Lindsey removed the ringing cell phone from his suit coat. It was a number that was reserved for…sensitive…contacts. That could not be traced. "Wait," he said abruptly, as he waved his assistant out of his office. "Yes?"
"Director Lindsey. General Kanaan." Kanaan was head of Syrian intelligence. And a man that owed Lindsey several favors.
"Have you picked up the packages?"
"Only one package. The man. The woman escaped before we arrived. Would you like him deposited at your embassy?"
Lindsey picked up a paperweight and hurled it across the office in frustration, where it crashed with a satisfying thunk against the wall.
"Director Lindsey?"
"No," replied Lindsey, deciding. "I think that this is something that…you might be better able to handle for me. But it will take discretion on your part."
"Of course."
"The man you have apprehended has been conspiring with a known terrorist. He has some information we need. Our…limited means of persuasion have so far proven ineffective."
"Ah. I understand."
"I thought you might. Perhaps it would be best, given the circumstances, if you could limit the number of individuals that could make a visual ID of the prisoner. We don't want word leaking out about our capture."
"Consider it handled."
"Excellent. I'll fly out immediately, and brief you when I arrive. I want to be the first one to interview him. And General? Let's just keep this between the two of us."
**
Irina shifted positions impatiently, watching and waiting for Jack to emerge from the building. What was taking so long? The sedative dosage in her heel was only enough to keep him out for 15-20 minutes. It was folly to remain here where she was, but she could not resist the temptation to see him just one more time. A large number of police officers had entered the building; he'd probably had a lot of explaining to do.
The adrenaline rush from her capture and escape had worn off, and with it any satisfaction over besting her husband. In its place despair settled, like a fine mist. The rage and pain in his face haunted her; it bespoke of an opportunity lost, perhaps forever. It was both everything she had prayed for, in those months before she had found Sydney, and everything she had feared since.
How perfectly ironic that she needed Jack to believe her word after she'd lied to him so brilliantly for 10 years. That he would need to believe she hadn't betrayed him this time. Perhaps…but no, she couldn't have risked the sodium pentothal. Not with Sloane only minutes behind. It would have to be Sydney. And her pursuit for the truth.
Finally, she thought, seeing movement at the entrance to the building. She zoomed in on the binoculars, trying to catch Jack, and froze. His head was covered with a hood, his hands handcuffed in front of him. Two policemen were dragging him towards a windowless van. He struggled, and a third policeman clubbed him on the head with a rifle butt. Irina watched in dismay as her husband's limp form was thrown into the back of the van and the door slammed behind him.
**
Jack awoke in the dark. His head throbbed and the air was stifling; it took him several moments to realize that his head was covered in a burlap sack. After the first panicked breath, he forced himself to inhale slowly. His arms stretched painfully above him, his handcuffs hooked to something he could not see, his toes barely scraping the floor. He could hear cries of terror not far away.
Dear God, what had she done to him now?
**
Irina swore softly as her eyes ran over the outlines of the hulking shadow in front of her. Tadmur Military prison. Where prisoners went in, but never came out. This was insanity. Jack was a US citizen. What was he doing here?
She rubbed her arms, trying to ease the ache from clinging onto the back of the van for more than three hours as it had rumbled towards its destination. She had swallowed enough desert sand for a lifetime. And that had been in the first five minutes.
What now? She had absolutely nothing with her. Whatever she had lifted from Jack had been left behind in her haste to intercept the van in the street. She looked around. Time to improvise.
**
"Robert? Arvin here." Sloane leaned back in the chair of his study at home.
"Hello, Arvin," replied Lindsey warily. He was seated on his plane, 30 minutes from touchdown in Syria.
"I just wanted to follow-up on your progress with Bristow and Derevko. Wanted to make sure I'd been of assistance." Derevko to execution, Bristow to prison, Julia to him. And untraceable. It was perfect.
Lindsey shifted uneasily. "Actually, Arvin, I meant to call you. Unfortunately, we were unable to apprehend either of them. A shame."
Sloane's eyes narrowed. "Yes. A shame. What happened?"
"It's unclear. By the time the police arrived, they had both slipped away."
Sloane's face contorted in anger, but his voice over the telephone remained smooth. "Perhaps next time," he said easily. "Where are you, by the way? Any chance you'll be in the neighborhood soon? I thought we might have lunch."
"I'll be locked down here in Washington for a while, Arvin. It's budget time. You know how that is," lied Lindsey.
"Right. Well, I'll let you know if I receive any other leads. Goodbye, Robert." Sloane hung up the phone, fingers drumming the table. He picked the phone back up and dialed. "Get me the GPS coordinates of this cell phone," he instructed, and rattled off a 12 digit number.
There was a pause at the other end of the phone. "That's an NSC sat phone, sir."
"Your point?"
"It's the most secure form of telecommunications available. It will take us a few minutes longer."
Sloane received his answer in 6 minutes. Lindsey had been over Syria when he had received the phone call.
**
How long had it been? Two hours? Twenty? Jack had lost all feeling in his hands, and his arms and shoulders were in agony. He appeared to be in a prison - the background noise was punctuated by the boots of patrolling guards, the clipped tones of interrogators, the screams for mercy from their victims, the pleas to Allah. At one point the smell of burning flesh assaulted him; he controlled his nausea by reminding himself that retching into a hood was not a good plan.
He rehearsed his cover – Ronald Jordan, a Canadian journalist – in his mind. He had been in worse situations than this. The cover was solid and, to his knowledge, he had broken no Syrian laws. It was not particularly helpful to have been found unconscious with a gun, but he'd come up with something. He just wanted to get it over with.
And when he got out he'd. . . . he didn't know what he'd do about Irina. Numbly he reviewed what she'd told him. Up until the end he'd harbored a faint prayer that he'd gotten it wrong, that she hadn't betrayed him. His head slumped lower as he acknowledged the death of that hope; anguish washed over him.
He failed to notice that the noises around him had stopped.
**
"That's right, Mr. Sloane. Our Syrian contacts report that only one person was apprehended, a man. He was taken directly to Tadmur prison."
Sloane cursed. Lindsey was an imbecile. He'd lost Derevko and decided to let the Syrians sweat the information out of Jack. In their own inimitable way. Which meant Jack would probably be dead by the end of the week.
And how would he find Irina then? The situation was unacceptable. "Break him out," he ordered.
"Sir?" Sloane's team leader started to sweat. His team's specialty was tracking and elimination, not armed extraction.
"Which one of those three one-syllable words was unclear?"
"Sir, I'm going to need some assistance. At least 20 men. Money. Gear."
Sloane gritted his teeth. "Fine. You'll get whatever you need. But I want him out within 36 hours."
**
Lindsey and the Syrian general made their way down the hallway towards Jack's cell. Lindsey's hat was pulled down on his head and, incongruously in the Syrian desert, he wore a long trench coat. Probably his idea of a disguise, thought the general to himself contemptuously. "I've ordered all guards out of this section of the prison. You won't be observed in or out," he assured Lindsey. They stepped around an old cleaning woman, on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floor.
Entering Jack's cell, the general prodded him in the side. "What's your name?" he demanded.
Finally, thought Jack. "Ronald Jordan," he answered, throwing a quaver into his voice. "Why have you -,"
"Is that the one?" the general asked Lindsey, ignoring Jack.
Lindsey looked triumphant, recognizing Jack's voice. "Yes, that's the one. Ronald Jordan."
Jack heard Lindsey's voice and his heart stopped. Sh*t.