Authors: Gary Haynes
Having found nothing in her mind to calm her, Linda prayed to God for her safety, and asked Him to forgive the sins she had committed in her life. But when she finished, she did not feel His grace; there was still nothing but the terrible reality of what she now knew was a coffin.
Wait, she thought. The respirator. If they want me dead why go to all this trouble? They could have just shot me. She couldn’t conceive of anyone being as cruel as to plan a gradual death in a coffin, unless the Leopards were going to use it as terrorist propaganda. But they’ve already said they would behead me, she told herself. Something that now seemed perversely preferable.
She heard the lid being wedged open. The bright, artificial light hit her eyes and she squinted. The face of the man who’d punched her appeared.
“You’re still alive. That’s good. It won’t be long now. I’ll just check around here,” he said in his British accent as he thrust his hand in and tugged on the ropes that bound her.
Then he fiddled around with the breathing apparatus. Presumably satisfied, he lifted another hypodermic syringe, the needle glinting before a tear of liquid ran over it. He brushed the burqa up her forearm, revealing bare skin. She felt her lower forearm being slapped harshly before he injected a vein with an unknown drug and lowered the lid. She strained to soak up the last of the light, her sense of confusion only matched by the terror of her further confinement in the coffin, the dread of claustrophobia and the sense of being buried alive.
Faintly, she heard what sounded like metal claps being snapped down. Then was nothing but her dreams and nightmares as she passed into an induced unconsciousness once more.
After retrieving the backpack from the rental car, which he’d left in situ, Tom sat between Lester and Karen on the VW’s front-bench seat. He’d asked her to check out ADC online via the powerful laptop balancing on her thighs, find out what she could and see whether or not there was any reference to a head of security called Billy Joe Hawks. He’d said the HQ was in Arlington County, or had been.
After she’d logged on, he’d watched her fingers move over the keypad using all ten digits, her flow interrupted only by a meticulous scanning of the many web pages she’d brought up. He could tell that she was speed-reading as she navigated the sites. She seemed keen and intelligent, and he found himself thinking that under different circumstances he might have asked her if she liked Thai food.
Five minutes later, she said, “The CEO is called Peter Swiss. DoB May 2nd ‘62. He’s a naturalized US citizen, a former French national. Ex-French Foreign Legion officer. The 2nd Rep.”
“Paratroopers. Damn good, too. I was seconded to the Legion for six months back in the day,” Lester said, his eyes darting around for road signs, despite the oral instructions coming from Davina.
“You didn’t tell me,” said Tom.
“I don’t tell you everything, man.”
“Thank God for that.”
“ADC has major contracts with the US military,” Karen said. “It builds assault helicopters and land-to-air rocket systems. A lot else besides. The corporate HQ is still in Arlington County, near the Pentagon. But there’s no mention of Hawks. Here’s Swiss.”
Tom leant over and she showed him a photo of the CEO. It looked like a studio shot. His face was taut and tanned. There was a distinct lack of lines around the clear blue eyes for a man of his age, and his hair was blond, without a hint of grey. He was sort of elegant-looking, Tom thought.
“I need to be sure Hawks still works for ADC,” he said.
“You want me to call them?” Karen asked.
Tom nodded.
Karen took out her cell. She thumbed in the number as she read it online, put the phone on speaker. Five seconds later, a young woman with a New York accent answered. After Karen asked to speak with Hawks, saying she was a major at the Pentagon, the woman put her on hold. About ten seconds later, she said that he was unavailable presently, but that she could speak with his PA. Karen declined, saying she would call back later.
Disconnecting, Karen said, “So what now?”
Tom pursed his lips.
“Listen, Tom. I know you don’t wanna tell us much so we can just act dumb if this all goes to hell, but we can’t help unless we know what we’re looking for,” Lester said, accelerating past a pale-brown Winnebago.
Tom sighed. His friend was right. He told them what he knew about Hawks, which wasn’t a great deal, and that he might be involved in the secretary’s abduction. He said that he didn’t think all the men involved were Muslims.
“If I’m right, then I figure the way forward is to trick Hawks into contacting whoever has her. That’s it. That’s all I have.”
“Surveillance and hacking equipment installed covertly might be the key to finding the whereabouts of the secretary,” Karen said. “And it’s a plus that Hawks is head of security.”
“How come?” Tom asked.
“Because he’ll think that the building, phones and computers are bug and virus-free,” she said. “They’ll be swept on a regular basis, which means he feels safe.”
Tom nodded. “Lester?”
“Normally you’d bribe a low-paid worker like a cleaner to place a bugged calculator or electric plug inside a room. Or blackmail an insider, depending on their tastes or shortcomings. Or use one of your own to make out they’re an electrician. And although I agree with Karen, it takes time and that’s somethin’ we ain’t got, right?”
Resting his head against the metal bar behind him, Tom clasped his jaw. “Right. We don’t have time. Besides, I don’t even know who else is involved. It might be just Hawks and nothing to do with ADC. If so, he’s unlikely to use any company equipment. Come to think of it, even if ADC
is
involved, they won’t risk it, either.”
