The Freedom Broker (Thea Paris #1)(48)
Lies, lies, lies.
Empathy overwhelmed her. Nikos had been through sheer hell, and perhaps her father had misguidedly tried to protect her from the horrific truth. She’d participated in numerous hostage debriefings. The horrors of captivity were never easy to handle, but this one hit her especially hard. This was her brother, her rock after their mother died.
Nikos had never been the same after he returned. The first few days he was awkward and withdrawn. And really angry. Lots of doors slamming, yelling, outbursts. Allison, their nanny, had abruptly left two months after Nikos came home; then her brother had been sent away to a school in Utah for troubled kids.
Her world had become smaller and smaller as the people she cared about went away. She called her brother every Sunday, but she always got the feeling he was holding back from telling her how miserable he was. She’d wanted Nikos home with her full time. But when he’d return for holidays, he’d act withdrawn, dark, almost a stranger. Being around Papa seemed to set him off.
And the whole mess had started when Nikos had been kidnapped from her bedroom, in her place.
She wondered again who had given her this packet. Nikos himself? Possibly, but would he want to share that a psychiatrist had diagnosed him with a personality disorder? And all that torture . . .
Shaking off the shock, she turned her focus back to Papa. There’d be time later to sift through this avalanche of emotions, but not now. Nikos was back home, safe. Her father wasn’t.
Papa’s nightmare was only beginning. The man who revered power and control over everything had lost both. How would he cope? Captives often blamed themselves for their predicament. If only I hadn’t used that route to work. If only I hadn’t let down my guard. Especially with men, the inability to stand up to their captors and fight could lead to unbearable frustration, shame, a sense of inadequacy. A power broker such as Papa would struggle even more with this impotency.
Instead of taking action, hostages had to find a way to endure if they wanted to survive—to endure deprivation, psychological and/or physical torture, forced submissiveness, and not knowing if they’d ever return home.
Knowing Papa and his pride, he’d refuse to capitulate to the kidnappers, and that didn’t bode well for him. Would he be tortured? Look at what had happened to poor Nikos.
She leaned over, head in her hands, trying to process the horrors her brother had endured. A strong arm rested on her shoulder. Rif’s.
She quickly shoved the papers into her bag. Rif had never gotten along with her brother. Maybe he’d feel differently about Nikos if he knew the truth—or did he already? But she couldn’t delve into that now. Peter was right there, for one thing, and she had no interest in sharing anything personal with the CFO. And Rif could barely tolerate him.
“You okay?” Rif asked.
“Just exhausted. Nothing that a shot of espresso won’t cure.”
“Why don’t you take a hot shower? Relax for a bit.” Peter placed his pen on the thick stack of papers in front of him.
Rif’s fingers tightened around her shoulder.
“No thanks. We land in less than an hour, and I have plenty to do.” She headed for the espresso machine. Before she could reach it, her cell beeped. She scanned the message. Freddy. “A team searched Henri’s apartment, and they found an encrypted satphone,” she reported. “The last number dialed was a location in Kanzi.” Adrenaline jolted through her veins. Maybe she didn’t need the caffeine after all. A potential lead did wonders to stoke the embers of her energy.
“The chef was in on the kidnapping?” the CFO asked.
Rif’s lips tightened—he didn’t trust Peter. Well, neither did she, but she wanted to gauge his potential involvement by assessing his micro-expressions when she shared non-critical information. “Looks like Henri might have been the inside man, or at least one of them.”
“He seemed so devoted to Christos. It’s hard to believe,” Peter said.
“People have their motivations.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start if I wanted to kidnap someone. I guess you’d need a large team to pull off such an elaborate operation as this abduction.” Peter looked thoughtful.
“Definitely.” It did take a large group, but probably not in the way Peter thought. There were usually several specialized cells that didn’t know about each other: an abduction team, a transport team, a negotiation team, guards to look after the hostage, and a command center acting as the brain to coordinate everything.
“Is it structured like a corporation?” Peter asked.
“Kind of.” More like a terrorist organization, really, with only the brain knowing the entire operation. That way, if any of the cells were compromised, they’d have no information about the others.
“Must be expensive.”
“It is, but the payoff can be well worth the trouble. Kidnapping’s become a lucrative business in many poor countries. Loads of displaced former military and police factions are resorting to it as a way to make a living. You ever had a close call?” She slipped in the question.
“No, I prefer to stay in the boardroom crunching numbers. I let the bodyguards handle my security.” Peter doodled on his notepad, then looked up. “If money is the main motivator, that’s good news for Christos, right? He has plenty of K-and-R insurance.”