Death Is My Comrade by Stephen Marlowe

contact, follow the kidnapers’ instructions right down the line, and hope for the best. The FBI frowned on this procedure; it left you at the mercy of the kidnapers without the considerable talents of the local law enforcement agencies working in your behalf.
    Or the victim could call in the local police and again follow the kidnapers’ instructions right down the line and hope for the best. Then it was up to the police to play the waiting game along with the victim, if that was what the victim wanted. This would include the delivery of the ransom to the designated drop. But here the victim had an option, for he could give the police a green light to stake out the drop. That was perilous. If anything went wrong, if the kidnapers suspected the drop had been staked out, you were dead. But in the cold light of logic and statistics, the Bureau recommended that course of action.
    I was not concerned, at the moment, with the cold light of logic and statistics; and of course I was no longer with the Bureau. Their special agents are skillful and trained to a fine, admirable edge of perfection, and under the new kidnaping laws they can go into action, officially on a kidnaping after twenty-four hours, and unofficially at once. But one of their most admirable qualities, in a kidnaping case, can work against you.
    We are not a police state, and the Bureau will bend over backward to make that point. When questioning a suspect, they leave the door open and tell him so. He is free to leave at any time. He is free to use the phone as often as he wishes. But the agents are relentless too, and astonishingly patient and skillful at questioning. More often than not they will get the information, they’re after, and if it adds up to an arrest either by themselves on the Federal government’s behalf or by the local authorities on a state’s, they will first summon a physician to examine their man and put in writing that he was not beaten or maltreated. Then, and only then, will they act.
    I thought of all this before answering Marianne, and then I told myself there is another way to deal with kidnapers. What I told myself was this: I am a private eye who lives too often on the thin edge of violence, and because that was what I was, and because I had worked two years for the Bureau and remembered enough of their skills and techniques, Marianne and the twins were no ordinary victims of kidnaping. I did not tell myself this cockily, but it was fact.
    â€œWe’re not going to call the cops,” I growled finally. “But here’s the thing, Marianne. I don’t think they’ll wait, because waiting gives us time to make plans. Besides, you don’t need time to collect ransom money: you just have to deliver Ilya’s letter.”
    â€œDid you ever see him?” Marianne cut in. “Ilya?”
    Tell her Ilya had been murdered, in cold blood, in my office? That was all she’d need to hear, I said: “I saw him. It’s not important now. We’ll get to that when we have the twins back.” I repeated, “Here’s the thing. They’re going to move, and move fast. And when they do they’re going to want you to deliver Ilya’s letter. You, Marianne.”
    â€œMe? Oh God, Chet, I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”
    â€œIf I’m right, you’ve got to. You’re a woman, and you’re upset, so they won’t have to worry about you. That’s the way they’ll want to work it.”
    As if to drive my point home, the telephone rang. Marianne didn’t quite jump a foot. She took a deep breath and shuddered. She looked at the crib near which we were standing. On the second ring Dr. Nickerson called: “I’ll take it.”
    â€œNo,” Marianne said. “Let me take it.”
    I followed her into the hall. Mrs. Gower hovered near the phone table, staring at the phone. If looks could have killed, whoever was calling would have rolled over