James Patterson - Roses Are Red

A corporate assistant named Mary Jordan stood up in front and addressed the group. Jordan was in her early thirties, attractive and likable, supremely efficient. She was courteous to the important women on the bus, without fawning over them or sounding obsequious. Her nickname at Metro Hartford was' Merry Mary."

"You all know the itinerary for this morning," she said. Then she

smiled brilliantly. "But maybe we should scrap the whole plan and go drinking. Just kidding," she added quickly.

"Boo," said one wife, 'that sounds like fun, Mary. Let's go to a real drinking bar. Where does Teddy Kennedy go for his morning wake-up shot?" Up and down the aisle everyone laughed.

The tour bus proceeded down the driveway of the hotel at a leisurely pace, then turned on to Connecticut Avenue. A few minutes later, the bus turned on to Oliver, which was a residential street. It was a shortcut drivers often took from the Mayflower.

A dark blue Chevy van backed out of a driveway about halfway down the block. The van's driver obviously didn't see the bus, but the bus driver saw the Chevy. He braked smoothly and stopped in the middle of the street.

The driver of the van wouldn't move even after Joe Denyeau sounded his horn. Denyeau figured that the man must be fed up with all the trucks and buses that used the side street as a shortcut. What other reason could there be for the guy to just sit there, staring angrily at him?

Two masked men suddenly appeared from behind a high hedge. One of them stepped directly in front of the tour bus; the other thrust an automatic weapon inside the open window, inches from the driver's head.

"Open the door or you're dead, Joseph," he shouted at the driver," No one gets hurt if you obey. You have three seconds to follow directions. One …"

"It's open, it's open," Denyeau said in a high-pitched, very frightened voice. "Take it easy."

Several of the wives stopped in the middle of their conversations and peered up toward the front of the bus. Mary Jordan slid down in the bus seat behind the driver, where she was riding alone. She could see the man with the gun, and then he winked at her.

"Do what he says, Joe," Jordan whispered. "Don't play the hero."

"Don't worry. It didn't even cross my mind."

The armed, masked man suddenly boarded the bus. He held a Walther double automatic pointed at them. Some of the passengers began to scream.

The masked man shouted out, "This is a hijacking! We're only interested in getting money from MerroHartford. I promise you, no one will be hurt. I have children, you have children. Let's make sure all of our children get to see us tomorrow morning."

The tour bus became strangely silent. Even the small children were quiet.

Brian Macdougall had the floor and he immensely enjoyed being the center of attention. "There are a few rules of order. One, no more screams. Two, nobody cries, not even the kids. Three, nobody yells for help. Okay so far? Understood?"

The passengers stared open-mouthed at the man with the gun. Another man had climbed on to the bus roof and was changing the alphanumeric indicator, which was the easiest way police aircraft could spot the bus on the road.

"I said okay so far?" Brian Macdougall yelled.

The women and children nodded and answered him in muffled voices.

"Next piece of business. Everyone with a cell phone pass it forward -right now. As we all know, the police can track cell phones. Not easily, but it can be done. Anyone still holding a phone when we do body searches will be killed. Even if it's a kid. Simple as that. Understood? Okay so far? We still crystal-clear on everything?"

The cell phones were hurriedly passed to the front. There were nine of them. The gunman threw them outside the bus, into the hedges. He then used a small hammer and smashed the bus's two-way radio beyond repair.

"Now, everybody, put your heads way down below the level of the windows. Everybody stay very quiet down here. That includes the kids. Put your heads down now and don't look up again until you're told. Do it."

The women and the children on the bus obeyed.

"Big Joe,” the gunman turned and addressed the bus driver," you have only one instruction follow the blue van. Do not fuck around in any way or you will die instantly. You are worth nothing to us alive, or dead. Now, Joe, what do you do?"

"Follow the black van."

"Very good, Joe. Excellent. Except the van is blue, Joe. See the blue van? Now follow it, and drive carefully. We don't want any vehicular violations on our trip."

There were three executive assistants busily answering phones and collecting mail and faxes for the thirty-six directors working in the famed Chinese Room at the Mayflower Hotel. The assistants loved being out of the office, especially since the home offices were in Hartford, Connecticut.

Sara Wilson, the youngest assistant, saw the fax from the kidnappers first. She quickly read it, then passed it on to the two more-senior assistants. Her face was beet red and her hands were trembling badly.

"Is this some kind of a sick joke?” Liz Becton asked when she saw the fax. "This is crazy. What is this?"

Nancy Hall was the executive assistant to the group CEO, John Dooner. She barged into the board meeting without knocking and called clear across the room. Actually, she needn't have raised her voice. The Chinese Room at the Mayflower had an acoustic problem. The ceiling was a sweeping dome. Even a whisper on one side of the large room could be heard on the other.

"Mr. Dooner, I have to see you right now," she said. She was more agitated and upset than her boss had ever seen her.

The departure of the CEO brought a general lightening of the mood around the room, but the small talk and smiles were short-lived. He was back in less than five minutes. His face was pale as he hurriedly walked to the podium.

Time is of the essence," said Dooner in a trembling voice that shocked the other board members. "Please listen carefully. The chartered tour bus carrying my wife and many of your wives has been hijacked. The men responsible claim to be the same sick bastards who've been robbing banks and taking hostages in Maryland and Virginia during the past few weeks. They claim that the robberies and murders were committed as "object lessons" for the people in this boardroom. They want us to know they are deadly serious about their demands being met and met on time to the second."

The CEO continued, his face dramatically lit by the podium lamp. "Their demands are simple and clear. They want thirty million dollars to be delivered to them in exactly four hours, or all the hostages will be murdered. We don't know how the tour bus was taken. Steve Holding from our Control Risks Group is on his way over here. He's deciding which police agency to involve. It will probably be the FBI."

Dooner stopped to take a breath. The color in his face was returning slowly. "As you know, we have a kidnapping insurance policy that covers up to fifty million in ransom. I suspect that the kidnappers already know this. They seem to be thorough and organized. They're also clear-headed, which gives them an advantage. I think they know that we are the underwriters on the policy ourselves. Therefore, we can get the money and we can get it fast.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, please, we have to talk about our alternatives. If there are any alternatives. The kidnappers have made one thing very clear there can be no mistakes or people will die."

XI was at the FBI field office on Fourth Street when we got the emergency call.

A Washington On Wheels tour bus with eighteen passengers and the driver had been hijacked soon after it left the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel. Minutes later, a thirty-million-dollar ransom had been demanded from the Metro Hartford Insurance Company.