Chapter
49
Monmouth, New Hampshire
Officer Corinne Bradford is lying on her stomach in a copse of woods and low brush, keeping view on the large house below her, about a hundred feet away. The ground is cold and moist against her chilled skin as she brings up the binoculars again, scanning the quiet yard.
It’s a cold morning and she’s hoping against hope that this little thread, this little clue, will work out.
The previous several hours were spent going up and down Route 113, stopping at every farm stand, service station, and little shop, showing off the photo of the Cadillac Escalade snapped from the Citizens Bank CCTV system, and telling everyone it was a confidential investigation so word wouldn’t get back to her idiot chief. At RJ’s Hardware, at last, she got a hit.
“Sure,” Bing Torrance, the store’s manager, said an hour ago. “I saw something like that go up the dirt road to the Macomber place the other day. I know they’ve been renting it, off and on, for years, but I thought it was weird to see a strange vehicle there, ’cause they haven’t rented their place in over a year.”
So here she is.
Cold.
Thirsty.
What she wouldn’t do for a coffee and a breakfast sandwich from McDonald’s.
Or two.
Corinne checks her watch.
In an hour she’s due to report to work at the police station.
Should she go to work and tell Chief Grambler what she’s found out?
Sure.
Some hardware guy thought he saw a Cadillac Escalade go up to this house. And I’ve kept watch on it for a couple of hours, and haven’t seen a light, a person, or anything.
And Chief Grambler will probably fire her cold ass for insubordination.
Corinne brings up the binoculars again. An impressive two-story wooden house, dark brown, with a detached three-car garage. Pricey. Behind the house the well-mowed lawn goes down to a large, isolated pond, and there’s a fixed dock going out into the water.
Another check of the watch, and Corinne thinks, Damn it, no matter what, I’m not moving. I’ll call in sick or something, but nope, I’m staying right here.
Corinne lowers the binoculars again, rubs at her tired and cold eyes.
Hot coffee.
Why in the world didn’t she come up here prepared, with a thermos and maybe—
The sound of an engine snaps her right out of it.
The binoculars are back in her hands.
Her heart is slamming right along.
There’s an open stretch just before the garage where there’s a good view, and something is coming up the dirt road, engine getting louder.
“Damn,” she whispers.
Not a Cadillac Escalade.
A battered old black pickup truck. Ford.
“Damn,” she whispers again.
All this time, all this waiting, her clothing soaked through and cold, just to see an old black Ford pickup truck.
The middle garage door quietly slides up, and the pickup truck goes into the empty bay.
Hold it.
Hold on!
She tries to steady her breathing, the shakes starting in her wrists and hands.
In the left bay of the garage is a black Cadillac Escalade.
The hardware guy was right!
She waits.
Takes deep breaths.
Movement.
A man comes out of the garage as the door slowly descends behind him. He has a dull yellow coat over his arm, and he’s rubbing at his forehead with a cloth, and when he lowers the cloth, Corinne almost gasps.
It’s the terrorist kidnapper.
Asim Al-Asheed.
Right here in front of her.
Corinne picks up the binoculars, slowly moves back down into a thicket of trees, pulls out her phone.
NO SERVICE
Damn it all to hell!
That’s one thing that she hasn’t gotten used to: the many areas up here where there is no cell-tower service. It’s as if she’s been cast back into the 1990s.
Corinne looks back at where she’s come from.
Her 9mm SIG Sauer is holstered at her side.
She’s convinced, deep in her bones, that the president’s daughter is up at the house.
Should she try to rescue her?
Now?
Corinne hates herself, but no, that would be suicide.
She’s got to contact…
Who?
Chief Grambler?
No.
That idiot would argue, dismiss, and pooh-pooh what she’s found out.
Time to think of someone else. And pray that she gets cell service.
A few minutes later—praise the Lord!—she gets cell service, and she searches through her contacts until she finds the listing for Clark Yates, who used to be with her in the Massachusetts State Police and who lucked out by jumping over to the New Hampshire State Police before the great purge began.
The phone rings.
Rings.
Rings.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up,” she whispers.
“Hello?”
She sags in relief. “Clark, it’s Corinne Bradford.”
“Corinne…damn, it’s early. I mean—”
“Clark,” she interrupts. “You’ve got to help me. I know where the president’s daughter is located. I’ve found the kidnapper and seen his vehicle.”
“Corinne…are you sure? And why are you telling me? Shouldn’t you—”
“Yeah, I know,” she says, glancing around at the trees, exposed granite boulders, and underbrush. “But my chief is an idiot. Look, consider this a solid tip. In northern Monmouth, on a dirt road marked with a wooden sign that says Macomber, off Route 113, just past RJ’s Hardware. At the end of the dirt road is a two-story country-style house, with a large pond at the rear.”
“Corinne…”
“I saw him! I saw the damn terrorist kidnapper, Clark. And the Cadillac Escalade. Honest to God.”
She hears something rustling out there, probably the wind moving the tall trees back and forth, rubbing against each other.
Clark says, “Okay. Got it. I’ll start making calls. I hope to God you’re right.”
