Brian Freemantle - The Predators

‘I guess we’ve just been given the carte blanche to stage a second Watergate,’ said McCulloch.

‘Let’s hope we do it better this time,’ said Harding. ‘Anyone got any ideas?’

‘We haven’t talked about the mobile telephone,’ suggested Claudine, who didn’t like moving on to new problems with others unsolved.

‘What about it?’ asked McCulloch, a newcomer to the inner circle.

‘The number belonged to the mobile of an accountant in Ghent. It was stolen six days ago: the stop had only just gone through.’

‘So?’ queried Ritchie.

‘It wasn’t the same telephone dumped in the back of the Ford,’ said Harding. ‘It’s a mass-produced, medium-priced instrument. Used by Belgacom as well as a couple of independent mobile companies.’

‘Why bother to transfer the number to another phone?’ questioned McCulloch. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

‘It must do, to someone,’ said Rampling. ‘But who? And why?’

There was a flurry of movement at the doorway as a beaming Volker hurried in from the adjoining computer room. ‘I’ve accessed the cryptograph entry code on the two paedophile videos,’ he announced. ‘The company is trading out of Amsterdam, offering a whole range of pornographic specialities. Even animals.’

‘Can we get the paedophilia?’ asked Rampling.

‘Already ordered,’ Volker assured him. ‘We thought there was a sex element in the serial killings: there was, but not what we thought. But we established a home page, supposedly of a subscriber in Copenhagen, through several illegal bulletin boards specializing in sex. Used it to close down quite a few outlets since. I’ve ordered through there. Asked for anything new in the past fortnight.’

‘They wouldn’t have made anything featuring Mary as quickly as this,’ said Blake.

‘One of the videos found in Smet’s safe was issued seven days ago,’ said Volker. ‘It’s dated.’

‘Normally I don’t have a problem with dirty movies but I guess this time I will,’ said Ritchie. He became abruptly aware of Claudine and blushed.

‘We all will if Mary’s featured,’ said Rampling.

All the car, motorcycle and helicopter intercepts were reestablished according to the previous day’s pattern. Claudine left the systems check just after it started, less than an hour before the time of the previous day’s call, and made her way to McBride’s study. The ambassador was in shirt sleeves, his tie loosened, away from his desk.

Hillary had changed from what she’d been wearing earlier, into a tailored safari suit. Action Woman, thought Claudine.

McBride’s impatient shifting around the room was now stoked as much – if not more so – by the frustration of not being able to move against Jean Smet as by the obvious nervousness. At least he was ignoring the cocktail cabinet and the Jack Daniel’s bottle.

Claudine sat at once as she had before, trying to quieten the man by her own calmness. Which she didn’t have to force. It had to be frustrating for McBride: double torture. But it couldn’t be much longer now. Disaster was still only one misplaced word away but Claudine didn’t think there was a risk of her uttering it. The pendulum swung abruptly, worryingly. She wouldn’t say the wrong thing but McBride had sat in on a lot – too much – of their operational discussion. And he knew about Jean Smet. It was possible – likely even – that unconsciously he’d blurt something.

Hurriedly she said: ‘Please remember what I said yesterday. No hate, no aggression. And don’t respond to any challenge. As soon as you can, switch the conversation to me. I’m the person she wants to confront.’

‘Are we talking about Mary? Or some private fight between you and the fucking woman?’ demanded Hillary.

‘A private fight between me and the fucking woman,’ responded Claudine. ‘I’ve got to be the person her anger’s directed against all the time: who she’s trying to humiliate. Not Mary.’

McBride stood forlornly before her, gripping and ungripping his hands. ‘I feel so…’ he began.

‘… helpless,’ she finished. ‘I know. But we’re not, not any longer.’

‘Tell me you’re going to get her back!’

She shouldn’t lie: couldn’t lie if she was going to retain her integrity. ‘I’m going to get her back.’

‘I’ll destroy you, if you don’t.’

‘You won’t have to. I will have destroyed myself. And threats don’t achieve anything, ambassador.’

He didn’t apologize. ‘It’s time.’

‘She’ll definitely make us wait today.’

‘Why?’

‘To prove all the things she needs to prove to herself: maintain her imagined control.’

‘Why late? Why not early? That would have the same effect of disorientating us,’ said Hillary.

Claudine shook her head. ‘That would make her seem too anxious. She can’t ever let herself appear to be that.’

‘Nothing touches you,’ protested McBride abruptly.

If only you knew, thought Claudine. She wasn’t surprised at his wanting to hit out at someone: find a focus for the impotent anger. She said: ‘I couldn’t do my job if I allowed myself to become personally involved. None of us could. The investigators, I mean.’

‘You ever doubt yourself?’ said Hillary.

Stop it! Claudine thought. ‘I can’t allow that, either.’

McBride looked at the large, second-sweep clock reestablished on his desk. ‘She’s almost thirty minutes past schedule.’

‘She has her own design, not a schedule.’

‘I’m not sure how much longer I can go on.’

‘You can go on as long as it takes to save your daughter!’ insisted Claudine forcefully.

‘If you can’t I will,’ challenged Hillary.

‘Nothing’s happening!’

‘This is reality. Not a movie with people and cars going round in circles.’ That hardly made sense, Claudine conceded: that was precisely what they’d done yesterday. But others, not McBride. He just had to sit and wait.

‘I’m sorry,’ said McBride.

‘What for?’

‘Saying I’d destroy you. I didn’t mean it.’

‘I know.’ She welcomed his uncertain smile. He’d stopped moving around the room: been able, for the briefest moment, to put out of his mind what was happening. What they were waiting for.

‘She’s an hour late.’

‘She’s making us suffer. She has to.’

‘How much is she making Mary suffer?’ said Hillary.

Fuck, thought Claudine, angry at her carelessness. ‘We’re going to get her back.’

‘In what sort of physical condition?’

She couldn’t allow the self-pity to go any further. ‘Alive!’

It halted him. He began stop-starting around the room again, stretching his fingers as if they were cramped. ‘You haven’t written out any prompts.’

‘I can do it quickly enough when she calls.’

‘I forgot to ask you if you were all right now,’ said McBride, belatedly solicitous.

‘I’m fine.’

‘It was terrible.’

He wanted to transfer his anguish on to her. ‘Yes.’

‘Did you think you were going to die?’

‘I knew it was possible,’ she said cautiously.

‘What do you think about – feel like – imagining you’re going to die?’

The wrong direction, Claudine quickly recognized. ‘Children as young as Mary don’t think they’re going to die. Death is beyond their imagination.’

‘I can’t begin to think what she’s suffering.’

‘Don’t try,’ urged Claudine. ‘She’s strong.’

‘You don’t know what she is by now. None of us do. We can’t.’ McBride’s wanderings had fortunately brought him close to the desk when the telephone sounded. Again the three of them jumped. Claudine held up a slowing hand as the man darted round the desk. He snatched his receiver up slightly ahead of her.