Taking advantage while she sleeps, I explore the square room further, seeking any nook and cranny that might hold something to aid an escape, but there’s nothing to be found. There’s no light bulb or electricity, in fact, absolutely nothing at all. Returning to the window, I once again pull on the bars, but they’re set too tight in the wall to move even a little. I scrabble with my fingers, but I only end up breaking my nails, the bars haven’t budged at all.
As the sun rises to its zenith, the heat increases. The thick mudbrick walls keep out the worst of the hot air, but even so, it’s still very warm. No longer caring for my modesty, I throw off my shirt so I’m only wearing my tank top, and try to fan myself in the airless room. After a while Mollie wakes, and I give her a bottle, hoping that not keeping it refrigerated won’t cause her to get an upset stomach. Since they left us here, I’ve seen no one. They haven’t even come to check on us. What would have happened if I wasn’t here? Would they have left her to starve?
Checking, I find Mollie needs changing. Rolling out the mat as I’ve seen Sean do, I take a while finding out which way round it goes, but at last the new nappy is on. “There, Molls,” I tell her, “I’m not as useless as I thought.” She gurgles at me and giggles. I guess she’s giving me marks out of ten.
I play with her, tossing her around, getting her to laugh and chuckle again, trying to be brave, so my fear doesn’t affect her. It’s not easy, I’m terrified. But determined. No one is going to take her from me. With a start, I recognise the feeling of being like a lioness protecting her cub. No matter that she’s not mine, no harm’s going to come to her while I’m here to protect her.
I’ve no watch, no phone. The only indication of time passing is the golden orb moving across the sky until, at last, it starts to sink beneath the horizon. Darkness falls fast here; there’s barely any twilight before the room is shrouded in darkness.
Suddenly I hear a scuffling outside, then the sound of a bolt sliding back, and the door opens. The man who seems to be the leader enters carrying a torch. As it shines directly on my face, I put up my hand to cover my eyes.
“I need the bathroom.” It’s the first thing I say, a sign of my desperation.
The man nods at someone behind him and the second man enters carrying a bucket. When he places it in a corner, it only takes a moment before I comprehend with disgust what it’s supposed to be used for. Yuck! He also brings a plate which has some bread on it and produces a bottle of water from a pocket. At least they don’t want me to starve or dehydrate. Though it’s hardly adequate fare.
“You stay.”
“Look, you can’t keep us here. This is no place for a baby.” Or a woman, or anyone, I add to myself.
“You stay.”
“For how long?” I want answers.
He shrugs. His dismissive gesture gives me nothing at all to go on, but before I can press him again, he adds. “Baby go tomorrow.”
I pull Mollie closer; she’s going nowhere without me.
He sees me trying to protect her, and snorts, presumably to let me know if he wants to take her, I’ll be unable to do anything about it. But he doesn’t know I’ve got a gun, and when the right time comes, I won’t be afraid to use it.
But first I’ll need to find out just how many men are guarding me. The two here have holsters by their sides, weapons at the ready. That was the first thing I’d checked. Presumably it’s just the two of them, the pilot must have flown away when the helicopter left.
After giving me and Mollie one last sneering look, the English speaker waves the other man out, and I’m left alone.
With only the starlight coming into the room, I wait until my eyes become accustomed to the dark once more, and then, with a grimace, use the bucket, sighing with relief when at last my bladder’s finally empty. I eat the bread on the plate, sipping the water to help the dry dough go down, trying to conserve as much as possible in case they don’t bring any again.
Then, finally, I pull the baby bag within reach and cuddle up with Mollie, grimacing at the hardness of the bare stone floor under the inadequate blankets. I wrap my shirt around the baby as well as her blanket to keep her warm in the cooler night air. When my brain gets tired of looking for explanations, I finally give in and succumb to an exhausted sleep.
Chapter 28
Sean
“It’s a decoy.” Ryan announces, kicking at the offending object, “Someone’s toying with us.” He kneels down, and ruffles Butch’s ears, “You’re a good boy, but they fooled you too, lad.”
