by Sam Christer
The director of the FBI wants to talk privately to her.
The light on her desk phone flashes. She snatches up the receiver, ‘Yes, sir.’
Peter Lansley’s noted as the kind of boss who likes to warm up a conversation. That’s before he drops a bucket of ice down your pants. So she’s not surprised to hear him start with small talk. ‘How are you, Sandra? I’ve not seen you since the VICAP conference in Quantico.’
‘I’m very fine, sir. Thank you for asking.’
‘Good presentation that day – you certainly got some of the old timers thinking. I’m calling you about the Fallon case; there’s something I need to tell you off the record.’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘In a moment you’ll receive a call from a man who will give you two code words: Tole and Mac. That’s Tango, Oscar, Lima, Echo. And Mike, Alpha, Charlie.’
‘I’ve got it, sir.’
‘Good. Because after that, this man will give you some information and believe me, you’ll be able to trust it. He’s a platinum-quality source. The intel we’ve had from him has never once been wrong. Never, Sandra.’
She notes his emphasis. ‘This information, does it come from our side of the line or the other side, sir?’
There’s a hint of laughter in his voice. ‘Our side, Sandra. Very much our side. I told the caller that you could be trusted to deal directly with him. Don’t let me down.’
‘I won’t, sir.’
The line goes dead. Donovan returns the receiver to its cradle and wonders what the hell anyone outside her team or Bob Beam’s squad can tell her about the kidnapping of Mitzi Fallon’s kids.
She doesn’t have to wait long.
Her secretary buzzes through. ‘I have a man on the phone. He says Director Lansley will have spoken to you and you’ll be expecting this call.’
Her eyes widen in anticipation. ‘Put him through, Sylvia. Put him through.’
152
CARDIGAN, WALES
As Owain’s helicopter sifts air over Cardigan he thinks how, centuries ago, this had been the starting and stopping point for hundreds of ships and thousands of sailors. It supported a booming shipbuilding industry, a thriving trade in wool export and a buoyant local community.
Not any more.
Once the river silted up, the big boats stopped coming and economic rot set in. Nowadays it’s a small town with a population of less than five thousand. Tourists tend to be either of the history or religious variety. They visit the eleventh-century castle or St Mary’s, the twelfth-century church that houses the Catholic national shrine of Wales, a statue of the Blessed Virgin known as Our Lady of the Taper and Our Lady of Cardigan.
The shrine is the focus of the new Pope’s visit, the first to Wales for over thirty years. A cause for national celebration. And Owain’s first port of call.
Rain clouds shroud the break of dawn and temperatures are almost frosty as a limousine picks him up and heads across town. Alongside him is Carrie Auckland, a former MI5 high flyer who has been heading his European VIP protective units for the past five years. The forty-two-year-old is kitted out in a black bomber jacket, matching combat pants and sneakers.
She shifts her wiry, athletic frame and tries to reassure him that everything is going to be fine. ‘Every hour of every day, we check bins, drains, post boxes and vantage points along the papal route. There’s not a house, apartment, store or garage we haven’t turned over. There’s no chance of an attempt on his life.’
‘There’s always a chance, Carrie – that’s why I’m here.’
‘Unnecessarily, I hope.’
‘Me too. Don’t for one moment think my early arrival is a vote of no confidence. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the best in the business.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It’s just that the Watch Team insists there will be an attempt on the Holy Father’s life and an extra pair of hands is always useful.’
‘Watch have been wrong before.’ She hands over a manila folder filled with briefing sheets.
‘Many times. And I hope they are today.’
‘The first document is the papal agenda,’ she explains. ‘The second, a list of people who will meet the Holy Father or be close to him. I’ve talked to Vatican security and either you or I will never be more than a few yards away. The third is a profile on the pontiff and his travelling habits. The fourth, an analysis of —’
He cuts her short. ‘Too much, Carrie – just give me the highlights.’