“Me, too,” she says. “Me, too. Bye for now. Don’t let me down!”
Corinne disconnects her call and there’s a snap, like a stick being cracked. She looks behind her, at the man she saw outside the garage, coming toward her with a knife in his hand, smiling with quiet confidence.
Chapter
50
Northwestern New Hampshire
Mel Keating rolls over on the bed and sits up as the door to her cell grinds open. She’s not sure what time it is, not with the light still glaring at her, and she’s confused and sleepy, and she knows this is part of their process, to weaken her. Mel has heard stories from Dad and his buds in the teams about SERE training—survival, evasion, resistance, and escape—where they learn to survive being a POW. And part of SERE includes either sleep deprivation or screwing around with your sleep patterns.
The younger one, Faraj, comes in, and Mel feels a sharp cold jolt of fear.
His hands are empty.
Isn’t it time for breakfast?
Why is he here?
He’s smiling, his eyes still slightly reddened from her attack yesterday, and Mel stands up, not wanting to remain seated, a scared victim ready for whatever’s coming her way.
If the son of a bitch plans to assault her, she’s going to make sure he either fails or pays for it with scratches, bruised testicles, or a gouged eye.
He steps forward, nods.
“Are you hungry?” he asks.
Mel says, “Is this a trick question?”
“A trick…what?”
“A question that’s a taunt. Or an insult. Not a real question.”
He nods again, smiling. “No, it is a real question. Nothing else. Are you hungry?”
The truth is that her stomach’s been gro
wling at her for a while, and she’s not sure how long it’s been since she scooped up the cold vegetable soup from the concrete floor with her hands and ate it like—
Like a frightened, hungry refugee.
Just as Asim wanted.
“Yes, I am.”
“It is breakfast time,” Faraj says. “What would you like?”
“To have breakfast at Pope’s Diner, over in Spencer. You two could come if you’d like.”
That amuses him, and his smile is wider. “That is not possible. Tell me your favorite breakfast. What is it? I shall do my best to prepare it.”
Mel replies without thinking. “Pancakes. With butter. And real maple syrup, not that cane sugar crap they sell in supermarkets. And bacon. Extra crispy. Orange juice. Coffee.”
Faraj listens to her and says, “You seem to know what you want.”
“That’s…” Her voice catches. “Dad likes to make me breakfast on Sundays. And for the Secret Service at our house. And…sometimes he goes around to the nearby towns, helps the local churches when they have Sunday brunches for their congregations.”
“I had not heard of that,” Faraj says.
Mel crosses her arms, wills her eyes to stop watering. “Because he doesn’t promote it, doesn’t allow press coverage. He just…does it.”
Faraj says, “You’re a lucky girl.”
“I’m not a girl,” she says. “And yes, I know I’m lucky. And if you’re going to give me a lecture on how lucky I am, because I live in the West, because I have no fears of going hungry or getting sick without treatment, shut up already. I’ve heard it already.”
Faraj’s face tenses. “No, that’s not what I was going to say. You are wrong.”
Mel says, “Prove it.”
Her kidnapper says, “Do you know of a prison in Tripoli? Called Abu Salim?”
“No,” Mel says, wondering, Why the embarrassment? Why the mocking? Just get on with it.
“The most famed and evil prison in my country,” Faraj says, voice soft. “That stray dog, that boy colonel, that costumed fool, that’s where he imprisoned those who opposed him, or insulted him, or just because he had a whim that this man should be punished. In 1996, the prisoners revolted, and more than twelve hundred were massacred. And after the bodies were dragged out and the blood was washed away, it remained open.”
Mel sees the young man’s face change before her, from what he was—a terrorist, killer, and kidnapper—to a son burdened by memories.
“I never knew my mother,” he says. “My father, Hassan, ran a tea shop in Tripoli…and I remember him feeding me sweets at the end of the day, those that he couldn’t sell. And when I was five or six, he was taken to Abu Salim and never came out.”
Mel wants to say something in the silence that follows in her concrete cell, but she can’t think of a word.
Her captor briefly shakes his head, as if he’s trying to bring himself back to the moment.
His voice is still soft. “When I said you were lucky, it was because you know your father, and you still have your father.”
Turning, Faraj says, “Your breakfast will be here shortly.”
Mel is pleasantly surprised at the breakfast she’s just eaten because it’s exactly what she ordered, and, desperately hungry from having eaten the cold meal from the floor hours ago, she eats every bit of it.
Placing the tray on the floor, she suddenly yawns. She’s so damned tired.
Mel sits back on the bed, yawns again. Why shouldn’t she be tired? She’s been running on shock and adrenaline since the kidnapping and seeing Tim get murdered…
She lies down on the bed. Thinks things through. Again remembers Agent Stahl and his briefing back there at the White House.
Mel slowly slides the gold band from her right ring finger, holds it up to the never-ceasing bright light. The old initials are still visible within: FROM ST TO KM 12/10/41.
A gift from Mom’s granddad to his fiancée, who would become his wife—and Mom’s grandmother—after he enlisted in the Navy, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
She grips the ring tightly in her fist.
So very tired.
