72 Hours
Chapter 13
Dr. Shannon and group manager, Johnny Wright stared intently at the pair of young men seated before them…the silence in the room was heavy, almost palatable.
Justin kept his eyes trained downward on the floor between his socked feet, his hands unconsciously tugging at the hem of his shirt then stretching it around his fists, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth almost to the point of drawing blood.
Seated beside him, Chris was a bundle of nervous energy, his hands first rubbing his jean covered thighs before running a hand over his head while at the same time scratching one of his arms…his left foot tapping almost soundlessly against the thick carpet.
‘I could put my foot down…not let them go…protect them…’ Johnny reasoned...his parental instincts kicking into overdrive knowing that Lynn and Beverly were still torn over the responsibilities that their sons were undertaking…upset beyond belief over the danger that their children were stepping into. Every since the latest phone call listing the final demands, he had fought an inward battle…wanting JC, Joey, and Lance’s safe return from their kidnappers as well as protecting Justin and Chris from the imminent dangers facing them. After lengthy discussions with investigators, it had been determined that there appeared to be no other way to rescue JC, Joey, and Lance, other than having the pair deliver the ransom. There were so many unknowns being faced by Justin and Chris…far too many to even consider and tears suddenly welled in the older man’s eyes and he quickly looked upward at the bedroom ceiling, his eyelids blinking rapidly in an effort to prevent their falling…his emotions swirling about in a rush so strong that his head seemed to spin.
At the same time Dr. Shannon took a deep, quiet breath as he appraised the two young men across from him. Although he had not had the privilege of knowing Chris and Justin as long as Johnny, he could easily recognize the toll that the last 48 plus hours had taken on them…their nervous mannerisms, slumped shoulders, the dark circles under their bloodshot, puffy eyes were the physical evidences of the strain which caused some concern, but the doctor was even more worried about what lay beneath the surface. Not even an hour earlier he had followed Justin as he rushed into the bathroom, watching as the young man barely made it to the toilet, dropping heavily to his knees on the ceramic tile before dry heaving, his stomach already empty due to earlier bouts of nausea. He had to all but carry the young man back to his bed and he was wondering how he would handle the further stress of delivering the ransom the following day.
At the same time, bodyguard Mike Hadnot stared at the pair, recalling his time spent with Chris. At about the time that Dr. Shannon was dealing with Justin, the bodyguard, along with two police officers had been downstairs in the hotel’s gym with Chris, watching uneasily as his young charge released his anger on a punching bag…knowing that the only way that the anger would fully be released if the kidnappers were on the receiving end of the furiously, flying fists.
For a second Mike glanced at the curtain shrouded windows of the room, checking to make sure that no prying eyes would have an opportunity to see what was happening within the confines of the small gym. So far, the media had no knowledge of the drama that the group was experiencing and those involved in the investigation were determined to continue along those same lines. With a small sigh of relief, he saw that the curtains were still pulled tightly together and he once again focused on the lone figure across the room.
For another five minutes, Mike continued to watch Chris viciously attack the heavy bag, noting that the dull echo of the fists hitting the leather were not as loud or rapid as they had been in the beginning, then, with a shake of his head, he stood up from his seat on a nearby bench when Chris was bent over, his sides heaving…his breaths becoming harsher as he began to sob. Before he could take another step forward, he watched Chris’s knees bend as the young man collapsed to the floor, his anguished cries filling the room. With quick steps, he reached the young man, his own tears slightly blurring his vision as he knelt down to embrace the trembling figure.
* * * * * * * *
The sounds of footsteps coming down the basement stairs echoed against the blank walls, causing Cary to momentarily shift his attention away from the quiet sounds Lance was making in the basement’s small bathroom.
“Lawrence needs you to come upstairs for a few minutes,” Barrett said, his words clipped…his tone angered as he jerked a thumb up toward the general direction of the top of the staircase as he walked across the room.
Before stepping away from the bathroom door, Cary gave the room’s interior one more quick glance, seeing that Lance was just finishing in front of the toilet at the back of the room and was slowly turning around, his eyes directed downward, his movements slow as he headed toward the sink…steps still unsure, albeit slightly improved since he had first entered the room.
