After a long pause, I say, "Yes."

"Good. Now imagine something worse, something far, far worse..."

Myron took a deep breath. He remembered the series of articles. Stan Gibbs had broken a story about a bizarre kidnapper. He'd told the heart-wrenching tale of three abductions that the police had supposedly wanted to keep quiet, out of, Stan Gibbs claimed, embarrassment. No names were mentioned. He had spoken with the families under the condition of anonymity. And, the coup de grace, the kidnapper had granted Gibbs access: I ask the kidnapper why he does it. Is it for the ransom?

"I never pick up the ransom money," he says. "I usually leave explosives at the spot and burn it. But sometimes money helps me sow the seeds. That is what I'm trying to do. Sow the seeds."

Myron felt his blood stop.

"You all think you're safe," he continues, "in your technological cocoon. But you're not. Technology has made us expect easy answers and happy endings. But with me, there is no answer and there is no end."

He has kidnapped at least four people: the father of two young children, age 41; a female college student, age 20; and a young couple, newlyweds ages 28 and 27. All were abducted while in the New York City area.

"The idea," he says, "is to keep the terror going. Let it grow, not with gore or obvious bloodletting, but with your own imagination. Technology is trying to destroy our ability to imagine. But when someone you love is taken away, your mind can conjure up horrors darker than any machine-- than anything even I can do. Some minds won't go that far. Some minds stop and put up a barrier. My job is to push them through that barrier."

I ask him how he does that.

"Sow the seeds," he repeats. "You sow the seeds over time."

He explains that sowing the seeds means giving hope and taking it away over a sustained period of time. His first call to the victim's family is naturally devastating, but merely the beginning of a long and torturous ordeal.

He begins the call, he claims, with a normal hello and asks the family member to please hold. After a pause, the family member hears their loved one give a blood-curdling shriek. "Just one," he says, "and it's very short. I cut them off in mid-scream.

"This is the last they'll ever hear from their loved one," he continues. "Imagine how that scream echoes."

But for the victim's family, it does not end there. He demands a ransom that he has no intention of claiming. He calls after midnight and asks the family to imagine their darkest fear. He convinces them that this time, he will really let their loved one go, but he is only extending hope to those who no longer have it, rekindling their agony.

"Time and hope," he says, "sow the seeds of despair."

The father of two has been missing for three years. The young premed college student has been missing for twenty-seven months. The newlyweds were married almost two years ago this weekend. To date, not a trace of any of them has been found. Rarely does a week pass when the families don't get a call from their tormentor.