Chapter Seventy
Saturday October 23, 2032
For all its rustic charm, the old family cabin in the forest was uncomfortably chilly. It was built at a time when insulation wasn’t really a standard in homebuilding, and the outdated heater for the place only managed to keep the interior a few degrees higher than the outside. If it weren’t for the warm black labrador snoring next to her, Elizabeth would have never managed to get to sleep in the first place.
Her sleep was interrupted by the growling and barking from the family's middle dog, who was alternately moving from the front door of the little house to the family room window with increasing agitation. Elizabeth looked at the old wind-up clock sitting on the nightstand, and it wasn’t even six in the morning. Trying not to wake the kids by using too loud a voice, she called out in the dog’s direction, “Neeks, get back in here!”
The dog wouldn’t stop, though, so Elizabeth Williams peeled back the thick blanket with exasperation, silently resenting the fact that her husband should be dealing with this kind of thing instead of jetting off to D.C. in a private plane. Still sitting on the bed, she put her slippers on and, before fully committing to standing up, said once more, “Nikita, now!” but the dog just wasn’t listening. It sounded more agitated than ever.
If this kept up, the dog was sure to wake the kids, so she finally surrendered to the situation and left her warm bed to deal with her intransigent canine. When she entered the family room, the sight of the dog staring pointedly at the front door unnerved her, because she had never seen any of her dogs behaving with such intent. As she was staring at the dog, she saw the doorknob slowly turning, and it dawned on her that she hadn’t remembered to lock the front door, since she was so accustomed to an automatic lock.
As the door slowly creaked open, her dog began barking hysterically as a man became visible on the other side, and Elizabeth immediately backed up to the far wall of the room. The other two family dogs came springing out of the bedroom, likewise, barking and snapping at the intruder who was now fully inside the house and clumsily waving a handgun back and forth and shouting, “Get these dogs off! Get these dogs off or I’ll kill them!”
Elizabeth was bewildered and terrified, and the last thing she was going to do was recall the only things standing between her and this stranger. The man pointed the gun at her and shouted, “Get back in there!”, and she retreated into the hallway. The man pushed past the barking dogs and likewise went into the hallway, closing the door and establishing a barrier between himself and the three outraged mutts.
“Who are you?” shouted Elizabeth, staring angrily at the man. At that moment, one of the other bedroom doors opened up, and Elizabeth turned toward it and screamed, “Kids, stay in your rooms!” which prompted the slightly opened door to slam shut. She turned again to the man and said even more loudly, “Get the hell out of here!”
It was impossible for her to tell in the dimly lit hallway, but it seemed to Elizabeth that this stranger seemed almost as frightened as she was, but the advantage he had was that he was holding a gun, and she wasn’t. He lifted the gun up somewhat higher, pointing it toward her chest and said with a surprisingly shaky voice, “Don’t be afraid. This is all going to be all right. You just have to do what I say. Just be calm.”
She screamed at him, “How am I supposed to be calm? Get out of my house!” which prompted him to extend his arm and point the firearm even more menacingly toward her. He said, “Lady, listen to me. I’m not here to hurt you. Where’s Wesley?”
Elizabeth’s face went flush on hearing the sound of her husband’s name coming out of this man’s mouth. She just stared in disbelief, so the intruder asked again, more forcefully, “Where is he?”
“I’m not telling you anything,” she said, “so get out.”
The man’s face took on an angry expression that hadn’t been there before, and Elizabeth became frightened that she had crossed a line. He pointed the gun to the ceiling and pulled the trigger, which created a deafening sound, followed quickly by the commencement of screams by both children behind their closed bedroom doors.
With tears streaking down her face, their mother shouted, “Stop it! Just stop! Tell me what you want!” Oddly, the man’s disposition changed following the gun blast, as he attempted once again to calm her down by holding up both hands with their palms facing toward her and saying, “Just do what I say, all right? Please don’t be scared.”
“Mom! Are you all right?” shouted Virginia from behind the door. “Stay right there, baby! I’m fine! You two just stay right where you are!” Elizabeth looked angrily at the man again and said, “Get on with it. What is this about?”