“Do you know what for?” Cary asked quietly as he watched Barrett approach, taking in the stiff set to the man’s shoulders before dropping his gaze to the fists clinched tight and close to his body.
Barrett tersely shook his head in response to the question when he stood next to Cary.
‘This can’t be good,’ he thought when he literally felt the anger coming off the other man in fresh, hot waves and he felt a certain level of doubt coming to mind at the thought of leaving Barrett to watch over Lance and the others.
In the past he had never known Barrett to lash out in a fit of anger but in his mind, this situation was slowly falling apart…the whole kidnapping dissolving into chaos. Things were not going as smoothly as had been planned. In the back of his mind he had known that tensions would run high, but he had never expected to witness the aftermath of Lawrence’s temper and he certainly didn’t want Barrett to follow in the older man’s steps.
Thinking quickly, Cary again spoke in an almost desperate bid to remain downstairs…at least until Barrett had a chance to cool down…or until he had Bass back on his mattress, bound and once again sedated, knowing that having the young man unconscious and unresponsive would minimize the chance of tensions further escalating.
His thoughts raced for a plausible excuse as he grasped Barrett’s upper arm and pulled him slightly away room the open bathroom door, speaking in low tones.
“Just tell Larry that I need to finish up with Bass first,” he said, gesturing with his head at the room behind him. “I need to check his wrists and ankles before I tie him back up.”
Barrett shook his head. “Nope. Larry wants you up there now,” was his snappish reply. “I’ll get Bass back on his mattress and you can check on him when you’re finished upstairs.”
For a split second, Cary contemplated making another attempt to remain downstairs longer, but decided against it knowing that arguing wouldn’t get him anywhere… could possibly create more problems rather than solving them.
With a nod of his head and a quick glance at the bathroom Cary walked across the basement, pausing on his way to the staircase only long enough to do a visual check of Joey and JC, seeing that both had remained virtually unmoved and relatively in the same positions that they had been in when he had last checked on them. Looking at his watch he noted the time before turning.
“Umm…you might want to shift their positions, Barrett,” he called out, seeing the tiniest of movement coming from Joey.
Barrett merely waved a hand in response and Cary nodded before covering the distance to the staircase with a few strides.
Seconds later, at the closing of the door at the top of the stairs, Joey’s blindfolded head moved minutely as he struggled to gain hold of consciousness but a white hot flash of pain prevented him from further movement.
Blinking heavily, he could feel his eyelids and lashes brushing against the cloth blindfold that had been bound tightly about his head sometime earlier.
He gave himself a small, mental pat on the back. The first time he had awakened with the inability to see had caused a wave of panic to wash over him…his fearful moans into his gag alerting the kidnappers he was awake. The minutes spent in darkness had seemed like hours…his mind too confused to recognize the pressure of the blindfold wrapped about his head. The volume of his moans had increased as his fear escalated until one of the kidnappers had removed the cloth only long enough to allow him to gaze about, blinking heavily while being offered water to drink before his eyes were covered once again.
For now, he was content to lay still for a few moments in an effort to clear the thick fog dulling his senses, taking inventory of the multitude of aches and pains. His head wounds were first and foremost the most prominent of his injuries…his head feeling as if it had been stuffed with thick cotton wool and his thoughts were befuddled…lacking clarity. He had yet to be able to figure out what exactly had happened to him…other than he must have angered the kidnappers somehow…the memories of JC’s struggle and the results of his angry outburst temporarily lost in the haze of his dazed condition.
With an inaudible moan, he felt his eyelids beginning to close…too heavy to ignore, his lashes brushing the cloth as the urge to sleep overwhelmed him and seconds later, his head slightly lolled to the side as he once again succumbed to blackness.
* * * * * * * * *
Lance stared at his bedraggled reflection in the mirror before him. The figure staring back at him was almost unrecognizable, save for the blond hair matted to his forehead and the tired, bloodshot, green eyes slowly blinking at him.
Small bruises, as well as scrapes and minute cuts were visible on his tired features, along with dried blood at the corners of his mouth where his cloth gag cut into his tender skin. With tentative touches, he brushed his shaking fingertips across his face, wincing over the more sensitive spots, turning his head from side to side, the bare bulb hanging overhead creating shadows that hindered his view.
