“You heard it happen? What does that even mean?” Hammond asked, his headache getting worse.
“He called me,” Pierre explained. “But he didn’t talk. It was as if he knew he was going to get caught and wanted to let someone know.”
Hammond supposed this could be true. Pierre’s number was one of the two numbers he had preprogrammed into the phone. This was certainly not the way he had envisioned the operation going, but maybe there was a way to salvage it.
Hammond put the call on speaker and logged into the special account the NSA had developed for him. From this account, he was able to monitor the whereabouts of all the cell phones attached to it. It worked like a regular Find My Phone application, but more secure. White’s phone pinged back from a small alleyway six blocks away from his hotel.
“Do you know where he’s been taken? I see his phone is in an alley—”
Pierre cut him off. “Whoever took him left his phone behind. Or maybe your man left it there deliberately. I don’t know.”
“Shit,” Hammond said, turning off the speaker mode.
“What do you want me to do?”
Although he had sent White to Cape Town under false pretenses, the pattern of life White was supposed to establish on Roy Oxley was crucial for the CIA paramilitary team tasked with White’s rescue. Without it, the team would be going in blind. Heck, they didn’t even know where to go. With so many members of Oxley International Security in and around Cape Town and Kommetjie, the CIA chief of station would never green-light a covert rescue operation. It didn’t matter that the station chief owed Hammond his career; he wouldn’t sacrifice his men on such a shitshow operation. Not until they had something concrete to go on.
Damn it. Hammond was doing his best to control his anger. He didn’t want to show Veronica how desperate he was. He glanced at her. She hadn’t moved a muscle since the beginning of his call. He wasn’t even sure she was still breathing.
Hammond closed his eyes. He couldn’t believe that Pierre Sarazin, a French double agent, was his only chance.
“Find him, and once you do, report back to me,” Hammond said. “And, Pierre?”
“Yes?”
“After this operation, you’re done for good. You’ll be off the hook. And I’ll quadruple the amount that was deposited in your Cayman Islands account. Just get this done.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Kommetjie, South Africa
White kept his eyes shut as he tried to block the pain that dominated all his senses. He felt as if his head was going to explode. He tried to open one eye, just to figure out where he was, but the effort was too much. His eyelid had never felt so heavy. He tried to stay conscious, but despite his best efforts, he smoothly slipped into a lethargic inertia again.
The drugs, he thought, remembering the stabbing pain in his neck. It’s the damn drugs.
He didn’t know how much time had passed, but when he came to a second time, the searing pain in his head had lessened to a distant throb. His neck was bent forward, straining his muscles. His chin was touching his chest. A thick drool of saliva oozed from the right corner of his mouth. He couldn’t move his legs, nor his arms. He opened one eye. Then the other. A weak light filled his vision, and it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust and focus.
He cast his gaze around. He was tied to a chair in the center of what seemed to be a wine-tasting room. There was a high vaulted ceiling with dark wooden beams. The walls were lined with oak barrels and huge canvases showcasing the South African landscape. One whole wall was made with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked down on the vineyards. Although night had fallen, powerful lights illuminated the hills outside. Seated around a high table at the opposite end of the tasting room, White recognized four of the men he’d fought in the alleyway. At least two were armed, their shoulder holsters visible.
“What do you think, Mr. White?” a man asked from behind, a slight, almost nonexistent British accent in his voice. “Do you enjoy wine?”
White tried to reply, but his tongue was swollen and his mouth was dry. He tried to move his legs, but they were bound together with heavy tape around the ankles. He was belted to the chair with a leather strap, and his arms were fastened to the armrests with the same black tape.
White heard the man’s confident footsteps behind him. They were neither quick nor slow. It was as if the man had all the time in the world, utterly unafraid of the legal consequences of having a man tied to a chair in his warehouse.
“You did quite a number on my men,” he said, entering White’s field of vision from the right. “One of them is still at the hospital, and another one has an appointment to see my dentist tomorrow. I have a feeling his dental bill will be hefty.”