Hidden Order: A Thriller

To Cindy Jackson Baker— whom I met on a train overseas, who helped give me my start in publishing, and to whom I will always be grateful

“Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.”

—J
OHN
F. K
ENNEDY

S
EA
I
SLAND

G
EORGIA

C
laire Marcourt should have gone to bed hours ago. She should have ignored the second bottle of white burgundy in the fridge, placed her empty wineglass in the sink, and headed upstairs. But the forty-five-year-old was feeling nostalgic. And the more she drank, the more nostalgic she became. Picking up the bottle, she stepped outside.

The night was warm and the ocean air carried with it the scent of magnolias. Just beyond her pool, foamy waves tumbled onto the quiet beach.

Her pool
. It was hard for Claire Marcourt to believe how far one family could come in a generation. Her mother had cleaned houses on Sea Island. Now Claire owned one and was being considered for one of the most powerful positions in the world.
Only in America,
she thought to herself.

It was heartbreaking that her mother hadn’t lived to see everything Claire had accomplished—her career, her handsome husband and their three beautiful children, the Sea Island house with its stately oaks covered in Spanish moss, all of it. She would have been so proud.

As it was, she hadn’t even seen Claire graduate from college. Cancer
had taken her and, in its wake, had left Claire with a growing fear that she too might someday be prematurely taken from her family.

Pouring another glass, she set the bottle on the outdoor table and walked to the edge of the patio. She was becoming maudlin. Focusing on the ocean, she took a long sip and closed her eyes. As the waves rolled onto the beach, she reflected on what a blessing it was to be able to come back to Georgia and escape the sirens and traffic of Manhattan. The family didn’t get down to Sea Island enough these days. Everyone was so busy. The funny thing, though, was that once Paul and the kids were here, no one wanted to leave.

She couldn’t blame them. The island was for them not only a source of strength, but also of revival. It was the one place where they all felt truly at home, truly safe.

Listening to the waves, she was reminded of a poem about the area by Sidney Lanier called “The Marshes of Glynn.”

Take courage from the land which God has given you, which has always nourished you, and which is still there, and be comforted.

Claire smiled and opened her eyes; her budding melancholy swept out to sea on a receding wave. She needed to think about that poem, and this place more often. Work had all but consumed her and it wasn’t going to get any easier if things went in the direction she thought they were about to.

Draining the last of the wine from her glass, she stood there admiring the power of the ocean for a moment, lost in her own thoughts.

She never noticed the figure that stepped out of the darkness and onto her patio. He was powerful and moved quickly, clamping a gloved hand over her mouth. Before she knew what had happened, she felt a prick, almost like being stung, and her body went limp. She not only couldn’t move a muscle, she couldn’t make a sound.

The man removed his hand from her mouth, bent down, and slung her over his shoulder.

She could feel her heart pounding in her chest.
What is going on?
she screamed in the silence of her mind.
Why me? What does he want? Where is he taking me?

It didn’t take long for her last question to be answered. Staring down
past the man’s dark trousers and thick, black boots, she could see the flagstone path turn to sand. He was taking her to the beach.
Why the beach? Does he need some isolated spot where he can do whatever it is he is going to do to me?

A couple of hundred yards away, Claire began to see the outline of something else and her heart began to pound even faster.

Pulled up onto the beach was an inflatable, gray Zodiac boat. Claire was deathly afraid of open water, particularly the open ocean. It was one thing to have a house on the coast with a view of the ocean; it was something entirely different to be out on the water. But Claire had no choice in what was about to happen.

Laying her down inside the Zodiac, the man pulled the bow around and dragged the boat into the ocean.

She could feel the moment it was floated and lifted up off the sand. A wave of nausea swept over her and she wanted to throw up, but her body didn’t comply. It was as if it weren’t even her body anymore. As if she were in a coma and no one knew she was actually awake.

As her attacker climbed into the boat and started its engine, Claire’s fear of the open ocean was replaced by another fear, or, more properly stated, a resignation—whoever this man was and whatever his intent, she was never going to see her family again.

 • • • 

Seven miles south, the Zodiac entered St. Simons Sound and continued on. At the tip of a narrow point of wooded land was the entrance to a small, winding creek. The man killed the main engine and switched to a smaller, quieter motor. There could be no witnesses.

His assignment was almost complete. By the time anyone realized Claire Marcourt was missing, the plan would already be unrolling and there’d be nothing anyone could do.

He glanced down at the woman as he removed a weatherized Iridium satellite phone and dialed a string of digits.

When the call was answered, he identified himself.

“Hotel Sierra?” a man’s voice asked on the other end.

They spoke in code, using the military alphabet. Hotel represented the letter
H,
which in this communication stood for
hostage
. Sierra stood for
S,
as in
secure
.

“Affirmative. Hotel Sierra.”

“ID Lima.”
Identify location
.

“Lima three,” the man in the Zodiac replied, indicating he had arrived at the creek.

“Roger. Lima three,” the voice replied. “Charlie Mike.”
Continue mission
.

“Roger. Charlie Mike.”

With those words, Claire Marcourt’s fate was sealed and the rest of the operation was officially set in motion.

L
UFTHANSA
F
IRST
-C
LASS
L
OUNGE

F
RANKFURT
A
IRPORT

G
ERMANY

L
ydia Ryan looked up from her tablet as a waiter set a drink in front of her. “I didn’t order this,” she said.

“No, ma’am,” replied the waiter. “It is from the gentleman.”

Ryan shut down the tablet and cautiously glanced around the sleek, chrome-and-leather-accented room. She didn’t see anyone looking back at her. “What gentleman?”

As the waiter smiled, a man seated in the area behind her said, “
This
gentleman.” Ryan recognized the voice almost immediately.

“May I join you?” he asked as she turned around to face him.

Before she could respond, the man had already stood, his own drink in hand, and was walking around to her.

While paths did sometimes cross in the intelligence world, Ryan knew better than to believe in coincidences. The fact that she and Nafi Nasiri, deputy chief of the Jordanian General Intelligence Department, were in the same airport lounge was no accident.

He was in his late forties, tall, with medium-length black hair and refined, handsome features. He came from a wealthy family related to the King and had been educated in England and the United States. He had a
penchant for dark Italian suits and his shoes were always highly polished. On his left wrist he wore the same elegant Patek Philippe watch that Ryan remembered.

“It’s good to see you again, Lydia,” he said as he set a briefcase down and took the seat facing her.

“It’s been a long time, Nafi.”

“Even so, you haven’t changed at all. You’re still as beautiful as ever.”

Still the player,
she thought to herself as she smiled and shook her head. “How’s the shoulder?” she asked, beating him to the punch.

Reaching across his body, he massaged his right shoulder. “I find the changes in barometric pressure difficult, particularly before it rains.”

Three years ago, Nasiri had knocked her to the ground as a suicide bomber was about to detonate. He had taken shrapnel in his upper arm and had used the injury ever since as an attempt to guilt her into sleeping with him. “That’s too bad. I guess it’s a good thing you live in the desert, huh?”

Nasiri smiled. He had worked with multiple female intelligence agents over the years and had been able to break all of them down—all of them except Ryan.