Hostage (34 page)

‘I’ve lost contact!’ cried
Amir, searching his computer screen for the green dot that represented Connor. But the
bird’s-eye view of Washington DC was devoid of any tracer signal.

Charley sped over from her central
workstation in the Buddyguard operations room. ‘It may be just a satellite
delay.’

‘No, I’ve run diagnostic checks.
The uplink is fine.’

‘What about resetting the
connection?’

‘Already done that.
Nothing.’

Charley frowned, a bad feeling starting to
creep in. ‘So where was Connor when you lost the signal?’

‘Near the Jefferson Memorial,’
Amir replied, pointing to the location on the screen. ‘Judging by his movements,
he’d made contact with Alicia and was heading to the car park. Shortly after
–’ he clicked his fingers in the air – ‘gone!’

‘What about the Cell-Finity bug on her
phone?’ she asked. ‘We’re mirroring the trace, aren’t
we?’

Amir offered a pained expression.
‘That disappeared at the same time as Connor’s.’

Charley snatched up the desk phone and dialled
Connor’s number. The line sounded a continuous dead tone. She put the phone
down.

‘You don’t think … they’ve
been caught in a bomb blast, do you?’ Amir asked fearfully.

Charley’s face went pale at the
thought. She rapidly typed at the keyboard, requesting an update on the Washington
attacks. A few seconds later, a confidential security news feed popped up on the screen.
She scanned the page, but there was no report of a fourth explosion … not yet
anyway.

‘During a state of emergency, the
government can block all mobile communications,’ said Bugsy, coming over from his
workstation in the corner of the operations room.

‘That’s not exactly
helpful!’ remarked Amir.

‘There’re two very good reasons.
One, to stop the spread of panic among civilians. Two, to prevent a mobile phone signal
triggering an explosive device. Nowadays, the remote-control IED is the
terrorists’ first choice of bomb. The group behind this attack wouldn’t even
need to be in the city, let alone the country, at the time of the attack.’

‘So how can we locate Connor and
Alicia and find out if they’re safe or not?’ asked Charley.

‘Have you tried the GPS-tracker that
Secret Service implanted in his watch?’

Amir shook his head. ‘We weren’t
given access to that.’

Bugsy plumped himself down at his computer
terminal. ‘Shouldn’t be a problem to fix,’ he replied, popping a stick
of gum into his mouth and chewing hard. ‘The tracker will be
transmitting on a separate protected frequency.’

His fingers rattled across the keyboard as
he quickly gained access to the Secret Service Locator program. Leaning back in his
chair to study the data, Bugsy scratched his bald head with bemusement.

‘Strange … even that’s
disappeared,’ he mumbled, half to himself.

On hearing this, Charley picked up the phone
again and dialled a different number. She gave her call sign and typed in her security
password. ‘Can you give me confirmation of Nomad’s arrival?’

After listening to the response, she numbly
put the phone down.

‘They’re not at the safe
house,’ she informed them. ‘We need to update Colonel Black. I fear the
worst has happened.’

A body lay in the middle of the disused
aircraft hangar, a bullet through the head.

‘That will ensure her silence,’
grinned Malik, lowering his gun.

‘But that agent was one of us!’
exclaimed Hazim, his face aghast at the brutal execution.

Malik’s expression became stony.
‘We must tie up all loose ends, Hazim. A double agent can never be
trusted.’

‘Well, what about all those innocent
people killed by our bombs? You never told me about that part of the plan. How can we
justify those killings to God –’

‘Don’t you
dare
question my command, Hazim!’ snarled Malik, taking a step closer and looking Hazim
in the eye. ‘They were infidels. But I’m beginning to wonder if I should be
questioning
your
commitment to the cause?’

‘No, not at all,’ defended
Hazim, vehemently shaking his head.

‘I hope not,’ said Malik, then
strode away, leaving Hazim staring at the body of the ruthlessly slain agent.

Malik approached the 4×4 where his men stood
guard.
Peering into the rear passenger compartment, he admired his
prize. The President’s daughter was slumped unconscious on the back seat, a
tranquillizer dart piercing her neck.

‘When the dust settles, Washington
will discover what we’ve
really
achieved,’ he laughed coldly.

Bahir swept a surveillance scanner over
Alicia’s prone body. A red light blinked on as the device passed over her jeans
pocket. Bahir pulled out the bugged phone.

‘A job well done!’ he said,
congratulating himself on his programming skill with the Cell-Finity bug. He extracted
the SIM card and snapped it in half, before crushing the phone under his boot.

The scanner flashed again, this time over
her bag. He rifled through the contents and pulled out the panic alarm.

‘I trust that’s not still
active?’ said Malik.

Bahir shook his head. ‘The EMP Kedar
fired during the attack at the memorial disabled all electronic equipment in the
4×4’s vicinity.’ He broke apart the alarm case and disconnected the innards.
‘This sweep is just to make one hundred per cent certain.’