The Amahadian bomb disposal expert, still suited up in all his gear, although he’s removed his helmet, nods, “Must have had sufficient traces of explosive for the dog to have sniffed it out, but there’s no bomb.”
Thank fuck for that. I slap the back of the brave man who’d entered the casino alone, luckily to find there was nothing to disarm.
We’re all staring at the innocent box as though we’ll see the answers written there.
“Why?” Hunter glares down.
I shake my head, “It could be a message of some sort. A ‘look how easily this could have been a real bomb’.” But if that’s the case, I can’t fathom what the point would be.
“It’s a decoy,” Ryan repeats. He lifts his head and looks around at each of us in turn. “It’s brought us all here, away from where we should be.”
“But only us. We weren’t due to take over from our seconds until nine. Nowhere has been left unprotected.” As soon as we’d found nothing amiss here, we’d checked with our counterparts to find everything as it should be at the souk, the harem, and the airport.
Ryan’s like a dog with a bone, “Is there somewhere else we should be focusing on? Or was it something to get us away from the compound.”
It doesn’t make sense. Kadar’s palace guard is well trained and the compound secure. What would it matter if we weren’t there?
“Why?” Hunter repeats. It seems he’s a man of few words today.
My phone rings, and I walk away to answer it, briefly taking note how strange the casino looks with lights up high and no punters playing at the tables. “Cooper. Speak to me,” I answer in my normal way.
And then, as I listen to Cara, my blood runs cold.
“No, they’re not with me.”
“Shit!”
“We’re on our way back, now. Was there…?”
“Nothing? No note?”
“Her bag and phone are there?”
“Okay. We’ll see you shortly.”
The tone of my voice and my rushed questions have drawn my colleagues’ attention. I gaze at them, having difficulty processing what Cara’s just told me. Somehow, I manage to stammer out, “Mollie, my baby, and Vanessa have disappeared.”
Ryan’s staring at me. He doesn’t have to say a word. He was right all along.
Hunter’s phone rings, “Nijad, talk to me.”
“What’s the damage?”
“Thank fuck for that.”
“Okay, will do.”
He ends the call and turns to us. “There was an attempted attack on the oil field earlier this morning. Nijad said it’s under control. A dozen men causing a diversion, three suicide bombers who were supposed to get to the rigs but luckily, as we increased security, they were stopped before they could do any damage. A couple of our men were injured, but not fatally, thank God.”
“We were supposed to withdraw security at the oil field,” Seth states, frowning.
“Instead we strengthened it.”
They could be talking in double-dutch for all I can understand right now; there’s only one thing worrying me. Seeing me bouncing on my feet in impatience, Hunter takes pity on me, “Come on, let’s get back to the compound.”
Minutes later we’re in the SUV heading back to the palace. I want to go straight to the house to check for clues that might have been left, and anyone else may have missed, but there’s a message waiting for us at the gates, we’re to go straight to Kadar’s office.
&nbs
p; Dismissing my protests, Hunter drives past the house and parks close to the entrance to the modern part of the palace housing the government buildings. With a hand on my arm, he encourages me inside, and leads me through to the main offices, Ryan and Nat following hot on our heels.
Not Mollie. Not Nessa. Where have they gone, and why?
Kadar’s ready and waiting with Cara at his side, Matt sitting opposite, and a conference call already in progress with Jon and Ben back at Grade A. Their conversation briefly pauses as we enter.
My hand trembles as I put out a chair and sink into it. Never has anything touched me so closely before. I’d rather go through being shot all over again than have this fear inside me, the dread that something awful has happened. I glance across to Kadar, “Speak to me. Tell me what the fuck is going on?”
