“I’m going to see the ambassador. I’ll be back.”
“Wait a minute. You need help?”
“I’m fine. Hold down the fort.”
He joined Volman, who was outside the gate, standing next to a new powder-blue Mustang convertible. The night air was cooler than he’d expected.
“Is this your car?” Crocker asked, climbing into the passenger seat.
“My mother gave it to me as a birthday present. She’s Hungarian”—as though that explained why he was driving something so conspicuous.
Volman drove like a wild man, way too fast and barely maintaining control, almost slamming into the back of a truck that had stalled on the road. As he swerved around it he started to shout over the engine noise about their destination, Janzour, a few kilometers west of Tripoli. How it was home to an equestrian academy, olive, lemon, orange, and fig orchards, and a Punic tomb discovered in the nineteen fifties.
Crocker wasn’t paying attention. He was wrestling with the incredible tension he was feeling and trying to imagine what he could do to save his wife.
“The Punics were Phoenician settlers who were based in Carthage, which was in Tunisia, to our west,” Volman continued. “They were traders who were eventually wiped out by the Romans before the birth of Christ.”
Sirens wailed behind them, only adding to Crocker’s anxiety.
“You should visit it sometime—a beautifully preserved burial room decorated with frescoes of women, antelopes, and lions.”
Crocker realized they were leaving the city. He said, “Hey, Volman, where the hell are we going?”
“I told you. Palm City, in Janzour.”
The speedometer had drifted past ninety. The air carried a whiff of salt from the ocean, combined with a citrusy scent.
“Why?”
“Because that’s where the French ambassador lives, and Saltzman is attending a party at his house.”
As they sped along the coast, Volman talked about how developers from Malta, the UK, and Italy had selected this area in the late nineties for the development of luxury expat communities. The newest and most elegant of these was Palm City, a secure enclave of over four hundred units with its own private beach, tennis courts, and swimming pools, right on the coast.
Crocker, meanwhile, was focused on names and faces flashing in his head—Brian Shaw, Farhed Alizadeh, Major Ostrowski, Dr. Jabril. As he sat wondering if there was some way they fit together into an explanation of what was going on and what had happened to Holly, he became aware of the car stopping in front of a guard station.
Volman reached into his pocket and said, “I forgot something.”
“What’s that?”
He handed Crocker a folded envelope. Inside was a letter from Dr. Jabril. It read:
Dear Mr. Crocker:
I am leaving Libya today with Mr. Lasher, before the work we were doing is finished. First, I apologize for that. Then, I want to thank you and your brave men for saving my life. Finally, I ask you to please complete the job we started. It is very important that you visit the nuclear facility at Tajoura, because this was the destination of the UF6. Talk to the man who runs the facility. His name is Dr. Salehi. Also, inspect the facility to determine what the UF6 was used for. It is critical that you do this.
Thank you again and God bless you,
Dr. Amadou Jabril
Crocker stuffed the letter in his pocket as they pulled into the driveway of a sand-colored townhouse.
“This is my place,” Volman announced.
“Saltzman is here?”
“No.”
“What the fuck…”
“Like I said, he’s at a dinner party at the French ambassador’s house, which is also in Palm City. You can walk there from here. I’ll show you the way. Calm down.”
“I can’t.”
“I’ve got to change. Help yourself to something from the kitchen or the bar.”
“You know anything else about the ransom offer?”
“No. I’ll be right back.”
It was a modern place, decorated in bland tones of beige and brown. Pleasant and comfortable, but Crocker didn’t want to be there.
He reminded himself that Volman was trying to be helpful. A sad song by one of Holly’s favorite composers, Antônio Carlos Jobim, played on the stereo. Everywhere he went he seemed to find reminders of his wife.
He wanted to move, do something. But what?
The French ambassador’s residence was a five-minute walk away, in one of the compound’s luxury villas. Volman explained that many of the residents, predominantly foreigners, had fled during the war. Those who hadn’t already departed had left abruptly in late November of the previous year, when militiamen from the Misurata Brigade tried to take over the compound. They engaged in a firefight with some of the compound guards and eventually ran off when soldiers from the Tripoli Brigade were dispatched by the NTC.