“A briefing by our security consultant first thing this morning. I can’t walk the boys to school.”
“I’m happy to. A security consultant? I thought Scully had its own little spy shop.”
“We do. It does. But this is far more serious and requires us to spend a fortune on an outside intelligence service, a rather shadowy outfit run by former spooks and retired colonels.”
“And what might they brief you on?”
“It’s classified, top secret and all that. Ideally, they would tell us who abducted Giovanna and where they are hiding her, but they don’t know yet.”
“They have to find her, Mitch.”
“Everybody’s trying, and that might be part of the problem. Maybe we’ll learn something this morning.”
“And can you tell me?”
“It’s classified. Who’s invading our kitchen tonight?”
“It’s classified. Actually, no one. But we have some frozen lasagna from the Rosarios’ last visit.”
“I’m kinda tired of those two. When are you going to finish their cookbook?”
“Could be years. Let’s take the boys out tonight.”
“Pizza again?”
“No, let’s make them pick a real restaurant.”
“Good luck with that.”
The building was a 1970s high-rise with more brown brick than steel and glass, so dull that it blended in with a block of others, none of which were in any way attractive or imposing. Midtown was packed with such bland edifices, buildings designed only for the collection of rents with no regard for aesthetics. It was the perfect place for a mysterious operation like Crueggal to hide. Its main entrance on Lexington Avenue was staffed with armed guards. More of the same monitored a wall of closed-circuit screens.
Mitch had walked past the building a hundred times and never noticed it. He walked past it again, then turned onto Fifty-First, as instructed, and entered through a side door, one with a smaller number of pit bulls waiting to pounce. After being mug-shot and fingerprinted, he was met by a guard who could actually smile, and led to a bank of elevators. As they waited he scanned the directory, and of course there was no mention of Crueggal. He and his escort rode in absolute silence to the thirty-eighth floor where they got out and stepped into a small foyer with nothing to welcome guests. No firm name, no weird art, no chairs or sofas, nothing but more cameras to film the arrivals.
With time, they worked their way through the layers of protection and came to another thick door where Mitch was handed off to a young man in a non-polyester suit. They walked through the door and entered a large open space with no visible windows. Jack Ruch and Cory Gallant were chatting with Darian Kasuch in the middle of the room. Everybody said hello. Coffee was poured, pastries declined. They gathered around a wide table and Darian reached for a remote. He pushed a button and a detailed map of southern Libya appeared on a large screen. There were at least eight of them around the walls of the room.
He picked up a laser pointer and aimed the red dot at the region of Ubari near the southern border with Chad. “The first question is: Where is she? We don’t have an answer because we have not heard a word from her abductors. The second question is: Who are they? Again, nothing definite. Ubari is highly unstable, and not friendly to Gaddafi. He’s from up here.” The red dot moved to the far north, to Sirte, then back to Tazirbu.
So far, he had told them nothing they did not already know. He went on, “For at least forty years the Libyans have fought with their neighbors, Egypt to the east, Chad to the south. In southern Ubari, there is a strong revolutionary movement, fiercely anti-Gaddafi. In the past five years a warlord named Adheem Barakat has managed to kill off many of his rivals and consolidate power. He’s a hard-liner who wants Libya to become an Islamic state and kick out all Western companies and economic interests. He’s also a terrorist who enjoys bloodshed. In that regard, he’s one of many.”
Darian tapped a key and the face of Barakat was suddenly glowering at them. Full black beard, sinister black eyes, white hijab, two bandoliers of shiny bullets draped over his shoulders and crossing over his chest. “Age about forty, educated in Damascus, family unknown. Fully committed to overthrowing the regime.”
“So he can have the oil,” Jack Ruch said.
“Yes, so he can have the oil,” Darian repeated.
Mitch studied the face and had no trouble believing the man could order wholesale bloodshed. He shuddered at the thought that he had Giovanna somewhere in his possession. He asked, “And why do we believe he’s the man?”
“We’re not sure. Again, until they make contact we’re just speculating. However, last month Barakat attempted to blow up a refinery here, near the city of Sarir. It was a well-planned and tactically impressive raid involving about a hundred men, and it probably would’ve worked but for a breakdown in security. The Libyans were tipped off at the last minute and the army showed up. Several dozen were killed on both sides, though we never get the exact numbers. Not a word on the world news scene. Two of Barakat’s men were captured and tortured. Under extreme duress, they talked before they were hung. If they can be believed, his organization now has several thousand well-armed gunmen operating on various fronts. They are committed to driving out foreign investment. Gaddafi has sold out to the West and so on, and this is motivating the revolutionaries. One of the captives said the bridge in the desert is still a target. We have an asset in Libya who confirms this. Barakat has been operating closer and closer to Tripoli, sort of daring Gaddafi to commit to a fight. He’ll probably get what he wants.”
Mitch was suddenly bored with the briefing. Crueggal could confirm almost nothing, and Darian was working too hard to impress Scully with information that was not reliable. Not for the first time in the past week, he caught himself longing for the old days when he could practice law without worrying about hostages and terrorism.
Jack Ruch, known for his lack of patience, said, “So, we’re still just guessing.”
“We’re getting closer,” Darian said coolly. “We’ll get there.”
“Okay, and when we know who has Giovanna, then what? Who makes decisions at that point?”
“That depends on what they want.”
“Got that. Let’s play hypotheticals. She has British citizenship, right, so what if the Brits decide to go in with guns blazing? But the Italians say no. The Libyans say yes. The family says no. The Americans, who knows? But does it really matter? She’s in Libya, we think, and as long as she’s there our options are basically zero, right?”
“It’s fluid, Jack, it changes daily. We can’t begin to make plans until we know a lot more.”
Cory asked, “How many people do you have on the ground in Libya right now?”
“Contacts, agents, double agents, assets, runners, probably a dozen. All are being paid, bribed, whatever it takes. Some are old trusted assets, others have just been recruited. It’s a murky world, Cory, with uncertain loyalties and fragile relationships.”
Mitch drank some coffee and decided he’d had enough caffeine for the morning. He looked at the face of Adheem Barakat and asked, “What are the chances this guy has Giovanna?”
Darian shrugged and kicked it around for a moment. “Sixty-forty.”
“Okay, and if he does have her, then what does he want?”
“The easy answer is money. A fat ransom to buy more guns and pay more soldiers. The other answer is more complicated. He may not want an exchange. He may do something dramatic, something awful, to announce his presence to the world.”
“Kill her?”
“Unfortunately, that is a real possibility.”