Taking a few steps back, the man slipped the gun behind him in the waistband of his jeans, then he again presented his hands in an effort to seem less threatening. “Get the kids out here too. I’m not going to hurt any of you, but you all need to be out here.”
Stewart started crying loud enough to be heard through the door, and his mother glared hatefully at the man standing across from her in the hallway. After a few moments she said, “You need to swear to me you’re not going to do anything to these kids. If you do, God help you, because you’ll be sorry you were born if you lay a hand on them.”
Pulling the gun out from his waistband, he pointed it at her and said, “Lady, you’re going to do what I say or you’re going to find a hole in your head. We’re leaving, all of us. Is there another door that goes outside?”
She said nothing, but the man pushed his way past her and went into her bedroom. There was a door that exited the side of the house, so he went back into the hallway and pushed the gun into her side and said, “You have thirty seconds to get you and your kids outside. Move!”
Since she realized she had no choice in the matter, Elizabeth said, “Kids, come out here. We need to leave.”
Virginia slowly opened her door and, spotting her mother, ran to her side and clasped her as her mother wrapped an arm around the girl’s shoulder. The other bedroom door remained closed, and Stewart called out from the other side, “Mom, I’m scared! I don’t want to go anywhere!”
“Stewart, you have to! You’ll be safe with mama! Be brave and come out here right now!” Elizabeth’s rage was seething because of what this lunatic was putting her kids through, but she was helpless to do anything about it.
The boy’s door opened, and Stewart rushed out to his sister and mother, both of whom held him in an effort to calm the young boy’s nerves. Their mother looked up at the man and said, “This is all of us. Now what?”
“I’m going to need all your phones. You, the girl, go get all three and bring them to me.”
Virginia looked at her mother, who sadly nodded at her, so she went into each bedroom and took each phone from its respective charging station. She came back into the hallway and held them out to the man. He took the stack of three phones and tried to cram them into a jeans pocket, but they were too thick. He shoved two of them into a front pocket and put a third one in the rear.
“Is your husband coming back?” asked the man.
Having no idea what the consequence of her answer might have, Elizabeth still said nothing, so the man gestured with his handgun toward the door and said, “All of you outside. We’re going to take a drive.”
The mother held her children against her side and walked to the door. She was mad at herself when she found the door locked, as the other should have been, but she unlocked it and took the two steps down to the dirt, followed by her two children who were both feeling the morning’s chill slip through their flannel pajamas.
Still pointing the gun toward the family, the man joined them outside and shut the door behind him. He gestured toward a white van at the far end of the driveway and said, “Get moving. You’re going to get in the back.” The mother, daughter, and son walked very closely together, heading toward the van, and the man padded behind them, keeping his pistol trained on Elizabeth’s torso.
Once they reached the vehicle, which was an Econoline cargo van that must have been at least forty years old, the man pulled the handle on its side and slid open the cargo door. “You kids, get inside.” They both looked at their mother, who gave them a quick nod, prompting them to crawl into the large open space in the back. There were no seats and not even a cloth on the cold metal floor. “Now you,” said the man to Elizabeth.
Hearing the muffled barks and howls from the cabin, she said, “What about the dogs? We can’t just leave them in there.”
“Get in, lady!”
“Please, just let me leave them some food and water. They can’t take care of themselves.”
Having had dogs himself as a boy, the man decided to allow this small accommodation, so he looked at the children and said, “You don’t budge. We’re going to be right back. All right, lady, let’s go, and be quick about it.”
Elizabeth walked briskly toward the front door, trying to think if there was something she could do to extricate her and the children from the situation, but she continued to feel powerless. Once she reached the door, she turned to the man who was just behind her and said, “How are we going to do this?”
The man scowled and began to regret allowing this indulgence to his captive, but after looking at the door for a few moments he said, “You go inside and close the screen door behind you. I’m going to give you fifteen seconds to give those mutts some food and water, then you get your ass back out here. I’ll be watching you the whole time, so if you try anything, you’re going to get a cap in your ass, and you’ll never see those kids again. Got it?”
