There’s another pause. She can see Barnes’s face struggling with emotions, and Samantha says, “That’s the deal. Make the call now, and I’ll never release the video.”
In a tight voice, Barnes says, “Not good enough. I want that thumb drive, and I want your promise no other copies exist.”
Samantha says, “No other copies exist, and this thumb drive isn’t leaving my possession.”
With that, she scoops it up and puts it in her suit jacket pocket. “Pamela. Make the call.”
Poker face, Samantha thinks.
Silence.
The ticking of an antique clock in the Oval Office.
A far-off siren on the street.
Barnes picks up the phone. “Paul,” she says, “connect me again with the National Military Command Center.”
Barnes waits.
Samantha waits.
“Colonel Sinclair? This is President Barnes. I’m reversing my earlier order grounding that National Guard flight at Pease. Contact the wing commander. That flight is to leave immediately.”
She slams the receiver down. “Done. Happy now?”
Samantha stands up and says, “Good night, Madam President. Glad we could sort this out.”
Ten minutes later, Samantha Keating is out on 15th Street Northwest, the White House and its compound behind her, her legs shaking, her insides violently rolling around, as if she’s about to vomit.
She pulls it together, does her best to wave down a cab in the heavy traffic.
As she waits, she puts a hand into her purse, gently caresses the thumb drive—the one that contains a backup of her remarks for tomorrow night.
Matt, she thinks, thanks for the poker lesson.
Now go get our girl.
Chapter
93
Aboard Granite Four
Pease Air National Guard base, New Hampshire
The cockpit of a fifty-year-old KC-135 is crowded as it is, but with Palmer and me trying to shove ourselves in with the pilot and the copilot to get an update on what the hell is going on, it’s like those old Life magazine photos of crazy frat boys in the 1950s trying to shove themselves into a telephone booth.
On the runway below us are three men, one wearing an Air Force jumpsuit and two wearing business suits. There’s a lot of arm waving from the two civilians, but the Air Force officer—wearing a dark blue garrison cap with a colonel insignia—is standing there, arms crossed.
I say, “Mind ID’ing the colonel down there?”
“That’s Colonel Tighe, our wing commander,” Captain Josephs says.
“And the other two gentlemen?”
“They are FBI agents from the Portsmouth field office. They are demanding access to the aircraft to ensure you’re here of your own free will and are not being held captive. Colonel Tighe says that’s not possible.”
“Why?”
Captain Josephs says, “Remember the truck carrying the gangway you used to gain access? We call that the airstairs. Apparently, the airstairs is not functioning at the moment. Flat tire, engine won’t start—something like that.”
I say, “Isn’t there a ladder from the fuselage that the crew uses?”
“Sure,” Josephs says, face widening into a smile. “We call that the entry chute. Aircrew only. The FBI wants to use that to access the aircraft and interview you. Colonel Tighe says non–Air Force personnel can only use the entry chute if they take part in a four-hour safety training module.”
His copilot is grinning as well. Josephs says, “As you can see, they are having a frank and open exchange of views as to other methods of getting aboard this aircraft.”
The argument continues. I say, “Captain, back when I was in the teams, we used to call you folks the Chair Force.”
I slap his shoulder, start to maneuver my way back aft in the aircraft. “I take that all back, and then some.”
The captain calls out, “Appreciate that, sir, but this is just a delaying action. Eventually the hammer’s gonna come down on Colonel Tighe, and those FBI agents are going to get inside.”
“Roger that,” I say, and back into the interior I go.
My four team members are standing in a group, midway down the largely empty interior. I say, “The Feds are here, wanting to get aboard and make sure I’m alive and well.”
David Stahl says, “And in the meantime, make sure you don’t take off.”
Claire says, “Isn’t there any other way out of here?”
Nick Zeppos says, “The cargo door that we came through, and the crew ladder up forward. That’s it.”
Alejandro adds, “We take the aircraft’s fire ax, we could probably break through the fuselage at an emergency fire access point, but that would really piss off our hosts. And even the FBI would eventually notice somebody chopping their way out.”
Nick says to me, “And what then, sir? We get out and make a run for it?”
I say, “If we have to…okay, forget the fire ax. We’ll dump our way out through the crew ladder in the entry chute and—”
The technical sergeant suddenly comes out of the cockpit. “Hey! What are all you passengers doing, standing around like this? Sit down and buckle up. This bird is taking off in a few minutes.”
I stare at him for one blessed second. “What the hell just happened?”
“Way, way above my pay grade, sir,” he says. “All I know is that Pease control contacted Captain Josephs, told him he was cleared to take off. Straight from the Pentagon. And that’s all she wrote.”
One and then two and then the other two engines start whining to life.
Agent Stahl says, “What do you think, Matt?”
“I think we need to follow the tech sergeant’s orders.”
I go back to my spot in the red webbed seating, buckle up, and Agent Stahl sits next to me, does the same. Across from me Nick Zeppos and Alejandro Lopez are fastening themselves in as well, and Claire Boone of the NSA is strapping in with one hand while still playing a video game with the other.
