“Agreed.” Dulwich shoots him an unreadable look. “It’s only bigger — nine layers deep, you say — because you two dug the hole.”
“Present time.”
“Primer will disavow. There’s no protocol for something like this.”
“Bullshit! It’s an extraction.”
“I don’t mean it like that.”
“There are two of us. We’re going to get her back. Right now.”
The two men exchange several years of personal history in a single look.
“Damn right,” Dulwich says.
Dulwich seldom admits to Knox being right about anything. The win comes at a time Knox can’t appreciate it.
“We… owe… her,” Knox says.
“I know. I know.” Dulwich nods.
Says nothing more.
26
There are few advantages to being small. Grace has rarely had the opportunity to celebrate her feet, breasts or hands. If she so much as looks at food, she gains weight. In the department stores, they point her toward the children’s floor — there’s no fashion for the diminutive. One of the few advantages is expectation: size is mistakenly equated with strength. Her two captors each have six inches and fifty pounds on her. What they don’t know is: it’s not enough.
As if to illustrate the point, as the three approach the steel door on the second-floor landing, Grace drives her right elbow into the groin of one man, then uses her bound hands as a ramrod, a piston propelled into the unsuspecting chin of her second captor. She chops the glass on the fire alarm, cutting herself. Hooks her fingers around the lever and pulls so hard she loses her balance and falls flat onto her back as the alarm sounds.
To her surprise, her second captor is already on the floor. A glass jaw. Her single blow rendered him unconscious.
She rolls hard into the shins of the first man, who won’t urinate without pain for a week. He falls forward onto his knees like he’s in the midst of afternoon prayers. She attempts a last-minute penalty kick — just her and the keeper — splitting his thighs from behind and striking him so hard he vomits before falling fully forward.
Her phone is all that can save her. Her laptop would be nice, but it’s too much to carry. Hands bound in front of her, she awkwardly searches the downed man, recovering her iPhone from his jacket pocket. No chip, rendering the phone useless.
She wants so much more: personal ID from both men; weapons; a look at any tattoos; clothing tags; currency. The fire alarm is a sharp peal of possibility; she has bought herself precious seconds.
Her wrists are bound, her hands bleeding. It’s not as if she can blend in. Temptation points her down — toward the street. Fresh air. Freedom. It’s what any hostage would do.
Instead, she climbs. One floor. Two.
A voice from below: one of the captors calling it in.
Damn wrists.
She tops out on the fifth floor. Nowhere to go.
What now?
27
Dulwich limps away from the bench. His bad knee has apparently given up along with the rest of him. His bulk looks cartoonish in comparison to the Turks on the plaza. A stovepipe arm lifts what looks like a toy phone. Then, slowly, the man’s shoulders pivot as he turns.
Knox knows the call has to do with Grace. He rises from the bench and closes the distance, moving with extended strides. His pounding heart drums in his ears.
“What?” Knox says.
Dulwich’s expression is patronizing. He says, “Got it,” and shuts down the call.
“Her,” Knox says.
“You told Kamat to watch the grid for fire alarms?” Perplexed. Annoyed. “You going to run all over town chasing mattress fires?”
“Talk to me.”
“It’s a confirmed safe house. On a list we got from the Pakis before things went to shit with them.”
“Iran,” Knox says. Gets no pushback from Dulwich. “How long ago?”
“Came in just now.”
“It’s her.”
“Could be. Trouble is, we don’t know.”
“Address?”
“You can’t make a one-man raid on a known Iranian safe house.”
“Two-man. Address?”
“There are so many reasons why this is a no-go. I don’t have time to list them all. We can ask the local police to roll a fire truck to the scene. Nothing wrong with that. They can do a room-by-room for us. The Turks are friendlies. We can—”
“I’m on that truck.”
“Not possible.”
“We’ll see what Primer thinks.”
“Thin ice, my friend. You have no idea how deep and dark a hole you’re digging.”
“We’re digging. This is Grace. I’ll tell you what: you get on the truck. You give me the address in case they’re tardy or lazy.”
“If she tripped that alarm, they beat her senseless and/or moved her. By now she’s a dozen blocks away and moving fast.”
Knox steps forward. “If she pulled that alarm, then her hands are either free or in front of her. I’ve seen her in the field. You, too, in Amsterdam. You gotta pity those bastards. Now give me the fucking address.”
Dulwich spins his phone to reveal the message from Kamat. Knox types the address into his map app, careful of each number and letter. As precious as pearls.
“I’m going to need you as backup,” Knox says.
28
Thinking is not an option. Grace reacts because she’s been trained to react by the PLA’s intelligence force. There’s a communal laundry wire strung between this building and the next, barely ten feet away, open windows on both sides. A vinyl basket tied to the wire holds clothespins. Handicapped by her bound wrists, Grace dumps the clothespins inside, unties the basket with her teeth and places it over the woven wire, holding the basket by its opposing handles. The basket collapses under her weight but serves as protective strap to guide her across the wire. She tests it against her weight, throws her ankles up onto the wire, contracting her knees to pull her along. She does not look down, but can’t ignore the basket’s vinyl is being slowly sawed into by the wire. She says a few prayers, grateful it’s ten feet across, not twenty, and speeds up her efforts. The basket about to break, Grace switches to her bare hands for the last few feet. The wire cuts through the flesh of her fingers.
Once she reaches the far building, it takes her three precarious tries to get her feet through the opposing window, and she’s losing strength by the time she manages.
An older woman in a hijab sees Grace’s bloody fingers and wrists and silently withdraws back into her apartment, shutting her door.
Grace hurries downstairs, before realizing she should have asked the woman to cut the ties.
No one follows. She would like to attribute her continuing freedom to her evasive skills, but Grace knows better. It’s not as if she incapacitated both her captors, so where are they? She pushes into a busy bodega, self-conscious at the stares caused by her lack of a head scarf, her bound wrists and the sweat cascading down her face.
A pair of scissors is chained to the counter alongside a beat-up calculator.
“Please,” she says, extending her wrists to a man in a soiled turban.
The clerk looks at her wrists and then meets eyes with Grace.
“My husband,” Grace says, appealing to a matronly woman behind her. “My husband. He beats me. Please!” She raises her voice. “He did this to me. He’s coming for me.”
“It is God’s will,” the clerk says. His eyes are dark brown, dead.
“Step aside!”
The woman who comes to Grace’s aid is college-aged and dressed unconventionally in a zippered jacket and blue jeans. She wears a head scarf, but fashionably. All eyes are on her as she shoves past the solemn matrons in line.