She wasn’t going to offer an answer. Instead, she did as he said, opening the front door and clicking the screen door behind her so the dogs couldn’t get out. The trio of dogs weren’t about to do any such thing, since they were so ecstatic to see Elizabeth. She quickly made her way into the kitchen and grabbed their large bag of door food and poured an overflowing amount of it into their bowl. She then picked up their water bowl, dumped the contents into the sink, and filled it completely with fresh water, placing it on the floor again and swiftly heading back to the front door, which she pulled shut behind her. “That’s it, I’m done,” she said, then they both started walking back to the van.
Once she was a few feet away from the open sliding door of the Econoline, she looked in her children’s eyes to try to see how they were bearing up. They were both terribly frightened, and their mother crawled to the rear of the van and sat between them, with all three leaning their backs against the interior wall. The man looked inside and, seemingly satisfied he had his three prisoners where he wanted them, he yanked on the door’s handle and slid it shut with a loud thud and then walked around the vehicle to get into the driver’s seat.
The man turned the key, and the engine coughed and sputtered a few times. Pumping on the gas pedal a couple of times he turned the key again, and after a few awful noises, the engine churned to life. He released the emergency brake, pushed the gas, and the van began bumping along the road away from the family’s cabin.
In the back, the mother and children were petrified, not knowing who their kidnapper was, where they were going, or what he was going to do with them. Elizabeth tried to convey strength to them just through her touch, although she was feeling the weight of the situation vastly more than they were capable of grasping.
As the van began to pick up speed, the driver was silently focused on the road ahead as the first beams of morning sunshine were starting to streak through the forest. Virginia silently tapped her mother’s shin to get her attention, and Elizabeth looked at her. The girl was holding a small piece of paper, folded in her hand, and her mother took it from her, glancing toward the front of the vehicle to make sure the man was not looking. Her daughter whispered, “This was in the glove compartment.”
Elizabeth carefully unfolded the piece of paper, which appeared to be the registration slip for the van in which they were riding. At the top of the paper were the words State of California followed by Certificate of Title. Halfway down the page on the left side was printed the name of the van’s owner in a white space on the pink sheet with bold letters: Robert A. Kully.
Over the span of ten minutes, even though it seemed much longer for everyone in the van, Bob Kully drove his old white Econoline along the state highway then onto a dirt road leading to his campsite. The three occupants in the back of his van had remained totally silent, and it had been a terrifying drive for each of them. Their already-queasy stomachs became more uncomfortable as the bare-bones interior relayed every bump and jolt of the dirt road, which was an uneven mix of dried mud, rocks, and pinecones.
The morning sun rose fully over the horizon, and Kully pulled the van over once he spotted the glade where he had left his tent and gear. “All right, this is it,” he announced to his captives, and he climbed out the driver’s seat and walked around to the other side where he slid the cabin door open and was met with the frightened eyes of the Williams family.
Positioning herself between the children and Kully, Elizabeth asked, “What are you going to do to us?” Bob Kully shook his head and said, “I told you earlier, don’t be scared. I’m not going to do anything. I just want to talk to your husband. Get out of the van and go over there,” gesturing toward a cluster of trees where he had left a large Igloo cooler.
Elizabeth didn’t see a gun this time, but she assumed it must still be tucked in his waistband. She didn’t see a reasonably safe way to make some kind of escape, particularly with her small children in tow, so she reluctantly slid toward the opening and got out of the vehicle. She reached out toward her children, each of them taking a hand, and they joined their mother, all three standing atop a carpet of pine needles. Still holding their hands, the mother walked toward the trees, with Kully following closely behind.
“All right, that’s far enough,” Kully said. Pointing at his three captives one at a time, he said, “You, kid, go over there, the girl, go to that tree, and you go over there.” The three of them walked over, each to a tree where there was already rope tied around the trunk multiple times.