The technical sergeant checks all of our belts, nods, and says, “Looks like you still know what you’re doing, Mr. President.”
“Too bad most Americans didn’t believe that a couple of years back,” I say.
“Their loss,” he says, going to his own seat. “Our loss, sir.”
The old aircraft starts moving, taxiing along, and then there’s a turn, and a pause.
I can imagine the conversation up front between the pilot and copilot, professionally doing their jobs but no doubt thinking in the back of their minds, Is this what we signed up for? This black-ops-and-orders-from-DC nonsense?
The engines howl louder.
Close.
But…
Another order from Pease control could shut us down.
One of those old engines could throw a turbine blade right now, causing it to explode.
The two FBI agents could go all J. Edgar Hoover and drive their official vehicle out onto the runway, forcing the pilot to abort.
Faster now.
The surge of speed is pushing me sideways into the webbed seating.
The plane arches its way up.
Airborne.
Whine-clunk as the landing gear retracts, and my eyes swell.
We are go.
Mel, we’re coming for you.
I check my watch.
About a twelve-plus-hour flight to Tunisia.
In those hours, it will be pretty much silent over the Atlantic, but my friends in Israeli and Saudi intelligence will be working to find Asim Al-Asheed, who’s now back in North Africa, in their neck of the woods.
We were lucky in getting off the ground in America.
Will our luck hold upon landing in North Africa, with actionable intelligence from the Israelis and Saudis?
I look at my watch once more.
Airborne now about ten minutes, heading east.
Mel, I think. Where are you?
Part
Four
Chapter
Somewhere in northwest Libya
Mel Keating is in the rear of a dirty white van, parked somewhere in a very small village in what she’s pretty sure, upon assessing her situation, is Libya.
The back of her neck still aches from being struck by a dull sword blade more than a week ago. She’s certain that her parents have believed her dead since then. She grieves for the pain and agony that miserable shithead Asim has inflicted on them even more than she hurts for herself.
She was ashamed to realize that she soiled herself when she thought she was about to have her head cut off. At a little muddy stream, she was able to hand-wash her clothes and put them back on after they dried in the sun, laid out on a boulder, but that was just a rinse job.
She feels filthy, her hair is a mess, and her ankles and wrists ache where they’re bound tight by plastic flex-cuffs. But there was a bright spot earlier that day.
She asked one of her captors to move her bound hands from her back to her front. The guy—she didn’t know his name but called him Alpha, for he was the first person she met after they filmed that fake execution scene—knew a fair amount of English, and after she sobbed and said her wrists ached and her back was itchy, he said, “A kiss. You give me a kiss, and I’ll do that for you.”
She was horrified at the prospect of kissing him on the lips—she would be tempted to bite down and tear off his lower lip—but Alpha offered a bearded cheek. She pretended that she was kissing a grungy coyote, and he cut off the flex-cuffs at the rear and applied a fresh set at the front.
“Welcome to Libya,” he said, laughing, as if he was amused to grant her this small favor.
Idiot. His small favor was going to bite him on the ass.
She looks around the van’s interior again. Bare rusted metal, old blankets and pillows here in the rear. Up ahead, an empty passenger seat row, and in front of that, driver and passenger seating.
It’s the middle of the night, and in the driver’s seat is the captor she’s named Beta. He’s armed with an AK-47—the weapon of choice for revolutionaries and losers around the world, Dad told her years back, and Beta is definitely a loser.
He’s asleep.
Her other captor, Alpha, was in the passenger seat until about twenty minutes ago, when a woman apparently came up and started talking to him through the open window. Mel didn’t see her, but she heard her voice and saw the results: Alpha whispered to Beta, and the door opened, and Alpha was gone.
Now it is just the two of them.
Although it’s the middle of the night, there’s a flickering streetlight out there illuminating the van’s interior. She moves around, sees that Beta is still fast asleep, snoring.
Now’s her chance.
Mel moves around until she’s in position. She’s remembering back to when Dad was just thinking of running for Congress, and he had some friends over from the teams, and along with the drinking and storytelling and hell-raising in their small flat backyard, they played some rough-and-tumble games, also known as grab-assing.
One game involved trying to tie up or bind someone, and whoever broke free quickest won a case of Lone Star.
Mel, a young girl at the time, hid in the backyard and watched.
And learned.
Right now she’s on her knees, next to the metal hub over the right rear tire. She brings her bound wrists to her face, sees the lock mechanism on the right side. Mel bites the free end of the plastic flex-cuffs, pulls and tugs and pulls until the flex-cuffs rotate around her wrists and the lock mechanism is in the middle.
Mel raises her arms, high as she can, arches her back, and brings her bound wrists down hard on the metal hub.
The pain rockets right up her arms and she falls back, trying to keep as quiet as possible.
Ouch, damn it!
She tugs the flex-cuffs.
Still fastened.
One more time.
Again, the arms up, fingertips grazing the metal ceiling, and again—
The pain is worse than before.
She bites her lower lip. Tears come to her eyes.
Why isn’t it working?
It should work.
It has to work.
Her wrists are throbbing hard with the fiery pain.
