‘What’s come out of the premises check?’ demanded Blake.
In his disappointment Poncellet tried condescension. ‘If there had been anything I would have obviously told you.’
Unperturbed, Blake said: ‘How long’s it been going on?’
‘Since the opening of commercial business this morning,’ said Poncellet tightly.
Blake nodded, as if the reply confirmed something. ‘And this afternoon one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares is going to be virtually closed off. By this evening it will have leaked that the daughter of the American ambassador has vanished. It would be better to have a media release, with a photograph, than run the risk of speculation’s getting out of hand and having to be corrected.’
‘I do not consider that’s the right way to operate at this time,’ said Norris.
‘I thought our understanding – the only possible jurisdictional understanding – was that it was how we considered it right to operate,’ said Claudine. So much for diplomatic niceties. They were always bullshit anyway. She’d expected antagonism – come prepared to confront it, which she was doing – but not to be as worried as she was becoming.
Norris grew redder. ‘Kidnappers are frightened once they’ve got a victim. Premature publicity can panic them, as I’ve already tried to make clear. I don’t want…’ He stopped, in apparent awareness of the implications of talking in the first person. ‘It would be a mistake for anyone to be panicked. It’s better for negotiations to be conducted as quietly and as calmly as possible.’
‘Quantico text book,’ identified Claudine.
‘With which I am extremely familiar,’ said Norris, who’d contributed two of the manuals from which it had been created.
‘So am I. I’ve read it,’ said Claudine, who had, as part of her hostage negotiation lectures. Throwing the man’s condescension back at him she said: ‘We don’t yet know we’re investigating a kidnap. We’re looking for a missing child. Missing children are best and most often found through public appeal. And as Europol is the jurisdictional investigatory body into the disappearance of Mary Beth McBride this is the way we consider this investigation should begin. A lot of time has already been wasted: I hope not too much.’
Norris was astonished at the effrontery, and then furious. ‘Have you forgotten who the victim is?’
‘It’s because of who the victim is that we are here,’ Blake reminded him. ‘Lack of contact for thirty-six hours hardly indicates panic. It indicates the very opposite, if she has been snatched.’
Inwardly Harding and Rampling wished they could wave flags or punch the air. Poncellet could hardly believe either the dispute or his good fortune in being safely on the periphery.
Norris was momentarily dumbstruck. Struggling desperately, he said: ‘It’s an official diplomatic request that this situation is not made public for at least another twenty-four hours.’
‘What’s diplomacy got to do with it?’ challenged Claudine. ‘If it is a consideration – and I cannot imagine how it can be – then perhaps it would be better if my colleague and I discussed it personally with the ambassador. We’re not achieving a lot here.’
‘This is ridiculous!’ Norris was floundering.
‘I agree. Totally ridiculous,’ said Blake. ‘We came here today to arrange cooperation: a strategy, to use your word. This discussion so far isn’t doing that. If the child is in danger all we’re doing is furthering it.’
Norris looked sideways, suddenly reminded of the tape. He couldn’t retreat. It wasn’t his style. And certainly not on record. Compromising wasn’t retreating: compromising was an essential part of negotiation, give a little here to gain much more there. And what was the point of confrontation anyway? These two weren’t going to be actively involved: just given the impression that they were running things. And on the way in from the airport he’d put a time limit on what he considered might be the worst scenario and thought there was a way he could avoid losing face. Looking from the recording apparatus to the plump Belgian, Norris said: ‘The road block and street checks do create a risk of ill-informed speculation.’
‘Which should be avoided,’ reiterated Claudine. The man had to be given a way out in front of his own people. ‘The release could be timed for this evening: that would catch television and radio and ensure fuller cover in tomorrow morning’s newspapers. That, effectively, fits with the time scale you were thinking about, doesn’t it?’
‘I think so. Yes,’ said Norris. The bitch was patronizing him.
Claudine was conscious of Blake’s attention. She didn’t respond to it. Instead she said: ‘As we’re devising strategy, the Quantico guidelines favour paying ransom, don’t they?’
‘The prime consideration is a safe release,’ said Norris, seizing his escape. ‘The perpetrators can be pursued afterwards.’
‘What about the victim’s becoming disposable if a ransom is paid?’ asked Blake. ‘Once the kidnappers have got the money the consideration is minimizing their risk of being identified.’
‘It’s better to pay,’ insisted Norris.
‘You’re a negotiator?’ challenged Claudine.
‘The Bureau’s chief negotiator.’
‘You’ve always paid?’
‘Yes.’ Norris’s colour had been subsiding. It began to return at the obvious direction of the questioning. He looked again at the recording equipment.
‘How many victims have you lost?’
‘I’ve got six released, unharmed,’ declared the American. ‘All the kidnappers were arrested, in every case.’
‘That wasn’t the question,’ Claudine reminded him. Why did the silly bastard run head-on into every argument contrary to his own? Because, she reasoned, he was unaccustomed to having to argue in the first place. But this wasn’t negotiation! This was confrontation. Her unease deepened as her professional assessment of the man hardened.
‘Two died,’ admitted Norris.
‘What about the kidnappers?’
‘They weren’t caught.’ Norris looked between Claudine and Blake, positively settling on Claudine. ‘You’re Europol’s negotiator.’
‘I will be, if it comes to that.’ He should at least be allowed the appearance of revenge, she supposed. But only the appearance. He was the creator of his own problems. She didn’t want him to be the creator of hers. Or those of a missing child.
‘How many kidnap victims have you successfully freed?’ Norris pounced.
‘None,’ admitted Claudine at once. ‘I haven’t yet been called upon to do so.’
Norris stretched the silence, exaggerating his astonishment in his determination not just to recover but to crush this arrogant woman in the process. Spacing the words as he uttered them he said: ‘You haven’t operated in a kidnap situation until now?’
‘No,’ said Claudine easily. ‘But before joining Europol I freed a hundred and twenty people from an airliner hijacked by Islamic fundamentalists. And ended four separate sieges, one by a convicted murderer who took a hostage to avoid capture.’ She paused. ‘No one died.’ Touche, she thought. Mixing the metaphor, she added: Game, set and match.
Blake appeared to think so, too. Smiling, he said: ‘I think that covers the relevant CVs, don’t you?’
Rampling couldn’t avoid the brief smirk, although not at Claudine, and was glad they were sitting in a way that prevented Norris from seeing it. Claudine was unconcerned that the thin American could see her brief sideways smile, which wasn’t in any case an intended sneer at the man.
Norris took it as such, but more than matched it when Blake disclosed that the Europol force at the moment consisted of just himself and the woman. ‘I can’t believe what you’re telling me. Europol isn’t taking this seriously! This isn’t an investigation on Europol’s part: it’s a joke.’