“Daddy, I know you need to leave Greece and go back to Moscow for business, even though you don’t want to.” She came around the desk to sit on the arm of his chair and plucked at his sleeve. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you had an apartment in Athens? Then you could always have a home here.”
Sakharov snorted. “And of course you would make the ultimate sacrifice by staying on to keep an eye on my property, right?”
Olga widened her eyes and put a hand to her chest. “Me? Oh, Daddy. Of course, I’d be honored.” Before he could protest, she threw her arms around his neck and gave him a dozen kisses. “I knew you’d agree. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
In between his daughter’s happy kisses, Sakharov peered at his wife. Something was going on behind those lovely dark eyes. He gently extricated himself from Olga’s enthusiastic embrace and patted her arm. “We’ll talk about it later, all right?”
“Of course, Daddy,” she said, her gleeful tone indicating she was sure of the hold she had over him. She walked back to join Katarina. “Ready to go?”
“In a moment,” Katarina answered. “I need to speak to your father.”
Olga gave her an inquiring glance but when an answer wasn’t forthcoming casually shrugged a shoulder and beamed at them both. “I’ll wait for you outside,” she said, and walked out of the office. The other guard followed her, while Yevgeny stayed.
Katarina turned to her husband. “Well?”
Sakharov shook his head. “There is nothing more to say.”
Lifting her chin, she squared her shoulders. “You mean to tell me that our son might be dead, but you’ve done nothing to verify this?” Her clipped tone told him her anger waited close to the surface. She handed him her phone. “Call her. Now.”
“Not yet. I’m not convinced she tells the truth.” He didn’t want to say that if Eve Mason’s story was true, then not only was their beloved son Mikhail gone, but everything would change. He would have to hire heavier security and she and Olga would need to curtail their movements—in effect go into hiding—until he straightened things out.
“But you must. I spoke to her before she left the gala. She was adamant that our son had been killed. Why would she tell me this if it wasn’t true? She asked for nothing in return but the truth.” Her eyes glistened and her voice cracked, the stress of holding back tears obvious. She took a moment to compose herself. “You promised me Mikhail would be safe.”
“We don’t know that he isn’t. I spoke to Roman last night and he assured me that he is still alive. In fact, he is going to have Mikhail contact me as soon as he can.”
Katarina crossed her arms and gave him a disbelieving look. “So you would believe your friend, who has much to lose, over the woman who risked her life to speak with you? She asked for nothing.” She shook her head in disgust. “You are a fool.”
Heat flooded his cheeks. Sakharov leaned forward and fixed her with a hard stare. “You will never refer to me that way again, Katarina.”
“Oh? And what will you do? You are a man who wouldn’t see the truth if it bit him on the ass. Why do you not stand up to Roman?” Anger radiating off her like heat from an incinerator, Katarina picked up her purse and turned to leave.
“Be careful, Katarina.” Firm warning permeated Sakharov’s words as he glanced at Yevgeny. The protection supervisor looked as though he’d like to disappear into the woodwork. “Speaking this way in front of anyone but Yevgeny may cause your pot of gold to disappear.”
Her hand on the doorknob, Katarina hesitated but didn’t turn around. “I know how to live without money, Anatoly,” she said in a quiet voice. “But not without my son.”
She opened the door and walked out, leaving him alone with his bodyguard.
Chapter 13
Leine checked her watch. Less than an hour remained until Sakharov’s deadline to call her. She was still pissed off that he’d had her followed and especially that he’d used one of his goons to attack her. She’d expected the tail. Not the physical altercation.
His distrust was understandable. He didn’t know her and of course he hadn’t found out much about Eve Mason with a background check. Out of nowhere, a woman he knows nothing about just shows up speaking fluent Russian with a cache of files purportedly from his son, sweeps the room for bugs, and delivers news of his son’s death and the diversion of one of his shipments to a group of bloodthirsty terrorists. She would have been suspicious, too.
She would have detained her for questioning, as she suspected the man who attacked her had been ordered to do.
He should’ve asked first.
She fervently hoped he’d call. She didn’t want to release the files from Mikhail’s flash drive into the Wild West of cyberspace—not without corroboration from a credible player. If she took the information to Henderson, it wouldn’t have nearly the impact without Sakharov’s backing.
She’d try once more to get through to Henderson before she released the files. If she didn’t succeed, then she’d upload the incriminating photos and videos and send a link to a reporter she knew at one of the news agencies. Under attack from both the right and the left for not checking their facts before breaking stories, news agencies were being overly careful before relaying anything without a credible source. With uncharacteristic shortsightedness, Leine hadn’t cultivated many reporters to whom she could leak information, except for the one. And with her background as a government assassin scrubbed from official records, there was no way to back up her bona fides.
She might be able to get Lou to help her, but she hated the idea of dragging him into what could soon become a hot mess. A Russian arms dealer and a top GRU operative who had the ability to divert arms shipments from Libya to Izz Al-Din and subvert US-backed allies were not people you wanted to be involved with if you could help it.
