Chapter Eight

Elizabeth

"Here." Elizabeth placed a cup of coffee and a croissant on the desk and pushed them towards Akeem. He looked up at her, and his olive eyes met hers for the flicker of a second before he buried his gaze in the laptop screen again. Elizabeth sank down into the chair opposite. One leg crossed over the other, she leant back and watched him.

Khan's sister-in-law is living with them too. Husband deceased. She has a young son, Akeem, five years old.

So what would that make him now? Twenty-three, twenty-four? Younger than Stevie. Elizabeth's heart ached. What could have driven that little boy to end up where they were now? She glanced over her shoulder. Omar and Hamza were still sat outside the room, blocking the exit as they spoke to one another in hushed tones. There was something melodic about their Arabic, as if the words held a music of their own.

Akeem hadn't touched his drink or the pastry, but as Elizabeth turned back to him, his gaze darted away from the photograph of Stevie, Alison and Jason that she had placed next to the computer monitor that morning. She picked up the frame and smiled down at the three of them, and their carefree smiles beamed back. Why couldn't they have stayed there, swaddled in that innocence, forever? They'd been happy on the horse farm, right?

"My children," Elizabeth said, and she showed the picture to Akeem. "Stevie's the eldest, then Alison, then Jason." She positioned the picture next to the laptop so that it remained in Akeem's view. "That photo's from a while ago, before I took this job, though it feels like yesterday. They're all grown up now. I reckon Stevie must be about the same age as you." She sipped on her coffee. "Do you have kids?"

Akeem looked at her. His eyes widened a fraction, and he nodded.

"How old?"

He cleared his throat, but when he spoke, his voice still rasped, barely more than a whisper. "Six months."

The corners of Elizabeth's lips quirked upwards. "That's a wonderful age. Sitting up yet?"

Akeem nodded again. "She's just started shuffling."

"Stevie was a shuffler," Elizabeth said with a fond smile. "Alison mainly rolled around. And Jason…well, he just ended up being carried everywhere. His sisters wouldn't put him down." She gave a soft snort. The dolls they had begged for were soon abandoned once Jason had squalled his way into their home. "What's your little girl's name?"

"Bella," Akeem said. He broke off a piece of croissant, chewed it over and then washed it down with a slurp of coffee.

Elizabeth leant back in her chair and sipped on her own. "Bella." Her lips curved around the sound. "That's a lovely name. I'm sure you've already been told countless times, but you need to savour every second, because one day you'll wake up and they'll be moving out to college." She gave a half-shrug. "Though, if they're anything like mine, it won't be long before they come back." She added quickly, "Not that I'm complaining; I miss them when they're not around." As Akeem broke off another piece of croissant, Elizabeth tilted her head towards the door. "Are they your brothers?"

Akeem shook his head. He swallowed his mouthful. "My cousins."

"I didn't have any cousins growing up," Elizabeth said. "I was always so envious of friends with large families; I loved how noisy their homes were. But then after my parents died and it was just me and my brother, I learnt what silence really was." Her chest ached like the tug of a memory she had forgotten, and her smile thinned.

"What…what happened to your parents?" Akeem stared straight at her.

"Car crash." Elizabeth winced. "I was fifteen at the time, my brother just thirteen." I couldn't save her, Lizzie. If I'd just known what to do… Elizabeth shook her head. "I still miss them." Her lips tugged into a sorry smile that she concealed with another sip from her coffee cup. "I think it was made worse by the fact that I hadn't grown up enough to see that they weren't perfect, that they were just as human as the rest of us—flawed."

"My father died when I was young too," Akeem said. His eyes turned distant, as if he were looking at the world through a veil of clouds. "But I can't even remember him." He pinned his bottom lip between his teeth and lowered his gaze.

Elizabeth leant forward and rested one hand atop the desk, a bridge between them. "I think that's why kids are so important, at least to me. Being a mother enables me to connect to my own parents. I get to experience all these things that they must have gone through when raising me; it gives us something in common, and it makes me feel closer to them." Her brow pinched, and she searched Akeem's eyes. "Does that make sense?"

Akeem's gaze flitted up, meeting her eyes, and then he nodded.

"Though, of course, being a mother worries me too." Elizabeth fought to hold his gaze. "I can't get away from the thought of: what if something happens to me, what if my children have to go through the same grief that I went through?" She paused. What will become of them if I leave them behind? "I imagine you must feel the same way about Bella sometimes. After all, parenthood is just one anxiety after another."

