Against All Odds (30 page)
Authors: Irene Hannon
Tags: #Mystery, #Romance, #Suspense, #Thriller, #Contemporary
“You are prepared to begin the executions at noon tomorrow?” He directed the query to Sayed over his shoulder as he lit a dim light to dispel the early evening shadows.
“Of course.” The man gave a slight, deferential bow. “We await your instruction.”
“Excellent. All is proceeding as—”
“Many pardons.” Anis paused in the doorway. He, too, gave a small bow.
“What is it?” Tariq glared at him, his curt tone expressing his displeasure at the interruption.
“Al Jazeera just reported that David Callahan has issued a statement. He will not consider your demands unless he is allowed to speak with his daughter.”
Tariq’s eyes narrowed in speculation. The counter ultimatum didn’t surprise him. The diplomat was known as a tough negotiator, and Tariq had expected him to want proof his daughter still lived.
What did surprise him was Callahan’s insinuation that he might consider the demands if his condition was met. And he wouldn’t have communicated that unless he’d already discussed the possibility with the U.S. State Department.
It seemed he might be bending under pressure after all.
When Anis continued to hover in the doorway, Tariq sent him an impassive glance. “Is there more?”
“No. I thought . . . would you like me to do anything?”
“If I choose to respond, I will handle it myself.”
At the dismissal, Anis once more bowed. After darting a quick look at Sayed, he exited.
“An interesting development.” Sayed clasped his hands behind his back and rocked forward on his toes.
“I believe it is a good sign. I will arrange a call.”
“If there is nothing else, I shall return to my duties.”
“That is all for now. I will call you in the morning.”
As Sayed exited, Tariq pulled out his cell phone. There were a number of people he could contact for advice about how best to set up a call with Callahan. But none with a better technical background than Nouri.
Besides, it was time he checked on his American hostage.
“I found out how they pinpointed our location.”
At Mac’s terse comment, Coop looked up from the table in the main house’s command center, where he, Mark, and Rick had been reviewing the ERT’s preliminary findings. While they now had a decent handle on how the abductors had pulled off their scheme, they were no closer to pinning down Monica’s location than they’d been when they’d discovered she was missing five hours ago.
In silence, Mac held out his hand to display a small electronic gadget. “A GPS device. Motion activated. It tracked us straight here.” Disgust laced his voice.
“Where was it?” Mark moved closer to examine it.
“Sewn into the lining of my luggage. A loose thread snagged on my shaving kit as I was packing, and when I tugged, the stitching gave. My guess is they left a similar present in all of our suitcases. Probably at the hotel in Richmond.”
“You mean we led them to Monica ourselves?” Coop gaped at the device in shocked disbelief.
“Looks that way,” Mac confirmed. “Not that it matters at this point, but you may want to check your luggage to test my theory.”
Ten minutes later, after the three other operators searched their suitcases, Mac’s theory was confirmed. Each of them found an identical device sewn into an unobtrusive corner of his luggage. An ERT technician took possession, but Coop had no hope the team would find any prints. The perpetrators were too careful, too thorough, to leave any evidence that would allow authorities to trace the crime to them.
And if they were that careful in the small things, Coop knew the odds of them leaving any clues about their current location were next to nothing.
He couldn’t decide what to do.
Distress knotting his stomach, David regarded the sandwich Salam had ordered for him as he’d left for the day. Though it was long past dinnertime and he’d eaten nothing since breakfast, he had no interest in food. Swiveling around, he searched the darkness outside the window in his office. Night hid the mountains from his view, but he knew they were there, looming and oppressive.
Like the decision he faced.
In twelve hours, he would meet with the secretary of state. He could hold fast to his traditional “no negotiation” posture, or he could deviate from his principles and go with a recommendation that might save the lives of the hostages—and his daughter—while attempting to preserve the United States’s public position.
It was a gut-wrenching position to be in.
The sudden, jarring ring of the phone startled him, and he snatched the receiver from the cradle.
“Callahan.”
