The Power Couple

by Alex Berenson

  “Thank you,” Brian said. “Question.”

  Rebecca felt a flicker of irritation. Her business. He should let her take the lead.

  “Have we decided what to do when the media calls? Those posters on La Rambla, it’s only a matter of time.”

  “Perhaps better to take those posters down—” Barraza said.

  “Oh, no bad publicity for Barcelona.”

  “Not at all. My officers do their jobs better if they don’t have reporters chasing them. It may make the kidnappers nervous too. They’re negotiating. They want ransom. I think we are all better off keeping this quiet for now.”

  They’d reached the crux of the meeting. Which had nothing to do with publicity. Or even what Barraza’s officers were doing to find Kira.

  “The ransom,” Rebecca said. “I think we should pay it.”

  Fernandes jumped in before Barraza could answer. “That’s your decision.”

  “You agree?”

  “They haven’t even offered you a way to say yes or no, much less make a counteroffer.”

  “Quibble over how much my daughter is worth?”

  “Our daughter,” Brian muttered.

  “A counteroffer is standard,” Fernandes said. “As I’m sure you know. Delay, give Hector’s men a chance to do their jobs. Unless whoever has her explicitly threatens her. Which they haven’t.”

  “Do these seem like the kind of people who negotiate?”

  “Everyone negotiates.”

  Again, as much as she disliked Fernandes, he wasn’t entirely wrong. They had no choice but to wait for another text to arrive. Rebecca wished the kidnappers had offered an email address or a Signal or Telegram account. But they weren’t going to give the NSA a chance at their comms.

  “What about you, Hector? What do you think?”

  Barraza tapped his yellowed fingertips on the table. “These look like professionals. I think if you deliver the money, they keep the bargain.”

  “Colonel?”

  Garza nodded. “It’s a lot of money but not a crazy demand. Not a hundred million. Not impossible politically either, like the ones we see from the Islamic State, Spain must pull out of NATO.”

  “You have two million euros in cash?” Fernandes said.

  “Of course not,” Rebecca said. “But Spain does.”

  Fernandes shook his head, No no no.

  “You’ve paid ransom before.”

  “For Spanish citizens. In special instances. Aid workers, doing their jobs in dangerous places. Helping the world. Not a girl who gets herself in a mess.”

  “You’re blaming Kira?” Brian said.

  “She didn’t even first meet this man in Spain, we don’t know if he’s Spanish. He probably isn’t.”

  “What if it’s about my job?” Rebecca said.

  “Let the FBI pay.”

  “You know we can’t.”

  “Right. You have a rule, you don’t negotiate with terrorists, you don’t pay them. You want us to pay instead.” Fernandes shrugged. “Anyway, this isn’t Spain. It’s Catalonia. Maybe we split it fifty-fifty. One million Madrid, one million Barcelona. What do you say, Hector?”

  For the first time, Barraza seemed thrown. “This isn’t a matter for the police. I can ask. But I think the mayor will see this as a national issue.”

  “Oh yes, when it’s convenient for Catalonia, the problem is national—”

  “You won’t give us the money, I’ll rob a bank,” Rebecca said.

  “Calm down,” Fernandes said.

  Two of the most enraging—and sexist—words in any language. Relax, little lady, and let the men handle things.

  “Maybe there’s a way,” Rob Wilkerson said. His tone quieted them all.

  Wilkerson explained. The Spanish government would lend two million euros to the Unsworths—today, in cash, in return for a promissory note. “An aid to the investigation. It probably will never be paid out. If it is, the Unsworths will pay it all back—”

  “How long?” Fernandes said.

  “Let’s say ten years.”

  Brilliant. Wilkerson knew the Unsworths couldn’t repay the loan. Not in ten years or a hundred. But if the money vanished and Kira didn’t return, the Spanish government couldn’t ask the Unsworths to repay it. Even if she returned, would Spain want to ruin a feel-good story and publicize the fact it had paid a ransom?

  The “loan” would be a face-saving way for the Spanish government to give the Unsworths the money.

