“Your wife mentioned a double assassination prior to Olga’s abduction. I believe she said they were friends of yours?”
“And?” Sakharov’s gaze intensified.
“Not long afterward there were reports of a car bomb in an upscale neighborhood in Moscow. No bodies were found, but the timing does seem interesting. Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”
“What are you implying?” Sakharov narrowed his eyes.
Leine chose her next words carefully. “I don’t want to waste my time, or yours. If you’re at war with your old school chum, that changes things and I need to be aware of it.”
“I am not ‘at war’ with Roman Tsarev. This does not mean, however, that if I’m presented an opportunity I will not hesitate to take advantage and rid the world of that stinking pile of shit.”
“Good to know.”
“When is the meeting in Washington?” He pulled out his phone and tapped the screen, opening a calendar app.
“Tomorrow evening.”
He checked the screen and nodded. “That shouldn’t be a problem.” He looked over the top of his reading glasses at her. “Didn’t you say this Henderson would be difficult?”
“I said he might be difficult. He’s taking the meeting. That’s a good sign. It’s possible enough time has passed since my…transgression. Maybe he’s ready to forgive and forget.” Not likely, Leine thought, but one could always hope.
“My assistant will need to make arrangements. When and where will this meeting take place?”
“Actually I’d prefer we leave together. It’s a long way between Athens and DC. Much can happen.”
Sakharov nodded. “As you wish. I’ll have the jet ready in the morning. I’d like to spend some time with my wife and daughter before I leave the country again. We can discuss the meeting on the plane.” He looked at his watch. “If we leave at eight we should arrive in Washington in plenty of time for lunch.”
“Perfect. I’ll get my things and meet you at the plane.”
“My offer still stands. You and Art are welcome to sleep here. You will be safe.”
“Again, thank you for your generosity. I can’t speak for Art, but I must attend to some things before we leave.”
She made note of the private airfield where Sakharov housed his corporate jet, and left the library. She’d need a good night’s sleep before dealing with Henderson, especially when factoring in jet lag, but didn’t know if that would be possible with what she planned for that evening.
Leine headed back downstairs to the living room to say her goodbyes. Katarina and Olga walked her out.
“I don’t know how we can ever repay you,” Katarina said, her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. The two had been inseparable since Olga came home.
“Yes. Thank you for bringing me back to my family.” Fresh tears welled in Olga’s eyes, and she wiped them away.
Leine smiled. “I’m glad it worked out. And I’m glad your husband has agreed to hold up his end of the bargain.”
“I’ll make sure that he does,” Katarina said.
The three women embraced, and Katarina and Olga walked back inside the house. Leine headed for her rental. Art waved at her from across the driveway, and she walked over to join him.
“What’s the plan?” he asked.
“We’re headed to DC in the morning.”
“I’d suggest having backup tonight. My guys and I are available, if you need us. That asswipe from the boat’s still in play, and Tsarev’s gotta be shitting bricks. He’s sure to know you were involved by now. I wouldn’t be surprised if he made a play to nab you.”
“Now that you mention it,” Leine said. “I do have a little something you could do for me.”
Chapter 34
The villa’s guard waved Leine through the gate. She turned right and then left and continued toward downtown Athens, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror.
It wasn’t long before she picked up a tail. A dark Lincoln Navigator pulled in two cars behind her and remained roughly the same distance back each time she turned. Leine hooked a right off the main boulevard, driving at a normal speed. The Navigator followed.
Good. Time for the show.
Leine performed several elementary maneuvers designed to identify the tail, knowing that the driver would likely fall back while still maintaining visual contact. It was possible the SUV was part of a tag team, but she hadn’t noticed a second vehicle yet.
The tail dropped back and she lost them for a moment. She took a quick left onto a tree-lined residential street, drove to the end, and turned left again, all the while scanning her mirrors for the dark SUV.
Satisfied she’d temporarily lost them, she continued toward Kolonaki Square and pulled to the curb a few blocks away from the busy tourist area, next to a small shop that sold cellular phones. She got out of her vehicle and walked into the store. Greeting the shopkeeper behind the counter, she perused the merchandise for a few minutes while keeping the street in sight. Five minutes later, the Navigator rolled by. Leine waited a while longer before an identical Navigator drove by. She thanked the shopkeeper and left the store.
She took out the keys to her rental, tucking the ignition key between two fingers, and walked to the driver’s side door. Seconds later, one of the Navigators pulled up alongside her and the back door swung open. Two men jumped out and grabbed her by the arms in an attempt to drag her inside the SUV. Leine pivoted and wrenched an arm free, then jabbed the other man in the eye with the key. His hand flew to his face as blood flowed through his fingers. The first guy wrapped her in a bear hug, pinning her arms while the other man squeezed his injured eye shut and yanked the gun in his shoulder holster free. Leine threw her head back and slammed the guy behind her in the face. There was a sickening crack as her skull connected with his nose, but his grip didn’t loosen. The thug with one good eye stepped back and raised his .45.
“Enough,” a man’s voice commanded behind them.
