Chapter 7
For Linzy and Fritz Tanner, the wait was nerve-wracking, even maddening.
They knew the call was coming, so why the delay?
Paul had been captured and was being held by some thugs who wanted a lot of money.
The family was ready to deal, to do whatever was demanded.
Hours passed as Friday inched along. To kill time they discussed their finances, since a ransom would obviously be in play.
They had three children, now adults. Paul was the oldest at thirty-three and gainfully employed at the Department of Justice.
Rick was twenty-six and finishing law school at the University of Virginia.
Eva was twenty-three and pursuing a master’s degree at Emory in Atlanta.
Paul was a graduate of the Naval Academy, so his undergraduate work came courtesy of the taxpayers.
His legal education at Georgetown did not and was quite expensive.
Unlike the Clayburns, Linzy and Fritz were somewhat short on cash.
Due to their discipline and frugality, their children had navigated higher education without student loans.
Since they were in high school, their parents had promised to “pay for college,” however much that might entail.
Eva’s graduate work was straining the promises, but Fritz and Linzy were still paying the bills.
Their safety net would be their home, which they had bought twenty-four years earlier when bungalows in Old Town Alexandria were selling for a fraction of current prices.
The mortgage had long since been satisfied.
The house was free and clear and could easily be borrowed against. The market was always strong and they could sell quickly.
Such thoughts saddened them because they loved the house and the neighborhood.
The thought of suddenly being forced to leave was overwhelming.
At the moment, everything saddened them.
And terrified them. Where was their son at that moment and how was he being treated?
Sam called at 7:40 with the news that Lowell was airborne and would pass the night over the Atlantic.
Sam promised to call when he knew more. He clicked off and they sat in the den with the television off, the stereo at low volume, suffering.
Six minutes dragged by before Linzy’s cell phone buzzed with an email from a suspicious address. The message contained a video link just as Sam had warned them. Since they were ready, or at least thought they were, they quickly went to Linzy’s laptop, with plans to record the video.
The screen was blank, then black, then a shocking close-up of their son, his face beaten and bloody.
He was in a dark room, seated at a table, his hands cuffed in front of him, a thug beside him.
His lips were swollen and his left eye was almost closed.
There was blood at the corner of his mouth, under his nose, and leaking from a nasty gash just above his eyebrow.
Linzy and Fritz were too stunned to breathe.
“What is your name?” a voice asked.
“Paul Tanner.”
“What is today?”
“Friday, April twenty-nine.”
To add to the brutality, a black hood was slammed roughly over his head, and the video ended after ten seconds. A message appeared:
The ransom is $2 million US dollars, payable by wire transfer at 10 am eastern Wednesday May 4.
The details will be sent later. The ransom is not negotiable.
If you contact the FBI or US or French authorities, you will never see your son again.
We have access to your phones and email accounts.
We have a presence in Alexandria. Do not contact the Clayburn family.
Next email at noon tomorrow, eastern time.
End of message. Within seconds it was erased. Fritz tried to retrieve it, but it was gone.
Linzy sobbed with her face in her hands. Fritz closed the laptop and walked to a window, where he stood for a long time and listened to her suffer in agony. Then he led her to the den and they sat on the sofa, holding each other, too dazed and horrified to think of anything to say.
—
Things were just as solemn at the Clayburns’, though some of the shock had worn off.
Sam and Justine were watching television, or at least staring at it.
The volume was low and didn’t matter. They had agreed to stay off their computers and cell phones out of fear that someone was listening.
Sam’s burner rattled and he flipped it open.
“It’s Fritz,” he said, and muted the television. “Hello.”
“They made contact, sent us a quick video of Paul.”
Sam said, “Well, I guess that’s progress. How did he look?”
“Don’t ask. Pretty bad. Same deal they offered you guys, but we have a little more time.”
“I’m sorry, Fritz.” Sam was a well-raised twenty-four-year-old college student, and he still felt odd calling Mr. Tanner, a sixty-year-old respected corporate executive, by a nickname. “Here’s my mom.”
