The Predators

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘If the woman keeps to her timing – which I think she will because it’s all part of her control syndrome – in two hours’ time you’ll be speaking to the monster who snatched your child,’ said Claudine. She used the word intentionally.

  ‘Yes?’ said McBride.

  Claudine was pleased at the body language, the way McBride’s lips tightened and he straightened in his chair. ‘A possible sex monster,’ she said, using the word again.

  ‘Yes?’ The voice was quieter.

  ‘Someone who’s maimed your child.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘We’ve avoided your first mistake,’ declared Claudine. ‘I don’t want her to know we’ve discovered the toe isn’t Mary’s. It’s part of her control: it mustn’t be taken away from her yet.’

  ‘OK,’ said McBride doubtfully.

  ‘You hate her,’ said Claudine. ‘You’d like to kill her, wouldn’t you?’

  McBride blinked. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And if she were in the room with you, instead of on the other end of a telephone, you’d probably try.’

  ‘I would,’ said the man. ‘And I’d do it. I want her dead.’ He’d loosened his tie and taken his jacket off.

  ‘Good,’ said Claudine, pleased with the admission. ‘Make yourself think hate.’

  ‘I don’t have to make myself.’

  ‘You can’t kill her, though.’

  ‘I will, if I ever get to her.’

  ‘But you can’t, not today.’

  ‘No,’ he conceded.

  ‘So what can you do to her today?’

  McBride looked at Claudine uncertainly. ‘What you tell me, I suppose.’

  He’d come down as far as she wanted. ‘Use your hate to beat her,’ she said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘You negotiated a lot, in business?’

  ‘Yes?’ McBride thought uneasily of his recent fear of Norris.

  ‘How often did you lose a negotiation?’

  ‘A few times.’

  ‘Did you ever hate the people you negotiated with?’

  ‘Of course not. It was business.’

  ‘What about those who beat you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ever lose your temper?’

  ‘That’s the way to lose negotiations.’

  Claudine smiled. ‘Exactly! You’re going to be talking to the woman who’s got your child, a woman you think of as a monster who’s prepared to disfigure her and whom you hate. But if for one single moment you allow that hate to come through, lose your temper, then you’re going to lose Mary Beth. Show emotion – plead, cry, beg – but don’t genuinely lose your temper and threaten to kill her like you did just now. She’s got Mary Beth to hurt you with. You’ve got nothing, except the words you use and the money you’re prepared to pay. And at the moment it comes down to words.’

  McBride nodded, in what Claudine read as determination, not despair. For once Hillary was listening too, not trying instinctively to compete.

  ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Follow her lead. Let her be in control all the time. Only argue or oppose her when I tell you. I’m going to be right here, directly beside you. If you’re unsure let it show that you’re unsure, stumble to give me time to guide you.’

  ‘Will she settle it today? Demand a ransom and say how it’s to be delivered?’ demanded Hillary.

  ‘There’s no way I can answer that,’ replied Claudine, who didn’t expect things to move that fast.

  ‘If I can talk long enough we might get a positional fix: be able to get her back?’ suggested McBride.

  Claudine was worried the confidence was sinking below the optimum level. ‘You’re the key. You. And what you say and how you say it.’

  McBride stared at her, swallowing, all thoughts of his escape by John Norris’s death wiped from his mind. Ignoring Hillary’s presence, he said: ‘I’ve never been so frightened in my life.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter at all if she realizes that,’ Claudine assured him. ‘Now we’re going to do something you’ll probably think is ridiculous but isn’t, believe me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m going to be the woman who’s got Mary. Negotiate with me to get her back.’

  The embassy communications room was the focal point of the operation and Claudine went to it an hour before the expected kidnap call, needing to know what the backup was going to be.

  One wall was dominated by a hugely magnified map of central Brussels, with linked adjoining charts spreading out into the city’s major suburbs. On each were marked the outwardly radiating waiting positions of thirty unmarked radio-controlled cars and fifteen anonymous motorcycles ready to be dispatched in a pincer movement at the first indication of a route being established by the woman’s call: when Claudine got to the crowded room the cars and motorcycles were testing in turn for sound levels and interference, each separately identified by a flashing light against its numbered designation on the central control panel in front of which sat three technicians, all American.

