Francine Mathews - The Cutout

“Money, Jack. Money. If I can pour deutsche marks into the developing economies of my buffer states Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, even Poland with time, I will turn despair into hope. I will deny the terrorists a foothold for their anarchy. And protect those who fall within the German sphere of influence.”

Dare frowned slightly at the phrase “German sphere of influence.” But Bigelow was tired of chatter. He made a lewd gesture in the speakerphone's direction something suggestive of a giant hand job and prepared to sign off.

“Listen, Fritz, we're always glad to know you fellas in the Federal Republic are fightin' the good fight. You get any news of Sophie Payne, you call me right away, y'hear? I'll be sendin' those Bureau boys over to Berlin ASAP.”

“Thank you, Jack.”

“You give that pretty little daughter of yours my best, okay? Bye, now.”

Bigelow snapped off the speakerphone, then glanced around the faces assembled in the Oval Office. There was Matthew Finch, the National Security Advisor, a quiet, bespectacled, kindhearted man with an absolute intolerance for bullshit; Gerard O'Neill, Bigelow's Secretary of State, who was drumming his fingers impatiently on the arm of his chair; Al Tomlinson, the FBI director; and General Clayton Phillips, chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Phillips frowned as he studied his notes.

“Hope, my ass,” Bigelow drawled. “Somebody better tell my friend Fritz about Osama bin Laden, terrorist billionaire. Now that's the kind of money gives people hope. Wouldn't you say so, Dare?”

“A chicken and an AK-47 in every pot,” she replied. “One can hardly blame Voekl, Mr. President. He has to be feeling rather stupid right now.”

“He may sound that way, Dare, but problem is, Fritz is no dummy.” Bigelow lifted his boots off the desk and thrust himself out of his chair. “So what's he tryin' to pull, anyway? I call him about Sophie, and I get a stump speech about investment opportunities in Central Europe.”

“Trying to change the subject?” suggested Al Tomlinson, the FBI director.

“Then he's doing a lousy job of it,” said O'Neill, the Secretary of State. “No bunch of disaffected gastarbeiters kidnapped the Vice President. A bomb in Berlin gets them nothing but bad press.”

“I agree.” Dare glanced down at her notes, feverishly thrown together in the past forty minutes by a senior analyst in DI/OREA.

“But the Berlin police have issued a curfew for all Turkish aliens resident in the city and placed a cordon of riot police around guest-worker neighborhoods to deter reprisals. They're also conducting a house-to-house search for the Vice President and her captors. We don't believe they'll find a trace of them in Germany. In our opinion, the terrorists are long gone.”

“I can see Turkish extremists bombing the Gate,” the President said thoughtfully, “but not snatching Sophie in a stolen chopper.”

“They'd be more likely to kill her outright, just to make the German government look bad,” agreed Matthew Finch.

“Or target a German they hate, like Voekl.”

“Who, instead of being dead, now has the ideal excuse to hit the Turks harder. Do me a favor, Dare.” Bigelow wheeled suddenly toward her. “Start snoopin' in Fritz Voekl's backyard, okay? I want to know what time his daughter Kiki's curfew is, who Fritz calls for phone sex late at night, whether he puts whole milk or two percent on his Wheaties in the morning.”

“Done.”

“Fritz Voekl wasn't flying that chopper,” objected Gerard O'Neill.

“No. But he wasn't in the square to take the blast, either, now was he, Gerry?”

Bigelow pinned him with a look.

“Any of your cookie-pushers over in the Bottom of the Fog get a better idea, you be sure an' send 'em to me.”

O'Neill smiled nervously.

“I think we can usefully speculate about the parties responsible,” Dare interjected. “The resident Turks are probably a scapegoat. Both the Voekl regime and possibly several other groups operating in the region would kill to discredit them publicly.”

“Could be Kurdish separatists,” Al Tomlinson said abruptly. “They love it when Turks get egg on their faces.”

“But the PKK has been in disarray in recent months,” Dare pointed out, “since Turkish forces captured their leader.”

“Who snatched all those guys from Beirut in the eighties?” The President glanced around inquiringly.

“Terry Anderson. Bill Buckley. That whole bunch. Who grabbed them?”

“Hizballah.” Dare had spent most of the eighties on the National Security Council, frantically trying to get the CIA's Beirut station chief, William Buckley, home before he died of torture. She had failed. Jack Bigelow, on the other hand, had spent the eighties reinventing himself from corporate raider to the most trusted man in America.

“If the rag heads were behind it,” snapped Gerard O'Neill, “we'd have heard from ten different terrorist groups by now, all claiming responsibility.”

“Probably true,” Dare conceded.

“And Hizballah has never kidnapped a woman.”

“So who do we blame, Dare?” Bigelow den-landed.

The real question, after all the perambulation. She drew a deep breath.

“We believe the sophistication and timing of this particular hit rule out the lesser Middle Eastern organizations. In our opinion, three groups could be responsible: a German cell trained by the Saudi-in-exile, Osama bin Laden; one dispatched by the Palestinians-Ahmad Jabril or the PFLP-GC; or a group operating under the 30 April Organization.”

“Germany's always been lousy with terrorists,” muttered General Phillips. “They send in kids with student visas, marry them to frauleins, wait for a convenient moment to activate.”

Bigelow sighed. “Sort it out for me, Dare.”

“As I'm sure you're aware, Mr. President, Osama bin Laden has been able to strike the U.S. significantly in the past, despite our constant efforts to monitor his terrorist network worldwide. He's independently wealthy and he works through a variety of front organizations, some legitimate, some less so.”

“I thought he liked to operate outta the third world,” the President said.

“But he may well have established a foothold in the new German capital years ago. You'll remember that bin Laden's father made his fortune in construction. Building contractors of every description have been the most visible commercial enterprise in Berlin for the past decade.”

“And he sure loves taking out U.S. embassies,” muttered Gerard O'Neill. The memory of rubble in Tanzania and Kenya still had the power to enrage him.

Bigelow glanced at his watch.

“I know enough about bin Laden. Go on.”

“Ahmad Jabnl, head of the PFLP-GC,” Dare said.

“An old PLO hand who broke with Yasir Arafat decades ago. Jabril styles himself as an ideologue, a man who offers no quarter while Israel exists. But he likes hits with a lot of public relations value. His men bombed our troop trains in Germany in 1991.”

“Then I'd say blowing the Brandenburg Gate is tame by comparison.” Bigelow's eyelids flickered.

“Why Sophie?”

Dare shrugged.

“Jabril's lieutenant is serving a life term in a German prison. Maybe he wants him released.”

“It's after nine o'clock in the evening over there,” Bigelow said impatiently. “Why the hell don't they give us a call?”

Because Sophie Payne is already dead, and they've got nothing to bargain with now. Dare could have voiced the unspoken thought poisoning the room. Instead, she waited, briefing papers at the ready.

“And the last group, Director?” the President asked.

She felt a flutter of disquiet in her stomach.

“The 30 April Organization.”