A flicker of something—maybe fear—flashed across Akeem's eyes. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, a voice cut through the room from behind. "Stop talking."

Elizabeth flinched, and her pulse tripped over itself.

Akeem lowered his gaze as a blush swelled in his cheeks.

"What's she been saying to you?" Omar demanded as he stormed into the room. He stopped at the edge of the desk and loured at Elizabeth before he turned back to Akeem.

"She was just telling me about her children," Akeem said, and he motioned to the picture on the desk. "That's all."

"She's ex-CIA," Omar said, and he spat on the floor at Elizabeth's feet. "She's just trying to trick you." He rested one hand against the arm of Elizabeth's chair and leant in close, so close that she could smell the coffee and peppermint on his breath. His lips twisted into a snarl. "You already know what we want, and we have nothing to talk about until it's done."

A cool sweat spread across her body. Stay calm, just breathe. "I understand that you want Ahmed Khan killed. What I'd like to know is why. Perhaps we can see if there's an alternative—"

"Why? You want to know why?" Omar jabbed his finger at her. "Ahmed Khan was a great man doing Allah's work, and his message shall be heard across the world." He glared at her until his gaze burnt into her. Then he drew back and jerked his head towards the door. "Bring that laptop out here."


Henry

"And what message is that?" Russell said.

The mix of stale sweat and half-drunken coffees hung over the Situation Room and overwhelmed the fragrance of perfumes that had infused the air before, whilst the air-con droned beneath the murmur of voices and its subtle chill duelled with the heat of so many bodies.

"He was supplying sensitive information to terrorist groups," Henry said, and he motioned to the screen that displayed Khan's case file. "Either he was just in it for the money, or he shared their values."

"Khan lived a modest lifestyle," Ephraim said, "and in his interrogations, he expressed a profound anti-Western sentiment, so I think it's safe to say that his values aligned with those of the people he was working for."

Henry leant forward in his seat, and resting his elbows against the desk, he steepled his fingers in front of him. "Assuming that he did hold radical views, individuals today often post videos online before carrying out terrorist attacks as a way to share their message with the world. If he was arrested before he had a chance to make such a statement, perhaps having him executed and his last words being broadcast is away to achieve that."

"Then it would make sense why they want the execution to be public," Conrad said, "though it still doesn't explain why they're in such a rush."

"Because his time's running out," Director Doherty said, and a hush consumed the room. He stood up from his seat and stepped towards one of the side screens as a new file appeared. "We pulled up his records from the prison. Turns out he has late stage bowel cancer and is no longer responding to treatment. Doctors say it's already metastasised to his lungs and liver, and it looks as though he only has a few weeks left."

"Maybe in their mind—" Henry gestured towards the pictures of the hostage takers. "—this is a way to make him a martyr. Not only will he be able to express his views to the world, but he'll also be executed for holding those beliefs."

"Beats dying in silence from cancer," Russell said. He rocked back in his chair and slackened his tie, and then held his hands out to the side. "Look, I've got no qualms about killing the guy, but even if it were possible, we'd just be handing them a readymade propaganda video."

Conrad's frown deepened. He tapped one finger against his lips: the beat of silence. His gaze flitted to Director Haymond. "Hugh, do we have any leads on who—if anyone—they might be working for?"

Hugh clutched his hands atop the desk. "Given that we weren't keeping tabs on these individuals, tracking their movements is proving difficult. We've reached out to our assets to see if they've come across them during their dealings with known individuals and groups." He tapped at a laptop and cast another file onto the screen; it took the place of the medical records. "We've also pulled up the files on operation QuickStitch to see if there are any individuals mentioned that the hostage takers might have interacted with. So far, most of them are either dead or status unknown."

Director Doherty raised one finger. "Can I just add that when looking into Khan's prison files, I noted that neither his sons nor his nephew have been to visit him since his incarceration, and phone calls and letters have been scant."

"Yet his son described him as a 'great man'," Henry said. Described? He had practically spat it in Elizabeth's face. "If they've been estranged from him for the last twenty odd years, someone or something must have provoked them into acting now."

Conrad nodded. He let out a huff of breath. "Keep digging, Hugh. In the meantime, Oliver—" His gaze darted to the cyber team who had migrated to the opposite end of the table. "—how are you coming along with taking back the State Department systems?"