Bahir now turned his attention to
Connor’s body. The scanner immediately found his smartphone. He popped out the SIM
card and destroyed it. He went to smash the phone too when he noticed the screen boot up
and the graphic of a lock appear.

‘That’s strange,’ he
muttered. ‘How can its circuitry still be functioning?’

Intrigued by the anomaly, he checked there
were no outgoing signals, then pocketed the phone for later analysis.
He continued his surveillance sweep. The scanner blinked rapidly as it passed over
Connor’s wrist.

‘Someone certainly didn’t want
to lose this one,’ he remarked, removing the fancy watch.

‘I wonder why that is?’ Malik
mused, leaning in closer to get a better look at Connor’s face.

‘He’s a special guest of the
President on an exchange programme,’ Hazim replied flatly as he rejoined the
others. ‘His name’s Connor Reeves. He’s English.’

‘Well, he’s not invited to our
party,’ said Kedar, drawing his handgun and aiming at Connor’s head.

‘Hold your fire!’ ordered
Malik.

‘But I thought we agreed no prisoners,
apart from the girl.’

Malik pushed Kedar’s gun away.

‘No, don’t kill him …’ He
tugged the tranquillizer dart from Connor’s chest. ‘Not yet anyway. Having
another child hostage might prove a useful bargaining chip.’

‘The White House is all clear, Mr
President,’ announced George. ‘The bomb disposal team have swept the
residence, three times now, and
that
particular threat appears to have been a
hoax.’

‘A
hoax
? The others certainly
weren’t,’ replied President Mendez, seated at the head of the conference
table aboard Air Force One. The past few hours had been some of the worst the nation had
known since 9/11 and he was in no mood for practical jokes.

‘This was most likely a prank call,
inspired by but unconnected to the bombings,’ explained Karen Wright. ‘We
couldn’t take that risk, though.’

‘It was the right decision, Karen. But
I need to get back into the Oval Office and make a statement to reassure the nation.
What’s the situation at the other locations in Washington?’

The Director of National Intelligence swiped
her finger across her touchscreen computer. An updated situation report appeared on the
screen.

‘All targeted areas have been cordoned
off. Official reports
indicate structural damage to Secret Service and
FBI Headquarters. The US Capitol building has escaped unscathed. There were one hundred
and fifty-four casualties at the last count, but mercifully few confirmed deaths. We can
thank the swift response of our emergency services for that.’

Karen scanned down the page to the ERT
report.

‘The Environmental Response Teams have
completed initial atmospheric analysis. Apart from the anticipated smoke and fumes, no
chemical, biological or nuclear compounds were found in any of the attacks.’

President Mendez breathed an audible sigh of
relief. ‘A dirty bomb would have been our worst nightmare. So, can we assume the
immediate threat is over?’

‘It appears that way,’ replied
Karen. ‘But as a standard precaution we’ve closed all public buildings,
diverted traffic out of the downtown area and a block-by-block search for any suspicious
vehicles or packages is under way. So far, no further danger has been
reported.’

‘Then we can inform the public that we
are in control of the situation.’

‘Yes, Mr President.’

‘Excellent. It’s important that
we display a show of strength against these terrorists.’

‘I’m afraid it’s not all
good news, Mr President,’ said Dirk, entering the airborne conference room, his
face drawn and haggard following a high-priority call from the Joint Operations Centre.
‘As you know, we received confirmation from Delta Four that your daughter was
picked up and being taken to a safe house. But –’

‘But what?’ demanded President
Mendez.

‘The team never reached the safe
house.’

President Mendez blinked, unwilling to
believe what he’d just heard. ‘And you’ve only learnt about this
now?’ He glanced at the clock on the cabin wall. ‘It’s been over
five
hours. Where is she then?’

Dirk’s solemn expression said it all.
‘The Secret Service team has just been found dead in the Jefferson Memorial car
park. There’d been a gun battle.’

‘Alicia too?’ he asked, his
hands beginning to tremble. As President he was more than capable of handling a national
crisis, but as a father the thought of losing his daughter was too much to bear.

Dirk shook his head. ‘There was no
sign of her.’

‘So she’s still
alive?’

‘Yes, in all probability,’
replied Dirk. ‘I’ve also been informed Connor was with her at the
time.’

President Mendez frowned. ‘I thought
he’d left?’

‘So did I. But Buddyguard uncovered
last-minute evidence that your daughter’s phone was tapped and being
tracked.’

‘Then why haven’t you found her
yet?’ asked President Mendez, anguish gripping his heart like a vice.

‘Her panic alarm malfunctioned. We
lifted the block on mobile calls, but her cellphone’s dead too,’ explained
Dirk. ‘With Secret Service headquarters crippled by the bomb blast and the current
state of emergency, our teams have been stretched to the limit. If we’d only been
allowed to put a tracker on her –’

‘Dirk, I don’t want excuses. I
need results,’ President Mendez barked, pounding the table with his fist.
‘Land this plane right now. Get me back to Washington. Divert every resource
available to
finding my daughter
!’