Choke Point

Senator Charlie Maser slowed as he approached the secondary road leading off the scenic byway that ran through Chesapeake country.

The dash clock on his luxury SUV read 2:52 a.m. and with only a sliver of a moon, Maser had almost missed the turn. He couldn’t be late...not at this time and this place. He thought of the metal suitcase on the seat behind him—a suitcase that met the specifications he’d been given, down to the last detail—its contents worth a king’s ransom.

Or at least the prize for a princess.

Charlie Maser’s princess was a thirteen-year-old girl, a girl who may have been through things so horrible Maser couldn’t even bring himself to imagine them. They were things the caller had told him might happen if Maser didn’t cooperate, but he’d also been assured that so far they hadn’t happened. Maser wasn’t sure if he could believe his ears when he learned that his only daughter had fallen into the hands of a vile, disgusting lot of kidnappers who had been on a rampage for the past two months.

Only wild and vague rumors had reached his ears about this group—a conversation he’d overheard here, a secure email brief there—but Maser hadn’t actually believed most of it. Well, he did now and he still couldn’t come to terms with the fact that what had happened to Natalie—as what had happened to the young children, boys and girls, of a number of other politicians—probably could have been avoided if he’d been more diligent in finding the truth. There were lots of people he could’ve reached out to and gotten the full story: other senators, members of the house and even connections inside the FBI and CIA, as apparently there were transnational matters attached to these men.

None of it mattered now, though. All that mattered was getting his beautiful girl back into his arms safe and sound. He’d never let her go again.

Maser had received the ransom call just after a particularly grueling session on the senate floor, one item after another coming across the wire for him to vote yea or nay, more fat pieces of legislation that spent a lot of money and did next to nothing. Maser had considered not running for a second term just eighteen short months ago, but had changed his mind at the urging of his constituents, and the election coffers filled up in no time at all. Mostly they were donations from friends who owned multibillion-dollar companies, or the untapped wealth of special-interest groups from which he had to draw.

But per the kidnappers, the money riding in that metal case had to be his own and untraceable.

In retrospect, Maser didn’t give a damn. If he had to cough up twenty million dollars instead of five hundred thousand he would’ve raided every fund he had and then knocked off a bank for the balance. Not this time, though, and Maser was smart enough to know the kidnappers hadn’t asked for a large ransom because they didn’t want him to draw any attention.

Maser’s wife had thrown a screaming fit when he refused to let her go, trying to explain to her that following the instructions of the men who had their little girl was paramount to getting her back in one piece. That’s the advice a friend at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center—FLETC—had given him after Maser told him he was seeing some possible new legislation and needed the perspective of someone with practical law-enforcement experience. Maser didn’t think he’d raised any suspicions with his questions, and politely thanked the guy before hanging up and going straight to the bank.

Their personal financial officer had thought maybe Maser had gone stark-raving mad, wanting to withdraw that sum of money, but Maser had cited a campaign emergency for which he would spend his own money and then expense it back to the campaign later. Luckily, that had seemed to dispel any other questions and quashed further curiosity. The fact he was running in an election at the present had actually proved a saving grace.

Now he had his money and he’d followed the instructions to the letter, making the drive from Washington, D.C., along the northerly route that took him around the bay and back down to Maryland via Interstate 95 to State Road 213 in Maryland, eventually winding up in Chesapeake country. Maser wondered why the scenic route instead of cutting across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge but he hadn’t asked. Again, the advice he’d received was to follow instructions to the letter and don’t argue with or agitate the kidnappers.

The golden rule: the caller was in charge.

Maser slowed and as he turned on the side road he noticed a fog had started to materialize. He slowed some more, looking at the clock again and sighing to ease the tension. At this rate he’d be right on time by proceeding two and a quarter miles to a green camping sign that marked an access road. Off the road from there and another mile until he reached an old, gray pickup truck. The clock turned to 2:59 a.m. when the pickup truck came into view just ahead through the increasing layer of fog.

Shit, it was like being on an English moor or something.

Maser wondered how much he’d been directed here for the purpose of isolation and how much for dramatic effect. Whatever the reasons, the kidnappers were sending a message that they knew what they were doing. The caller had been explicit as to the consequences if Maser deviated from the prescribed schedule or disobeyed in any manner. Maser had listened carefully, writing down every detail and the times he’d done things, keeping practically an hour-by-hour journal of his every move. He wanted to make sure that if this didn’t pan out and he lost his own life, the cops would at least be able to follow his trail.

Maser rolled up on the truck, stopped and flashed his high beams once before killing the engine.

