From his place next to me, Quinn didn’t say Fuck so much as breathed it. He closed his eyes and shook his head, grinding his teeth.
I stared at the carpet, quickly debating and discarding potential plans of action. I said and thought at the same time, “I have to go over there. I have to get him.”
“That’s not advisable.” I heard Spenser shift in his seat, his voice lower, as though he didn’t want to be overheard. “Your discharge contract with the CIA is standard, and mandates you’re disallowed from foreign travel without State Department clearance. I can guarantee, you will not be given clearance for travel to Nigeria.”
“How can you guarantee that, Spenser?”
“Because I would personally make sure of it,” he replied, sounding determined, and not even a little sorry.
I gritted my teeth and breathed in and out through my nose. “Spense—”
“And even if you were eventually given the okay, it would take months. If you disregard the terms of your contract, you will be arrested and held for treason.”
I heard his words, I understood his meaning, but I also knew I gave no fucks about what the CIA, or the State Department, or Spenser Banks said I could or could not do.
I was going to Nigeria.
I was going to rescue my husband.
And no one would be able to stop me.
***
“Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea rank fifth in kidnappings of oil workers.” Dan set a hot cup of coffee in front of me and claimed the chair at my right.
Elizabeth pushed the cup of coffee away from me. “She doesn’t need that. She needs food.”
“It’s decaf.” Dan pushed the cup back within my reach. “And, I know nobody asked me, but if I were in her situation I’d be a basket case, looking for something a lot stronger than coffee.”
The four of us—Dan, Quinn, Elizabeth, and I—were at Dan’s place. Elizabeth insisted on staying with me; she’d been monitoring my heart rate and blood pressure since I fell to my knees in her apartment. Dan also lived in the same building as Quinn and Janie, Nico and Elizabeth, and Alex and Sandra. It made sense, since Quinn’s company owned the building, or at least part of it.
I nodded, ignoring Elizabeth and Dan’s squabble, and processed the information about the kidnapping statistics. I knew Nigeria ranked in the top ten, but I had no idea they were so high on the list. I hadn’t been keeping up with the CIA factsheets, having traded global crises for kid crises nine years ago, upon discovering I was pregnant with Jack.
“I thought Boko Haram had been marginalized over the last year.” Quinn sat on Dan’s other side. He’d refused a cup of coffee in favor of a glass of whiskey.
Boko Haram was a terrorist group that had infiltrated Nigeria, easily done since the government had been riddled with corruption fueled by oil money.
That was, until recently.
Dan shrugged. “Yes and no. Buhari has been effective in driving them back and mostly out of Nigeria, but they still have their hands in things, at least that’s what my contacts in the Agency tell me.”
Buhari—aka President Muhammadu Buhari—had vowed to crush Boko Haram when he took office in Nigeria. Furthermore, rumor had it he was determined to clean up the oil industry.
I hated being out of the loop, being the least knowledgeable person in the room. I had to remind myself that Quinn and Dan lived and breathed these topics every day. International corporate security was their business. When I was a field agent, national security was my every day.
Now my every day was folding laundry, kissing boo-boos, and working on engineering schematics in the middle of the night.
“I don’t think this is Boko Haram.” Quinn’s mouth flattened into a grim line. “They haven’t been behind any of the recent kidnappings, their numbers are dwindling. It’s been mostly pirates and privateers holding foreigners for ransom.”
It didn’t matter to me who had Greg. The issue wasn’t the who or the why.
I placed both my hands flat on the table. “We need a plan. How are we going to get me into Nigeria?”
Quinn and Elizabeth traded a look while Dan studied the contents of his coffee cup.
Quinn twisted his whiskey glass in what I recognized as a nervous habit. “Fiona, look—”
“No.” I shook my head. “We’re not wasting time discussing whether I should go. I’m going. Now, how are you getting me into the country?”
Silence stretched, and was only broken by a knock on the front door. Dan sighed and stood, walking to the entranceway to see who was in the hall. He returned a moment later with Alex trailing after him.
Alex started talking as soon as we came into view. “How far have you gotten? Because according to the CIA intel sheet, it’s not Boko Haram, if that’s what you’re thinking. CIA thinks they were taken by a corrupt faction of the government.” Alex sat at the table, taking the spot across from me, and opened his laptop.
Alex the hacker, getting down to business. His perfunctory attitude made me smirk. I really liked this kid.