“I’m sorry, mate,” Matt flicks guilty eyes toward me, “Van texted me, told me she’d be a bit late as she had to drop Mollie off. I didn’t think anything of it until an hour had passed. I just thought she’d got held up. Then I tried to call her, but there was no reply. I went to the nursery…”
Cara takes over, “Vanessa didn’t turn up with Mollie, so I sent the nanny over to see if she had a problem. When she said neither Vanessa nor the baby was there, I went myself. With my guards.” The final three words she directs at Kadar as if to forestall any objection that she might have put herself at risk. “There was no sign of them, Sean. I’m so sorry. As I told you, her handbag, with her phone in it, was on the table. I didn’t touch anything, and security is over there now looking for fingerprints.” She looks down at her hands, and then up again, “There was no sign of a struggle.”
“Could Vanessa have taken Mollie somewhere herself?” Hunter asks.
Would she? But why? And where? She doesn’t even like picking her up.
“She’s not in the compound, we’re pretty certain of that. Obviously, this place is vast, and search parties are still out. If they do find them we’ll know soon enough, but Sean, I’m sorry, but I think it’s more likely someone has taken them.”
“We’ve looked at the CCTV footage from the gate,” Kadar interrupts his sister-in-law, “A Jeep pulled out around eight o’clock. The man driving was dressed as a palace guard. It wasn’t searched; the men on the gate saw no need to. They stopped the driver as normal, had a joke and a laugh about being lucky he was going off shift and then let him through. There wasn’t anything about it to raise suspicion. Even though the Jeep had blacked out rear windows, they didn’t think anything of it. A lot of them have. But there could have been someone inside they didn’t see.” He pauses, leans forward and steeples his hands, “We’ve questioned the guards, they said they didn’t recognise the driver, but then there’s more than two hundred employed here so that’s not unusual in itself.”
“But the Jeep wasn’t one of ours. I checked the number plates.” Cara adds. “They were fake plates, the number wasn’t traceable.”
“We’ve got to work on the premise that it’s an abduction,” Ben’s voice booming through the speakers makes me glance up at the screen. I nod, incapable of speaking, worry burning in my chest, making it hard just to breathe.
“And we’ve got to work out the fuck why.” Hearing Jon’s familiar voice is calming. I know he’ll understand exactly what I’m going through, Mia, his wife, had once been taken too. Luckily that ended well, and we got her back.
And now Kadar leans toward me, his palm covering my shaking hand, “I know how you’re feeling, Sean, but we’ve got to talk this through. I know you’ll want to do something, to take some action, but until we figure out why, we’ve fuck all chance of knowing where, let alone who.” And he’s another who can sympathise. When Zoe was kidnapped, she barely came out of it alive. I’m only too well aware of the harshness of this country and the extent some of its citizens will go to. My leg throbs as if to remind me.
Again, I give a sharp nod, but now I’m feeling a little more in control. Kadar’s right, we have to take the time to think what could be behind this. Why take Nessa and the baby? It doesn’t make sense. Sure, it’s a kick in the teeth to Grade A, and a personal affront to me, but in the greater scheme of things it means nothing at all. Certainly, al-Fahri would have little to gain from it. If it had been either of the sheikhas, Cara or Zoe, it would have sent a hell of a stronger message.
After peering at me intently, Kadar sits back again. “All the fuss about the threat being here in Al Qur’ah could have been to mislead us. Turn our focus away from their real target. The oil field.”
“But it didn’t work,” Hunter looks up as Kadar’s personal assistant comes in with a couple of women who proceed to place an assortment of food and drink on the table. When they leave, he reaches for a bottle of water and opens it, “We increased security. Nijad and I had a discussion yesterday and deployed a second platoon to guard it. There were an extra fifty men there last night.”
“At least,” Kadar adds, “Sheikhs Rais, Fadi, and Tamir sent some of their warriors along as soon as they heard there had been threats to Amahad. They’re nearest, and wanted to protect their investment.”
“So,” Ben’s voice again, “Let’s explore for the moment that the oilfield was the main target, leaving aside that it was successfully foiled.”