Chapter
51
The Oval Office
The White House
To the secretary of Homeland Security and to the director of the FBI, President Pamela Barnes says, “It’s 8 a.m. Four hours away from the noon deadline set by Asim Al-Asheed. What’s the latest?”
Secretary Paul Charles starts to speak, but FBI director Lisa Blair rolls right over him and says, “We’ve got at least a hundred agents in the field around Mount Rollins, with more flying in and driving in with each hour. They’re working with local agencies in setting up roadblocks, interviewing travelers, and running down possible leads. Our current challenge is that this area of New Hampshire and nearby Vermont is heavily wooded, very rural, with lots of isolated homes, cottages, and hunting camps, not to mention hiking trails and unmarked dirt roads that don’t appear on maps or on GPS. There’s a lot of driving, door knocking, and interrogating drivers, but so far, no real leads have developed.”
In addition to these two, the only other person in the Oval Office is Barnes’s husband and chief of staff, Richard. As he said earlier, this was not the time to have aides or notetakers leave a paper trail of the sensitive topics under discussion.
Richard says, “What about the vehicle spotted leaving the kidnapping scene? The black Escalade?”
Blair and Charles are sitting in leather armchairs in front of the Resolute desk, while Barnes’s husband is sitting at her left, legs crossed, leaning forward impatiently.
Director Blair purses her lips in anger. “That was a lead that we were hoping to keep confidential. But someone up there leaked it to a local weekly newspaper, and that report was picked up by the Associated Press bureau in Concord, and the word quickly spread.”
Barnes says, “Why’s that a problem, Director?”
The FBI head says, “Because every concerned citizen, crank, or nut up and down the Connecticut River Valley has been clogging the tip line of every police agency from the Canadian border to Long Island Sound, saying they’ve seen that black Escalade drive by, or go into a parking garage or apartment building parking lot. Each and every one of those leads has to be tracked down, Madam President. It’s a hell of a chore.”
“I see,” Barnes says. “And inter-agency cooperation?”
“As well as can be expected,” Blair says. “The CIA has been working its sources overseas, and the NSA is going through its phone and email records. The challenge is that the CIA works in a wilderness of mirrors and mazes…Is the information they’re getting the real deal, or are they being played by someone with an agenda? How valid is any intelligence they’re receiving? As for the NSA, they have thousands of terabytes of recorded information to sift through. And we know from painful experience that Asim Al-Asheed, his cousin Faraj, and their supporters are extremely careful with their communications.”
Richard says, “So no good news, then.”
Director Blair says, “It speaks for itself, Mr. Barnes.”
“Anything else to add?” the president asks.
Director Blair says, “We’ve pre-positioned one unit from the Hostage Rescue Team at a regional high school outside of Spencer, about five miles away from Mount Rollins, where Mel Keating was kidnapped. Another unit is en route to give them support. The unit there has both air and ground transport to respond immediately if we get any actionable intelligence. In addition, we have access to DOD resources as well, and there’s an NSA representative at the scene there to provide support.”
The president looks to her rumpled and overwhelmed secretary of Homeland Security and regrets once again naming him to that post after her election. But as head of the Florida Highway Patrol and as a political operator, Paul Charles helped swing a lot of support to her when she started her insurrection against Matt Keating.
She should have asked for his resignation yesterday, bu
t firing him would be a hell of a sign of weakness at this time.
“What do you have, Paul?”
“We’re working as best as we can with our FBI friends”—his voice is tinged with contempt—“and we’re bringing in two units of our Counter Assault Team from the Secret Service to provide support to the HRT.”
“We don’t need it,” Director Blair snaps.
“Well, you’re going to get it,” he says, grinning.
“Enough,” Barnes says. “Anything else, Paul?”
“The border crossings,” Charles says. “We really need to take a hard look at the situation, Madam President. The backup of traffic crossing into Canada—”
Barnes says, “No.”
Her Homeland Security secretary says, “With all due respect, Madam President, the chances that the terrorists are going to cross the border into Canada with Mel Keating in their control is very, very remote.”
“But that remote chance is there, isn’t it?” she says. “Keep the inspections going.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Anything more?” she asks.
Charles looks to Blair and then shrugs and says, “Er, I guess I’ll have to be the one to ask the question that everyone’s thinking about. The ransom.”
“What about it?” Richard asks.
“Er…is it going to be paid?”
Barnes crisply says, “No. We don’t pay ransoms to terrorists.”
“But,” Charles goes on, “it’s Matt Keating’s daughter.”
“Yes,” she says, “and I’m keeping the both of you from finding her. Get to it, Director Blair and Secretary Charles. Go find her. You’ve got just four hours.”
When she’s alone with her husband, President Barnes leans back in her chair, rubs at her forehead.
“God, Richard,” she says. “Am I doing the right thing?”
“Absolutely,” he says.
“But Mel Keating might be dead by the end of the day.”
“And whose fault is that?” her chief of staff demands. “I’ll tell you. It’s Asim and his butcher cousin. And it’s the FBI and Homeland Security, for not doing their jobs. And it’s one more person.”
The President's Daughter Page 18
