Chapter 28
It was dark outside now.
I leaned against the cool brick wall of the hospital and took a couple of breaths. Alison was inside, trying to find a coffee machine, and Kirsty had left to pursue her own investigations.
I was still taking in what she had told me but couldn’t make the connection. After what I had seen earlier that evening I refused to make a connection.
Someone had taken Hannah Shapiro, we knew that much. We didn’t know if she was the primary target. Whether she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I needed to know what the motive was and I needed to know soon, because one thing I did know for certain – the longer it went on without her being found the worse it would be for her. Statistics wouldn’t lie in this case.
I pulled out my phone and hit speed-dial. After a few rings I heard the smooth, unmistakably West Coast accent I had been expecting.
‘Jack Morgan.’
‘Jack,’ I said. ‘We’ve got a major problem.’
‘What is it, Dan?’
‘Hannah – she’s been abducted. Just outside the university campus. A group of hooded men. Unmarked van.’
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then: ‘When did it happen?’
His voice was as tight, as serious, as I’d ever heard it.
‘An hour or so ago.’
‘Have you heard anything?’
‘No ransom demand as yet.’
‘Maybe they’re not after money.’
I didn’t respond. I knew all too well that young women were abducted for all kinds of reasons. By no means all of them financial. I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the memory of what I had seen in the lock-up at King’s Cross. Failed.
‘I want you to drop everything else, Dan! Everything. That girl is your only priority, you hear me?’
‘You don’t have to tell me, Jack. The people who took her also put my god-daughter in intensive care.’
‘I’ll be getting on a plane as soon as the FBI let me loose. Meanwhile Private worldwide is at your entire disposal. You need anything – anything at all – you let us know.’
‘I appreciate it.’
‘Just get the girl home safe, Dan. Money isn’t an issue.’
‘You think it’s a kidnapping?’
There was another pause on the end of the line and I could hear the frustration in Jack’s voice. ‘There are things you need to know about Hannah Shapiro,’ he said. ‘It all goes back to 9 April 2003.’
Some minutes later I hung up. I looked down and opened the hand clenched tight around my car key. The metal had cut into my flesh. I held the wound to my mouth and tasted the iron in it.
Like I said. Someone was going to pay.
Part Three
Chapter 29
I live in a small apartment in Soho, on the third floor of an old building on Dean Street.
I have a lounge, a bedroom, a small kitchen that I rarely use and a bathroom. I had the front window double-glazed shortly after I moved in and the place is snug. I have a small television and a digital internet radio.
Dean Street is one of my favourite places in the world. Home to The Crown and Two Chairmen, the Groucho Club and the best bar in the western hemisphere – The French House – even if it does sell beer only by the half-pint and you have to steer well clear at lunchtime when it’s packed with media types and tourists.
But at half-six in the morning the pubs are closed tighter than a drum. The little Italian cafe round the corner was open early, though. I bought an espresso to go, which I sipped as I walked across town to the office.
I was short of the recommended eight hours of shut-eye – by about seven hours, I reckoned – and the sharp, bitter jolt of the caffeine was kicking in fine. Normally, before going into work, I’d have gone to the gym I used just off Piccadilly Circus near the Cafe Royal. But Chloe was still unconscious in intensive care, Hannah Shapiro was still missing and we still didn’t have a clue why she had been taken.
Jack Morgan had been straight in touch with Hannah’s father, Harlan Shapiro, who was getting on this evening’s flight to London.
Her abductors had made no contact. We didn’t know if Hannah’s cover had been blown or if a ransom demand was imminent. Given what Kirsty had told me last evening I very much hoped that was the case. If she hadn’t been taken for money… I shook the thought away, dropped my empty espresso cup in a litter bin outside a newsagent’s and picked up my pace. The clock was ticking and we didn’t have a minute to waste.
Ten minutes later I sprinted up the stairs to my office. I never take the elevator if I can help it. I don’t like elevators.
Lucy, my PA, flashed her cut-glass smile as me as I punched in the security code and stepped through to the open-plan reception office. She was blonde, beautiful and had a top-drawer accent to go with the smile.
‘Morning, Lucy. Everyone in yet?’
She shook her head. ‘Dr Lee is on her way in but Sponge won’t be coming in today. The rest are in the conference room.’
‘What do you mean, he won’t be coming in?’ If my tone was a tad sharp I didn’t apologise for it
‘It’s his mother.’
Vladimir Kopchek, or ‘Sponge’ as he was known because of his ability to soak up every bit of information and retain it, was our computer and technical support expert. He defected to the west before glasnost. He’s in his fifties now and has a mind sharper than an ex-wife’s tongue. His mother back in Russia had fallen ill and he was awaiting the results of tests. ‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘They don’t give her very long. Maybe three months. He’s booked himself on the first flight over.’
I nodded, resigned. I couldn’t blame the guy, but he was going to be hard to replace.
Wendy Lee came through the door, carrying a paper sack. ‘I got you coffee,’ she said.
We walked into the conference room. About twenty foot by eighteen. A long walnut table running to the wall opposite the door. Flush with the end of the table and rising up the wall some ten foot by eight was a state-of-the-art LED television screen. Fractions of an inch thick.
When it was switched to video-conference mode it connected to Private’s other offices around the world. So that the table seemed to carry on beyond the screen into an identical office. Except in that office it would be Jack Morgan’s team sitting around the table in his octagonal war room, or the crew of our outfits in Rome – or Paris or New York.
Today, though, it was just my team who were there for the briefing.
Chapter 30
Around the table were Adrian Tuttle, Wendy Lee, Suzy Malone, Brad Dexter and Sam Riddel.
Sam is my number two at the agency. He was wearing a coal-black three-piece suit and a dark blue tie. He’s a six foot four ex-copper and ex-boxer, and he’s black. He’d never killed a man in the ring, but I wasn’t so sure about out of it. He grew up on one of the worst estates in South London. Two of his brothers were killed before he was ten years old. Killed in the drug-turf wars that were still a feature of everyday life in that part of London. The fact that Sam had survived it, had never turned to the dark side as it were, meant he could pretty much survive anything in my book.
Suzy was in her early thirties. Ex-Metropolitan Police. Five foot six, auburn hair, fifth-degree black-sash Wing Chun kung fu, Third Dan kick-boxing, a marksman, a loyal friend, a deadly enemy, openly bisexual and one of my favourite people in the whole world. The Met Police’s loss was decidedly our gain. Likewise Brad Dexter. Early fifties, built like an American-style fridge, he had taken early retirement from the close-protection unit of the Met. He now headed up our personal-security division.
‘Okay, guys,’ I said as I picked up a small white remote-control unit from the desk. ‘Everything else is off the agenda. What I am going to tell you about now needs our total focus. Jack Morgan would be flying over himself to head this up, but he can’t. He’s subpoenaed to appear in federal court and can’t leave the country.’