Moondogs - Alexander Yates [109]
“Thanks for coming,” the ambassador said. “It’s late, so I’ll get right to it. An American businessman named Howard Bridgewater has been kidnapped. The National Police don’t have a timeline yet but they suspect it happened about a week ago, and the thinking is that he’s still in Manila. No one has reported Mr. Bridgewater missing, and the police were only alerted to the kidnapping when an Imam from Cavite called in about some suspicious characters. They were purportedly hoping to sell an American hostage to the Abu Sayyaf.”
Those last two words turned the air around the conference table to gelatin. The SuperFerry bombing in late February was still fresh in everybody’s minds. Jeff, who’d been stationed in Manila long enough to remember the Sobero beheading, shifted in his chair. The new legal attaché excused himself to vomit in the adjoining washroom, but probably more because of the food poisoning than because he was overcome.
“Is the story public?” Tom, who was filling in for Joyce, asked.
“Not yet,” the ambassador said, “but they want to include it in their weekly brief on Tuesday. It’ll leak before then, of course. Let’s do what we can to contact next of kin before that happens. Mona?” He looked at Monique and it took her a moment to look back. He slid a sheet of paper to her, which glided across the desk almost playfully, like a puck on an air-hockey table. It was a faxed copy of Howard Bridgewater’s driver’s license. “I know that’s not much to go off of, but see if you can find a contact person for him. He may have registered with us when he arrived in country. If he’s got a wife, we should let her know. If he’s got an ex-wife, let’s just skip it, am I right?” The ambassador laughed. “But no,” he said, “this is nothing to joke about.”
Monique left the fax on the table so it wouldn’t shake in her hands. She stared into Howard’s grainy, black-and-white face. He was a heavy man, not ugly but close to it, and just a few years younger than Joseph. Big people never look good in little pictures, but his was especially bad. He filled the square frame, a bewildered, almost worried expression on his face, as though he’d known when they took his picture at the DMV that some day it’d be used as evidence. Staring down at the picture, Monique couldn’t help but imagine him reading a long list of demands in a pixelated Internet video. A slogan-spattered drop cloth would hang inert behind his head. He’d be flanked by men in masks with rockets on their shoulders. She imagined newscasters explaining how they’d come to the decision to air—or not to air—the execution, imagined Howard’s headshot transposed onto the upper right corner of her television, a death date accompanying the birth date, bracketing his life. As she looked down at the picture she longed for it to be nothing more than that; one of the dramatic evils gravely celebrated in the news. Of course she felt pity, tenderness, terror, but a louder part of her said: No thanks. I’m full right now. I have an affair to enjoy and then end. I have a marriage to rebuild, and children to rescue from themselves and from others. This kidnapped man doesn’t belong anywhere near my life.
UNFORTUNATELY, IT WASN’T ALL that hard to find a contact person. When the meeting was over Monique unlocked her office in the annex and waded through smudgy registration files. After working her way back to February she gave up and started cold-calling luxury hotels—there were only so many, after all. She got lucky on her third try. Yes, Howard Bridgewater was a guest at the Shangri-La. Yes, they did have an emergency contact person on file. They could even do her one better; the contact person was in the Philippines and was also staying at the Shangri-La. Perfect. It was Howard’s son. Even better. The concierge transferred her and she was so, so thankful that the kid didn’t pick up. How the hell was she going to tell