Under Fire

17

Jack pulled to the side of the road and turned on his hazard lights, then checked his phone’s screen. Outside, the wind buffeted his Ford Fiesta hatchback. He glanced up, half expecting to see the Fiesta sliding sideways on the road, but saw only the serrated waves crashing against the seawall out his side window. The Firth of Tay, which Jack assumed was Gaelic for “stretch of nasty water,” had been raging since he arrived the previous day. On the upside, the sun was out and bright. Jack adjusted the roof visor so he could better see the phone’s screen.

“Shit,” he muttered. He’d taken a wrong turn three miles back. The signs for Dundee were few and far between, and his phone reception was spotty.

The day before, after following Seth and Spellman east to the Azerbaijani coast to Lankaran, Jack and Ysabel had checked into a motel off the M3 and gotten a few hours of sleep. The next morning, on the way to the Baku airport with a mildly disgruntled Ysabel (Jack had asked that she remain behind to keep an eye on Seth), he’d called home and gotten Gerry, John Clark, and Gavin Biery on the line and prepared himself for yet another uncomfortable discussion.

He laid out what had happened in the last twelve hours, from the ambush at the farmhouse to Seth’s revelation about his father’s secret past, Oleg Pechkin, and the CIA’s plans for the Dagestan coup. Jack ended the story with a paraphrased version of the case Seth had made for not abandoning the coup.

“Well, I’ll give him this, it’s a solid plan,” Gerry said. “Still, your friend sounds nuts. Sorry, but it has to be said.”

“‘Nuts’ is a stretch, Gerry,” said Clark. “He’s got some daddy issues, so what? When I was at Langley I met a shit-ton of people that should’ve been wearing canvas ‘Hug me’ jackets.”

“You’re mellowing with old age.”

“The point is, it could work. And I think the Brits are wrong. Getting Dagestan out of Volodin’s sphere is the smart move. It’s worth the risk.”

“My concern isn’t whether it’s worth the risk. The plan looks good in the abstract, but what about in execution? On paper the Bay of Pigs should have worked. Jack, how long do you have to get this girl back to Medzhid?”

“Just under a week.”

“Not much time. You’ll have to move faster than the police — probably Scotland Yard, given who her father is.”

“Also, Medzhid wants proof that Seth and Spellman didn’t order the kidnapping.”

“You didn’t tell us that.”

“It slipped my mind.”

John Clark said, “If the police get to her first, you can forget about the proof Medzhid wants.”

“Okay,” Gerry said, “how do you want to go about this — finding one girl in a city of half a million?”

“I need Gavin.”

“Shoot, Jack.”

“First, find out if the story has broken about the girl. Her name is Aminat. Medzhid hasn’t alerted the authorities himself, but I doubt her disappearance has gone unnoticed. Next, get on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever, and see what her friends are talking about. Finally, see if you can hack into the university’s campus security. Look for any reports that jump out at you.”

“Like what?”

“Stalking, break-ins, thefts — especially if they came from Aminat herself or they happened near where she lives or hangs out.”

Two hours later Gavin called with bad news, or mostly so. If the Edinburgh police knew about Aminat’s kidnapping, they were keeping it quiet, which dovetailed with the kidnappers’ instructions. This was the good news. The bad news was that if in fact there was an investigation Jack could tap into, the information might be buried deep behind firewalls. If so, Jack was counting on Gavin’s open-source data-mining skills being faster than those of the police.

As for Edinburgh University’s campus police database, Gavin told him, they had no reports that fit Jack’s criteria.

“There is one thing that caught my eye, though. The day before Aminat went missing, a girl named Amy Brecon went missing for about twenty-four hours. After an anonymous call, the police found her tied up in a garage off Kirkgate Road.”

“Get me everything you can on the garage.”

“Right. Apparently, the girl’s jaw was broken and she’d been drugged. Now, get this: According to Twitter, Aminat went by the nickname Amy.”

