A King's Ransom Read Online Free PDF

thoroughly. No body was found.
    No corpse. That was good news, I supposed. Will the FBI take the lead now that it's officially a kidnapping?
    It's not legally a kidnapping until there's a demand for ransom. It's an abduction.
    We're still talking about a United States citizen. I'd like to see the FBI assert itself.
    That's the other reason for my call. I'm afraid that the FBI isn't going to intercede in this case.
    I'd been pacing across the bedroom with the phone to my ear, but I suddenly stopped cold in my tracks. Come again?
    He paused, as if measuring his words. As I explained to you and your mother earlier, the FBI can't get involved in cases of international abductions or kidnappings unless the State Department invites us.
    That's being taken care of. The supervising partner at my law firm assured me that the State Department would extend an invitation within twenty-four hours.
    That much has been done. They've extended an invitation.
    Then what's the problem?
    The FBI has declined it.
    What?
    The State Department placed certain conditions on the FBI's involvement that were out of line. It was impossible to accept their invitation.
    What kind of conditions?
    I'm not at liberty to elaborate.
    Come on. You have to give me something.
    I'm sorry, I can't.
    Look, I'm not trying to put you in a bad spot. Let's set up a meeting with your supervisor first thing in the morning.
    It won't do any good. This decision wasn't made in the Miami office.
    I'll fly to Washington if I have to. Just give me the name of the person to talk to.
    I don't have any specific names for you.
    I didn't understand it, but clearly I was being stonewalled, and it was making me angry. So that's it? Too bad, so sad, see you later?' That's totally unacceptable. At least tell me which door to knock on. Should I start with the FBI or the State Department?
    I wouldn't go either of those routes, if I were you.
    Is that some kind of threat?
    No. I'm trying to steer you in the right direction, so listen carefully to what I'm saying. If it was my father who was kidnapped, I wouldn't waste time trying to change the way the FBI and State Department think.
    If your father was kidnapped, the FBI and State Department wouldn't be bogged down in political testosterone.
    He fell silent, then replied in a noticeably softer tone. I wish I had better news for you. I mean that sincerely.
    Just what my father needs. Sincerity.
    He bade me a hollow Best of luck, and with the click in my ear, I had the unsettling sense that the whole FBI had just hung up on me.
    Me and my father.

    Chapter 5
    It was my job to tell Grandma everything. Or not. Mom left it up to me to decide what a seventy-eight-year-old woman could stand to hear about her only child.
    I left the house at 9:00 A. M. It was an hour's drive, so I phoned Duncan on my cellular with an update. He was as baffled as I about the FBI's declination of the State Department's invitation to intervene in the case.
    Those twits, he groused. Let me make another phone call.
    Who are you going to call this time?
    Whoever it takes. I've been concentrating only on the State Department so far, but sounds like it's time for a full-court press. I'm sure we know someone who can get right to the FBI director.
    I loved it when Duncan was fired up about something I needed done. I thanked him several times before hanging up.
    By ten o'clock I was in the Upper Keys, having driven slowly. I wasn't sure how to put a positive spin on this for Grandma, and part of me kept hoping that the whole conversation would be preempted by a sudden phone call from Mom, a miraculous message that Dad had somehow found his way to the U. S. embassy unharmed. He'd been missing for almost thirty-six hours, however, and the possibility of his successful escape seemed less likely with each passing minute. Abduction was the only logical inference.
    Unless he was dead.
    Not in a million years would Grandma believe that her son had fallen at the hands of some deadbeat