Cure (41 page)

The initial introductions were carried out on the stoop. Mark Bennett had been first, a bear of a man who had come forward with his hand extended as Laurie came up the front steps. “I’m Detective Mark Bennett,” he said, shaking Laurie’s hand vigorously. “I’m a detective from the Major Case Squad, and I’m here to get your child back as soon as possible.” He then went on to introduce a number of other people, including crisis negotiator Henry Fulsome and a host of other people, other detectives, crime scene specialists, technicians, and even a special agent of the FBI. Laurie found herself impressed with the detective, who seemed to her a walking, talking crime deterrent who spoke of the perpetrators as cowards who needed to be rounded up and thrown into prison for the rest of their lives.

“I’m sorry we have to invade your home for a few days, ma’am,” Mark continued as they all entered the brownstone. “But we have to get to work to get your boy back, and time is of the essence. I’m particularly interested in getting our technicians to work on your phone line to wire it up and make both tracking incoming calls and listening in easy. We’re also going to put in our own entirely new additional phone line.”

“Please,” Laurie said, gesturing that the house was theirs. “We appreciate all of you being here. Do whatever is necessary.” She and Jack began taking coats and hanging them up in the closet when the phone suddenly rang. Instantly, all conversation stopped. Everyone turned to stare at the phone perched on its little mahogany console table.

“Mrs. Stapleton,” Mark said. “Answer it!”

With some hesitation, Laurie approached the phone. She grabbed onto it and looked at the detective for encouragement. Mark nodded and motioned for her to pick it up. When she did, she said a faltering hello.

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“Is this Laurie Montgomery-Stapleton?” Brennan questioned. He tried to sound angry and impatient, as Louie had ordered. To his chagrin, his voice quavered.

He was nervous.

“Yes,” Laurie said, requiring her to clear her throat. She was suddenly terrified and needed to reach out and lean against the wall to maintain her balance. She instinctively knew it was JJ’s abductor.

“We have your kid.”

“Who is this?” Laurie asked, struggling to sound authoritative but failing miserably.

“It doesn’t matter who it is,” Brennan said. He was now more successful in modulating his tone. “What’s important is that we have your kid. Would you like to talk with him?”

Laurie tried to respond but couldn’t, not with the force of tears that had suddenly threatened to burst forth.

“Are you still there, Mrs. Stapleton? I need you to speak. I cannot be on the line for more than a moment.”

“I’m still here,” Laurie managed. “I want my child back. Why did you take my child?”

“I want you to start to mobilize some cash, and I want you to do it quickly. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Do you want to talk to your child? I’m trying to be patient.”

“Yes, I do.” Laurie wiped tears from her eyes.

“Okay, you little brat,” Brennan said off-line. “Say hello to your mommy.”

There was silence.

“Maybe you’d better say hello to him,” Brennan said, coming back on the line.

“I’ll put him on again.”

“Hello, sweetheart,” Laurie said, assuming the phone was being pressed against his ear. She was desperately trying to avoid crying. “It’s Mommy here. Are you 253

all right?”

“Well, he’s smiling,” Brennan reported. “Whatever you said, he’s smiling. Should I shake him up a bit and get him to cry?”

“I want my child back immediately,” Laurie demanded. “Don’t shake him!”

“Getting your child back isn’t going to happen immediately, Mrs. Stapleton, but it could happen soon. It will be up to you if you are to get him back at all. You have to mobilize cash. Am I clear on that? We’re not going to require cash, but you’ll need cash to get what we’ll be demanding. You’ll be needing a lot of cash.”

“Yes,” Laurie managed with a shiver.

“And another thing. We don’t want you to work with the police. We know they are there at your home right this minute. Get rid of them. We will know if you don’t listen to us, and it will be your son who’ll suffer. We’ll send him to you a piece at a time.”

There was a pause. “I hope you’re taking this all in,” Brennan said, not waiting for Laurie to respond, “because I’m going to have to hang up. But there’s one more demand. I’ll be calling you back tomorrow, so I want you to be available at any time, day or night. Until then, have a nice evening.”

There was a final click. For a moment Laurie continued to hold the phone to her ear as she tried to get herself under control. She was afraid if she did anything, even move, she would break out in tears.

