Foreign and Domestic: A Get Reacher Novel (19 page)

Cameron said, “How did he get ahold of your daughter in the first place?”

Rowley said, “We don’t have protection on our families. Not usually, unless we get a credible threat to their safety. The Secret Service’s job first and foremost is to safeguard the president and the vice president, as well as the first family.” Suddenly, Rowley’s hardened face took a turn, and his eyes watered up. He tried to speak but couldn’t. He put his hand over his face for a second, and then he said, “Lane took Raggie when she was meeting with her friends. They were in a café. I’ve already had Graine check it out. No one saw anything. It was around dusk.”

Cameron said, “How do you know Lane took her?”

“He posted a video on YouTube. It has no tags, but there’s a video of her. You can go check it out yourself.” He paused. “I gotta go. Can’t be inexplicably missing from my duties for too long. But I need your help. Lane wants me to do something that I just can’t do, and I don’t have much time. Watch the video, and you’ll see. I gotta go now.”

Rowley clicked off of the phone, and the screen went back to Cord’s wallpaper, which was the logo of the United States Secret Service badge.

Cameron sat down on the bed and thought for a second.
What the hell does he expect me to do?

He got up off of the bed and picked up Cord’s smartphone and went out into the hall. He heard voices and walked toward them. He passed Raggie’s room and stopped and looked in. He looked at the made bed and wondered if she’d ever see it again. He wondered where she was and thought about what she must be feeling and how scared she must be. Thought about how it wasn’t fair to be used as a pawn because of the sins of your father and about how he could relate. In a way, they were in similar situations. Raggie was suffering because of a man from her father’s past—the same man who was from Cameron’s own father’s past.

He turned and walked out of her room. He passed the bathroom and followed the voices down the stairs and saw that Mrs. Rowley was seated back down on the sofa next to Graine, who hadn’t said much. He merely looked at her and nodded, listening to her stories about her daughter. She clutched a bright green frame that held a picture of Raggie. It was a plastic thing that looked cheap from a distance but, judging by everything else in the house, had probably cost over a hundred dollars.

Cameron walked down the stairs and stopped and said, “Cord.”

Cord turned from his conversation with Li and walked over to him.

Li followed.

He leaned in and said, “What do you think?”

Cameron handed him back his phone and said, “I need to see the video. Rowley looked like he was busy. Actually, he looked like he was on Air Force One.”

Cord said, “He is. He explained everything?”

“Not everything. He told me about Lane, but I don’t know why. He must want something.”

“He does. But not money. He wants something worse.”

Cord nodded at Lucas. He nodded back and gestured for Cameron to follow him out of the room again, away from Mrs. Rowley. She must not know the details, just that her daughter wasn’t at home where she belonged.

They walked out of the living room and went past a ground floor bathroom. There was no shower or bathtub, just a toilet and mirror.

Cameron followed Li. Cord led them through the kitchen. The tile was white and diamond-shaped. He saw four workstations, an island with two ovens, eight burners, a griddle, a major grill, a salamander, and a black farm sink big enough to make a restaurant proud. This was a major kitchen.

Cameron wondered if Mrs. Rowley cooked in there or if the Rowleys had a housekeeper who doubled as a gourmet chef. Or maybe they employed both. The latter seemed a more reasonable proposition. Then he thought, hell, if he ever needed a place to stay when he was in DC, maybe they’d let him clean and he could sleep in their house. Of course, that wasn’t a realistic thought, but that’s how thoughts work. They aren’t always realistic or even appropriate.

They walked past the kitchen to a set of French doors that led out onto a covered patio in a backyard with high privacy fencing.

In the back, Cord looked around and waited for Lucas to follow and shut the door behind him.