Lester braked at a red stop. “He’ll use a disposable cell, too,” he said.
“What about if we spook him, get him into the open and trace the call he’s dialling?” Tom asked.
“A hidden monitoring device can capture the telephone number dialled by a touch phone, but not a cellphone,” Karen said. “It processes the dial tone. But I don’t know of any equipment we can utilize quickly that could do the job on a cell, at least without getting our hands on it first. If we knew the make, there are ways to activate the mic, and we could listen in on his real-time conversations, assuming he had the cell on him. But we don’t.”
“Can you see if ADC own any other buildings in the area?” Tom asked.
“Sure, Tom,” she said, her fingers flying over the keyboard again.
“Whatcha thinking, Tom?” Lester asked.
“That I’m sick of sitting on my ass.”
“’Bout time,” Lester said, nodding.
After an almost seven-hour flight, the man who’d checked on the secretary stepped out of the military transport plane they’d travelled in from Abu Dhabi. It was a grey day, the rain coming down in sheets, a westerly wind cutting in from the coast. On the French Air Force base tarmac runway, he oversaw the coffin being taken from the cargo bay and lifted by four men into the back of a dark-blue Citroën van. The secretary would be driven to a remote location in Normandy, northern France. One of the last places on earth that the US intelligence community would be likely to look for her.
He walked over to two French Air Force officers, spoke with them and handed over a package, same as he’d done at Air Base 104 Al Dhafra. Half then, half on successful delivery. The officers weren’t habitually corrupt, but they’d taken the bribe just the same. They’d been told that the corpse in the coffin was that of a French national, the son of a wealthy Paris businessman, who’d died in a prison cell in UAE after being found with drugs in his suitcase. The businessman hadn’t wanted any bad publicity, and had asked that his son be brought home this way in order to avoid it. It wasn’t a great story, and the officers were putting their careers on the line, but it had worked.
The payment made, he got into the front passenger seat of the van, glancing at the two SUVs parked waiting behind. The team were all ex-French Foreign Legion or former European Special Forces’ soldiers: six French nationals, three French-speaking Belgians and a couple of Brits. The little cortège pulled away, heading west.
One of the Belgians asked him a question, using his name. He threatened to break his neck for being so unprofessional. The Belgian had called him Proctor. As far as the British and Americans were concerned, he’d died in the Hindu Kush, and he wanted it kept that way.
He’d been a model soldier. His old mates would’ve never believed he was capable of murdering his spotter, Mike Rowe, whom he had shot in the back of the head with a sniper rifle. Although they’d been promised half of the million-dollar reward put up by the US government if they killed Mullah Kakar, he’d already been offered ten times that in pounds sterling for his role in the treachery. After over a decade of war, he’d realized that adrenalin rushes wouldn’t compensate for an early death or blown-off limbs. Proctor now planned to spend a long retirement on a beach so remote that it barely showed up on a map.
Lester had driven at an illegal speed for most of the way from Massachusetts to DC, getting there in just over six hours, which made it late afternoon. Checking his watch, Tom had calculated that he had twenty-three hours left. He’d rented a car, a metallic-black Honda Accord. Lester had said he had to pick up surveillance equipment and specialized weapons from a subterranean armoury beneath his basement garage, taking Karen with him. They would meet at the agreed place and time.
Tom waited for an hour at a lot off Interstate 395, and then drove the short distance to Arlington County, Virginia, over the Potomac River via a four-lane road-bridge from the capital.
The ADC HQ was an office complex, a three-storey glass-and-chrome monstrosity. It sprawled over a ten-acre site, the interlinked corridors branching off from the main hub, as if the architect had been fascinated by the complexity of a spider’s web. There were no signs that it was the HQ of a major arms manufacturer, except that the security on the gate was backed up by an array of CCTV cameras, perched on poles above parallel chain-linked fences, glittering like a mirage in the sunlight.
Now that he had a physical description of Hawks, at least one that was eight years old and from someone with as keen an eye as Crane, he waited in the Honda fifty metres from the entrance, a line of yellow buckeye trees opposite. So far there was no evidence that Hawks was working with anyone else in the US. But he had to be, Tom thought. He couldn’t be doing this alone.
The one key factor that was missing as far as Tom was concerned at this juncture was motive. If the Leopards had taken her, which he now had reason to doubt, motive would not have been a problem. But why would a Westerner or Westerners be involved? It made no sense to him, unless they’d just been used as mercenaries. He thought about taking Hawks to a remote lock-up as he’d done with Mahmood. But the guy was ex-CIA and he guessed that, unless he produced a blowtorch, he wouldn’t talk, and he wasn’t prepared to do that. Even if he did, Hawks would likely make up a story that couldn’t be verified one way or the other in the timeframe. It just wasn’t a viable option.
