|
..........T I N T O N F A L L S
The following excerpt is taken from 'Time and Space' book 3, 'Tinton Falls'. Midway through the third book of the trilogy, Terry Morgan, the main character, is startled by an unexpected event. In his terror, he escaped to his imaginary world of dreams and created this next story which turned out to be even more frightening than his other experience.
..........E X C E R P T
CHAPTER 9
GETTING THE POINT
He imagined standing across the street from a Hyatt hotel in the downtown area of a large city judging by the tall buildings packed together on all sides. His back was pressed up against the brick front of a building beside a narrow alley. There were streams of automobiles and buses passing by and people milling about, but nobody looked familiar or even acknowledged his presence. He was by himself and that thought alone made him feel uneasy.
Morgan was unaware of the man that suddenly appeared and was standing alongside him until the stranger spoke several words in a hushed voice with a distinct foreign accent. The person was barely twenty-years old, thin and Middle-Eastern in appearance. He sported a black mustache beneath his prominent nose and a three-day growth of beard.
"I've got the cameras in position, Terry," the man whispered. "We'll check the video output when I return. Keep an eye on the street for me."
"What am I supposed to look for?" Morgan asked in a louder hushed voice than the other man used.
"The police! What do you think you are supposed to be looking for?"
"I don’t know," Morgan answered in a confused voice. He wanted to know the name of the man he was talking to, just to be polite, but to ask now would surely set the guy off even more.
"You know the warning signal…just do it!" the angry man hissing the words contemptuously as he departed.
Morgan watched his new acquaintance ease out into the pedestrian traffic and then cross the street. The lookout had to watch carefully so as not to lose sight of the man as he moved quickly and unpredictably, taking advantage of moving and stationary objects.
Terry glanced up and down the street and reassured himself that there were no police in the vicinity. At least he didn't have to guess what the warning signal was supposed to be.
There was a large, black limousine parked directly across from him. The man Morgan was following with his eyes brushed past the car on the curbside after approaching from the rear. The guy stopped to peer inside the open window at the rear door of the limo. Morgan looked and was certain there was no one inside the vehicle.
Several seconds later a large African-American male dressed in formal clothes, the limo's driver, walked up to the fellow Terry had just met and ordered him to move along. The man complied and wove a circuitous route back to Morgan.
"It is done," the man with the tawny skin informed his partner as he peeled a clear surgeon's glove off his right hand and stuck it in his pocket.
"What's done?" asked Morgan without thinking.
The Arab-looking acquaintance gazed into Terry's eyes with a frustrated look on his face, thought for several seconds and answered, "What Allah desires us to do."
"And—" Terry began.
"And now we wait and watch." The man's facial expression slowly changed to a sly smile.
After lighting up another cigarette, the chain-smoking Middle Easterner remembered something, turned to Morgan and asked, "Where's the cell phone?"
"What phone?" Morgan asked in reply, not understanding the question.
"This phone, you idiot!" the man scowled as he reached inside Terry's shirt pocket and extracted a small device. The man then mumbled something unpleasant in a foreign tongue. He flipped the cover up on the cellular device, punched several buttons and stared at the screen, which appeared to Terry to be displaying a live video image. He punched another button and a similar picture came into view on the screen replacing the first. Both were close-up live video images of the limousine parked across the street. The man appeared to be pleased by what he saw.
Approximately fourteen minutes passed without further discussion between the two watchmen. The man beside Morgan managed to smoke three more cigarettes in the intervening time.
"Hey, that's Tyrone Millner!" shouted one of the pedestrians that were passing in front of the pair. Morgan searched his mind and remembered, Tyrone Millner, the high-scoring guard for the L.A. Lakers.
Yep, it's him alright, thought Morgan after he again focused his attention on the tall man who was walking out of a hotel and toward the limousine.
Terry glanced at his partner and noticed that the man appeared to be extremely agitated. "He's got a whore with him," the man seethed, the exhaled smoke from his cigarette encircling his head.