‘Okay. Well, this is the first time a Pope has been in Wales since 1982. He’s visiting Cardigan, Swansea and Cardiff before arriving late in Westminster for Mass in the morning, then a flight to Belgium to bless a further restoration of The Ghent Altarpiece.’
‘We’ll talk about Ghent later. Just focus on Cardigan for the moment.’
‘The village is easy for containment. I think between ourselves, the Vatican and security services we’re locked down safe. The church goes back to the twelfth century but it’s been extended, modernized and a place developed for the shrine.’ She points to the folder. ‘The schematics are all in there. You’ll see that it’s a difficult area to cover, so we’ve had to be extra vigilant there.’
‘Good. You seem very well-prepared.’ He relaxes a little. ‘From a security point of view, what are you most worried about?’
She smiles. ‘The unexpected. The nature of life is that something unexpected always happens.’
153
FBI HQ, SAN FRANCISCO
Sandra Donovan slides two photographs across her desk. One of a man and one of a woman.
Bob Beam picks them up. ‘What are these?’
‘Just sent to me via an untraceable server.’
He smiles. ‘There’s no such thing as untraceable.’
‘Really? Go talk to the tech boys. I just said the same thing to them and they laughed in my face. They’ll bore you rigid with explanations of how these JPEGs got pinged through every IP server in Asia before arriving here.’
He holds up the pictures. ‘And these people are?’
‘Gerry and Susan Stanhope. Paul and Sharron Glass. Steve and Sarah Dopler. Or more familiarly, Chris and Tess Wilkins. According to a trusted source, they’re behind the Fallon kidnapping.’
He stares at the round face of the man and the chiselled cheeks of a blonde woman. ‘We came across the same name when checking out rentals. What’s the source?’
‘I can’t say, but it’s good.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’
‘Can’t. It came to me via Lansley.’
His eyes widen. ‘Anything other than pictures to go on?’
Donovan rests her hands on the desk. ‘Apparently, there’s a select group of former soldiers already hunting the Wilkins couple.’
‘Mercenaries?’
‘I don’t know who’s paying or controlling them, just that Lansley says we can trust them. The man who called me supplied a list of all the locations that they’re searching.’
He shrugs. ‘So what am I supposed to do?’
She flips a sheet of paper to him. ‘These are places they say they can’t get to for the next hour. Maybe you can prioritize these addresses as part of your ops?’
‘For the record, I don’t like working on intel I don’t know the provenance of.’
‘Noted.’
He snatches it from her. ‘Eight different locales. Great.’
‘It’s better than we had, Bob.’
He scrapes back the chair, stands and waves the paper at her as he heads for the door. ‘This is going to end badly. Remember I said that.’
‘Make sure it doesn’t and —’
He slams the door.
‘— don’t slam the door!’
154
STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA
The sixty-seven-mile journey takes Chris Wilkins an hour and forty minutes.
He drives west into Danville, south to Dublin and then east through Tracy and north up towards Stockton.
About a mile away from the town’s General Hospital, he pulls off the freeway, takes a left and parks near the Chinese Cemetery. He puts a hand across the top of the passenger seat, turns and looks into the back of the Toyota where Amber is tied up beneath a blanket. She hasn’t been given any painkillers or sedatives for more than three hours because he needs her to be lucid when she gets into the emergency room. The lack of drugs means she’s distressed and is moaning so much he wants to clip her.
‘We’re about there. I’ll have you in a hospital in a few minutes. Remember, you get them to call your mom right away. Not after treatment – right away.’
Before restarting the engine, he uses a new burner to call London. ‘The girl will be inside San Joaquin Hospital in Stockton within ten minutes. Call me when she’s connected with the mom, then I’m gone.’
‘I understand,’ says Marchetti.
‘You’d better. And don’t go forgetting that extra risk equals extra payment.’
‘Don’t worry about your money.’
Chris kills the call and dials Tess. ‘I’m there and about to go in.’
