Code 6, p.27
Code 6, page 27
“That,” said Kate, collecting her breath, “is step one of my plan.”
“What’s step two?”
“We wait for the shit to hit the fan,” she said. “Three, two, one.”
The phone rang. She didn’t even have to check the caller ID to know who it was.
“Hello, Mr. Peel.”
“What kind of stunt are you trying to pull?” he shouted. “I told you I don’t know what Code Six is!”
“I accept that. But whatever it is that Javier really wants, only you can give it to him.”
“I can’t give it to him! We’re talking national security. I’d be in violation of the Espionage Act.”
It was a setup question, and Peel had fallen for it, effectively admitting that he knew what Javier really wanted—just as Kate had suspected.
“That’s your problem, Mr. Peel. Not mine.”
“You’ve got it backwards,” he said. “If there’s no ransom, you don’t get Patrick.”
“If there’s no ransom, the Department of Justice will be on the next call.”
There was silence on the line.
“I thought that would get your attention,” said Kate. “Here’s what I think, Mr. Peel. I think you’re more worried about the Justice Department hearing these negotiations than Javier is.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“Is it?” she asked, and then she played the ace in the hole she’d just dealt herself. “Then how is it that you know what Javier really wants, and that giving it to him would violate the Espionage Act, when all he’s asked for is Code Six—which doesn’t even exist?”
More silence.
“Fine,” said Kate. “If you don’t want to do your part to get Patrick home, I’m going to dial in Noah right now and tell him to join us on the next call.”
“No!” he said, and then Kate heard him take a breath, as if he recognized his own overreaction.
“Do we understand each other now?” asked Kate.
“What are you proposing?”
“I’m not on a mission to make a citizen’s arrest. I don’t care what you’re hiding. All I care about is getting Patrick out of here. I’m not saying you should hand over the secret formula to Coca-Cola. Just give them the recipe for Coke Zero. If it comes directly from you, not me, they’ll accept it. By the time they can tell the difference, Patrick and I will be back in the United States.”
Kate waited, and finally he answered.
“Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“I’ll come up with something to deliver as ransom. Enough to get Patrick released.”
“That’s all I ask,” said Kate. “I’ll call you in one hour.”
Kate hung up.
Enrique looked at her with amazement. “Has anyone ever told you that you have bigger balls than your father?”
Kate knew it was meant as a compliment, and in that light his question prompted a twenty-year-old memory of her father’s warning that if she didn’t clean up her room before he returned from work, everything out of place would land in the garbage. He came home to find her room in impeccable condition—and about half the things in his messy home office in the garbage. Kate’s mother would tell the story for years to come, which usually ended with her using the same anatomical metaphor to describe their daughter.
“Only one person I can think of,” said Kate.
Chapter 55
Gamble took the Super Puma to West Virginia. Technically speaking, he wasn’t traveling on Buck Technologies business, but he had bigger things to worry about than shareholder complaints about the use of the company helicopter for personal reasons. He reached FCP Alderson early enough to be among the first visitors of the day.
“I’m here to see Sandra Levy,” he told the corrections officer at reception.
The guard checked his ID against the list of approved visitors, and Gamble held his breath. He had an appointment, but it was Sandra’s prerogative to refuse to see him up until the last minute.
“Follow the guard into the visitation center,” he said, which Gamble took as a good sign.
The guard led him to the same table as the last visit, which had Gamble guessing how long it had been since then. Two days? Three? He suddenly wasn’t even sure what day it was. So much had happened in the interim. His need to know had grown exponentially. He wasn’t sure how he would increase Sandra’s willingness to talk.
She pulled up the chair opposite him and rested her hands on the table. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again.”
“So soon, you mean?”
“Ever.”
He wasn’t sure where to go from there.
“That’s a handsome suit you’re wearing, Christian. Like my outfit? Same one I wear every day. Khaki on khaki. They do let me wear a jacket when it gets cold. Sorry I can’t model it for you. They’re afraid we might use it to hide contraband, so I can’t wear it here.”
There was a bitterness about her that she’d managed to hide, for the most part, on the previous visit. Inmates had bad days and worse days, he supposed. Getting her to help him would be an even bigger mountain to climb than he’d anticipated.
“You got a raw deal, Sandra. I get it.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“Not as raw as Patrick Battle’s.”
His words landed with the desired impact. Some of her resentment peeled away. “What do you want from me, Christian?”
“Patrick’s kidnappers made a ransom demand.”
“How much is that going to set you back?”
“They don’t want money. They want code.”
“What code?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know. Kate doesn’t know. They put Patrick on the phone to make the demand. Jeremy Peel and Kate were on. Patrick called it Code Six.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It doesn’t exist,” he said.
She smiled a little.
“What’s so funny?”
“That’s so Patrick. Mess with his kidnappers and make something up on the fly.”
He didn’t see the need to discuss his daughter’s play. “Just because Patrick came up with a bogus name doesn’t mean the code the kidnappers really want isn’t real.”
Her smile faded. “And you think I can help with that. Is that it?”