Sure enough, when Morgan glanced back across the street, he could see a statuesque woman with dark hair, wearing an expensive, form-fitting dress and a coveting smile, running quickly to catch up to her prize. Even then, she was almost jogging in her high-heels to match the super-star's long stride.
The chauffeur politely opened the curbside passenger door and the young woman slid across the back seat. The door remained open as the tall, lanky athlete chatted with the driver. As they talked, a small group of admiring fans of all ages formed a half circle around the pair.
Terry glanced at the man by his side again and could see that he was barely breathing.
"Come on, Tyrone, let's go," the woman complained from inside the car.
"Come on, Tyrone, let's go," whispered the man beside Morgan, staring at the screen of his cellular phone.
The object of everyone's attention bent way down so as to enter the vehicle without striking his head. After adjusting to the confined space he twisted his body and talked to the agitated woman seated beside him.
As the driver walked around to the front of the limousine and got in, Terry again glanced at his partner. The man appeared to have relaxed somewhat. Morgan’s eyes caught movement and saw that the man was busy fumbling with something in the pocket of his jacket while continuing to stare at the live video image on the cellular device.
When Terry Morgan looked up again, the limousine driver was turned in his seat talking to his backseat passengers. The driver’s door remained partly open on the vehicle.
While staring at the cellular phone, Terry’s partner gently caressed the large button centered on the face of the small plastic box he held in his left hand. He suddenly grimaced, pressed the button and then quickly slipped the box back into his pocket. He then looked intently at the screen of the cellular phone and appeared pleased by what he saw. He quickly glanced up across the street and then back at the phone. He then feverously punched buttons on the keypad and nervously put the device up to his ear. When the phone began to ring, Terry’s acquaintance swung his body toward the building wall behind him so as to conduct a private conversation without drawing attention.
Morgan's focus was drawn to a flurry of activity across the street. The limousine driver opened his door wide and sped around to the rear. When the back door opened, Terry could hear the screams of the woman in the back seat.
The star player for the Lakers slowly got out of the vehicle while holding a cellular phone to his ear. His other hand was pressed against the back of his neck. He was ignoring the questions hollered by the chauffer and his lady friend as he focused on the call. He angrily waved his free hand to quiet the others while he continued to talk on the phone.
"Listen carefully to me if you do not want to die," the man beside Terry was saying in a slow, monotone. "No! Listen to me! If you continue to touch the object on your neck it will explode and you will die, do you understand? Good. Now, here's what you will and will not do"
What Terry Morgan would soon find out was that he was an accomplice to the kidnapping of Tyrone Millner. The man was the highest paid professional athlete in the NBA. What just happened to Millner, and soon to many other wealthy professional ball players, movie stars and directors, recording artists, television celebrities and top news anchors, lawyers, bankers and businessmen and even some Congressmen was their kidnapping for sizeable ransoms or for special favors.
The only reason that Millner was abducted first was because the NBA finals were to begin in less than five hours. Without their star player, the Lakers would surely lose the first game. And if he weren’t released soon, the team would most certainly lose the NBA championship.
As everyone in the business of professional sports knew only too well, if the Lakers weren't contenders and each game was a rout, the market value of the NBA finals to the producers and owners would crash which would certainly get the attention of some mighty powerful people who were behind the professional sports industry.
An Islamic terrorist group had just launched the carefully planned kidnappings of the uber-rich for the sole purpose of raising an enormous amount of cash. Their goal was to procure the nuclear weapons and missiles that would finally enable the terrorists to annihilate their eternal enemy: Israel.
The kidnappers' modus operandi deviated considerably from the traditional method of absconding with a live person, concealing the victim, pressuring the concerned family members for ransom money and then, perhaps releasing the captive after successfully collecting the loot. The old technique was extremely risky because there was so much direct interaction amongst the kidnappers, the victim and the ones paying the ransom. This new method of kidnapping a victim for ransom was foolproof. It would involve no physical interaction of any kind between any of the parties involved other than the initial phone call that Morgan’s partner had just made which was routed through Denmark. The most unusual aspect of the new kidnapping protocol was that the victim was always in full view throughout the crime.
|