Oliver Shaw stood up from his chair and held his tie to his stomach to stop it from swaying forward. "We've had a chance to analyse their code. It's fairly sophisticated but we're hoping we should have a way to combat it by tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow?" Russell scoffed. "Need I remind you that they're holding State Department employees at gunpoint?"

Oliver paused. His gaze darted from Conrad to Russell and back again before he continued. "Our main issue is that if we disable their code, they'll notice, and that'll place the hostages at risk; however, if we write a programme that runs alongside their code, then both we and the hostage takers will have access to the systems."

Conrad frowned. "Then it becomes a tug-of-war."

"Yes, sir." Oliver nodded, lips pursed. "But we were thinking that if we create a distraction, we could lure them away from the laptop, thus preventing them from monitoring what we're doing or from fighting back." He gave a small shrug. "It could give us enough time to send in a team, or possibly get the hostages to the elevators."

"What kind of distraction?" Russell hunched forward in his seat and stared at Oliver over the rim of his glasses.

"Something loud."

"But if you spook them—" Conrad began, and Oliver nodded.

"They could just shoot the hostages." Oliver swallowed. He looked to Henry for a fraction of a second and then down to the floor.


Elizabeth

Elizabeth stood up and dragged her chair towards the couch, where Matt, Jay and Blake were still perched. At the scrape of the chair legs over the carpet, Omar paused mid-sentence and cast her a look from outside the office, but he said nothing and then returned to talking to Hamza. Akeem was out of sight, having taken a seat on the sofa behind his cousins.

Elizabeth sat down next to the coffee table. Jay was hunkered forward in his seat, but he looked up at her and offered her a scant smile. "I don't know exactly what they said, but I'm guessing that didn't go as planned."

Elizabeth gave a bitter chuckle. "Could have gone worse."

Blake shot her a look as if to ask how she could make light of such a situation; though what else could she do? Curling up in the foetal position wouldn't exactly help.

Matt pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "The White House are never going to meet their demand, are they?"

Elizabeth shook her head. And their expressions faltered, as if they had still been clinging to the barest sliver of hope. "We'll think of something."

"No offence, ma'am," Jay said, "but this isn't getting some jumped-up dictator to back down. You can't reason with that—" He jerked his head towards the men sat outside.

Jumped-up dictator…like Suarez Junior? "Maybe not, but maybe there's a way to give them what they want." She glanced towards the door. Omar and Hamza were still deep in conversation. She leant closer to Jay, her voice low. "Remember that earthquake in Venezuela?"

Jay frowned. "What about it?"

"Something persuaded Suarez Junior to hand over those aid workers and kept him occupied long enough for Vela to take control." The three of them eyed her with a kind of bemusement, as though her comment were out of context and random—which it was. She shrugged and then snatched up a pain au raisin from the tray. "Just a thought."


Henry

Conrad leant forward and pressed the button at the base of the microphone. "We hear you, Bess. We'll look into it. Hang tight." He rose up from his chair and stretched out his back before he addressed those gathered around table. "The Secretary is suggesting that we make a video faking Khan's execution and broadcast it within the State Department." A murmur rippled through the room, a swell like the incoming tide. "Any thoughts?"

Director Haymond swivelled his chair round to face the top of the table. "It's a little far-fetched, even for Elizabeth."

Russell shrugged. "It's worked before."

"Is that really how she conducts business at the State Department?" Hugh shook his head to himself. "Because if so, I have serious concerns—"

"She's a pragmatist," Russell said, "and I have to agree with her; whatever gets the job done." He picked up his pen and tapped the end against the desk. "Let's just focus on the practicality of it. I'm guessing it's possible to take Khan to the execution chamber and give him something that would knock him out for an hour or two. But the number of people involved would be huge."

"And any kind of leak would pose a serious threat to the hostages," Ellen Hill said. "Keeping that many people quiet would be almost impossible. We're talking prison guards, physicians, witnesses…"

Ephraim Ware watched Ellen as she spoke, and then he turned to Conrad and Russell. "With the Suarez case we had the advantage of the telecommunications systems being down."

"Can't we just jam the wifi?" Henry said. "That's got to be easier than storming the building and trying to make it all the way up to the seventh floor." He gestured to Oliver. "Cyber are already working on a way to take back the building's systems. If we can upload the video and cut off their access to the internet for long enough, Elizabeth and her staff could walk out the front door."

"It's lower risk than our other options," Conrad said. He nodded to Russell. "Let's get into it. See if we can't make it happen."

"Yes, sir."