“Go on.”

“Both Amys lived at Pollock Halls, and they look a lot alike. I’ve seen their Facebook profile pages myself.”

“Where can I find her?”

“They transferred her this morning from Saint John’s Hospital to Ninewells in Dundee.”

Jack pulled into Dundee at seven o’clock and followed the signs to Ninewells, which sat a few miles from the coast north of the airport. The hospital complex was sprawling, with white buildings sitting on 150 acres of lush green lawns. He parked in the main lot, walked into the lobby, and used the lighted information map to find the correct ward. Level 5, ward 17.

A woman in the nearby information booth asked, “May I help you, sir?”

“What are your visiting hours?”

“Eight in the morning until eight at night. You’ve got a bit of time yet.”

“Thanks.”

Jack found the elevator banks and took a car up to level 5, followed the signs to ward 17, then walked down the hall to Amy Brecon’s room. As he passed the door, he saw a middle-aged man and woman sitting beside the girl’s bed, chatting quietly.

Jack turned around and walked back to the visitors’ lounge beside the elevators. He sat down, started paging through a magazine, and waited.

At seven forty-five, Amy’s visitors — her mom and dad, Jack assumed — came around the corner and pressed the elevator call button. Once the car’s doors closed, Jack returned to Amy’s room. The interior was dimly lit and the curtain around Amy’s bed was half drawn. Jack gently rapped on the door.

“Hello?” Amy called groggily.

Jack stepped forward through the curtain. The side of the girl’s face was yellow and black and still badly swollen.

“Hi, Amy, my name is Jack. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a couple minutes.”

“Are you the police?” she asked, through the wires securing her fractured jaw. “I already talked to—”

“Just a few follow-up questions, if that’s okay.”

“Okay.”

Jack pulled up a chair.

Amy said, “You’re American.”

Jack smiled. “A transplant from Los Angeles. I’ve got family here, so I decided to get away from the smog. I heard what happened to you. I’m sorry. I know you’ve been through all this with the other inspectors, but I’d like to go over it once more. What do you remember about that night?”

“Not much. Bits and pieces. The doctors said I had a lot of antihistamine in my system, plus that date-rape stuff.”

“Rohypnol?”

“Yes,” she replied, then quickly added, “They said I was okay down there, you know, so that’s good.”

“I’m glad.”

“Yeah, so, I remember walking through the Gardens — Princes Street — and there was a woman. She dropped her purse. I heard footsteps, then I was falling. I heard her voice yelling and I heard a couple of names. Funny-sounding ones. Roman, or something like that, and Yegor.”

“You told all this to the other inspectors?”

“Yeah. My mum thinks you lot aren’t very keen. I was drunk and had drugs in my system, and I was walking on my own. Just a stupid girl being stupid. I guess if I’d been raped, then you’d be more interested.”

Amy’s eyes brimmed with tears. Jack pulled a tissue from the box on the bedside table and handed it to her. Though he didn’t want to believe the police were giving her case the short shrift, there was no way to tell. Similarly, he had no way of knowing whether the police, if in fact they were actively investigating Aminat Medzhid’s disappearance, would connect this Amy’s abduction to that of Aminat. He needed to reach Medzhid’s daughter, and her kidnappers, first.

“I’m interested, Amy,” said Jack. “Do you have any memory of the garage where we found you?”

“Just being in the tub where the police found me, and someone giving me water.”

“How about the van? Do you remember anything about it? Smells, sounds, snippets of conversation? Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths.”

Amy closed her eyes.

After a bit Jack said, “It’s okay if you don’t—”

“No, wait. Something about a toll. Someone was arguing — ‘no toll’… ‘used to be’… ‘February.’ I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t tell if any of that’s real. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Did you just remember this, or did you tell the other inspectors?”

“I just remembered it. Why would someone do this to me? I wasn’t raped, my parents didn’t get any ransom calls, we’re not even rich… What was it all about?”

