No Woman Left Behind by Julie Moffett Page A

intention to remain stoic, it hadn’t happened. Slash gently squeezed my hand.
    I took a moment to compose myself before I spoke. “What did Elvis say at the end? It sounded like a foreign language. I couldn’t hear it clearly.”
    One of the men with glasses, a white shirt and green tie, spoke up. “He said ‘You bastard’ in Afrikaans. Earlier Broodryk says
fokken
, which, pardon the expression, means
fucking
in Afrikaans.”
    Leave it to Elvis to be in a dire situation and yet have enough brains to curse the bastard in his own language.
    I waited until my heartbeat slowed, then tried to think past my fear for my family, Elvis and Slash.
    Focus, Carmichael.
    The room was silent. Everyone was waiting for me to say something, do something.
    I withdrew my hand from Slash’s and took a piece of paper and a pen from Woodward.
    “According to my calculations, we only have about forty-eight hours left to find the clue. Why didn’t you tell me this earlier? We’ve wasted time.”
    “We wasted nothing,” Woodward said dismissively. “You were in shock. You needed time to process and recover. We haven’t been idle and have had the best minds on this while you recovered. We wanted you in top form and now you are. In fact, I think you’re going to be surprised at what we’ve already found.”
    In other words, he wanted to show all the important people in this room that he and his team could solve this part without me—a reminder of who was in charge. I wasn’t a fan of his smug attitude, but I wasn’t going to waste time arguing.
    “Fine. What do we know so far?”
    Woodward waved at the guy in the green tie. “Mark, you go first.”
    The guy shuffled through some papers and looked up at me. “Hey, ah, my name is Mark Cohen and I’m an analyst on the CIA’s International Digital Forensics Team. My team and I have gone over the video with a fine-tooth comb and gathered the following data so far. First, the video is four minutes and thirty-two seconds in length. A digital analysis of the voice confirms the speaker is of South African descent, highly educated, and speaks with a dialect typical of the city of Cape Town. That would match the biographical information we have on Johannes Broodryk in terms of his background. The other individual in the video is Elvis Zimmerman, currently employed at ComQuest in Baltimore, and a former employee at the NSA. Just a note, his position and vast knowledge of the inner workings of the government’s sensitive networks at the highest levels presents a significant threat of its own, even if he hasn’t been employed at the agency for a couple of years.”
    Mark shot a nervous glance at Woodward, who frowned at him. Although I’m not much on reading emotions, I sensed there had been a disagreement as to the importance of rescuing Elvis. Mark was a computer guy and he understood the importance and value of Elvis’s knowledge and experience as only a tech head could.
    Mark gulped some of his coffee and continued. “Those are the only two individuals in the video. The other interesting clue is a corner of a painting hanging on the right-hand wall. Although there is only one small part of the painting visible, a statistical analysis indicated there’s an 89.6 percent chance that it’s a replica of an oil painting by German artist, Hans Holbein.”
    “Hans Holbein?” I ran though the names of famous painters in my head but came up blank. “Never heard of him.”
    “Holbein, who lived from 1497 to 1543, titled the painting
The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb
,” Mark continued. “Here’s what it looks like in its entirety.”
    Mark motioned to the guy at the laptop across from him and the painting appeared on the SMART board. Someone standing near the light flicked it off so we could have a clearer view.
    I studied the painting. It depicted a side view of Jesus Christ clad in a loincloth, lying in what looked like an enclosed coffin. Wounds were evident on his hands and