  One was slightly apart from the other two, connected at a divided section of the control board not to the road vehicles but to two helicopters at that moment preparing to lift off from the NATO military complex close to Zaventem airport to be in a spotting formation directly over the city at the time of the anticipated call: two replacements were being held at the base in case a contact delay encroached into the fuel reserves of the airborne machines.

  There were two separate mobile telephone scanners, both linked to roof-mounted satellite dishes installed that day and each again operated by a three-man crew. There was so much apparatus to record every spoken word and command if an operation were initiated that it had needed to be assembled in two banks, one behind the other, one man responsible for every two machines.

  After a guided tour of the communication and tracking systems Sanglier led a retreat out into the less congested corridor.

  ‘How’s McBride?’ he said.

  ‘All right, I think. I’ve rehearsed him as much as I believe I safely can. Once he lost his self-consciousness he did quite well. His wife being there is a nuisance.’

  ‘I’ll go to see if there’s anything he wants,’ announced Harrison.

  ‘No,’ said Claudine. ‘He needs to be left alone.’

  ‘And we don’t have to be told what he wants,’ said Harding heavily. ‘What either of them wants.’

  *

  Claudine went back to McBride’s office fifteen minutes before the expected call. McBride was at the open cocktail cabinet, the Jack Daniel’s bottle already in his hand. He turned and said: ‘You want anything?’

  ‘No,’ said Claudine. ‘And I don’t think you should.’ Damn! Something else she’d overlooked.

  ‘Listen to her if you won’t listen to me,’ said Hillary.

  ‘I can handle one.’

  ‘I don’t think you need it.’ When he stayed with the bottle she said: ‘She’d be winning, before you even started to talk.’

  McBride shrugged, replacing the whiskey and closing the doors. ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘I know you are.’

  ‘I wish I knew it as well,’ said the other woman.

  ‘You’re not helping, Mrs McBride,’ said Claudine. ‘In fact, you’re making things more difficult.’

  ‘Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?’

  ‘Let’s think about helping Mary, shall we?’ said Claudine, refusing the argument.

  ‘What if she doesn’t call?’

  ‘She will.’ The woman was too unpredictable for such a guarantee and Claudine accepted she’d lose credibility if there was no contact, but McBride couldn’t be allowed any doubt. She didn’t like the nervousness obvious from his pacing round the study but said nothing. Hillary lounged contemptuously in a chair. As he walked McBride constantly checked his watch. To calm him, Claudine sat easily in her already arranged chair, positioned the special, large-faced clock with the sweep second hand where they would both be able to time the call a
nd then toyed reflectively with the prepared jotting pad before beginning to write a series of quick, tom-off notes.

  ‘What are you doing?’ demanded the ambassador.

  To her relief he stopped moving. ‘There are things I can anticipate. Prepare for.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Things she would expect you to say.’

  ‘I thought we’d been through all that.’

  ‘Reminders,’ said Claudine.

  ‘It’s time!’

  ‘She’ll make us wait.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘As long as she likes. But she’ll call.’

  He started walking aimlessly again. Claudine said: ‘It’ll be better if you sit down. You’ve got to be ready.’

  McBride completed a circle and came back to lower himself into his chair. It was so large his feet only just touched the ground. His hands were shaking and his forehead was sheened with perspiration. There were three concealed call buttons, on the left of the knee recess. She wondered what they were for. The clock was registering four minutes after the time of yesterday’s call.

  McBride had got as far as ‘She’s not—’ when the phone rang. All three jumped, McBride more than the women. Claudine knew the transfer from the main switchboard would have already been delayed for a few seconds, for the scan to begin. McBride stared at the instrument, transfixed.

  ‘Pick it up,’ said Claudine calmly.

  McBride did so, hesitantly, but remembered to look sideways to her so that both receivers came off their cradles together. ‘Hello?’