Justine took the phone and said, “Fritz, can you believe this? They have our children.”
“No, I don’t believe it, but it’s true. Paul has been beaten and looked bad.”
“I’m so sorry. How’s Linzy?”
“As you would imagine. Look, Justine, we think we should contact the FBI. They deal with situations like this. They have trained hostage negotiators. We don’t have a clue here. We don’t know what to do and anything we do might be wrong.”
“We talked about it for hours and we admit we don’t know what to do either.
But these guys are watching us. They may even be listening.
We decided, for the time being anyway, to do what they say.
Lowell’s on his way to Paris. The money is ready to be wired.
If they say don’t call the FBI, then we’re not calling the FBI. Not now, anyway.”
“I’m not sure I agree.”
“Lowell was pretty adamant about waiting. He thinks that dealing with this situation, in another country, will involve too many people. The FBI, CIA, State Department, plus the French authorities. That will take time, too much of it.”
“You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”
“No, I have no idea, but Lowell and Sam convinced me we should wait. But we’re listening to you, Fritz. What does Linzy want to do?”
There was a pause as their thoughts rattled about. Fritz had a military career, which included eleven years inside the Pentagon, but he had rarely dealt with intelligence. His world had been supplies and procurement. For the past twelve years he had worked for a company that designed parachutes.
Fritz said, “I don’t know. Let us think for a moment. I’ll call you back in an hour.”
“We’re not going anywhere.”
Fritz clicked off, closed the phone, and said, “A good thing Sam had the presence of mind to buy these cheap phones. Otherwise…” His words trailed off. He sat beside Linzy on the sofa in the dimly lit den and for a long time neither spoke.
She finally asked, “Do you know anyone at the FBI?”
“Jack Shelton’s brother-in-law works at Hoover, an assistant director or something. I’ve never met him.”
“So, if we called him right now, what would happen?”
“Just guessing, we’d probably meet him and other FBI people and go from there.”
“And this would happen tonight? A Friday.”
“Still guessing, let’s say we met tonight, here or somewhere else, and they have a better sense of what to do. Even though it’s a foreign matter, I assume the FBI would contact the State Department, who would contact the French foreign service. At some point the French police would get involved.”
“Then what? The French police start knocking on doors? In Paris?”
“I don’t know.”
“I know we don’t know, but let’s think out loud. The French would start where?”
“Good question. Paul and Chelsea went to Normandy yesterday, left Paris early, planned to spend the day there, then return to their hotel. Did they take the train?”
“Uh, no. They hired a private car to save time.”
“Okay, I guess the police start digging with the private car and driver, but it could take days. Whoever grabbed them has certainly moved them to some hideout.”
“They could be out of the country by now.”
“Yes. A manhunt could take months and find nothing.”
“Or get them killed.”
The den was silent for a long time. Linzy couldn’t avoid the horrible image of her handsome son with blood on his face, squinting at the camera, completely helpless. Fritz had moved on to the next challenge of finding $2 million in a matter of days.
Linzy broke the silence with “Got a question. If they pulled all of our information from Paul’s cell phone, shouldn’t his location be easy to track?”
“If they’re looking for it. But to get the French involved would take hours, even days. This is not a military or intelligence matter so there’s no great urgency. Paul is a civilian.”
“Former military.”
“Yes, but now retired. Inactive.”
“But the sooner we involve the FBI, the sooner the French police will be checking the phone records, right?”
“Yes, but it will probably be too late. These guys are not stupid. They used Paul’s phone because they knew we’d be waiting for a call. They’ve probably stolen all of his data and disposed of the phone by now.”
“And there’s no way to track the email?”
“Yes, it can be done, but not by us.”
“Who can do it?”
“The NSA. It takes time, and by the time they find it, the account will be abandoned. Remember, these guys hacked Lowell’s office system. They know what they’re doing.”
“And they’re watching us?”
“You heard them.”