Two Nights in Lisbon

Griffiths’s team witnessed the ransom call and Ariel’s obvious distress. Griffiths orders the surveillance to continue.

Disturbed by the call, Ariel tries to reach her son at his summer camp. The director, considering her overprotective, refuses to disrupt George’s day. Ariel calls her mother, Elaine, to tell her about the kidnapping. She orders her mother to turn off all their electronic devices.

The narrative turns to Ariel’s past when she was unable to cope with her farmhouse. After a local handyperson was contemptuous of her ineptitude, Ariel resolved to cultivate all the necessary expertise to maintain her home and direct her life. Ariel extended this drive for competence into every aspect of her life, including self-defense, leading the narrator to point out that her skills include “even how to kill someone, using nothing but her bare hands” (100). 

Ariel notices a man following her and wonders if she will have to attack him to save herself, as she did in the past. In another flashback, the reader learns the origins of Ariel’s animosity toward her neighbor. The man, Jeb Payne, attempted to rape her, but she used her self-defense training to free herself, breaking his nose. She then menaced him with a kitchen knife, making him beg for his life.

After the assault, Ariel found herself trapped in a small town with the man who tried to harm her, and she even ran into his wife at the grocery store. She realized the other woman likely knew how monstrous her husband was and that she “was not Ariel’s enemy, she was a fellow combatant” (110).

Ariel now uses this self-defense training in Lisbon. Pretending to drop the cap of her water bottle to distract him, she attacks the man following her, striking his face and chest. Through a bloodied mouth, he explains that he is American, attached to the embassy, and wants to help with John’s case. It is Antonucci.

The point of view shifts once more to reporter Pete Wagstaff, who saw the phone call and Ariel’s encounter with Antonucci. He is interested in her story.

Ariel arrives at the embassy and meets Griffiths. Griffiths is direct, asking Ariel if John was abducted. Ariel thinks privately, “Sooner or later someone has to take her seriously. Maybe that someone is Nicole Griffiths” (115). However, Griffiths seems to doubt much of Ariel’s account. Ariel says she will begin her quest for funds with her ex-husband. She asks for a space to make the call.

Ariel prepares to call her ex-husband, Bucky Turner, knowing the CIA will record the conversation. She reflects that Bucky will likely call her back as he has no negative feelings toward her.

Jefferson informs Griffiths that the cell phone was purchased in Spain and used only for the ransom call. Information about John’s cell phone is likely to be slow to arrive because July 4 is the next day. Federal holidays impact the availability of services and officials, which becomes a major plot point.

Ariel explains to Griffiths that she met Bucky at a fundraiser, to which an old acting friend invited her. Ariel assumed she would fit in with his high-status world, but she didn’t. Ariel explains that her discomfort with it was part of their divorce. Ariel privately reflects that Griffiths must be CIA and that these questions are likely a form of subtle interrogation. Ariel says that the kind of wealth she used to live within was deeply compromising, and eventually it became clear that “you yourself are the price” (123).

Bucky calls, and Ariel explains her predicament. Bucky says he cannot access the funds in time due to the July 4 holiday. Bucky then suggests a man they know but whom Ariel will not want to contact. The reader soon learns that Bucky and Ariel are alluding to Charlie Wolfe, the nominee for vice president of the United States. 

Ariel exits a CIA car near her hotel and reluctantly takes Nicole Griffiths’s card. She openly weeps outside her hotel. Griffiths and her team are intrigued by the identity of the man Ariel will rely on for money.

Ariel uses the hotel’s phone to call Wolfe. She imagines him sitting in his office, at work on a holiday, confronting the threat she represents in a new social media landscape where “innuendo, rumor and falsehoods can travel faster than the truth ever hoped to” (130).

Wolfe does not take Ariel’s call, so she calls Bucky and tells him to pass on a message to Wolfe: She has a recording of their final conversation. When Bucky tells her she should not try to extort Wolfe, she retorts: “Unless he wants everyone to know it too—which he cannot afford, then he’ll take my call” (132).

Ariel watches the news, where reporters speculate on rumors surrounding Wolfe. They conclude that the accusations are unlikely to impede Wolfe’s ascent to the vice presidency. Ariel turns off the television.

Ariel calls her mother, slightly panicked, because she can see that her cell phone and George’s are on. Elaine is upset Ariel will not explain her concerns. Ariel is anxious that George seems unwell.

Ariel looks back on their last long conversation before her departure. Elaine disapproves of Ariel’s isolated life on a remote farm. Ariel blames her mother for making her into a person who relied on men and was happy in her first marriage. Her mother asks why Ariel’s livestock now includes a goat.

Ariel recalls the episode that brought the goat into her life. Her neighbor recently died, and his widow had no interest in the animal. The town’s lone lawyer, Jerry, told Ariel to simply walk the goat to her home.

Back in the present, Ariel talks to George, who is trying to remain stoic about his illness. Ariel tells her son she loves him, overcome by the emotional and geographic distance between them, and she doubts her decisions.

Charlie Wolfe, still unnamed, calls Ariel back. At first, he is polite. Only when Ariel mentions a paternity test and police report does Wolfe become furious, ordering her to stop talking and return to the embassy, where they will settle matters.

At the embassy, Ariel is escorted to a secure room and told to surrender her devices. She awaits the call with, the narrator says, “her anxiety mounting, unable to think of anything other than: will this work?” (149).

The narrative’s focus shifts to Griffiths, newly awake and stunned by news of Ariel’s current location, usually reserved for sensitive intelligence matters. Griffiths realizes that the order to send Ariel there likely came from someone with a prominent role in the government.

Wolfe calls Ariel and implies that her plight has nothing to do with him. When Wolfe says he did not “consent” to a recording, Ariel says “how dare you use that word” and asserts that in New York only one party has to agree for evidence to be admissible (151). Wolfe threatens her in turn, reminding her that breaking a nondisclosure agreement (hereafter NDA) has legal consequences. Ariel reminds him that women on a jury would likely support her.

Ariel assures Wolfe that she is bringing up their past only because she is desperate. When Wolfe cites the bank holiday, Ariel asserts that he has a choice: pay the ransom or risk her making their history public. Wolfe, angry still and eager to salvage his career, agrees to help in exchange for another NDA that will conceal his role. 

Ariel becomes overwhelmed with what she has done. She imagines arrest or an attack by the guards to prevent what she is trying to achieve. She is further alarmed when, on her way out, the embassy guards take a call and tell a man she is still in the building. She is not reassured when the same guard tells her a car has been sent for her. Ariel makes for the car but then runs away. The narrative breaks as if she has been interrupted by a pursuer.

Ariel is intercepted by Antonucci, who asks why she is afraid. She responds somewhat angrily that no one is helping her. Antonucci explains they have found and traced John’s phone, and he can share more in the morning. Ariel begins to cry, and Antonucci reassures her. She is not truly calmed, sensing she is being placated.