Barcelona
The Mossos had gone into high gear.
CC hadn’t apologized for the way he’d acted earlier. He’d done something better. He’d called his boss, explained that an American girl had been kidnapped, a professional job. The Mossos needed to pull video footage to find the kidnap car, ask for help from Madrid and the French police too.
Surveillance cameras revealed an obvious candidate for the suspect car, a black Toyota Camry that came down Carrer de Trafalgar at 12:55 a.m. and then returned seventeen minutes later. No surprise, the Camry’s back windows were heavily tinted. And the driver wore a hooded sweatshirt that shadowed his face. But the windows couldn’t hide the fact that the Camry’s back seat had been empty on its way to the alley behind Helado, full on the way back.
The windows couldn’t hide the license plate, either. With it, the Mossos tracked the Camry along the Avinguda Diagonal, which ran to the ring road west of the city and the highways that connected Barcelona with France and the rest of Spain.
But the trail ended there.
The modern superhighway between Barcelona and Madrid, the AP-2, was a toll road with plenty of cameras. So was the AP-7, which ran from the French border through Barcelona and down Spain’s east coast. But neither highway’s cameras had captured the Camry.
Xili told Rebecca the vanishing act shouldn’t surprise them. Most of Spain’s older highways were not toll roads and did not have surveillance. The most notable was the A-2, an upgraded version of the old Route Nacional from Madrid to Barcelona.
The Camry itself also looked to be a dead end. Spain had a serious car theft problem. And based on its body type, this Camry had been built between 2006 and 2011. That model was notoriously easy to steal. The national stolen car database showed thousands of thefts of Camrys from those years.
Worse, the plates didn’t belong to the car. They matched a Mini Cooper owned by a woman who lived north of Barcelona. She hadn’t reported them stolen. The Mossos had already sent an officer to talk to her. But she wasn’t home, and her car didn’t seem to be around.
Rebecca suspected that the Mini’s owner was on vacation, her car parked in an airport lot. Stealing a car from a garage was tricky. Gate cameras would catch every vehicle as it entered and left.
But stealing plates was easy. Find a car tucked in a corner. Preferably a small car tucked behind a bigger vehicle that hid it from cameras. Unscrew the plates. Toss them in your own car’s trunk and drive out.
The combination of stolen plates and a stolen car meant that finding the Camry was going to be tough. The Mossos had put an advisory notice—what American police called a BOLO, be on the lookout—for the Camry into their system. Any officer who saw the car was supposed to pull it over.
But Rebecca already knew they weren’t going to see it. It was in a garage somewhere. Or in a Madrid slum, unlocked, waiting to be stolen again. Or burned to its frame in some empty field. And if they did find it, it would be clean. No fingerprints, no clues. Because this guy Jacques didn’t make mistakes.
Sunday night rolled into Monday morning as the Mossos chased the Camry. All along, Brian and Tony were stuck at the apartment in Eixample. She called them every couple of hours with updates. Around midnight, she half-heartedly suggested they get some rest. “I’ll sleep when you do,” Brian said, almost angrily.
By 2 a.m., after the toll road searches came up empty, fatigue overwhelmed her. Yes, they’d made progress today. They’d put to rest any notion that Kira had disappeared on her own.
But they had no answers to the big questions: who Jacques really was, if he had targeted Kira for some specific reason, if he had any idea who Rebecca was, if he was hoping to ransom her back or pass her to someone else.
Not to mention the most crucial mystery of all, where Kira was now.
“I’ll take you home,” Xili said. “Sleep, we can meet around ten, figure out who to talk with in Madrid. The Guardia”—the Guardia Civil—“must have had cars on the A-2 last night, and they have cameras and plate readers. With luck that will tell us where they’re headed.”
“Sure.”
She would call FBI headquarters, too. But she thought she should wait until Monday morning East Coast time—afternoon here. The Mossos seemed to be doing everything possible. She didn’t see how extra pressure from the bureau would help.
This late on a Sunday night, even the Gothic Quarter was quiet, only a few drunks sputtering up La Rambla. Even Barcelona slept eventually. Neither Xili nor Rebecca spoke until he stopped outside her apartment.
“Thank you,” she said. “For taking me seriously.”
“Thank me after we find her.”
“After we find her I’ll buy you a ticket to Razzmatazz. Relive your glory days.”
She couldn’t escape a crushing sense of failure. They were no closer to knowing where Kira might be. Normally Rebecca would have figured the kidnappers had gone to ground close by, somewhere near Barcelona. Moving a hostage was dangerous.
But nothing about this kidnapping was normal. Maybe Jacques had already smuggled her into North Africa. Or swung her north into France on her way to Eastern Europe.
Rebecca wondered more and more if the kidnapping was related to her job. She hadn’t said much about the possibility to Xili. Getting the Mossos on board had been hard enough without conspiracy theories. But the degree of planning here suggested either high-level organized crime or a government-backed group.
Again, though, why would the Russians come after her this way? The risk of reprisal was too high. All this doomed speculation led back to the original theory. Maybe Jacques had just taken Kira randomly.
Brian was alone on the couch when she walked in. “Becks.” They hugged and again she felt his strength, his solidity.
“Where’s Tony?”
“Oh, he went out for coffee like an hour ago.”
How could he be so calm. “Brian—”
He raised his hands. “I’m kidding. Bedroom, asleep.”
He hadn’t made a joke that terrible since that night in the nursing home. More than twenty years ago. Plus ça change… “Jesus, Brian.”
“Sorry. Been a long night.” Tony had been inconsolable, blaming himself, Brian said. “He’s losing his mind.”
Rebecca found Tony in his bedroom, sleeping badly, muttering in his dreams. She kissed his forehead lightly, not wanting to wake him, and went back to Brian. Who had moved to their bedroom.
“Tell me about the night,” Brian said. “What you found.”
“Can we do it in the morning?”
“She’s my girl too.”
He was right. So she told him—about Xili, the clubs, her revelation that Jacques must have taken Kira somewhere else. About Helado and Flor and the Queen.
“You did good.”
“I did nothing. What if it’s because of me, Bri? What if this really is some group that found my name in an article in the Post and somehow locked on to me—”
“Not a four-star general, not the director?”
“Those guys have security.”
Brian shook his head. “I can’t see it. There are hundreds of people further up the intel chain. Not that you’re not important.”
He was right again. She moved closer to him, felt him wrap his arms around her. She closed her eyes and began to drift within seconds. Brian was falling asleep too, his breathing settling, his grip on her easing.
“Gonna be okay, Becks.” His voice a murmur. “I promise…” the words running down.
Summer on the Cape, and she stood at the top of Newcomb Hollow Beach, running down the dunes, the sand biting her heels—
Becks.
Dove for the relief of the cold gray ocean—
Tell.
Who said that? The surf rushed at her, a big wave, bigger than she’d expected—
Something—
And the water took her.