He checked left, then right, making sure no one was within earshot. “I have a theory. Do you want to hear it?”
“I have a feeling I’m about to.”
“My theory is this: the code these kidnappers want is the same code you tried to steal.”
Her expression went stone cold. “I told you before, Christian: I didn’t steal any code.”
“Cut the bullshit, Sandra. This is life or death for Patrick, and now my daughter’s down in Colombia, trying to get him home.”
“You’re asking me to confess to a crime.”
“I’m asking you to help save two lives that shouldn’t be lost.”
“I’m slated for release in less than two years. If I confess to espionage, I could be stuck here, or more likely someplace much worse, for another ten to twenty.”
“Do you really think I came here wearing a wire, Sandra?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
He looked at her from across the table, and the way their eyes locked reminded him of how much he’d once trusted her. Apparently, she’d gotten the same reminder.
“No,” she said, in a much softer voice. “I don’t think that.”
“That’s good. Because I came here to have an honest conversation.”
Sandra took a breath, and then began.
“The deal I cut was pretty favorable. Plead guilty to three counts of lying to an FBI agent. Minimal jail time.”
“You were fortunate. Some people thought the Justice Department was too lenient.”
“That’s an understatement. Even the Justice Department thought my deal was too lenient. Lucky for me, my deal was with the CIA.”
“Federal prosecutors work for the Justice Department, not the CIA. Why were you cutting a deal with the CIA?”
“Three reasons. I uncovered the next phase of Project Naïveté. More important, I knew the CIA was behind it. Most important, I agreed to keep my mouth shut.”
“Agreed to keep your mouth shut about the code? Or about the fact that the CIA was behind it?”
“It all boiled down to the same thing. The CIA is Buck’s biggest investor. If I decided to be the next Edward Snowden and reveal what Naïveté Two could do, the blowback to the CIA would be astronomical.”
“What kind of blowback?”
“The kind of blowback that comes when the public learns that the CIA invested tax dollars in a private tech company to develop technology to use against its own people.”
He took a moment to wrap his mind around her words. “You were a management coach. How did you uncover all this?”
“I slept with the founder of Buck Technologies and used his credentials,” she said, completely matter-of-fact in her delivery, neither proud nor embarrassed.
“First of all, we never slept together,” said Gamble. “And even if we had, the CIA has always kept me dark to its most sensitive projects, so my credentials wouldn’t have suited your purpose.”
“I didn’t mean you,” she said. “I meant Jeremy Peel.”
A lower level of clearance was something Gamble had been forced to accept, given Peel’s connection to Walker and the CIA. But hearing about Sandra with Peel, after living with rumors that had all but destroyed his marriage, was enough to make his head explode.
“You and Jeremy? How could you?”
“He was such an easy mark. I’m only five years younger than him, so I’m obviously way too old for his tastes. But all I had to do was suggest that I was sleeping with you, and of course he bit. If it means taking something from you, Jeremy is all over it.”
Gamble was in a state of disbelief. “Are you saying you really are a—”
She cut him off before he could say the word “spy.”
“It’s not what you’re thinking. But put that aside. Does everything really need a label? The most important thing here is that I acted with good intentions.”
“Meaning what?”
“Like I told you. I did it for my daughter.”
She’d said the same thing in their last visit, and again it stirred up the confusion he and Kate shared over the suicide note.
“Did what for your daughter?” he asked, speaking in a hushed but urgent voice. “What does this Naïveté Two do?”
“How much time do you have?”
“As long as it takes.”
Sandra was about to begin, but the corrections offered appeared at their table, and her voice halted.
“Time’s up,” he said.
“We were just getting started,” said Gamble.
“Sorry,” said the guard. “This inmate is limited to just one thirty-minute visit per week.”
“Since when?” asked Sandra.
“Since the warden announced your punishment this morning.”
Gamble looked at Sandra. “Punishment for what?”
“I smuggled in cigarettes,” said Sandra, a bit like a schoolgirl caught smoking in the bathroom.
“Look, Officer,” said Gamble. “I’ve traveled a long way. Can we have a few more minutes, please?”
“Sorry, sir. Rules are rules. Come back next week, and the two of you can have another thirty minutes.”
Sandra rose. “Hope this can wait a week, Christian.”
“I hope so, too,” he said, watching as the guard escorted her away.
Chapter 56
Patrick watched and waited as his kidnapper laid Javier’s cellphone aside. He and Olga were chained to an exposed metal stud in the wall, seated on a concrete floor.
They were in a warehouse, presumably in Cali. The box truck had pulled up sometime that morning. Patrick had heard the steel garage door open and close before the rear doors of the cargo box swung open, and Liu had ordered them out at gunpoint. Theirs was the only truck in the warehouse, but there were about a dozen cars and SUVs in various states of disassembly. Shelves lined the walls, twenty feet high, and they were loaded with harvested automobile parts. It reminded Patrick of the chop shops he’d seen in the Grant Theft Auto video game he’d played as a kid. Liu had his own desk, though the nameplate read lopez, which Patrick assumed was the name of the actual warehouse manager. The hostages were to his right, near a closet-sized room marked el baño. Patrick thought the sign should have read “desperate,” as no one in his right mind would have used it if he weren’t.
