The president had only left the Situation Room to snatch a few hours’ sleep and had changed into slacks and a fresh shirt, the relatively mundane affairs of state being carried out by the vice president, aided by the White House chief of staff. He couldn’t concentrate on anything else. But he would have to get back to work soon. Besides, the narrow oblong room was beginning to feel like a tomb and he was becoming increasingly convinced that the secretary, whom he had known personally for eight years, wasn’t going to be found.
He sipped at a cup of coffee, his eighth of the day, and nodded to Jack, the Secretary of Defense, who’d sat by his side for the duration. The president was a pragmatic and determined politician, a man who’d put himself through law school after being a probation officer in a tough neighbourhood for over a decade, but he couldn’t have felt any worse if his younger sister had been taken.
“I should have never let her go,” he said, rubbing his tired eyes.
“You don’t build relationships by talking down a chunk of plastic, Bob. You can’t blame yourself. Linda knew the risks.”
“Yeah. But we never think they will materialize, do we, Jack?”
“Guess not.”
“If the worst happens, the Iranians will have to pay the price. You realize that, don’t you?”
Jack nodded, resolutely.
A couple of minutes later, there was a single knock at the door. It was opened by a black-suited Secret Service agent, the spiralling wire from his clear earpiece disappearing behind his protruding neck muscle to his collar. The White House chief counterterrorism advisor, Martin Rosenberg, a sixty-three-year-old with a Romanesque nose and narrow shoulders, walked through, his soft brown eyes catching the president’s gaze and holding it.
“We have a lead, Mr President.”
“Thank God,” the president said, stiffening up.
“Deputy Director Houseman is on a secure video link from Kabul. I’ve liaised with the Director briefly already. He said it’s your call,” Rosenberg said, referring to the head of the CIA.
Rosenberg walked over to the table, picked up a remote and aimed it at the third flat-screen to the left of the secretary. The screen blinked open. Houseman’s face almost filled it, his eyes dark-rimmed, his skin sallow.
“Give me the good news, Bill,” the president said.
“One of our assets in Islamabad, Mr President. I have reason to believe that Lyric is being held at an old, abandoned watchtower just south of Karachi. On the coast.”
“What reason?” the secretary asked, his tone inquisitorial.
“One hundred thousand of them, Mr Secretary,” Houseman said, referring to the amount of dollars that’d been paid for the intel.
“You pay that amount, a man will swear he saw Elvis serving fries at his local Burger King,” the secretary said, dismissively.
The president saw that the old warhorse on the screen could barely conceal his contempt for Jack. He knew Bill had never cared for the Defense Secretary. Jack had a tendency to make his point in such a manner that didn’t court friendship.
“How sure of this are you, Bill?” he asked.
“He ain’t let us down before, sir.”
“So what do we do?”
“We have the Carrier Strike Group in the Strait of Hormuz,” Houseman said, referring to the waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. “But there ain’t any Special Forces on board.”
The president knew the aircraft carriers were there due to the Iranian crisis. In particular, their threat to close the major oil route if the US went to war. He turned to Jack, said, “Where’s the nearest Special Forces’ detachment?”
“Yemen, sir.”
“Yemen, huh.”
“I got eight CIA paramilitaries in Karachi, Mr President,” Houseman said.
“And why’s that?”
On screen, Houseman looked a little taken aback. “Since Lyric was kidnapped, we got over a hundred in Pakistan, Mr President. And the ones in Karachi are good men. The best.”
“Jack?” the president asked.
The secretary craned his neck forward. “I’m not sure.” He sniffed. “Could be riskier than sending astronauts to Mars.”
The president knew that she could be moved repeatedly. It could be his only chance to get her out. He knew, too, that although the plan to rescue her in the Upper Kurram Valley had been put together swiftly, the short timeframe imposed by the Leopards since then demanded an even faster response.
“What do you mean by could be, Jack? And I don’t want a bullshit answer based on your dislike for CIA paramilitaries. You got me?” he said, the lack of sleep and constant tension making his patience wane.
Jack nodded. “Yes, Mr President.” He cleared his throat. “If Deputy Director Houseman says they’re good men, I’ll go with that in the circumstances.”
The president rubbed the back of his head. “Do it, Bill,” he said.