‘Good luck, baby. Love you.’
‘Love you too, sweetcheeks.’ He hangs up, checks the time and his gun. Three hours from now, he’ll be catching a flight to Vegas from Stockton airport. Either that or he’ll be running for his life, because once Amber’s made the call to her mother, he’s going to kill her. Then he’ll call Tess and she’ll kill the other one.
After that, they’ll both be gone.
So far gone, it’ll be like they never existed.
155
SSOA OFFICES, NEW YORK
It’s so long since Gareth Madoc has eaten, his stomach sounds like a damaged washing machine. He unwraps the sandwich his secretary has brought him. It’s his favourite pastrami with mustard on rye and it’s an inch from his mouth when his desk phone rings.
‘Hell and damnation.’ He drops the food back on its greaseproof paper and picks up the call. ‘Madoc.’
‘Don’t sound so crabby; it’s Steffani.’
‘The pick-ups all worked out?’
‘Yeah, even better than that. I owe you one.’
‘You owe me several and don’t you forget. Spill the details.’
‘Bin al-Shibh’s face was a picture. Never saw it coming. He was in a private hangar at JFK about to board a Lear. We had him boxed like a dog.’
‘Any shooting?’
‘No. Came without a tear. We have him at CTU under interrogation. Mousavi and Tabrizi are a different story.’
‘More troublesome, I guess.’
‘You guess right. Tabrizi is a fit boy. We took him at the house your people had been sitting on, but he fought like crazy. Had to break his face and some ribs before he gave up. Mousavi we took down in a cheap diner over the east side, when he went to the men’s room. Can you believe this – he had one hand on a concealed gun even while taking a leak.’
‘It’s what you call being tooled up.’
‘Ha freakin’ ha. My agent wasn’t laughing – the fucker shot him in the foot and pissed all over him.’
‘He okay?’
‘Yeah, the injury’s the kind that’ll fade but the story won’t.’
‘What about Malek Hussan?’
‘Made us on the street and ran for it. After fifty yards, he had to stop and give up. Poor fuck nearly wheezed himself into a heart attack.’
‘Korshidi?’
‘Just this minute swept him up. He’s playing it smart, alleging discrimination against him and his mosque. He’ll change his tune when we run him the tape he made of al-Shibh.’
‘Now you’ve got him, I’m going to take his daughter out of circulation; she was one of our main sources.’ As an afterthought he adds, ‘Maybe we’ll scoop up her mother too. Can you help with a safe house if necessary?’
‘Least I can do. We’ve got a place in Greenwich. It’ll be good for a day or so.’
‘Thanks. I guess none of them have given up the location of the planned explosion?’
Steffani laughs. ‘That’s the second guess you’ve got right. I’ll call you if anyone sings, but don’t hold your breath, buddy.’
156
SAN JOAQUIN HOSPITAL, STOCKTON
It’s bedlam in ER.
Charge Nurse Betty Lipton’s working a double and has just had a surgeon and two nurses call in sick.
Theatre is backed up with all manner of injuries. A lumberjack who chain-sawed a thigh bone. Two separate road traffic incidents with complicated crush and skull injuries. And a father of two who tried to blow his own head off with a handgun.
‘Nurse!’
She ignores the shout from the rows of the walking wounded.
‘Nurse!’
She looks up from her computer. Several people are stood peering at something. No doubt a collapse.
‘Nurse!’
‘Okay! Save your blood pressure, I’m coming.’ She rounds the desk and heads over. Plastic seats are pushed back.
Someone’s out for the count at the back of the room.
‘Move to one side, give me some room.’
On the ground is a teenage girl. She’s wrapped in a Tartan car blanket that someone’s pulled open. Her legs and hands are bound. There’s a gag in her mouth.
Stapled to her chest is a note.
‘DON’T CALL THE COPS.’
