Chapter 22
IT WAS DEFINITELY SHOWTIME! A Federal Express courier had arrived at the FBI offices just before ten-thirty on the morning of the twenty-sixth of December. He’d delivered the new message from the Son of Lindbergh.
We were called back to the crisis room on the second floor. The whole FBI staff seemed to be in there. This was it, and everybody knew it.
Moments later, Special Agent Bill Thompson, from Miami, rushed in. He brandished one of those familiar-looking delivery-service envelopes. Thompson carefully opened the orange-and-blue envelope in front of the entire group.
“He’s going to let us see the message. Only he’s not going to read it to us,” Jeb Klepner from the Secret Service cracked under his breath. Sampson and I were standing there with Klepner and Jezzie Flanagan.
“Oh, he doesn’t want all the heat on this one,” Jezzie predicted. “He’ll share with us this time.”
Thompson was ready, up at the front.
“I have a message from Gary Soneji. It goes as follows.
“There’s the number one,” Thompson read the message.
“Then, spelled out in letters, ten million. On the next line, the number two. Then the words Disney World, Orlando—The Magic Kingdom. Next line. The number three. Then, Park at Pluto 24. Go across Seven Seas Lagoon on the ferry, not the monorail. 12:50 P.M. today. This will be finished by 1:15. Last line. Detective Alex Cross will deliver the ransom. Alone. It’s signed Son of Lindbergh.”
Bill Thompson looked up immediately. His eyes searched the crisis room. He had no trouble finding me in the audience. I can absolutely guarantee that his shock and surprise were nothing compared to mine. A hit of adrenaline had already mainlined its way into my system. What the hell did Soneji want with me? How did he know about me? Did he know how badly I wanted his ass now?
“There’s no attempt at any negotiation!” Special Agent Scorse began to make a fuss. “Soneji just assumes we’re going to deliver the ten million.”
“He does,” I spoke up. “And he’s right. It’s ultimately the family’s call how and when a kidnap ransom gets paid.” The Dunnes had instructed us to pay Soneji—unconditionally. Soneji had probably guessed as much. That was undoubtedly the main reason why he’d chosen Maggie Rose. But why had he chosen me?
Standing at my side, Sampson shook his head and muttered, “The Lord, He sure does work in mysterious ways.”
A half-dozen cars were waiting for us in the sunbaked parking lot behind the Bureau building. Bill Thompson, Jezzie Flanagan, Klepner, myself, and Sampson traveled in one of the FBI sedans. The securities and money went with us. Detective Alex Cross will deliver the ransom.
The money had been put together late the previous night. It was a tremendously complex deal to get it accomplished so quickly, but Citibank and Morgan Stanley had cooperated. The Dunnes and Jerrold Goldberg had the power to get what they wanted, and had obviously exerted great pressure. As Soneji had requested, two million of the ransom was in cash. The rest was in small diamonds and securities. The ransom was negotiable, and also very portable. It fit into an American Tourister suitcase.
The trip from downtown Miami Beach to the Opa Locka West Airport took about twenty-five minutes. The flight would take another forty. That would get us into Orlando at approximately 11: 45 A.M. It would be tight.
“We can try to put a device on Cross.” We listened as Agent Scorse talked over the radio to Thompson. “Portable radio transmitter. We’ve got one on board the plane.”
“I don’t like that very much, Gerry,” Thompson said.
“I don’t like it, either,” I said from the backseat. An understatement. “No bugs. That’s out.” I was still trying to understand how and why Soneji had picked me. It didn’t make sense. I thought that he might have read about me in the news coverage back in Washington. He had some good reason, I knew. There could be little or no doubt about that.
“There’ll be unbelievable crowds at that park,” Thompson said once we were on board a Cessna 310 to Orlando. “That’s the obvious reason he’s chosen the Disney Park. Lots of parents and kids at the Magic Kingdom, too. He just might be able to blend in with Maggie Dunne. He may have disguised her as well.”
“The Disney Park fits into his pattern for big, important icons,” I said. One theory in my notebooks was that Soneji might have been an abused child himself. If so, he’d have nothing but rage and disdain for a place like Disney World—where “good” little kids get to go with their “good” mommies and daddies.
“We’ve already got ground and aerial surveillance on the park,” Scorse contributed. “Pictures are being piped into the crisis room in Washington right now. We’re also filming Epcot and Pleasure Island. Just in case he pulls a last-minute switch.”
I could just imagine the scene at the FBI crisis room on 10th Street. As many as a couple of dozen VIPs would be crowded in there. Each of them would have his own desk and a closed-circuit TV monitor. The aerial photography of Walt Disney World would be playing on all the monitors at once. The room’s Big Board would be filled with facts… exactly how many agents and other personnel were converging on the park at that moment. The number of exits. Every roadway in or out. Weather conditions. Size of the day’s crowd. Number of Disney security people. But probably nothing about Gary Soneji or Maggie Rose, or we would have heard about it.
“I’m going to Disney World!” One of the agents on board the plane cracked a joke. The pretty typical cop talk got some nervous laughter. Breaking the tension was good, and hard to achieve under the difficult circumstances.
The whole notion of meeting up with a madman and a kidnapped little girl wasn’t a nice one. Neither was the cold reality of the holiday crowds waiting for us at Disney World. We were told that more than seventy thousand people were already inside the theme park and its parking areas. Still, this would be our best chance to get Soneji. This might be our only chance.
We rode to the Magic Kingdom in a special caravan, a police escort with flashing lights and sirens. We took the breakdown lane on I-4, passing all the regular traffic coming in from the airport.
People packed into station wagons and minivans jeered or cheered our speedy progress. None of them had any idea who we were, or why we were rushing to Disney World. Just VIPs going to see Mickey and Minnie.
We got off at exit 26-A, then proceeded along World Drive to the auto plaza. We arrived inside the parking area at a little past 12:15 P.M. That was cutting it extremely close, but Soneji hadn’t given us time to organize.
Why Disney World? I kept trying to understand. Because Gary Soneji had always wanted to go there as a kid, and had never been allowed? Because he appreciated the almost neurotic efficiency of the well-run amusement park?
It would have been relatively easy for Gary Soneji to get into Disney World. But how was he going to get out? That was the most intriguing question of all.