Fatal Error, page 17
“We still have to keep an open mind.” Vanelli shook his head. “There are clues. We will find them.”
Morris picked up a sheaf of papers and shook them. “I questioned everyone. No one at the hotel remembers seeing the man. Even the idiot who carried his message couldn’t identify him in photographs.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly, what?”
“Exactly why we need to keep an open mind. This isn’t about catching Enzo, it’s about saving her…Signorina Kimball.”
Morris closed his eyes, and breathed out.
“Our forensic people are still at the hotel.” Vanelli patted his shoulder. “There’s still time for them to turn something up.”
Morris opened his eyes. “But how much time does Jess have?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Jess clenched her fists, driving her nails into her palms. Wilson’s screaming had slowed, but still there were moments of madness. Thrashing and grunting, but never speaking.
She’d called his name. Quietly at first, but growing louder until she was yelling. Shouts and screams were all he returned. For a while she wondered if it might be someone else. Another poor soul trapped by Enzo. But the man was Wilson Grantly. She was sure.
She leaned back against the wall, her arms numb, and her hands throbbing from the zip-tie’s relentless grip. She flexed her shoulders again, rolling them, stretching within the limits of her arms’ position.
What did Enzo want? What was he going to force her to do that made threatening her with rats, and forcing her to listen to someone else’s torture, rational in his mind?
She snorted. What made any of this rational? She’d involved herself in cases before, but this? She’d ignored the professionals who dealt with monsters like Enzo every day. She shouldn’t have. She knew better. Monsters were always lurking. She’d learned that when her son was kidnapped.
She twisted her head left and right, peering into the blackness. Was this what Peter was suffering? Was he locked up like her? Cold. Lonely. Unbroken?
A pain formed in her chest.
Did he think she had abandoned him? That everyone had abandoned him? She squeezed her eyes shut. She had abandoned him. She had broken her ritual. She had left the country, and broken the close contact she kept with all her sources of information. The pain in her chest grew unbearably sharp. She took a deep breath. She had left him. Not in spirit. But in mind. Yes, she clenched her teeth, she had let him leave her thoughts.
His face flashed before her. The infant he’d been when she saw him last. The age-progressed image she carried with her constantly. She imagined his body, lying on a cold, hard floor. His arms and legs bound. His clothes in tatters.
She swallowed. Tears stung her face and lips. She bent her knee to wipe her nose.
What would happen to Peter if she didn’t make it? What would become of him? Would a nameless lunatic decide his future the way Enzo was deciding hers?
Wilson screamed.
She lifted her head.
He thrashed, and cried out.
She took a deep breath. She squeezed her eyes closed. She would not become rat food for a madman. She would not abandon Peter. No matter what.
She breathed out, relaxing her muscles, letting the pain flow out of her body.
Enzo Ficarra.
She breathed in. She wasn’t afraid of Enzo Ficarra.
She spoke his name. And again. Louder.
“Enzo Ficarra,” she yelled.
She tipped her head upwards. “Enzo Ficarra!” she screamed.
Down the tunnel, the thrashing and groaning stopped.
Goosebumps ran over her skin. She straightened her back. She didn’t have much sympathy for Wilson Grantly, but they had a common enemy. A moment’s connection. A shared strength.
She breathed in.
Enzo Ficarra.
Whatever the bastard had planned for her, she’d have a better plan for him.
She massaged the back of her head against the rock.
A plan for Ficarra. She let the words roll around her mind.
Good words, but what plan? What were his weaknesses? Her strengths?
She shuffled back against the rock, bringing her knees up to hold herself upright. What strengths did she have? What advantage?
She chewed the inside of her lower lip gently and stared into the blackness.
Planning.
She furrowed her brow.
Planning. She was planning.
Whatever she thought she could do was more than Ficarra would imagine. The bonds, the threats, the rats, the cold and dark. He thought she would be broken and distraught. He thought he could ignore her now. That she’d given up.
He couldn’t be more wrong.
She took a deep breath.
She’d been to the edge, perhaps, but she hadn’t fallen in.
Not yet, at least.
So, what did he want? Why was he threatening her with the rats, when he already had her bound and locked up in a place where no one could possibly find her?
She moved her arms, shifting the pain of the plastic cutting into her skin.
The sharp, hard pain in her chest subsided.
Ficarra wanted the money, of course. He wanted to exchange her for money. Ransom. Good, old-fashioned ransom.
Yet she’d seen him. She’d seen her prison. She might find it again. The FBI and Vanelli’s carabinieri would find plenty of evidence here to convict him and put him to death. With her help. She knew who he was.
Enzo Ficarra. Family man. He owned a business in Tuscany. Generations of Ficarras had lived there. He wouldn’t simply fold his tent and disappear.
No. He intended to return to his life as if he’d never kidnapped her. Never tortured her. Never let her hear Wilson Grantly’s screams.
Which meant he couldn’t let her go.
So, why the threat?
She nodded.
He intended to persuade her to follow his orders before he killed her. Not something he could force her to do, but something she would need to do of her own will.
