Lone Wolf (3 page)

Colson steepled his fingers at his chin, his eyes half closed in thought. “Interesting,” he said. “Of course, it could be a ruse, an attempt to throw you off, but there are certainly a lot of Americans involved in international crime, espionage and such.” He opened his eyes and looked at the president again. “Were there any background noises, any sounds you could hear through the phone that stuck in your memory?”

Habib leaned back in the chair and closed his own eyes as he thought about his answer. “There was a roaring sound in the background, not close, but some distance away. It got louder at times, then seemed to fade away before it came back again.” He held up a hand to indicate that Colson should wait, that there was more. “There was also someone speaking not far from the caller, someone standing nearby. I could not make out exactly what he was saying, but I caught a few words that I'm sure were in English. I would say that his accent seemed to be British, or perhaps Welsh.” He opened his eyes and looked at Colson. “That is all I can remember.”

“That's excellent, Mister President. The second person you mentioned, the one who was speaking in the background, did it sound like he was speaking to the caller?”

“No, no, I don't think he had anything to do with the caller. He seemed to be speaking to someone else, perhaps a child. There was a scolding tone to his voice.”

“How did the caller convince you that he was telling the truth? That he really had your daughter?”

Habib let his eyes fall to the floor, and when he spoke, it was softly. “We are a Muslim people,” he said. “As such, it is important to us that our women are modest. Unlike the women in your country, our women do not ever display certain parts of their bodies. For this reason, when the caller described to me in great detail a specific mark on Selah's skin, a birthmark on the back of her thigh that no one would ever see, I believed him to be telling me the truth.”

“Have you heard anything more from the caller since then?”

Habib hesitated. “I—I have. I did not tell the ambassador, but someone has sent me emails, with photos of my daughter. They show her wearing what appears to be some sort of coverall, in a room with only a bed, a chair and a television.”

“May I see the photos?” Colson asked.

Habib smiled, and reached into his own inner pocket. He withdrew a manila envelope and passed it to Colson. “I printed these to carry with me. You may have them. I can print myself more of them. Perhaps they will help.”

Colson opened the envelope and looked through the fourteen photos inside. Selah was a pretty girl, with long, dark hair. She appeared to be upset in a few of the pictures, and seemed to be praying in others. Colson scanned them, but did not see anything specific that he considered a clue to where she was being held.

“Thank you, Mister President,” he said, as he slipped the envelope into his own pocket. “Is there anything else you can tell me? Please, I don't mean to be pushy, but if my time is that limited, I need to get started.”

Habib gave a sigh. “The caller did tell me that he was not an agent of the Russian government, but only an independent contractor who had been hired to secure our cooperation. He alluded to successes that he had in similar assignments in the past, but gave me no details.” The man seemed defeated, and Colson reached across the intervening space to lay a hand on his arm.

“Mister President, I'm going to take this and put it to work.” He reached into a pocket and produced a small card, which he passed to the president. “This is a special number that comes directly to me. If you call it, I will either answer or I will return your call within a short time. If you think of anything or learn anything that may help me to find your daughter, call me as soon as you can. The phone is scrambled, and cannot be tapped.” He rose to his feet. “There is one other thing,” he said. “I've been cautioned that there is absolutely no way for us to know who in your government might be involved in this or compromised in some way. I'm going to ask that what we have spoken of today remains between us. Our ambassador only knows that I was sent here to investigate this case from our end, but he will not know any details. I'd like you to keep your people completely in the dark about me, as well.”

Habib nodded. “I understand. I will tell no one, not even the Prime Minister, unless your mission fails or I run out of time.”

Noah extended a hand, and the president took it. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. I'll leave now and get started, and send word to Morgenstern when I have something to report. All he will do is suggest that you call his friend, which is me, of course. Do you understand?”

The president shook his hand, and Noah could see the tears that wanted to spill over. “Of course, yes. Thank you, Mister Colson, and may Allah go with you.”

