9. Phae
Phae
“W e have three days,” Priest said. “A little less if we consider the timing of any potential rescue—clearly, we’d prefer to avoid storming a building in broad daylight.”
“Divide and conquer,” Emmy muttered. “The software version, not the dictator version.”
Right. Split the big problem up into smaller, more manageable tasks.
“We have several witnesses at the hospital who still need to be interviewed, a government to liaise with, and hostages to locate. Plus we should try to speak with the developer who owns this place, and maybe the activists at Wild Roots too.”
Heath’s eyebrows winged up. “I thought the US government didn’t negotiate with terrorists?”
That wasn’t strictly true. Sometimes we negotiated, if we thought it would give us an advantage. And sometimes we stabbed them in the back afterward.
“We’re here in more of an informal capacity, and the group has its DMs open on BuzzHub.” Every reporter in the world was probably sliding into their inbox as we spoke. “You go to the hospital with Rix, see what you can find out.”
Wait a minute…
“I can go to the hospital.” The unquestioned survivors were the best potential lead we had, and I needed to do something other than stand around on the beach. “I have an excellent bedside manner.”
Priest sighed. “These are witnesses, not suspects, my dear. I have another job for you.”
“Which is?”
“Work with Emmy to find the developer and convince him to be our backup plan. His name is Lonnie McDonald, and his office is in New York.”
Was he kidding me? “You want me to go back to the United States?”
“If that’s where he is.”
“Surely there’s a better use for my skill set on this job?”
“Soft skills are important too. Lonnie McDonald is an arrogant son of a bitch, and the consensus is that he’d be more likely to cooperate as a favour for a woman than if a peer or a government official tried to cajole, shame, or strong-arm him into cooperating.”
Emmy nodded as Priest spoke. “McDonald has no shame, and he sees kindness as weakness. His first question will be, ‘What’s in it for me?’”
“I trust the two of you will come up with an answer. Plus you’ll need to get past his entourage—he never travels anywhere without bodyguards.”
The bodyguards wouldn’t be a problem, but Priest’s plan sucked. And I couldn’t even argue, not without having to explain my connection to Marc, because sending me to find a man’s weak spots and apply pressure in the right place made perfect sense.
“Or you could switch places with Jez and take point for any rescue?” Priest offered congenially.
Damn him. The only thing worse than being thousands of miles away would be sharing air with Marc. This was the downside of being part of a tight-knit team—he knew how to push my buttons.
“Fine, I’ll go,” I answered politely, when what I really wanted to do was tell him to go fuck himself.
“Terrific. Jez, you look at potential rescue scenarios with Mimi and Sinaga—we might need to source additional transportation and equipment. I’ll work with the wider team on getting you a location.”
“You want to take my jet or yours?” Emmy asked.
“Yours.”
I should leave ours available for Sin. And okay, maybe I wanted to try sipping my water from fancy crystal instead of a plastic cup.
“Then let’s go.”
* * *
Blackwood’s jet might have been bigger than ours, but too much space was taken up by pointless shit—the ice machine in the galley, the closet full of designer clothes, the oversized shower stall in the luxury bathroom. So the space available for cargo was roughly the same.
The airplane was stationary on the tarmac in Sorong, and we were using it as an office while we worked out our final destination. The only certainty right now? Lonnie McDonald wasn’t on Malati.
The authorities had tried getting in touch, but he hadn’t returned their calls.
His cell phone was in New York, his wife was rumoured to be in Milan, his mistress was posting Instagram selfies from Paris, and we’d just found his jet in Perth.
Perth, Western Australia, not Perth, Scotland.
The cell was the obvious clue, but neither of us wanted to go steaming off across continents if he had a second phone we didn’t yet know about.
I changed my number like most people changed their underwear.
Emmy had three phones, but she’d only brought two of them with her, and one of those was diverted to an assistant.
She hung up her call. “A team from our New York office is going to get us an answer. Lonnie’s a real bellend, by the way.”
“Are you speaking from personal experience?”
“Unfortunately. I only met him once, at some gala, and he wasn’t there for long.”
“Why do you say he’s a bellend? That’s British for ‘douchebag,’ right?”
“Right. He shook Black’s hand—one of those too-tight, my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours efforts—and then he kissed me on both cheeks, French-style.
But there was no way his filthy little fingers needed to be that close to my ass, and he spent a good part of the conversation bitching about European democracy. Drink?”
“Non-alcoholic?”
“Of course.”
“Do you have OJ?”
“Sure.” Emmy headed for the galley, and I was surprised she didn’t have a crew member to take care of it for her. “Anyhow, that was when I dropped a laxative into his Scotch. I’m not sure what he’d been eating, but they had to call a cleaning crew after he vacated the bathroom.”
Okay, that was actually pretty funny and definitely something I would have done.
“I hope they got paid well.”
“I left them a tip. Ice?”
“No, thanks. Funny how his wife is in Italy if he hates Europe.”
“He hates fair taxes, not the Corso Venezia. He kept going on about how ‘None of them uppity Europeans understand the free market. Too many rules.’”
“Does he understand that Europe is, like, fifty countries?”
“I don’t think so. Plus it’s more difficult to buy politicians in most of Europe.”
“With your money, I’m surprised you don’t own half of Congress.”
“Bold of you to assume I don’t.”
“So you do?”
Emmy studied me for a long moment. “Off the record?”
“Off the record.”
“You don’t need to own half of Congress to make a difference—a few strategically chosen assholes will do. And blackmail is cheaper than bribery.”
“So the kompromat rumours are true?”
“I couldn’t possibly say.”
“What do you have on McDonald?”
“Not as much as we need, unfortunately. The mistress thing, but I’m reasonably sure his wife knows and doesn’t much care. I mean, if I was married to him, I’d be grateful to have the bed to myself. Plus he’s also well-versed in bribery. How do you think he got permission to build on Malati?”
“Could we go after the officials who took the bribes?”
“Yes, but picking apart that mess would take longer than three days.” She checked her watch. “Two and a half days. I’m gonna get a team to watch the jet. The wife too.” She’d already put the mistress under surveillance. “Where’s your money going?”
“Not the wife. New York or the mistress. But why is the jet in Perth?”
“I don’t think he’s with the mistress. She was out at some fancy club with a group of girlfriends until the early hours of yesterday, and if he flew in today, why not take his own plane?”
“So, the jet or New York?”
“I think so. We could charter another plane and take one each.”
“Divide and conquer, or spread ourselves thin?”
I wasn’t Emmy’s biggest fan, but she seemed competent in a professional capacity, and I’d grown to appreciate the benefits of teamwork.
She tapped away on her tablet. “Flight time from here to Perth is four hours, give or take.”
“Four hours in the wrong direction. If he’s in New York, we’re talking another twenty-four hours of travel. That’s cutting things mighty fine.”
“I don’t mind a gamble, but the odds are forty-forty-ten-ten. I don’t like those.”
“So we stay put until we get confirmation of his location?”
“We stay put.”