Chapter 10

Chapter 10—Kate’s abduction

8:35 p.m., Sunday, December 25

Jack kept his ear to his phone.  When he finally heard at least two men talking, he began to shout: “Kate! Kate! Can you hear me?”
He strained to monitor the muffled sounds of the men, while they seemed to be ransacking Kate’s apartment.
“Kate!” he shouted once more.
Jack then heard one of the men pick up Kate’s cell phone. “Put my daughter on, right now,” Jack said.
There was no response, but Jack could hear a man breathing.
“Do you hear me, you sonofabi**h. I want to talk to my daughter. If you know what you’re doing, you’ll put her on this phone.”
The man who had picked up Kate’s phone responded to Jack. “You’re Kate’s father—right?”
“You’re damn right I am. You put her on that phone right now,” Jack commanded.
“You’re Jack Handler. We’ll be talking to you, and soon,” the man said.
“Look, you, whoever you are, I …”
“You are in no position to be giving orders,” the man calmly interrupted. “If you ever want to see your daughter alive. In fact, if you even want to be able to recognize her body, you listen to me right now, and do exactly what I say. Do you understand me?”
“Let me explain something to you. Obviously you know who I am. Then you must also know what I’m capable of. You release my daughter right now, unharmed. Or I will hunt you down and kill you. I’ll kill everyone close to you. I’ll find your mother, if she is still alive, and I will torture her to death. God forbid you have a wife or children, but if you do I will make them suffer untold agonies. If anything, if even a hair on my daughter’s head, is harmed …”
“You look,” the man said. “Your daughter is still alive, for right now. And we haven’t hurt her, yet. You should be happy about that. But, if we don’t get everything we are after, and I mean everything, I will personally kill her. Then I will come after you, and I will kill you. Now, the only thing you can do is wait for my call. I will use your daughter’s phone. I will tell you where to go and what to do. And you will obey.”
With that, the man unceremoniously hung up. Jack tried to call the number back, but it was obvious to him that the man who held his daughter had popped the battery out of her cell phone to prevent Jack from calling back, or trying to trace the cell.
Jack had never felt so helpless. “I should have warned her. I knew the man with the ice pick was somehow connected with her victim. Why didn’t I warn her when I had the chance?” That was all the second guessing Jack would allow himself.
Jack was used to being in total control. The events of the past couple hours took him out of his element. Now he had to find a way to go proactive—to get back on top of the situation. He had to develop a plan to get his daughter back. But he had no idea who held her, nor could he begin to guess where. He sat down on the small overstuffed chair, leaned his head back, and stared at the ceiling. Immediately his eyes went out of focus. He then closed them, and entered deeply into thought.
“I’m dealing with an organization—could be private—more than likely it has political connections. Perhaps not. Perhaps strictly money. Possibly both. But I do think that it is closely tied to the commuter train murder of that State Department guy, and to this puzzle.”
Jack opened his eyes, leaned forward and scooped up the sheets of paper he had been working on. “Hawaii to China in fifty, and Alaska to Russia in fifty,” he read aloud. “Political. The guys who have my daughter are political operatives. CIA, Mossad, Russian. I don’t know. Can’t even rule out an MI6 connection. They want this puzzle. She is probably safe until they get this. Kate’s friend at the coffee shop—he is probably involved, in some way. Jeff, Jefferies—Kurt Jefferies.”
For a short moment he considered calling one of his contacts in the FBI. He looked down at his cell for a moment, and then he thought better of it. “This thing goes much too deep for that. Who knows who can be trusted?”
Jack did have one friend in New York whom he knew he could always count on—Reginald. So he dialed him.
“Reg, it’s me again. Change of plan. I have to see you tonight. Can you come over here? … I’m at the New York State Regency. Call me when you get close, and I’ll meet you in the lobby. … Yes, it is an emergency. Thanks. … Oh, and grab us some coffee—this could be a long night. … See you in a few.”
Jack began writing down in earnest all he knew regarding the puzzles.

Line 1: SGCN JNRE SDHC SDCJ MHVW=
Line 2: CECP DCQJ MRPP NCNG TNTQW= Alaska to Russia in fifty (Key: CHINATOWN).
Line 3:  CRVR DDPKS CDJR DJADA PXZZ = Hawaii to China in fifty (Key: RUSSIA).
Line 4: FQOPO PJKA TFGJS=

Jack determined that he was pretty sure he had lines two and three correctly deciphered. At any rate, he was sufficiently confident that there was nothing to be gained by re-working them any more. So he concentrated his energies on lines one and four.
However, the longer he stared at those two lines, the more convinced he was that he needed keys to decipher them. And he was at a loss as to where to look for them.