Outside the air was crisp and breezy, but not cold, not really. Cameron wore a long-sleeved shirt, and he was glad to have it, but Li had on a business suit and skirt. He imagined her legs froze with every gust of wind. He wanted to reach out and fan his hands across them to warm them but knew he couldn’t do that with her boss watching. Besides, he wasn’t sure what the rule was for touching her legs in public. He wasn’t sure about her rules or about the etiquette for that sort of thing between boyfriends and girlfriends.

Li didn’t express any concern over the wind. Nor did she ask about his conversation with Rowley. She was a good soldier. If she needed information, then Cord would give it to her—and such was every relationship between infantry and commanders since the dawn of warfare.

Cord ignored Li and pulled out his phone again and went to his YouTube app. He pulled up the screen and handed the phone to Cameron. He said, “Hit play.”

Li moved closer and stood next to Cameron. They faced the house. Cameron watched Lucas move about and scan the area to make sure no one was around to see the video over their shoulders.

Li reached up and flipped the phone horizontal, and they watched as an image of Raggie came up on the screen. There was a look of sheer terror on her face. There was a gag in her mouth, and she had one black eye. It wasn’t a grisly sight, not something to suggest she had undergone a tremendous punch to the face or even repeated blows.

Cameron had seen bruises and black eyes before. He knew exactly what wounds from torture and fighting looked like. This was mellow as far as violence went. He figured that her abductors wanted to show her face with a bruise because any sign of violence would convey to normal parents that their child was in grave danger. Maybe they had punched her just enough to force her into submission and not enough to really damage her.

All Cameron could see was her face, neck, and shoulders. And her hair, which was long and blond. It was matted and dirty and flat compared to her pictures. Her face looked just like Mrs. Rowley’s only years younger. She had green eyes, and her cheeks were slightly sunken. He could see that, just like her mother, her eyeliner had run down cheeks. Cameron thought she’d probably been locked up all night and cried the whole time.

He stared into the background. He saw nothing but darkness and shadowy walls. She was somewhere with no windows. There was no artificial light except for some coming from behind the camera. It lit up her face and eyes. Bright halos reflected from her eyes like she had been forced to stare directly into the light and couldn’t see past it. She shivered every few seconds like she was cold, but it was probably from fear.

There was no sound except for Raggie’s breathing, which was more like whimpering. It was low and muffled like she was trying to be tough and fight back. And then at the ten-second mark on the little bar at the bottom of the video, words began to scroll up in front of her face. The text was short—six words, two exclamation points, and all caps.

KILL THE PRESIDENT! OR SHE DIES!

Chapter 28

THE TEXT MOVED UP AND OVER HER FACE.
It held its position for five long seconds and then vanished. The video played for another five seconds, and there was more of her whimpering. Then a single sound boomed in the silence. It was unmistakable, but just in case a completely deaf person was watching the video, there was a visual image as well. A switchblade appeared in front of the camera, and the blade fired out of the handle with a loud
snick
sound.

The effect’s intent was achieved because both Raggie and Li jumped at the image. Li grabbed Cameron’s arm, digging her nails through the fabric of his shirt and into his bicep. It was painful, but he didn’t resist or make a sound.

He watched as the image faded to black. Then more text rolled across the screen. It read, “24 HOURS.” And then, “TELL NO ONE! WE’RE WATCHING!”

And that was all.

Cameron looked at Li and then back at Cord. He said, “You need to call the FBI.”

Cord said, “We can’t. Don’t you see that? We can’t tell anyone. They want Rowley to kill the president. If he’s not dead, then they’ll kill Raggie. If we tell anyone—she’s dead. If Rowley tells the president or anyone on his staff, they’ll strip him of his position immediately, and then he won’t have access. If anything changes, we’re convinced they’ll kill her.”

Cameron said, “How do you know John Lane is involved?”

“We know because he called us. He called Rowley personally. He wanted us to know. It was a short conversation. He wanted Rowley to know who was doing this.”

“When was she taken?”

“Two nights ago. None of us have slept yet.”

“When did they post the video? How much time do we have left?”

