and it gets to the point 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 ]
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. coming up and it can feel like no matter what you do,
that 10 million they demanded from heiko. i felt my whole body just collapsed. i knew if i cannot convince him that i don t have that money, i will never see my family again. so i looked up toward heaven. and there was this one star just blinking. i pointed at the star, this one star up in the sky. and i told them to if they can get that star, my husband can give them $10 million. reporter: gerfa knew heiko would have sent all the money they had, even as the kidnappers squeezed him by putting his terrified son on the phone. dad! just send the money.
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. dollars 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? yeah, no, uh, your son is she with you? can i talk to them? i want to know if they re okay. reporter: mr. so didn t say. meanwhile, fbi agents in the philippines were working sources on the ground. word was that gerfa and kevin had been taken to one of abu sayyaf s strongholds basilan, a large island about four hours by boat from where they d been kidnapped. to a base camp deep in what was nearly impenetrable jungle. we travelled to basilan to talk with the politicians there, who may have had some influence over this group. reporter: heiko had the fbi to help. but government money? no. they don t pay ransom. the government doesn t pay ransoms. right. any decisions that are made regarding ransoms are really made by the family. but it was actually to