Free My Gal Sunday by Mary Higgins Clark Page A

by remote control, given how quickly the kidnappers were on the scene. Despite the hour, there appear to have been no witnesses, but then the snow had caused a lot of offices and businesses to close early, so traffic was light.”
    “Do they think that Sunday was injured by the explosion?” Henry asked.
    “No, they believe that she, like Art and Leo, the agents who were with her today, was knocked unconscious by the gas, but that the actual explosion was not so large. All that happened to the cars was that they slowed to a stop when the device went off, and the gas apparently immobilized everyone immediately. When our guys regained consciousness, they both could remember only feeling dizzy and then blacking out.”
    “But how did anyone get to the car in the first place, to plant the gas bomb? Isn’t it kept in a safe place?” Henry demanded.
    “We’re not one hundred percent sure yet, sir. It wasn’t a very sophisticated device — actually more like the kind of thing anyone could rig up with a few items from Radio Shack. The gas, of course, is another matter. They are still analyzing that, so we don’t know yet where that could have come from. The devices were undoubtedly slipped under the cars when they were parked in the secured parking lot at the Capitol; a simple magnet held each one in place.”
    “And nobody saw it happen?” Henry asked.
    “So far we have come up with no witnesses. They’ve learned that a guard’s apartment was burglarized and his uniform stolen. Part of the problem may be that Mrs. Britland’s car itself is so nondescript that it attracted no attention, and it did take right off,” the agent said. “Anyone who was around was concentrating on the follow-up car with the two unconscious agents in it.”
    Henry already knew that Sunday’s car with the other unconscious agents in it had been found near the Lincoln Memorial. Of course, he told himself bitterly, no one would pay much attention to a car that looked as though it had been bought at a repo sale of low-to mid-priced vehicles. His little joke. Forget the limos, he had said. They attract too much attention. No, for Sunday he had had them fix up a state-of-the-art vehicle disguised as “the family car.”
    My little pretensions, he thought. My little games. Clever, right? Wrong. If Sunday had been in a limo, surely it would have attracted some attention, sitting at the side of the road.
    Although the truth was, he knew, that Sunday loved having that kind of car. She would have refused to ever show up at her parents’ home in a limousine. Henry realized with a start that in his rush he had failed to contact Sunday’s mother and father. I have to do that soon, he decided. They have to know, and they should hear it from me. “Get Sunday’s parents on the phone,” he told Klein.
    It was the most difficult call he’d ever made, but when he hung up after speaking to both of them, the thought that filled his mind was that it was obvious where Sunday got her backbone.
    The phone rang, its abrupt sound breaking his reverie. Henry waved aside Marvin’s outstretched hand and picked up the receiver himself. It was Desmond Ogilvey; he got straight to the point. “Henry, I’m sorry. Whoever kidnaped Sunday has called CBS. Dan Rather just requested confirmation. He has every detail down exactly, so we know this is the real thing. We’ve asked him to hold the story for the time being, and he has agreed. But he warned that if there is a leak anywhere else, they will run with it.”
    “If the kidnapper called Dan Rather, he wants publicity,” Henry snapped.
    “No, not according to what he told Rather. He said that he was ’testing the integrity of the media,’ whatever that means.”
    “How long ago did the call come in?”
    “I’d say less than ten minutes ago. I called you immediately after getting off the phone with Rather. Where are you?”
    “Just about to descend into National.”
    “Well, come directly here. We’ve got