Fifth Victim (21 page)

On screen, Torquil hung his head, unable to continue for a moment. I strained to see past his battered figure into the room itself, but they’d spotlit the chair brightly. Beyond him were only dark shadows. Maybe Bill Rendelson, who’d become Parker’s electronic surveillance expert, could finesse more detail from the background …

And that led to a rapid cascade of other thoughts and realisations, not least of which was why we were being shown this footage in the first place. My gaze flicked to Parker again, filled with questions I didn’t need to ask aloud. He shifted the cursor to pause the clip, straightened.

‘Mr Eisenberg—?’ he began, but Eisenberg was ready for him.

‘Just watch the damn tape,’ he said quietly. ‘Watch it and then you’ll know.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Parker didn’t immediately respond to that, just stared at Eisenberg across the expanse of desk and office. It was an interesting silent confrontation.

Here were two men, both with power and minutely aware of its extent, but Eisenberg’s authority seemed wholly exterior by comparison to my boss. Parker was a natural leader, an intangible quality that came from something inside himself. Eisenberg, on the other hand, seemed to need the constant presence of his retinue as reassurance of his potency. I scanned their bland expressions and wondered if he knew how quickly they would desert him, should his fortunes ever wane.

We would have followed Parker anywhere without hesitation, but Eisenberg had to buy such loyalty. I hoped he kept the receipts.

At last, Parker lowered his gaze and clicked the mouse to resume the playback. Torquil’s desperate gasps and murmurs filled the room again, eclipsing all other considerations.

‘They say … you go to the cops … they kill me. You call in the FBI … they kill me. You delay … or try to double-cross them … or don’t do
exactly
as they say … they kill me, and you won’t never find my b-body. Please – Mom … Dad – I’m sorry. I … just do what they want, OK?’

For the first time, I thought I saw Nicola Eisenberg close her eyes briefly.

The picture faded out to black, and the sound of Torquil’s laboured breathing died away, replaced by an electronically synthesised voice.

‘Listen very carefully, Mr Eisenberg. The price for returning your son intact is that fancy string of beads your wife flashes in public every chance she gets, to be delivered to a location of our choosing. You have until six-thirty tomorrow morning to make the arrangements. If you fail to comply, or involve the cops, you will start receiving body parts in the mail. There will be no negotiation and no second chances.’ There was a pause, then the cold mechanical voice added with a distinct sneer, ‘Oh, and one more thing – tell the Willners’ little bitch of a bodyguard she makes the ransom drop. Nobody else. We’ll be in touch.’

I let out a long breath, slowly enough for it not to be audible. Nevertheless, Parker shot me a fast glance.

No!

What other options are there?

The clip had ended with the usual invitation from the software for a replay. We would replay it, I knew, over and over, looking for anything to suggest identity or location, but I didn’t think any of us were ready for that quite yet.

‘OK.’ I shrugged. ‘I’ll make the drop.’

Eisenberg’s chief lawyer brightened at the prospect of a third party to shed some blame onto. Parker held up a hand that cut him off more successfully than any high court judge.

‘Mr Eisenberg, just so’s we’re clear on this, what exactly is it you expect from us?’

Eisenberg made a gesture of tempered impatience. It was, no doubt, a question he himself would have asked, if the positions had been reversed. ‘It’s simple – all we want is for Miss Fox to deliver the ransom.’ He gave us both a bleak stare. ‘I’ll pay her what I have to, naturally.’

‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,’ Parker said quickly, before I could chuck that one back in Eisenberg’s face. ‘How do you intend to handle this demand? Do you mean to negotiate?’

That got our first reaction from Nicola Eisenberg. She gave an explosive snort and threw up her hands, glaring at the entourage as if they’d forcibly gagged her up to that point.

‘Negotiate?’ she demanded. ‘You saw what was on that disk! You heard! You tell me, Mr Armstrong, if it was
your
son, how exactly would you plan to
negotiate
?’

Parker paused, as if making sure she was finished. ‘You rush into this, ma’am, and you’ll surely regret it,’ he said. ‘But, you let them control things from the get-go, and you’ll regret that all the more. In this kind of situation, paying up too fast can be as dangerous for the hostage as dragging your feet. How much is the Eisenberg Rainbow worth?’

