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“They’re just worker bees. Ernie brought them with him from his place in Bogotá.”
“Ernie Sitz?”
“Yeah. Lenny’s partner. It started out with Lenny and Victor. Then Lenny needed money so he brought his pal Ernie in.”
“Anyone else involved?” Ranger asked.
“Harry. He came in late and funded a production company. I never met Harry, but apparently he doesn’t speak Spanish and the guys from Colombia don’t understand much English, and so one day Harry is on a rant because a bunch of women came to his daughter’s house complaining about her husband. So, these Colombians misunderstand and snatch the husband.”
I glanced over at Ranger and saw his mouth twitch into a hint of a smile.
“Vinnie?” I asked.
“I don’t know the guy’s name, but we had to drug him up and return him.”
“Where do we find Ernie?” Ranger asked.
“He jumped ship when Victor went down. He’s going back to Bogotá. I think he had a flight this morning.”
I looked at the duffel sitting on the floor. “Is that where you’re going?”
“No. I have a ticket for Flight 127 to Hawaii, then maybe I’ll go to El Salvador. I have friends there. Gonna do some fishing.”
“Have a good trip,” Ranger said.
“Thanks,” Frankie said. “I hope you find Hal, and he’s okay. The original plan was to drug the men and send them home, but I don’t know about Harry. I hear he’s mob.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“HOW ABOUT NOW?” I asked when we were in the car. “Do we bring Morelli in now?”
“No, but I’ll have him keep Ernie off the plane.”
“Are you going to let Frankie go fishing?”
“No. I’ll have Morelli detain him.”
Ranger drove the short distance back to Rangeman and went directly to his office. He sent Morelli a text about Ernie and Frankie, and he accessed a program on his computer that listed all assets for Ernie Sitz and Harry Hammerstein.
“Omigod,” I said. “Harry’s last name is Hammerstein? I never knew. I just knew him as Harry the Hammer.”
Ranger limited the assets to properties within a hundred miles. Sitz had seven, and Harry had sixteen. I looked over Ranger’s shoulder at the list.
“This one,” I said, pointing to a building on Harry’s list. “The warehouse in Cherry Hill. It was owned by Sitz and went up for auction a year ago.”
Ranger went to Google maps and looked at the satellite view of the property.
“It’s in an industrial park that’s mostly abandoned,” Ranger said. “The warehouse is off on its own. Good location to hold someone hostage. Smart. You don’t want to kidnap someone and cross state lines. I think it’s worth looking at.”
Ranger called Tank and told him he needed two cars and four men in ten minutes.
“I’ll be traveling with Stephanie,” he said. “We’ll need full security. Vests and belts. And I’ll need a thermal drone.”
Ranger and I went in his Porsche Cayenne. The other two cars were fleet SUVs. Tank was driving one of them. We took I-295 south and reached Cherry Hill midafternoon. The entrance to the industrial park wasn’t gated. The warehouse Harry owned was toward the back end not quite a quarter mile down the road. Tank and the other Rangeman SUV hung back, and Ranger and I drove past the warehouse. No cars parked in the adjoining lot. No lights shining from the office windows in the front of the building. No visible activity. We parked alongside the other two Rangeman vehicles and got out.
“I want to know what’s inside the warehouse on the next block,” Ranger said. “Send the drone up.”
One of the men opened his laptop and another removed the drone from a box in the back of the SUV. He set the drone on the ground and in minutes it was in the air, humming its way across the parking lot. It hovered over the warehouse and sent back thermal images.
