The Silver Cord: The Lily Lockwood Series: Book Two

by Alison Caiola

  Reacting to something that the person at the other end of the phone had said, Maniadakis suddenly broke into a huge smile and triumphantly slammed his hand on the desk.

  “Fantastic! You got it, buddy. As soon as I get that info, I’ll be back on the horn. Oh yeah. . . do me a favor and check to see if Preacher and his team are available.” There was a short pause. “Thanks. Give Marge my regards and kiss those grandbabies for me.” He hung up the telephone, folded his hands on the desk, and smiled at David and Lily.

  “Sorry. That was my guy at Langley. So, we’re moving right along, doing some digging. Even before we arrived, we had a reconnaissance team on the streets gathering data and we got solid leads that we’re tracking.” He opened a file on his desk, moved the contents closer to David and Lily, and pointed to a photo of a group of Somali men, all in uniform and carrying high-power guns.

  “These guys are part of the Ali Saleeban Clan, known for their piracy and kidnapping activities.” Pointing to one of the men, he continued, “This handsome fella is Isse Yuluh, leader of the whole shebang. Our sources tell us that they’re the ones who abducted Robbie and the other three doctors. The word is that they’ve snatched the doctors for the ransom. We don’t know what went down, but they executed the other three.”

  “That means Robbie’s still alive?” Lily asked.

  David took Lily’s hand. “Do you know where they took him?”

  “So here’s the deal, they don’t have your boy anymore.”

  “He escaped?” David asked.

  Maniadakis shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “It seems that one of Jama’s men is friends with a guy who has a brother-in-law in the Ali Saleeban Clan. It didn’t take too much money for the clan member to spill his guts.”

  There was a knock on the office door. A balding man in his mid-twenties, wearing thick-lensed oval-shaped glasses, that gave him an owl-like appearance, entered the room. “Sir, we’re ready for you.”

  “Perfect timing. Matt, these good folks are Lily Lockwood and Dr. Rosen’s brother, David.”

  Matt extended his hand to David, then blushed when he shook hands with Lily. “Miss Lockwood… Wow! What an honor! I’m a big fan of yours. My girl and I saw you last month on Broadway and you were awesome. You think I can get a photo with you?”

  Lily smiled, “Of course and thanks for all your help here.”

  “For Chrissakes, Bollinger, stop your damn drooling and get back out there.” Matt’s face became beet red, he put his head down, and left the room.

  “He started working for me at the agency right out of M.I.T. He’s a great tech, but the kid’s got zero social skills.” Maniadakis picked up his files from the desk and started walking toward the door. “Follow me.”

  They walked out into the commotion that was still going on in the main room. Maniadakis whistled loudly and clapped his hands twice.

  “Okay folks, listen up. Someone get the lights.” The buzzing ceased and the room became silent. Maniadakis stood up-front, next to the large screen. All eyes were upon him.

  So here’s what we know: Dr. Rosen and three other staff members of MSF were taken by the Ali Saleeban Clan. Of the four who were abducted, only Rosen survived. There was a proof-of-life photo sent to MSF headquarters in Paris, but that was the only communication. It seemed peculiar, since we know he was taken by a clan notorious for piracy and for kidnapping activities that involve American citizens.”

  Maniadakis held a projector wire in his hand that had a button on one end. He pressed the button and a photo appeared on the screen of a tall, dark-skinned man in a long dashiki with a white kufi on his head. “This is Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir—known as Ikrima. He’s currently in Kenya, but is a Somali and a known senior commander of Al Shaabab. Our intel links him to major Al Qaeda operatives—in particular, to Fazul Abdullah Muhammed and to Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who played major roles in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

  Now it looks as if one of his top honchos….” When Maniadakis pressed the projector’s button, a photo of a bearded Somali in a green uniform appeared on the screen. “This is Mubaarak Abdikarim, a key ethnic Somali, an Al Shabaab planner, and a top guy in what was once a sleeper cell that’s recently been awakened. He is known to have been involved in black-market operations—mostly drugs and human trafficking that fund terrorist activities.”

