| |
“HOW DOES IT GET COMPLICATED?” Alex asked.
“The money needs to be wired to our Swiss bank account. You know how those work. We have a numbered account. Our names aren’t attached to it. Your wire won’t go to a name—it will just go to a number, which will retain our anonymity. And I think all of you know by now how important it is for us to remain anonymous. We’re here for that very reason. It’s the key to everything we’ve built for ourselves here.”
“If I give you that money, people will know that I’m alive. I’ll need to personally authorize the transfer. Do you understand that?”
“Given the amount of the wire, I do. And they’ll know exactly where you are when you make that transfer. But you’ll be calling from another island—a populated island—not this one, where your wife and your friends will remain waiting for you. If you try something stupid, you’ll die, and then they’ll die. It’s that simple. If you’re smart, you’ll wire the money, and then we’ll bring you back here. All they’ll know is that you’re alive...somewhere. Somewhere hours away from here, in fact, because reaching that island is a three-hour journey by boat.”
“Here’s my final proposal,” Alex said. “Give us the twelve shots of penicillin to get our friend through the worst of this, and then take me with you to wire you the money. Before I send it to your accounts, you will need to make a call to local authorities telling them exactly where we’re located. I’ll personally need to see and hear you make that call. Otherwise, it’s a no-go. That’s me being straight with you. You will get your money, and that money—if invested wisely—can sustain your people for decades.”
“I don’t want anyone to know that we live here.”
“If that’s the case, then how do you propose that you alert the authorities that you’ve seen us on this island?”
“All they need to receive is an anonymous call from someone who flew over the island, saw the smashed plane, and called it in because a crash in this area has been all over the news. So, here’s my concern—what if you tell them that we are here?”
“Here’s my word to you. All we want to do is save our friend, hopefully save our child, and get back home. As for the rest of you? As far as I’m concerned, you can live on this island for the rest of your lives. What does it matter to me if you do? It doesn’t, so none of us will say anything for one very good reason—you chose to help us.”
“For a financial gain.”
“Money means nothing to me if it means that we’ll soon get back to our lives in New York. Can we just be reasonable about this for a moment? All we want is the penicillin—twelve shots of it, not the six you offered earlier—and to get the hell out of here, which you can make happen. If you agree to this, I’m hardly going to undermine you. In fact, I’m only going to be grateful to you. You have the power to make a call that I can’t. But this has to happen today. Not tomorrow. Today. Everything has to happen today because Cutter is fading fast. Soon, they’ll be searching for us again. A rescue helicopter will be equipped with everything he needs to keep him alive. So, take me to the bank, make the call, and I’ll wire the money. Then, you can bring me back here, and we’ll be out of your lives when they come for us. I don’t care about the money. I’m serious about that. It’s just money. All I want is our lives back. Are we understood?”
“Actually, I’m uneasy. What if you pull something on the phone at the bank? What if you expose us?”
“Are you even listening to me? Do you really think I’m going to jeopardize our welfare by making a stupid decision like that? I get it. You will kill all of us if I don’t transfer that money. I know that you will. So, make your decision, do it now, and be wise about it. You can use the money to secure your futures going forward. To make sure the funds have been transferred, all you’d need to do is make a call to your bank to see if it went through. It’ll be there. And with that, we’ll be square. I will have come through with my end of the deal, and you already will have come through with your end of the deal because you’ll make that call to authorities just before I transfer the money. If the money isn’t there, then feel free to kill all of us. Does that sound serious enough to you?”
It was a long moment before the man spoke, but when he did, all he said were five words: “Fine. You’ve got a deal.”
“Just to be clear—because I feel I need to be very clear with you before we leave—I’ll go on that boat with you, but you’ll make the call to the authorities just before I enter the bank. And you’ll also come through with the penicillin before we leave. Agreed?”
“We’re in agreement,” the man said. He lifted his rifle at him, nodded at one of his men, and turned to Alex. “But not before you’re patted down.”
It was then that I saw the genius Tank had displayed in the hut—disarm Alex in case anything like this happened so we could keep the knife for ourselves.
“He’s clean,” the younger man said when he was finished with Alex.
“Great,” the older man said. “So, let’s go.”
