The truth was, from the very moment she and Charlie had left Uzbekistan, she felt ashamed about their hasty retreat. There had been so much left to do. And Byko was a part of that guilt. Maybe it was a silly thought, a self-aggrandizing exaggeration of her own capacity to bend the world to her will, but she began to think that if she’d stayed perhaps she could have restrained Byko, kept him connected to his better self.
Over the years she had never told Charlie how she felt about leaving Uzbekistan. He, after all, was the one who’d been shot. He was the one who’d been so certain that the conservative path they’d chosen was the right one. And yet she couldn’t help thinking that in his heart of hearts, Charlie might just feel the same way she did—that they had traded a chance to make a difference in the world for a bland, crabbed life of safety and comfort.
Here was a chance to make amends.
And if she was brutally honest with herself—as she was now—she had to admit that her own restlessness was part of what had driven her to take this on. She had burned to do more in the world, to do something bigger, something that mattered.
Of course, sitting here on this soaking-wet chair, the only thing that mattered to her now was finding a way back home. To see her children and her husband again.
“Julie! Julie!” Quinn’s voice intruded into her reverie, as if he was calling to her from the other side of a dark forest. “Earth to Julie!”
She wanted to respond. She knew there was something terrible coming if she didn’t.
But Los Angeles was so much nicer. Why had she ever left? What had she been thinking? If she hadn’t engaged in that email flirtation with Byko, none of this would ever have happened . . .
She could feel her body shivering. But it seemed disconnected from her mind, almost as though she were watching someone else suffer.
Then she was holding hands with Ollie and Meagan. They were walking through Disneyland, all of them skipping toward a sprawling castle, music growing louder as they got closer. “It’s a Small World After All.” Meagan’s favorite ride.
Ollie and Meagan laughing. Closer and closer, the music swelling.
It’s a small world after all, it’s a smaaaaaallll, smaaaaaallll world!
It was warm. The sun was bright. She was happy. They were all so happy. Why hadn’t Charlie come, too? That would have been nice.
Chapter Thirty-three
It took almost five minutes—getting transferred here and there, connecting to various receptionists and skeptical-sounding duty officers at MI6—until finally a man of some apparent authority got on the line. “This is Hopkins.”
Charlie gripped the phone. “My name is Charlie Davis. I’m calling about my wife, Julie Davis. If you don’t know who she is, find someone who does.”
“Go on,” the man said.
“She’s been kidnapped by Alisher Byko. She’s being held in Uzbekistan.”
There was a long pause before the man replied. “And you know this how?”
“I assume you’re tracing this call, which means you can see I’m sitting on the shoulder of the A217, smack in the middle of the Fergana Valley.”
“You know where she is then?”
“I do,” Charlie said. “And I also know where Alisher Byko is. But before we go any further, I need to know how she got herself involved in this mess.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand what mess you’re speaking of.”
“Then maybe you’re not the guy I should be talking to.”
“I don’t mean to sound dense, Mr. Davis, but I know you understand the constraints of operational security for a man in my position. So I’ll need to know what the ‘mess’ is that you’re speaking of before I can divulge classified information to you.”
Charlie took a deep breath. He needed Hopkins’s help to rescue Julie, but before he simply downloaded everything he knew to an agent of MI6, he had to find out exactly what all of this was about. Without information, Charlie had no way of gaining leverage on the man, of keeping him honest, of being able to hold his feet to the fire. But he also had to respect the position Hopkins was in. Which meant it was going to require a gradual trade-off of information and reassurance if Charlie was going to get anywhere with him. It would be a delicate dance.
“Look, Mr. Hopkins, I know you or somebody close to you tried to take Byko down three days ago in Samarkand. I don’t know why. But I do know that my wife was used as bait.”
“I’m going to need to ask you some questions now, Mr. Davis. So I can be sure you’re making this call to me of your own volition. Answer me honestly and I’ll know that you’re not under any kind of coercion. Are we clear?”
“I get it,” Charlie said, “but make it fast.”
“What is your daughter’s birthday?”
“August nineteenth.”
“And her middle name?”
“Victoria.”
“And who is she named for?”
“My mother.”
“And the color of her bedroom?”
Charlie closed his eyes. For a moment, he almost couldn’t remember. And then when he did, when he pictured it, pictured Meagan lying in bed reading one of her favorite bedtime stories, he suddenly found himself choked up.
“The walls are yellow and blue,” he managed, clearing his throat. “With lots of animals on them.”
“I am glad to hear that you’re safe.”
“Well, that’s very kind of you, but Julie’s being tortured for information as we speak. So how about cut through the bullshit and tell me what the hell’s going on.”
“Very well.” Charlie could tell that Hopkins was thinking hard, trying to determine the minimum amount of information he could dribble out in order to placate him. “Your wife had, shall we say, a romantic history with Byko. We knew that and sensed a vulnerability on his part. We’ve been tracking his legitimate communications for several years. We needed to reach him. We saw that your wife had reconnected with him after some years of being out of touch. We asked her to help us establish contact with him. And that is the sum and substance of her connection to my organization.”
