Page 142 of Grave Danger

“They know what it means.”

“Do they? When I was a young lawyer, I lost a trial I never should have lost. We proved all the facts we needed to win, but I didn’t deliver the closing argument I should have. Iassumedthe jury knew my client should win.”

“What’s your point?”

“Sometimes, even when peopleknowsomething, they need you to help them visualize what winning means. How are you going to do that, Nouri?How are you going to make the FBI visualize what ‘the truth about Ava Bazzi’ looks like?”

Nouri was silent. Jack pushed a little harder.

“Not just see it,” said Jack. “How are you going to make the US governmentfearit enough to give you what you want?”

Nouri stared back at Jack, intensely at first, and then his gaze drifted to a place more distant. He seemed to be going back to that night outside the Evin Prison walls, to the end of the video he’d captured.

“Guthrie was waiting in the car,” said Nouri.

Jack needed to catch up with him on the timeline, and he got there quickly. They were literally picking up where the bodycam video ended. “Was Guthrie alone?”

“Yes. Alone.”

“Did Ava get in the car with him?”

“We put her in the trunk so that she wouldn’t be seen.”

“Did you get in the car with Agent Guthrie?”

“No. It was my job to buy her out of prison. It was Guthrie’s job to get her out of the country.”

“Did he get her out?”

Nouri’s gaze grew more distant, as if he were looking past Jack. “No,” he said.

“How do you know?”

“He called me the next morning,” Nouri said in a hollow voice. “From a little town near the Kuwait border.”

“What did he say?”

“He told me I needed to come and get Ava.”

“Why? What happened?”

Jack’s phone rang. It was on the table in front of him, and the screen lit up with Andie’s number. Nouri answered it on speaker, leaving it where it lay.

“Nouri, this is Agent Henning,” she said.

Nouri glanced at Jack, then spoke toward the phone. “There’d better be someone important on the line with you, Agent Henning. I said thecall needed to be from the right person. Someone with authority to deal.”

“You’re talking to the right person,” said Andie. “I have full authority to meet reasonable demands.”

Jack knew she was bluffing; no hostage negotiator ever led with “I have full authority” and gave up the ability to say “I need to check with the powers above me.”

“You’re too late,” said Nouri. “My demand has changed.”

“Okay. Let’s work with that. Maybe I can still help. What’s the new demand?”

Jack assumed that her questions were intended only to stall for time. He joined her effort.

“Nouri, remember what we just talked about,” he said. “Quid pro quo. What do they stand to lose?”