He had an army to build and a war to begin.
Chapter 21
After three hours, during which Frankie related to Special Agent Reid her entire history with Nick, the questions finally stopped. Ultimately, she had nothing that would assist in the search for Nick. This equaled the grand total of what the search of her guesthouse had revealed. Nick had left clues about neither his secretive life nor his plans. Frankie felt the coolness towards her wear off when it became clear that she was not an accomplice or in any way involved.
“Thanks, Frankie, I appreciate that was not easy,” concluded Turner. The rest of the group filtered out of the office, and once the last of them had left, he stood up and closed the door, keeping Carson and Frankie in the room.
“Just a couple more questions,” he said, taking his seat again.
Frankie looked at Carson, aware of how he wanted to control information. “Of course.”
“I’d like to know a little more about your family.”
“I’m not entirely sure how that is relevant,” interrupted Carson.
“I have no issue discussing my family,” Frankie said. “My father is Albert Franks, born and raised in Houston, Texas. He went to college, then joined an oil firm as an accountant. In the late seventies, he was working in Saudi Arabia where he met my mother.”
“Do you think Nick meeting you was planned?”
“I doubt it. We met at the White House and since no one there, except for President Mitchell and my boss, is aware of my heritage, I can’t see how he could have known.”
Carson bit his lip. Nick Geller was a highly trained intelligence officer and probably one of the best they had, if not the best. He would have known exactly who she was. However, telling Frankie that would make her feel even worse than she already did. He opted to let her think that she was bearing the child of a man who had loved her and not used her.
Unfortunately, Turner was not as thoughtful. “I highly doubt that, I’m afraid. Nick Geller had access to any personnel records he wanted. It is inconceivable that a man of his training would not have checked your history before making a move.”
Frankie remained impassive at the thought that she had been used for some ulterior motive.
“Tell me about your mother.”
“She was the twentieth child of my grandfather, born to his fourth wife. She was ten years younger than her closest sibling and was the baby of the house. She was my grandfather’s favorite. She could do no wrong and as she grew up, he took her everywhere with him. From the stories I have been told, he was a hard man to his older children and alienated most of them. Having my mother in his fifties had softened him and made him appreciate his children far more. Although he was a prince, he was far removed from the king. He owned a lot of land in the oil rich desert and as a result, he had many interactions with American oil companies. It was on a trip to one of the oil fields that my parents met. By that time, my grandfather was dying and he saw the spark in my mother’s eye when she met my father. My grandfather knew that when he died, her life would be nothing in Saudi Arabia. She’d bear children for a man who may take numerous wives. She was very intelligent and highly educated. Publicly he forbade their union, but privately he encouraged it. A letter from him tells of his proudest and saddest day, the day she got married to my father and the day he couldn’t be with her to celebrate. He died shortly after her marriage.”
“If he publicly forbade the union, I assume he left her nothing?” questioned Turner.
“Publicly yes, privately no.”
Turner let the silence hang, waiting for more. Frankie didn’t elaborate.
After a minute of the two looking at each other, Carson intervened. “Well I think that covers everything,” he concluded.
“I’d like to know where your mother’s money came from,” Turner said.
“I don’t see how that is relevant or any of your business,” replied Frankie.
“Neither do I,” replied Carson, standing up to leave.
“Prince Abdullah bin Fahd al Khaled, the man who smuggled your boyfriend out of the country, is your mother’s cousin!”
Both Frankie and Carson laughed, much to Turner’s chagrin. Before he could respond, there was a sharp knock on the office door and it opened. Special Agent Reid stepped in.
“We’ve got a lead on a car,” she announced.
Chapter 22
Turner followed Reid out onto the gangway and looked down onto the operations floor below. The huge screens on the wall showed an aerial view of a small car travelling along a road in an urban area. Reid led Turner, Carson and Frankie down into the main center, filling them in along the way.
“We’ve been scouring whatever CCTV images we could get from France. There isn’t much thanks to it being a weekend. They seem to close down on weekends.”
Carson sighed knowingly. The French were a nightmare to work with. If they weren’t on lunch, they had already left for the day or were on vacation whenever you tried to reach one of them.
“Anyway, what we have managed to retrieve has turned up a car at numerous locations between Le Touquet and Paris over the last few hours. The darkness has meant most images are very grainy but we did get one that confirmed our suspicions.”
On cue, an image of Nick driving the Clio through a junction in a small French town was displayed on the screen.
“Excellent!” Turner exclaimed, congratulating everyone in the center.
Carson hit the dial button on his phone at the confirmation that Nick Geller was in France. He had two navies to stand down.
“We followed the images and have him driving through Paris for around one hour at around four a.m. local time. Unfortunately, we lost him just as he headed towards southern Paris.”
Frankie looked at the image; it was definitely Nick. She looked across at the numerous locations that were being highlighted across Paris on a separate screen. Carson ended his calls and joined them and he too began to study the pinpointed sightings.
“Can that system draw a route, taking the time stamps of each sighting into account?” he asked. Frankie looked at Carson. He was thinking the same as her.
Reid nodded for the analyst to do what had been suggested. It’ll just take a few minutes,” confirmed the analyst.
“It appears from the image on the screen that we’ve just reacquired him?” she asked as much as told.
“Yep, we’ve got him on a KH-11 now,” said Barry from the CIA, pointing to the live image on the main screen. “Heading south out of Paris.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” asked Turner.
“We just got the image ID. As soon as we knew it was definitely—”
“Okay, okay,” waved Turner. He’d made his point.
“I have a SOG team inbound from Ramstein. ETA is about forty-five minutes at the airfield here, just North of Auxerre,” said Barry, pointing to the airfield on the map. “The road here is the A5 which becomes the A6 and it’s the road we’re tracking him on. Our team will be in place just as he approaches Auxerre.”
“What’s a SOG team?” asked Frankie.
“Special Operations Group,” said Carson. “A bit like a SEAL Team or Delta Force.”
“Only better,” said Barry, smiling and ignoring the looks of disagreement from Carson and Flynn from DIA. “Nick Geller is history. We’ve got a ten man team with an attack chopper and two Range Rovers on board.”
“We could have a team there in an hour,” suggested Flynn.
Turner understood his point; they’d rather deal with their own. But the CIA team would be on site first and it may be better for another agency to deal with the problem. “I think it’s best we let the SOG team take him down.”