“You kidnapped his kid! His kid?”
Emerson blinked at him.
“Isn’t the FBI supposed to solve kidnappings?” Gannon said. “Now you commit them?”
“His name was Scott. He was a college kid. He went to Cambridge. He was nerdy but real smart and caring and socially aware. We learned that he had an internship with the French refugee relief group, Cesse de Pleurer, that was going into eastern Gabon for the summer. The CIA had contacts in the rebel groups just across the border in the Congo. So we hired one of the Congolese warlords down there to grab him.”
Gannon shook his head, dumbfounded.
“So the young guy with the headphones on the plane was the embassy doctor’s son? That was Scott Santos?”
“Yes,” Emerson said.
“And the dead black man was your African warlord?” Gannon said. “He was the kidnapper you hired?”
Emerson nodded.
“Yes. His name was Biyombo. Terrence Biyombo. After he grabbed Scott, he read from the script we gave him. At first, he asked the doctor for money like in a regular kidnapping. But after three million dollars was delivered, he called Santos back and told him that he had learned who the doctor was and where he worked and the Russians he bought his weapons from now wanted something else.”
“Messerly’s data,” Gannon said.
“Yes,” Emerson said. “Messerly’s data.”
“Why was the FBI director involved?” Gannon said.
Emerson looked up at the rusted ceiling.
“For a bunch of reasons. Dunning was neck deep in Messerly’s data, for one. Also, Dunning worked with MI6 during the tail end of the Cold War, and we needed him to smooth things over with the British intel people in London who were helping us in the operation.
“But most of all, we needed his radar-jamming G550 to smuggle Scott and Biyombo out of the Congo. The area where Biyombo was holding Scott was in a war zone, and it was becoming increasingly unstable. So Dunning agreed to stop there covertly in the jungle on his way to an Interpol conference in Milan.”
“That’s where they were headed when the plane malfunctioned? To Italy?” Gannon said.
“Yes. The cabin pressure failure problem must have happened as soon as they got to altitude. The plane was supposed to make a turn to the north, but it never did. It kept going west out over the Atlantic.”
“Until it ran out of gas,” Gannon said.
“We had no idea where it was until it crashed,” Emerson said. “We couldn’t track it because the radar-jamming device was on.”
“Who was the other guy on the plane? The other stocky white guy?”
“His name was Oliver Buchanan. He was an undercover MI6 agent working with us. He was posing as a hostage negotiator working with the doctor’s family for Scott’s release.”
“Wow, quite an elaborate production,” Gannon said. “A cast of thousands.”
“Are you familiar with the term parallel construction?” Emerson said. “It’s standard operational procedure in a case like this. We needed to put the doctor in a moving box, cover every angle.”
“You certainly seemed to have accomplished that,” Gannon said. “You must have had him coming and going.”
“Yes. Please, now you know everything. I’ve told you everything. Get me to a hospital now. Please, I’m begging you,” Emerson said.
Gannon stood and started pacing back and forth behind Emerson.
“Not so fast. I don’t think you’re telling me everything,” Gannon said.
He walked over to a computer on a desk in the corner. He shook the mouse, brought up Google, typed into the search bar and hit Enter.
“I knew it,” Gannon said, looking up from the screen. “It says here Messerly’s big info drop is in two days’ time. This operation is still on as we speak, isn’t it? Dr. Santos is still about to take out Messerly for you. He still thinks he can save his son.”
“I don’t know,” Emerson said.
“You don’t know? Okay, fine,” Gannon said as he came over and started peeling off Emerson’s bloody rags. “Are you familiar with the term bleeding out?”
“Stop!” Emerson screamed. “Okay, okay! Yes, you’re right. The doctor is still in the dark. He picked up a package in London we sent him three days ago. It contains sedatives and a drone he’s to use to get all the data out of the embassy for us. That’s why the diver was renditioned and the reporter killed. All the potential leaks needed to be plugged in order to keep the doctor in the dark.”
“Because if Messerly delivers the truth,” Gannon finished for him, “then all you corrupt rotten filthy pieces of money-grubbing shit go to jail.”
“Yes,” Emerson said. “That’s really it. That’s all of it. Now please just drop me off at a hospital. I don’t care if I go to jail. I’m twenty-nine, man. I just don’t want to die!”
“Relax, bro. You’ll be fine,” Gannon said.
“But the internal bleeding!”
“There isn’t any,” Gannon said. “You were only shot in the leg. It’s a through-and-through. I just covered you in some of your own blood. You think you guys are the only ones who can make shit up?”
“You son of a bitch!” Emerson said.
Gannon nodded.
“You better believe it,” he said. “I’m about as nasty a son of a bitch the friendly neighborhood psychopaths of the Naval Special Warfare Command and Joint Special Operations Command and the theater of combat ever created.”
Gannon shook his head as he laughed.
“And what do you know? You and your genius boss just pulled me out of retirement,” he said.