The Cutout (48 page)

Tom Shephard was sitting inside Gerbeaud’s with a copy of the
Herald Tribune
spread open before him. He had consumed almost all of a chocolate torte and, to Caroline’s surprise, had taken it with tea. A pot of Earl Grey still perfumed the air gently with bergamot.

“You’re late.” He tossed his napkin aside. “I haven’t got much to tell you, I’m afraid. Mirjana Tarcic was treated in a hospital the day of the riots, then disappeared. The federal police think they might have a lead—”

“Have you paid, Tom? I’ve got a taxi waiting.”

The impatience in her face stopped his objection. “What is it?”

“Krucevic.” She held aloft a slip of paper. “His Budapest base. The one that matches Wally’s blueprints.”

“Jesus.” Shephard emptied his pockets of loose change. “How the hell did you find that?”

“Call it a gift from Mahmoud Sharif’s Budapest division,” she said.

Vic Marinelli came to attention in his chair. “A map?” he said into the receiver. “Right—it’s coming through the secure fax right now. Jesus! What do we do with it?”

“You wait for Atwood and Bigelow to come on-line in the VTC room,” Cuddy Wilmot told him, “and then you conference.”

Marinelli was already staring at the rough line drawing of the northwest sector of Budapest, a neighborhood of warehouses and commercial trucking. The map was furred and ratcheted with electronic interference, but he could piece his way, bit by bit, to the center of Krucevic’s heart. His own began to thud with excitement. Headquarters had finally done its job. “What time’s the teleconference?”

“One-thirty Have Caroline and your LegAtt in the vault three minutes before.”

“Caroline? You mean your analyst?”

“Of course.”

“Do you think that’s wise?” Marinelli’s tone made it clear that he did not. “This is
operational
, Wilmot. She shouldn’t have access.”

“Caroline is an expert on Mlan Krucevic,” Cuddy replied patiently, “and she’s already seen the map, Vic. I sent a copy to her hotel.”

“You
what?”

“I thought she’d be able to tell me whether the details made sense. She thinks that they do.”

“But she’s an
analyst,”
Vic repeated in disbelief. “Not a case officer. What were you thinking?”

“We don’t draw those lines so strictly here at the CTC.” Cuddy sounded almost amused. “We use an interdisciplinary approach to cases. And you owe the map
to Caroline in the first place. It was at her suggestion that we queried this source.”

The source, Cuddy had already explained, was an American citizen they would call the Volunteer. He was in the habit of dealing gray arms to dubious clients, but from time to time, he offered information to the CIA in recompense for his sins.

“This is un-fucking-believable,” Marinelli muttered.

“Caroline thought of the Volunteer immediately when she saw Wally Aronson’s blueprints. But she was worried about turf-—who handled the guy, what she was allowed to tell you. So she called me.”

Marinelli’s eyebrows lifted satanically at a target six thousand miles away. He’d spent enough time in the game to know when Headquarters was trying to upstage him.

“Luckily, the asset was available for questioning— he’s being held in a medium-security facility in West Virginia.”

“And he just …
volunteered …
the route to 30 April’s bunker,” Marinelli mused.
“Lucky
doesn’t even begin to describe it, Wilmot.”

“Strap one on, Vic.” Now the amusement was obvious. “We’ll be pulling for you back home.”

In Washington, D.C., it was only seven-thirty in the morning. Caroline studied Dare Atwood’s face on the secure video monitor and found new lines of weariness and strain. The Vice President of the United States had been kidnapped seventy-two hours ago. Since then, Dare had probably briefed Congress once or twice, met or avoided a legion of reporters, held endless meetings with her Intelligence chiefs, and taped a political talk
show appearance for airing on Sunday morning. In between, she would have eaten badly, dispatched aides to her Georgetown home in search of a fresh silk blouse and pink lipstick, and taken the long walk from the East Gate to the White House six or seven times, briefcase in hand. The possibility that Eric might go public about his Agency affiliation would have destroyed what little sleep Dare had. The appearance of this map to 30 April’s bunker should have come as an enormous relief. But gazing at the monitor, Caroline couldn’t find relief in Dare’s face.

Jack Bigelow, on the other hand, looked as though he were wired for sound. His image nearly catapulted through the television screen. He’d slept well, had a big breakfast, and was goin’ out huntin’, loaded for bear.

“Hey there, folks,” he drawled genially when Embassy Budapest came on-line. “Hear y’all been doin’ yer jobs real well fer a change. Soph’s gonna be pleased as punch when y’all come knockin’ at the asshole’s door.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. President, Director Atwood,” said Ambassador Stetson Waterhouse. He was a recent political appointee to the Buda post—a lifelong fly-fishing buddy of Jack Bigelow s—and a man crucified by concern for protocol. “I have with me COS Vic Marinelli; the Legal Attaché for Central Europe, Mr. Tom Shephard; and Ms. Caroline Carmichael, of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center. Are we coming through clearly on your end?”

“Clear as mud, Stetz,” said Bigelow. “DCI’s gonna give us a little summary.”

