speaking with DS Tyson. Tyson was nodding gravely. She wanted to know what they were talking about. “And what about the EMTs… the ahh… paramedics? You’ve spoken to them?”
“They were just finishing their shift when they picked Molly up. We’ve managed to interview one of them, and before you ask, yes, his account matches Mrs Foster’s.”
“Do you have CCTV footage from inside the hotel?”
“It’s a small, family-run establishment. Three star. They don’t have cameras recording their guests’ every move.” He beckoned to his detective sergeant and tapped a finger against his wristwatch. “I suggest you resolve your issues sooner rather than later with Major Gurley. I see no point in you replicating each other’s duties.”
Ingrid watched as Tyson shook Gurley’s hand, then hurried toward his senior officer. Gurley disappeared into the mens’ restroom.
Radcliffe handed her a scrap of paper. “The hotel is only about five minutes away on foot,” he told her. “Ask for Brian, he’s the Crime Scene Manager. He’ll walk you through events, as we understand them, in situ. Help you to picture what happened.” He glanced down at the note. “Pass that on to Gurley if he’s got the gig, would you? I don’t want to be endlessly repeating myself.” He gave what seemed to Ingrid a reluctant smile and briskly walked away.
Ingrid seized her moment. She snatched her cell phone from her purse and called her immediate boss at the embassy, Assistant Deputy Chief Sol Franklin.
“Hey, Sol. Do you have a couple minutes?” she asked as soon as he picked up.
“For you…?”
“What do you know about this case in Bloomsbury?”
“The Air Force guy who ran amok?”
“I feel like I’ve walked into it completely blind. The intel I got from the Met was severely lacking, to say the least. I get the feeling they were surprised I even showed up.”
“Have you met Major Gurley yet?”
“You know about him?”
There was an extended pause. “I didn’t know in time to warn you, if that’s what you mean. I only just got off the phone from the Legal Attaché himself.”
“You did?” Sol hardly ever spoke to the head of the FBI program at the embassy. He normally received his instructions from his next in command, Deputy Chief Louden.
What the hell was going on?
“You’re telling me the Legat is involved with this investigation personally?”
“He just got off the phone from the Pentagon. I gather there was a rather fraught—my word, not the Legat’s—discussion with the Chief of Staff of the Air Force.”
The Legal Attaché and the Chief of Staff? With such big hitters taking a personal interest in the case, Ingrid was surprised Sol hadn’t taken it on himself. “Listen, I realize you can’t give me all the details of your conversation, so I’m not even going to ask, but can you at least tell me who should be liaising with the cops here?”
Another pause.
“Sol—just spit it out. If I’m off the case, I’m off the case. I can live with that.”
“That would be far too straighforward.”
“I don’t understand.” Ingrid kept her eyes peeled on the door to the men’s restroom. She wanted to get this resolved before Gurley reappeared.
“A US pilot on the run in a host nation doesn’t look that good… politically.”
“Politically? Maybe I would give a crap if a fourteen-month-old girl wasn’t in a coma and an eight-year-old boy hadn’t been abducted.” She turned around and started walking, concerned if she stayed still a moment longer she might feel the need to punch somebody.
“You don’t need to get involved with all the political BS,” Sol said. “That’s my job.”
“So why are you even telling me about it?”
“Because I need to explain the strategy the Legal Attaché and the Air Force big cheese cooked up between them.”
Ingrid didn’t like where she thought this might be heading. She pulled up abruptly.
“You and Major Gurley better start to play nice with one another. You’ve got to work together on this. Show a US government united front.”
Ingrid let out a groan. “I’m not taking orders from that arrogant son of a—”
“You don’t have to.”
“As much pleasure as it might give me telling him what to do, I don’t think he’d agree to follow my orders either.”
“Working together, didn’t I say? You’re going to cooperate with one another. Gurley has his chain of command, you have yours. But on the ground you two liaise with the local cops as a team.”
“I like to work alone.”
“I don’t care. My hands are tied on this one.”
“For God’s sake, Sol.”
“No point in arguing. Just don’t let