He took his cell from inside his jacket pocket and rang ADC. He asked to speak with Hawks and said it was very important. When the receptionist asked who it was, he said Tom Dupree from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. After a twenty-second delay, and Tom getting tired of the bland music being played in his ear, Hawks took the call.
“Mr Dupree, how can I help you?”
The voice was low and guttural. From the north-east. Boston, perhaps, Tom thought.
“I’m in a car outside your office. Maybe we could talk.”
“What about?” Hawks asked.
“You know what about.”
“I’m sorry, but you have me at a disadvantage.”
“Your Pakistani friend and the secretary.”
There was a five-second pause. “You still have me at a disadvantage, Mr Dupree.”
“I don’t think so. Listen, we should have this discussion face to face. But it has to be now.”
“Good day, Mr Dupree.”
“You hang up on me, you won’t last the day.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Yes, it is,” Tom said, matter-of-factly.
He could almost hear Hawks’s brain ticking over on the end of the line. He’s thinking where, Tom thought. If he didn’t say the warehouse, which Karen had located on her laptop in Lester’s van, Tom would suggest the nearest motel. It was a mile from the warehouse and he would take it from there.
“Okay. But not here,” Hawks said.
“There’s a motel fifteen miles away called The Morning View. You know it?”
“I do,” Hawks said.
“The parking lot.”
“Give me a half-hour.”
“Sure,” Tom said.
“Alone.”
“I’m happy with that. But I’ll watch you come out and follow you there.”
There was another pause. “Okay,” Hawks replied.
Tom drove up almost parallel to the open entrance gate and pulled over.
Twenty minutes later, a man matching Crane’s description of Hawks – thickset with curly black hair – walked across the front parking lot to a dark-blue BMW SUV. He wore a light-grey suit, which hugged his muscles as he strode out. Despite his size, Tom noticed a certain degree of agility and gracefulness in his movement, a gait that spoke of a trained body. Hawks got into his SUV and pulled out of the space, stopping level with the gate. The barrier lifted and he looked around. He’s clocked me, Tom thought. Good.
As Hawks drove out onto the road Tom started the Honda. He followed him out of Arlington County into the pig farms and cattle pasture of rural Virginia, seeing Hawks peering into the rear-view mirror on a number of occasions, checking he was behind him.
After driving past miles of whitewashed split-rail fences, Tom swung the Honda around a tight bend with acres of swaying crops on either side. He saw a rusted pickup truck blocking the road some thirty metres ahead. It appeared to have smashed into Hawks’s BMW. The hood was up, the windshield shattered, the scene looking kind of unnerving. There was no sign of Hawks, or anyone else for that matter.
It started to drizzle, the fine drops smearing the windshield, as the automatic wipers activated in slow mode. Tom saw a white guy stand up from behind the far-back door of the pickup. He started to walk toward the Honda as Tom slowed to a stop. He wore an expensively cut suit and didn’t appear to be concerned, his face grinning as he ambled along. Traits and apparel that didn’t sit well with the vehicle he’d been apparently driving, let alone the car wreck. He held up his hand, fingers splayed, and gestured to Tom to get out of the car, as if he were in need of jumpstart leads, or just a lift to the nearest auto garage. As he got closer Tom could just about make out that the guy’s hand didn’t have a spot of dirt or oil on it. No chance, he thought. He guessed that the scene was the best that could’ve been concocted in the short timeframe.
He stayed put, locking the doors remotely.
When the white guy was a metre or so away, he went for what Tom knew would be a piece under his armpit. He jerked the Honda into reverse and floored the gas pedal. Putting an arm over the top of the passenger seat, he twisted around. He concentrated on steering straight one-handed, ensuring he wouldn’t career into an oncoming vehicle, although the back wipers made visibility difficult at first.
After five seconds, Tom knew he was travelling as fast as the car would go in reverse, the engine sounding as if it were on the point of disintegrating. He jerked the steering wheel to the left, simultaneously engaging the parking brake. The car spun around roughly 160 degrees in what appeared to be a controlled skid, the tyres squealing under the pressure that the moonshine manoeuvre exacted.
But then the car tilted for a second, threatening to roll. Once he was sure the tyres had reengaged with the asphalt, he released the emergency brake and shoved the stick into drive mode, accelerating as fast as the automatic gearbox would allow.
Just then, a ten-wheeled truck turned into the bend, and Tom had to brake hard to avoid hitting it. He checked the rear-view. The white guy was running towards him, a cell to his ear and a handgun held upright at chest height. He turned back around. The truck had blocked the road with its grey bulk. It had feigned jackknifing, which wouldn’t look untoward to a random car coming up behind, and meant that the driver of the truck was a consummate pro.
The cab door opened and a black guy jumped down. He wore blue overalls, a ball cap and shades. He was carrying a pump-action shotgun in both hands. Tom couldn’t drive off-road, because irrigation ditches separated the asphalt from the fields. Accepting the situation, he rested his hands on the steering wheel just as the white guy got to him and levelled the handgun at his head.