Chapter 11
Chantilly was an elegant old town with a famous racetrack where horses from Europe had been running for centuries.
Rows of aged but well-maintained stables spread behind the grandstand.
The town was proud of its racing history and there were equine motifs at every turn.
Lowell checked into the Hotel Dauphine in the quaint town center and went for a walk.
It wasn’t much of a tourist town and not a lot to see, but what else was he supposed to do?
Besides the racetrack, the chateau was the main attraction.
He bought a ticket for twenty euros and took his time strolling from room to room.
The art collection was impressive. The library had seven hundred volumes of ancient manuscripts, including a Gutenberg.
He bought a museum guidebook and flipped through it on a bench in a courtyard shaded by a weeping beech tree.
Stuck across the ocean and doing what he was told, his schedule and movements dictated by criminals he would never meet, Lowell had a moment to reflect on his life and what he had missed.
He knew nothing about art and never spent a single moment considering the history and importance of ancient books and manuscripts.
He looked at the color photos of the paintings he had just seen inside the chateau and tried to understand them.
He had spent the past thirty years on a surgical assembly line designed to help his patients but also make as much money as possible, all to fund an enviable lifestyle.
Such a career gave little time for diversions, hobbies, travel, education, even friendships.
His balls-to-the-wall ambition consumed as much of his time as he could devote to it, with, of course, his family being another priority.
Now the family was threatened. It had been upended in a manner so dramatic that there was no precedent.
He knew parents who had lost children. Others were nursing kids sick with leukemia and other diseases.
He didn’t know a single person who had been hurled into the nightmare of a kidnapping. But there was hope, and he kept telling himself that was enough.
He returned to the galleries inside the chateau and spent more time with the paintings.
At 5 p.m., a text came with more instructions.
—
Chelsea had spent a day or two without being cuffed and hooded.
She was given plenty of bread, fruit, and water, and she managed to relieve herself in the filthy bucket that had yet to be emptied.
She slept and cried, said plenty of prayers, tried to stretch and do some yoga, then slept some more.
She had read that solitary confinement was a form of torture, and now she believed it.
But being alone in a tiny room that was almost pitch-black was even worse.
She was almost relieved when the door opened and the guard was back. He handed her the hood and she put it over her head.
“Give me your wrists,” he said, rather gently.
She stuck them out and he cuffed them with plastic bands. He said “Stand up,” and took her by the arm. She was aware that she was leaving the room, for the first time. Would it be the last? “Where are we going?”
There was no reply. She looked down and tried to see her feet.
They were there, still sore and half numb, but she could not see them.
There was light, though, and they were walking slowly through another room.
Another door opened, and more light. The guard had her right arm, another person took her left.
They turned her around. He said, “Sit here,” and forced her rear onto something metal.
A female voice said, “This will sting. Hold still.” A needle pricked her left shoulder and it stung for a second or two.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Just do as you’re told,” the woman said.
They lifted her feet and shoved her into the rear of the white delivery van. The rear door closed and latched. A man got behind the steering wheel. The woman was the passenger. The van began moving, its tires crunching over gravel.
As Chelsea drifted away, her last thought was that she had been in that place before. There was something familiar about the smell and feel of the surface where she now rested.
—
As directed, Lowell was sitting on a park bench beside the Nonette River, in the heart of Chantilly, at six-thirty.
The Nonette wasn’t really a river, but more a tributary that ran for twenty miles before emptying into the Oise, a proper river that meandered for a hundred miles before joining forces with the mighty Seine.
The Nonette was narrow and seemed perpetually still.
Humble as it was, it was the only river in Chantilly and the town made the most of it.
There were old bridges, both for pedestrians and vehicles, small colorful boats, and the banks were lined with sycamore trees shading benches and picnic tables.
His bench was near a pedestrian footbridge.
Third bench to the left as one walked away from the town center.
He had no idea what to expect and was given no opportunity to ask questions.
To do so would have been a waste of time.
It would make sense that he was about to meet someone or see something important, but that was only a guess.
—
The white delivery van parked on a narrow street between buildings, across the Nonette.
Its rear door opened and a woman slid out.
She hurried away along the sidewalk, made the block, disappeared for a moment, then emerged near a newsstand where she could see both the van and the target, Dr. Clayburn.
She watched every vehicle, every bike rider, every pedestrian, with her phone in her hand.
Chelsea was now seated in the front, her eyes covered with large shades, her wrists uncuffed.
She had been told moments earlier that her freedom was very close, that she was about to see her father, and that if she obeyed orders, she would be released soon.
A false move of any kind, and she would never see him again.
“What about my husband?” she had asked.
The man had replied: “First you’ll see your father, then your husband. No more questions.”
She had been allowed to glance at the driver, but there was little to see.
He, too, wore large black sunglasses. A cap with a logo was pulled low.
He had a dark beard with a few sprinkles of gray.
When she glanced again, he growled, “Don’t look.
Eyes straight ahead.” After three or four days of hearing virtually nothing but his voice, she knew he was the same guard or gunman or whatever who had first hauled her into the little dark room.
She had nicknamed him “Grumps” because of his terse statements.
She also called him “Sewer” due to his hygienic challenges.
She wondered where the woman was but let it go.
He pointed and said, “There across the street, over the river, you see those benches under the trees?”
“Yes.”
“The third one from the left. The man in a white shirt and brown vest.”
“Yes.”
“That’s your father.”
Chelsea gasped in disbelief and squinted. But there was no doubt it was Lowell. Her driver held a small phone and pressed a button. “Let’s say hello. Tell him that you can see him. Ask him to wave his left hand. Tell him you are doing fine. But nothing more, understand?”
“Yes, yes.”
They watched as Lowell reached into his pocket, removed his cell phone, and said, on speaker, “Hello.”
The man nodded at her. Chelsea gushed, “Dad, it’s me. I’m here. I see you. I’m okay.”
“My God! Where are you, Chelsea?” They watched as Lowell held the phone while instinctively jerking his head around. “Where are you?”
“I’m close by. You can’t see me. Dad, please wave your left hand.”
“Okay.” Lowell raised his left arm and waved his hand, still looking around.
“I see you, Dad. I see you.”
“When do I get to see you, Chelsea?”
The guard held up his hand, then said, “Soon, Dr. Clayburn. Very soon.” He closed the phone, stuck it in his pocket, and said, “Now, just sit still for a moment.”
They watched as Lowell stared at his phone, then reluctantly put it down. He kept looking around, desperately searching for his daughter. She began crying.
—
Lowell called home with the news that he had made contact with Chelsea and even spoken to her.
He’d heard her voice. No, he had not actually seen her, but she had seen him.
In great detail, he described the incident to Justine and Sam.
The family wanted to celebrate but knew it was far too premature.
Then he called Fritz with the same story, and he and Linzy were just as excited as the Clayburns. Rescuing Chelsea practically guaranteed the same for Paul.
—
That night, Hudson called a man named Max Whitehead, the friend of a friend. Whitehead worked for a Bethesda bank and specialized in large home equity loans. The friend had briefed him without revealing too many details. A certain reputable family needed some money as quickly as possible.
Hudson apologized for the weekend interruption and said only that the family, who he was close to, was rather desperate to borrow against their fine home in Old Town Alexandria.
The city assessed it for $1.6 million. There was no mortgage.
A realtor friend thought it would sell for much more than that.
Whitehead was interested and said a deal would be no problem. Once the appraisal was done, he could turn around the money in a matter of hours. The problem was the appraisal. Even one of the “drive-by” variety would take at least two weeks.
No, there was no way around the requirement of an appraisal.