She rubbed her tongue over her teeth as she considered possibilities.
Proof of life. Morris would insist. Vanelli, too, probably. They’d dealt with hostages before. Kidnap for ransom was a common thing around the world now. Protocols had been developed.
Proof of life would be the first step.
Enzo needed her to prove she was still alive. How? A photograph holding a currently dated newspaper? A video? A telephone call?
Any of those would work. They’d need to be done in real time. Morris and Vanelli would be recording and monitoring and dissecting the recordings to find her.
She nodded. Three options, but just one chance. Once chance to tell Morris where to find them. For Wilson’s sake. For his parents.
And…
She fought back a lump in her throat. For Peter. No matter what happened to her, one day he would be free. One day he would know about her. She tipped her head up, moistness coming to her eyes. If she never made it out of this tunnel, if she died here, then she was sure as hell going to leave him knowing he had a mother he wouldn’t be ashamed of.
She rolled her head around, quelling her tears. She breathed deeply.
She needed more than words.
She needed something concrete.
Something she could tell Morris and Vanelli to help them find her.
Something she could say aloud in front of Ficarra.
But what? What did she know that Morris and Vanelli didn’t know already?
Not the white Ford Ficarra used to abduct her. Surely they would have seen it on the hotel surveillance cameras.
The length of the drive from the hotel to this place? She was imprisoned maybe two hours from Rome. She shook her head. Two hours. She didn’t even know which direction they had traveled, and two hours made an awfully big area for a fruitful search. Ficarra would have plenty of time to kill them both before Vanelli’s carabinieri could find the abandoned mine.
How many old mines were there around Rome? She didn’t know. Maybe hundreds. The place had the look of being abandoned for decades, too. It might not exist on maps of any kind.
She kept going. Kept her mind occupied. Kept hope alive.
The lane they had driven down was an unremarkable country lane with a gate, as far as she’d been able to see from inside the trunk.
What about the woods? The cabin? The houses across the road from the gate?
She narrowed her eyes, thinking, remembering.
They were country houses. Painted white and the bold colors of houses by the ocean. They had names. Names.
She frowned, forcing the memory of her time in the trunk of Enzo’s Ford into her mind.
She had seen nameplates. One was clear in her memory. Vista del Mare. Sea View. An almost comically common name, perhaps, but the other one?
She closed her eyes, and cast her mind back across the road. The sign was on the gate. White with a black border. Gold lettering danced in her mind. Collins? Collinas?
She shook her head. No, she’d seen two words. Collinas Vista? Ventura? The letters ceased their dance. Her eyes widened.
Collina Ventosa. Windy Hilltop.
Vista del Mare and Collina Ventosa.
Two names. Two houses. Side-by-side. Vista del Mare could be too common, but along with Collina Ventosa?
She breathed out. She had a clue. Not perfect, but something she might be able to work with.
She rolled her fatigued and cramping shoulders. All she needed now was a way to tell Morris. Some way to write it down, or say it in a video. Some way that Ficarra wouldn’t notice she was communicating her location to the FBI.
A thin line of yellow light appeared under the door.
Her skin prickled. She needed the answer fast.
Enzo was back.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Jess shuffled down to the position she’d occupied before, letting her shoulders sag. Better to let Ficarra think things were going his way. The less threatened he felt, the more his vigilance would relax. She hoped.
The wooden beam lifted, and the door swung open. Enzo stood in the entrance.
He looked relaxed, dressed in normal looking jeans and a polo shirt. In his hands were two boxes, one green and wooden, the other translucent white plastic.
A weak scream filtered down the tunnel. A rasping, half-hearted effort, as if the once unimaginable had become commonplace.
“Wilson Grantly.” Ficarra mimed sympathy, shook his head, shrugged. “But I expect you know that.”
He stepped into her cell and placed the boxes on the ground.
“Only two rats in his box,” Enzo said, preoccupied. “Not many really. But hunger makes all the difference.”
Jess licked her lips and allowed the lower one to tremble. Sick bastard. She turned her gaze away lest he see the steel in her eyes.
He shook the wooden box. She heard scrabbling inside.
“Three.” He shrugged. “Rat catching isn’t an exact science.”
He opened the white box, and lifted out a complicated looking radio. He pulled a wire in through the doorway, and plugged it into the rear of the radio, and sat on the box. “There is no way out of this cell. Whatever is in here when the door is closed, stays in here.”
She stared at the green box and licked her lips again.
“You. The rats. The hunger. It all stays here.”
She kept her lips pressed together as if to stop the trembling. Her nostrils flared anger, but he must have taken her expression as fear.
He leaned forward. “You understand what will happen to you if you don’t follow instructions, yes?”
She nodded.
“Say it.”
She swallowed. “Yes.” Her voice was raspy.
He glowered at her, his lips pressed into a thin line.
“Then we will get along just fine.” He waited for Wilson to finish a bout of screams, before clearing his throat.
“You will talk to the FBI. The people who brought you to this. Your friends, Morris and Vanelli.” He kicked the green box for emphasis of his meaning. “You will tell them you are still alive. You will say you can stay alive for a mere five million euros.”
