“Please, no,” Andy said. His voice shook like Solomon’s body. “You don’t understand.”
Fausto fiddled with his watch. “Time has started-now!”
“I can’t!” Andy shouted.
Fausto touched his ear. “Careful, young one. Remember my ears are sensitive to sound. I might do something to cause blood, out of frustration.”
Andy sank to his knees with the computer in front of him. “You don’t understand. We don’t have it.”
“Ticktock… ticktock… ticktock,” Fausto said, pointing at his watch.
The computer had automatically connected to the school’s WiFi network. Andy looked to the stage. The men behind his three friends stood like trained Dobermans ignoring a slab of meat while awaiting their master’s order.
“I can’t give you the money,” Andy pleaded. “We don’t have it! I swear. I’ll show you. The money is on the bitcoin exchange. It’s out there. Somewhere. But we don’t have the key to access it. It was taken from us! Someone stole it from us, same as we took it from you!”
“That’s one minute down. Four to go.”
Andy’s fingers shook so violently he could barely type, but somehow he managed to access the website blockchain.info. In another browser window, Andy opened his e-mail and with a few clicks found the bitcoin address. It was a long string of letters, a mix of capital and lower case, and numbers.
Andy copied the address from his e-mail and pasted it into the search box on the block chain website. Another webpage loaded. This one had summary information, transaction history, and entry upon entry of meaningless-looking numbers. He turned the laptop so Fausto could see the screen.
“The private key is connected to a bitcoin address,” Andy said in a rushed and panicked voice. “Gus’s dad didn’t safeguard the key, and it was easy for us to steal. But then somebody took the key from us. We can only see the money, but we can’t get it back without the new key that accesses it. Do you understand?”
Fausto seemed to be contemplating what Andy had told him. The silence was interminable.
“So you’re telling me we’re going to kill you all?”
Tears pricked the corners of Andy’s eyes. “No, please… please.”
“Please what?” Fausto said, sounding frustrated more than angry. “‘Please’ means nothing to me. We are here for one thing only. So if what you say is true, then you will all die.”
Fausto turned to the stage and dramatically extended his arm. “De tin marín de dos pingüé,” he said. With each word Fausto uttered, he pointed to one of the three being held at knifepoint. The cadence of his voice reminded Andy of “eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” and he guessed this was the Mexican version of the children’s rhyme.
“No!” Andy screamed. “Don’t!”
Fausto snapped his arm like a whip and cracked Andy’s face, using the back of his hand. Knuckles hard as lead shot slammed into the orbital bone of Andy’s eye socket. The searing pain dropped Andy to the floor.
“My ears, idiota!” Fausto scolded. “I told you to be quiet. Now, where was I? Oh yes, I remember now. Cúcara, mácara, títere fue.”
From his perch on the floor, Andy said, “Wait.” His voice came out soft as the flapping of a butterfly’s wing.
Fausto opted to ignore him. Instead, he spoke as he pointed: “Yo no fui, fue Teté.”
“One of them might have the key,” Andy said, whimpering. He’d all but given up hope, but he got the words out anyway. A chance. Just a chance. “Maybe one of them stole it from the rest of us.”
“Pégale… pégale,” Fausto slowed down his rhythm. Each word came out elongated and he appeared to take notice of what Andy said.
Andy locked eyes with Fausto. He had found a way in. It might only prolong their misery, or worse, but it was a glimmer of hope. “One of them might have the key,” Andy repeated, breathing hard. “If you kill whoever has it, you’ll never get the money.”
Fausto fell silent as he took it in. Andy filled the void by repeating what he had said. “If you kill whoever has the key, you’ll never get the money.”
Fausto faced the stage as though directing a performance from the audience. “Al…”
He pointed at Solomon.
“Quien…”
He pointed at Rafa.
“Fue.”
He pointed to the floor.
Curled into a fetal position, Andy gasped for air. The five on the stage looked to be doing the same.
“This, I’m afraid, complicates things,” Fausto said. “Now we must find out which of you has this magical key. Is that right?”
From the floor, Andy nodded.
“Pity,” Fausto said. “I think you’ll find death would have been preferable.”
From just beyond the auditorium door, Andy heard a loud clatter. It rolled and echoed as if a metal trash can had fallen over. Fausto looked as surprised as everyone. He pointed to four men standing onstage closest to the door and shouted, “Vayan a averi-guar quién mierda hizo ruido. Si es alguien, ¡mátenlo! Pero no dejen que los capturen.”
If Andy spoke Spanish, he would have understood the men had been ordered to track down whoever had made that noise and kill him.
CHAPTER 22
Laura didn’t have plans to do a lot of exploring. The campus was completely deserted, and she suspected Andy wasn’t even there. Jake was probably right. Andy had gone off with his buddies and had forgotten all about her.
Laura chided herself for thinking Andy would embrace her with open arms. She had been foolish to expect it could have been so easy. She contemplated turning around, but felt even more foolish to abandon her quest after coming so far to find him. She was wet, muddy, and discouraged. But the air around campus didn’t smell like poison. It was worth taking a minute to look around.
If anything, Laura was curious about the school. This is where Andy spent most of his time. She felt connected to him just by being here. The possibility of having a relationship with her son was foremost on Laura’s mind when she ambled across The Quad and entered the Academy Building through the massive front doors. She thought the building would have been secured, but people had left in a rush, or maybe these doors were never locked.
Either way, the door was open. Laura entered an elegant marble foyer, which featured impressive columns and a magnificent high ceiling. She had dreamed of having the kind of home that people would gawk at, and her fantasy always included a marble foyer. She knew it was grandiose, but what the hell.
Inside the massive foyer, Laura heard noises, odd muted sounds that seemed to be coming from a doorway to her right. The closer she got to that door, the louder the sounds became. The wooden doors were closed; Laura pressed her ear against them and listened. She could hear one man doing most of the talking, and it sounded to her as if he spoke with an accent. Perhaps he was part of a work crew assigned to check the air quality or test for chemical contaminants.
Curiosity got the better of her. Laura pried the door open a crack. All she wanted was to take a quick little peek inside. She peered into a darkened auditorium.
Her thoughts froze as an icy fear settled into her chest. From her vantage point, Laura could see five kids seated on classroom chairs onstage. Their wrists were bound with rope and all were gagged. Onstage loomed three savage-looking men, each holding a massive knife to the throats of three of the kids. Behind them was a second row of men, each more brutal-looking than the next, armed with an array of assault weapons she’d seen only in the movies.
Recoiling from fright, Laura inhaled with a gasp and fell sideways. She stumbled into a trash can pushed up against the wall next to the door. The auditorium door slammed shut with a hard bang as the trash can toppled, making its own thunderous crash. One thought immediately dominated all others: Run!