Against All Odds Page 20

  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.

  Scooting to the edge of the bed, she steadied herself on the wall and stood. Her legs held. Barely. They shook as she lurched her way to the bathroom using the wall for support.

  The leader let her pass, and to her relief didn’t stop her from closing the door. It was odd, the small favors you could be grateful for in the midst of a horrendous situation, she reflected.

  Two minutes later, as she sank back onto the side of her bed, the leader pulled out his cell phone. After a couple of exchanges, he switched to English and moved beside her, pulling the knife out of the sheath on his belt.

  Whatever strength she’d had in her legs fled. Her pulse tripled. The breath hitched in her throat. Was this the end already? Had her efforts to hone and practice phrases she could use in a phone conversation with her father been for nothing?

  Lord, please, give me more time! I don’t want to die yet!

  “A call is being made to your father. You will ask him to meet our demands. If you say one word that provides any information about where you are, you will not live past the phone call.” He leaned close and pressed the point of the knife to her throat, as he had earlier. “Do you understand?”

  She gave a slight nod.

  Satisfied, he depressed the speaker button and set the phone on the bed. “We are ready.”

  “Place the call.” The instruction given on the other end of the line came through sharp and clear.

  The leader knelt on the bed behind her and gripped her hair, pulling it to force her head back slightly. She felt the sharp point of the knife against her neck. When she swallowed, the tip pricked her skin. She was almost afraid to breathe.

  Sixty seconds later, Monica heard her father’s voice. It sounded grainy and distant, but his anxiety and tension came through loud and clear.

  “Hello?”

  “Dad?” The word was little more than a croak.

  “Monica? Is that you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you okay?”

  This was it. She had to make every second count. Her captors could cut off the call at any moment.

  “I’m a l-little banged up from the drive.” She struggled to supply her lungs with oxygen. “I’m ready to come home, Dad. Be like Tom Bodett and leave the l-light on for me, okay?”

  The tip of the knife pushed deeper into her skin, and she gasped. She’d known the reference was risky. Had the terrorists recognized it? Her body rigid, she gripped the bedspread, bunching the fabric in her fingers.

  “Monica? Monica, are you all right? Are they hurting you?”

  The leader leaned close to her ear. “Tell him to meet our demands.”

  They’d missed her reference. Thank you, God!

  “I’m okay. I just w-want to come home.”

  “We’re working on that, honey.” Her father’s static-laced words came over the line. “I need you to tell us what your favorite comfort food is.”

  Puzzled, Monica frowned. Why would her father ask that? Besides, he didn’t even know the answer.

  Then the significance dawned. Coop must have suggested the question to verify it was her on the other end of the phone. Meaning he was okay. Relief coursed through her.

  “M&Ms. Listen, I don’t want to end up like that journalist I saw on the Sunday night news program a couple of weeks ago, who was killed by terrorists. Do what they ask, okay?”

  The leader snatched the phone from her ear, depressed the end button, and removed the knife from her throat. “Now we will see how much your father loves you.”

  Leaving her on the side of the bed, he returned to his computer.

  The hammering in her head had subsided earlier, while she’d lain unmoving. Now it resumed with a vengeance. Easing onto her back, Monica focused on the ceiling and tried to ride out the waves of pain.

  At least she’d done her best in the phone call, she consoled herself. She’d come up with several clues, all couched in innocent-sounding phrases, and she’d managed to work all of them into the conversation. There was nothing else she could do.

  Except pray that Coop and the HRT would decipher her message.

  18

  As the terrorists severed the connection, Coop rested his elbows on the table in the guest cottage and dropped his head into his hands, tuning out the follow-up dialogue taking place on the conference call. It had been Monica on the other end of the line, no question about it. And her shaky, faltering voice had twisted his gut into knots.

  Yet some positives had come out of the call, he acknowledged, forcing the left side of his brain to engage. For one thing, they had confirmation she was alive. For another, she’d packed a lot of information into the brief exchange with her father. A few of her comments had struck him as odd, and he suspected she’d been trying to send a message.

  “Did anyone get anything out of the call that could help us find my daughter?” David’s taut question pulled him back to the conversation.

