"Look around, J.T. Can you hazard a guess as to where we are?"
J.T. continued to look at Nick.
"I know you can't see land from here, but the climate and the color of the ocean should give you a clue," Nick said mockingly. "We're anchored just off the Cayman Islands, my friend."
J.T. sighed heavily and sat back in his chair. Nick looked over at James and Laura before continuing.
"You see, James and Laura," Nick continued, "Ole J.T. here thought I wouldn't find the eighty million dollars he hid in a bank in the Cayman Islands. He hid it very well. It has taken me years to track it down. In fact, he may have gotten away with it altogether if he hadn't gotten all soft-hearted. Apparently, J.T. here started feeling guilty about how we accumulated all of that money, and decided to give some of it back. About two years ago, he had his lawyer visit him in prison and start up a sort of social security for all of the people who lost their jobs or their pensions because of what we had done."
"Now, I had been watching very closely and had just about given up on getting any of that money back until the money started flowing out of the lawyer's office to all of those poor creatures. Once that started, all I had to do was follow the money trail back here, and voil?!"
Nick paused and turned to stare at J.T., watching delightedly as the reality of the situation sank in for him.
"By the way," Nick continued. "If you are counting on being rescued, don't. Those neck braces effectively blocked the transmission from the tracking devices they implanted in you. Now they are so far out of range that they are virtually untrackable."
"O.k., so what's the plan, Nick?" J.T. finally responded. "You want me to waltz right in to the bank and take out the money, or else you are going to hurt these two people who had nothing to do with it? Is that it? You really think I'm stupid enough to believe you aren't going to kill all three of us once you get what you want?"
"I'm not planning on killing anyone, J.T. That's really not my style," Nick replied.
"Really?" replied J.T. "Tell that to Jacob Styles' widow."
"Now, that was an unfortunate accident, J.T. As I recall, he died from a massive heart attack - not my doing."
"Yeah, while he was in the hospital from injuries he sustained at your direction!" J.T. said accusingly.
"Come now, J.T. You remember the situation. He was the last vote we needed on the board to sell us the Jenkins auto-supply factory. We nearly lost the deal when he died. If I hadn't been able to bribe his replacement, the whole thing would have collapsed. Besides, if we had known he had a weak heart, I would have asked Mia to go easy on him."
Laura looked at Mia with surprise. Mia returned a cold stare that sent shivers down her spine.
"Look, I don't want us to get off on the wrong foot. You should be thanking me. I rescued you from that desert prison you were in and I'm offering you a chance to be free when this is all over. If everyone does what they are supposed to do, I'll let you keep ten million and let these two have a million each for their trouble. Then we can all go our separate ways. Think about it."
Nick stood up from the table. "Mia will show you to your accommodations."
With that, he turned and went back inside the yacht.
Chapter Seventeen
Mia led the way back inside the yacht and below the first deck. Two of the commandos followed behind James, Laura, and J.T. to ensure they went where they were told to go. They were deposited in a cabin at the bow of the yacht. It was a small room with two bunk beds on either side of the entrance, a small table in the middle, a closet off to one side of the door, and a bathroom/shower on the opposite side. Once they were inside, Mia closed the door and Laura heard the clicking sound of the lock as it slid into place. She sat down on one of the seats at the far side of the room and leaned her head back on the cushion.
"What just happened?" she wondered aloud.
"I think you and I were just offered a million dollars apiece to help take some money out of a bank," James responded, somewhat bewildered.
Laura lifted up her head and looked at J.T.
"What is going on, J.T.? You said you didn't have any of the money this guy was after."
J.T. sat down at the table and looked over at James and Laura.
"I know. I had hoped to keep that hidden from these guys in case they were listening in on our conversation back on the other boat, but Nick already figured that out."
"So just who is this guy?" James asked.
"His name is Nick Bartonovich. He and I met in college when he was running bets for the college sports games. We hit it off and started working together once we were out of college. We raised money to take over vulnerable companies, then sell off assets and unprofitable business units. We would create shell companies - companies that only existed on paper - to hide the losses from some of the legitimate businesses, which we would then sell for far more than they were worth. The new owners would think they were buying a solvent business, only to find out that what they'd actually bought was a bankrupt company. The people working for these companies would then lose their jobs when the new owners had to liquidate the company assets to pay off their creditors. Often, the retirement plans the company had invested in relied heavily on the same company's stock, so most of the people who lost their jobs also lost their retirement money."
"One of the lawyers we used to help set up the shell companies was arrested for having sex with a minor and decided to spill the beans on our operation in return for leniency from the judge. The lawyer didn't know Nick, but I'd had a meeting with him once and he knew I was in on the scheme, so he gave the prosecutor my name. The prosecutor had a field day, and I was convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, but before I left, I created my own insurance policy. Nick and I had this offshore account where we had kept the operating funds that we used to conduct all of our under-the-table deals. We had a hundred million in it. Right before I went to prison, I had eighty million dollars of that moved to a bank here in the Cayman Islands, and left twenty million for Nick. I hoped he would be satisfied with that and leave the rest alone, considering I'm the one who went to prison."