Mark stepped over, took the phone from her hand, and placed it back on its base. “I’m sure you don’t feel it this minute, but hearing from the abductors is a very positive development. We are truly relieved. It confirms what we had hoped: that this case is about kidnapping for ransom and not something else.

When the kidnapping is for ransom, it is in the kidnappers’ best interest that the victim stays alive and healthy.”

36

MARCH 26, 2010

FRIDAY, 10:41 p.m.

A
s the hour closed in on eleven o’clock, Laurie and Jack accompanied Detective Mark Bennett down the stairs to say good-bye when the detective declared that 254

everything they needed to do had been accomplished. The most important thing was the Stapleton phone. It was now being monitored twenty-four-seven, and incoming calls could be traced from a bank of equipment in a small makeshift office set up in a guest room on the first floor.

“I’ll be checking in by phone in the morning,” Mark said, pausing at the front door. Except for the officer manning the communications equipment, who was going to stay all night, Mark was the last person from the NYPD to leave.

“Thank you for all you’ve done,” Laurie said. Not only had he supervised everyone else’s work, he’d taken the time to explain to Laurie and Jack everything that had been done up to that point. It started with the 911 dispatch of the first responders from Central Park Precinct Twenty-two, and the Manhattan North Patrol Borough, who had secured the crime scene, interviewed the only witness, initiated the process of declaring the Amber Alert, prepared the BOLO (Be On the LOokout) for a white van with six adult men and one infant, and established a leads-management folder at the NYPD’s Real Time Crime Center.

Mark had gone on to explain that after the first responders’ work had been done, an initial supervisory officer had dispatched an evidence collection unit as well as a crime scene unit while also reviewing the sex offenders registry in the area of the kidnapping and entering the case into the National Crime Information Center’s Missing Person File.

“It had been then that I got involved,” Mark had explained. “After both the police commissioner and the mayor’s office were briefed, the case was referred by the chief of detectives to the Major Case Squad, as well as the FBI, and Team Adam.

As I’m part of the Major Case Squad and was available, I was assigned to run it.

What I’ve managed to do with my staff so far is to debrief the first responders and the only witness, and review all the information that’s currently in the leads-management system at the Real Time Crime Center at One Police Plaza.”

Jack opened the front door. A cool nighttime breeze wafted in off the street. A few yells from an intense basketball game on the neighborhood court were borne on the wind. “Looks like a real neighborhood around here,” Mark noted. “It’s almost eleven and the kids are still playing hoops. I’m glad to see it, and not just because it helps keep them out of trouble. I like it because it means it is a community.”

“It is a great neighborhood. Warren, whom you met upstairs, is one of the local leaders. He and I play hoops all the time, particularly on Friday nights. We’d be out there now if it weren’t for this ongoing tragedy.”

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“Earlier I told you what had been accomplished so far in this case. All that pales to your cooperation and having a name and a description to apply to the victim.

I’m sorry you are having to go through this, but you and your wife are, by necessity, key players. We need your help. In return, I give you my word that I, and everyone I command, will do everything in our power to get your boy back healthy.”

“Thank you,” Laurie and Jack said in unison.

With a quick parting salute, Mark bounded down the steps and entered a waiting unmarked official car. Both Jack and Laurie silently watched the vehicle head up to Central Park West and turn right on West Side Drive.

“I have a lot of confidence in him,” Laurie said, in an attempt to buoy up her spirits. “I’m exhausted, but I know I’m not going to be able to sleep.” She crossed in front of Jack and re-entered the house.

Before Jack went in, he looked over to watch the basketball game sweep up and down the court. Although he’d been actively avoiding thinking about consequences, he suddenly found himself hoping beyond hope that JJ would be found soon and not be harmed so as to be able to grow up and experience the multitudinous joys of life.

Back upstairs, Jack looked for Laurie. With all the excitement suddenly over, he was worried how she was going to cope, just as he worried about himself. He was surprised not to find her in the kitchen. Neither of them had taken the time to eat anything, as Detective Bennett had kept them busy answering questions about JJ and his complicated medical history. Bennett had also quizzed them about the kinds of service people who regularly visited the house and if any had their own keys. Next he’d had them gather objects likely to contain JJ’s DNA, find current photos of the child, and even try to figure out what he had been wearing when he’d been abducted.

