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Authors: Allen Kent
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and seventeen had military experience. Eight were Rotarians, and twelve had flown overseas on American Airlines.
In Group Two, Falen placed characteristics that all DWATs held in common, but which didn’t seem on initial review to be primary pieces of the puzzle. They were critical in some way. He was certain of that. But he doubted that as a group, they held the key to the disappearances. The wealth factor was one. All had personal or family assets in excess of a million dollars. Some, twenty times that much. All were married with at least one child, though children’s ages ranged from newborn to over thirty. There had been no ransom notes, no contacts from terrorists, and no notes from the DWATs when they disappeared explaining why they were dropping out of sight.
It was this last factor, added to the sudden increase in numbers, that convinced Falen that these weren’t just people escaping some personal mess. He reasoned that a person bailing out due to family or business pressures would view it as something akin to suicide. Lots of guilt that needed some expression. So why no notes?
It was conceivable, though not probable, that Group Two and Group Three factors could all appear in unrelated disappearances involving overseas Americans. Not true of Group One. The demographics of the DWATs, their distribution by region, community size, sex, and race defied coincidence. The group of twenty-seven contained eight women, six African Americans, three Hispanics, and one Japanese American. Hell, these people were disappearing according to some pre-arranged affirmative action plan!
But even if this were some kind of Equal Opportunity kidnapping, why no small-town Americans? God knows, they traveled. And lots of them traveled with money.
Falen remembered with irritated amusement a night two years earlier in his favorite Amsterdam hotel and watering hole, Die Port Van Cleve . The always noisy, smoky restaurant had overflowed with charter tour members from the American Cattleman’s Association. He was there to meet with David Ishmael when the agent of Mossad, Israel’s Intelligence organization, was first gathering information on the location of a suspected training site for Iranian-supported terrorists. Falen used the restaurant because it was noisy. It was tough to eavesdrop on other conversations because it was difficult enough to hear your own. Everyone, including the waiters, shouted.
Falen arrived to find the hotel, restaurant and Ishmael overwhelmed by the beef raisers. The normally unflappable Israeli was trapped in a corner between an Angus breeder from Kalona, Iowa, and a Texas Charlais rancher who were flashing loose wads of hundred dollar bills and arguing over the merits of warm beer. If Falen were going to kidnap tourists for money, he’d throw in a few Angus breeders. But there were no cattleman among the DWATs, and no one from towns the size of Kalona, Iowa.
As Falen now watched his latest data mesh into the three factor categories like the teeth of a precision gear box, he knew he was right. The thing hinged on demographics. Mix by race, sex, community size, geographic region. Whoever was taking these people was being very selective and wanted the whole country represented.
Swiveling his chair left, Falen examined the large wall map of the United States that covered the center of the east wall above the dresser. The multicolored states were dotted with twenty-seven stickpins, each indicating the home city of a DWAT, and each color-coded to indicate race and gender; white, black, brown and yellow, with a pink dot on the top of those representing women. The pins could just as easily represent major U.S. population centers and Falen’s studied eye scanned the distribution for the hundredth time. Virtually every major city from Portland to Atlanta displayed pins. Two disappearances from New York; one white, one black. Houston and L.A. both had a white and an Hispanic. All the rest were singles, with the
In Group Two, Falen placed characteristics that all DWATs held in common, but which didn’t seem on initial review to be primary pieces of the puzzle. They were critical in some way. He was certain of that. But he doubted that as a group, they held the key to the disappearances. The wealth factor was one. All had personal or family assets in excess of a million dollars. Some, twenty times that much. All were married with at least one child, though children’s ages ranged from newborn to over thirty. There had been no ransom notes, no contacts from terrorists, and no notes from the DWATs when they disappeared explaining why they were dropping out of sight.
It was this last factor, added to the sudden increase in numbers, that convinced Falen that these weren’t just people escaping some personal mess. He reasoned that a person bailing out due to family or business pressures would view it as something akin to suicide. Lots of guilt that needed some expression. So why no notes?
It was conceivable, though not probable, that Group Two and Group Three factors could all appear in unrelated disappearances involving overseas Americans. Not true of Group One. The demographics of the DWATs, their distribution by region, community size, sex, and race defied coincidence. The group of twenty-seven contained eight women, six African Americans, three Hispanics, and one Japanese American. Hell, these people were disappearing according to some pre-arranged affirmative action plan!
But even if this were some kind of Equal Opportunity kidnapping, why no small-town Americans? God knows, they traveled. And lots of them traveled with money.
Falen remembered with irritated amusement a night two years earlier in his favorite Amsterdam hotel and watering hole, Die Port Van Cleve . The always noisy, smoky restaurant had overflowed with charter tour members from the American Cattleman’s Association. He was there to meet with David Ishmael when the agent of Mossad, Israel’s Intelligence organization, was first gathering information on the location of a suspected training site for Iranian-supported terrorists. Falen used the restaurant because it was noisy. It was tough to eavesdrop on other conversations because it was difficult enough to hear your own. Everyone, including the waiters, shouted.
Falen arrived to find the hotel, restaurant and Ishmael overwhelmed by the beef raisers. The normally unflappable Israeli was trapped in a corner between an Angus breeder from Kalona, Iowa, and a Texas Charlais rancher who were flashing loose wads of hundred dollar bills and arguing over the merits of warm beer. If Falen were going to kidnap tourists for money, he’d throw in a few Angus breeders. But there were no cattleman among the DWATs, and no one from towns the size of Kalona, Iowa.
As Falen now watched his latest data mesh into the three factor categories like the teeth of a precision gear box, he knew he was right. The thing hinged on demographics. Mix by race, sex, community size, geographic region. Whoever was taking these people was being very selective and wanted the whole country represented.
Swiveling his chair left, Falen examined the large wall map of the United States that covered the center of the east wall above the dresser. The multicolored states were dotted with twenty-seven stickpins, each indicating the home city of a DWAT, and each color-coded to indicate race and gender; white, black, brown and yellow, with a pink dot on the top of those representing women. The pins could just as easily represent major U.S. population centers and Falen’s studied eye scanned the distribution for the hundredth time. Virtually every major city from Portland to Atlanta displayed pins. Two disappearances from New York; one white, one black. Houston and L.A. both had a white and an Hispanic. All the rest were singles, with the
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