The Predators

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None of it should have happened but all of it did and the mounting coincidences and innocent errors fatally confused the initial search for Mary Beth McBride. And by the time that search evolved into anything like a proper investigation it was too late.

Mary was already a victim.

It began with something as ordinary as a puncture, which briefly caused a traffic jam on the rue du Chene along which the embassy driver, a local Belgian named Claude Luc, was taking a short cut to the school. The US security officer, William Boles, agreed that it was a bastard even as he was strictly following the well-rehearsed routine. Before allowing Luc to change the wheel he telephoned the embassy from the car phone for a back-up vehicle to collect Mary. And then he called the school to warn of the delay.

The confusion arose when the embassy duplicated that warning call: misunderstanding the second contact, the school secretary thought that the relief vehicle had already arrived and it was no longer necessary to keep the child on the premises.

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