Read Desperate Measures: A Mystery for Free Online

the planes carrying these shipments. Did you think they’d be set free?” Ash’s tone was hard. As if it wasn’t his wife they were talking about, and his sons; as if he wouldn’t have made the same choice himself.
    Graves gave a miserable shrug. “I didn’t know them. And I didn’t know they were going to die. Didn’t know for sure. And if they did, it would be thousands of miles away and I wouldn’t be watching. I’m sorry. It seemed a lesser evil than condemning one frightened woman and her children.”
    Another of those long, painful pauses. The white dog padded softly across the carpet; it took an effort of will for Graves to ignore her as she walked behind him.
    Ash said, “How do you know when the pirates want to talk to you?”
    Graves produced his mobile phone. “On this. They give me a time to be online in Cambridge.”
    “How did they get that number?”
    “They found it on the paperwork when they hijacked one of my shipments.”
    “And you really have no way of contacting them?”
    Graves shook his head. “They route the calls through different servers in different parts of the world. I don’t think an expert could find them. I know I couldn’t.”
    Ash nodded slowly. “Then we’ll wait till they contact you again. I don’t think it’ll be long, not now they know I’ve seen Cathy.” He was scribbling on the back of an envelope. “This is my number. Call me as soon as you hear from them, and I’ll meet you in Cambridge.”
    “All right.”
    From the front door of his house, Stephen Graves watched his visitors walk out to the gray car. His heart was pounding in his chest. In fact, though, things could have been worse. Ash might have turned up here with a contingent from the Counter Terrorism Command. Even the girl seemed to have more important things to do. And Ash alone wouldn’t be rocking any boats. He had too much to lose.
    As they reached the car, Gabriel Ash looked down at his dog. He said quietly, “Well, what do you think? Is that the man who shot at us?” Who had forced Hazel’s car into a ditch on a remote country road and would have killed them both but that the lurcher drove him off.
    Oh yes, said Patience decisively. I never forget a pair of trousers.

 
    CHAPTER 6
    A DAY AND A HALF PASSED in which nothing much happened. Nothing important, nothing strange, nothing upsetting. This was close to a record in Hazel’s recent experience, but she was constrained from even a low-key celebration by a sense of deep unease. Something should be happening. More than that, she should be making something happen. She knew as surely as if she’d read the script that Ash was walking into more trouble than he was capable of handling; and maybe he was right, maybe there was nothing she could do to help, but she ought to be there for him. Ready to pick up the pieces when his world imploded.
    It would be different if he’d had any realistic chance of success. But his wife was the prisoner of terrorists in a lawless state that was geographically and culturally remote. The video link was misleading: it gave the impression that the person you were talking to was accessible. But today, with much of the world within the orbit of one satellite or another, being able to see and speak to someone didn’t mean you could reach them. If Cathy Ash’s captors were routing their transmissions so as to mask their whereabouts, Hazel couldn’t find them, and she knew a great deal more about information technology than Ash did. And if he couldn’t find Cathy, he couldn’t help her.
    It was a cruel joke that was being played on him. Like dangling a toy just beyond a baby’s grasp, or showing a dog a biscuit and then eating it yourself. He would do what they said, whatever the cost to himself, but they wouldn’t keep their end of the bargain. They would keep his wife after they’d promised to return her. Or they would kill her because he hadn’t done everything they’d wanted, or hadn’t done it