The media circus was pressuring the police into making hasty mistakes. The police and the media were now devoting full time to chasing pundits and rumors. It was time to take advantage of that.
In addition to having my ladies working full time on building things, homemaking and exercising, I was videotaping them as well. I made some stock at-work-and-at-play videos to show that they were happy and healthy, and I did a lot of one-on-one interview-style videos in which we talked about many, many different topics. After a couple days I had what I wanted: a full battery of comments from the girls that I could edit into whatever commentary I wanted to. These video sequences would become the heart of my ransom offer. And, just like with the lockdown regulations and the ticky-tock "bombs", I was going to push hard into stereotypes to get what I wanted... which was not stereotypical.
What I needed to do to get what I wanted -- pliable young maidens who were ready to start a new life as sex slaves and breeders -- was drive a wedge between these ladies and their families. The way to do that was to screw up the ransom exchange in a way that looked to both sides like betrayal -- the parents would have to think their kids had "whacked out" on them and become part of the gang, and the kids would have to think their parents were really hardhearted SOB's who cared more about money than them. With the girls' video tapes and some applied psychology it shouldn't be hard to start that process.
The key to getting a series of proper screw-ups was simply to be too clever. And, to have fun with this, I would enlist the media in helping me to be too clever.
As Step One, I sent a nice composite video of the girls showing them well-cared for and reasonably happy to several local stations. They played the video on the air, which I let the girls see. This established in the girls' eyes that I was really trying.
As Step Two, I sent anonymous message that I would like either Shelly Mc Gregor or Laura Salina to act as intermediary in the ransom negotiations. These are two of the local news reporters. Both are slim and good looking in the "we've spent a lot of time and effort on our looks and you can see it!"-way, a way which I detest. Shelly has an ego that would flatten a sumo wrestler, and Laura's scheming would make Macheavelli blush. Both are popular; neither is cautious, and both are still working in spite of having a dozen hushed-up gaffes.
Shelly sends me a message that she will accept, but Laura announces she is accepting on the air right after playing the "We're OK" video. How nice... nice that neither one has thought about the implications of the fact that I got in and out of the school "through thin air". The implication is: I know what I'm doing, but neither the media or the police have a clue. They have both bitten -- hook, line and sinker!
I message Laura to meet me on a particular park bench in Tinker Creek Park. She is to go there wearing a Blackberry; she can bring a broadcast minicam with a tripod, too. Once the camera is set up, she is to blindfold herself and handcuff her hands behind her. When I am satisfied she is there alone, I will come to the bench, and the negotiations will begin. She listens to these conditions... And... She... Agrees! God, she's eating this up with a spoon!
It all went so perfectly.
Laura went to the bench hours ahead of time, and did some preliminary video shots, then left. She had notified the police -- no surprise there, even though I told her not to. While she was doing her preliminary taping, the police surrounded the park with twenty hidden and twenty plainclothes men.
When the big moment came, Laura went back to the park bench. After she got set up, including her camera, I contacted her on the Blackberry, and she did what she was told. I had her put on the blindfold, then the handcuffs, then I had her move around a bit so it was clear that the handcuffs and blindfold were on securely. She was doing this in front of her camera, which was broadcasting. All this took about twenty minutes, I was in no rush. As this mulling about and getting ready was going on, the police heard a person sneaking in the bushes near the bench. When a plainclothes officer came walking by where the person was hiding, the person shuffled quietly to the far side of the bushes, where a SWAT officer binoculared him or her, and saw it was a "he", and he was wearing a navy blue jacket and a ski mask, and he was carrying a canvas backpack similar to my "bag of tricks" at the school.
That was enough for the police: They broke cover, and when they did, the mystery man headed for the hills -- in this case, the real hills just outside the park boundary -- real hills with real, thick, woods on them. He was really fast and agile, too! Somehow, the media just happened to be there to cover the chase, and that probably saved him from taking a bullet in the back when it turned out he could outrun is his first pursuers. After five minutes of serious sprinting and broken field running through the second growth woods next to the park, he was finally cornered and caught. The mystery man was Jack Sculley, a friend of Cindy's and cornerback on the school football team.
He said he was helping out -- helping out Cindy, that is. A mysterious phone caller told him that he could help out by delivering the backpack, quietly, and that wearing the jacket and ski mask would help. He was a good kid, and he really was helping out, but just not in the way he, or the police, or the media, or the girls, or their parents, had expected. He was, instead, helping out in the way I expected. Thanks to him, we had now experienced SNAFU #1 in The Great Ransom Saga, and with full media coverage.