As she sat tied to her seat, she could only imagine what torment Wilson must be going through. She tried to move her arms and legs, but the leather lashings were too secure. Methodically weighing her options, she felt surprisingly calm and lucid, even though she’d been horrified by her captors only hours earlier. Wilson was right. This secret society, insider’s club, or whatever the hell it was, could not be allowed to continue in any form whatsoever. She wished she’d never questioned Wilson’s resolve to expose them. She’d only done it out of fear. Fear of death. Fear of harm. Fear of difficulty and struggle. Fear of being alone without Wilson. But now that her worst fears had materialized, she felt her a new resolve burning inside her.
She swore to herself that if she was able to get out of this alive, she would never again allow fear to control her. Never. She repeated the word never again and again until she remembered how her captors had fondled her body before she lost consciousness. She fought back the tears. Everything can be taken from you except your freedom to choose your thoughts and feelings, she said to herself, even in the worst of circumstances.
Wilson would be moving heaven and earth to find her. She knew that. The thought strengthened her. She would find a way to help him find her. Her emotions were on fire. The only way they could stop her would be to kill her.
41
Wilson — Boston, MA
When Wilson and Mike Anthony arrived back in Boston, they took a cab to the Back Bay apartment. Hap Greene and three of his associates were waiting for them. Wilson sat down across from Hap and the others. Driggs was the only one of the associates Wilson had previously met; Hap introduced the others as Jones and Taylor. He then informed Wilson that, since yesterday afternoon, 153 private jets had arrived from Europe at more than three-dozen airports along the northeastern seaboard. Hap studied Wilson before asking, “What are you going to say to her when she’s on the phone? You’ll only have a few seconds.”
Wilson appreciated the directness. He’d already given Hap’s question considerable thought. “Nothing. My guess is that after they get me on the phone they’ll shove the phone in her face to let her say a few words and then take it away. There won’t be any dialogue. Emily is savvy. She’ll be thinking the same thing we’re thinking. She knows we’ll be recording and analyzing every word she says. If she has any idea where she is, she’ll find a way to give us a clue without making it obvious.”
Hap looked at Wilson with a slight smile. “Good. You’re right about the dialogue. I hope you’re right about Emily.” After a pause and a glance at his associates, he continued. “One other thing. Tell the kidnappers that you want to hear her voice telling you she’s okay at least once a day. The more opportunity she has to give us information, the better. Even then, we won’t get many words from her. The first time all we’ll get is I’m okay. After they see you’re cooperating, maybe they’ll allow her to complete a sentence, but it won’t be a long sentence. And, they’ll scrutinize her every word just like we will.”
Wilson nodded soberly before expressing a concern that had been plaguing him.
“You said public knowledge of the kidnapping would increase the probability of her death. I don’t think we’ll be able to keep Emily’s kidnapping a secret for more than a week or so.”
“Which means we have to find her before that,” Hap said with a wildcat fierceness in his eyes.
Wilson had never seen that look in Hap’s eyes. It bolstered his confidence, but he also recognized that he was grasping at anything to brighten his hope. “How’s my father and family?”
“Everyone’s safe and heavily guarded. There’s been no change in your father’s condition,” Hap said. Then he reached under the coffee table and brought out three newspapers-The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He dropped them on the table in front of Wilson. TRAGIC VISIONARY SHAPES AN INDUSTRY was the headline on the front page of The Chicago Tribune. The other papers carried similar headlines. Wilson read the Tribune’s sub headline “Double Suicide Brings Heartbreaking End to Pinnacle of Success”, and then looked up at Hap in horror.
“They killed them?”
Hap nodded slowly, “It’s definitely possible.”
“But why?” Wilson asked as he read with breakneck speed about David Quinn, his wife Margaret, and the J. B. Musselman Company. Moments later, he said, “The America’s Warehouse campaign seemed to be working brilliantly, at least for the moment. Why kill him now?” Without waiting for a response, he read further.
Hap and the others remained silent as Wilson finished scanning the three newspapers. When Wilson looked up again, Hap said, “It’s also possible that they killed themselves, just as the articles state.”
Wilson shook his head confidently. “No. They broke him, and he couldn’t live with it. They killed him to keep him from going to the authorities, just like Zollinger,” Wilson said, standing up from the black sofa, glaring at his team of former agents.
“They’re going to kill her, aren’t they?”
“Not necessarily. They need her to manipulate you,” Hap said. “You may be right about Quinn and his wife, but you’re a much bigger threat than one of their disgruntled CEOs. You’re sitting at the center of this thing, in control of the company that created this beast in the first place. They’ll stop at nothing to manipulate you. Only if and when they can’t, will they kill her. Then they’ll try to kill you. But we’re not going to let either one of those things happen,” Hap said. Then he added, “Let’s review the details one more time to make sure we haven’t missed anything.”
By the time they finished, Wilson was sure he’d summarized everything he knew about his father, Fielder amp; Company, and the secret partnership. But it still wasn’t enough to expose the secret partnership in the way he’d planned. Emily’s kidnapping had made it agonizingly clear that they had no intention of bringing him inside. And David Quinn’s death at the so-called pinnacle of success meant only one thing-they would not hesitate to kill him and Emily, just as Hap had said. Did I go too far in baiting Malouf and Tennyson-or not far enough?
Now he had to find another way to first appease and then expose the secret society. “I won’t let them kill her, no matter what I have to do at Fielder amp; Company,” Wilson said.
Hap pointed to Driggs, who would be staying with Wilson in the apartment, his eyes boring into Wilson. “Don’t go to the bathroom without Driggs. We’ll be in the apartment next door. First thing in the morning, we’ll talk about next steps at Fielder amp; Company.”
42
Emily — Learjet 60, Inflight
When she heard the cockpit door open and close, Emily quickly lowered her eyelids to almost shut. The aircraft was descending quickly. A woman wearing a Venetian carnival mask walked over to Emily and placed a blindfold over her eyes and earphones over her ears. It was the same woman who’d brought lunch and drinks earlier, but hadn’t spoken a word.
A few minutes later, after the small jet had landed, Emily’s right arm was injected with something that made her feel groggy and lightheaded. She was untied, lifted out of her seat, and assisted into what seemed like a delivery truck. She gradually began to lose consciousness, but not before the vehicle carrying her had stopped and she was lifted off the hard bench and taken somewhere else. The only thing she knew for sure was that she wasn’t in another vehicle.
When Emily awoke several hours later, she was lying face up on a cot in a cold space. Her eyes were blindfolded, her ears covered with tight-fitting earphones that made a constant humming noise, her mouth taped, her arms and legs strapped down, and she was covered with a heavy blanket up to her neck. She could feel the forced air of a space heater on her face and there was a faint smell of oil or gasoline in the air. While she couldn’t be absolutely sure because of the injection she’d received, her sense was that the ride in the vehicle with the hard bench couldn’t have taken more than a few minutes, which meant she was probably in a warehouse or hangar near the airport where they’d landed. Now all she had to do was figure out which airport and how to let Wilson know.