Something far, far outside your world, Jack thought.

What he couldn’t understand was why Amy Brecon was even alive.

He drove back to Edinburgh, checked into a motel, slept until six, then drove to Kirkgate Road in the southeastern corner of the city. After several wrong turns on the narrow, winding side streets he found the garage where Amy had been held. It was nothing more than a pair of tall wooden doors set into a graffiti-covered cinder-block wall. The front of it was crisscrossed with blue-and-white police tape and the side door was open. As he passed, he saw a policewoman kneeling, looking at something on the floor.

Following his phone’s map, Jack then drove two miles east to a block of row houses that backed up to a cemetery. He slowed, studying the house numbers until he reached number 15. In the front window hung a giant red-and-blue roundel emblazoned with the words Rangers Football Club. He got out, walked up the front steps, and pushed the buzzer. Thirty seconds passed. Jack pressed the buzzer again.

“Yeah, yeah… hold on,” a male voice called.

The door opened, revealing a gaunt elderly man in plaid pajamas. His skin was pale and paper thin. A cigarette dangled from his lips. “Whatya want?” he grumbled.

Instead of answering, Jack pulled a pair of fifty-pound bills from his pocket and pressed them against the glass.

“What’s that for?”

“Five minutes of your time.”

“What’s it about?”

“What happened at your garage,” Jack replied.

“Already talked to you. They broke in. Squatters.”

Jack tapped the money on the glass and repeated, “Five minutes.”

“Ah…”

According to Gavin, the owner of the garage, Fingal Cowden, was dirt poor, subsisting on welfare and what sporadic income he gained from renting his garage, and he was also dying of emphysema.

Cowden sat down on the couch.

Jack looked around. The apartment was cramped, with just a ratty couch against one wall facing a thirteen-inch television. The only light came from a floor lamp aimed at the wall. Beneath the lamp was a green oxygen cylinder.

Cowden was miserable, and dying. Jack felt bad for what he had to do next, but he put it out of his mind.

He handed Cowden the bills, then said, “You told the police you hadn’t rented it out.”

“Right. They broke in.”

“You’re lying.”

“Get out of here!”

Jack pulled another fifty-pound note from his pocket and dropped it on the couch beside Cowden. “I’m not the police, and I don’t care that you lied to them.”

“I didn’t want no trouble. If I’d told them, they would’ve stuck me in a cell.”

“I don’t care,” Jack replied.

“Who are you?” Cowden said, eyes narrowing.

“Did the police tell you about that girl they found in your tub?”

“Not my tub.”

“Did they tell you about her?” Jack pushed. “Her name is Amy.”

“Yeah.”

“She’s in the hospital, badly hurt. I’m a friend of the family. I’m here to find who did this to her.” Jack dropped another fifty on the couch. Cowden stared at the bill for a moment, then slowly reached out and took it. Jack said, “Tell me who you rented the garage to.”

“You’re not the police?”

“No.”

“I’m gonna need more than this you gave me.”

Jack pulled out another fifty, wadded it up, and dropped it between Cowden’s feet. “That’s all you’re getting.”

“Then get outta here—”

“Have it your way. I’m coming back — this time with Amy’s dad.” This got Cowden’s attention. He looked up at Jack. “Who’s her da?”

“I’ll let him introduce himself. If he comes, it won’t be with money. Tell me who you rented the garage to and we’re done.”

“I don’t know who—”

Jack turned and headed for the door. “Twenty minutes,” he called over his shoulder.

“Wait! I have a phone number. I can give you that. And a name, the woman who came with the rent money.”

“That’s it?” Gavin said a few minutes later over the phone. “A phone number and a first name? Helen?”

“Not quite.” It had taken another fifty pounds, but Cowden also gave him the make and model of the van. It had been insurance, Cowden had told him, in case the woman did any damage to the garage.

“Pretty weak insurance,” said Gavin.

