Joseph Finder - Power Play

"Inside and out?"

"Everything. Even the basement, but I got busy-we were pretty short-staffed last week-so I just told them to look around themselves."

"They didn't seem suspicious to you?"

"Well, there was the architecture thing-I mean, this is one of the oldest lodges in Canada-and they said they were thinking of opening their own fishing lodge in Wyoming. Which I guess was kinda weird, since they sure had no interest in fishing, you know?"

"You never told me this," his father said.

"I never gave it any thought until now," Ryan said. "Why would I?"

If Russell and his brother had come to the lodge a week earlier to scope it out, they'd been tipped off by somebody.

I asked the manager: "Who knew we were coming?"

He looked puzzled, then defensive. "Who knew-? I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"These guys knew the top officers of the Hammond Aerospace Corporation were going to be staying here. This whole thing was planned. That means they had a source. An informer. Maybe even a member of your staff. That's what I'm wondering."

He scowled. "Oh, come on. You think one of my people was involved? That's just…insane."

"Not necessarily involved. Just talked to someone. Maybe without even knowing who he was talking to."

He was indignant. "The only ones who get the booking schedule in advance are me and my son."

"People have to order supplies."

"I do the ordering. There's no one else. What makes you so sure this was planned?"

"A bunch of things," I said. "How do you get supplies in here?"

"We've got a contract air service out of Vancouver that does a supply run every three days."

"When's the next one?"

"Not until Saturday."

I nodded, wondered whether Russell knew that, whether it figured into his timing. "How'd they get here, do you think? Through the woods?"

He shook his head. "No way. The woods are way too dense. Had to be a boat."

"There must be old hunting trails."

"They're all grown over. No one hunts around here anymore. Haven't for years."

"Since it's been made a wildlife preserve?"

"Before that, even. There's really nothing to hunt. I mean, there's always going to be people who'll break the law if there's something to catch. But the deer are way too small. A long time ago people used to trap beavers. Used to be a grizzly hunt, once, a while back. But not in forever. Years ago the Owekeeno Indians cut trails through the forests, but they're all grown over, too."

"How far's the nearest lodge?"

After a few seconds, he said, "Kilbella Bay, but it's a ways."

"Can you get to it on land?"

"Nah, it's across the inlet."

"So these guys must have taken a boat or a seaplane."

"Would have had to. But…"

"But what?"

"I didn't hear anything. I always hear boats passing by on the inlet, or coming in, and I didn't hear any motors. And I sure would have heard a plane."

"You were busy in the kitchen."

"I woulda heard it, believe me. Always do."

"So maybe they rowed in."

"Maybe. Or took a motorboat in partway, then cut the engines and rowed the rest of the way in."

"Which would mean they probably left their boat down on the shore, right?"

He shrugged. After a moment, he said, "I did hear a gunshot."

"We all did."

"Come to think of it, I haven't seen Josй."

"Who's Josй?"

"One of the Mexican kids. I told him to hose out a couple of the boats earlier tonight, but…"

"Around the time these guys showed up?"

"It would be, yeah."

"He probably ran into the woods," I said.

Paul glanced at me, looked away. "Yeah," he said. "Probably."

I began sidling away, when he stopped me. "This lodge is my whole life, you know."

I nodded, listened. He wanted to talk, and I let him.

"I mean, when it was built, a century ago, it was sort of a madman's folly. A crazy rich guy came out here when there was nothing else around except a couple of salmon canneries and decided to build this huge, beautiful fishing lodge." He shook his head, smiled sadly. "I'm not even the majority owner. He's in Australia, in Canberra. Only comes up here when we have celebrities visiting-movie stars and tycoons. He likes to schmooze with them. I put in the sweat equity. Even in the off-season, I'm always working, doing the hiring, repair work." He closed his eyes. "My wife left me. Couldn't stand the isolation. So now it's just me and my son, and he wants out, too."

"That's not true, Dad," Ryan said.

"This is a time for complete honesty," Paul said to his son. To me, he continued: "You know, my chief pleasure in life is when guests leave happy. I know, you probably don't believe that, do you?"

"I do."

"Or when they write me or e-mail me to say what a good time they had. It makes me feel like a host at a great dinner party. And now…this."

"Some dinner party."

"I don't know what I could have done differently."

"There's nothing you could have done," I said.

He seemed to consider that for a few seconds; he looked unconvinced. "Once he gets the ransom…We're not getting out of here alive, are we?"

I didn't reply.

He closed his eyes. "Dear God."

"That doesn't mean we can't try to do something."

He nodded for a long time. "You know any Hindu mythology, Jake?"

"I'm afraid not."

"There's a story. A Hindu myth. About a king who's given a curse. He's going to die in seven days from a snakebite. And you know-when he hears this curse, he feels…serene. Joyful."

"Oh yeah?"

"See, he knows he's got seven days to live. Seven days to prepare for his death. To devote to the contemplation of Krishna. To prepare for his departure for the spiritual world. He's filled with joy, Jake, and you know why? Because we're all under a sentence of death, and none of us knows when death will come to us. But he knows, you see. He knows. He knows he's going to die, and he's accepted it."

I paused just long enough for him to think I was mulling all this over. "No offense," I said, "but I'm not a Hindu."

I waited for Travis to pass by again.

A thought had occurred to me, and I shifted around to Danziger.

"If we have kidnap-and-ransom insurance," I said, "doesn't that mean we have some firm on retainer that specializes in rescuing hostages?"

Danziger smiled: rueful, not condescending. "That's only in the movies. In the real world, very few risk-management firms actually do retrievals. They do hostage negotiation with the kidnappers and make the payment arrangements. But this isn't a ransom situation. Russell's too smart for that. He knows what he's doing." Danziger paused. "He does seem to know an awful lot about how this all works."

"So do you."

"It's part of my job. At Hammond, the controller is also what they call the 'risk manager.' That means I work with Ron Slattery and Geoff Latimer to arrange for all the special risk insurance coverage. Told you I'd put you to sleep if I told you too much about what I do." He seemed distracted, looked at Grogan. "How does he know so much about K &R, do you think?"

"I've been wondering the same thing," Grogan said. "You remember when Latimer told us about this security firm in California he thought we might want to have on retainer? Some law school classmate of his founded it or ran it, maybe?"

"Right!" Danziger said. "They did recovery and retrieval, not just hostage negotiation. A lot of child abduction cases, I remember-divorces and such. One of their employees got arrested in South America on a child recovery case he was working, charged with kidnapping under the international treaty agreements. Did a couple years in prison in the U.S. That pretty much cooled me on them."

The two men exchanged glances.

I said, "You think that's Russell? That guy?"