‘As a piece, it’s priceless,’ Eisenberg said without modesty. ‘And too renowned to sell as a whole. But, if they broke it down into the individual stones they’d probably realise about five million on the black market.’

I watched the slight wince as he spoke about the necklace being stripped for its parts. Interesting that the kidnappers had asked for something more than money, I thought. They’d picked something it would hurt him to give up, and that could not easily be replaced – like the boy himself.

‘You think we give a damn about the money? Five million?’ Nicola Eisenberg flicked her fingers as if at a troublesome mosquito. ‘That’s just noise in the accounts for people like us.’

That was about the time I decided I really didn’t care for Mrs Eisenberg.

‘But not for the kidnappers,’ Parker said quietly, his voice pleasant even though I could tell he shared my instant impression. ‘For them, it’s a starting point. An amount so far out of reach they don’t think they’ve a chance in hell of getting anywhere near it. You agree to pay without hesitation, without negotiation, and before long they start to wonder if they should have asked for more – a lot more. And that makes them angry. Who do you think they’ll take that anger out on, ma’am?’

When she paled but didn’t reply, I said, ‘If these are the same people who took the others, they accepted half their initial demand in the first two cases and the hostages were released unharmed. The problem came when the Benelli family dug their heels in
too
far, and the kidnappers cut off Benedict’s finger as a means of persuasion. Handling this successfully is a very delicate game, and Parker is an expert.’

Had they made Benedict choose which one? Was that why he’d lost the finger that mattered least to his musical career, or was it purely down to luck?

I didn’t mention the fact that although Manda reported rough treatment during her own captivity, the beating had not gone anywhere near as far as the one delivered to Torquil. The level of violence seemed to be increasing as the perpetrators went on, perhaps as they grew bolder with each successful kidnap. Or had Torquil done something special that the others hadn’t? Despite his unlikely physique, he was into extreme sports, I recalled, and no coward. Had he tried to escape?

The experts reckoned that the best time to get away from potential kidnap was in the first few moments. At that point, you are an object of high value to your captors. They may ultimately kill you if the risk, or the fear of exposure, becomes too great, or they realise they aren’t going to get their money. But at the point of contact they need you demonstrably alive.

After the initial window of opportunity has passed, the recommendation is that you should remain calm and compliant. Resistance is likely to earn punishment, just to keep you manageable. I could not imagine Torquil had taken easily to the concept of absolute obedience.

For most victims, their ultimate survival depends on the skill of the negotiator. Parker was patient and implacable, and had a growing reputation as one of the best. He had even, on occasion, managed to arrange the return of those kidnapped without any money changing hands. According to the statistics, only eleven per cent of hostages are released under those circumstances, and in the last year Armstrong-Meyer had been responsible for more than their share.

If their people had done their homework, the Eisenbergs would be well aware of those figures.

‘Advise us,’ she said at last, shaping it as a command rather than a plea. Her eyes slid to her husband’s stony face and when he offered no immediate objections, she added, ‘Hypothetically speaking, naturally. How would you
handle
this situation?’

Parker’s expression clearly said he knew there was nothing hypothetical about it, but he answered anyway in an even tone. ‘When they next contact you, it will be by phone—’

‘What makes you so sure?’ butted in the chief lawyer, as if justifying his existence.

Parker nailed him with a studied glance. ‘Experience,’ he said, succinct. ‘They need to gauge your attitude, how far they can push, and they can’t do that any other way. When they make contact,’ he went on, leaving a pointed gap in case the lawyer felt the need to jump in again, ‘you need to tell them you can’t get your hands on the piece in time. You send it to London to be cleaned, I understand?’ There were surprised nods. ‘Don’t be afraid to sound stressed, worried. It’s what they want. You need to make them feel you’re doing everything you can to resolve this, but events are beyond your control. They need to be assured that they have you worried enough to comply in the end, even if they don’t get everything they initially ask for.’

Eisenberg pursed his lips, considering. ‘I have to admit, I hate the idea of giving in to these kind of threats,’ he allowed.