  Fernandes pursed his lips like he’d swallowed a shot of Drano. “All right—”

  That simple? But no.

  “On two conditions. First, the United States government will guarantee the money.” He twitched his lips under his mustache: Turnabout is fair play.

  Wilkerson nodded. “That should be fine.”

  Rebecca knew Wilkerson didn’t have the authority to agree. But she admired him for bluffing. We can all argue about it in ten years.

  “You don’t need to ask your bosses?” Fernandes said.

  “No. The other condition?”

  “Interest. It’s a loan, yes? So interest on the two million. Three percent a year.”

  Fernandes’s goal was obvious, to make the loan look as official as possible. Not for the Unsworths, but for the moment when Madrid told the FBI to repay the money.

  And to be a prick.

  “Bendejo,” Brian muttered under his breath.

  Not helping, though Rebecca understood.

  “I am here as a courtesy.” Fernandes pushed away from the table.

  “You and I need to have a conversation in private,” Rebecca said.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t let the mother of a girl who’s been kidnapped, possibly—”

  “Possibly?”

  “Has it not occurred to you that perhaps your daughter is a willing participant in her disappearance? Playing a game? With two million euros as the prize?”

  Rebecca found herself stunned into silence. Only someone who had never met Kira could suggest the possibility. The practical problems were enormous. How had Kira found people to play the kidnappers? How had she decided she could trust them to split the ransom with her? Where had they gone? How had they arranged the phones and the car and everything else?

  Worse, only a stone-cold psychopath would subject her family to such trauma.

  “You must be joking. You think she would put us through this?”

  Fernandes seemed to see he’d gone too far. “I meant only—”

  “Or are you saying that I’m part of it too? Brian, the whole family.”

  Rebecca’s fury was real. But she saw she had the edge, too. Time to pounce.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do, Raul. You drop the nonsense now, the interest, the American guarantee”—get everything off the table while she had the chance—“all the bullshit, or I get on a plane back to D.C. and tell my bosses to pull cooperation on everything. I mean everything. No drugs, no CT. And next time your ambassador to Caracas makes the Venezuelans mad and they cut the embassy power and send a thousand paramilitaries over for a pool party and you come crawling to JSOC asking the Marines to save his ass, it’ll be, sorry, three percent interest.”

  Like all good bureaucrats Fernandes knew when he was beaten. He nodded. “Sí, then. No interest, no guarantee. But we still need papers, and you and your husband need to sign.”

  “Our pleasure.”

  “Excellent,” Wilkerson said, his best fake cheery voice. “Let’s write it, sign it, get them to a bank so we have the money by the time the next text arrives. Doesn’t matter anyway, because the Mossos are going to find her way before then.”

  “We’ll do our best,” Barraza said.

  “We good then?” Wilkerson locking down the agreement like a good closer.

  “Great,” Rebecca said.

  Fernandes didn’t say a word.

  26

  Somewhere in Spain

  The white light under the plywood was back. The room was an oven agai
n. Another Spanish afternoon.

  Which as far as Kira could tell meant it was Monday, the second full day since they’d taken her. Wasn’t there a show about this? The First 48? If the detectives can’t solve the case in forty-eight hours, they have no chance. Might as well burn the file.

  But those were murders, right? And she was still alive. So good news.

  * * *

  Since the fight between Jacques and Rodrigo the house had been mostly quiet. A television played faintly downstairs, but they’d left her alone. She wondered if they’d made a ransom demand. If they thought Becks and Bri could pay millions of dollars they would be disappointed.

  Anyway, how did they plan to escape with the money? Some untraceable cryptocurrency thing like Bitcoin? She wasn’t even sure how Bitcoin worked. Plain old cash or diamonds?

  Not her problem. No doubt Jacques had an idea on how to take the money and run. Assuming he really did plan to ransom her and not sell her to the highest bidder—

  Steps along the hall. Rodrigo again, based on the heavy tread.

  The deadbolt popped back, the door swung open.

  Yep, Rodrigo. A plastic bag in his hand. He stood in the doorway and tossed it at her. Inside the bag, a bottle of water and a granola bar.

