even veteran fbi agent dan girsch was astonished. we received the tremendous news that gerfa was released. obviously, heiko s very excited. i could see and hear just joy. joy. reporter: heiko could scarcely believe it. as the news flashed across the philippines and to lynchburg, virginia. his wife, gerfa, was alive. and free. and safe. so, inexpressible joy. and then gerfa called him. and heiko realized the nightmare was just beginning. she called me really, really sad and crying. so my first question to her was where s kevin? reporter: he could hear the terror in her voice. abu sayyaf still had kevin and her cousin. they could kill them at any time they wanted. and i felt her dark place, just being a mother myself. and it was awful.
there you were in your fancy car. yes. you must be worth millions. that was a wrong, wrong impression. i m not a rich person, but i will give whatever i can get together. okay? we need $10 million u.s. for the release of your family. okay? reporter: heiko was lucky in this. when mr. so made his demands, some of the most experienced fbi hostage negotiators in the country were right there, listening in. ready to point out the right way for heiko to respond. literally. these are for general visual prompts that we want heiko to think about. we have all the questions related to kevin and gerfa that we think are important for heiko to consider. and while we re doing them we re going to write notes down and pass them to heiko. he would read it and hopefully introduce it to the conversation. where s my wife? can i talk to her? if she s okay? where s my son?
their intent was to let her go to help raise more money. now she s out. and now she s got to talk to these people. right. someone needs to be there with her. reporter: heiko decided he should stay in lynchburg, try to find the money, and mark thundercloud moved his operations from the family s kitchen to a hotel room in manila. and there, as one month passed, then another, they tried to help gerfa deal with mr. so. december 6th was the last day that we talked with mr. so. basically, he was saying, look, what you re offering is not enough. this might be the last communication that we ever have. we still expected calls. but on the 7th, nothing. on the 8th, nothing. on the 9th, nothing. reporter: oh, they would hear what happened to kevin. soon enough. a shock in waiting. now is the perfect time for
i wanted to know what i can call you. i don t want to call you kidnapper, terrorist. just give me a name. reporter: mr. so was calm, business-like, like he d done it 100 times before. in fact, he was the voice for a violent separatist group known for executing prisoners, beheadings usually. we would like to tell you that we need 10 million u.s. dollars for the release of your family. can you hear me? and i just was thinking, are you losing your mind? who do you think you ve got? just couldn t believe it. $10 million. from me. reporter: why would they think heiko had $10 million? perhaps they d watched the internet. in lynchburg the kidnapping was big news. tv crews set up shop across the street and captured heiko driving his used mercedes coupe.
where we don t think that we re making progress. heiko feels like we re not making progress. i just think you just hope. that s all what you have, hope. reporter: but hope was hard to hang on to. the kidnappers kept threatening beheadings. even worse, they put gerfa on the phone and beat her while she talked to heiko. sweetheart, what are you doing over there? i know, honey. i m just so just tell them i don t have a million. please do that. i want this to stop. i know, i told them that you don t have anything but they just like asking. how are you doing, gerfa? stop that! [ crying ] i am getting worried, i m getting so worried. [ crying ] reporter: a few seconds later the line went dead. oh my god! [ bleep ], i m smoking, i got have a [ bleep ] cigarette, or i m gonna [ bleep ] heiko, heiko you need to be ready.