With a hitched breath, he bent over the sink, turning on the tap and allowing the cool water to flow over his still bound hands, cupping them awkwardly beneath the steady stream before bending even further to take a drink. The liquid sliding over his dry tongue and down the back of his scratchy throat gave him some small relief and, for the very briefest of moments, he relished the small amount of comfort and respite he was being afforded within the four, blank walls of the tiny bathroom until a new harsh, threatening voice from outside the room interrupted his quiet thoughts.
“Hurry up in there, Mr. Bass.”
Startled, Lance stood up with an audible gasp, coughing slightly as he choked on water that he had suddenly swallowed only to visibly shudder at the reflection of a different captor staring back at him in the mirror. Uneasily he swiped the back of one of his hands across his mouth, wincing as a small movement caused his gaze to drop for a fraction of a second from the captor’s masked face to the handgun almost casually pointed in his direction then back up again…and for a moment or two, their eyes locked…a pair of hard, blue eyes and a pair of wide, frightened green…their gazes focused and unblinking until Lance averted his eyes, breaking that contact, blinking as he looked down at the sink, shutting off the tap. Then, with slow movements, he slowly turned around to face the man, nodding in his direction.
“Let’s go…now,” the man said, his tone hard while gesturing with the gun toward the basement behind him before stepping slightly to the side.
“Yes, sir,” Lance quietly replied, clearing his throat only to wince at how dry it had suddenly become…the threat of danger having erased any relief that he water had just moments earlier given him.
Instinctively, he stepped closer to the wall as he took small, measured steps on his approach to the doorway and, with a grunt of impatience, Barrett reached out and grabbed Lance’s right arm to pull him over the threshold, steadying the young man when he slightly stumbled over his feet as he stepped from cracked linoleum onto the loosely packed dirt floor of the basement.
As their steps created small puffs of dust to rise low into the air, Lance focused his gaze on his feet before looking up…searching out JC and Joey, his heart flip-flopping at finding them to be in the same positions that they had been in on his way to the bathroom. At that moment, he had the overwhelming desire to be able to simply touch his friends…to hear their voices…to see their eyes open. His steps hesitated and he turned his attention to the man leading him across the room, wanting to make his request, but one look at the gun still pointed at his side made him reconsider and with a small sigh, he concentrated on the hand tightly gripping him, insistently tugging at his arm.
Seconds later, the desire to know about JC and Joey’s condition overwhelmed him and he cleared his throat, speaking before his courage left him.
“Umm…how are my friends…please?” he asked, nearly stumbled as his gaze once again traveled to his friends, who were now slightly behind him. He quickly recovered his balance as Barrett yanked on his arm.
“They’re fine” Barrett replied, his irritated tone at once causing Lance to decide to stay quiet for the time being.
“Sit down…legs out,” the man said, giving Lance a firm push in the direction of his mattress causing the young man to fall to its surface in an awkward heap, landing on his knees and elbows since his bound, numb hands offered him little to no support.
Without even giving Lance the opportunity to recover and move into a seated position, Barrett kicked him in the hip, and with a small grunt of pain, Lance fell to his side with a groan, his hands scrabbling toward the pain, his face still pressed into the mattress.
Almost as soon as his body hit the cushion again, he felt strong hands flipping him over then pulling at his legs, drawing them out from beneath him, roughly straightening them before a long length of rope was once again wrapped tightly about his ankles then another added, encircling his knees.
At the same time, Lance decided that the questions that had been plaguing his thoughts needed to e asked, no matter what the risk and he closed him eyes with a quick, silent prayer before speaking in a whispered tone.
“What’s going to happen to us? Why us? Why are YOU DOING THIS?” And, although he had fully intended on using quiet tones in asking his questions, the emotions that had been trapped within him for two days could no longer be held back and the control that he had been struggling to maintain shattered as he continued to shout…his voice becoming even louder.
“WHY? WHY?”