  She wondered why Jacques had sent Rodrigo to deliver the water. Probably just to prove he could. You go, and don’t touch her.

  Rodrigo started to close the door.

  “Wait, please. The toilet.” And another shot at the razors. Though, truly, she did have to pee. “Please.”

  “She’s downstairs. She can take you.”

  Kira had almost forgotten about Lilly. She hadn’t been up here once, as if she had decided Kira wasn’t worth her time. Let the boys fight over your skanky American ass.

  “I don’t trust her.”

  “You trust me?” But he waved his hand for her to get up.

  She walked down the hall, looking for anything she might have missed the day before. Nothing.

  Into the bathroom. “A shower would be nice.”

  “You don’t want a shower.”

  He closed the door, leaving her to work out why: Because it means we’re going to give you to someone who wants you clean all over.

  “No razors,” he said through the door.

  So much for that plan. She pushed aside the grimy shower curtain. A bottle of shampoo and one of conditioner, Spanish, generic. A bar of pink soap. Useless.

  On the sink. The razors. The toothbrushes. A tube of Licor del Polo, squeezed haphazardly. Becks would hate that. Becks rolled up toothpaste tubes neatly—

  Focus.

  Kira eased open the cabinet mirror. Two shelves. On the top, two pill bottles, empty. On the bottom, a dozen bottles of nail polish. In case Rodrigo wanted to freshen up.

  And scattered in with them: three travel-size bottles of polish remover.

  Acetone.

  As good as lighter fluid. Put a flame to the stuff and up it went.

  She grabbed a bottle of polish remover, closed the cabinet door.

  She sat on the toilet and peed as she considered the bottle. It still had the plastic ring around its cap. Would they notice it was gone? Probably not. There were still two others. And they’d all been mixed in with the polish.

  But what now? Obviously she couldn’t carry it out.

  “Vamos,” Rodrigo said.

  “Just a second, please.”

  One place she could hide it and be sure he wouldn’t see. Back in the closet she could take it out—

  What if the cap came off?

  It wouldn’t, it was sealed—

  Fuel. She had to have it.

  “I count ten,” Rodrigo said.

  She stuffed the bottle inside her. It wasn’t huge but the shape was weird. She bit her lip so she wouldn’t yell, pushed harder.

  She stood up from the toilet, smoothed her skirt as the door swung open, leaned over to wash her hands.

  “Too long,” Rodrigo said.

  “You’re keeping me hydrated.”

  Rodrigo grabbed her shoulder as the bottle dug at her from the inside. Add nail polish remover to the long list of people and things that didn’t belong in her vagina.

  She stared herself down, Don’t you make a noise, don’t even think about it. Rodrigo was next to her, all tattoos and body odor. He looked at her side-eyed, like he knew something was wrong but couldn’t figure out what.

  Take a guess, big guy.

  No, guess again.

  “You can brush your teeth too.”

  Was he messing with her? Or did he just want her breath to be minty fresh the next time he tried to rape her? Sorry, Rodrigo, the space you want is already occupied. She carefully squeezed the toothpaste—Becks would be proud—gave herself a thorough brush. Rodrigo closed the door to the bathroom.

  “I shouldn’t say,” he said. “But tomorrow we move you again. I don’t know where.”

  She should have been frightened but she wasn’t. Not with the lighter, not with the fuel.

  “I want to see you.” Her only play. Could she make him believe? “Alone. Tonight.”

  “What for?”

  “Can you?”

  Before she could reconsider, she put her hands to his face, kissed him. Not a peck this time, the real thing. If you’re gonna kiss him, make it good, make him like it. She hadn’t been this conscious of the mechanics of a kiss since her first kiss. His breath stank of weed but he wasn’t a bad kisser. He didn’t attack with his tongue, didn’t bite her lip or do anything fancy, just opened his mouth and inhaled her. He grunted, the sound of a boy who had closed his eyes and swung and somehow sent the ball over the fence.

  Nothing else. Let his imagination do the rest. She pulled back.