I’m hearing the conversation around me, but wondering what the fuck any of this has to do with a four-month-old baby. “But where do Mollie and Vanessa come into this? Why take them? Could it be completely unrelated?”
“Look at the timing, Sean,” this from Jon, “The attack coincided with their abduction, if we’re working on the premise that’s what it was. But that might have been a coincidence. Focusing our attention here in Al Qur’ah was what they intended, and to that end, it could have happened anytime over the past few days. But the bomb scare at the casino this morning…”
“Was meant to get me away from the palace,” I complete his sentence for him.
Cara’s fingers are tapping against her mouth, “I don’t think it’s anything to do with Vanessa, I think she was just collateral damage. This all started with Mollie, Sean. Think about it. Let’s take it from the beginning.”
“Danielle arranged for her to be left for me at Grade A,” I start going through what everyone already knows.
“And then you set off to find her mother,” Ben is too impatient for my fogged mind to wade through the facts.
“And she gave you a thumb drive which held the information about the planned attacks,” Jon’s speaking for me now too.
Shaking my head to try to clear it, pulling the coffee that someone’s just placed in front of me closer, I think, “You’re suggesting it’s got something to do with Danielle.”
“If it wasn’t for Danielle, we wouldn’t have had the information in the first place.”
Narrowing my eyes in thought, I look at Kadar. “And it seems it was fake information. But why involve a baby?”
Cara gives a mirthless laugh, “It’s the biggest bargaining chip she had, Sean. Tell me, would you have run to Danielle’s rescue had she not dangled Mollie in front of you?”
“Fuck no.” I shudder, remembering what I’d thought of her when I’d met her. “She’s a cold-hearted bitch.”
“And if she’d come to Grade A for our protection, once we’d researched her, we’d probably have decided her safety could best be provided for in prison.”
“Could it have been set up when she first met me?”
A brief pause as we all think about it, then Jon gives us his opinion, “I think that’s pushing it too far. In my view, what she told you about the baby’s conception is probably true, the selfish bitch just wanted a baby and saw you as a convenient sperm donor. She couldn’t have known you’d be at that place at that time. Something’s happened since, and Mollie just proved convenient bait to dangle in front of you.”
“Let’s continue going over what we know.” Kadar’s sitting in his familiar pose, his hands steepled in front of him. “She entices you with the bab
y, lets you find out you’re the father. Entices you to Paris then sneaks you the information which brings you to us. Conveniently she disappears. We act on the information, believing her story that she came across it by accident. But what if she didn’t? What if somehow she’s part of the plot?”
“But that would mean she’s got links to Amir al-Fahri. And that list of names, surely he wouldn’t have wanted us to have that?”
Kadar shrugs, “Could be a list of people he no longer trusts, or who are dispensable. From what I know of the man, I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“She gave up her baby…” I break off, thinking.
“Because she was going to get her back. I don’t think she would have gone to such lengths to have a child, only to abandon it. It’s her, Sean, I’m certain. She’s behind this; she’s taken Mollie. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.”
Slowly my head dips up and down as I consider Cara’s allegation. It fits. She’s right; she has to be.
Abruptly I stand, pushing my chair away from the table. My hands brush through my hair. Danielle’s got Mollie, which is what she wants. But she’s got Nessa too, who is of absolutely no use to her at all. Fuck! I don’t want my baby in Danielle’s hands, but she is her mother, and even if she’s used her like some pawn in a game, I doubt she’d do anything to harm her. But the woman with her? That’s a whole different story. And the thought of Nessa being in such danger is chilling.
“We’ve got to find them. And fast.”
A knock at the door sounds and Ma’mun enters, he’s carrying a note which he hands to Kadar. Kadar reads it and then dismisses him. He glances around, all our eyes are on him. “The Jeep was found abandoned about thirty miles away. It seems they’ve taken off in a helicopter from that point.”
Identity Crisis (Blood Brothers #4) Page 27
