Teddy, Holly, and Mille conferred in Holly’s office while Kevin traced the call.
“Okay,” Teddy said. “The vote’s scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. We’ve got to make sure it happens, and we’ve got to find Karen Blaine by then. Once the vote is over, they have no reason to keep her alive any longer no matter what the result.”
“Then we have to tell the CIA,” Holly said.
“That’s the other way we get her killed. Then they won’t wait till tomorrow afternoon. If it were as easy as telling the CIA, I wouldn’t be here and the President would have done so at the start.”
“Well, we can’t just wait around for them to kill her.”
“Got it!” Kevin called.
They trooped into the other room.
“Well?” Teddy demanded.
“Much better,” Kevin said. “The Speaker kept him on the phone. I was able to narrow the search, particularly as it’s the same area as before.” He clicked the mouse, brought up the map with a ten-mile radius circle. “We were able to narrow the area down from this . . . to this.” He clicked the mouse, and a smaller circle appeared. The center was somewhat west of the center of the larger circle.
“It moved,” Holly said.
“It didn’t move. It’s just more accurate. We had a ten-mile radius. Now we have a radius of three-point-five being generated from a nucleus four-tenths of a mile west and two-tenths of a mile south of what we originally predicted.”
“And this one is accurate and the other one isn’t?”
“They’re both accurate. This is more accurate.”
“So we’re talking about an area seven miles wide.”
“That’s right.”
“You have a map of it?”
“Partial.”
“What do you mean ‘partial’?”
“Not all roads are named or mapped. There are three or four hundred homes listed, and there will be more cabins that aren’t.”
“Okay,” Teddy said. “That’s doable. I can eliminate most of these houses on sight. We’re talking a primitive cabin here. I’ll drive around and check them out.”
“All night?” Holly said.
“No. You can’t disguise your headlights on a dead-end dirt road. I can eliminate the houses on the main drag, but what we’re looking for will take daylight.”
“You’ll never do it in time,” Holly said. “Not unless you luck onto the kidnappers first thing. By the time you get up there you’ll only have a couple of hours of daylight left. You’re better off driving up before dawn. If the vote’s tomorrow afternoon, you’re really racing the clock. If the vote’s not tomorrow afternoon . . .”
“That’s up to you. Get the President not to suspend Congress and not to postpone the vote.”
“How do I do that?”
“Any way you can. You’re the national security advisor. Tell her it’s in the interests of national security.”
“That’s a tough sell.”
“Get Stone Barrington to help you. He has the ear of the President, and I imagine Speaker Blaine will be making a pitch of his own.”
“Let them handle the President, then,” Holly said. “I’ll go with you.”
“You can’t.”
“You need help.”
“I’ll go,” Millie Martindale said.
“You can’t go,” Holly said.
“Why not?”
“These guys play rough.”
Millie stuck out her chin. “So do I.”
“Do you have a gun?” Teddy said.
“Not on me.”
“That’s not a problem,” Teddy said. “What about a permit?”
“I have one at home. I can get it.”
“No need. If I could borrow Holly’s computer.”
“Could we try to limit the number of felonies perpetrated on national security equipment?” Holly said.
Teddy reached into his jacket and took out one of the guns he’d requisitioned from the CIA. He turned it around, offered the butt to Mille. “Can you use this?”
Millie took the gun, popped the safety on and off, slid out the magazine, made sure it was loaded. She chambered a round, looked at it critically. “It’ll do.”
“Okay,” Teddy said. “We’ll start at four in the morning, separate cars, burner phones. You take the east, I’ll take the west. We’ll move in from the south, and check out every cabin it could possibly be.”
“Check out how?”
“Knock on the door and go in.”
“If they refuse?”
“Don’t take no for an answer. Flash your ID. You’re CIA, aren’t you?”
“I thought we weren’t involving the CIA.”
“Not officially. I’m talking about us. If it’s pay dirt it won’t matter. If it’s not, you’ll have moved on before the word gets around.”
“What if no one’s home?”
“Break a window and go in.”
“I don’t like it,” Holly said.
“I hate it like hell, but there we are,” Teddy said.
“No, I don’t like her going alone.”
“I’ll go,” Kevin said. He looked scared out of his mind, had obviously made the offer because it seemed the gentlemanly thing to do.
“We need you here in case there’s another call. To narrow the search.” Teddy thought a moment, looked at Millie. “Your FBI boyfriend.”
“Quentin?”
“You trust him?”
“Yes, I trust him. You should use him.”
“If we do, it will be on a very limited basis. He’ll be brought in for one specific assignment. And I won’t brief him. He won’t meet me at all.”
“So, when you say trust . . .” Millie said ironically.
“Don’t get snippy. Your feelings aren’t the issue here.” Teddy clapped his hands together. “Okay, we’ve all got our marching orders. Holly, line up Stone Barrington. Millie, line up your young man, but not here. Keep him away from this office.”
“I’ll see him in my apartment. He’ll be more pliable.”
“Excellent.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Instruct Kevin on the maps we need and make plans.”
Teddy said it with complete assurance.
He wished it were so simple.