“What do you mean you’re not sure? You tell me to get on a plane to Beirut and that’s it?”

“Yes, that’s it. You’re my wife. You do as I say.”

“No, Ishaq. Tell me when I’m going to hear from you again or I’m not getting on that plane.”

“I’ll call tomorrow night.”

“When?”

“When it’s convenient.”

“No, not when it’s convenient. I want to know when you’re going to call.”

“Nine-thirty.”

“Whose time, yours or mine?”

“Nine-thirty Copenhagen time.”

“At nine thirty-one, I stop answering the phone. Do you understand me, Ishaq?”

“I have to go now, Hanifah.”

“Ishaq, wait.”

“I love you, Hanifah.”

“Ishaq—”

Click.

“What have you done, Ishaq? My God, what have you done?”

STOP. REWIND. PLAY.

“I want to know when you’re going to call.”

“Nine-thirty.”

“Who’s time, yours or mine?”

“Nine-thirty Copenhagen time.”

“At nine thirty-one, I stop answering the phone. Do you understand me, Ishaq?”

STOP.

Gabriel looked at Mordecai. “I’m going to listen to the spot where Ishaq asks Hanifah to go get the tickets and money. Can you turn down the room coverage so I can hear only Ishaq?”

Mordecai nodded and did as Gabriel asked. The interlude was twenty-three seconds. Gabriel listened to it three times, then removed his headphones and looked at Sarah.

“Tell Adrian not to wait for NSA,” he said. “Tell him that Ishaq is calling from a highway rest stop in Germany—the northwest, judging by the accents of the people I can hear in the background. Tell him he’s traveling with at least one other man. They’re moving her around in a cargo truck or a transit van. He won’t be stopping again for several hours. He just filled the tank with gas.”

Chapter 34

34

ABOVE COLORADO: 3:28 P.M., TUESDAY

The Falcon 2000 executive jet began to pitch as it sank into the storm clouds above the plains of eastern Colorado. Lawrence Strauss removed his reading glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. One of Washington’s most powerful lawyers, he was a nervous flier by nature and avoided planes whenever he could—especially private planes, which he regarded as little more than death traps with wings. Given the nature of his current case, Strauss’s client had mandated he fly from Washington, D.C., to Colorado on a borrowed jet under conditions of extreme secrecy. Usually Lawrence Strauss didn’t permit clients to dictate his personal schedule or method of travel, but in this case he had made an exception. The client was a personal friend who also happened to be the president of the United States—and the mission he had given Strauss was so sensitive that only the president and his attorney general knew it existed.