Just then, her cell phone rang. The screen read Private Caller. She glanced at her watch. Right on time.
“Eve Mason,” she answered.
“Anatoly Sakharov.” His deep voice reverberated in her ear.
“What’s your decision?” Leine was in no mood to play nice. Or waste time.
“I have called you back at your request. This is how you treat those who do as you ask?”
“Listen. I don’t appreciate being followed—”
“It was a precaution. Besides, you lost him. What’s the problem?”
“Lost him? He practically broke my neck. I do not take well to being strong-armed.” Heat flushed her cheeks as her anger spiked. Calm down, Leine. Being angry will get you nowhere.
“I don’t know what you are talking about. My security man told me he lost you last night—that you acted as though you knew you were being followed. He was impressed with your abilities.”
“Then who attacked me on the sidewalk next to my car?”
“I have no idea.” Sakharov paused. “What did he look like?”
“Big. And deadly. The photograph I took doesn’t do him justice. Let me send it to you and you can tell me who you think it is.” She texted the picture to him and waited.
“I’ve never seen him before.”
Leine sighed. Was he telling the truth? “Look, if you didn’t order him to rough me up, then who did?”
“I did not order anyone to ‘rough you up’ in any way. I asked Yevgeny to keep an eye on you for my own peace of mind, but I specifically instructed him not to approach you.”
“Last night someone replaced one of the rounds in my gun with a tracking device. If you say it wasn’t one of your people, then you’ve got a problem within the ranks, and someone else knows why I’m here. Have you told anyone of our conversation?”
“No, I have not. My wife says you and she spoke outside of the gala last night. Could someone have overheard you?”
“Not a chance. We were far from the other guests and her security contingent wasn’t within range.”
“You needn’t worry about her security detail. They’ve
been vetted, as have mine. I trust them with my life and the life of my family.”
“If you say so. In my experience—”
“And what exactly is your experience, Ms. Mason? If that really is your name.”
“I’m not sure I understand the question.”
“You come to me with news of my son’s death and tell me that he was gathering information regarding one of my shipments. You speak fluent Russian, carry a gun and a bug detector in your purse, and know how to elude surveillance. What do you imagine I think?”
“That I’m a spy. I told you last night, I’m not.”
“And I am supposed to believe you?”
“You’re going to have to take me at my word. I am no danger to you or your family. In fact, the opposite is true. I’m only trying to sort the truth from the lies. And I need your help to convince my government to take my concerns seriously.”
“I need more time.”
“What does that mean? That you’ll help me eventually? Or are you putting me off so that I won’t release the information before you’ve put some kind of safeguards in place?”
“I must dig deeper into this before I will commit to helping you. My reputation and the reputation of my business are at stake, as may be the lives of my family.”
“How much more time do you need? I’m trying to head off a much larger problem and time is in short supply. You claim you didn’t have anything to do with diverting that shipment of missiles. Fine. If that’s true, then someone in either your government or the Libyan regime is working against the US and I need to find out why, who, and how so we can avoid more serious complications.”
“Yes, I understand. But first I need to discover who diverted the shipment. As far as I know, our countries have been working well together. Both sides benefit. Why would my government be interested in causing another rift between us? It makes no sense, unless Libya is responsible.”
“I agree. It doesn’t. Which is why I need to take this information to my government. But I need you to back me up when I do. How do you propose to find out the rest of the story?”
“I have a contact within the Russian government who is in a position to help me uncover the truth.”
“Obviously you’re not talking about your dear friend, the general.”
“Obviously.”
Leine sighed. This was going nowhere. “I’m going to ask you again, how much time do you need?”
“Give me seventy-two hours.”
“Fine. If you haven’t contacted me by then, I’ll give the information to my contact at the Associated Press.”
“Understood.”
Chapter 14
Moscow, Russia
General Tsarev stared at the email he’d received from his source at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and wondered two things. First, why would a woman who worked for an anti-trafficking agency need a fake passport and an entire legend surrounding a false name, and second, which American intelligence agency was using SHEN as a front? His contact could find no credible evidence of the latter, but Tsarev was certain this Basso woman was a covert operative.
Who are you, Madeleine Basso? And why are you meddling in things that are not your concern?
She probably worked for the CIA. Although it could very well be the DIA, or maybe even the NSA. Lines between the agencies had blurred in recent times, with many of them doing redundant work. It amazed him that the US was able to coordinate anything. Certainly, 9/11 had brought about change, but in Tsarev’s view this change had muddied the waters even more, making the acquisition of actionable intelligence difficult for such an onerous and sprawling entity as the United States intelligence system.
Russia’s intelligence apparatus was much more nimble. Although competition between agencies was fierce, at least sharing intelligence was more competent than in the US. Yes, there were problems, but they weren’t insurmountable. Russia’s GRU still operated with little oversight, which he vowed to maintain once he was in charge. After all his hard work, as soon as Russia was back to her pre-perestroika strength he would be appointed head of Russian Military Intelligence—the ultimate culmination of years of sweat, sacrifice, and hard work, all in service to the greater good.
