Danielle Steel - Ransom

It was the third day of cops and FBI agents in the house, when Fernanda called Jack Waterman early that morning and said that she and Sam had the flu and couldn't go to Napa for the day. She still wanted to talk to him about what was happening, but things were too crazy, and it still seemed too unreal. How could she explain the men camping out in her living room, sitting around the table with holsters in her kitchen? It almost made her feel foolish. Particularly if it turned out to be unnecessary. She was hoping that she'd never have to tell him about it. Jack said he was sorry they both had the flu, and offered to come by on his way to Napa, but she said they still felt too lousy, and she didn't want him to catch it.

After that, she tucked Sam into bed with her, and put on a movie. She had fed the four men breakfast by then, and she and Sam were cuddling, with his head on her shoulder, when she heard an unfamiliar sound downstairs. The alarm wasn't on, and didn't need to be with two policemen and two FBI agents protecting her. With all that trained protection and armed firepower at hand, the alarm seemed redundant, so she hadn't put it on the night before, or in fact since they'd been there. Ted had told her they could set it off accidentally with the movements of the men going in and out of the back door from time to time to check on things. It sounded as though something had fallen in the kitchen, a chair or something comparable. She didn't worry about it with four men downstairs, and lay there with Sam dozing on her shoulder. Neither of them was sleeping well at night, and sometimes it was easier dozing in the daytime, as Sam did now, in his mother's arms.

She heard muffled voices then, and footsteps on the stairs. She was just beginning to wonder what was going on and assumed they were coming upstairs to check on them, but didn't want to get up and disturb Sam, when three men in ski masks exploded through her bedroom door and stood at the foot of her bed, pointing M16 machine guns with silencers at them. As Sam saw them, his eyes flew open wide, and he stiffened in his mother's arms, as one of the men came toward them. Sam's eyes were huge with terror, as were Fernanda's, who was praying the men wouldn't shoot them. Even to her untrained eye, she knew they were carrying machine guns.

“It's okay, Sam… it's okay…” she said softly in a shaking voice, not even knowing what she'd said. She had no idea where the men protecting her were, but there was no evidence of them, and no sound from downstairs. She clutched Sam to her and backed up in the bed, as though it would save her and Sam from the men, as one of them wrenched Sam out of her hands without a sound, and she screamed as he took him from her. “Don't take him,” she pleaded pitifully. The moment they had feared had come, and all she could do was beg him. She was sobbing uncontrollably, as one man held a machine gun on her, and another tied Sam's hands with rope, and put a piece of tape over his mouth, as her son looked wild-eyed at her in helpless terror. “Oh my God!” she screamed as two of them forced Sam into a canvas bag, with hands and feet tied, like so much laundry. There were terrified grunts from Sam, and screams from her, as the man closest to her yanked her hair back so hard with one hand, it felt like he had torn it from her scalp.

“If you make another sound, we'll kill him, and you don't want that, do you?” She could tell that he was powerfully built, in a rough jacket and jeans and work-men's boots. There was a wisp of blond hair peeking from the ski mask. One of the other men was stockier, but powerful as he slung the canvas bag over his shoulder. Fernanda didn't dare move for fear that they would kill Sam.

“Take me with him,” she said in a shaking voice, and the two men said nothing. They were following orders and had been told clearly not to. She had to stay back to pay the ransom. There was no one else who could do it. “Please… please… don't hurt him,” she begged them, falling to her knees, as all three ran out of the room and down the stairs carrying him, and then she got up and ran down the stairs after them, and on the stairs she suddenly saw footprints in blood everywhere.

“If you tell the cops or anyone about this, we'll kill him.” She nodded her understanding to the man who had spoken in a voice muffled by the mask.

“Where's the door to the garage?” one of the men asked her, and she saw blood splashed on his pants leg and his hands. She hadn't heard a single shot ring out. All she could think about was Sam, as she pointed to the door to the garage. One of the men was pointing his machine gun at her, and another tossed Sam to the third one. He slung the bag with Sam in it over his shoulder, and there was no sound and no movement, but she knew that nothing they had done to him so far could have killed him. The heavy-set man spoke to her again then. They had been in Will's and Ashley's bedrooms before they got to her, and hadn't found them.

“Where are the others?”

“Away,” she said, and they nodded and ran down the back stairs, while she wondered where the cops were.

The kidnappers had backed up their van to the garage, and no one had seen them do it. They had looked innocuous when they arrived, looking like workmen, went around to the back, broke a window using a towel, unlocked it, and climbed in. They had disabled the alarm and cut the wires before they broke the window pane. It was a skill they had developed over the years and knew well. No one had seen anything. And no one did now, as they opened the garage door to access their van, and she watched them open the back door to throw Sam in. If she had had a gun, she would have shot them, but as things were, there was nothing she could do to stop them, and she knew it. She was afraid to even scream for her protectors, for fear that the kidnappers would kill Sam.

The man carrying the bag with Sam in it climbed in and dragged him in, bumping Sam across the back bumper. The others threw their weapons in, ran around to the front, as the back door slammed. And seconds later they drove away, as Fernanda stood sobbing on the sidewalk. And much to her horror, no one heard or saw her. The windows of the van had been heavily tinted, and by the time the men took their ski masks off, they had turned the corner, and she saw nothing. She hadn't even seen their license plate and only thought of it afterward. All she could do was watch them drive her son away and pray that they wouldn't kill him.

She ran back inside, still sobbing then, flew up the back stairs and into the kitchen, across the bloodstained hall carpet, to find the policemen. And what she found there was a scene of total carnage. One with his head bashed in, another with the back of his head blown off by an M16. His brains were splattered all over her kitchen wall. She had never seen anything so horrible, and was too terrified to even cry. They could have done this to her or Sam, and still could. The two FBI agents had been shot in the chest and heart, one of them was sprawled across the table with a hole in his back the size of a dinner plate, the other was lying on his back on the kitchen floor. The two FBI men were holding their Sig Sauer .40 calibers, and the two policemen held semiautomatic .40-caliber Glocks, but none of them had had time to fire off a round before the kidnappers shot them. They had been distracted for just a moment, talking and drinking coffee, and had been taken completely unaware. All of them were dead. And she ran out of the room to use the phone and call someone. She found the card with Ted's phone number, and dialed his cell phone. She was so panicked she didn't think to call 911, and she remembered the kidnappers' warning “not to tell anyone.” That seemed impossible now with four officers dead at their hands.

Ted answered on the first ring, and was at home, doing some paperwork and cleaning his .40-caliber Glock, which he'd been meaning to do all week. All he heard were strange guttural moaning sounds, like some wild wounded beast. She could not find the words to tell him, and sobbed pathetically into the phone.