They were cold in the morning chill of the woods, but they were too scared to say anything about it as the man proceeded to tie their wrists behind their back, affixing each knot to the thick rope encircling each captive’s tree. Once he finished tying off Elizabeth, he took a few steps back to admire his handiwork, as the three of them were in an uncomfortable standing position, hands anchored behind their backs.
“What in the hell is going to happen to us?” said Elizabeth, trying her best to conceal her fright. “Why do you have to tie them up? They’re just kids, and it’s freezing out here.”
Kully stood passively for a few moments then walked over to where his tent was set up. Reaching inside, he pulled out a couple of large beach towels and, returning to the family, slipped one towel over Virginia’s shoulders and the other over Stewart’s. Turning toward the mother, Kully said, “That’s all I’ve got.”
“Thank you,” said their mother, although she immediately regretted expressing any decency toward this man. She did not recognize him and had never heard of him, but he had already made it quite clear he was trying to get at her husband and apparently wasn’t intending any harm to the three of them, at least not yet.
Pulling his own cell phone out of his pocket, Kully glanced at the screen to make sure he was getting a signal. It showed just two bars, but that was enough, so he said, “Did your husband really think I couldn’t figure out where his family was hiding? I’m not stupid, you know. I want to talk to him. Tell me the number.”
“Why would you want to talk to my husband?” asked Elizabeth.
“That’s really between me and him, isn’t it? But since I’ve got his wife and kids, I suspect he’s going to be motivated. What’s his number?”
Elizabeth just glared icily at the man. After an uncomfortable silence, Kully pulled the handgun out from behind his back and pointed it at her, prompting both children to begin screaming loudly. “Shut up!” he said, brandishing the gun at the kids.
“Stop it, stop it, point the gun at me!” shrieked the mother. “I’ll tell you the number!”
Keeping his eyes trained on Elizabeth, Kully slipped the gun back and said, “So then tell me. I want to talk to him. Now.”
“He’s at 650-324-8978. I don’t know if he will pick up, but that’s his phone.”
Staring at his phone, Kully typed in the digits and pressed the Call button. He held it to his ear, but there was nothing but silence, and he looked at the screen to see that it read Call Failed. He pressed the Try Again button, and as before, there wasn’t even so much as a single ring on the other end. The call just kept failing.
“Are you trying to waste my time?” asked Kully angrily to Elizabeth. “It’s not even ringing!”
She said, “It’s probably because you’re calling from your phone. He’s got things set up to only take calls from numbers that he knows. It’s just going to block you, no matter how many times you try.”
He glowered at her, confused as to what he should do next. He hit upon an idea and said, “I’ll use one of your phones then.” He walked over to the van and, opening the door to the passenger seat, took a look at the three phones he had absconded from the family. One of them was covered with animal stickers on its back, and he picked it up and walked over to where Virginia was tied to her tree.
“Is this yours?” he asked her, holding up the phone.
“Don’t talk to my kids,” said Elizabeth from where she was standing about fifteen feet away. “Yes, it’s her phone.”
Looking in her direction, Kully said, “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. I’ll do what I need to do.” He walked behind Virginia and untied her wrists from the rope, and the girl pulled her arms forward, rubbing the soreness of her wrists. Kully handed the phone to her and said, “I want you to call your father and tell him there’s a man who wants to have an important conversation with him. Don’t say anything except that, or else you won’t like what’s next. Got it?” The girl nodded quickly at the man.
“Don’t you threaten my kids, asshole!” said Elizabeth, her voice straining.
Bob Kully angrily stormed over to where Elizabeth was tethered, and she realized how vulnerable she was. He could hit her, kick her, or even try to rape her in front of her own children, and she felt powerless to stop him. Instead, he simply pushed his face into hers, almost nose to nose, and said, “I told you to stop telling me what to do!”
Realizing that her phone was on and in her hands, Virginia quickly went to the setting of the device and started typing, trying to be as quiet about it as she could. With every few keystrokes, she would glance up to make sure the man was not watching her, but he was still confronting the girl’s mother.
