Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [23]
“Diane Mourning left the house at seven twenty-three. At least one of them varied the routine. She found the car and called us.”
“Why not the police?”
“Our agreement with the client is that they call us first. If we feel it’s in their best interests, we notify the authorities. As you probably know, there’s no statute on the books that requires citizens to report kidnapping or extortion attempts.”
“And did you feel it was in Mourning’s best interests to report it?”
“No. Initially there was some speculation that Mourning might have staged his own disappearance, and no ransom demand was made that day or on the following two. From the first, though, we proceeded on the assumption that it was an actual kidnapping. There had been threats from lunatic-fringe animal-rights groups against the labs and the Mournings personally.”
“Why?”
“Because the production of the new drug, Enterferon-One, requires the extraction of a substance from the cartilage of dolphins. A group called Terramarine has made several bomb threats, and both Mournings, plus other key employees, have received written and telephoned death threats.”
“All from the same group?”
“That isn’t clear. But from there it was only a short step to a kidnapping.”
“I assume you brought Ripinsky in because of the environmentalist angle.”
“Ironically, no. I’d contacted him several weeks before that about joining the firm. We need someone of his abilities. He and I were to meet in La Jolla on Wednesday; I was prepared to offer him an ownership percentage if that’s what it would take. But by then the Mourning kidnapping had gone down, and I was already here in the city. I brought Ripinsky in on it, figuring he could help us deal with the environmentalists, if necessary. It was also in the back of my mind that giving him a taste of the old action might persuade him to come on board.”
I wished I could ask about the “old action”—where he’d known Hy, what they’d been involved in, why Renshaw wanted him to join RKI. But I couldn’t do that without undermining my claim that I knew him so well I could easily find him.
“All right,” I said, “what happened then?”
“We waited until the kidnappers finally made contact on June fourth. Still no way to tell if they were Terramarine or one of the other nut groups. The contact woman spoke with a Hispanic accent; Ripinsky thought she might be a Mexican national. They wanted two million in small unmarked bills. You know how much that weighs, how cumbersome it is?”
“Very, I imagine.”
“Some two hundred and ninety pounds, enough to fill a couple of trunks. We tried to talk them into a wire transfer to a Swiss or Bahamian bank account. No dice. They know governments and foreign banks cooperate against extortion attempts. They wanted cash, and they were very nervous. We did get them to send proof that the victim was still alive.” Another slide appeared on the screen: Timothy Mourning, holding a copy of the June 4 New York Times.
Renshaw went on, “Finally Kessell—Dan Kessell, my partner—hit on the idea of an irrevocable international letter of credit drawn on Phoenix’s bank account here to whatever foreign company they specified. And they went for it. Apparently they knew somebody they could trust at a firm, Colores Internacional in Mexico City.”
“You checked them out, of course.”
“Yeah. Fairly good-sized operation, makes silk flowers, crap like that. Privately held by a member of one of Mexico’s wealthy families, Emanuel Fontes. Fontes is an environmentalist, has donated to a number of causes, particularly ones having to do with the protection of marine mammals.”
“Dolphins. Interesting.”
“What’s even more interesting is that Fontes’s brother, Gilbert, owns a large tuna-fishing fleet headquartered in Ensenada. Diametrically opposed viewpoints there, and bad blood between them.”
“Bad enough blood to make Emanuel an extremist?”
“We’ve kicked the thought around.”
“Have you tried to get the Mexican authorities to lean on him, find out if he’s connected with any of the fringe groups?”