65

THE WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM—17 MAY

In fifteen minutes, the room would be filled with NSC principals.

But for the moment, at the unholy hour of three in the morning, the only people in the room were Bill McDermott, Martha Dell, and Peter Hwang.

“Please tell me you’ve found these girls,” McDermott began, his tie loosened, his face unshaven, his eyes bloodshot.

“Bill, I’m sorry,” Dell replied, looking just as disheveled. “We’ve talked to every intelligence agency. Pored over every cable, every satellite image, every intercept, every dispatch from the region. But there’s simply no sign of them. Whatever trail there was has gone cold.”

“I can’t accept this,” McDermott said, slamming his fist on the table. “We have to do better.”

“Bill, look, we have to face facts,” Pete said. “We’re out of options and almost out of time. The best thing you can do now is advise the president to wire the money. Hopefully, Kairos will release the girls. In the meantime, we can follow the money and pray it leads us to them or at least to the Kairos high command.”

“That’s not your call, Pete,” McDermott said. “And we still have nine hours before the deadline.”

“Come on,” Pete shot back. “Even if we find them, there’s no time to mount a rescue operation, and you know it. I know Foster and Whitney are telling the president it’s political suicide to pay off terrorists. But the truth is, it’s political suicide not to. You guys in this White House may think you’re in enough trouble with the American people right now. But that’s nothing compared to the storm that’s going to hit if you let those girls go to their deaths without having done everything you possibly could to save them. No one else is going to say this to the acting president, but it’s the truth. It’s your job to tell him. And time is running out.”

McDermott shifted in his seat, then glanced up at the world clocks on the far wall. “What about the other thing we discussed?” he asked Pete.

“What other thing?” Dell asked.

“Nothing,” McDermott said. “It’s a private matter.”

“I’m working on it,” Pete replied.