  Maniadakis clicked the button again and the screen went dark. “We believe that Abdikarim, upon direct orders from Abdulkar, paid the clan big bucks for Dr. Rosen. What we need to figure out is: Why did they want Rosen and where are they keeping him? Once we find out, it’s a whole new ballgame. We’ll put the drones up and hook into more targeted satellites to babysit them. We’ll also have the full support of the Agency, who’ll work with us, coordinate efforts with the military, and deploy a squad of SEALs and canines. Their mission will be to capture Abdikarim and Abdulkar, and to rescue Dr. Rosen. From here on in, this mission will be referred to as ‘Operation House Call.’ Now all we gotta do to move everything along is to find out where these cowboys lay their heads at night. A piece of cake, right?” A nervous laughter spread through the room. “So why would these two ragheads want our Doctor?”

  An attractive blonde woman, seated at one of the computer stations, called out, “Maybe to give medical care to one of the high-ranking Al Qaeda or Al Shabaab leaders?”

  Maniadakis scratched his head and thought for a few seconds. “That’s what I thought initially, Sharon, but that just don’t make sense. They got plenty of doctors. Why pay good money for this one?”

  A young man, leaning against a wall in the back of the room asked, “What was Dr. Rosen’s specialty?”

  “Good question, Gus.” Maniadakis turned toward David and asked “Rosen?”

  David cleared his throat. “Surgery, actually cardiac surgery. In New York Hospital he worked closely with Dr. Preston Wells.”

  “Wells is the guru of heart transplants, right?” asked Matt.

  David nodded. “Yes. He was grooming my brother to take over his practice when he retires.”

  “Maybe one of the leaders needs heart surgery,” Sharon said.

  “We’re definitely missing something here.” Gus walked to the front of the room. “Boss, you said this guy Abdikarim is into black-market shit, right?” Maniadakis nodded. “Well then why would they need Rosen? Why not hundreds of other doctors within Al Qaeda or Al Shabaab who….” Gus stopped himself in mid-sentence, realizing the answer. “Holy shit.”

  Lily turned to Dave and whispered, “What?”

  David shrugged.

  Gus walked up to Maniadakis. “Organs, boss. They’re harvesting organs for the black market—that’s huge money. We busted that New York doctor, Michael Mastromarino, he was the dude who worked in cahoots with this funeral director, cut out bones, skins, ligaments and tendons, and sold them on the black market. One of the bodies they harvested was, shit, that journalist, what was his name?”

  A young Hispanic woman, seated at the computer next to Sharon, said, “Alistair Cooke.”

  “Bingo.” Gus said triumphantly.

  Maniadakis folded his arms, smiled, and said to Gus, “If you weren’t so ugly, I’d plant a big fat kiss on ya.”

  Lily stood up, her face red. “Wait, no! Robbie would never do that, ever!” She looked to her brother for support. “Tell them, David.”

  Maniadakis turned to her and smiled, “With all due respect, Ma’am, when a person’s got a gun pointed at his head, he’s likely to do things he never imagined he’d do. Remember, we’re talking terrorists and I don’t need to tell ya, they’re mighty persuasive.” He looked at two of his men standing by the window.

  “Cordova, Mulvaney I need you guys to go over to MSF and see if they still have any of Dr. Rosen’s clothes there. If so, grab a few worn items. If we locate him, we’ll need these for the dogs to sniff. Okay, people, keep on tracking the intel and see if there’s any chatter at all. If there’s anything that smells remote
ly interesting, bring it to me immediately. Otherwise, we reconvene at 17:00 hours.”

  Without skipping a beat, everyone returned to the activity they’d been engaged in before the meeting began.

  Lily walked over to Maniadakis. “Nikos, I would like to join the group going to MSF,” she said.

  “Out of the question. It’s deadly out there. Stay here where you’ll be safe. I’ll keep you in the loop.”

  Lily sighed, “I insist.”

  “You have to listen to him, Lily— he’s the expert.” David said.

  Lily did not explain to them just how vital it was for her to be able to see the compound—the place where Robbie had been abducted. She believed that if she saw the bed Robbie had slept in, where he’d eaten his meals, and saw the clinic where he had cared for his patients, it would bring her closer to him and somehow make his rescue more of a reality.