“So she had never been associated with MI6 before this?”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Byko,” Charlie said. “He claims you recruited her at Cambridge.”
“You’ve seen him?” Hopkins asked, the tone in his voice betraying what felt like titillated surprise.
“He thinks you sent her to Uzbekistan to spy on him, that you assigned her to get close to me—to get me to plant stories in the local press.”
“The paranoid ramblings of a deranged lunatic,” Hopkins insisted. “If you met with him, then clearly you must have seen how far gone he is.”
Charlie wiped away a bead of sweat from his forehead and noticed that his hand was shaking. He hadn’t intended to ask Hopkins these questions, but now here he was doing just that. Had he completely lost sight of who his wife was? Had his trust in her utterly evaporated? That he was now doubting every moment of their relationship? That he was allowing Byko to get into his head?
“I understand you don’t know me and have no reason to trust me,” Hopkins continued. “But does it really make sense that Julie would be some kind of deep-cover operative for British intelligence while living in suburban Los Angeles? I would hazard the argument that it does not. All I can say is that she was never an agent of the British crown. If it’s any consolation, she was quite torn about this whole business. On several occasions she expressed to me that her greatest reservation about the undertaking was not the danger—but the fact that she had to lie to you. I’ll also say this—I like your wife very much. I suspect I like her for the same reasons as you. She is a very frank and earnest person. An open book, as it were. Honestly, she would have made a wretched agent over the long term. She managed to pull off this one thing because Byko was blinded by his attraction to her. Beyond that, I’m afraid there’s little I can do to reassure you. Now if we can move past this point to the mat
ter at hand, Mr. Davis—”
“The matter at hand is that you dragged an innocent woman into your world and then didn’t protect her!”
“We believed she would be safe. And I deeply regret what’s happened to her.”
“You deeply regret—” Charlie cut himself off, seething. “So she did everything you asked, then the operation went south . . . and you sent her home like she was some flight attendant on her weekend off? She’s a mother with children. Her name’s in the goddamn phone book! It never occured to you that Byko might suspect her? That he might send somebody after her? Couldn’t you have called the CIA or FBI and gotten her some protection?”
There was a moment of awkward silence. “I understand your anger, Mr. Davis. All I can tell you is that we had certain operational constraints and no reason to believe her cover had been blown.”
“And what is it that Byko’s into that made it so damn important for you to recruit a mother of two young children and put her in this position?”
“I’m afraid that is where the line has to be drawn, Mr. Davis. I cannot breach security on the specifics of this matter.”
“Then I guess you don’t want to know where Byko is.”
There was a slight pause before Hopkins answered. Charlie could tell the man was about to go with a new tack.
“I’m assuming the real reason for your call is to find out how we can help you save her?”
“Would you even give a shit?” Charlie barked. “Given that she’s just a civilian asset you’ve used up and thrown away?”
“I do very much give a shit, Mr. Davis. And you are wasting valuable time by not telling me what you know.”
“You’re right, Mr. Hopkins. The clock’s ticking. And Byko’s not going to stay at this location for very long. So you’d better come clean with me now.”
Hopkins sighed loudly. “You understand this is a matter of grave international security. And I’m going to trust that I can rely on your integrity as a journalist. What I’m about to tell you cannot be repeated. To anyone.”
“You have my word,” Charlie said.
“Byko is planning a coup against the Karimov government. Whatever the West’s reservations about the current regime, they have been a valuable ally. We need them. And we need to convince Byko that now is not the time.”
“Bullshit,” Charlie snapped. “Julie despises the regime. She would never have risked her life to help that gang of crooks and thugs.”
Hopkins said nothing.
“Five seconds, Mr. Hopkins. Do you want Byko or not? Five. Four. Three. I’m hanging up now—”
“Mr. Davis! Wait.” Charlie could hear something verging on panic in Hopkins’s voice. “What about this? Tell me Byko’s location and I swear on my own children if you go to the embassy, I’ll speak to you on a secure line and clarify every—”
“Good-bye, Mr. Hopkins.”
“Bombs!”
The line was quiet for a moment. Charlie could almost feel Hopkins’s regret and desperation as his voice dropped to a whisper. “Dirty bombs.”
“Where?” Charlie asked.
“A variety of major cities across the globe.”
“Los Angeles?”
“No. Not Los Angeles.”
“What cities then?”
“That is where I must draw the line,” Hopkins replied heavily. “You know I’ve already told you far more than I should have.”
“And how do you know that he’s planning this?”
“We’ve tracked shipments of strontium-90, uranium-238 and cesium-137 from his uranium mine to these various cities. But we haven’t been able to find or penetrate any of the individual terror cells or pin down the exact targets in those cities. That’s why we need Byko.”
Charlie ran his hand across his face as he tried to make sense of this enormous revelation. And then something occurred to him. Oliver’s birthday.
“Jesus Christ, it’s happening tomorrow,” Charlie said. “The anniversary of the massacre.”
“Where is he, Mr. Davis?”
“What about Julie?”
