Jack decided there would be no contact with the U.S. authorities until later, if necessary. And he warned Darian and Cory there would be no action taken without the approval of the firm and Mitch McDeere.
They discussed Luca and whether he should be informed. It was a tough call because he was, after all, her father, as well as their esteemed partner. Any parent would certainly want to be involved in such delicate discussions. But Luca was ill and fragile and not at the top of his game. And, the kidnappers had chosen not to approach the family. Luca was a wealthy man by any measure, but he didn’t have millions to toss around. Scully, being the greatest firm in the world, certainly did, or at least projected the aura of enormous wealth. Its lawsuits around the world sought billions in damages from big corporations and governments. Surely it could pay any ransom if money was the objective.
There was no playbook, no rules. Darian had worked through several kidnappings in his career, but each was radically different. Most had ended successfully.
They decided to wait twenty-four hours and discuss Luca again.
Less than forty minutes after Abby and Mitch left for lunch, they returned to the suite and found that nothing had changed. Jack held a sheet of paper with notes scribbled all over it and said, “We have some ideas for the next twenty-four hours.”
Mitch said, “Let’s hear it.”
“Okay, pick up the boys from school today as usual and we’ll be close by.” He nodded at Cory, who said, “We’ll have guys on the ground, Mitch. Do you ever meet them after school?”
“Rarely.”
“Abby?”
“All the time.”
“Good. You get them today at three-fifteen and walk them home by the same route.”
“I’ll be at home,” Mitch said.
“Get them packed for a long weekend, a very long one. Tomorrow is Friday and they’re leaving town with you, Mitch. Abby, it’s advisable for you not to leave the city at this time. It’s the phone. You gotta stay close.”
Abby didn’t flinch but asked, “So you want them in school tomorrow?”
“Yes. We think they’ll be safe.”
Mitch said, “They’ll go to school but they’re leaving at noon. Abby and I will talk to the school tonight and explain things. She’ll walk them to school in the morning. I’ll sneak them out the back door at lunchtime.”
Jack asked, “Got a destination, Mitch?”
“No, not really. Not yet.”
“I have a good one.”
“We’re listening.”
“My brother Barry retired from Wall Street ten years ago, made a fortune.”
“I’ve met him.”
“That’s right. He has a nice home in Maine and it’s very secluded. A place called Islesboro, a small island on the Atlantic coast near the town of Camden. You have to take a ferry to get there.”
It certainly sounded safe and secluded enough, and Mitch and Abby both relaxed a little.
Jack went on, “I just talked to him. He summers there, stays about five months until it starts snowing. We go every August and enjoy the weather. He opened the house last week.”
“And he has plenty of room?”
“The house has eighteen bedrooms, Mitch, plenty of staff. A couple of boats. The summer traffic hasn’t arrived yet so there aren’t too many folks on the island. Again, it’s quite secluded.”
“Eighteen bedrooms?” Mitch repeated.
“Yes. Barry likes to tell everyone that we have a large family. What he doesn’t say is that he can’t stand the rest of them. I’m his only ally. He and his wife use the house to entertain friends from here and Boston. It’s a slightly older crowd who want to sit on the porch in the cool breeze and soak in the views while eating lobster and drinking rosé.”
Cory added, “And we’ll have a couple of guys there as well, Mitch. You won’t see much of them but they’ll be close by.”
Mitch looked at Abby and she nodded. Yes.
“Thanks, Jack. Sounds good. I’ll need an airplane.”
“No problem, Mitch. Anything.”
Chapter 23
After Carter and Clark were finally convinced that a weekend away from the city and on a remote island in Maine could be a great adventure, and that the Bruisers’ game Saturday would probably be rained out, and that they would be staying in a mansion with eighteen bedrooms and two boats waiting at the dock, and that they would ride on a small private jet, then a ferry, and that their grandparents would be there to play with them, as would their father, and that their mother needed to stay in the city for some unclear reason, the boys were ready to go. They reluctantly went to bed, still chattering away.
The next conversation was just as complicated but forty minutes shorter. After swapping emails to arrange things, Mitch called Giles Gatterson of River Latin at exactly nine-thirty. He apologized again for the intrusion and they quickly dispensed with the preliminary chitchat. As vaguely as possible, he explained that one of his cases, an international one, had presented a “security concern” that necessitated an early and furtive departure from school for the boys the following day, and would likely keep them out of the city for a week or so. Giles was eager to help. The school was filled with the children of important people who traveled the world and ran into unusual situations. If questions were asked about the boys’ absences, the company line was that they were suffering from measles and were quarantined. That should keep the curious at bay.
Abby made the next call, the third one to her parents in the past few hours. A private jet would fetch them in Louisville at 2 P.M. Saturday and fly nonstop to Rockland, Maine, where they would be met by a driver who would take them to the harbor in Camden.
As they talked, Mitch kept thinking about the eighteen bedrooms and was thankful that the summerhouse was large enough to put distance between himself and his in-laws. Only a threat from a terrorist organization could force him to spend a weekend with Harold and Maxine Sutherland. “Hoppy” and “Maxie” to the boys. His therapist would want to know how it happened, and he was already practicing his stories. The fact that he was still spending good money to deal with his “in-law issues” irked him to no end. But Abby insisted, and he did love his wife.
Oh well. His dislike of Hoppy and Maxie seemed rather trivial at the moment.
With the phone calls out of the way, an unforgettable day was finally coming to an end. Mitch poured two glasses of wine and they kicked off their shoes.
“When will she call?” Abby asked.
“Who?”
“What do you mean, ‘Who’?”
“Oh, right.”
“Yes, Noura. How long will she wait?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“No one knows, okay? So what’s your guess?”
Mitch drank some wine and frowned as if in deep and meaningful thought, calculating exactly what the terrorists were thinking. “Within forty-eight hours.”
“And what do you base that on?”
“That’s what they taught us in law school. I went to Harvard, you know?”
“How could I forget?”
He took another sip and said, “They’ve proven to be patient. Today is number twenty-seven, and the first contact. On the other hand, it’s a lot of work holding a hostage. She’s probably in a cave or a hole in a wall, not a good place. What if she gets sick? After a while the kidnappers will get tired of her. She’s worth a lot of money so it’s time to cash in. Why wait longer?”