“Have you made any progress on what I got from Amy?”

“Assuming they’re even real,” Gavin said. “Helen and Roman have a lot of variations from several countries.”

“Any of them from the Caucasus?”

“Both of them. ‘Yegor’ is a variation on ‘Igor.’ The most prevalent distribution is in Russia.”

“How about what she said about the tolls?”

“Still working on it. It could be roads, freeways, bridges, parking lots, and there are a lot of them around Edinburgh, and chat rooms about toll roads in Scotland aren’t exactly a big thing. And we’re assuming that’s where she was when she heard it.”

“You can do it. I’ve got faith.”

“Bless you. I’ve also got something on Helen’s phone number. It’s a pay phone in Kinghorn. As the crow flies that’s nine miles north of Edinburgh. And no, before you ask, I can’t get LUDs from the phone. Hey, are you near a decent Wi-Fi connection?”

“I can be.”

“I found some video surveillance from the university you need to see.”

Jack was back in his hotel room thirty minutes later. He powered up his laptop, then called Gavin, who directed him to a Dropbox account. He gave Jack the log-in and he typed it in.

“I’m there,” said Jack.

“I downloaded all the feeds for that night, but the two I want you to see are labeled zero-two-four and zero-two-six.” Jack scrolled to the first MP4 file and double-clicked on it. His screen filled with a dim but otherwise sharp black-and-white image.

“I’m watching it.”

“That’s the CCTV camera just south of Pollock Halls, looking north.”

After a few moments, the white top of a bus came into view from the lower edge of the screen. It pulled to a stop beside a lighted bus stand.

Gavin said, “That’s the number twenty-two bus. Aminat’s on it. She’ll get off and cross the street.”

The bus pulled away and Jack watched a figure trot across the street then disappear beneath some trees along the sidewalk. “What is that?” he asked.

“A path that leads directly to Chancellors Court. Keep your eyes on the sidewalk. You see him yet?”

“Got him.”

A figure jogged down the sidewalk and turned onto the path. “He’s in a hurry,” Jack murmured. He felt his heart quicken; he was watching something horrible about to happen to Rebaz Medzhid’s little girl. In his mind’s eye he could see the figure jogging up behind her—

“Okay, now go to the other video,” said Gavin.

Jack double-clicked on the file and again a black-and-white image filled his laptop’s screen. “What am I looking at?” he asked.

“CCTV at the intersection of Dalkeith and Holyrood Park Road, looking north. You see the building at two o’clock, the one with the lighted top floor? That’s Chancellors Court. The path Aminat took is to your right, out of frame.”

“We don’t have anything of the actual parking lot itself?”

“No. Keep watching.”

Jack kept one eye on the video, the other on the running time code at the bottom. Forty seconds had passed since Aminat entered the path.

Fifty seconds.

From the direction of the path a dark, late-model van approached the entrance to Chancellors Court. It stopped. The right-hand turn signal started blinking. The van slowly pulled out and turned north onto Holyrood Park Road. Jack lost sight of it.

“God Almighty,” Jack murmured. From the time Aminat had stepped onto the path to when the van left the scene, barely one minute had passed.

“She was in there, Jack,” replied Gavin. “Maybe fighting—”

“Shut up, Gavin.”

“Sorry.”

“Do you think you can make something out of the license plate?”

“They’re local, that much I can tell, but at a distance the CCTV resolution is lousy, so I can’t make anything more of the license plate.”

“Where does that road lead?”

“A T intersection with roads heading east and west. I’m checking for any traffic stops on those roads, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Whoever was inside that van, they’ve done this before.”

“Can you tell whether campus security made any copies of these vids?”

“There are no duplicates on their servers, but whether they’d forwarded copies to the police is anyone’s guess.”

Jack hoped not. The video he’d just seen might lead the police to Aminat before he could get to her. If that happened he’d never make Medzhid’s deadline. “Can you wipe the originals from their servers?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Do it.”