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WHATEVER IT TAKES               by Robert T. Roe              (503)998-2479

Logline: “A billionaire fakes his death to keep his kidnapped daughter alive.”

 

 

      Little LESLIE YOUNG loved the monkeys at the zoo.  Her nanny, NORMA, and her bodyguard, HARRY, had taken her there many times but today would be different. She wouldn’t be returning home to her billionaire father, GRAHAM YOUNG.  Moments before Leslie left their mansion for the zoo, Graham and Norma talked about how much Leslie looked like her dead mother- her blue eyes and brown curly hair.  They had no idea that the next time they saw Leslie she would be eighteen years old and be the image of her mother.

      At the airport a young rookie for a private security company, AGENT ANDERSON, was on a training exercise when she photographed a passenger that simply reminded her of someone. Only when they checked they found this man was tied to a notorious kidnapping ring that had struck twelve wealthy families.  All had paid but no child was ever returned or found.  As soon as they realized the danger, an alarm went out to all their clients in the area including Graham Young.  Graham talked to Leslie’s bodyguard and everything was fine but he headed for the zoo anyway to join his daughter. When he arrived, see was already gone.  Harry and Norma had been gassed when a balloon burst in the limousine.

      The kidnappers, MARTY, TOM, RACHEL, and HANS had perfected their business to being almost unstoppable.  Marty was the brains, Tom the character actor, Rachel the decoy, and Hans was the inside man. They were slick and this was their last job.  But they did not count on Graham Young being creative and out smarting them. Graham vowed to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to get his daughter back.  After reading the files on the previous twelve kidnappings, Graham learned that if this was the same group, Leslie would not be returned. Would she be killed or sold? No one knew.

        He went quickly to work on his counter plan- his own death. He would fake his death so as he could not pay the ransom, then have it said in the news that Leslie was to inherit twenty billion dollars. The catch was that she could not have a dime of it until she was eighteen years old.  These were partial truths seeing how Graham wasn’t really dead and he wasn’t worth twenty billion.  Yet, this plan might accomplish two things for Graham; greed would keep Leslie alive and this would give him time to search for her.  It was bold, but once again, this ring had not returned a child.

        Joined by his right hand man, ALBERT, AGENT ANDERSON, HARRY, NORMA and his best friend from high school, FRANK, Graham sets out on a near impossible search to not only find Leslie but perhaps one of the other kidnapped children.  The odds against them denote the impossible, but he has sworn to do WHATEVER IT TAKES. Five years later he finds one girl, Aime, and notifies her parents.  Yet it all goes bad. Aime’s parents are killed, Frank is killed, and Graham’s yacht burns and sinks.            

          However, Graham still had his long-range plan.  And as the greed in human nature would have it, sixteen years later Leslie walks into a Swiss bank with one of the kidnappers whom she believes is her uncle to retrieve money left to her by a relative.  Yet, Graham is the man behind the bank manager’s desk. What he does next leads to a twist and a great ending.

 

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