The email went on to say that Madeleine (Leine) Basso had at one point worked security for the now-defunct reality show Serial Date, and briefly for an A-list actor by the name of Miles Fournier. Since then, she’d been working with Stop Human Enslavement Now, or SHEN, a non-profit anti-trafficking agency based in Los Angeles. She lived in a modest apartment near the beach with one Santiago Jensen, a homicide detective for the Los Angeles Police Department. They were not married. She had one child, a twenty-three-year-old daughter named April, who was currently attending classes in New York City in hopes of becoming a playwright.
The daughter was a potential vulnerability. A way to get to Basso if she refused to cooperate. Tsarev filed it away in the back of his mind for later use.
He scanned the rest of the report, which contained information detailing her four-year marriage to Frank Basso, an Italian-American businessman from whom she was now divorced, and other semi-pertinent facts. She had a checking and savings account at a local banking institution that contained several thousand dollars, a credit card with a balance of $1,790 for which she received air miles, and various investment accounts. She was quite well off, financially. He doubted working for a non-profit paid well, and wondered where the rest of her wealth came from. On rare occasions she used a FaceMe account, ostensibly to keep in touch with her daughter, and a generic email account. Tsarev’s source had hacked into her internet service provider but found nothing unusual in her search history.
He studied the photograph the source had forwarded to him. She was good-looking, if you liked women with dark auburn hair, high cheekbones, and riveting eyes. Personally, Tsarev preferred blue-eyed, buxom blondes. There was just something so pure about them, unlike brunettes, who always seemed so ethnic. Immensely proud of his Russian ancestry, he preferred to associate with other members of such. He copied and pasted the photograph into an email, encrypted it, and sent it to Dmitry with a short note.
With a deep sigh, the general closed the email and leaned back in his chair. The lies the Basso woman told his old friend Sakharov would be enough, he thought, to steer him away from dealing with her. Then, Tsarev would ensure she didn’t contact him again. His initial decision to dispatch Dmitry had been a good one. He picked up his phone and dialed Anatoly Sakharov. It was time to set the hook.
“What is it, Roman?” Anatoly’s voice held a hint of annoyance.
“I thought you would like to know. I just received a report on a woman named Eve Mason. I believe she contacted Katarina recently?”
“And how would you know this?”
“A colleague saw your wife speaking with her outside of the National Museum of History in Athens the other night. I believe he said you both were attending a charity gala? He mentioned that what she said appeared to greatly upset your wife, so I did a little checking.”
“How astute of you.”
Tsarev noted the sarcasm in Sakharov’s reply. Curious. “I was only looking out for my oldest friend. During our last conversation you seemed upset.”
“About that conversation. Have you been able to contact my son?”
Tsarev shifted in his chair. “Not yet. But I have heard from his commanding officer that he is to rotate out of his current undercover unit, so you should be hearing from him soon.”
“Good. I look forward to it.” There was a pause. “Well? Are you going to tell me what is in this report of yours?”
“Of course.” Tsarev pulled up the email on his screen. And now to reel him in. “Her name is Madeleine Basso, but she goes by Leine. She lives in Los Angeles and works for an anti- trafficking organization. According to my sources, prior to 2006 her past is practically non-existent. No job, no credit cards, nothing.”
“Which means
what, exactly? That you think she’s a spy?”
Tsarev chuckled. “I can’t say for sure, but it does give one pause, does it not?” He waited for Sakharov’s reply, but there was only silence. He cleared his throat. “Before joining the anti-trafficking organization she worked as a security specialist for various entities in the Los Angeles area.”
“Is that all you have? Because frankly I’m surprised, Roman. I would have expected a more in-depth report, given your access.”
Tsarev bit back an angry retort and continued. “Before coming to Los Angeles, she lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Seattle, Washington, and was employed as an insurance adjuster. Before that she was married to an Italian-American businessman for four years. The relationship ended prior to her moving to Seattle. There was no reason given for their separation beyond irreconcilable differences.”
“Ah.”
“Does this information not give you pause? The woman lied to your wife. Whatever her reason for seeking Katarina’s counsel, it could not have been in your wife’s best interests. I also believe the organization she works for is a front for another agency. A government agency, if you understand me.”
“I appreciate your concern, Roman, but I conducted my own background check and found much the same information. My wife’s emotional reaction was due to a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding?” Tsarev was stunned. He had expected Sakharov to be indebted to him for uncovering such a blatant attempt at using his wife to gain access. Or at the very least be angry at Basso’s deceit. Creating suspicion regarding her employer in the States was inspired genius, something he’d just added for a little extra tension. Like seasoning to a savory dish.
What had she told him? For a moment, the image of trying to make his way in the dark without a source of illumination filled his mind. Unaccustomed to the sensation, he bit back yet another angry retort and shook it off.
The Last Deception Page 8