“Bob Stevens. A package addressed to you was tossed at the embassy gate from a passing motorcycle about forty-five minutes ago. The guards thought it might be a bomb, but it turned out to be a cell phone.”
“Was there a note?” David’s grip on the phone tightened.
“No. But we assume this means the terrorists intend to honor your request. It doesn’t have speakerphone capability, but we’re retrofitting it to allow us all to listen in on the call, and we’re attaching a recording device.”
“Did you contact the FBI?”
“I spoke to Les Coplin five minutes ago. He’s briefing his HRT operators. We’d like to set up a conference call in ten minutes in my office.”
“I’ll be right over.”
Pushing his untouched sandwich aside, David picked up a notepad. As he reached for a pen, a spasm of pain shot up his arm, tightening the already tense muscles in his neck. The stress was taking a toll, he acknowledged. When this was over, he intended to take a long-overdue vacation. Spend some time with his daughter. And seriously consider turning this job over to a younger man.
“Coop, Mark, are you in?” Les’s voice boomed over Coop’s speakerphone as he and Mark sat at the table in the guest house kitchen, now devoid of the monitors that had done nothing to stop the kidnapping.
“We’re here,” Coop replied.
“In Kabul, we have Bob Stevens, head of embassy security, and David Callahan on the line,” Les informed them.
“I also have a couple of my technical people sitting in,” Bob added. “To bring everyone up to speed, David is wearing an earpiece and I’ll be able to communicate with him during his conversation with his daughter. If you want me to pass on any instructions, speak into the phone. David will be in an adjacent room, and the conversation will be piped into this room so we’ll be able to speak freely.”
“Mr. Callahan, you need to ask Monica some question only she would be able to answer,” Coop said. “We need to verify it’s her on the line.”
Several beats of silence passed before David responded, panic and frustration lacing his words. “I can’t think of anything.”
Based on the confidences Monica had shared about her rocky relationship with her father, Coop wasn’t surprised by the man’s inability to come up with a personal question. “Ask her what her favorite comfort food is.”
“I assume you know the correct answer?” David’s query came out stiff.
“Yes.”
The tension between the two men was almost palpable.
“Okay. Good.” Les redirected the conversation. “Bob, you said no hint was given about the timing on the call?” He sounded as frustrated as Coop felt.
“No.”
“Then I guess we all hang tight and wait,” Les said.
“It could be hours.” Mark frowned and tapped a finger against the table.
“Do you have anything better to do?”
At Les’s sharp retort, color flooded Mark’s face. He remained silent.
“I didn’t think so. Bob, we’ll be standing by.”
“When the call comes in, we’ll let it ring six or seven times. That should give us all a chance to get connected. In the interim, we’re going to do what we can to find out when this phone was activated and try to set up a trace on the incoming call. But my guess is they’ll piggyback off of a couple of throwaway cell phones. We aren’t going to have enough time to track the call back to the originating phone. And I expect the conversation will be brief. Most of it may even be scripted.”
Bob Stevens’s conclusions were sound, Coop acknowledged. The call might do no more than reassure them Monica was alive. But he hoped—prayed—the severity of her injuries hadn’t interfered with her mental capabilities. Because he knew that if she could, she would do everything in her power to give them the clue to her whereabouts that they desperately needed.
Monica watched as the leader stood, stretched, moved toward the sink. Her bladder was growing uncomfortable, but she’d held off broaching the subject as long as possible, unwilling to direct a request to the man lying on the bed across from her. Her skin was crawling from his relentless scrutiny, and the notion of him coming close again sickened her.
“Excuse me . . .”
The leader paused at the foot of the bed and gave her a dispassionate perusal.
“I need to use the bathroom.”
Zahir started to stand, but Nouri waved him back and spoke in the language they’d been using for their sparse conversation during the past few hours. Monica assumed it was some Middle Eastern dialect. He motioned for her to rise.
Relieved, Monica swung her legs over the far side of the bed, appalled by their wobbliness. She was afraid they wouldn’t support her, but she’d crawl before she would give the man in the next bed an excuse to wrap his sinewy arms around her again.
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