Just a few yards away, Beta is deep asleep, and the music from a radio outside gets louder.
In addition to the radio, Mel hears a woman and a man laughing. She thinks it’s Alpha, having a good time, and she remembers kissing that gristly, smelly face, feeling scared and humiliated, and she takes a deep breath, sore arms up again, and—
Slam!
Mel falls back again, breathing hard, her wrists free.
She rubs at them, pulling off the broken plastic flex-cuffs.
Mel nearly whimpers with joy. My wrists and arms are free.
Mel moves around, her bound feet in front of her, and she checks out a jagged piece of metal near the rear door. She inches forward, rubs the plastic on the metal, rubs it and pushes down and rubs it—
A quiet snap.
She wastes a few seconds, rubbing her sore ankles.
Now?
There’s a hot fury inside of her as she thinks of her kidnapping, Tim’s murder, being manhandled, pushed around, drugged—oh, yes: that’s why she fell asleep after eating that breakfast back in New Hampshire—and being slapped awake in some stone and brick building close to the ocean, which she could smell.
Then in the trunk of a car, bumpy drive, and—
That dull sword blade across her neck, crumpling her in pain.
The AK-47 is right there. Just scramble over the row of passenger seats, grab it, make sure the safety is off, work the action, and she’ll put Beta away forever.
Then out of the van, find Alpha, do the same to him…
And then what?
One armed teen girl? How many fighters are out there? Where is Asim and his cousin Faraj? What would they do if she were to suddenly jump out and start shooting? And how many rounds? The standard magazine for an AK-47 is thirty rounds. Are there any spare magazines up there?
Shut up, she thinks.
Wasting time.
She moves to the rear of the van, finds the latch, gives it a twist.
Clicking open.
Open!
It feels cold out there. She grabs a blanket, wraps it around her shoulders and head, steps out—
Damn it!
The road seems to be just dirt and rocks, and she twists her right foot. A pulse of hot pain explodes in her ankle.
Some damn easy escape, she thinks.
Mel moves as quietly as she can, finally seeing her surroundings, some sort of small village. Groupings of one- and two-story stone buildings. Dirt road and alleys. Two streetlights, flickering. The van she was in and two SUVs, maybe Suburbans. Lights on in the near buildings. A dog barking somewhere.
Knock on a door, ask for help?
No, not here!
To knock on a door and have Asim answer it?
She pulls the dirty blanket around her, starts limping away from the parked vehicles, trying to hurry along, knowing that at some point Beta is going to wake up, or Alpha is going to return, and then all hell is going to break loose.
Mel tries to speed up, trips, and falls.
She closes her eyes tight, rolls to the side of the road, and starts quietly weeping. She’s just got on her shorts and sweatshirt from the States, socks, and the smelly blanket around her shoulders.
Dad, she thinks. Dad, please find me.
Keeping her eyes closed, she stops the crying.
Waits.
Minutes pass.
Mel opens her eyes.
Now adjusted to the dark.
Overhead is an incredible view, the desert night sky. So many constellations pop into view. Mom taught her the history of the stars and how their human ancestors had named them, and Mel looks and finds friendly old Big Dipper—Ursa Major—and she follows the two pointing stars in its bowl until she crosses the sk
y and locates the Little Dipper, Ursa Minor.
Polaris.
The North Star.
Mel gets up, not looking at where she was lying.
Looking only to the north.
To the north is the Mediterranean Sea, and along the sea are cities and villages, and there will be some people who speak English and will help her, she’s sure of that.
Mel starts moving again, seeing the outlines of the dirt road from the starlight, and even though her right ankle throbs and her wrists ache, she’s smiling through the tears.
She’s free.
Chapter
95
Somewhere in northwest Libya
Asim Al-Asheed is sitting comfortably on a padded couch, a glass of sweet tea in his hand, a plate of dates and grapes and small cookies on a table in front of him, and he’s smiling graciously at his host for the night, Omar al-Muntasser.
Omar is fat, bearded, wearing loose white cotton pants and shirt, and working a series of worry beads in his pudgy fingers. If this was any other night, Asim would gently get off this overstuffed couch, walk around to Omar’s rear, grab his hair, and slit the fat man’s throat.
Omar is smiling, his words seem to be dipped in honey, but he is not bending.
“My dear friend Asim, I apologize again, but it will be impossible for me to find lodgings for you and your friends tonight,” Omar says. “I will feed you, and fuel your vehicles, and prepare meals and drinks for wherever your journey may take you, but I cannot offer you lodgings. My apologies.”
The man’s receiving room is filled with rugs, tapestries, framed photos of Omar Mukhtar, Libya’s most famous resistance leader and Asim’s own personal hero, and of Ahmed Al-Trbi, Libya’s greatest footballer.
Three of Omar’s sons are standing against the wall, armed with pistols, staring at Asim with anger, knowing that the man’s presence here is putting their father and their families in danger. Earlier, Omar “excused” Asim’s cousin Faraj to check on how much gasoline would be needed for Asim’s two Suburbans and the GMC van, and Asim knows that the ruse was used to leave him alone with this tribal leader, once an ally.
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