“Tell us now, Trevor, how to get to the Hacienda,” said Hayes. “Will you do that? Or does he have to hurt you again?”
“That shit you’re on ain’t novocaine, you know,” added Grimes.
Hodges nodded again. Hayes remarked encouragingly that he’d made a mental note to remember the persuasive thigh pinch.
“You liked that, huh?” said Grimes, not taking his eyes off his captive.
“Impressive,” said Hayes.
“Got a million of ’em,” said the SEAL.
Under the influence of the drug, Hodges had been by now reduced to a completely childlike state. Under the threat of more pain he was surprisingly forthcoming about his boss. But Suarez had been careful to keep many key details of his master plan to himself.
Ultimately Grimes received little practical information about Suarez’s financial or tactical plans.
He dimmed the lights in the room, then moved an easel with a map of the area around Santiago next to Hodges’s bed. After careful y adjusting a bedside lamp so that it illuminated the easel, he rang for the nurse again. When she returned he directed her to remove Hodges’s facial bandages, but only after he had hand- cuffed one of the Brit’s legs to the bedframe.
The bandages off, it was evident Hodges had sustained little significant facial damage, that the bandages had been serving primarily as a blindfold. He squinted at the map, then glanced at Grimes and Hayes before his eyes returned to the map, as if compelled by the sight.
“Show us where Rudy is staying, Trevor,” said Grimes. “Can you point to the place on the map?”
Trevor nodded and put his finger on the road that led from Santiago to the mountains. “He would have gone this way.”
Grimes sat in the shadows a good distance from the bed as he continued to ask questions. Soon they had determined that Suarez was travelling in a white Ford van, accompanied only by Remo Poteshkin, towards the Hacienda, a retreat Suarez had built five years ago in the foothills of the Andes, near the small town of San Felipe. Hodges was expected at the Hacienda, he volunteered, the day after Rudy and Remo arrived. He said that, if he was late, there would be trouble.
“You have a demanding boss, right, Trevor?” asked Grimes.
Hodges peered into the darkness, trying to see the face of the man who spoke to him. “Not so bad.”
“A real prince,” said Hayes.
Hodges missed the sarcasm. “Yes, he says he is a prince — the heir to the Sun God’s throne. A real Incan prince.”
Grimes said comically, “Never bagged me one of them. I guess I’ll need silver bullets in my pea shooter.”
Hayes didn’t share the SEAL’s laughter. “What about the other one, Kai? The one the MPs shot at the hotel.
You know, the other one who survived. Did you interrogate him too?”
“Dead,” said Grimes. “A half-hour ago. Did you expect him to live with three slugs in his guts?”
“Then all we have is this man to identify Suarez.”
“Not at all, sir,” answered Grimes cheerfully. “We still have our hero and his dog.”
Hodges stared into the darkness, towards Grimes and General Tony, listening intently to their discussion.
Somewhere in the chemically induced reality that shaped his awareness he began to connect the pieces of the story. He realized that, if he wanted to live, he would have to get free and warn his boss. Otherwise, assuming his tormentors didn’t kill him first, it would be only a matter of days before Suarez arranged for it to be done.
He began to groan and let his head bob around, hoping his captors would think he was still under the full influence of the drug. Whatever these people could do to him couldn’t hold a candle to the wrath of Suarez.
Noticing Hodges’s behaviour, Grimes looked at his watch and realized what was happening. The drug was wearing off and Hodges was starting to put all this together.
He pulled out a pistol and held it under the light so Hodges could see it. Then he lifted the table light and shone it in the man’s face.
Hodges screamed as the light burned his drug- sensitized eyes.
“Little pitchers, Trevor, get big fucking ideas, listening with big ears.”
He switched off the light and slugged Hodges on the jaw.
“What did you do that for?” asked Hayes, shocked by the sudden violence.
“Because I can,” said the SEAL.
“Kind of hitting a guy when he’s down, isn’t it?”
“Best way to keep ’em there, General,” said Grimes, rubbing his knuckles and smiling.
The next morning, September 30, the world had collectively lost a night’s sleep. In the offices of the Secretary General of the United Nations, it had been High Noon for a week. The people there were running on caffeine and other, more potent drugs. With every phone cal, all conversations stopped abruptly.
There was no longer any doubt of the veracity of the threat. The plotter of this terrorism, whoever he was, had obviously thought everything through — he had even anticipated hoax imitators, and had given specific and unpublished instructions for a certain phone number to be set up at the UN. When that phone rang, it would be the real thing.
At 0800 GMT it rang.
Although this was 3am at the UN, Gerald Jessup, the young staffer whose shift it was, scrambled immediately into action. According to plan, he let the phone ring twice and activated a tape recorder. The call was automatical y hooked up to Washington, and then, at President Kerry’s behest, to the leaders of the anti- terrorist effort. Moments after the phone rang, three agents alongside him — representing Interpol, the FBI and the CIA — had put on headsets plugged into a console.
Jessup answered the phone with a trembling hand. “UNSC. May I help you?”
At first there was only crackling static and a strange whistling on the line. Then the caller spoke.
“Um, hell o? Is Margie there?”
“This is the United Nations,” said Jessup.
“Ohhhh, wrong number, I guess.”
Jessup’s forehead was wet with perspiration. “How did you get this number?”
“I guess I made a mistake. Sorry.” The caller disconnected.
“Jesus Christ!” said the CIA agent as he ripped off the headset and dumped it on the desk. “My heart almost stopped when that light flashed.”
The other two agents sat without comment.
Jessup watched them for a moment, then looked at the CIA agent. “Isn’t this a special line? I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“It’s not.” The agent was slumped in his chair. “I’ll check.” He picked up another phone.
But before he could dial a number the hotline phone rang again.
Jessup let it ring twice, as before, then picked it up.
“UNSC. May I help you?”
This time Ned Bloom, the CIA agent, was already connected.
There was a series of clicks, then an electronical y masked voice spoke.
“The deadline approaches. Have you secured the money?”
Jessup looked at Bloom with wide eyes and covered the receiver with his hand.
“This is him. Over to you.”
Bloom punched a button on his desk phone and all its connection lights went on. “This is agent Ned Bloom of Central intelligence,” he said slowly. “I am authorized by the UN and the US Government to answer your questions.”
“The money,” said the voice. “Is it secured?”
“It is our official policy not to capitulate to terrorist threats,” said Bloom.
“If I detonate the nuclear devices embedded in the ice,” said the monotonous voice, “it makes no difference to me. Is that your wish? To sacrifice the coastal cities of the world? To kill thousands of innocents? So be it.”
“Wait,” said the agent breathlessly. “I didn’t say we wouldn’t give you the money…”