  ‘McBride?’ The voice was faint.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How do I know?’

  Claudine mouthed ‘You must tell me’ and the American repeated the words aloud.

  ‘What’s Granny McBride’s birthday?’ asked the caller.

  ‘August second,’ replied the ambassador at once.

  ‘And grandpa’s?’

  ‘Grandpa’s dead.’

  ‘When did he die?’

  ‘Two years ago. November.’

  There was a laugh, overlaid at the end by outside traffic noise. ‘Hello, Mr Ambassador!’

  Quickly Claudine slipped across the first of her notes. It read: ‘Horror. She’s maimed your child.’

  McBride said: ‘You’ve hurt Mary! Badly. Please give her back, so I can get her treated: get her to hospital!’

  There was a pause at the other end. Claudine nodded approvingly to the man beside her. The line had been open for almost two minutes.

  ‘She’s been properly treated.’

  ‘Who by?’ mouthed Claudine.

  ‘By a doctor?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘She’s not in any pain.’

  Claudine’s second note read: Anger but not hatred. Frustration.

  ‘Bastard,’ said McBride. ‘Why? I want to pay to get her back: pay anything.’ He was performing far better than Claudine could have hoped.

  ‘I wanted you to know you’ve got to do everything I demand …’

  The line faded into silence and McBride said urgently: ‘I didn’t hear! The line’s gone …’

  ‘… demand or something worse will happen to her,’ echoed down the line as the volume returned.

  ‘No!’ protested McBride, unprompted. ‘There’s no need to hurt her any more. Just tell me what you want and I’ll do it: let’s just end this.’

  ‘We want two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,’ announced the woman.

  Claudine had been making profile notes throughout. She pressed down at the ransom figure so heavily the pencil point broke. She switched to another, angry at her over-reaction, important though the demand was. Hurriedly she passed another note.

  Responding to it McBride said: ‘You can have it now! Tonight! Tell me how to deliver it and you can have it tonight … so I can get Mary back tonight …’

  Four minutes, Claudine saw. Surely with the sort of technical equipment at the other side of the embassy they would have got a fix by now!

  ‘All in good time: I can’t have us walking into a trap.’

  ‘I promise …’

  Before Claudine’s headshake registered with McBride the woman cut him off. ‘I know that won’t be true, so don’t lie. You don’t want Mary coming to any more harm, do you?’

  The man opened his mourn to speak but Claudine held up a stopping hand, mouthing her instruction.

  ‘I’m sorry … I didn’t mean … I’m so desperate to get Mary back,’ stumbled McBride obediently.

  The volume collapsed into static. Almost six minutes, noted Claudine. The words were indistinct when the sound came back. Then the voice said: ‘Guess you didn’t hear that: I lost you too. And how’s the clever lady today? I know you’re there, Claudine!’

  The remark reverberated through Claudine’s head like a pistol shot. She’d been right in thinking she’d missed something but she wasn’t missing it any more and the recognition was so astonishing that momentarily Claudine’s mind blocked. She was conscious of McBride’s startled expression and of his intention to speak and urgently shook her head. She said: ‘I’m very well, Mercedes. Trying to be a clever lady yourself?’

  The laugh was uneven. ‘It was obvious you’d listen in. Just as it’s obvious they’ll be trying to trace this call. That’s why I won’t be talking to you much longer.’

  Could she do it! She had to, Claudine told herself. There was a risk but she’d already made up her mind about the chances of getting Mary Beth back alive. Abandoning everything she’d rehearsed with the ambassador, she embarked on an approach she’d considered at the very beginning. ‘We’re having the toe scientifically examined, to establish if it’s from Mary.’ She held her free hand up against any interruption from McBride.

  ‘Your idea?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Claudine. ‘And I’ve got a lot more.’ Bite! she thought desperately.

  ‘The clever psychologist, imagining you know my mind!’

  Claudine felt another sweep of disbelief. ‘Oh, I know your mind very well, Mercedes: probably better than you know it yourself.’ There was so much to think about: considerations to weigh. But later. Not now. Now her entire concentration had to be upon every nuance and word of this conversation.