His wife snorted again. I was reminded of Dina’s arrogant white horse, with half the elegance and none of the charm. ‘If it was some damned company takeover, you’d sure as hell manage to pay up with a smile on your face,’ she said in a bitter growl.

‘Offer them a lesser piece from Mrs Eisenberg’s extensive jewellery collection. Something with a value of say, one million, max,’ Parker said, doing his best to ignore the bickering. ‘Tell them it’s a good offer for a couple of days’ work. They know that the longer they have him, the greater the risk they take.’

To an outsider, it must have sounded like Parker was being cheap for the sake of it, but there was a lot more to it than that, even if Nicola Eisenberg’s reaction was one of outrage.

‘You’re suggesting we
bargain
for my son’s life?’ she said, her tone rising like etched glass.

Parker sighed. ‘Mrs Eisenberg, suppose you were … buying a property? You go in with a crazy low offer, expecting the owners to throw it right back at you. Instead, they fall over themselves to sign the contract. First reaction?’

Nicola Eisenberg frowned for a moment, but I could hear her brain whirring from across the room. ‘That there must be a catch,’ she admitted at length. ‘That maybe there was something wrong with the place that we’d missed.’

‘And if there’s nothing wrong with it?’

‘I guess I’d assume the vendors were in a hole financially, and we could have gotten a better deal,’ she said, sliding a sideways look at the lawyers. ‘I’d stall, look for legal loopholes that would allow us to revise our offer, then nail their balls to the wall.’

The lawyers, all male, shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

Parker waited, his expression bland, for the penny to finally drop, saw the second that it did. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m not suggesting a bargain just for the sake of it, or because I have any intention of saving you money. I’ve had a lot of experience. I know how these people think and react. And, trust me, paying up their full initial demand, without a flicker, will not be a wise decision for your son’s safety.’

Eisenberg, however, merely glared at his wife. ‘You think I can’t handle this?’ he demanded. ‘I handle multimillion-dollar deals every day of the week. All we need is for the damn girl to make the drop.’

‘Oh, I know
precisely
what you handle—’

‘Mr Eisenberg!’ Parker cleared his throat. ‘You’re an acknowledged expert in your field,’ he went on. ‘If I was looking to buy out one of my competitors, I’d want you on my team, but this, sir, is a whole different ball game …’

He didn’t need to finish.

Eisenberg looked like he was still going to argue, but his wife put a hand on his arm, suddenly, squeezing the cloth of his six-thousand-dollar suit with impossibly long fingernails painted blood-red. He glanced at her, the taut lines of her face, and a short silent battle of wills ensued. When it was over, his shoulders seemed more rounded than before. Nicola Eisenberg frowned, as if she’d rather fight with him in public than see him slouch.

‘OK, OK,’ he said hollowly. ‘In that case, Mr Armstrong, I’d like to retain your professional services.’ He made a kind of general see-to-it gesture to the lawyers, who ducked their heads. He spread his hands in a gesture of submission, or maybe he was just trying to shake off his wife. ‘What do we do now?’

‘We’ll see what information can be gleaned from the DVD,’ Parker said. ‘See if we can get any leads as to where your son is being held and formulate a recovery plan, just in case.’

‘I will
not
sanction any action that might endanger him,’ Nicola Eisenberg said.

‘It would be a last resort only,’ Parker agreed. ‘I assume you’ve considered calling in the FBI?’

That gained him a firm head shake. ‘You heard what they said. How could we be certain there’d be no leaks, in an organisation that size?’

Parker ignored the slur to the Bureau’s integrity, asking instead, ‘Have you interviewed your son’s security personnel?’

Eisenberg grunted. ‘Only to fire their asses,’ he said sharply. ‘Why – you think they might have had a hand in all this?’

‘If they did, then keeping them on the payroll, where you can keep an eye on them – apply a certain amount of pressure if it came to that – might have been useful.’ Parker gave a grim smile. ‘And, if they turn out to be innocent, you could be assured of one thing – they would never let anything happen to the boy again.’

CHAPTER THIRTY

Parker’s office seemed very empty after Eisenberg’s hordes had departed. I watched the door close behind the last of the assistants’ assistants and noted the way Parker’s own shoulders dropped a little.