Ransom Demand

Maria Alice Astor shook her husband James awake.

“I heard a noise downstairs, and it sounds like the alarm activated. Could something be breaking. Better go see what’s happening. Hopefully Roger and Vincent heard it too so they should be looking into it, and you’ll have support in case there’s a break-in. Servant accommodation is at the back of the mansion so they wouldn’t hear it. We better sack that watchman as he’s been caught sleeping on the job a few times.”

James Astor grumbled as he got out of bed. Roger and Vincent lived at opposite ends of the Mansion with a large common area between them used as business meeting and entertainment area with standalone interconnecting spacious family living apartments at opposite ends of the mansion so families there may not have heard the noise either.

It was in the middle of winter so the heating unit would have been turned off at the lower level to automatically start up at 5am.

This mansion was built back in the mid nineteen hundreds but well maintained and it had provision for multiple living quarters for the extended family. Each segment of the mansion was set up as independent living quarters for a family. Roger and Vincent had married the Astor sisters Margaret and Bernice and as the Astor oil baron who was their father had deliberately put all assets under the joint names of his children it had been an uncomfortable relationship between the sibling family’s resident in the mansion since their parents had died leaving them to fight out who’d be the first among equals in running their multifaceted businesses. Each of the siblings were well qualified and aggressive in protecting their own interests.

Originally the Astor money had been earned from a monopoly in the oil industry but that had been in the era of grandparents and the money was now spread among several industries in recognition of the increasing clamor for alternative power sources.

The originators of their fortune had ruthlessly smothered any competition and in the process had built an impressive list of influential enemy families. James who’d developed contacts early in life in the industrial and political world was grudgingly accepted as the one exercising overall control, but his sisters watched his every move and had built an impressive list of supporters of their own in their respective shareholdings occupying important influence in each Astor industry and they exercised further control through their spouses who were employed at the top of the holding company.

Roger was a top lawyer who represented the Astors in political and industrial conflicts. Vincent was their Vice President for Finances and knew the financial institutions and industrial heads of the nation and abroad due to his previous work as a vice president of a multi-national corporation. The companies prospered due to their diligence in watching each other’s movements carefully.

James quickly passed through the long corridor and entered a wide staircase leading to the lower level. Roger was on the spot with lights on and examining a front-plate glass entrance that had been impacted with something heavy and cracked. Roger had deactivated the security system and turned on lights at the lower level to make his inspection. Vincent made his entrance from the opposite side of the common area rubbing his hands because of the cold. The three men inspected the damaged plate glass. It was thick but instead of shattering it had just cracked. James Spoke.

“Looks like we’ll have to do a shake up in the security department. We have enough enemies who’d probably like to cause us some discomfort and I wonder if they bribed security to get onto the grounds, but they were not successful in breaking in and probably made a run for it after only cracking the glass.”

He took the cell phone from his dressing gown pocket and phoned the security gate office. Using colorful language to illustrate his displeasure he probed how this damage could have happened. The response was that they were doing the rounds and the guy watching monitors showing what was happening saw no evidence of any penetration of the high fences or movement on the grounds but one camera to the south facing servant’s apartments was offline and they were going to reeplace it when morning came but they had security posted there.

There was no evidence of a breakdown in security, but they’d phone one of the security officers posted near the broken camera and ask them to come to the front of the mansion to inspect and look for clues. Now security had been alerted, James indicated they all should return to sleep the rest of the night, and they’d solve the problem in the morning.

James made his way up the staircase and headed down the corridor to the spacious bedroom grumbling about being disturbed. When he entered the room, he saw his wife standing out of bed in the lamp light clutching her dressing gown and looking to the side. Two men emerged from behind the door now open and a gun was pressed to James’ head. They were dressed in black with head covers to conceal their identity. An accented voice James didn’t recognize spoke.

“Just remain calm put your hands above your head so you are not foolish enough to press buttons or yell out and you’ll not come to any harm. Now our purpose in being here is to invite you to make us a contribution in cash. To encourage you to cooperate we are going to take your wife as a hostage and then from a remote place will give you instructions on how much and how to pay for our visit. We find bitcoin is the safest most popular way to reward us but will give you instructions on what to do when we exit this place. I’m sure we’ll enjoy your wife’s company while she’s on holiday with us. We won’t do business with you tonight as you no doubt have ways to interrupt the smooth transaction of money to our account but from a distance, you’ll have to follow instructions to get your wife back again.”

James chuckled.

“You are wasting your time. My sisters watch every move I make so any substantial transfer amount you are thinking of just will not happen. Now if you want something like five hundred dollars, I can get that for you for your trouble out of my safe and you can exit if you can with it. You are unlikely to get past the gate as security has been alerted now.”

The men laughed.

“Your men at the gate are securely tied up and if you contacted the office, you’d have been speaking to our man operating the security service now.”

James noted the men spoke English with some foreign accent, but he couldn’t place the country they may be from originally. His country was a melting pot of nationalities now so accented English was common. He thought quickly and decided on a risky move.

“OK, take her and I’ll see what I can do in the morning when you contact me. What is your demand.”

“Five million dollars Mr. Astor. We’ll give you a little time to organize that as we understand it will take time to get that amount of money ready to convert to bitcoin as we will instruct you the safest way to protect us from the law. You can inform the police whenever you wish as it will not put us under their control, and the transaction will be untraceable when you make your donation to us.”

James shrugged.

“OK I’ll wait for your instructions”

To be continued.

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