Colson walked out of the office, and found Morgenstern sitting next to the young man called Starling. The ambassador was carefully looking down at the floor, making certain that his eyes never touched the computer monitor on Starling's lap. When Colson appeared, he leapt to his feet.

Colson looked to Starling. “Hey, you ready to go? Pause your game, or whatever?”

Starling looked up and grinned. “Actually, I just won the game, so I'm ready whenever you are.” He closed the laptop and unfolded himself from the chair.

“Everything go okay?” Morgenstern asked.

“Went great,” Colson said. “I think we can make this work.”

Morgenstern looked at him for a few seconds, then nodded and turned to walk out of the office. Colson and Starling followed, and they were met immediately by Mahmoud, who escorted them back out of the building, and was careful to reclaim the temporary IDs he had given to Colson and Starling.

Once the men were safely inside the limousine, the ambassador looked at Colson. “I'm actually very surprised that the president was willing to meet with you alone. That's quite unlike him.”

Colson shook his head. “Not really,” he said. “It might be out of character for President Habib, but it's not a bit unusual for Papa Habib. When we walked in together, we met the leader of the country. When you stepped out of the room, I met with a frightened, worried father. Unfortunately, that worried father is in a position to do serious damage to American relations with Africa, and if I can't allay his fears, he's going to. He and the Prime Minister have already agreed that if they don't have Selah back by the day before the deadline, they're going to give in.”

Morgenstern let out a sigh. “If the Russian president gets a strong enough foothold in Mauritania, he'll sweep through the rest of Africa like the proverbial plague of locusts. Can you imagine what would happen if Russia gets control of all of the potential military power present on this continent?”

Colson shrugged. “I don't have to imagine it, that's for diplomats like you. All I've got to do is find the bastards who took this girl, and kill them.”

Starling suddenly grinned. “And now we get into the real game,” he said. “Just wait till I show you the pieces I managed to score while we were there.”

Morgenstern rolled his eyes. “That's another thing,” he said. “I can't believe you actually hacked into their computer network while you were visiting with the president of the country. Do you have any idea what would've happened to all of us if they had detected your little computer intrusion?”

“That's why I brought Neil—I mean, Starling. He's the best there is, and nobody detects what he's doing.”

“Yeah,” said the skinny kid. “I could've hacked them from the hotel, and they'd never have known. The trouble is that they have multiple Wi-Fi networks in that building, and some of them are about as close to hack-proof as you can get. Getting into them from outside would take forever, but every network has some sort of back door built into it, so that the IT people can get in even if some idiot manages to change the password and forget it. Back doors are hard to find, unless you're a true IT expert, like me. Once I found it, I just tried some of the most common IT passwords. These guys almost always use one of them, just in case something happens to them and another one has to take over. I went through half a dozen of them and got in. Then it was just a matter of copying the files from every computer on the network. Oh, and that included the president's computers, both the official one and the personal one that he probably keeps hidden somewhere in the office.”

Colson nodded. “You can show me what you got after we get back to the hotel. I don't want to compromise Ambassador Morgenstern any more than we already have.”

Morgenstern's eyes bulged. “Compromise me any more? Are you kidding? The stuff you got on that computer needs to be gone through by my intelligence people at the embassy.”

Colson shook his head. “That's not within my orders,” he said. “You can put in a request to my boss for a copy of it all, but I don't know if that will work.”

Morgenstern, his eyes still bugged out, stared at him for a moment. “Colson, no one will even tell me who your boss is! Hell, I don't have a clue who you work for. How do I put in a request for a copy?”

Colson shrugged. “Okay, I see your point. I'll put the request in for you.”