“Your friend Kate is trouble,” said Liu.
He spoke with none of the screams of anger they would have heard from Javier. His was a wholly different temperament, but it made Patrick even more fearful. He had the eyes of a killing machine, like the soulless black eyes of the great white shark before it tears off your arm.
“If she pulls another stunt like that on the next call, we’ll have to demonstrate the virtue of a healthy fear of burning alive.”
He was looking at Olga.
“It wasn’t a stunt,” said Patrick. “I know Kate. She’s not a loose cannon. She’d take control like this only if there was no other way to make sure you get what you want.”
Liu checked the clock on the wall. “Sounds like you’re willing to bet your life on it, which is good. In six hours, either we have an exchange or we have a dead hostage.”
He took a seat in the desk chair, put his feet up, and escaped into some form of electronic entertainment on his cellphone.
“I told you he was going to kill me,” Olga whispered.
“I’m not sure he meant you,” said Patrick.
“He can’t kill you. You’re the goose that lays the golden egg.”
“I can still lay eggs as long as Kate thinks I’m alive.”
“He needs you to make an exchange.”
“I don’t think the actual delivery of a live hostage is part of his plan.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“Remember those two phone calls you told me about? It was the day I disappeared in the mountains, and you overheard Javier talking on his satellite phone.”
“Yes. It was like Javier had two bosses.”
“One was Jeremy Peel, who sounded concerned that I disappeared.”
“Yes. Apparently, Mr. Peel just wanted to keep you happy enough to stay in Colombia for a good long while. Not lose you somewhere in the jungle.”
“But the other caller had a different agenda.”
“Totally. It sounded to me like he wanted you dead,” said Olga.
Patrick’s gaze drifted toward the kidnapper. “I think that other caller was Liu. He hired Javier to push me off the mountain. Javier screwed up the hit, and Liu had to come all the way to Colombia to finish the job himself. And take care of Javier.”
“It’s like the good book says,” said Olga. “No man can serve two masters.”
“For he shall hate the one, and be shot in the head by the other,” said Patrick, putting his own spin on Matthew 6:24. It was his best attempt at humor under the circumstances, but he had a serious follow-up. “I didn’t figure you for someone who knew her Bible.”
“Religious education five days a week and Mass every Sunday. Until I was fifteen,” she added, and her voice trailed off. “Until Javier took me.”
It made Patrick glad that scumbag was dead. It made him hate men like Jeremy Peel even more.
Liu rose from the chair and walked around the desk to the hostages. He stared at Patrick with those shark-like eyes and held the phone up before him.
“On the count of three, I’m going to hit the record button. I want you to say the following: ‘Kate, it’s me, Patrick. I’m fine. Do exactly as the man says.’”
The kidnapper counted to three and hit record. Patrick repeated the message exactly as instructed.
“Well done,” said Liu, and he walked back to his desk.
Patrick and Olga exchanged a nervous glance, and no words were needed. Each could see it in the other’s eyes:
Escape is our only hope.
A phone rang on the desk. It was Javier’s cell, sitting right where Liu had left it. Liu checked the incoming number and answered in a voice loud enough for Patrick to hear.
“Hello, Jeremy.”
Peel held the satellite phone a little closer to his ear. He’d placed the call at an altitude of 39,000 feet from Buck’s corporate jet. Perhaps the reception was bad, or maybe the roar of the jet engine was making it hard to hear, but the voice on the line didn’t sound at all like Javier.
“Who is this?”
“You know who this is.”
Peel did. And he didn’t dare hang up. “Where’s Javier?”
“Javier can’t come to the phone. Ever.”
The news wasn’t shocking, but it chilled him nonetheless. “I want you to know that I had nothing to do with the stunt Kate Gamble pulled in the last call.”
“I believe you. You don’t have the stones to deliver the code yourself. Never in a million years would you agree to that plan.”
“But you’re not expecting me to show up with a flash drive and—”
“That’s exactly what I’m expecting, Jeremy. I like Kate’s idea. Don’t you?”
Peel didn’t like it in the least, but he knew his preferences were irrelevant. “We’ll do it the way you want.”
“Good. How soon can you be in Cali?”
“I’m in the air now on my private jet, but we can’t possibly land in time for the six-hour deadline Kate put on the next call.”
“Call her from the plane and let her know you’re on your way. Tell her you talked to Javier and agreed the next call will be tonight at eight p.m. Cali time. Don’t mention me. Don’t you dare mention me.”
The call ended. Peel collapsed in his chair, emotionally spent, dreading the coming night in Cali. Then he dialed Kate’s encrypted phone.
The call from Jeremy Peel lasted two minutes. Kate agreed to make herself ready for a phone call with the kidnapper at the new time of 8:00 p.m. Beyond that, it was like a game of liar’s poker.
