• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

"And failed," she stated flatly.

Herbert fired her a look. "Don't say it like he screwed up. The fact that he or someone else may have made the effort at all is a helluva thing. A helluva big thing."

"I didn't mean any disrespect," she said indignantly.

"Yeah, well, it sounded like that."

"Calm down, Bob," Martha said. "I'm sorry."

"Sure," he said. "The sideline generals are always sorry. I lost my wife and my legs to a military miscalculation. It's bad, but it's like everything else. Real easy to quarterback when you're watching the game tapes, not so easy when you're on the field."

"I never said any of this was easy," Martha said. She drummed her long, rounded nails on the desk. "Want to see if we can get back to fighting the enemy?"

"Yeah, okay." Herbert sucked down a breath. "I've gotta think this whole thing through."

"Let's start with some hypotheses," Martha said. "Suppose Mike hurt or killed one of his captors. There will be repercussions."

"Correct," Herbert said. "The question is, against who?"

"Would it be against one of the hostages?"

"Not necessarily," Herbert said. "There are three options. First of all, they won't kill Mike. Even if they don't know his military rank, they've got to know he's the leader. He's a valuable hostage and they'll want to hold onto him. Though they may torture him as an example to the others not to try to escape. That rarely works, though. You watch someone beat a fellow prisoner, it scares you into wanting to get away." Herbert laid his neck back on the barbershop-style headrest. "That leaves two other possibilities. If a terrorist was killed in the exchange, they may execute one of the hostages. They'd select the person by lot, the short straw drawing the bullet in the back of the head. Mike would be forbidden from participating, though he'd be forced to watch the murder."

"Jesus," Martha said.

"Yeah, that's a rough one," Herbert said. "But it also breeds a sense of resistance among hostages. Terrorists tend to use it only when they want to send a body back to someone, to show that they mean business. So far, no one but us has been notified that anyone's taken our team hostage."

"Then scenario number two is unlikely," Martha said hopefully.

Herbert nodded. "But the terrorists can't let an escape attempt go unpunished. So what do they do? They go to option three, which is an old favorite of Middle Eastern terrorists. They hit a target of equal importance to the hit they took. In other words, if a lieutenant was killed, they take out a lieutenant somewhere else. If a nonmilitary leader was killed, they go after a political figure."

Martha stopped drumming. "If the Kurds are behind this whole operation, they don't have many quick-strike options."

"Correct again," said Herbert. "We don't think they've infiltrated any of our bases overseas, and even if they had, they wouldn't show their hand. for something like this. They'd probably hit an embassy."

"They've got the greatest numbers of followers in Turkey, Syria, Germany, and Switzerland," Martha said. She looked sharply at Herbert. "Would they know about Paul's trip?"

"Damascus has been informed," Herbert said, "but it won't be announced publicly until he lands in London." Herbert began wheeling toward the door. "If Damascus knows, the Kurds may also know. I'm going to inform Paul and also warn our embassies in Europe and the Middle East."

"I'll handle the Middle Eastern embassies," Martha said. "And Bob? I'm sorry about before. I really didn't mean any disrespect to Mike."

"I know," Herbert said. "But that isn't the same as showing him respect."

He left, leaving Martha wondering why she'd bothered.

Because they put you in charge here, that's why, she told herself. Diplomacy wasn't supposed to be pleasant, just effective.

Calling her assistant Aurora, Martha put everything but the safety of American diplomats from her mind as she had the young woman begin placing overseas calls, beginning with Ankara and Istanbul.

* * *

THIRTY