Lance’s shouts caused the kidnapper’s hands to slow, but only for the briefest of moments, his gaze never meeting Lance’s. Then he reached out and grabbed a nearby roll of duct tape that Lance had missed seeing. He quickly pulled off a length of the sticky material, leaned toward Lance and, without a word, pressed the strip firmly against his face, pushing it with bruising force before adding two more as well…the young man’s questions causing a certain level of frustration and anger to swell within him.
At the same time, the level of fear was beginning to escalate within Lance and he shuddered…his gaze having locked with that of the kidnapper…recognizing anger in the hard, gray eyes staring back at him.
With jerked movements, Barrett stood up, reached for his belt and pulled large knife out of a leather case.
At the same time, another shiver shuddered violently through Lance and he tore his gaze away from the knife just long enough to once again look into the eyes of the approaching figure.
‘I pushed him…I pushed him,’ his mind screamed as he tried to propel himself away, while at the same time realizing that there was no where for him to go since his frantic, back peddling movement propelled him directly into a support pole.
Before he could even blink, Barrett was upon him and he screamed into his tape gag as he instinctively brought his bound hands up in a seemingly futile attempt to defend himself.
* * * * * * * *
The next morning, Justin and Chris stared at a detailed map, their eyes focused as investigators slowly began going over it with the pair while Johnny and the rest of the group hung back, having already been briefed earlier that morning.
“Like we told you a while ago, during the early morning hours we received this along with instructions for this afternoon’s drop off in an unmarked envelope downstairs at the front desk,” a detective said, gesturing toward the map and a folded piece of paper.
“And you’re sure…absolutely sure that no one saw anything…anyone?” Chris asked, his tone hopeful that a mistake had been made…something missed in the videotapes, but by the looks on the faces of those around them, the investigators still had nothing to go on.
“No, they didn’t. We’ve questioned those who were at the front desk at the about the time that it was dropped off, but the clerks were in the back performing update task and no other employees were in the area. We also dusted these for prints, but…there were none,” another detective added with a frown.
It was becoming more and more apparent to those investigating the kidnapping that they were no further along in finding out who had taken JC, Joey and Lance than they were two days ago. The kidnappers weren’t making mistakes…at least any that were glaringly obvious. They could only hope that a major error would be made within the next 8 hours giving them the break necessary in finding and rescuing the trio before endangering Justin and Chris during the ransom drop-off.
“So what happens next?” Justin asked, anxious to do whatever necessary to end the nightmare.
“According to this,” one of the men said, holding up the instructions, “you will get into a car this afternoon at 3:00 and begin driving north along the interstate until you are within 35 miles of the Canadian border.”
“I guess you’ll have everything rigged up so that you’ll know what’s going on,” Chris said, recalling the plans that had been laid out to the group the previous evening.
“The bag containing the ransom will be wired, as well as your shoes,” one of the men replied, nodding toward Justin who had supplied that particular suggestion after the investigators had considered implanting devices somewhere in their bodies. Thankfully, the idea was noted as being useful…the thought of having Dr. Shannon inserting a foreign body into their bodies no longer an issue.
“What about the car?” Justin asked looking at the demands lying beside the map. “Are you going to do anything about it?”
“Not at this time. We have no reason to believe that the kidnappers lack the ability to check for devices on the car, seeing that we haven’t had any luck in being able to find them or your friends…and even the most sophisticated equipment and tracking devices that we have can be found if someone is determined enough to find them. We’re going to be taking enough chances just bugging the bag and your shoes. We’re certain that the car will be checked but…”
“The bag might be checked thoroughly,” Johnny suggested with a frown. He hadn’t even thought twice about the bag, but now he wasn’t so sure that they were doing the right thing in having a tracer planted inside one of the bag’s handles.
“We’re hoping that they’ll be more interested in what’s inside the bag and not the bag itself,” another one of the men said in an effort to reassure the entire group…the faces of those staring back at him letting him know that his words were doubted. With an inward shake of his head, he realized that no words could be said that would alleviate the mounting fear and growing doubts being felt by all involved. The ransom handoff was going to be tricky, at best and the probability of something going wrong was drastically increasing with each review of the demands.
“Okay…let’s go over what we know one more time,” an investigator said, urging everyone’s attention back to the map.