  ‘You’re a conceited fool!’

  Claudine was pleased at the irritated edge in the woman’s voice. ‘One of us is, Mercedes.’ She hoped the woman discerned the contempt she was trying to infuse into her voice every time she uttered the ridiculous assumed name.

  ‘Didn’t you hear the warning I gave McBride about what would happen to Mary if he annoyed me?’

  Once more Claudine shook her head against any interruption from the ambassador. The door on the opposite side of the office opened softly but urgently. Without coming any further into the room Blake gave exaggerated nods to indicate a location followed by one of the familiar rolling gestures with his hands for the woman to be kept on the line. Trying to make the sneer in her voice as obvious as she could, Claudine said: ‘You didn’t actually say annoyed, Mercedes, but then I guess you’re confused—’

  ‘I’m not at all confused!’ broke in the woman.

  Dare she go on? If she were right – and Claudine didn’t doubt that she was – there was another way, a much more effective way, for her to achieve what she wanted. McBride, beside her, was damp with sweat, smelling of it. ‘It’s a common belief …’ Claudine said, letting her voice trail. At the same time she slid another prompt sheet to the man.

  McBride said: ‘Let me speak to Mary. Talk to her to know she’s all right.’

  ‘Where’s Claudine? I want Claudine!’

  Claudine allowed the briefest of pauses, aware of the satisfaction surging through her: so much, so quickly. Dismissively, she demanded: ‘What?’

  ‘What’s a common belief? What are you talking about?’

  Quite irrespective of anything else, they’d kept the woman talking for a further three minutes: she had to be surrounded now, on the point of arrest. ‘The
ambassador wants to talk to Mary.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question!’

  ‘The only thing we need to talk about is the arrangement for getting Mary back.’

  ‘I’ll—’ began the woman loudly, but then stopped. There was a sound as if the instrument had been hurriedly dropped, and distant talking, in French too indistinct to decipher, but no police sirens or the shouts and yells Claudine would have expected at a moment of arrest.

  ‘What …?’ started McBride, but Claudine gestured him down.

  For precisely four more minutes, timed by the clock in front of them, the indistinct talking continued. Claudine thought she detected a child’s voice and from the disbelieving look on his face she knew McBride had heard it too. Then there were sirens, a screaming cacophony, and the expected shouting began: there was definitely at least one child’s voice among the screaming before all the noise was drowned by the whuck-whuck of descending helicopters.

  ‘They’ve got her!’ said McBride, his voice trembling. ‘They’ve got the woman and they’ve got Mary back.’

  ‘Come on!’ shouted Claudine, already running towards the door.

  Way was made for McBride and his wife to squeeze into the communications room, alongside Sanglier against the wall at the very rear. The only sound, the volume adjusted to be properly audible, not deafening, was relayed over an open channel that all could hear. It was in French. There was definitely a child’s cry. Demands, clearly from the arresting officers, for the adults not to move and to keep their hands and arms visible. One voice kept repeating a threat to shoot. Claudine’s first dip of uncertainty came with the sound of a man’s voice, close to hysteria, demanding to know what was happening and pleading that no one shoot. And of a child screaming, hysterical too.

  Blake was beside her. She leaned towards him and whispered: ‘It’s gone wrong.’ He frowned back at her, not replying.

  She looked intently at Poncellet, on the other side of the blond-haired man. It surely couldn’t be the police chief? She hadn’t thought whom she could continue to trust, until that moment: hadn’t thought about anything, except her conviction. Now she did. She thought about how they could use what she’d learned and how she could keep Mary alive and wondered how much easier or more difficult it made everything. And she wondered who it was. There was only a small possible number. Through all the confusion and conflicting impressions Claudine abruptly felt very confident. She couldn’t risk telling anyone – her biggest and most immediate problem was deciding whom she could tell about anything – but for the first time almost since the investigation started she believed there was a chance of getting Mary back alive. Just as she decided, suddenly, that Mary was still alive. If she’d been dead, it would have been Mary’s toe in the backpack, not someone else’s.