  “We need to hear it again. Bob, we’d like a transcript and a recording ASAP,” Les responded.

  “Our technicians are already working on that. We should have it to you in minutes. Any initial thoughts?”

  “The sound was pretty garbled. I suspect the call was piggybacked through a couple of cell phones, as we expected.” Mark doodled on a pad of paper in front of him, his expression pensive.

  “I agree,” Les concurred.

  “Did she give the correct answer to the comfort-food question?” David asked.

  “Yes.” The analytical side of Coop’s brain was now firing on all cylinders. “She also made some interesting comments. I think there are clues embedded in them.”

  “The remark about the drive was helpful,” Mark concurred. “If she was transported by car, our search radius is more restricted.”

  “Possibly to within sixty minutes. I think her reference to the Sunday night news program was deliberate,” Coop said.

  “That may be a stretch.” Les didn’t attempt to hide his skepticism. “Considering the ordeal she’s been through, there’s a good chance she’s not fully lucid. We all know what a trauma spike can do to victims.”

  Coop had witnessed the phenomenon often. Casualties of violence often shut down or became incoherent and confused until the effects of the trauma subsided, rendering them useless in the initial investigation. And Monica was a prime candidate for a spike. She’d been drugged, injured, and kidnapped. Her life was in imminent danger. She would be fighting debilitating terror with every breath she took.

  But she was strong. And Coop was convinced that despite all she’d been through, she’d worked hard to help herself in the only way she could. With words.

  “I don’t buy it in this case,” Coop countered. “I think she was giving us leads.”

  “I’d like to believe that.” David joined in the discussion. “And I think you’re right about the 60 Minutes reference. What about that Tom Bodett allusion? Who is he?”

  “He’s been the spokesman for Motel 6 for years. That bit about leaving the light on was a direct lift from his tagline,” Mark supplied.

  “You think they’re keeping her at a motel?” Incredulity raised the pitch of Les’s voice.

  “I think it’s the only clue we have at the moment. And it’s not a bad plan from their point of view. Without Monica’s hint, motels wouldn’t even be on our radar screen.”

  Once again, David Callahan sided with Coop. “I’m not an intelligence expert, but this makes sense. Monica is smart. And she knows words. My instincts tell me she chose the ones she used with very strategic intent.”

 
; “Okay. We’ll check it out. Mark, Coop, stay on the line. Bob, Mr. Callahan, we’ll keep you apprised of our progress.”

  After the Kabul connection went silent, Les spoke again. “I’ve been doing a computer search as we spoke. There’s one Motel 6 within a fifty-mile radius of Charlottesville. It’s in Harrisonburg. Thirty-four miles away. At sixty miles, they have locations in Fredericksburg and Ashland. None of their other motels would be reachable by car in less than an hour. Dennis can have agents in his different jurisdictions make the initial contact with the facilities.”

  “This has to be handled with kid gloves,” Coop cautioned. “If the abductors get any inkling we’re on to them, this will get ugly very fast.”

  “I’m sure he knows that. But I’ll remind him. I’m also going to put your team here on alert. If this pans out, I want them standing by for a rescue mission.”

  “Mark and I could accompany the agent to the motel in Harrisonburg. It’s the closest one to Charlottesville and fits best with the sixty-minute time frame, assuming they took an indirect route as a precaution.”

  “I’ll discuss it with Dennis and get back with you. Stand by.” Les ended the call.

  “Monica did good.” Mark tossed out the comment as Coop slid his BlackBerry back onto his belt.

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s pretty amazing, considering all she’s been through.”

  “Yeah.”

  “My gut tells me this is going to turn out okay.”

  “Not if this motel lead ends up being a wild goose chase.” Coop raked his fingers through his hair. “But it’s all we have. Other than a partial tire impression that suggests the abductors drove a midsize car, the ERT has come up with zip.”

  “They’re still working the scene.”

  “I’m not overly optimistic.” Coop stood. “Let’s pack up. There’s nothing else we can do here. I want to be ready to head to Harrisonburg once Les clears it with Dennis.”