Haskel looked at Giovanna and said, “This is the main checkpoint and we usually get out so the guards can have a look inside. It’s kind of nice to stretch our legs. There’s a restroom of sorts, if needed. Don’t worry.”
She nodded and said, “I’m okay. Thanks.”
The truck stopped. Two guards pointed with their rifles. Youssef and Walid got out and said hello. It was all routine. Another guard opened the rear door and motioned for the four Turks and Giovanna to get out.
“No guns!” the guard shouted in Arabic.
As usual, the Turks left their weapons on their seats and stepped into the sunlight. It was almost 9 A.M. and the desert was already hot. Two men in uniform climbed into the truck and looked around. Minutes dragged on and Youssef began glancing around. He did not recognize the guards, but then they rotated so often. Two of them stood close by with Kalashnikovs, their fingers close to the triggers.
The leader stepped out of the truck holding Haskel’s automatic pistol. He waved it at them and yelled, in Arabic, “Hands up, high!”
The four Turks, two Libyans, and Giovanna slowly raised their hands.
“On your knees!” he shouted.
Instead of dropping to his knees, Youssef took a step in the wrong direction and said, “What is this? We have permission!”
The leader aimed the pistol at his face, and from three feet away, pulled the trigger.
Haskel had called his boss at the Lannak construction camp as they were leaving the city and said they were on schedule to arrive at 10 A.M. This had been standard operating procedure for the entire time the bridge had been under construction. Always plan the trip, nothing spur of the moment, always call ahead, and always call to announce the departure and arrival. Someone with authority was watching and waiting. Most of the highways were safe, but it was Libya, after all, a land of warring tribes that had thrived on conflict for centuries.
At 10:30, the camp called the radio in Youssef’s truck, but there was no answer. Same at 10:45 and 11:00. If there had been a breakdown, which were not uncommon, the driver would have called the camp immediately. At 11:05, the camp received a call from the Libyan Army. The message was disturbing: Another truck had stopped at the checkpoint, only to find it deserted. The five army guards were missing, along with their two trucks and two jeeps. There was no sign of another vehicle. The army was sending helicopters and troops to the area.
The search revealed nothing, though it wasn’t difficult to hide in the vastness of the Sahara. At 3 P.M., the Lannak executive in charge called Samir, who was at his office. He returned to the hospital to find Mitch napping again, and decided to wait an hour or so before delivering the troubling news.
By 5 P.M., Mitch had forgotten about his food poisoning and was on the phone with Jack Ruch in New York, who in turn had patched in Riley Casey, his counterpart in the London office. With so many details yet to be confirmed, it still seemed inconceivable that an associate of Scully & Pershing could be missing in Libya. But there had been no sign of Giovanna or any of the men with her for twelve hours. And no contact. The nightmare was evolving, and with each passing hour it became grimmer.
The most pressing issue was how to tell her father. Mitch knew he had no choice but to do so himself, and soon, before Luca heard the news from some other source.
At 6:30 P.M., Mitch called Luca in Rome and told him his daughter was missing.
Chapter 12
Viewed by most of the world as a pariah state, Gaddafi’s Libya struggled to maintain normal diplomatic relations even with its friends. With its enemies, contact on sensitive matters was at best tricky and often impossible. The Turkish ambassador was the first to arrive at the People’s Palace for a hurriedly arranged meeting. He spoke with a senior military adviser to Gaddafi and was told that the government was doing everything to find the missing team. Off the record, the ambassador was assured that the government was not involved in the abductions or kidnappings or whatever they were being called at the moment. He left the meeting unsatisfied and with more questions than when he arrived, but that was not unusual when dealing with the regime.
The Italians were next. Given their colonial history, they still maintained formal ties with the government and often did the dirty work for the Westerners who chose to deal with Libya because of its oil. The Italian ambassador spoke with a Libyan general on the phone and was fed the party line: the government was not involved, nor did they know who was, nor did they have any idea where the hostages had been taken. The Libyan Army was scouring the desert. The ambassador immediately called Luca, an acquaintance, and relayed the conversation. For some vague reason, the ambassador was confident Giovanna and the others would be found unharmed.
Neither the British nor the Americans used diplomats when dealing with Libya. After President Reagan bombed the country in 1986, an undeclared state of war had been in effect. After that, any contact with Gaddafi and his minions was complicated and fraught with intrigue. Further compounding the situation was the fact that no American was involved. Giovanna had dual Italian and British citizenship. Scully & Pershing was headquartered in New York, but it was a law firm, a corporation, not a person. Nevertheless, the U.S. State Department and its intelligence services were on high alert, watching the internet and listening to the chatter. And they were hearing nothing. Satellite images had yet to produce anything.
British spies in Tripoli were likewise scrambling for gossip. The details, though, were still vague, and their usually reliable sources knew virtually nothing.
As of 10 P.M. there was still no word from the kidnappers. No one knew what to call them because no one knew who they were. Terrorists, thugs, revolutionaries, tribal warriors, fundamentalists, insurgents, bandits — many descriptions were in play. Since the state controlled the press, there had been no confirmation of the story. Not a single word had been leaked to the Western media.
Samir spent the long, miserable afternoon and evening sitting with Mitch in his hospital room and walking around the parking lot with his phone stuck to his ear. Neither was pleasant. Mitch had been quite ill with what was probably food poisoning. Dr. Omran could find no other cause. The vomiting and diarrhea had finally stopped, because there was nothing left in his system. He was still afraid to eat and had no appetite. His physical problems, though, had vanished with the shocking news of the ambush. Now Mitch was just trying to get out of the hospital.
Samir’s contacts with the military police had told him little. He had been assured it was not a government ploy to force Lannak out of the country minus, of course, the $400 million or so it was demanding for the damned bridge. His sources seemed to be in the dark like everyone else. He was suspicious, though, because he hated Gaddafi and knew his capacity for depravity was boundless. He kept such thoughts to himself.
At 11 P.M., Eastern Standard Time, Scully made the decision to extract Mitch McDeere from Tripoli. The firm had an insurance policy that provided emergency evacuation for any of its lawyers who might fall ill in a country with less than desirable health care. Libya qualified. Jack Ruch called the insurance company, which had already been notified and was standing by. He then called Mitch, for the third time, and they haggled over the details. Mitch wanted to stay because he didn’t want to leave without Giovanna. On the other hand, he wanted to leave because he still felt awful and never wanted to set foot on Libyan soil again. He had talked to Abby twice and she was adamant that he get out as soon as possible. Ruch argued, in clear and forceful language, that Mitch couldn’t do a damned thing to help find Giovanna and her security team and he’d be foolish to try.