under a false identity. Now you waltz in here and tell me I have a daughter that you have known about for years but haven't bothered to tell me about until now. In addition to that, you want me to risk going back to prison for the rest of my life to help get her back from a kidnapper."
"Back Stateside, you have money, power, resources, everything. You have your own network of contacts and hired hands. James and Laura are my network. They are the people I have had to rely on for years. We trust each other with our lives because we can't fully trust anyone else. I'm willing to take it on faith that this girl is who you say she is. I'm willing to go out on a limb and believe you don't have some scheme up your sleeve to lure me back to the States and turn me over to the feds. Now I'm asking you to trust me a little bit and bring Laura and James along to help out. I trust them, and if everything is what you say it is, we need people we can trust to help us out on this."
"O.k., I hear what you are saying," Nick replied. "If you think they can help, then bring them along, but we need to leave soon. She may be your biological daughter, but she is my adopted daughter and I love her very much. The clock is ticking and we need to get moving. Where are they and when can they get here?"
J.T. went to his office to retrieve his cell phone. He called James and Laura on a three-way call. Once he had them both on the line, he briefly explained the situation and asked them if they would consider coming back to the States with him to help get his daughter back.
"Wow," Laura exclaimed. "That is a huge bombshell, J.T. I don't want to be the black cloud here, but are you sure she's your daughter?"
"Well, the paperwork looks authentic enough, and then there's the pictures. She's not my spitting image, but the resemblance is pretty strong. I think there is a good chance Nick is telling the truth. Besides, he could have turned me in at any time in the last eight years if he wanted to, or sent his goons to kidnap me again, for that matter. Nick's changed too, he's different somehow. Strange as it is for me to say this, I think I trust him on this one."
"Well, if you feel that confident about it, I'm in," Laura replied.
"What about you, James?" J.T. asked.
"With all we've been through, I'm not about to let you two go back to the States alone. I'd be glad to help you out, J.T. Just tell me when and where."
"Be at the airport in twenty minutes. I'll text you the gate info on the way."
J.T. threw some items in a backpack and headed out the door with Nick. Thirty minutes later, James, Laura, J.T., and Nick were on an airplane and headed back to New York.
Chapter Forty-One
Silas pulled in to Toakama, West Virginia at about 10 a.m. in the morning. He pulled the RV behind one of the abandoned buildings and shut off the engine. It had been a long day. He cut Sasha loose so she could go to the facilities and eat something, then secured her back to the captain's chair with a generous amount of duct tape. She would be uncomfortable and probably wouldn't sleep much through the night, but she was young and would be fine after a day's rest back home in her comfy bed in New York City.
Toakama was an abandoned mining town in the middle of nowhere. It had been a thriving little town until the mine shut down after an explosion that had killed twenty workers back in the 1950s. The mining company had shut down the mine and moved the workers to a more profitable location about a hundred miles away. A few residents stayed around, but without anyone to support the local businesses, eventually everyone had either died or moved away.
There was only one road leading into the little town, making it perfect for this ransom exchange. The road was about three quarters of a mile long and terminated in a cul-de-sac that served to allow people to turn their vehicles around and head back out of town. The road into town crossed over a fifty-foot go
rge just before the city limits. The gorge had a bucolic stream flowing at the bottom of it and the whole town was surrounded by forest. The mountains rose behind the town, leading further up into the Blue Ridge Mountains. A post office, a barber shop, a grocery store, a hardware store, a diner, and even a small town hall at the end of the street were among the various brick buildings that lined the main street that was Toakama.
Silas had liked hiking since he was a kid. He had discovered this place on a hiking trip that he had taken years before. Being in the great outdoors helped him clear his head. When he had begun to plan the kidnapping, this was the first place that came to his mind as a potential exchange location. It was perfect. It was surrounded by rugged terrain, he could see anyone trying to enter the town on the one road in or out, and you could hear a pin drop in the deserted streets. The buildings offered perfect cover so he could watch the whole drop-off without being seen. And best of all, it was in the middle of nowhere, with the next populated town being twenty-five miles away.
He reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a six-pack of beer, then headed up the hill about a hundred yards. From this spot, he could see the RV and the whole town below. He popped the top on the first beer and enjoyed the view. Not too long from now, he was going to be a very rich man. He smiled at the thought and took a drink from the can.
After he had finished three beers, he went back into the RV and took a nap in the back. Later in the day, he would have to double check on all the preparations he'd already made, and there was no sense being tired when he did so. He slept like a stone and dreamt of buying a nice house somewhere in a tropical island, and being reunited with Maggie and Tommy when this was all over.
He woke up about two hours later, feeling an intense need to relieve himself. He went outside and up the hill a few yards behind a tree and took care of business. He thought to himself that he felt like a million dollars. Then he laughed and said out loud, "I feel like ten million dollars!"
Before he made his rounds to check on all of the items he had prepared for the ransom exchange, he went back into the RV and took Sasha's gag off to give her a drink of water. After all, he told himself, he was no monster. When that task was done, he went to work.