“Last night. Maybe ten hours. Lane told Rowley that he wanted him to murder the president when he lands because the president is going to do a Q and A with the press corps.”

Cameron said, “What is the Q and A about?”

Cord said, “You don’t watch a lot of news do you?”

“Not my area of expertise. I tend to stick with issues that involve my own life.”

Cord said, “It’s about an African thing.”

“What exactly?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I don’t know. Maybe something. Maybe nothing.”

“It’s been replayed all over the news. Some African president was killed on TV.”

“That sounds exactly the same to me.”

“We already figured that.”

“So why act like you didn’t?”

“I just wanted to see if you were any good at investigations.”

“Well, that one is pretty obvious. Any half-brain with the IQ of a goldfish could’ve put that together.”

Cord nodded and said, “At least we know you’re better than a goldfish.”

Li finally spoke. She said, “We don’t have a lot of time. Shouldn’t Cameron get started?”

Cord said, “Get started?”

“Yeah. Don’t you want him to find Raggie? Isn’t that why he’s here?”

Cord looked at Lucas and then back at Cameron.

He said, “No, that’s not why he’s here.”

“So why the hell is he here?”

She recoiled a little after realizing how she probably sounded to her boss, but Cord didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seemed to show a glimmer of respect for her sudden backbone.

Cameron said, “I’m here because Lane wants Jack as a part of the deal. He doesn’t just want the president killed on TV. He wants Jack as a bonus.”

Cord said, “Not exactly. He isn’t the one who mentioned Jack.”

“Did Rowley mention him as a swap?” Cameron asked.

“Not exactly. We haven’t heard from Lane except for the one time. We’re hoping to use you as a bargaining chip. Like maybe we can appeal to Lane’s sense of revenge for his brother’s death. Maybe he’ll trade Raggie for the man who killed his brother. We know he’s been looking for him. He’s been in London.

“We have records on your father. We’ve seen some of the things he’s done. Like your mother, we’ve put together quite an impressive file on him. Plus, he’s helped us before.”

Cameron said, “Before? You mean that thing with the ex-vice president?”

Cord said, “I never met him personally. I wasn’t a part of the service then, but we have the details. At least what was in the files.”

“So what? You guys figured he’d agree to this stupidity? That he’d roll over and turn himself over to the bad guys?”

Cord said, “We hoped that he’d do the right thing. Perhaps his willingness to turn himself over to Lane could buy the girl more time to live. Or even better, maybe Lane would give her up as a swap. Maybe he’d give up his terrorism to get the man who killed his brother. That’s what we were hoping.”

Cameron said, “He’d go out and do real police work to find her. He’d never go along with a harebrained scheme to give himself over to a man who wants to kill him. What good would that do to save the girl? Or the president?”

“We’re desperate.”

Lucas reached into his coat pocket—right inner—and pulled out a wallet. It was a thick brown leather wallet. The leather was worn and creased with age. It could’ve been two years old or twenty. Neither would’ve surprised Cameron. Lucas opened it and pulled a picture out of one of those old, milky plastic picture cases for family photos. He held it out and showed it to Cameron.

He said, “See, she’s only a little girl.”

Cameron looked at it. The photo had been preserved perfectly, sealed and protected like a collector’s item. In it, he saw Lucas as a younger man. He was still fat and had the same eyes, but next to him, hugging him close, was Raggie when she was a young girl, maybe ten or eleven. She still had both of her hands. The background looked like a school auditorium of some sort. She wore a clean dress and carefully placed makeup. She might’ve been in a dance recital or a school play, or maybe even some kind of graduation. Did middle schools have graduation ceremonies?

Cameron looked back at Lucas. He saw a hard face with unbreakable features. But right there in that moment, he realized that Lucas cared a lot more about Raggie than the others. In fact, her safety was more important to him than his own life. Cameron’s father would’ve had a hard time saying no to Lucas if he’d asked him to help get her back.