  “Take me back. Before they notice.”

  * * *

  Back in the dark she waited until his footsteps faded away. She lay on her back, eased out the bottle. She was tender but she didn’t think she’d done any permanent damage. Anyway, now she had it. For a moment she panicked, what if it was a non-acetone brand? She unscrewed the cap, sniffed the liquid inside. Acetone for sure, every woman knew the smell.

  Had Rodrigo believed her? Men were so unbelievably stupid about sex.

  She put the acetone on the shelf with the lighter and nail. Though she didn’t think she needed the nail anymore.

  Now she had a weapon. Fire. The Daenerys Targaryen of kidnapped American chicks. Of course, it hadn’t ended so great for Daenerys.

  She’d have one chance. If she failed he’d surely kill her. Even his fear of Jacques wouldn’t stop him. He’d strangle her, put his hands around her neck and choke her until her eyes bulged out—

  No. She couldn’t let fear paralyze her. They thought they’d broken her already. She had to prove them wrong.

  Footsteps. The door swung open.

  Jacques.

  The worst of them. Though they were all the worst.

  “Time for mommy and daddy to hear your voice.”

  27

  Barcelona

  Raul Fernandes hadn’t had a chance.

  Not that Brian liked the guy; he was a grade A asshole. The idea Kira would have staged her own kidnapping was beyond dumb. Still, Brian couldn’t help but sympathize as he watched Becks tear Fernandes up. He had felt the Wrath of Rebecca himself too many times.

  Of course, the fight over the money was stupid. Everyone knew they couldn’t pay it back. But two million euros was two million euros.

  Proprieties had to be observed when you took that much money from a foreign government.

  As Brian had learned.

  It was all a show. But the real show was happening in secret. The SVR was directing, with Brian as an audience of one.

  Then why hadn’t Irlov called again since this morning? The harder Brian tried to remember Irlov’s exact words, the slipperier the conversation seemed. Irlov had never confirmed that the Russians had actually taken Kira, much less that they would give her back.

  T
hey had to have her, though. Nothing else made sense.

  And the ransom demand had come so soon after the call. Like Irlov was proving he controlled the kidnappers even if he said he didn’t. But why lie to Brian, then? And were the kidnappers planning to collect the money, or was the demand for show?

  Too bad Brian couldn’t run the possibilities by Becks. All those years in counterintel, she must have learned something about the Russians, how they worked. Brian wanted to buy another burner, call Irlov again. But he’d look even more desperate. All he could do now was wait. For Irlov. The kidnappers. Or both.

  Then Barraza staring at him across the table, asking whether he knew anything. Sometimes cops had this weird radar with him. Like he gave off an I’m a perp vibe that they could feel even if they didn’t know how.

  The pressure made his head hurt. He cursed under his breath. To his surprise Becks reached over, squeezed his hand. Pretending to understand. Pretending this wasn’t her fault. When the truth was even in here he’d felt her annoyance when he tried to talk. Let Special Agent Becks handle things. Same attitude as always. Same reason Kira was in this mess, if he came right down to it.

  He squeezed her hand back.

  “I’m gonna go check on Tony.”

  * * *

  Outside the conference room, Tony sat in a blue plastic chair. Not texting, not looking at his phone. Just sitting, lips tight. Blaming himself. Bri felt for the kid. They trusted him enough to let him manage himself while they talked to the cops. Not enough to let him hear for himself what was happening.

  Brian reached down, hugged him awkwardly.

  “Almost done. We got the ransom money set up—”

  “Really?” Tony sounded hopeful.

  “The Spanish are gonna pay. Don’t want to scare the tourists.” Close enough to true. “And the Mossos guy, Hector, he told us everything they’re doing, they’re not messing around. Now we go to a bank to pick up the money.”

  “And wait for the people who have her”—he couldn’t say kidnappers, poor kid—“to call us?”

  “About right.”

  Tony nodded. “What’s Mom think?”

  “Ask her yourself.” Try to help the kid, all he wants is mommy. “I mean, she’ll be right out, let me see what’s going on.”