Leine continued to struggle, but the sight of the semiautomatic pistol dampened her enthusiasm. The guy behind her wheeled her around to come face-to-face with the driver. He matched the security footage from the villa.
“Farid, right?” she asked. She hoped her little act had been convincing. Although if not, she was still pretty happy with what she’d done to his two henchmen.
“Get rid of her purse,” Farid said, ignoring her comment.
One Eye wrenched the keys out of her hand and picked up her bag where it had fallen to the street. He rummaged through the purse and pulled out her cell phone, which he dropped and ground into pulp with the heel of his shoe. Then he pressed the key fob, opened the door, and tossed the bag inside her car.
Under the watchful gazes of the other two, Farid zip-tied Leine’s wrists behind her back and patted her down. He found the knife strapped to her calf, slid it free, and handed it to one of the thugs. The guy with the broken nose looked like he was in a world of hurt. Blood streamed down his face and neck onto his shirt. Now holding a pistol in one hand, he gripped the bridge of his nose with the other, trying to stem the flow.
Farid opened the back door to the dark gray SUV and One Eye shoved her inside. She caught a glimpse of the second SUV idling just down the block. Farid climbed into the driver’s seat, while One Eye took the passenger side and The Nose slid in beside Leine.
“Here.” Farid tossed a hood to The Nose. “Put this on her.”
The man complied, jerking the balaclava over Leine’s head.
“Where are you taking me?” Leine asked, wondering who had ordered the abduction. Tsarev? The man who had attacked her on the Cyclops? She didn’t really expect an answer.
She didn’t get one.
The vehicle pulled out and started to move. They stopped and turned left before picking up speed. Leine counted the turns, drawing a map in her mind of where they were taking her. Someone tuned the radio to a talk show. No one spoke for the duration of the d
rive.
Leine estimated that approximately forty minutes had lapsed before the SUV rolled to a stop. The front doors opened and closed. The man beside her leaned across to open her door and then pushed her out. He exited behind her and pressed the barrel of his gun into her back.
“Walk.”
Unable to see through the dark material of the hood, Leine took a couple of tentative steps before one of the men grabbed her by the elbow and yanked her forward.
The briny smell told her she was near the sea, and the echo of their footsteps on a hard surface suggested a large structure. A warehouse? At one point a bird took flight. Flapping wings and the coo of a pigeon receded in the distance.
The sound shifted, and the echoes of their footsteps grew louder. She assumed they’d walked into a smaller room or a corridor. Still large, but not as open as what they’d been through. Several steps later the sound shifted again. This time the echoes weren’t as close. A larger space. They covered a few more feet before whoever clutched her arm pulled her up short. The hood came off and she blinked against the sudden light, dim though it was.
She’d guessed right—they were inside a warehouse, empty except for a wooden chair in the middle of the cavernous space, its legs and arms covered in peeling yellow paint. A table and light stand stood off to the side, with a green duffel bag on the floor nearby. The room had large, yellowed windows reinforced with grid wire around the perimeter, near the ceiling. Most of the glass had either been broken out or removed, evidenced by shards scattered across the concrete floor. A pair of steel doors took up part of the wall near the back.
A man wearing wraparound sunglasses stood next to the chair. His dark hair spiked straight up with the sides buzzed short, emphasizing a ragged scar along his jawline. A pair of gold crosses dangled from his ears, and his right arm hung limp in a sling. He reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Good looking in a feral sort of way, his broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist and long, lean legs, giving the impression that he took pride in his appearance. He was also dressed like Johnny Cash: black jeans, black shirt, and a black leather jacket. Even his pointed, embossed boots were black. All that was missing was a guitar and a bolo tie and he’d have the deceased singer’s wardrobe down.
“Bring her here,” Johnny said in Russian. Farid and the two gunmen walked her over. Behind him was the table with a bottle of water and a cell phone propped up on a stand showing a split-screen of a hallway and the front of a warehouse. A pair of pliers, a curved knife, and a screwdriver had been laid out on a rectangular piece of cloth.
Apparently he was going old school.
“Please, sit.” Johnny held her gaze as Farid led her to the chair and pushed her into the seat. Johnny handed him a roll of duct tape, and he proceeded to bind her to the chair. The security guard paid particular attention to her forearms and wound an extra measure of tape around them and the arm rests. There wasn’t any point in struggling. Not yet. They’d just shoot something that would hurt and bleed, and she needed to stay in one piece. Leine had been in similar situations a handful of times in her life, and she’d developed a way of compartmentalizing to keep her from getting nervous and lessening her chances of survival. Besides, it fucked with their heads when they couldn’t get her to respond in the way they expected, and that was always good.
Johnny circled her, testing the strength of the tape and drawing out the pre-torture foreplay. “You.” He pointed at Farid. “Cover the perimeter with the other team. And you two,” he said to the remaining gunmen, “I want one of you at the end of the hallway, and the other on the door.” They scrambled to comply.