157
SAN JOAQUIN HOSPITAL, STOCKTON
Amber Fallon is lifted onto a gurney and rushed into a treatment cubicle. Nurses check vital signs, they hook up drips and unwrap blood-stained bandages around her hand.
Outside the curtain, Betty Lipton hands the note to hospital administrator Ann Lesley, and brings her up to speed. ‘Kid’s called Amber Fallon. She’s got a partially severed finger and is wiped out. Says she has to call her mom straight away or her sister gets killed.’
Lesley reads the note. ‘You think she’s genuine, or is this a clinical case of attention grabbing?’
‘Munchausen is always hard to tell. I guess we make the call to her mom and find out.’
‘I want to see her first.’
Betty leads the way into the cubicle.
Amber is propped up on a pillow and looks frightened. She jabbers as soon as she sees them, ‘I have to call my mom – the man said.’
Lesley lifts a handset from a wall mount. ‘What’s her number, honey?’
‘It’s in my pocket.’ She can’t get at it because her hand is still being cleaned up. ‘It’s not my mom’s cell but one that the man said she’d be on.’
Betty gets it for her and hands it across.
‘What man do you mean, honey?’ Lesley checks the digits on the note and enters them.
‘The one who took us. He said if I don’t call straight away, he’ll kill Jade.’
‘Jade’s your sister?’ She hits dial.
‘Yes.’ She sounds close to breaking.
The number rings out and is instantly picked up. ‘Hello.’
‘This is Ann Lesley from San Joaquin Hospital. Who is that?’
‘Lieutenant Fallon – do you have my daughter?’
She’s surprised the mom is a cop. ‘Yes, I do. Amber’s just being treated by some of my staff. Mrs Fallon —’
Mitzi cuts her off. ‘Lady, I don’t have time for questions. Give me the main number of your hospital, so I can call back and confirm you are who you say you are. Please do this right away – a lot of lives depend on it.’
‘The number you need is four six eight, four seven hundred. If you’re calling from out of Stockton the area code is two zero nine. Tell reception to put the call through to ER and they’ll route it to me.’
‘Is she okay?’
‘She’s fine, Mrs Fallon. She’s in safe hands now.’
Mitzi feels like she’s going to cry. ‘Thanks.’
The administrator hangs up, ducks the curtain and shouts to the triage desk. ‘Call switchboard and say they’re about to get a call for me. It’s urgen
t and needs to be put through immediately.’
Lesley looks around the waiting area as the nurse calls the operator. ER is jammed to bursting. She wishes there was somewhere she could shift all these patients to.
She re-enters the cubicle and looks at the young girl on the bed. Poor kid is stressed out and, judging from the whiteness of her skin, pretty bled out too.
She takes a tissue from a box at the side of the bed and wipes tears welling up in the corners of Amber’s reddened eyes.
The phone on the wall rings. Everyone stares at it.
Lesley snatches it from the cradle. ‘Hello.’
‘It’s Mitzi Fallon. Are you still with Amber?’
‘Yes, Mrs Fallon.’
‘Then for God’s sake get her somewhere safe and call the —’
The line goes dead.
Amber looks up at the administrator. ‘What did Mom say?’
She puts a reassuring hand to the girl’s face. ‘She says you’re not to worry. Everything’s going to be fine.’
158
FBI HQ, SAN FRANCISCO
‘San Joaquin Hospital – Amber Fallon has just been admitted to the ER.’
Bob Beam looks up from his desk at Assistant Director Donovan. ‘Your source again?’
She corrects him. ‘Lansley’s source.’
His instinct is to check. Always check before you deploy. He picks up his desk phone. ‘Get me the administrator at San Joaquin Hospital in Stockton. I’ll hold.’
The AD lets out a sigh of frustration. ‘You need to get a team there, Bob, and you need to do it quick.’
He puts his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘I need to be sure, Sandra. Post budget cuts mean we have too few people and once they’re gone they’re gone.’