‘I would,’ said the man. ‘And I’d do it. I want her dead.’ He’d loosened his tie and taken his jacket off.
‘Good,’ said Claudine, pleased with the admission. ‘Make yourself think hate.’
‘I don’t have to make myself.’
‘You can’t kill her, though.’
‘I will, if I ever get to her.’
‘But you can’t, not today.’
‘No,’ he conceded.
‘So what can you do to her today?’
McBride looked at Claudine uncertainly. ‘What you tell me, I suppose.’
He’d come down as far as she wanted. ‘Use your hate to beat her,’ she said.
‘How?’
‘You negotiated a lot, in business?’
‘Yes?’ McBride thought uneasily of his recent fear of Norris.
‘How often did you lose a negotiation?’
‘A few times.’
‘Did you ever hate the people you negotiated with?’
‘Of course not. It was business.’
‘What about those who beat you?’
‘No.’
‘Ever lose your temper?’
‘That’s the way to lose negotiations.’
Claudine smiled. ‘Exactly! You’re going to be talking to the woman who’s got your child, a woman you think of as a monster who’s prepared to disfigure her and whom you hate. But if for one single moment you allow that hate to come through, lose your temper, then you’re going to lose Mary Beth. Show emotion – plead, cry, beg – but don’t genuinely lose your temper and threaten to kill her like you did just now. She’s got Mary Beth to hurt you with. You’ve got nothing, except the words you use and the money you’re prepared to pay. And at the moment it comes down to words.’
McBride nodded, in what Claudine read as determination, not despair. For once Hillary was listening too, not trying instinctively to compete.
‘What do I do?’
‘Follow her lead. Let her be in control all the time. Only argue or oppose her when I tell you. I’m going to be right here, directly beside you. If you’re unsure let it show that you’re unsure, stumble to give me time to guide you.’
‘Will she settle it today? Demand a ransom and say how it’s to be delivered?’ demanded Hillary.
‘There’s no way I can answer that,’ replied Claudine, who didn’t expect things to move that fast.
‘If I can talk long enough we might get a positional fix: be able to get her back?’ suggested McBride.
Claudine was worried the confidence was sinking below the optimum level. ‘You’re the key. You. And what you say and how you say it.’
McBride stared at her, swallowing, all thoughts of his escape by John Norris’s death wiped from his mind. Ignoring Hillary’s presence, he said: ‘I’ve never been so frightened in my life.’
‘It doesn’t matter at all if she realizes that,’ Claudine assured him. ‘Now we’re going to do something you’ll probably think is ridiculous but isn’t, believe me.’
‘What?’
‘I’m going to be the woman who’s got Mary. Negotiate with me to get her back.’
The embassy communications room was the focal point of the operation and Claudine went to it an hour before the expected kidnap call, needing to know what the backup was going to be.
One wall was dominated by a hugely magnified map of central Brussels, with linked adjoining charts spreading out into the city’s major suburbs. On each were marked the outwardly radiating waiting positions of thirty unmarked radio-controlled cars and fifteen anonymous motorcycles ready to be dispatched in a pincer movement at the first indication of a route being established by the woman’s calclass="underline" when Claudine got to the crowded room the cars and motorcycles were testing in turn for sound levels and interference, each separately identified by a flashing light against its numbered designation on the central control panel in front of which sat three technicians, all American.
One was slightly apart from the other two, connected at a divided section of the control board not to the road vehicles but to two helicopters at that moment preparing to lift off from the NATO military complex close to Zaventem airport to be in a spotting formation directly over the city at the time of the anticipated calclass="underline" two replacements were being held at the base in case a contact delay encroached into the fuel reserves of the airborne machines.
There were two separate mobile telephone scanners, both linked to roof-mounted satellite dishes installed that day and each again operated by a three-man crew. There was so much apparatus to record every spoken word and command if an operation were initiated that it had needed to be assembled in two banks, one behind the other, one man responsible for every two machines.
After a guided tour of the communication and tracking systems Sanglier led a retreat out into the less congested corridor.
‘How’s McBride?’ he said.
‘All right, I think. I’ve rehearsed him as much as I believe I safely can. Once he lost his self-consciousness he did quite well. His wife being there is a nuisance.’
‘I’ll go to see if there’s anything he wants,’ announced Harrison.
‘No,’ said Claudine. ‘He needs to be left alone.’
‘And we don’t have to be told what he wants,’ said Harding heavily. ‘What either of them wants.’
*
Claudine went back to McBride’s office fifteen minutes before the expected call. McBride was at the open cocktail cabinet, the Jack Daniel’s bottle already in his hand. He turned and said: ‘You want anything?’
‘No,’ said Claudine. ‘And I don’t think you should.’ Damn! Something else she’d overlooked.
‘Listen to her if you won’t listen to me,’ said Hillary.
‘I can handle one.’
‘I don’t think you need it.’ When he stayed with the bottle she said: ‘She’d be winning, before you even started to talk.’
McBride shrugged, replacing the whiskey and closing the doors. ‘I’m OK.’
‘I know you are.’
‘I wish I knew it as well,’ said the other woman.
‘You’re not helping, Mrs McBride,’ said Claudine. ‘In fact, you’re making things more difficult.’
‘Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?’
‘Let’s think about helping Mary, shall we?’ said Claudine, refusing the argument.
‘What if she doesn’t call?’
‘She will.’ The woman was too unpredictable for such a guarantee and Claudine accepted she’d lose credibility if there was no contact, but McBride couldn’t be allowed any doubt. She didn’t like the nervousness obvious from his pacing round the study but said nothing. Hillary lounged contemptuously in a chair. As he walked McBride constantly checked his watch. To calm him, Claudine sat easily in her already arranged chair, positioned the special, large-faced clock with the sweep second hand where they would both be able to time the call and then toyed reflectively with the prepared jotting pad before beginning to write a series of quick, tom-off notes.
‘What are you doing?’ demanded the ambassador.
To her relief he stopped moving. ‘There are things I can anticipate. Prepare for.’
‘What?’
‘Things she would expect you to say.’
‘I thought we’d been through all that.’
‘Reminders,’ said Claudine.
‘It’s time!’
‘She’ll make us wait.’
‘How long?’
‘As long as she likes. But she’ll call.’
He started walking aimlessly again. Claudine said: ‘It’ll be better if you sit down. You’ve got to be ready.’
McBride completed a circle and came back to lower himself into his chair. It was so large his feet only just touched the ground. His hands were shaking and his forehead was sheened with perspiration. There were three concealed call buttons, on the left of the knee recess. She wondered what they were for. The clock was registering four minutes after the time of yesterday’s call.
McBride had got as far as ‘She’s not-’ when the phone rang. All three jumped, McBride more than the women. Claudine knew the transfer from the main switchboard would have already been delayed for a few seconds, for the scan to begin. McBride stared at the instrument, transfixed.