The call had rattled Elliott. He had been doing his final rounds before leaving for the day, but now he sat at his desk, thinking through his next moves. What he did now could well determine whether his people in Kenya lived or died—including one young woman in particular who was very special to him.
Elliott and his wife, Rose, had been blessed with two sons. One had died at the age of three in their pool. They had filled it in and planted a garden in its place as a memorial. The other son was an anesthesiologist in Austin, and they saw him a few times a year. Peyton was a regular at their home, however, and over the years, both Elliott and Rose had begun to think of her—to treat her—as if she were the daughter they’d never had.
He knew that the hours immediately after her abduction were the most crucial to ensuring her safe return, that acting quickly and decisively was the only way to protect her, to prevent any truly evil act from occurring.
His first call was to the National Reconnaissance Office, where his request was met with immediate resistance.
“We need that sat telemetry right now, you understand?” he said. “I’m going to hang up now and call State and people way above your pay grade. I’m going to mention your name. If telemetry isn’t available by the time I call you back, it will go badly for you.”
He wasn’t bluffing; he called the State Department next, and right after, his contact at the CIA.
The moment he hung up, his office phone rang. It was the director of the CDC. Elliott had instructed Millen to call the EOC and update them immediately after their call; apparently word of the crisis had now reached the top of the food chain.
“Did you call State, Elliott?”
“Yeah.” Elliott was typing on his computer, sending an email to Joe Ruto, head of CDC in Kenya, urging him to contact the Kenyans about any assets they had in the area.
“Did you threaten them, Elliott?”
“Uh, yeah. Maybe, I don’t know. Why?”
Elliott shifted the phone to his other shoulder so he could type faster.
“Because they just called me. They’re not happy.”
“Uh-huh. Is the White House going to approve the RDF?”
Elliott believed a Rapid Deployment Force scouring the area for Peyton and the other hostages was their best shot at getting them back; he had been working to make that exact scenario happen.
“They don’t even have a target yet,” the director said.
“Sure they do: the al-Shabaab camps in Somalia.”
“Be realistic, Elliott.”
“I am. Realistically, who do you think did this? There’s one terror network in the region: al-Shabaab. They hate America. We’ve got extremely high-value targets in the area. It’s them. They’ve got her.”
“Her?”
“Our people.”
The director exhaled. “Our people could be at any number of camps.”
“I agree. We hit them all at the same time. It’s the only way.”
“Jesus, Elliott. You want to start a ground war in southern Somalia?”
“I want to raid known terrorist camps in search of American hostages. Since when did this become a tough sell?”
A pause, then the director said, “Hang on a second.” Elliott heard mouse clicks. “All right, there’s a White House conference call in fifteen minutes—”
“I want to be on the call—”
“No, Elliott. It’s invite-only. The president and national security advisor are going to be there. Please don’t make any more calls. I know you’re worried. I am too. I’ll call you as soon as the conference ends, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Elliott slammed the phone down and sat, listening to his breathing for a long moment. A text popped up on his cell phone, which lay on his desk:
From: Rose
Message: Thinking of switching from Miller Union to Kyma. Okay with you?
Elliott tapped the phone and dialed his wife.
“We’re going to have to cancel dinner.”
Rose instantly read the tone of his voice. “What’s happened?”
“It’s Peyton.”
“Oh my God.”
Elliott avoided giving his wife all the details; he merely told her that Peyton and her team were out of contact, and they were trying to determine if it was a technical problem or something else. White lies had become a routine part of his job, especially during his time in the field, but they had been less common since his promotion and years at CDC HQ. He far preferred being honest with Rose, but now wasn’t the time for it.
Ten minutes later, an email appeared in Elliott’s inbox. The NRO had made the sat footage available.
Elliott clicked the link and watched as black-suited soldiers attacked the camp at dusk. The footage ended with soldiers hauling two women out of the back of an overturned SUV. They placed black bags over their heads and dragged them to a clearing, where a helicopter landed and took them away.
Elliott grabbed his office phone and dialed the NRO analyst, defying the CDC director’s order. “Where’d the helicopter go?”
“We don’t know. The area’s huge; we don’t have coverage over the whole thing.”
“Does the helicopter show up again—on another sat?”
“We don’t know—”
“What the hell do you mean, you don’t know?”
“It’s an unmarked Sikorsky. We can’t be sure it’s the same helicopter.”
“Do you have satellites over the al-Shabaab terror camps?”
The analyst hesitated.
“Do you?”
“That’s… classified, sir.”
“Classified? You’re seriously not going to tell me if you can see a similar helicopter landing at a terrorist base?”
“I could lose my job, sir.”
“Lose your job? Let me tell you something. Right now, some terrorist thug is torturing and possibly sexually assaulting American citizens—government employees serving our nation, just like you and me, men and women who put themselves in harm’s way to protect our families and our friends so we can go home tonight and sleep in safety. If you care about that at all, I want you to pull that footage from all those terror bases, and if you see that helicopter or anything else going on, please make a call. Let the national security advisor know, or whoever the hell you guys call. Will you do that?”
“Yes, sir, I will.”
Another text appeared on Elliott’s phone.
From: Rose
Message: Any news?
Elliott texted back.