  Lily folded her arms and smiled at Maniadakis. “How far is the MSF compound from here?”

  “About ten miles.”

  Lily could tell he was annoyed. “If, in the middle of the day, your men can’t keep me safe for an hour or two, then we’re really in trouble, aren’t we?”

  Maniadakis paused, shook his head, and sighed, “Okay, little lady—point taken. You and Rosen should meet the guys in the lobby in twenty minutes.” He looked down at her feet and sneered. “Better change them fancy shoes.”

  Chapter 21

  David and Lily stepped into the hotel elevator that would take them up to her penthouse suite. When the doors closed, Lily turned to her brother and said, “Is it me or is he the most condescending person you’ve ever met?”

  David smiled. “Well let’s just say that Maniadakis can come off as a bit arrogant. But Lily, he’s right about your having to be careful. If you leave the hotel, then he has to get a shitload of guys out there on guard detail.”

  Lily was still brooding, but once inside her room, she kicked off her shoes and put on a pair of sneakers.

  “I know what you’re saying. It’s just the way he talks to me, like I’m this frail piece of china he’s afraid may break.”

  David sat down on the couch in the living-room area and smiled at her, “Don’t let him get to you. He’s just doing what you’re paying him to do.”

  Lily sat on the opposite couch and tied her sneakers. “Do you think he’s right about Robbie?

  David shrugged. “We have no clue about what’s going on, what Robbie’s going through, or what they’re doing to him.”

  Tears sprang to Lily’s eyes and this time she didn’t stop them from flowing. She grabbed a tissue, dabbed her eyes, and weakly smiled, “Sorry.”

  “Hey, you don’t have to apologize to me.”

  Lily sighed deeply, “I love him—Robbie, I mean. You know that, right?”

  “If I didn’t know that before Mom and I visited you, I figured it out pretty quickly. We both did. Your boyfriend Jamie is not too happy about it, I guess.”

  Lily smiled. “Not so much. But Robbie’s the one—it’s always been Robbie, right from the start. I just never had a chance to tell him.

  David smiled, “Well, with any kind of luck, you can tell him yourself, pretty soon.”

  Later that afternoon, Lily, David, and two of Maniadakis’s staff—Miguel Cordova and Sean Mulvaney—along with three of Jama’s armed guards were being guided through Médecins Sans Frontières’ compound by Dr. Alain Rondeau. The hospital compound consisted of numerous buildings and tents where long lines of Somali men, women, and children waited patiently to see one of the eight overworked physicians.

  Alain told the group he planned to take them to one of the hospital clinics. As they walked across the facility, they heard snatches of conversations in French, Somali, and English. Alain reveled in his role as tour guide. He had recognized Lily Lockwood as soon as she’d stepped out of the truck and was delighted he’d been chosen to chaperone the actress and her group. In Paris, where he was born and raised, her television shows aired quite often, with French subtitles.

  “Our support staff from the area nurses and orderlies act as interpreters between the doctors and the patients who speak only Somali. Without them communication would be frustrating, so you can imagine how vital they are to our day-to-day operation.”

  He walked toward the clinic, a long white building, where healthy children played and chased one another, laughing and shouting while waiting for their turns to get inoculated.

  The group passed a smaller building that Alain said was an emergency triage clinic where sick or wounded children lay lethargically across their mothers’ laps. The broiling sun stimulated the stench of blood, pus, and sweat. Flies swarmed the lifeless tiny bodies, targeting their wounded areas. The mothers, with eyes distant and devoid of emotion, systematically swiped the flies away, only to have the insects circle and return a few seconds later.

  As they walked past these people, Lily was reminded of the morning she visited Margaret’s daughter, Eavan, in New York Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital. The contrast between the children in that meticulously clean hospital, with its brightly painted wall murals, who were cared for by a full staff of doctors and nurses using the most modern equipment and these poor children who lay dying in front of her, was tragic and heartbreaking.