“If she’s with Byko, as you say, we’ll find her, too. We’ve got an SAS team on standby right now. They can be wheels up in a matter of minutes. We’ll find her and we’ll bring her home. I promise you. Meantime, we’ll vector in a satellite to the location you identify. That’ll allow us to track them.”
Charlie didn’t want to admit it—as angry as he felt at the man—but there was something about this Hopkins guy that he liked, something that seemed solid, staunch, reliable. He’d interviewed a lot of spies over the years. And he’d found that some—for want of a better way of putting it—lied with purpose and integrity because it was part of doing their job, while others lied because they enjoyed it. Charlie’s guess was that Hopkins was the former type of man.
“Okay,” Charlie said. “Here’s what I’ve got for you . . .”
Charlie gave Hopkins the location of Byko’s compound and waited while Hopkins’s team vectored in the satellite.
It took nearly ten minutes before Hopkins came back on the line. “Brilliant. We’ve got the satellite up.”
“Can you see the compound?”
“We can,” Hopkins replied. “And what look like a half-dozen armored vehicles parked in some kind of atrium.”
“They’re still there,” Charlie said, exhaling gratefully.
“It appears that way. If they move now, we’ll be able to track them.”
“So you’re sending in a tactical unit?”
“As soon as we’re off the phone, I’ll scramble the SAS team.”
“You’d better not be screwing with me,” Charlie warned.
“Mr. Davis, it must be clear to you at this point that our interests are entirely aligned. I have no reason to screw with you.”
“Nevertheless,” Charlie continued, “if I don’t hear something from you in the next six hours, I’ll be calling the Associated Press and giving them everything we just talked about.”
“You gave me your word,” Hopkins replied.
“Yes I did, as I’m sure you gave Julie your word that you could protect her.”
“Mr. Davis, this is becoming quite preposterous. I can assure you—”
“I don’t need assurance, Mr. Hopkins. I need insurance. And that’s what I’ve got in my back pocket.”
“I understand you loud and clear, Mr. Davis. And you will hear from me. But please understand, I can’t tell you what Byko is going to do with your wife in the next few hours. All I can promise is that the men we’ll send to save her are second to none, and if she’s still alive, we’ll get her out of there.”
“Well, get going then,” Charlie ordered.
Without reply, Hopkins was gone and Charlie set the phone down on the seat next to him.
They were professionals. They would do what needed to be done.
It was almost over.
Chapter Thirty-four
Hopkins hung up the phone, his eyes jumping to the huge screen at the front of the War Room. He was so angry he could barely concentrate on what he saw in front of him. He had never really expected that Byko would reach out to Los Angeles to snatch Julie, but he’d known that retribution against her was possible, and he’d asked Bryce to organize a protection detail for her until Byko had been neutralized.
Bryce had categorically refused.
His explanation was that Julie Davis bore dual UK–American citizenship. As an American citizen, she was prohibited by U.S. law from acting as an agent of any foreign power. If he alerted the FBI about her status as an agent for MI6, he would not only risk a diplomatic brouhaha, he might be opening the door to espionage and treason charges against Julie.
Then what about authorizing an MI6 team to protect her? Hopkins had asked.
This request, Bryce had scoffed, was even more foolish. If the team was blown or attracted the attention of American authorities, not only would Julie be at risk for prosecution, but so would the British agents.
&
nbsp; Hopkins had contended rather forcefully that these arguments were unpersuasive, that with three American cities in the crosshairs of Byko’s bomb plot, even the territorial Yanks wouldn’t be foolish enough to rush about prosecuting agents of allied nations.
Bryce had promptly cut him off at the knees: No protection for the Davis woman, too much at stake, too much risk, debate over, period.
Hopkins had suspected that Bryce’s real rationale had gone unstated. The discovery of the Byko plot had been entirely MI6’s work. Assuming the plot were to be foiled, it would be the intelligence coup of the decade and Bryce didn’t want any excuse to spread the glory to foreign agencies—most particularly to the Americans. Moreover, any explanation about Julie Davis’s role in the botched Samarkand takedown would raise questions about Bryce’s decision making. Which would open the door for the Americans, with their limitless resources, to bludgeon their way into the investigation and ultimately claim the credit that might appertain to it. In that scenario, MI6 would play the role of the pathetic bungler, its incompetence only swept away when the big dogs of the American intelligence community came in to save the day. That was a narrative Bryce would never allow.
Ergo, Julie Davis was expendable.
Hopkins felt a burn of anger and shame. He was the one who’d gone to Los Angeles, he was the one who’d preyed on her ideals, he was the one who’d convinced her to sacrifice, he was the one who’d told her not to confide in her husband. And now the man was calling him from the bowels of Central Asia, having risked his own life to find her.
It was up to Hopkins to do whatever he could to correct the mess.
He picked up the phone, rang Colonel Ian Sturbridge, commander of the Special Air Service in Hereford.
“Hullo, Hopkins,” Sturbridge said.
“Go time,” Hopkins said. “We’ve got a fix on Byko. I’m sending you telemetry and satellite as we speak.”
“My chap’s got it coming in right now.”
Out of Range: A Novel Page 18