He watched the phone screen until his men were in place. Then he turned back to Leine, frowning as he studied her. “Leine Basso? Or Eve Mason? Those names did not give me much to go on.” He shook his head, a grave look on his face. “Eve is like the perfect ghost: no online presence, not much of a life. On the other hand, Leine turned out to have a bit more meat on the bones. At least with her I had something to work with.”
His black shirt was open to the third button, revealing a delicate gold necklace, the cross at the end so small as to be almost unnoticeable. A present from a girlfriend? His mother? The local priest? He was younger than she was by a few years, but he had an air about him that said he’d been around. Was it arrogance? She hoped so. He’d be much easier to mess with.
He frowned at her. “You’re not curious about what I have discovered for our little session together?” He leaned in close, the tiny gold cross swinging from his neck like a metronome.
“Not really, no.”
“Well, let’s see.” He stepped away and stared at the ceiling. “You’re divorced, have one child, a girl named April, and worked as a security consultant on a popular television show. I always wondered if Hollywood was how they depicted in movies. Are the parties really that insane?”
She didn’t respond.
He gave her a disappointed moue and continued. “After that you were hired on as a bodyguard for mega movie star Miles Fournier.” He clicked his tongue in mock sympathy. “He fired you. You then went to work for an organization that rescues victims of human trafficking.”
“Yep. You nailed it. My life in a nutshell.”
“No, not really. Prior to your marriage to businessman Frank Basso, there isn’t really much to go on. In fact, there’s nothing at all. It’s like you never existed. You know what I think?” He waggled his finger at her and smiled. “I think you don’t really work for an anti-trafficking organization. I think that’s a cover for either the CIA or the NSA. What do you think?”
Leine rolled her eyes. Did everyone think she was a goddam spy? “I work for SHEN, which is an anti-trafficking agency. It is not a front for American intelligence.”
“Well, see, that’s not what I wanted to hear. My employer believes that you are a member of an intelligence organization, and he would like you to agree with his assessment.”
“I can’t agree with what isn’t true. Why don’t you let me talk to your employer and see if I can straighten things out?”
“No, that isn’t possible. But I believe I may be able to induce you to see things his way.”
He walked over to the table and picked up the phone, then tapped the screen a couple of times with his thumb before turning it around for her to see.
The video showed April walking with two of her friends along a shady, tree-lined street.
Leine stiffened and narrowed her eyes. He was bluffing. Santa would have called her if this asshole had taken her daughter. Last she’d spoken with the LAPD detective, he’d assured her that April was well protected.
“I thought that might get a response from you.” He nodded toward the video, which was now showing her walking in the door of her apartment building.
“I know where your daughter lives, where she eats breakfast, what time she goes to her classes, even which professors she likes best. And yes, I know she has a contingent of security guards. I don’t think she is very happy about it.”
“Stay away from her.” The words formed like a growl deep in Leine’s throat.
Johnny shrugged. “That’s up to you. If you give me the information my employer wants.” He turned the phone back around and watched, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “She’s quite attractive,” he said, before he tapped the screen to turn it off. He propped the phone against the water bottle so the split-screen was again visible. He turned back to Leine and removed his sunglasses.
That’s when it hit her. “You’re the guy who jumped me on the Cyclops.”
His smile would have frozen the tropics. “You remembered.”
So Art did shoot him, she thought, eyeing the sling. Good to know. “Tell me one thing,” Leine said, pushing thoughts of April to the back of her mind. “How did you find me? I made sure I wasn’t seen boarding the boat.”
“The wonders of cyberspace, eh?”
For a m
oment she didn’t understand. Then it dawned on her.
“A geolocator?” Digital geolocators were often used to trace the route of web traffic to a particular site. She must have accessed a monitored page. But Art had assured her he used a secure network. A simple traceroute command wouldn’t have been able to locate their physical position.
“You have heard of bots, yes?” he asked.
“You mean like the ones hackers use to overwhelm social media sites?”
“Yes, of course.”
Recently, a group of hackers had been caught deploying countless virtual robots across social media networks. These “bots” made it look like the messages generated were from actual account holders when in fact they were automated by a few select addresses located in Ukraine and Albania. The hackers were able to influence popular opinion in several different countries by making it appear that millions of people supported or opposed specific measures or candidates of targeted governments. Once the ruse was discovered, public outcry resulted in the majority of internet users becoming aware of the ploy, lessening its effectiveness.
“There is a new generation of bot. One that can insert a virus into any website without detection.” He cocked his head and smiled. “It’s amazing the amount of information that is available from an unsuspecting user.”
She thought back to the night before he’d ambushed her on the Cyclops. She’d only accessed one site that could be linked to her online activity: the database of operatives. She had to warn Lou. Anyone using the list could be tracked, which was certainly damaging. But the list itself could be compromised, putting hundreds of people at risk.
Johnny grinned. “I see you’ve made the connection. Science is amazing, right?” He folded his arms across his chest. “So tell me how you and the old man were able to track Sakharov’s daughter? An organization like SHEN wouldn’t have access to the sophisticated technology that kind of operation requires unless it’s a front for one of your American spy agencies. Which brings me back to my original question. Who do you work for?”
The Last Deception Page 19