"O.k.," Laura finally responded, "but that doesn't explain why James and I are here. He only needs you for this deal to work. Why bring us, too?"
"Leverage," J.T. responded. "If I don't go along with it, you two get squeezed."
"You mean tortured? or worse," James replied.
"But why us?" Laura persisted.
"He needed someone close to me - that's why you're here Laura. I don't have any family left alive, so people close to me in the program are the closest thing I've got to family. As to why James was picked, I don't know. He's new in the program, so it doesn't make sense to me from that perspective. But one thing I've learned over the years is that Nick has a reason for everything he does. I'm sure he will use James as leverage, I'm just not sure how he plans to do it yet."
That night, the three companions went to sleep in paradise, wondering what their fate would be at the hands of their new jailer.
The next morning, one of the guards came to unlock the door and led everyone up to the dining room, where a sumptuous breakfast was served. Nick was reading the news on a tablet computer while he finished his breakfast, which consisted of a bagel, a poached egg, and a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.
"Have a seat and enjoy some breakfast," he said as they entered the room. After everyone was seated, he continued. "It seems you have made front-page news in the Nevada Free Press, and even received a mention on the nightly news, J.T. You are a wanted man."
"Did you think breaking me out of prison was going to go un-noticed?" replied J.T.
"No, not at all, but you should consider the situation you are in. No one knows that I kidnapped you against your will. For all they know, you three planned the whole thing together. Do you really think that anyone will believe the truth?"
"What's yo
ur point?" James chimed in.
"The point is that, should you choose not to cooperate with me, all I have to do is drop you off anywhere in United States jurisdiction and make a call to the FBI for you three to be sent back to prison with a long extension to your current prison sentences. Sentences not likely to be served in the same cushy circumstances that I found you in, I might add."
James' appetite was suddenly much smaller. The thought of spending even longer than his current sentence in a regular prison was something he didn't think he could face. He would rather die. He stared at his plate, unwilling to take the next bite of food, temporarily frozen in contemplation of the possibility of going back to a regular prison.
"What exactly do you want each of us to do?" asked Laura.
"Well, that's the easy part," Nick proceeded. "All you and James need to do is behave yourselves and enjoy a two-week vacation here on the yacht. You can eat great food, entertain yourselves in the library - fishing, swimming, sun-bathing, whatever you like, so long as you follow a few simple rules."
"J.T. will have the slightly more demanding task of accompanying me to the bank every day to withdraw the money. You see, he had a provision put in when he set up the bank account that he could not withdraw more than one tenth of the cash balance from the account on a given day unless the account was going to be closed out. In that case, the balance could only be withdrawn in ten equal amounts over a ten day period. Evidently, he anticipated that such a day as this might eventually come." Nick looked directly at J.T. as he spoke the last sentence.
"And it's a good thing I did, too," J.T. replied.
"Mia," Nick said without taking his gaze off of J.T. "Please give J.T. a change of clothes. He will be accompanying me to the bank shortly." Addressing J.T., he continued. "We leave in an hour; don't be late." With that, he returned to reading the news on his tablet computer and finishing his breakfast.
A few minutes later, Mia arrived with a tailored suit on a hanger. "I have your suit, J.T.," she said. "Time to get dressed." J.T. stood up from the table and began walking back to the cabin they were assigned to stay in. When he reached the door, he turned to take the suit from Mia, but she held on to it when he tried to take it from her grasp. "Nick wants you to shave your beard off, so you'll look more business-like."
"Do I have a choice?" J.T. retorted.
Mia raised one eyebrow to let him know that he did not.
"Do you really think this is going to work, Mia?" J.T. asked.
"Yes," Mia replied with a determined look that J.T. knew well. "I intend to see that it does."
J.T. looked at himself in the mirror as he shaved off the last remnants of his beard. He was racking his brain, trying to decide how to get out of this situation without getting himself, or James and Laura, hurt. The one thing he had on his side was time. If he kept calm and looked for an opportunity to get a message out, he might be able to pull it off. He might be able to get Nick's tablet for a few minutes and send an email to alert his lawyers and have them contact the FBI.
He bolstered himself with that thought as he dressed in the suit Mia had brought for him. It felt nice. He hadn't been in a suit since his last appearance at trial seven years before. This was a nice Italian suit with Gucci leather shoes. He wondered where they had picked it up and how they had gotten his size right.
When he opened the door of the cabin, he encountered one of the guards, who motioned for him to go in front of him. Up on deck, Nick was waiting, similarly dressed.
"Shall we?" he said as he motioned to the awaiting fifty foot cigarette boat docked at the back of the yacht.
J.T. got into the boat along with Nick and two of the commandos, who were suitably attired for the occasion. One of the commandos took the controls and began to pull the boat away from the yacht. J.T. thought to himself that it was a beautiful day in a beautiful place, and in other circumstances, he would have been able to enjoy it, but his mind quickly returned to what they were about to do. He and Nick had made a lot of money, and needlessly hurt a lot of people in the process. Many of those people had lost everything they had. He had begun the process of making amends to those he had wronged, starting to restore what he had taken, but now all of that was being put in jeopardy. He prayed a silent prayer as they sped towards the island. "God, somehow, someway, please get us out of this."
