The minute that Abigail landed at JFK, Joshua called her and explained that Cal was missing. Abigail was frantic and peppered him with questions. Joshua answered each of them patiently, sometimes several times. Yes, Joshua had tried Cal’s cell phone, but it had been turned off and was going directly to voicemail. No, campus security had not come up with anything else beyond their initial investigation: that an unidentified and unauthorized person, dressed as a maintenance man, was seen by students in Cal’s dorm entering his room with a large utility cart shortly before he went missing. Cal was supposed to join friends in a basketball game but never showed.
The school’s security had asked Joshua if he wanted the local police in Lynchburg to get involved. He said he did.
When Abigail arrived at the hotel and finally burst through the door, Joshua recognized the same anxious apprehension on her face that he was harboring inside. He said he had nothing new to report in the twenty minutes since they last talked.
But as he heard himself saying that, he exploded. “I am not just waiting around for something to happen,” Joshua snapped. “I’m going to break this open. I’m getting answers…”
Abigail ran her hands through her hair, stood up, and put up her hand toward her husband like she was a cop at an intersection stopping traffic. “We can’t barge into this until we get more facts,” she said.
“We could create more obstacles for the police, end up hindering them rather than helping them.”
There was something Joshua was going to say in reply, but he utterly forgot it because of the next sound he heard.
His Allfone. He snatched it up.
The voice on the other end was like a man’s but had been digitally altered. It was low and metallic and computerized.
The voice started by saying, “Do not hang up.”
“How did you get this number?”
“Off your son Cal’s Allfone, of course, Mr. Jordan. This is not a joke. This is real. I have your son.”
Joshua waved wildly at Abigail to come over to the phone and listen in.
“Your son is safe…for now,” the voice said, “but if you contact any law enforcement agent—police, FBI, or anyone else from the government—I will know it. And if that happens, then your son will have to be hurt…”
Abigail had to cover her mouth with both hands to muffle her cries so the caller wouldn’t hear.
“To be more specific, if you make that mistake,” the voice continued, “then I will take a rusty saw and cut off your son’s head. And I will videotape it, as he screams for his mommy and daddy. And then I will place it on VideoNet so that not only you but also millions of others can see it.”
The voice ended by saying, “I will call you in several hours. You will be required to follow my instructions carefully if you want to see your son Cal again. Now, Mr. Joshua Jordan, you should be ready to produce for me every design document relating to the RTS antimissile weapon, the laser operating principles, the spec sheets, the engineering drawings—everything. When I call back I will give you the exact specifics on how you will deliver this to me.”
“My son!” Joshua yelled into the phone.
“You’re not listening,” the voice said. “I already told you that your son is safe. For now. When I call back I will show that to you. I will give you proof.”
Then the call ended.
Joshua immediately hit the call-lookup function on his Allfone. But when he did, it simply read: “Unauthorized Function.”
Abigail was sobbing.
Joshua was in a fury. He screamed into the air. But beneath his rage was a deep current of terror and grief. He wanted a face to hate, a person to crush, not some electronic voice. When he’d been an Air Force Special Ops pilot he’d been trained to drop bombs on incredibly hostile, clandestine targets with deadly accuracy. But where was his target this time? He’d been trained in survival skills and basic hand-to-hand combat if he crashed behind enemy lines. But where were the lines now? Who was the enemy?
Through her tears, Abigail managed to say, “We need to plan this out—”
“I need to kill that monster, whoever he is!” Joshua shouted, pointing to his Allfone.
“We need to save our son!”
Joshua reached out to his wife, and she fell into his arms. They held each other tight in a heart-pounding silence for several minutes.
Then Joshua let her go and said, “We’re wasting time.”
“What…what do we do?” Abigail said. “He says he’ll know if we contact the authorities. We can’t take that chance.”
“Listen, I was on the phone with Rocky Bridger when the Liberty campus security people called me about Cal. When we reconnected Rocky explained something to me. At the suggestion of Pack McHenry, the Patriot I told you about, Rocky went ahead and talked with an FBI agent by the name of Gallagher. Rocky says after talking to him he now feels that his son-in-law’s murder was somehow connected to me and the RTS design documents.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe we need to put our heads together with Rocky. Maybe we can all piece this together.”
“And do what? This maniac has our son. He’s holding all the cards.” Joshua’s response had a finality to it that his wife had never seen before. “I’m going to save my son. Whatever it takes.”
“Josh, is he really safe right now…?” Her voice caught, and she choked up with grief.
Joshua held her gently by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “I believe he is. I really do. The kidnapper needs to give us proof that he’s still alive. Right now he’s safe. He has to be.”
Abigail wiped her tears and nodded.
“We need to get Rocky down here with us,” Joshua said. “Immediately. We have to call him. But not on my cell phone. The kidnapper now has my prototype cell number and may be tracing my calls. I can’t afford to trust my high security Allfone anymore.”
“We can’t use mine either, for the same reason,” Abigail said. “I’ll go to the hotel business center on the second floor. I can use that phone. They have private work areas. What should I tell Rocky?”
“That we need him at this hotel as quick as he can get down here. And not to tell anyone where he’s going. That our son’s in danger. And it has to do with the things Rocky was telling me this morning on the phone.”
Abigail paused for a second before she left. She was trembling. She said something, whether a prayer or something else, maybe a simple unburdening from the depths of her heart, Joshua wasn’t sure. But Abigail seemed to be saying it even from the hollow, emptiness of her grief. And there was also a kind of strange resolution in the way in which she said it.
“Not my will but Thy will be done.”
Then she walked quickly out of the hotel suite and closed the door tightly behind her as she left.
When she was gone, Joshua pulled out the Patriot’s business card with Pack McHenry’s number on it. He stared at it for a long time, tempted to get in touch with him. Until he finally decided against it.
No rash moves. Cal’s life is on the line.