Snowfall at Willow Lake. Сьюзен Виггс

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ said the Frenchman. “Do not touch her. Get away.”

      Sophie ignored him. She found that it was possible to ignore everything, including the fact that a murderer had a gun pointed at her. She kept her focus, pressing a wad of linen napkins to the wound. Somehow, the close-range shot had failed to kill her. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to.

      “Get away now,” the man ordered.

      Sophie didn’t look up. Something possessed her. Not courage or some high sense of compassion or outrage. Instead it was the absolute conviction that she could not abide one more killing. Even if they shot her.

      They didn’t shoot her, but the African boy pulled her away from Fatou. The men issued orders for everyone to stay on the floor. Some of the others were closing doors, locking them from within. We’re hostages, she thought. We’ve been taken hostage. The big Frenchman and the blond man who had been serving champagne earlier got into an argument over whether to stay and negotiate or flee with a human shield.

      Sophie had undergone mandatory violence-prevention training, and the class had addressed hostage taking. Like everything else in her field of work, there was an acronym. The trouble was, she couldn’t remember it. E-I-S … something. E-evaluate the situation. That was easy. The situation was bad. Extremely bad. I-isolate. As in, isolate the perpetrator. After that, she drew a blank.

      She did recall learning that while it was politically popular to declare you didn’t bargain with terrorists or extremists, it was also extremely risky. In a hostage situation, one of the key strategies was to buy time, and another was to foster divisiveness among the hostage takers. They were already doing this on their own, which she took as a good sign. She alone was still standing, with the fearful, dangerous boy holding her. Brooks Fordham appeared to be on the verge of saying something. The moment he glanced her way, she gave the barest shake of her head. No.

      One of the caterers noticed the reporter looking around the room, and delivered a kick to the head with emotionless dispatch. Brooks made no sound as he fell still. Tariq exhorted the thugs in Arabic, earning the same response, his beautiful face shattered by the toe of a large boot. Sophie felt dizzy with the urge to throw up.

      At the same time, she felt a crushing, overwhelming sense of futility. She and dozens of others had given everything they had to restoring peace and justice, but ultimately, people were still being bullied and killed. André lay dead in the courtyard. Staring numbly at Fatou, Sophie realized she’d been fooling herself thinking she was making a difference in the world. Greed and evil were tireless enemies. The larger truth was that nothing—no amount of sacrifice or diplomacy—could stop the killing and rid the world of people like this.

      She guessed that the French-speaking African was a cohort of General Timi Abacha who, with the diamond merchant Serge Henger, had fled the prosecution of the ICC. So, although the media would probably see these men as terrorists, fanatically devoted to a cause, Sophie knew better. This wasn’t about anyone’s ideals or sense of justice. It was not even about revenge. It was about money. Not a belief system or family or patriotism. Their “cause” was simple greed. The action of the court and the enforcement of UN troops had deprived them of their fortune, and they wanted it back.

      In a way, this made the situation simple. A transaction.

      “Taking children hostage is only going to make you hated and hunted by the world. You don’t want the world to hate you,” she said. Her jaw ached from the blow she’d taken, making it hard to speak. “You just want what was taken from you.”

      “We are clear on what we want.” The blond Dutchman checked the chamber of the pistol he’d taken from a security agent.

      “Then be clear on how to get it,” Sophie stated. Was this her speaking up? Negotiating with terrorists? “You’re not stupid. You’ve gotten this far. You can leave now without incident.”

      The man stared at her. Then his eyes glittered and he smiled at her, his mouth curving like a cold slice of moon. “And Madame Bellamy, we are familiar with you.”

      Dear Lord. They knew who she was. They probably knew she was a member of the prosecution team. She felt the color drop from her face, though she struggled to show no reaction. “As familiar as you are with the Kuumba Mine case,” he added, “and with the process of setting up accounting in a country with no laws of extradition.” Faintly, from a distance, the two-toned sound of sirens drifted into the room. Their predicament flashed through her mind like lightning. If they stayed here, there would be a standoff—until it deteriorated into a shoot-out.

      “None of this will matter,” she told him, “if you allow yourselves to be trapped here.”

      The ring of a cell phone sounded, causing Sophie’s captor to tense, reminding her that she was a trigger-squeeze between life and death. One of the men she had noticed earlier—the name Karl stitched on his catering livery—rifled through the jacket of a fallen security agent and took out a mobile phone. He glanced at the Dutchman, then answered. She strained to hear, but he was speaking Dutch in a low, rapid voice.

      “You don’t need a group of hostages,” she said to the men with her. “In fact, you should go now, while you still can. If you try to stay here and bargain for your fortune, you’ll fail.” She looked from one man to the other. “These things always end badly.”

      The next rapid exchange took place in the Umojan dialect. Sophie was nominally familiar with it but she couldn’t catch what was being said. The African gave an order and the men dressed as caterers made for the door. The Dutchman went to the attaché, handed him a mobile phone. The shiny-eyed boy with Sophie kept hold of her upper arm, yanking her forward.

      She balked, tried to pull away, but the boy held her fast. The African turned to her. “Madame, you must come with me.”

      She looked up into his face and saw no humanity there. Only cold determination. It dawned on Sophie that she made the ideal hostage. She was easily outmatched, unarmed, defenseless. Yet she spoke multiple languages and was known in diplomatic circles, thus adding to her value as a bargaining chip.

      She briefly considered putting up a fight here and now. She could feel the attaché urging her, and knew he would take action. She also knew that would get him killed.

      Seconds later, she found herself in a haze of numbness, being shoved into one of the catering vans. I’m so sorry, she thought, wishing there was a way to beam the silent message to her children. She was in the hands of murderers. She had all but guaranteed she would be taken from her children. They would survive. Despite her faults as a mother, she knew they were smart and sturdy—survivors. Perhaps she hadn’t been much of a mother, but at least she’d given them that.

      It was still snowing outside. She was crammed into the front seat of the van with the Dutchman and the African boy. Her legs were awkwardly canted to one side of the stick shift. Her captors didn’t bother restraining her, no doubt—and correctly—deeming her no physical threat.

      Four more conspirators crowded into the back, protesting in French and Dutch. The entire operation had gone awry, Sophie gathered, because she had alerted security. From their agitated talk, she gleaned that their plan had been to barricade themselves in the building, demanding the restoration of their impounded fortune and their safe transit to Africa. “We leave with nothing, nothing,” groused a reedy voice.

      “You leave with your life,” the driver snapped. “That is something.”

      “And a life insurance policy,” said someone else.

      To СКАЧАТЬ