He kicked the box again and the rats squealed. “You will not say anything else. Do you understand?”
She closed her eyes, and nodded. “Yes.”
“They do not know where you are. You do not know where you are. Ms. Kimball.” He waited for her to look at him. “One stupid action on your part, and you will die in this cell. Eventually.” He nudged the rats into scrabbling with his boot again. “You understand?”
She nodded and cleared her throat. “Yes.”
She swallowed. The thought of talking to Morris pulled at her gut. She’d made a hasty plan. Could she pull it off? Would Morris and Vanelli understand her hints? Her options were limited. This was the best plan she had to work with. Nothing more she could do. Yet.
Ficarra tapped his watch. “Five minutes.”
She nodded. “I need water. My voice.”
Ficarra reached behind him for a bottle of water and held it to her mouth. She sipped. Swallowed. She said, “Thanks.” Her voice was stronger. Good.
Ficarra watched her carefully.
After she swallowed the water, she backed away from him, shuffling up against the cell wall. She couldn’t mention their location. She couldn’t casually drop in the fact she was being held in an old mine across the road from a couple of houses called…
She glanced in Ficarra’s direction. His eyes were on her. She looked down.
House names. Could she hide them in her words? Vista del Mare and Collina Ventosa? Could she? She bit her lip. Would Ficarra notice?
She had to assume he would. She needed a code. She remembered Vanelli’s skill with anagrams. Maybe she could tap into that. But how?
The letters danced in front of her again. Vista del Mare. She closed her eyes, and breathed out. She was a reporter. A wordsmith. She thought about the wordplay app she’d seen Vanelli using. The same one she played on her phone sometimes. How did Warped Words work, exactly? She shook her head to clear the brain fog and closed her eyes to recall.
The game supplied a row of letters. The player rearranged the letters as many times as possible in a short time frame. Each successful word added points. It was one of the games she was particularly good at. More importantly now, it was a game Vanelli played even better than she did.
Could she use the concept to devise a code on the spot? Using nothing but her wits?
She could. She had to. She had no choice.
Begin with Vista del Mare. One step at a time.
In her head, she saw the letters in a row.
She moved them around, looking for anagrams, different words from the same letters.
Mare? Rame? Meads? Travail, or Ravail?
She imagined that each guess returned the game’s obnoxiously loud “wrong answer” buzzer.
She breathed to steady her nerves and tried again.
Travis.
Yes, Travis. Recognizable, at least.
Travis what?
Madel.
Travis Madel. That sounded like a real name, didn’t it?
She counted the letters. One short. She had to use the extra e.
Make it Travis Madele. That could work.
Yes! She imagined the perky tone Warped Words sounded with each success.
Ficarra checked his watch. “Two minutes.”
She breathed. One down, one to go.
But even if Vanelli decoded Travis Madele, one name would be useless. There could be thousands of Vista del Mares around Rome alone.
She needed to use the second name, Collina Ventosa. She moved the letters like tiles around in her mind’s eye. She ran the virtual game faster this time.
Colin? That was a name. She counted the letters left over. Nine. What could she make of the remaining nine?
Ficarra switched on the radio. LEDs glowed, and blue numerals appeared. He flipped a couple of switches, and the speaker crackled into life. He plugged a microphone into an amateurish looking box with a large red switch.
Collina Ventosa swam through her mind. Colin what? Colin who?
“Bend your knees,” Ficarra said.
She frowned.
“Bend them.”
She complied.
He pointed a gun at the middle of her legs. “Say anything, and I blast off your kneecaps.”
Her skin crawled. Cold sweat plastered her shirt to her back. She wriggled to free the fabric from her body.
“You will tell your friends you are still alive, and you want to stay that way.” He waved the gun toward her knees again. “Understand?”
She swallowed.
He looked at her. Cold and long and hard. He moved the gun barrel slightly.
“Yes, yes.” She nodded fast and breathed faster. “Tell them I’m alive, and they have to pay for my release. Five million.”
“Euros.”
She nodded. “Euros.”
Her stomach churned. She wouldn’t mind vomiting all over him. Serve him right. Still, she closed her mouth to slow her breathing.
He waved the gun back and forth at her knees. “The rats will love the blood if you make me shoot.”
“I know. I understand. We need to keep calm—”
“You need to keep calm.” His voice was cold.
She nodded. She clasped her hands together and squeezed. It was easy to show him she was terrified.
Vanesota, popped in her mind. She squeezed her hands into fists. She heard the cheery success tone.
Colin Vanesota?
But she needed to use the extra “l.” How about Collin Vanesota? Did that sound even remotely like a real person? Did it use all the letters? Was it obvious enough? Hard to know. But it was her only chance. She had nothing else.
Enzo’s radio buzzed into life. There was a metallic clang like an old-fashioned alarm clock, and then a rapid series of bleeps as a telephone auto-dialed.
She frowned. A telephone? He was calling them on a telephone? They would trace the call. They’d know where she was in moments. They could launch a rescue operation.