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” said Elizabeth. “What do you want with my husband? What do you want with us? Let us go!”
As he was about to answer her, Kully noticed in the periphery that the girl was doing something with the phone, so he raced back over and snatched the phone out of her hand, angrily asking, “What the hell are you doing, kid?”
He examined the phone’s screen, and it simply had the phone 650-324-8978 on it, ready to call. He then went to the SMS app on the phone and saw there hadn’t been any text messages since the prior day. He also saw that no other apps were running. He looked at the girl again and said, “What were you doing with this phone?”
“I was just typing my dad’s number, like you asked!” said Virginia, who was beginning to tear up again.
Handing the phone back to her, he said, “Well what are you waiting for? Call him like I said!”
She glanced down at the phone’s screen and pressed the Call button. There was ringing, so she placed the phone next to her ear while Kully watched her intently.
“Hey Angel, what’s up?” said Wesley on the other end of the line.
“Daddy, hi, sorry to call you,” Virginia spoke with a trembling voice. “There’s a man here who says he wants to talk to you.”
“Honey, what’s going on? What man?” asked Williams.
Before Virginia could reply, Kully snatched the phone from her hand and put it against his own ear and said, “Is this Wesley Williams, the candidate for Senate?”
Baffled at what was going on, Williams replied, “Who is this?”
“This is the man who has your entire family,” said Kully. “If you want them to stay safe, you’re going to do exactly what I say.”
Wesley William’s body reacted primitively, and pointlessly, to the terrifying words he was hearing as his heart began beating wildly and his stomach tied into a knot. He said to the man on the phone, “Who the hell is this? What the hell are you talking about?”
Growing weary at the pace of the conversation, Kully held the phone away from his head and, glancing again at the screen, tapped the Facetime button. He then panned the phone’s camera to Virginia, then Stewart, then Elizabeth, as he kept talking to the speakerphone.
“Mr. Williams, as you can see, I’ve got your wife and kids here with me. They are unharmed for now, but that could change if you don’t do what I say. What I’m asking you to do is very simple. Get out of this race immediately. I don’t care what you have to do to quit, but you need to make an announcement that you’re quitting, and that people should not vote for you, because you will not accept the office even if you win. So, you need to quit immediately, got it?”
The father’s voice came through the speakerphone, loudly and distressed sounding, “What are you doing with my kids? Elizabeth! Elizabeth, can you hear me?”
Kully pressed the Video button again to disengage it, then he pressed the phone to his ear once more and said, “She’s fine. You know what you need to do. You’ve got until tomorrow. And don’t try to get cute and try anything. If you don’t do what I tell you, I know where to find you, and this time, I’m not going to miss.”
“Who was that?” Thomas Peterson asked his lunch companion on the other side of the restaurant’s table as he reached over to grab another piece of bread from the basket.
“My family’s been kidnapped,” said Wesley, hardly able to utter the words. “I just got a call from my daughter’s phone, and some guy has taken them out in the woods and is telling me to drop out of the race.”
“Wait, what? Where are they? I thought they were in some old family cabin of yours?”
Wesley was feeling dizzy and wondering if this was really happening. He said, “They are, or they were. I’m not sure.”
“Who called you? Whose phone was it?” asked Peterson.
Picking the phone off the table, Wesley said, “It was my daughter calling.”
“Well, for God’s sake, can you track it? Is her location on?”
Wesley realized that, assuming her phone was still on, he could track it. With shaking hands, he found the Find My iPhone icon and anxiously waited for the screen. He normally saw a series of icons on a map, but this time there was only one, so he zoomed in quickly and saw that the location was in the general vicinity of Northern California where the family cabin was located. He was then puzzled to see what was next to the icon on the map.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” said Williams.
Leaning over the table to get a better look at the screen, Peterson said, “What do you mean?”
Pointing to the icon of a kitten on the screen, Wesley said, “That’s my daughter’s phone, but something’s different.” Leaning closer still, Thomas Peterson saw the text below the icon to indicate the device’s name: HIS-NAME-IS-BOB-KULLY.