Free F Paul Wilson - Novel 04 by Deep as the Marrow (v2.1) Page B

hand, “a couple
of schools that have been on the fence about having you speak to their stuents
have called, looking to firm up a date.”
    “Now there’s some good
news.”
    “But they want to know if
you’ll also address the issue of drug decriminalization.”
    “Yikes.” He rubbed his
jaw. Like it or not, he too was caught in the spotlight. “All
right,” he said. “Sort them out and set up the dates.”
    “And about drug
decriminalization?”
    “Be as vague as you can. Just
set the dates.” He’d duck those. He was no expert on drugs or drug
laws. He had no business talking about the issue. What he did want to talk
about was the crying need for primary-care physicians, and to do that
he’d shoehorn himself into these medical schools anyway he could.
    John dropped into his desk chair
and found his monitor on and waiting for him. Good old Phyllis—the soul
of efficiency. The e-mail envelope was blinking in the lower right corner of
the screen. That was the one thing Phyllis couldn’t check for him.
    He punched in his password and
found thirteen letters waiting. Let me see if I can guess what they’re
all about. He ran quickly through the queue: no surprises. They all had one
thing on their minds…
    Except the last. This wasn’t
internal. It came off the Internet…
     
Item
4321334 10:31
From:
[email protected] Internet Gateway
To:
J.VANDUYNE01 John Vanduyne
Sub:
Katie
From
[email protected]
Received
from: anon.nonet.uk by relayl with SMTP (1.37.109.11/15.6) id AA0803 80591; 16:13:11
GMT
Return-Path:
Received: by anon.nonet.uk (5.67/1.35) id AA 26085; 10:31:16 +0200
From:
[email protected]
Message-Id:
<[email protected]>
To:
[email protected]
Subject:
katie
 
We
have Katie. She is being well cared for. We do not want money. We merely wish
you to perform a service. If you perform that service, Katie will be returned
unharmed.
!!!BUT!!!
You will be unable to perform this service if anyone knows that you are under
duress. Therefore, no one must know that Katie is missing.
!!!NO-ONE!!!
Is
this clear??? We sincerely hope so. If you inform any local or federal
authorities of your plight, you will no longer be of value to us. And,
subsequently, neither will your daughter. And we will dispose of her like any
other useless object.
***ARE
WE MAKING OURSELVES CLEAR?***
Please
do not doubt our determination or resolve. Your daughter’s life depends
on it. Don’t do anything stupid. We’ll know.
You
will be contacted again soon.
Snake
END
     
    John sat staring at the screen. If
this was someone’s idea of a joke, it was not funny. Who the hell—?
    He checked the return address and
noted the UK suffix.
    It had been sent from England .
Who did he know in England with a sick sense of humor?
    And then he realized that the
message had come through one of those anonymous remailers he’d read
about. E-mail routed through the remailer server was stripped of its origin
data and forwarded anonymously.
    A chill washed through his
arteries. He grabbed his phone and hit the speed dial for Katie’s school.
When the receptionist answered, John said he wanted to check on his daughter.
    “Oh, she was picked up a
while ago,” she told him.
    His office tilted. He had to clutch
at his desk to keep from toppling backward. He tried to speak but could not
find a sound that even approximated the horror that filled him. Every vowel and
consonant had deserted him.
    “Dr. Vanduyne?” the
receptionist said. “Is anything wrong?” When he still
couldn’t answer, she said, “I’ll get Sister Louise.”
    On hold, he sat and trembled,
gasping for breath. His heart seemed to have quadrupled in size and threatened
to burst from his chest.
    One thought raced through the
circuits of his brain in an endless loop: Not my Katie! Please, God. Not my
Katie!
    His darting eyes found his monitor
and locked on the e-mail message still on his screen… one particular
paragraph seemed to expand in size:
You
will be unable