2
2 Hours Earlier

“Okay, here's what we've got,” Donald Jefferson said. One of the senior executives of E & E, it was his job to be sure that each team leader was as prepared as possible for his or her missions, and this often included delivering the briefings himself. “President Habib of Mauritania has a daughter who has been kidnapped. Her name is Selah, and she is seventeen. That's a photo of her on the screen behind me. Apparently, the president was informed that if his country does not enter into an alliance with Russia, one that they've been resisting for a long time, his daughter will be dismembered and killed. Mr. Habib told our ambassador about the kidnapping a couple of days ago, who sent it up the line until our own president heard about it, and he dumped it in our laps. Your mission is to track down who took the girl, kill the sons of bitches and bring her back safely. Sounds fairly easy and straightforward, right? The problem is that we have absolutely no idea who took the girl or where she might be held. You're going to have to find her on your own.”

The four people sitting there listening to him all glanced at one another, but only the blonde-haired man spoke. “We talked about this,” he said. “None of us have any actual investigative experience. I'm curious why we are being sent on this mission, rather than a team that's done this sort of thing before.”

The woman sitting beside Jefferson leaned forward. “I'm sending you because you're the best we've got. Noah, this mission is so important that it has to be handled by someone who won't hesitate. That's you, as we all know. And while you may not have experience in investigations, you have a mind that works like a computer. I'm quite confident that if anyone can find this girl in time to save her life and save the day, it will be you.”

Noah Wolf nodded, and stayed silent. After a moment, Jefferson began again.

“You're flying out tonight for Mauritania. Our embassy there has been briefed through diplomatic parcel on your arrival. I'll be giving each of you temporary identity kits, so as always, be sure you learn your names and don't mess up. The initial phase of the mission is two-fold: Noah, you'll meet with President Habib and question him about the situation. Try to get him to dig deep in his memory of the phone call that told him about his daughter. There might be something there that will help you figure out where to start.” He turned to look at Neil Blessing, Team Camelot's computer expert. “Meanwhile, Neil can be working his way into the computers in the Presidential Palace. Somewhere in those computers should be a recording of that call, and you want to find it and listen to it.”

“Oh, goody, something to keep me busy,” Neil said. “I'm getting awfully bored with all the games I play, it'll be nice to have something fresh to work on.”

“What about me?” asked a big man. In another setting, he might well have been mistaken for a professional football player. Moose Conway was Noah's backup muscle, always ready to jump into the fray with any kind of weapons, or just with his fists.

“In this initial phase,” Jefferson said, “you'll just have to wait at the hotel, along with Ms. Child. It's highly doubtful the girl's being held right there in Mauritania, so we expect you'll be flying right back out. As soon as we know a destination, we'll make sure that everything you need will be waiting when you arrive there.”

Sarah Child, who was Noah's driver and transportation expert, simply nodded and shrugged. “Works for me,” she said. “Means I can sleep in.”

Jefferson managed to suppress a smile, and then passed out the temporary IDs. The three men each received a small box, which contained a cell phone, a wristwatch and a wallet with driver’s license, Social Security card, a number of photos, several folded and creased receipts—some of which were several months old—and lots of other wallet trash, as well as a passport with the same name. Sarah was given a purse, and she grinned as she looked through it. The wallet inside, like the ones the men had received, had ID, passport, photos and lots of flotsam and jetsam, but the other contents of the purse delighted her. She also received a cell phone, but instead of a watch she received a necklace with a heavy pendant. All of the makeup and other things inside were of brands that she liked. She glanced up at Allison, who smiled at her.

“Hey, Sarah, us girls gotta stick together, right?” Allison asked. “I told the Identities Department to be sure they checked your preferences before they put the purse together. No sense giving you stuff you don't want.”

“Thanks! Some of the other stuff makes me break out.”

“Okay, okay, let's get serious, people,” Jefferson said. “The cell phones you received are satellite enabled, so you should never find yourself without signal. The watches and necklace contain GPS-satellite tracking devices, making it possible for us back here, and Neil in the field, to keep track of your whereabouts at all times. Each of the identities has a complete backstory, so if anyone checks them out, they'll hold up. To simplify things, each of your identities grew up in the same towns that you did, went to school where you did, and for those of you where it matters, followed the same work history that you did. That way, if you're challenged and have to provide details, you can.”