‘McBride will be guided entirely by Norris,’ Claudine warned him.
Sanglier said: ‘And I can use your opinion as a counterargument. You’re clearly right about a planned kidnap’s being the wrong assumption from which to begin the investigation. If I can make McBride see that – realize Norris’s fallibility – his attitude might change.’
‘I’m sure I’ll get any more e-mail correspondence,’ said Volker. ‘If there’s something as positive as a suggested meeting are we going to hold back from acting upon it?’
Claudine saved Sanglier from having to admit that he didn’t know. She said: ‘Nothing is going to be as positive as an arranged meeting. We’re watching a game that’s only just begun.’
The relief was incomplete and short-lived and ended in bitter ill temper. The combined, disbelieving fury of James and Hillary McBride was the greatest and most easily understandable. When the amateur poem had faded from the computer screens, Hillary had swept in to join the inquest in her husband’s study, shouting for answers that no one had.
‘What the fuck’s going on? I hear from someone who’s got my daughter but doesn’t tell me how to get back to him!’ McBride said.
‘It doesn’t make any sense!’ Hillary added. ‘How can we pay without knowing who or how or when or where?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Norris uncomfortably.
‘You!’ demanded the ambassador, jerking a wavering finger at the computer programmer in Norris’s team. ‘What the hell happened? Why wasn’t there an address to get back to?’
‘It’s not always automatic,’ said Howard Williams. He was a thin-haired, facially twitched young man whose elbow-scaled psoriasis was on fire from the nerve-racked tension of being in charge of a communications team that appeared to have failed its first test. Williams was an excellent technician who could dismantle and reassemble any known make of computer, but a virginal stranger to the shadowed side roads of cyberspace along which Kurt Volker prowled with the sure-footedness of an alley cat.
‘You didn’t even record the fucking message!’
‘It closed down before there was time,’ said Williams miserably. ‘We didn’t expect it to come like it did.’
‘Then why the hell were four supposed computer experts included in the Task Force? You told us you’d set up a foolproof system!’ Hillary directed the question to Norris, not the dejected specialist.
Norris, who never allowed himself a single mistake, inwardly squirmed at having to accept the ultimate responsibility. ‘Telephone links go down all the time,’ he tried, desperately.
‘Is this what happened here, something stupid like a bad connection?’ McBride asked Williams, who shuffled uncomfortably, refusing to meet the ambassador’s bulging-eyed stare.
‘I don’t think it was an actual line collapse, sir. I think it was intentionally wiped at source.’
McBride went back to the FBI commander, purple-faced but speaking once more with ominous quietness. ‘Mr Norris, we were connected to the bastards who’ve got my little girl. And they got away. You want to explain mat to me in a way I’ll understand so that I won’t think you and your team are a bunch of losing, fucking incompetents? Because that’s what I’d like you to do, starting now!’
There was a sweep of mind-blanking dizziness and Norris thought he might have stumbled – fallen even – if he hadn’t fortunately been sitting in one of the few chairs fronting the ambassador’s football-pitch desk.
Although he despised his superior – thought him a total, off-the-wall jerk – Paul Harding momentarily felt sorry for the man. Lance Rampling was trying mentally to compose the message to Langley that would convey the full extent of the FBI fuck-up without letting the intercepting Bureau realize every error, no matter how small, would go into the CIA’s infighting armoury, to be broken out and fired at the first skirmish of a political battle between the two agencies.
‘I’m waiting,’ threatened McBride.
‘It wasn’t a demand,’ Norris said desperately. ‘It was to tell us they’ve got Mary. For us to be ready. They’re softening us up: proving they’ve got all the winning cards.’ The last part, admitting that he wasn’t orchestrating everything, hurt almost with a physical pain. Whoever had the child would pay, for making him do that. He’d teach them who was the boss, the moment they began proper negotiations. And then really teach them, once Mary was safely recovered. They’d know what it was like to be hunted by the time he’d finished with them.
‘You saying we’ve got to wait until they feel like getting back to us?’ asked Hillary.
Norris fervently sought an alternative but couldn’t think of one. ‘It’s a negotiating ploy.’
‘I don’t give a shit what it is,’ said McBride. ‘I’m not waiting. We are ready. The money’s here. I want to get back to them. How are we going to do that?’
Norris felt a sink of helplessness, unthinkingly half turning towards Williams. Anxiously the technician blurted: ‘We could log a message on the browsers.’
‘What the hell’s that?’ said McBride sharply.
‘A browser is like a subject directory or index, in a classified telephone book. People surf the Net through browsers, searching for information logged there. We’re doing the press release tonight so there’s no need for secrecy any more. Why don’t we make an entry – it’s called starting a thread – naming Mary through News-cape and Microsoft Explorer? It would be inviting them to come back to us.’
It sounded good, some positive action, conceded Norris. Eager to contribute – and to illustrate his psychological ability – he said: ‘To let them know it’s aimed at them and that we want to deal, our response should be along the lines of their message to us.’
‘Whatever it takes,’ insisted McBride. ‘Get it done! Get Mary back.’
They were very late returning from Antwerp – they hadn’t driven down until after Jean Smet had left his office – but he still invited Felicite Galan into his house off the rue de Flandres to watch his latest movie from Amsterdam. Afterwards Felicite said: ‘One of the boys was at least sixteen. And a professional.’
‘It was still good,’ defended Smet. ‘The others will like it.’
‘I wonder what Mary will think of it.’
‘You said she wasn’t going to be touched,’ said Smet.
‘I said no one else was to touch her. And it was only a little slap on her ass.’
‘It was a hiding. You hit her too hard.’
She knew the man was right. ‘A necessary lesson. She’ll do as she’s told in future, so I won’t have to do it again.’
‘Dehane did very well with the message, didn’t he?’
‘I knew it was technically possible. And I told you it would be completely undetectable.’
‘I still don’t like it,’ said the man weakly.
‘Why hasn’t the Justice Ministry created a supervisory committee the way they did when the boy died?’ she asked, ignoring the man’s protest.
Smet smiled. ‘It was proposed before I left the ministry this afternoon.’
‘And?’ asked Felicite, smiling too.
‘I’m responsible for establishing it, just like before. And I head the legal advisory team that will sit with it.’
Felicite’s expression broadened in satisfaction. ‘So everything will be as foolproof as last time.’
‘The Americans have brought in a huge team of people, apparently. And Europol’s involved.’
‘We anticipated it would be more high-powered than before,’ Felicite said dismissively.
‘Would you have done it? Broken up the group if we hadn’t agreed about Mary?’ asked the ministry lawyer, no longer smiling.
‘I want things my way,’ said the thin-faced woman. ‘I get tired of telling you mat.’
*
The military aircraft repatriating Harry Becker and his family was delayed for two hours that night to enable the even more distressed Howard Williams to travel back to Washington on Norris’s personal authority.
From the US embassy Norris sent a ‘Respond This Day’ reminder to Washington for the requested in-depth reinvestigation into McBride’s business affairs. That request as well as the browser message to the unknown holders of Mary Beth McBride, were both instantly picked up by Kurt Volker’s ever attentive Trojan Horse.