The phone rang at 9:30 that night.
For a moment, both Lyth and Jax just stared at the screen. There was a sense of the unreal, a disconnect, about the moment. The screen ID said that it was an unknown caller, which in all probability meant that it was the kidnappers; after all, the only people who had this burner number were the SCALPEL team. They had probably destroyed Alvarez’s phone and were now using a burner phone of their own.
Lyth watched with interest as the phone rang out its melodic tune… waiting… biding his time… not rushing to connect the call. His pause was as much mental as it was tactical.
So far, Pavel hadn’t been told about his sister. Lyth wanted to keep him out of the loop until they had more concrete information. So the team were told to be friendly and accommodating to their agent, but under no circumstances were they to mention, even amongst themselves, in front of Pavel the events of last night. Lyth knew the kidnappers would be in touch soon. After all, they were up against the clock just as much as the SCALPEL team were, even if they didn’t know it.
Pavel had slept most of the second day, only rising when Lyth had returned from his trip to Vienna. He had showered, eaten, read a few books and paced around the rear garden area with the ever watchful Luca in his wake as protection. He had almost seemed relaxed, chatting and laughing with the team, safe in the belief that the worst was over and, for the moment, Lyth was happy to leave him that way.
The phone continued to vibrate on the table. It was just Lyth and Jax in the lounge, the others were on guard duty for the evening, scattered discreetly around the building and the grounds. He reached forward to pick up the smartphone, his hand hovering over the green telephone icon. The phone call recorder app on his phone would record every detail of the exchange so that they could study the details later. He moved his thumb, swiped the icon and then pressed the speakerphone button.
“Am I speaking to the Fisherman?” It was the same voice as before.
Well, that was interesting, thought Lyth. The use of his codename? Was that a genuine mistake or was it a tactical play? And where did he get it from? Certainly not from Alvarez; he would have been killed quickly without any time for interrogation. Possibly from Sabina, but his gut instinct told him no, she would have just called him by his work name, ‘Alex’. Which only left one other alternative; that these mercenaries had a source higher up that was feeding them inside knowledge. Which also meant that this wasn’t Trillium? His theory of a third force operating here was gaining traction.
“You speak to me, nobody else,” said Lyth, neither confirming nor denying his identity.
“We have the girl,” said the deep voice, ignoring the vague response from the man on the other end of the phone.
“If that is the case, we would like to talk to her,” countered Lyth calmly.
“If you do not give us what we want, she will be killed!” The tone was harsh, aggressive, and brutal.
“Until we talk to her, confirm that she is alive, there is no way that we can move forward with this…”
“I will kill her myself and send her head to you. Give us what we want or she will die,” snarled the voice violently. The phone line went dead.
Lyth put the phone down and stared at it for a moment, his mind trying to work out the future plays in the negotiation process.
“Well, that was fucking intense,” said Jax, sitting back on the sofa.
“It was, but it’s normal,” said Lyth. “It’s all an act. It’s about trying to dominate.”
“So what happens now?”
Lyth shrugged. “We wait, he’ll phone back. It’s a game; they play a card, we play a card… and so on and so forth.”
“What about Sailfish?” she said, glancing up the stairs to the bedrooms.
“We say nothing until we get confirmation of proof of life. This could go on for days, but until we know more, we should rest and plan for the worst. We have another five days before we extract Sailfish by plane. Sitting tight is our best option,” he said.
It was 2.45am when the phone rang again. Lyth knew that it was timed perfectly to keep him on edge and off balance.
So far, the kidnappers had played the traditional game of domination; aggressive language, threats, withholding their contact number so that they could dictate the communication flow when it suited them. It all ran to a familiar theme. He ran the audio through his earphones, hit the telephone icon and listened. It was the same voice, and he guessed that this was Azrael, the leader of the attack team.
“We want the scientist delivered to us in the next seventy-two hours or we kill the girl.”
“That is not going to happen,” said Lyth coolly.
“I will cut her throat.”
Now it was time to turn the situation around, thought Lyth. It was a gamble, especially when you were playing with people’s lives, but it was part of the lethal cut and thrust of kidnap negotiation. Lyth went at it coldly and cruelly.
“I’m not discussing anything until I get a proof of life that the girl is still breathing. So you get her and put her on the phone to me. If you can’t, then you aren’t serious! Call me back at eight-thirty in the morning with the girl,” he said, and cut the call.
Almost at once the phone began to vibrate again, but Lyth ignored it, letting it hum and hum. He was controlling the situation with silence. Finally, after what seemed an age, it fell silent.
Over the next fifteen minutes it rang several more times, but Lyth, holding his nerve, chose to ignore it. He sat back on the bed in his room and assessed what he had just done. The call had confirmed what the kidnappers wanted, namely Pavel and by default the information in his head and about Pandora. The Fisherman had exerted his dominance over the situation and set the tone for the next part of the negotiation process which, if they were going to keep Sabina alive, was vital.
He returned to sleep, but his dreams were filled with nightmare images of Sabina’s dead body and even, in his darkest moments, of his long-lost agent and lover Solange, who had paid the ultimate price for his conspiracies.