A nod. “Okay.”
“Good. Now, let’s get you to that bathroom. Stand up and I’ll be behind you with my hands on your shoulders. I’ll steer you right to it. Remember: Go inside, do your business, and knock when you’re ready to come out.” Poppy guided the kid to the john and closed her in.
“And remember,” she said through the door. “Have that blindfold on when I let you out. Got it?”
On the far side of the door she heard the kid start to cry again. “I want my daddy!”
“Don’t worry, Katie. You’ll get your daddy. You just have to be patient.” Shit, this was a rotten thing to do to a kid.
And how come she never asked for her mommy?
25
Snake situated himself in front of a Dataphone 2000 in the lobby of the Hyatt this time. He had the instructions for getting the package’s medicine all typed out and ready to upload from his Thinkpad. But when he logged onto Eric Garter’s IDT account he was startled to find e-mail waiting. Only one person that could be from.
He didn’t like this. The way it was supposed to run was Snake telling Vanduyne what the situation was and Vanduyne acknowledging it; then Snake telling Vanduyne what to do, and Vanduyne agreeing, and so forth: Snake, Vanduyne… Snake, Vanduyne—none of this ad lib bullshit with Vanduyne dropping him a line whenever he felt like it.
Who does this guy think he is? He speaks when he’s spoken to and that’s that.
Snake glanced around. Checking the new e-mail was going to increase his time of exposure here, and that meant more chances of something going wrong. But no one seemed to be paying any attention to him. Quickly he downloaded the message. He angled his Thinkpad’s screen away from the lobby and called up the file.
Sure enough, Vanduyne had sent another message, now forwarded by the remailer. And it was an ultimatum! A fucking ultimatum! Where did this guy get his balls?
Snake reined in his fury. Hell, the guy was just doing what anybody would do: making sure Snake really had the goods he said he was holding.
I’ve got the goods, pal; And try to imagine how little I care if she likes Lucky Charms or whatever. I’m in charge. Get used to that. And get used to something else real quick: There’s no way in hell you’re going to talk to her.
What’s this guy thinking? I’m going to drag a blindfolded kid out to a safe pay phone for a little chat with her daddy? Right.
He popped his own message onto the screen and added a couple of lines to the end; then he uploaded it to e-mail and sent it off into the Internet.
He disconnected and hurried for the exit. He was getting a bad feeling about this gig. First the epilepsy foul up, and now the snatch wasn’t a day old and already this Vanduyne was becoming a royal pain in the ass.
Any more trouble and Snake would have to send the doc a persuader.
26
Finally!
John had been sneaking in and out of the study all day, avoiding Nana, checking his e-mail, riding a roller coaster from hell as he downloaded one message after another, only to find each one was routine HHS business.
Why wasn’t Snake answering? He had to get Katie her Tegretol—before tonight.
But now his heart began pounding as he saw anon.nonet.uk in the heading… the anonymous remailer. All the moisture left his mouth and collected in his palms as he began reading.
Phone in a prescription for a couple weeks’ supply of your kid’s pills to the CVS on 17th and K downtown in the District and it will be picked up. This pickup is a good faith gesture on our part. Don’t try to fuck us up. Any sign that the store is being watched, there will be no pickup and your kid will suffer. Anyone follows me or stops me, she dies in minutes. As said before, we’ve got nothing against you or the kid, but we’re not playing games. Cooperate and you’ll have her back good as new.
As for speaking to her, no can do. Too inconvenient. Don’t push us on this, Doc. We’re not big in the patience department.
Trust us and this will all work out fine.
Snake
Suddenly weak, John sat and stared at the screen, reading it over and over. The phrases your kid will suffer and she dies in minutes kept popping out at him.
He felt his stomach heave. Fearing he was going to be sick, he lurched out of his chair and rushed across the hall to the bathroom. He hung over the toilet, gasping, but nothing came up.
Finally the nausea passed. As he was bending over the sink, splashing water on his face, John heard a high pitched cry. He straightened and heard it again. A wail this time… from across the hall.
Oh, no. “Ma!” He rushed back into his study and found her standing before his computer, her thin hands locked in a white knuckled grip on the back of his chair as she stared at the monitor. She swiveled her head toward him, her expression stricken, her eyes wide, her skin ashen.
“Johnny…” Her voice cracked and fell away. “Johnny, tell me this is a cruel joke!”
His first impulse was to lie, but what good was that? When Katie didn’t come home from school later… He stepped to her side and put an arm around her, gently guiding her toward the couch.
“Here… sit down.”
“Oh, dear Lord, it’s true, then! Someone’s kidnapped Katie! Why? Oh, Lord, why?”
“I don’t know, Ma.” John explained all that had happened, and why he was afraid to call in the FBI.
His mother seemed to get a grip on herself as the story unfolded. She’d never been one for hysterics. She asked all the questions he’d been asking himself over and over: Why Katie? And what “service” did they want from him?
“But they are arranging to get Katie her medicine,” she said. “I am thinking this is a good sign, yes? It means she’s alive and they want to keep her so.”
Or they just want me to think she’s alive, John thought, but he didn’t say it. They could pick up the pills and simply dump them in the garbage.
“I want—I need—more than a sign,” he said. “I’ve got to know, Ma.”
She clutched his arm. “Don’t make them angry, John. They may take it out on Katie.”
Yeah, they might—if she’s still alive. He nodded. “I’ll be careful. I’ll be polite. I’ll kiss their butts, but I’ve got to know.”
“John…” his mother said slowly. “You don’t think this could be… Mamie’s doing?”
He stared at her. “Mamie?”
“Well, she is crazy, you know.”
“She’s very crazy.” John was intimately familiar with his ex-wife’s history of bizarre behavior, but this was too wild even for her, and far beyond her scope. And besides, Mamie was confined to Georgia, in deep therapy. “But I guarantee you Mamie’s got nothing to do with this.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
“First, call in that prescription.” He called information, got the number of the CVS at K and 17th, and told them to have fifty Tegretol 1oo mg. chewables ready for Katie Vanduyne ASAP. Since they’d never heard of him, he had to supply his office address and phone number, plus his DEA number.
“Now I’m going to get back to Snake.”
“Please be careful.”
“I’m just going to tell him that the prescription is ready and waiting. But I’m also going to ask for the answer to a question only Katie can give. And I’ll tell them that as long as I know Katie’s alive, I’ll do anything to keep her that way. I’ll perform any ‘service’ they want.”
“I am hoping you can do this.”
“I’m hoping, too, Ma.” But then what do I do? Sit around and wait? Call the pharmacy every five minutes to see if the prescription’s been picked up? He realized he was starting to fall apart. He’d be a gibbering basket case soon if he didn’t do something.