He’d rolled his window down a space to make sure he could hear any verbal instructions he might receive—not that he’d been specifically told to do so but it made good sense. A minute ticked by, two minutes—then five minutes turned into ten minutes. Finally, Maser began to wonder if he’d made some sort of mistake and he could feel the pang of a panic attack in his chest. His breathing started to shorten and he willed his shaking hands to steady.

Had he fucked it up? Had he made a mistake, missed some direction and forfeited the life of his sweet and beloved Natalie?

The shadow falling across the passenger-side window caused him to jump, and he turned to see the outline of a human figure there. Then his driver’s-side door opened and he was yanked out of the car and thrown to the ground. The air burst from him on impact, his lungs burning with the sudden exertion. He realized now why he’d been instructed not to wear a seat belt for the entire journey. Maser could remember how he thought that had been kind of dumb because he might’ve been pulled over, but then he knew that by starting off at night it would’ve been next to impossible for a police officer to see he wasn’t restrained.

Besides, what cop in his right mind would ticket a U.S. senator?

Maser felt the hard, unyielding form of something metal pressed to his head, something that could only have been the muzzle of a gun, and a foot planted on the small of his back.

“Arms out to your side,” a muted voice ordered. It sounded like a mask covered the speaker’s mouth. “Where’s the money?”

“Backseat, like instructed,” Maser replied. He probably hadn’t really had to add that last part, but he didn’t figure pointing out that he’d followed instructions could hurt him any at this point.

He heard the rear door of the SUV open, then some rustling and finally the unmistakable clicks of the latches being disengaged. For a long time he didn’t hear anything, but his captor eventually spoke again.

“You think you’re smart?” the guy asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Answer the fucking question, asshole!” another voice said, this one also muffled by something.

“I—I guess so,” Maser said.

“You guess so?” the first speaker replied in a mocking tone.

Or was it mocking? Hard to tell, with the man’s voice being obscured by whatever the man wore over his mouth.

“We got us an indecisive politician,” the second voice remarked, and this time Maser could detect just a hint of an accent—something maybe Scottish or British. “That’s sad. That’s very, very sad. A scathing indictment of our leadership today in Washington.”

Scathing indictment of leadership in Washington? What the hell kind of kidnappers were these? The first one sounded like a miscreant but the other had a touch of class, as if he’d been educated abroad. That would probably fit with the accent. Maser continued to mark each one of these facts in his memory, bound to write down the details if he walked away from this alive. Being he was lying here in the middle of nowhere on his belly, helpless and unarmed, with no one in law enforcement having any knowledge of where he was or what he was doing, Maser entertained a notion for the first time that he might not walk away from this situation alive.

The thought prompted him to boldness. “Why don’t we cut the bullshit? You guys have your money so give me my daughter. We’ll walk away and nothing more will be said.”

“Shut up!” the first kidnapper sneered. “Just shut up. We give the orders around here, not you.”

Maser thought about pressing the point but decided it wouldn’t do a bit of good. These two weren’t to be reasoned with, and in all likelihood they were just lackeys anyway. Pickup men weren’t uncommon in well-organized kidnapping rings, another fact Maser’s friend at FLETC had turned him on to, which probably meant there were limits and boundaries. So far, things weren’t going well but they weren’t exactly going bad.

Best to just play along with the game.

The European-sounding one knelt by him and Maser thought he detected the odor of cigarettes. “My partner asked if you were smart because you’ve done some really stupid things.”

“Like what?” Maser asked.

“Like coming out here by yourself,” the man replied easily. “Like being a good little boy and doing exactly what you were told. You see, the main problem you have is that now we got the money, we have no real incentive to keep you alive.”

Now it was going to go badly and Charlie Maser knew he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

“What’s more,” the man continued, “you didn’t get proof of life. We know you called some people, that you got advice. Too bad you listened to your friend in the FLETC because the truth is you got bad advice. You should’ve gotten proof of life before you agreed to pay a ransom.”

“Let my little girl go, you bastards!” Maser pleaded, his voice cracking as he whimpered, “I don’t give a damn what you do to me, but please let my girl go.”

“Shh, don’t cry,” the man said and then he burst into a fit of laughter. He rose and said, “We’re not going to kill pretty little Natalie. She’s much, much too valuable alive and well. But we can’t really have you running around blabbing this business to anybody.”

“Wh-what are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’ve outlived your usefulness, Senator. It’s time for you to step down.”

“Yeah,” the slimy one interjected. “Time to go visit that big capitol building in the sky.”

“You can kill me if you want,” Maser said, “but it won’t do you any good because someone will be looking for me. And when they find me, they’re going to figure out who did it, and then your days of kidnapping will be over.”

“I highly doubt it,” the one with the accent replied.

And those were the last words Senator Charlie Maser ever heard.