“Mr. President,” Dare began, “it is our view that Vice President Sophie Payne may presently be held at 30 April’s Budapest headquarters, a warehouse with underground facilities located in an industrial sector of the city. You have a copy of the map to that warehouse in
front of you. Our sources suggest that Payne was present at that site as recently as three hours ago. We have a fix on the facility’s location, and blueprints of its security systems. We do not yet know, however, whether the terrorists and Mrs. Payne are still there.”

The DCI had barely finished before Bigelow’s voice cut over hers. “You guys on the ground got any ideas?”

Ambassador Waterhouse looked around at the three of them, flummoxed.

“Mr. President,” said Marinelli, “we received the map only fifteen minutes ago. I—”

“Get some surveillance on the place.”

“Yes, sir.” Marinelli reached for a phone on the desk before him; he dialed an internal embassy number.

“And make sure yer watchers are armed, son. We don’t want another Bratislava.”

Bratislava.
The memory of two case officers shot to death in a plumber’s van loomed large in all their minds.

Caroline kept her eyes on the screen. Since her return to the station, the COS had been treating her as though she carried the plague.

A gray-haired man in uniform who sat at Bigelow’s left stabbed his microphone button abruptly. She recognized the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

“We can send up some AWAC planes,” Clayton Phillips barked. “Intercept all electronic emissions coming out of Budapest. There are NATO crews on the ground already in Hungary.”

“But you’ll have to get NATO consent,” objected Matthew Finch, the National Security Advisor. “That means giving NATO a reason for the intercepts. Sharing the truth. And losing control. Could be a big mistake.”

“What about Delta Force?” Bigelow asked.

“If we had more time—” Phillips began.

“Then what about Germany?” Bigelow was getting impatient. “Ramstein Air Base. Scramble a bunch a guys outta there.”

“Again—to assemble the team, get them in a plane, send them to Budapest, and deploy them at the site,” General Phillips said, “you’re talking three hours.”

“Three hours.” Bigelow glanced at his watch, then squinted at the video monitor. “What time’s it over there?”

“In three hours, Mr. President, it will be almost five P.M.,” Stetz Waterhouse told him.

“Gettin’ dark. That’ll have to do. Unless—”

The President released his mike button and leaned to whisper in his security advisor’s ear.

“Ms. Carmichael,” said Matthew Finch, “in your bio of Mlan Krucevic you state that he never negotiates. Could you amplify on that point?”

“Certainly.” She threw a glance at Marinelli; his expression remained wooden. “Negotiation is a nonstarter for several reasons. First, Mlan Krucevic would have to come out in the open—speak under the eyes of the world press—as Mrs. Payne’s kidnapper, and he shuns that kind of publicity. He’ll avoid it at all cost. Second, negotiation means Krucevic gives up Mrs. Payne in order to get something else. We have nothing to offer Krucevic that he wants. And it’s a point of honor to the man that he does not concede.”

Marinelli snorted beside her. “Put a gun to his head. He’ll concede in a heartbeat.”

“Third,” Caroline continued, “in order to negotiate at all, Krucevic would have to recognize his counterpart as an equal. He’ll never do that.”

“Even if he’s negotiating with the President of the United States?” Jack Bigelow’s voice was still genial.

“Seems to me he’s been negotiatin’ with every one of those videotapes.”

“I would consider those more in the form of direct insults, Mr. President,” Caroline said. “He intends to taunt and humiliate you by displaying Mrs. Payne’s subjugation. He believes this could make you feel frustrated and powerless. The videos are one of Krucevic’s instruments of terror, not a method of brokering a deal.”

All three men in the White House Situation Room were listening to her now. Dare Atwood, on the Agency screen, had a faint smile playing about her lips.

“But let’s just say,” Matthew Finch argued, “that we pretend to negotiate in order to buy some time. Keep Krucevic focused on the dialogue while Delta Force gets their act together. Then we’ll have tried the diplomatic option—and the world will know it—and we can go in shooting.”

Caroline shook her head. “Go in shooting and all you’ll find is bodies.”

Finch threw up his hands and stared at Jack Bigelow.

The President smiled at Caroline through the secure video feed. “You’re pretty damn sure of yourself, young lady.”

“Mr. President—” She sighed and searched for a succinct way to explain. “For the past five years, I’ve followed Mlan Krucevic and 30 April. He’s a tough man to pick out of the crowd. But I’ve done it. It’s my job. I’ve read every scrap of classified and open-source material on the man, I’ve researched his childhood, I’ve placed him on a couch and trotted out the psychiatrists. I know more about Krucevic than anyone, with the possible exceptions of his mother and his wife. His mother’s dead. His wife is missing. I’m all you’ve got.”

“How can you say he’ll never negotiate?” Matthew
Finch was still resistant. “This could mean life and death to the man.”

“The value of a life is relative, Mr. Finch,” Caroline said patiently. “Mlan Krucevic has known that from birth. His father was a member of the Croatian Ustashe—the fascist allies of Nazi Germany. Anton Krucevic is believed to have been in charge of a concentration camp somewhere near Sarajevo that was built entirely underground. Everyone connected with the camp’s organizational hierarchy was ordered to commit suicide at the German surrender, and the location of the camp itself has never been positively identified—but estimates of the number of Serb partisans executed there range from several thousand to nearly one hundred thousand.”