Jack paused when he heard voices coming from the family room. He’d almost forgotten that Lou and Warren were still there. He was doubly surprised to find two additional men in the room. Both were talking to Laurie, who was listening intently.

“Ah, Jack,” Lou said. “Please come in! There are some people I want you to meet.”

“Yes, dear,” Laurie said. “Come in!”

Everyone stood as Jack advanced into the room, making Jack wonder about the 256

apparent formality. He looked at the two strangers, neither of whom he had seen until that moment. Both stood ramrod-straight with shoulders back, with closely cropped hair and dressed in snug, carefully tailored navy-blue suits, crisp white shirts, and regimental ties. They both were slightly taller than Jack’s six feet and looked to be in their early forties. Particularly because of their svelte figures and hard, taut faces, they appeared to be in superb physical shape. Jack’s impression was that they were military, possibly Special Forces in civvies.

“This is Grover Collins,” Lou said, pointing to the stockier of the two men.

Jack shook hands, peering questioningly into the individual’s glacially blue eyes.

The grip was strong but not too strong, more confident than anything else.

“Terrific to meet you,” Grover said, with a hint of an English accent.

“And this is Colt Thomas,” Lou said, gesturing toward Grover’s African-American partner.

“My pleasure,” Colt said with a handshake the mirror image of Grover’s. Jack hardly thought of himself as an expert in accents, but if he’d been forced to guess, he would have described Colt’s as Texan.

“Now, first let me apologize,” Lou said to Jack. “I have taken it upon myself to invite Grover and Colt here tonight because I think you and Laurie ought to hire them.”

Jack’s eyes went from Laurie and then back to the guests. “Hired as what?” he asked.

“I think time is of the essence,” Lou continued, ignoring Jack’s question, “and these gentlemen happen to agree with me. Is that fair to say, gentlemen?”

“Indeed,” Grover confirmed without hesitation. Colt merely nodded.

“Please, sit down!” Jack said, realizing he was the de facto host at this impromptu meeting.

Everyone returned to their seats. Jack brought over a straight-backed chair and sat down himself.

“I had the pleasure of working with these gentlemen a few years ago,” Lou continued, “and I was very impressed, which is the reason I called them tonight.

They’re a relatively new breed. They’re kidnap consultants.”

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“‘Kidnap consultants’?” Jack questioned. “I didn’t even now there was such a thing.”

“Actually, there are now quite a few of us,” Grover said. “We refer to ourselves as risk managers as we prefer to stay more or less in the shadows.”

“I was not aware of them, either,” Lou admitted. “Not until I had the pleasure of working with them on a kidnapping case—for a very successful outcome, I must add.”

“We’ve been born by demand,” Grover explained. “Kidnapping flourishes in circumstances of disorder and confusion, which the world has seen rather enough of these days, such that there has been a serious uptick in incidence of kidnapping the world over, but mainly in the Americas and Russia.”

“I was not aware of it,” Jack said, “but it does make sense.”

“There are thousands of cases each year in hot spots like Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, and Brazil. We have about forty field operatives in our firm, CRT Risk Management. We’re active all around the world, and the only thing we handle is kidnapping. I’m just back from Rio, and Colt returned yesterday from Mexico City.”

“Are you ex-military?” Jack asked.

“How could you tell?” Grover smiled. “I’m ex-SAS, and Colt is ex-Navy SEAL.

Returning to civilian life after military service has been difficult for us Special Forces fellows, and this kind of work seems to have been tailor-made. Sitting in a La-Z-Boy smoking a pipe and watching reruns of game shows is not a possibility for any of us. We love our work.”

“Tell them what you told me,” Lou said. “Why you could particularly help in their situation.”

“Having been briefed about your case, several things jump out at us. First of all, the NYPD, like all police departments in the USA, have had limited experience running a kidnapping. It’s just the opposite with us. It’s all we do, and as kidnapping has grown worldwide, it’s become more sophisticated, both in terms of how the abductors work and how we professionals respond.