  When they arrived at the crowded clinic, there were three doctors—one man and two women—all wearing matching MSF issued white t-shirts and stethoscopes around their necks. They administered shots and laughed with the children and their mothers. The male—an Asian doctor—was closest to them and Alain walked Lily and the group over to him.

  “Sam, these are the people I spoke to you about.” He turned to Lily and her group. “This is Dr. Sam Wo, who has a real knack with children. They’re the only kids I know who can’t wait to get their vaccinations because they get to see the fun doctor.”

  Sam laughed. “I wish that were true. But it’s not me—I have a secret weapon.”

  Lily was intrigued. “And what, may I ask, is your secret weapon?”

  Sam reached into his pocket and produced a few tootsie-roll pops. The children excitedly reached for the lollipops as Sam smiled and put them into the kids’ eager hands.

  “ Ta da, the deep secret to my vast popularity,” Sam laughed.

  Alain walked over to one of the mothers, nodded to the Somali staff member who signaled that he should act as interpreter. “Sister, please tell these good people why you have come to the hospital.”

  The staff member spoke to her in her native tongue. He waited for her to respond. “She says that she walks one full day to come here. She does so because she knows that without the special shot, her children will become very ill and may die like many children in her village.”

  The mother spoke again and the staff member nodded his head, indicating he understood what she was saying.

  “She says that soon she will move to the IDP camp for internally displaced people. They have lost everything to a rival tribe who has come in and decimated the area and left them with nothing. No home, no land.”

  Lily watched the woman speak softly—openly and in a matter-of-fact manner—about a situation that would bring most people to their knees.

  She took the woman’s hand and asked the staff member to interpret. “I am so grateful that you shared your story with me. I am so sorry for the hardships you and your family are living through.” After the staff member told the woman what Lily had said, the woman’s face brightened with one of the widest smiles Lily had ever seen.

  Lily turned to Alain “May I possibly give her money for food or water?”

  “Miss Lockwood, you can make a donation to MSF anytime and this will help all these people. And if you would like, you can purchase food and water for the IDP camp. You can bring it yourself or we can do it for you.”

  While still holding the woman’s hand, Lily looked to David, who nodded and then looked back to Alain. “We’ll go to the IDP camp and bring food and water. Is there anything else we can do?<
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  “Yeah, you can take your checkbook from that ridiculously expensive Louis Vuitton purse you’re carrying and write a big fat check to open an IDP school for thousands of kids who’ve never seen the inside of a classroom.” The attractive female doctor with the short blonde hair and a thick Australian accent sneered.

  “Chloe, that’s rude!” The third doctor glared at her fellow Aussie.

  Chloe looked at Lily with contempt. “Bugger off Emma, you know what I’m saying is dead on. We don’t have time to sugar coat anything here. These people need help and they need it now!”

  Alain’s face turned a deep shade of crimson. “I am so sorry, Miss Lockwood. Dr. Martin is a wonderful doctor and doesn’t mean to offend. She can be a little, how do you say, rough around the edges at times.”

  “No, it’s okay. I asked what I can do to help,” Lily said and smiled at the doctors. “She’s not wrong.” She walked to the side of the room where Chloe was standing and extended her hand, “Lily Lockwood.”

  “Chloe Martin,” Chloe muttered and sighed deeply, attempting to slow down her racing heart. Even though she appeared tough and in control, Chloe was actually nervous standing next to the actress—her nemesis.

  The other doctor smiled and also shook hands with Lily. “Emma White and I’m gobsmacked to meet you. I’m a big fan of your work.”

  Chloe got busy putting away supplies that one of the staff had deposited on the table next to her. Lily thanked Emma and looked back at Chloe. “If you can let me know who to talk to, I would be more than happy to make a donation for the school.”

  “Fantastique!” Alain clapped his hands joyfully. “I will get you that information before you leave. Now I am sure you would like to get to the reason you are here.” He nodded to David and looked back at Chloe and Emma, “Ladies, David is Robert’s brother and he and Miss Lockwood are here with these other fellows,” Alain pointed to Miguel and Sean, “to get any information you think may help them find him. They also need to pick up Dr. Rosen’s belongings.”

  “Come to my room.” Chloe instructed and led them out the door.