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Robert Francis McCoy was kidnapped from the baggage claim area of American Airlines at O'Hare Airport in Chicago on a Wednesday afternoon in April.
Leaving Washington National had been simple. Spring was everywhere. The perfume of cherry and magnolia blossoms filled the air as he drove up a nearly empty George Washington Parkway from Alexandria an hour before the bureaucrats began their swarm into the capital. He had taken family leave to visit his sister, his only living relative apart from some cousins he never saw and didn't care about, who was this time threatening to die of some dire unspecific illness. She was eighteen years older than he, had been his second mother really, and McCoy knew she was lonely. He knew people thought he was weird and he thought his sister was weird, but he had no one else to spend these leave days on, so he shrugged and went. He didn't expect much thanks or any real satisfaction, but a person had to belong somewhere. And he reckoned this was where he belonged.
Chicago was having one of its premature summer days, wherein the temperature had hit ninety degrees at ten o'clock while he was over Louisville or Wheeling. Thunderstorms had come and gone, leaving commuters, storm sewers and air traffic backed up for hours.
In the new Boeing he was at the precise center of economy class, between a young mother, traveling with a ten-month old baby, and a very high official in the American Rollerskating Federation, whose shoulders were so broad that the airline should have classified him as freight. While in a holding pattern over Naperville, the young mother had scrupulously respected the seat-belt sign and twice changed her baby's diaper without leaving her assigned seat. The very high (and wide) official was more clean in his personal habits and an enthusiastic conversationalist.
By the time the airplane landed, the air-conditioning and dehumidifiers in the terminal had been overwhelmed. There was a film of condensation on every surface in the airport. Porters were mopping the floors. Crowds surged in every direction. Pay-phones were as saturated as the air, with delayed travelers passing news of their delay to thousands of people who were probably waiting breathlessly by the telephone for just this news, or else just back from lunch and wondering what to do next.
McCoy was bending over the carousel about to lift his bag when a female in a pink-pants suit stuck him in the ass with a needle. This was the first sign that something out of the ordinary was happening, but his glasses were thick, limiting his peripheral vision. He felt the jab, and turned to notice that the source of the sensation was very short. He saw that she had jabbed up at his ass rather than down. She had a sensational figure and a contrasting hard-set, middle-aged oriental face that reminded him of a bulldog.
He felt woozy immediately. Two men whom he also hadn't previously noticed took his bag and both arms, supporting him out of the terminal doors and into a stretched limousine with smoked windows. He found that he could not speak. His companions said nothing.
The only thoughts oozing through his mind as they drove away were: 1)he had read that the SAS use pink paint on their armored vehicles as urban camouflage; and if it worked for the Chinese bulldog then it might just work on a Land Rover, and 2)these guys were dressed just like him; where did they buy their suits?
Although McCoy was in no condition to notice, his limousine trip took just under an hour, the time that was required for the limousine to crawl through congested airport traffic to the general aviation terminal on the other side of the runways. There McCoy was carried aboard a smallish private jet, a Cessna Citation in fact, and after an hour-and-fifteen-minute delay waiting for take-off clearance, was carried off again to another, as-yet-unknown destination.
The pink lady had been instructed to wait two hours before leaving the American terminal. She followed her instructions, eating cinnamon-cream doughnuts and drinking black coffee, then took the "L" to Jackson and the State subway to Cermak/Chinatown, pleased with the extra money she had earned on her day off from being a smiling hostess in a red and gold Chinese restaurant and not at all curious about her day's work.
The two escorts sat on the airplane with McCoy, each occupied by his own thoughts.
One was wondering what his wife was making for dinner that night. He had been married just over a year and, no matter with anyone said about marriage, he was still as happy as the day of the wedding. Besides being a good cook, his bride was beautiful, shy and affectionate. How could his friends have unanimously warned him that marriage ruined romance? What would she be cooking for dinner?
His companion was wondering about what they had just done. He had never kidnapped anyone before. It had gone so smoothly - no rough stuff, no cops. And, together with McCoy, he wondered about his suit, especially bought and tailored for the day's work. It made everything else in his closet feel like that piece of shit his father had bought for him in junior high school.
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* * * * *
Sharon pointed out of the window as the hissing, swirling lights of the traffic coalesced in slow motion into a blockade of their motel. There were no flashing red lights, only a sudden cessation of motion, leaving as its residue a barricade of dark sedans. They watched, silent and fascinated, hypnotized with hopelessness.
It was Cray who first came to his senses, "I think the two of you should get going. I don't know where, but away. I'll look for you on the Internet. If I were you, McCoy, I'd think about talking to your ex-Director. Maybe he knows something or will help. If you can make the call safely, it can't hurt to start making waves from that direction. Meanwhile, I'll start making waves from here. Once you drive away, I'll start calling the newspapers and television stations announcing that you've been spotted here. I have a sudden inspiration about the publicity. Go, right now!"
In the car, driving into the night, Sharon asked,
"What about our money? What did we leave behind? All your work is gone. What will we do?"
McCoy smiled that funny smile that Sharon had found so charming so long ago in Las Vegas and which she hadn't seen since they had been on the run,
"The money and my back-up diskette are in a money belt under my shirt. We'll have to buy new clothes and toothbrushes and stuff and a new computer. No big deal -an all night drugstore and the first mall we pass in the morning - and we'll be in business again."
"What about your computer. They'll know everything."
"They'll know I'm the world's authority on data encryption. If anybody on the face of this earth can figure out what's on my files, I'll be shattered."
"What about this car. Do you think they know the car?"
"We registered at the motel without the car. We're probably okay. Tomorrow you can call Claude and ask him to check with his police pals to see if the car is on the police computer. Meanwhile, tonight, let's pick a direction and drive."
And they drove west, on local highways, and stopping after an hour and a half in a little town with a little inn. It was mid-week. There were no other guests. The owner and his wife were watching television in the lounge when they walked in. Together the four of them watched the live television interview of the man they knew as Cray.
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