‘You could consider a complete news blackout, sir,’ suggests the press officer. ‘It’s defendable on the basis that the young woman’s life is at risk.’
Hunt throws his copy of the paper down on the table. ‘What’s the point? The news is already out there!’ He looks around the faces and then back to Mallory. ‘Kate, we can’t conduct an inquiry of this scale if the press know about it before our own operational staff. Do your best to find out who leaked. I want a full investigation into this sloppiness.’
The door to the conference room opens and the Chief Constable’s PA leans in. ‘Vice President Lock is here, sir. He has two men with him who say they are from the FBI.’
87
While Chief Constable Hunt briefs Vice President Lock another tense meeting is under way in an office just down the corridor. FBI agents Todd Burgess and Danny Alvez are face to face with John Rowlands and Barney Gibson.
‘I’m really hoping we can help you guys,’ says Senior Supervisory Agent Burgess. Tanned and toned, he looks half his forty-five years. ‘Both Dan and I know Thom Lock and the President well and we can keep heat off your backs, providing of course you’re open and honest with us.’
Gibson understands classic Yankspeak when he hears it. Tell us everything and we’ll tell you nothing. ‘Who’s top of your likely list when it comes to kidnap gangs? Thom Lock especially piss anyone off?’
Both Americans laugh.
‘Thom has pissed everyone off,’ says Burgess. ‘New York organised crime families, Chicago animal liberation groups, west coast environmentalists, even the Russians over in Brooklyn.’
‘Then there are the terror groups,’ adds Alvez. ‘He’s a Republican who backs the War on Terror. A hawk in foreign-policy terms. Al-Qaeda, the Colombians, the FPM, PLF, ANO, they all stick pins in effigies of Thom Lock.’ He switches the heat back to Gibson. ‘What have you guys found so far?’
‘Not much,’ confesses the commander. ‘We’re working with intelligence services to grab everything we can. Data, email, voice messages. Anything that’s out there about Caitlyn, we’re on it.’
Danny Alvez is mid-thirties, Hispanic with dark eyes and short black hair. He’s been waiting for his chance to ask the big question. ‘What do you guys make of the tape?’
Rowlands gives him a straight reply: ‘We haven’t had feedback from the tech staff yet. To me it sounded genuine, though I’m suspicious of why they used audio tape and not video.’
‘Agreed,’ says Alvez. ‘It’s certainly Caitlyn though. We talked to Thom and Kylie and the information about the ribbon and book is accurate and to the best of their knowledge has never been made public.’
‘We pinged the tape to Quantico via a secure upload,’ adds Burgess. ‘Our labs say it contains multiple edits, made on several digital sound layers. They think an initial taping was done with Caitlyn, then it was drop-edited on to another recording device and the completed message played down the line from Paris.’
‘Why?’ asks Gibson. ‘Why would they do all that rather than just put her on the phone?’
‘They’re real pros,’ says Burgess. ‘They probably know all recording devices, even digital ones, leave a kind of sound DNA. By over-recording like this, you mix up the sample evidence. Machinery and source become much harder to detect.’
‘I just wonder,’ says Rowlands, ‘if the explanation is simpler than that. If the recording was faked somehow. What if Caitlyn’s voice was actually recorded here in England, sent to Paris and then played back down a French phone line?’
Alvez shakes his head. ‘Our analysts say the call was definitely made in France. They lifted the background atmos and they’re sure it was Paris.’ Rowlands’ theory grows on him a little. ‘Suppose the background noise could have been mixed in from the French side, but it seems a stretch.’
Gibson isn’t convinced. ‘Come on, they could have gone through the tunnel and been in Paris within four hours of the abduction. Thousands of illegal aliens get across the channel every year, it would be nothing for a professional gang bold enough to target a politician’s daughter.’
Burgess agrees. ‘Or by private plane, coast to coast in half that time. That’s the way I’d do it.’
Alvez nods. ‘Me too.’
John Rowlands is outnumbered three to one, but he doesn’t care. ‘She’s here. I’m sure she is. My gut tells me this tape is a wild goose chase. Caitlyn Lock is still within our reach.’
88
Publicly, Kylie Lock hasn’t said anything about her daughter’s disappearance. She let her husband fix everything with the British police, the Secret Service, the FBI and the President’s office. He’s good at all that. Despite all their differences, she knows he cares about Caitlyn’s welfare every bit as much as she does. If anyone can get those people to find her, it’s Thom. No doubt about it.
But sometimes he’s wrong. Out of line. Not that he’ll ever admit it. Oh no. Even now he won’t accept that it was a stupid mistake to have Eric look after Caitlyn instead of a Secret Service detail. Everything always has to be done his way.
Well, today is going to be different. Today it’s her turn to step up. And step up is what she is going to do. In a way only a mother can. From the heart. That’s why she’s called a press conference.
Kylie looks in the mirror a final time, hides her eyes behind her low-profile black Prada sunglasses. She is wearing a mid-length grey Givenchy dress, her blonde hair is swept and tied back. She’s ready for anything the world can throw at her.
After taking a deep breath, she walks into the top-floor conference room at the Dorchester. Settles behind the long trestle table covered in an immaculate white cotton cloth. It’s topped with a small angled sign bearing her name and she can see a cluster of microphones and Dictaphones. She looks up and the room seems to convulse. An explosion of shutter clicks and blinding white light. She can see the editorial heads of the BBC, ITN, Sky, AFP, Reuters, PA, CNN, Inter Press, Pressenza, EFE and UPI. And a million others. They have risen from their seats, out of respect for her, not as a famous actress but as a worried-sick mother.
She can feel the heat from the blisteringly hot TV lights strung on their steel poles. People everywhere. At the rear a long line of video cameras are sited on a raised platform. She is flanked by a giant suited bodyguard and a round-faced black woman in her early fifties. Charlene Elba, a rough-and-ready veteran of her Hollywood press campaigns. Elba taps the main desk mike, gets the ball rolling. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. All of you are aware of the great efforts being made by law enforcement agencies in many countries to find Caitlyn Lock. Both Kylie Lock and Vice President Thom Lock are immensely grateful for the endeavours of those detectives and individuals. However, this morning we will not be addressing any issues relating to the inquiry.’ There is a pause. ‘Today Kylie would like to directly address whoever has her daughter. Afterwards, she will do interviews. The press session will last ninety minutes, after which Kylie has to leave for a personal meeting with the Chief Constable of Wiltshire and representatives from the British Home Office and the FBI. We thank you again for your attendance.’
Kylie takes a second to compose herself before attempting the task of making an impression on the audience. She can feel the cynicism. Hazard of the profession, she guesses. She takes off her sunglasses. Her eyes are bloodshot and it’s apparent that she is not wearing more than a brush of powder. The features are familiar to all of them. ‘Whoever you are, whatever you want, please don’t hurt my baby.’ There’s a tremor in her voice. ‘Think of your own mother, think of your own wife or your own sister. How would you feel if they were in Caitlyn’s place? What would you say to whoever had them? You’d say this. Please, please don’t hurt the person I love most in the whole world. Please let them go.’ She has no notes in front of her, just a plain piece of paper and a pen. She looks down at them for what seems an over-long period of time.