full extent of the FBI fuck-up without letting the intercepting Bureau realize every error, no matter how small, would go into the CIA’s infighting armoury, to be broken out and fired at the first skirmish of a political battle between the two agencies.
‘I’m waiting,’ threatened McBride.
‘It wasn’t a demand,’ Norris said desperately. ‘It was to tell us they’ve got Mary. For us to be ready. They’re softening us up: proving they’ve got all the winning cards.’ The last part, admitting that he wasn’t orchestrating everything, hurt almost with a physical pain. Whoever had the child would pay, for making him do that. He’d teach them who was the boss, the moment they began proper negotiations. And then really teach them, once Mary was safely recovered. They’d know what it was like to be hunted by the time he’d finished with them.
‘You saying we’ve got to wait until they feel like getting back to us?’ asked Hillary.
Norris fervently sought an alternative but couldn’t think of one. ‘It’s a negotiating ploy.’
‘I don’t give a shit what it is,’ said McBride. ‘I’m not waiting. We are ready. The money’s here. I want to get back to them. How are we going to do that?’
Norris felt a sink of helplessness, unthinkingly half turning towards Williams. Anxiously the technician blurted: ‘We could log a message on the browsers.’
‘What the hell’s that?’ said McBride sharply.
‘A browser is like a subject directory or index, in a classified telephone book. People surf the Net through browsers, searching for information logged there. We’re doing the press release tonight so there’s no need for secrecy any more. Why don’t we make an entry – it’s called starting a thread – naming Mary through News-cape and Microsoft Explorer? It would be inviting them to come back to us.’
It sounded good, some positive action, conceded Norris. Eager to contribute – and to illustrate his psychological ability – he said: ‘To let them know it’s aimed at them and that we want to deal, our response should be along the lines of their message to us.’
‘Whatever it takes,’ insisted McBride. ‘Get it done! Get Mary back.’
They were very late returning from Antwerp – they hadn’t driven down until after Jean Smet had left his office – but he still invited Felicite Galan into his house off the rue de Flandres to watch his latest movie from Amsterdam. Afterwards Felicite said: ‘One of the boys was at least sixteen. And a professional.’
‘It was still good,’ defended Smet. ‘The others will like it.’
‘I wonder what Mary will think of it.’
‘You said she wasn’t going to be touched,’ said Smet.
‘I said no one else was to touch her. And it was only a little slap on her ass.’
‘It was a hiding. You hit her too hard.’
She knew the man was right. ‘A necessary lesson. She’ll do as she’s told in future, so I won’t have to do it again.’
‘Dehane did very well with the message, didn’t he?’
‘I knew it was technically possible. And I told you it would be completely undetectable.’
‘I still don’t like it,’ said the man weakly.
‘Why hasn’t the Justice Ministry created a supervisory committee the way they did when the boy died?’ she asked, ignoring the man’s protest.
Smet smiled. ‘It was proposed before I left the ministry this afternoon.’
‘And?’ asked Felicite, smiling too.
‘I’m responsible for establishing it, just like before. And I head the legal advisory team that will sit with it.’
Felicite’s expression broadened in satisfaction. ‘So everything will be as foolproof as last time.’
‘The Americans have brought in a huge team of people, apparently. And Europol’s involved.’
‘We anticipated it would be more high-powered than before,’ Felicite said dismissively.
‘Would you have done it? Broken up the group if we hadn’t agreed about Mary?’ asked the ministry lawyer, no longer smiling.
‘I want things my way,’ said the thin-faced woman. ‘I get tired of telling you mat.’
*
The military aircraft repatriating Harry Becker and his family was delayed for two hours that night to enable the even more distressed Howard Williams to travel back to Washington on Norris’s personal authority.
From the US embassy Norris sent a ‘Respond This Day’ reminder to Washington for the requested in-depth reinvestigation into McBride’s business affairs. That request as well as the browser message to the unknown holders of Mary Beth McBride, were both instantly picked up by Kurt Volker’s ever attentive Trojan Horse.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Americans’ Internet message read WHERE IS MARY, MARY QUITE CONTRARY? and was signed off with the embassy’s e-mail address.
It appeared a light-hearted, joking invitation except to those aware of the desperation of the plea. Claudine acknowledged the need for the nursery rhyme connotation but at the 1 a.m. conference for which she, Blake and Sanglier had to be awakened Volker, alerted by his computer-linked pager, warned the result would be chaotic on a never sleeping World Wide Web as user-crowded as Oxford Street or Fifth Avenue on Christmas Eve.
Volker had been proved right by 8 a.m. when they assembled again in Sanglier’s Metropole suite to discuss their pre-conference encounter with the ambassador. By then there were two hundred and twenty responses – with more arriving on average every five minutes – the majority mostly eager to participate in an imagined Internet mystery game predicated on children’s doggerel. Five were analysed – correctly as it subsequently turned out – by Claudine to be disguised paedophile approaches, although she decided none came from Mary’s captors, which also proved correct. Not one reply emanated from Brussels: the only Belgian response, from Charleroi, proved to be from a wheelchair-bound crippled twelve-year-old boy only able freely to wander the world from his bedroom computer.
To Blake’s unasked question at the breakfast strategy meeting Sanglier announced at once: ‘All right. They’re excluding us and now we’ve got proof we can confront them with. They’ve identified themselves with their e-mail address. So how do we do it?’ He was inwardly ecstatic at his escape from the problem of illegally entering the embassy system.
‘Hard,’ declared Claudine at once, knowing the question was directed at her. ‘We’ve got to establish our control officially.’
‘You really serious about Norris?’ asked Blake.
‘Absolutely.’
‘What do we do about him?’ said Sanglier, as Volker moved the coffee pot around the breakfast table.
‘The same. He’s guiding everyone at the moment. We’ve got to show he’s wrong.’
‘Then it’s got to be you, psychologist against psychologist,’ insisted Sanglier. He was supremely confident, knowing he couldn’t lose the forthcoming encounter. He hoped the woman realized his acceptance of her ability. Not an attempt at amends, he reminded himself: the proper establishment of a proper team arrangement. After personally challenging the ambassador he’d insist Europol officially protest direct to Washington, too. A disaster – which was the most likely outcome if the woman’s assessment was even half correct – could now be proved the result of unwarranted, technically illegal American interference, while a successful recovery could be manipulated into a brilliant example of Europol police work, personally headed by Commissioner Henri Sanglier. Either way, any condoned illegality on Kurt Volker’s part would be smothered.
Henri Sanglier was an extremely contented man.
James McBride clearly wasn’t. The American ambassador made the pretence of politeness when they entered his study, his attitude a mixture of his usual aggression tempered by a growing acceptance of defeat. His eyes were red-rimmed and bagged and he coughed frequently, to clear a throat that didn’t need clearing. Hillary McBride appeared far more controlled than her husband. She was smoking unusually long cigarettes. John Norris sat looking out into the room on the left of the desk, with Paul Harding and Lance Rampling alongside. Elliot Smith, the young legal adviser, was beside Burt Harrison, the chief of mission, to the ambassador’s right.
