Roses Are Red (Alex Cross 6)

Chapter 56

THE TOUR BUS became strangely silent. Even the small children were quiet.

Brian Macdougall had the floor and he immensely enjoyed being the center of attention. “There are a few rules of order. One, no more screams. Two, nobody cries, not even the kids. Three, nobody yells for help. Okay so far? Understood?”

The passengers stared openmouthed at the man with the gun. Another man had climbed onto the bus roof and was changing the alphanumeric indicator, which was the easiest way police aircraft could spot it on the road.

“I said — okay so far?” Brian Macdougall yelled.

The woman and children nodded and answered him in muffled voices.

“Next piece of business. Everyone with a cell phone pass it forward — right now. As we all know, the police can track cell phones. Not easily, but it can be done. Anyone still holding a phone when we do body searches will be killed. Even if it’s a kid. Simple as that. Understood? Okay so far? We still crystal clear on everything?”

The cell phones were hurriedly passed to the front. There were nine of them. The gunman threw them outside the bus, into the hedges. He then used a small hammer and smashed the bus’s two-way radio beyond repair.

“Now, everybody, put your heads way down below the level of the windows. Everybody stay very quiet down there. That includes the kids. Put your heads down now and don’t look up again until you’re told. Do it.”

The women and the children on the bus obeyed.

“Big Joe,” the gunman turned and addressed the bus driver, “you have only one instruction — follow the blue van. Do not fuck around in any way or you will die instantly. You are worth nothing to us, alive or dead. Now, Joe, what do you do?”

“Follow the black van.”

“Very good, Joe. Excellent. Except the van is blue, Joe. See the blue van? Now follow it, and drive carefully. We don’t want any vehicular violations on our trip.”

Chapter 57

THERE WERE THREE EXECUTIVE ASSISTANTS busily answering phones and collecting mail and faxes for the thirty-six MetroHartford directors working in the famed Chinese Room at the Mayflower Hotel. The assistants loved being out of the off

ice, especially since the home offices were in Hartford, Connecticut.

Sara Wilson, the youngest assistant, saw the fax from the kidnappers first. She quickly read it, then passed it on to the two more-senior assistants. Her face was beet red and her hands were trembling badly.

“Is this some kind of a sick joke?” Betsy Becton asked when she saw the fax. “This is crazy. What is this?”

Nancy Hall was the executive assistant to the group CEO, John Dooner. She barged into the board meeting without knocking and called clear across the room. Actually, she needn’t have raised her voice. The Chinese Room at the Mayflower has an acoustic problem. The ceiling is a sweeping dome. Even a whisper on one side of the large room can be heard on the other.

“Mr. Dooner, I have to see you right now,” she said. She was more agitated and upset than her boss had ever seen her.

The departure of the CEO brought a general lightening of the mood around the room, but the small talk and smiles were short-lived. He was back in less than five minutes. His face was pale as he hurriedly walked to the podium.

“Time is of the essence,” said Dooner in a trembling voice that shocked the other board members. “Please listen carefully. The chartered tour bus carrying my wife and many of your wives has been hijacked. The men responsible claim to be the same sick bastards who’ve been robbing banks and taking hostages in Maryland and Virginia during the past few weeks. They claim that the robberies and murders were committed as ‘object lessons’ for the people in this room. They want us to know they are deadly serious about their demands being met — and met on time. To the second.”

The CEO continued, his face dramatically lit by the podium lamp. “Their demands are simple and clear. They want thirty million dollars to be delivered to them in exactly five hours, or all the hostages will be murdered. We don’t know how the tour bus was taken. Steve Bolding from our Control Risks Group is on his way over here. He’s deciding which police agency to involve. It will probably be the FBI.”

Dooner stopped to take a breath. The color in his face was returning slowly. “As you know, we have a kidnapping insurance policy that covers up to fifty million in ransom. I suspect that the kidnappers already know this. They seem to be thorough and organized. They’re also clearheaded, which gives them an advantage. I think they know that we are the underwriters on the policy ourselves. Therefore, we can get the money and we can get it fast.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, please, we have to talk about our alternatives. If there are any alternatives. The kidnappers have made one thing very clear — there can be no mistakes or people will die.”

Chapter 58

I WAS AT THE FBI FIELD OFFICE on Fourth Street when we got the emergency call.

A Washington on Wheels tour bus with eighteen passengers and the driver had been hijacked soon after it left the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel. Minutes later, a thirty-million-dollar ransom had been demanded from the MetroHartford Insurance Company.

The instructions from the kidnappers stated that police agencies were not to be involved, but there was no way we could back off and trust them. We set up at the Capitol Hilton, which was close to the Mayflower, on Sixteenth and K. We had four mobile command units in addition to the dozen agents already operating inside the Mayflower. It was dangerous, but Betsey felt we needed primary surveillance at the hotel. The technical penetration involved concealed listening devices and a limited amount of video surveillance. The entire Metropolitan Field Office of the FBI was put on alert.

High-tech helicopters, Apaches, were in the air searching for the Washington on Wheels bus. The Apaches had heat monitors for tracking purposes, if and when the kidnappers attempted to hide the bus and its passengers. The alphanumeric indicator on the bus’s roof had been given out to aerial police, military, city, state, and even civil aircraft. None of the groups were told why they were looking for the bus.