“Confirmation, that’s Annette Dier.”
“I agree,” Chuckie said.
Dier leaned closer to Brian. “And I’m very good at what I do.”
“Leave him alone,” Gladys said, with a lot of authority in her tone. “You want to terrorize someone? Try me.”
Dier went to Gladys, camera following her. She backhanded Gladys hard across her face. “You’ll speak when spoken to, and not before. You’re no longer necessary, didn’t you realize that earlier?”
She went back to Brian. “Now, where were we? Oh, right, I was about to torture you, slowly, and cut you up, bit by bit.”
Serene was sobbing and I was pretty sure she was only upright because Chuckie was holding her up. “Why are they doing this?” she asked. “They haven’t even asked us for anything.”
The realization of what they were doing dawned on me. “They can’t ask us for what they want.”
“Why not?” Jeff asked.
“Because they want Patrick. And Jamie.”
“How would this get them?” Adriana asked. “None of you would put the children at risk. No one in that room would agree to that trade, not even to save their own lives.”
“I agree. However, this set of bad guys has an interesting view. They thought Jamie could time warp to Jeff in Paris. They undoubtedly think Patrick can do the same. And if he can and if he goes, she’ll go with him.”
“How do you know that?” Jeff asked quietly.
“Because I wouldn’t let my friend go alone and neither will she.”
“Why take anyone else, then?” Reader asked. “Why not just take Brian?”
“They want ACE. They either want to bring him to them or have Paul bring him to them. Maybe they think they can contain ACE, destroy him, something. Ronaldo spent a lot of time with the Z’porrah, remember. I’m sure he has tricks we know nothing of.”
“I could be wrong,” Tim said, as Dier ran the side of the knife over Brian some more, “but this seems like a time to ask ACE for help, Kitty, Paul.”
Looked at Gower. He looked trapped. Time to come clean. But, as with Christopher, clearly I was the one who was going to have to do it. “ACE can’t help us. ACE isn’t here. He hasn’t been here since the tunnels went back to impenetrable, after Operation Destruction. He’s . . . hurt and in trouble, but it’s trouble we can’t help with. We don’t know how to get him back, only that he’s still out there somewhere and hasn’t really left us. But ACE intervening is not an option.”
Dead silence met this announcement. Which meant I didn’t have any trouble hearing my phone’s text sound alert. Checked it out. “Great. William, Malcolm is going to call you. You need to get a camera feed of what’s going on into wherever he is, pronto.”
“On it Ambassador, and on with Mister Buchanan right now.”
“What’s having him and your dad see this going to do?” Jeff asked.
“Other than upset Dad and piss Malcolm off? Nothing. But we have only one shot to figure out where our hostages are. It’s a shot in the sandstorm, but when all you’ve got available is the crazy, then the crazy is the shot worth taking.”
CHAPTER 43
COULDN’T WAIT FOR DAD and Buchanan to show Mahin the video and get her to crack. Could be fast. Might be slow. Had to think of something else.
But events in the room with the hostages weren’t waiting. “Did you know that there are places where I can cut you and you’ll bleed out slowly?” Dier cooed at Brian.
“Isn’t that pretty much anywhere?” Brian asked. I was impressed. He sounded insolent.
“Leave him alone you raving bitch,” Michael growled.
She turned and was in profile to the camera. Only for a moment, then the camera got behind her again. “William, we need the frames with her face frozen and possibly blown up.” These flashed onto some other screens. “Jeff, Chuckie, does she look at all familiar to you? Even a little?”
“Not really,” Jeff said.
“Maybe,” Chuckie said slowly. “But I don’t know why.”
Dier was in front of Michael now. “So brave. But don’t worry, you’ll get your turn.”
“Ambassador, Mister Joel Oliver is here. He feels the woman is familiar, too.”
“Have Pierre take a look. I’m certain this is the same woman who was casing us all during Operation Sherlock’s horrible Dinner Party of Death.” But there was something else about her—I felt I’d seen her somewhere else.
“Untie me and let’s see how brave you are,” Michael said. “You’re nothing but a tall woman, about five foot nine, a hundred and forty pounds, brown eyes, hair’s obviously dyed, about thirty, and—”
She backhanded him. “Shut up. I told all of you to shut up.”
“Why should we?” Gladys asked. “You’re going to torture us no matter what. We might as well talk about how the man with the camera isn’t the man in charge. My half brother isn’t here, because he’s too much of a coward to take the risk.”
“But the man with the camera’s also your brother, Gladys,” Melanie said. The camera swung to her. “He’s just got no actual talents he’s shown, other than being subservient to Ronaldo Al Dejahl.”
“He’s short for a man, about the crazy knife wielder’s height,” Emily added. “Dark, swarthy, sounds Middle Eastern. Kind of chubby. Definitely unattractive.” A swarthy man’s hand slapped Emily across her face.
This put the cameraman closer to her and, because of how they were tied up, to Melanie. It was hard to be sure, but it sounded like Emily kicked or kneed him in the balls. At least the camera dropping to the floor while we heard the sound of male whimpering was indicative.
Heard another kick. “I think I just kicked your helper in the head,” Melanie said. “Sorry. Not really at all.”
“I love our team. I just have to say. They’re awesome.”
The rest of the hostages were getting into it, tossing off descriptions, sharing what they could remember of the abduction, and so forth. What was the most interesting was that Dier didn’t actually cut anyone. Meaning Ronaldo wanted most of them alive and presumably in one piece.
“Ambassador, a Peregrine is here,” William said. “I think he wants to talk to you.”
“Seriously?” Tim asked.
“Yes. Put Bruno on.” Assumed it was Bruno, anyway. Heard some bird screeches. Yep, Bruno. He screeched, clucked, and warbled. “Got it. You da bird, Bruno.”
“Do we want to know?” Jeff asked.
“Bruno says she’s who set the bomb in Cliff Goodman’s car. She was also in the crowd of reporters. She was the one trying to incite them to riot on us right after the explosion.”
Bruno screeched again. “Oh, right. And Bruno says she was in the Embassy during Jamie’s birthday party, but since she was there as press, the Peregrines watched her but didn’t attack lest they create a scene we couldn’t recover from. She was sent out with the rest of the press by Cliff, so she wasn’t inside all that long.”
“One minute is too long,” Jeff growled. “And how did they actually comprehend she was press and that a problem could be created if they’d merely ripped her to shreds at the time? And why didn’t they tell you what was going on?”
More Bruno screeches. “Ah. They listened to how the people were allowed in. And they were clear that I had other, far more vital things to accomplish at that party. Their understanding is based on human and A-C reactions, but is now really the time? I’m sure Bruno can explain all this to you when we’re not in the middle of trying to figure out how to stop being impotently kept from the people we want to save.”
“Good point,” Jeff said. “Anything from Buchanan?”
“No word yet, Congressman.”
The camera was up off the floor and we were back to filming the hostages talking smack to their captors. Dier headed toward Brian flashing her knife around. The camera was again focused toward Brian. Abigail and Naomi were to Brian’s left, Michael was to his right. From what we’d seen, this meant the door was behind the camera, so basically opposite Brian.