Chapter Eighteen
Mia explained the rules to James and Laura, and posted a copy of them on the inside door of their cabin:
1.Stay away from any navigational or communications equipment, including computers, tablets, phones, or the yacht's radio.
2.Stay away from the other watercraft, such as lifeboats.
3.You must be accompanied by a guard if you go anywhere except your own cabin.
4.If you go swimming, you must stay within sight of the yacht.
5.All other cabins but your own are off-limits.
6.After dinner each night, you will be escorted to your cabin where you will stay locked in until someone comes to get you for breakfast.
"Beyond these rules," Mia said, "you can do pretty much anything you want."
Later in the morning, Laura decided to make the best of their captivity in paradise and do some sunbathing. She found a suitably sized swimsuit in their cabin and, after changing, she went to lay down in one of the lounge chairs on the deck of the yacht. James came and sat down in the chair beside her a few minutes later, and pretended to be focusing on the ocean view. He spoke quietly, hoping that the nearby guards wouldn't hear too much of their conversation.
"Laura, what are you going to do when this is all over?"
Laura didn't open her eyes as she responded.
"I'm still just trying to process everything that has happened. To tell you the truth, I've never been too much of a planner. That's kind of why I ended up in prison; I just flew by the seat of my pants. Right now, I'm just trying to enjoy the sun. We've got almost two weeks to figure out what we're going to do, right?"
"That depends on whether or not this Nick character is telling us the truth or not."
"Well, he has treated us pretty good since we arrived here. Why wouldn't he keep his word?"
"A better question is why would he? We know what he is doing, what he looks like, what his name is. We know everything the FBI would like to know about this guy, and with J.T.'s testimony, this guy could go to prison for a very long time. Dumping our bodies somewhere in the ocean seems like a simple solution to that problem."
"Yeah, but like he said, who's going to believe us if we talk? We're just a bunch of convicts. Anyway, if he keeps his word, I've got about a million reasons to keep my mouth shut. J.T.'s the one who should be worried. He's the one with the real details that could sink this guy."
James sat quietly for several minutes, thinking about the whole situation.
"What if he does keep his word and pay us, and let us go like he said he would? We couldn't go back to the states without going back to jail, and serving out the rest of our sentences. That's 13 years for me, longer if I get convicted for breaking out. And like Nick said, that could be back in a high security federal penitentiary."
Laura pushed herself up on her elbows and turned to look at James.
"You're really worried about this, aren't you?"
"And you're not?" James replied.
"It's on my list, but right now, I'm just going to enjoy the moment," Laura responded as she smiled and faced towards the sun. "The sun feels too good to worry. Cheer up, we'll think of something."
With that, she lay back down and closed her eyes. James couldn't stop thinking about their situation, but with Laura obviously not in the mood to talk about it more at the moment, he sat there in silence.
J.T. Thornbacker and Nick Bartonovich entered the lobby of the Grand Cayman Central Bank along with their escorts and made their way up to the circular desk in the middle of the atrium where a young dark-skinned woman was seate
d, staring at a computer terminal. As they arrived in front of her, she stopped what she was doing and looked up to address them.
"Welcome to the Grand Cayman Central Bank. How may I assist you today?"
"I'm Mr. Bartonovich. I have an appointment with Mr. Takata."
"One moment please," the young lady responded. She picked up the phone and dialed a number. "Mr. Bartonovich is here to see you." After hanging up the phone, she turned back to Nick. "He will be down momentarily, please have a seat." She motioned to her right where there were a number of leather couches and chairs. The group moved over and everyone took a seat.
"You cleaned up well, J.T.," Nick said. "You no longer look like the hippie guru you appeared to be when you came aboard yesterday. I'm glad to see Mia's recollection of your suit size was correct."
"It'll do the job," J.T. responded. "Let's just get this over with and get out of here."
A short Asian-looking man in a three-piece suit came briskly across the floor towards where they were seated. As he came near, he walked directly to where Nick was seated and extended his hand.
"Welcome back, Mr. Bartonovich," he said.
Nick shook his hand and turned towards J.T.
"This is my colleague, of whom I spoke to you earlier."
Mr. Takata extended his hand towards J.T. and they shook hands. "Hello, so glad to meet you." Mr. Takata motioned towards an elevator at the far end of the atrium that was flanked by two armed guards. "Please, follow me."
As they walked, J.T. spied a pen on the circular desk counter. When he passed by, he pretended to trip on the back of his shoe, putting his hand out to catch himself on the counter and palming the pen. One of the guards reached out to help steady him. "Thank you," J.T. said. The whole incident took no longer than a few seconds, and no one seemed to notice he had pocketed the pen.
They entered the elevator and Mr. Takata took the key card from around his neck and slid it into a card reader in the elevator control panel, then punched in a code. The elevator began moving down, below the first floor. Less than a minute later, the doors opened to reveal a red carpet leading up to a wall of bars, behind which was a layer of bullet-proof glass. Two guards with machine guns hanging down by their sides were stationed beyond. As Mr. Takata approached, one of the guards on the inside punched a number in an electronic keypad and opened the door for them to enter.