Robin Cook - Cure

“Of course not!” Warren said, with a tone reflecting how crazy he thought the question was.

“Well, perhaps it would be better if you were. If both I and Colt would somehow mess up, which we never have, I wouldn’t want you to be vulnerable. I presume you have access to a weapon of some sort.”

“I have something,” Warren admitted vaguely.

“We’ll be there as soon as possible. Remember, be subtle!”

“What’s the plan, if I may ask?”

“The plan is simply that we are going to come over and invite this gentleman to come with us for a short party and ask him what we need to know. Luckily, we just rented a convenient spot for the party. When we know what we need to know — namely, the address where the Stapleton child is being held — we will bring our friend back to his car, where we would appreciate getting a hand putting him back so he can sleep off his medication.”

“Will you need help getting him from his car into your car?”

“Heavens, no!” Grover said. “But thank you for the offer. The main reason we don’t want your help is because it is a felony, of course, to take someone elsewhere against their will, which we justify as an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. As for the practical legal aspects, we have our own in-house defense attorney. Anyway, the answer is no. We do the kidnapping.”

March 27, 2010

Saturday, 11:49 p.m.

I think we can give ourselves a compliment,” Colt said to Grover. Colt was driving, and Grover was studying the MapQuest directions. “That little event was carried out extraordinarily well.”

The event he was referring to was their surprising the watcher and transferring him from his car to the back of a rented black Ford van. At the moment they’d burst into his SUV, which he’d failed to lock, the man, whom they later learned was Duane Mackenzie, had not been doing much watching, except for watching the ongoing neighborhood basketball game. As a consequence, Grover and Colt had been able to get their hands on the SUV’s front door handles and the doors open before Duane could react. By that time, he had two suppressed Smith & Wesson automatic pistols pressed against his neck while he was being relieved of his own weapon.

“Now, here’s what you are going to do,” Colt had said to the shocked and terrified Duane. “We’re going to get out of the SUV and walk directly across the street and climb into the back of that black Ford van without making any fuss. If you do, you are going to get blown away. Am I understood?”

“Who are you?” Duane tried to demand, but his voice quavered in terror.

“Shut up!” Colt had snapped. Then to Grover: “How clear does the neighborhood look?” He wasn’t about to take his eyes off Duane.

“It looks good,” Grover had said, avoiding using Colt’s name. “No pedestrians except two heading away, and no oncoming cars.”

Colt, who had been on the driver’s side, had yanked Duane out of the SUV and had marched him quickly down the street. Colt had lowered the gun temporarily to his side. Grover had caught up to the other two at the back of the van and had opened the back doors.

Once the doors were wide open, Colt had forced Duane inside in a smooth and practiced fashion. Inside the van was an open, domestic oriental rug, onto which Duane was forced to lie prone. Grover had climbed in as well, and as Colt kept the barrel of his gun pressed against Duane’s neck, Grover had bound the man’s arms with duct tape, gagged him with a small rag secured with duct tape, and then rolled him up in the rug. The whole episode, from entering Duane’s vehicle to his being bound inside the rug, had taken less than a minute, and the only person to have been a witness was Jack. Thanks to the discussion the previous evening, he had noticed the SUV and had been watching it continuously.

“Where should I turn east?” Colt asked, as he headed south on Central Park West.

“Either at Fifty-ninth or Fifty-seventh,” Grover responded. “Fiftyninth will be fine.”

They were on their way to Woodside, Queens, where they had rented a small two-story house. It was brick, with a garage entered from a back alleyway. The garage had been key. They wanted to avoid any curiosity when unloading their guest.

“Do you think he is adequately terrified?” Colt asked. Part of the technique was to scare the hell out of the victim to loosen his tongue.

“I think so,” Grover said. “I certainly would be.” He checked his watch. “I hope this doesn’t take too long. We’ve a lot to do today.”

They crossed over the Queensboro Bridge and onto Northern Boulevard, then onto 54th Street. The house they had rented was in the middle of the block. Colt turned into the alleyway. The garage door had an automatic opener, one of whose buttons Grover pressed as they approached. The garage door rattled upward, and Colt expertly pulled the van in and killed the engine.

“Let’s get our tools in first, get set up, and then come back for our guest.”

“Sounds good to me, but let’s not make this our life’s work,” Grover said.

March 27, 2010

Saturday, 12:50 p.m.

The phone again jolted both Laurie and Jack, causing their pulses to speed up. A half-hour earlier it had been Warren apologizing for disturbing them but telling Jack that a handful of the boys were already out at the court and thinking they might start earlier than usual that afternoon. He wanted to know if Jack would like to join them to take his mind off what was going on. Jack had given the idea a brief thought, but after looking at Laurie had decided not to do it. He reasoned that they needed to be with each other even though they had run out of things to say. For both, the hardest part was feeling helpless while flipping back and forth between despondency and anger.

Before he’d hung up, Warren did have something at least interesting if not hopeful to say. He’d said that he and Flash had found a possible watcher, and Grover and Colt had come and hauled the man away.

“I actually saw the abduction,” Jack had admitted. “Do you know where they took him?”

“No idea,” Warren had said. “But we’re supposed to wait around for when they bring the guy back. That’s why we decided to start playing early.”

The second time the phone rang, neither of them wanted to pick it up. Laurie sat in a club chair, Jack on the couch next to the corner table where the phone lived. At that moment he was in the depressed side of his cycling emotions and was not sure he could interact with anyone. Nonetheless, after a few more rings he picked up the handset. He expected it was Warren trying to put more pressure on him to play ball, but it wasn’t. It was Captain Detective Mark Bennett.

“How are you people doing?” Marked asked. “Did you get any sleep?”

“Sleep is not in the cards today,” Jack said. “Is anything happening? You know we got another call?”

“Absolutely,” Mark said. “I listened to the recording a number of times and have even visited the Laundromat from where the call was made in hopes of talking to an employee who might have remembered the incident, but no go. At least we know the way they are going to communicate with us, which is important in and of itself.”

“Is that going to help?”

“Yes and no. There’s still a lot of public phones in the city, so we cannot stake out all of them. But it is something we’ll keep in mind as things progress. The important thing is that they came up with a specific demand, which means the negotiation will be starting. That’s an important milestone.”

“And reminded us of a previous demand,” Jack said. “They said no police. They threatened to physically hurt JJ if we don’t respect it.”