No matter how jaded you might be, the fantasyland was captivating. Everything was incredibly clean and safe. You couldn’t help feeling completely protected, which was so goddamned weird for me.
Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and Snow White greeted everybody at the front gates. The park was immaculate. “Yankee Doodle Dandy” played from loudspeakers cleverly hidden somewhere in the manicured shrubbery.
I could feel my heart pounding under a loose-fitting sport shirt. I was out of touch with all my backup for the moment. It would be that way until I was physically in the Magic Kingdom.
The palms of my hands were clammy, and I wiped them against my trousers. Mickey Mouse was shaking hands right in front of me. This was nuts.
I had just entered an area of deep shadows cast from the Transportation and Ticket Center. The ferry was visible, a miniature Mississippi riverboat, without the paddle wheel.
A man wearing a sport jacket and brimmed hat slid alongside me. I didn’t know if it was Soneji. The sense of Disney World’s safety and protection was broken immediately.
“Change of plans, Alex. I’ll take you to see Maggie Rose now. Keep looking straight ahead, please. You’re doing super so far. Just keep it up and we’re home safe.”
A six-foot-tall Cinderella walked past us, heading in the opposite direction. Children and adults oohed and aahed at her.
“Just turn around now, Alex. We’re going to walk back the same way you came in. This can be a day at the beach. It’s up to you, my friend.”
He was perfectly calm and in control, the way Soneji had been throughout the kidnapping. There was as aura of invincibility around everything so far. He had called me Alex. We began to walk back against the flow of the crowd.
Cinderella’s coiffed head of blond curls bobbed along ahead of us. Children laughed with delight as they saw the movie and cartoon heroine come to life.
“I have to see Maggie Rose first” was the only thing I said to the man in the brimmed hat. Could he be Soneji in disguise? I couldn’t tell. I needed to get a better look at him.
“That’s fine. But if anyone stops us, I’ll tell you right now, the girl is dead.” Brimmed Hat said it offhandedly, as if he was giving a stranger the time of day.
“No one’s going to stop us,” I assured him. “Our only concern is the girl’s safety.”
I hoped that was true for all the parties involved. I’d seen Katherine and Tom Dunne briefly that morning. I knew that all they cared about was getting their little girl back tonight.
Perspiration had begun to stream down my entire body. I had no control over that. The temperature was only in the mid-eighties, but the humidity was high.
I had started to worry about an inadvertent screw-up. Anything could go wrong here. It wasn’t as if we’d practiced this maneuver, right in the heart of Disney World and its unpredictable crowds.
“Listen. If the FBI sees me coming outside, somebody might approach us,” I decided to tell the man.
“I hope not,” he said and made a tsking sound. He shook his head back and forth. “That would be a serious breach of etiquette.”
Whoever he was, he was unnaturally cool under fire. Had he done this before? I wondered. It seemed to me that we were headed back in the direction of the rows of orange trams. One of the trams would take us back to the parking area again. Was that the plan?
The man was too heavyset to be Soneji, I thought. Unless he had on some kind of brilliant disguise and lots of padding. The actor angle ca
me to mind again. I hoped to God he wasn’t an imposter. Someone who’d found out what was going on in Florida, then contacted us to go for the ransom. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened in a kidnapping case.
“Federal Bureau! Hands high!” I heard suddenly. It all happened gunshot-quick. My heart went up into my throat. What the hell were they doing? What were they thinking?
“Federal Bureau!”
Half-a-dozen agents had us surrounded in the parking lot. They had their revolvers out. At least one rifle was aimed at the contact man, and therefore at me.
Agent Bill Thompson was there with the others. We only want to get the girl back, he’d said to me just moments ago.
“Back away! Back off!” I lost it and yelled at them. “Get the hell away from us! Get out of here!”
I looked directly at Brimmed Hat now. It couldn’t be Gary Soneji. I was almost certain of that. Whoever it was didn’t care if he was recognized or even photographed in Orlando.
Why was that? How could this guy be so cool?
“If you take me, the girl’s dead,” he said to the FBI agents surrounding us. He was stone-cold. His eyes looked dead. “There’s nothing that’ll stop it from happening. I can’t do a thing. Neither can you. She’s dead meat.”