by Jack Hardin
And then, for the first time in a long span of years, she began to cry.
Chapter Nineteen
Florin was just finishing his drink when he heard a door close across the house. Moments later, soft footsteps padded up the stairs, and his host approached. He stood and embraced the man, kissing him on the cheeks. “Vasilly, how are you?”
Vasilly was a tall man, his skin olive, his nose long and crooked, his black beard thick, combed, and well-oiled. He wore leather sandals, loose-fitting cotton pants, and a thin button-down shirt with sleeves rolled to his elbows.
“Good, my friend. I trust you had a pleasant trip.”
“I did.” Florin returned to his place on the couch, his host taking a seat at the other end. “Have you made any progress?”
“Kathleen is not talking yet,” Vasilly said. “But we are almost there.”
“What has taken so long? I do not doubt you, but I need Simon now. If we wait another few hours, it will be too late. You, of all people, understand that.”
“We had an initial setback where the timeline was concerned. Kathleen suffered an allergic reaction to the sedative we gave her. She slept for almost half a day. That was most unexpected.”
Florin frowned. “But she is coherent? She can remember what we need her to?”
“Yes. She is clear headed.” Vasilly glanced at his watch. “I will have Luganov’s location in fifty-four minutes.”
“How can you be sure?”
Vasilly studied his friend. “You are anxious. Stop being anxious and trust me.”
Florin sighed and forced a smile. “I am anxious. If this comes back to me, if Kathleen’s disappearance is traced to me in any way—”
“That is why you employed my services, Florin. She will never see your face, will never know you were a part of this. As for the authorities, they will never find her. You came to me because you needed the best there is, Florin. So relax. These things take a little time.”
“Time is the one thing I’m short on right now.”
Vasilly extended an arm toward the other end of the house. “You are welcome to try for yourself if you would like.”
Florin waved him off. “No. I trust you. Of course, I trust you. But so much is riding on this. If I have Luganov, all my problems go away.”
“And if you don’t?”
“Then my problems compound daily. How can you be sure you will have his location in an hour?”
Vasilly produced his phone, tapped the screen, and handed it across the couch to Florin. “That is Kathleen’s daughter. Her foster daughter to be precise. But to her, there is no difference.”
Florin’s eyes brightened. “And you have someone who will get the daughter?”
“Not get. More like, remove. Take care of. You understand.”
Florin handed the phone back and sighed his relief. “That is good. Very good. And whoever took these pictures, they cannot be traced to you?”
Vasilly waved him off. “Encrypted servers were used, and I submitted the job on the dark web using untraceable email. I know what I’m doing, Florin. I am the one taking all the risk, and I understand the consequences of being caught with someone like Kathleen.”
Florin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “How did she respond when you showed her the pictures?”
“It was a pleasure of sorts to watch the color leave her face.”
“This is good, Vasilly. Very good work.”
“I am glad you are pleased.”
Both men stood up and shook hands. Vasilly said, “Stay for a little while. At least until I have what you want. Then we can share a celebratory drink. For now, I must tend to something else.” He motioned to the sideboard. “In the meantime, please, keep your glass full.”
Vasilly took his leave of the room, and Florin took his time selecting a different poison, finally settling on a Kentucky bourbon. He poured two more fingers, replaced the stopper on the decanter, and stepped up to the window.
He couldn't believe his fortune. In less than a week, a situation that he would have sworn had no chance of a positive outcome had just rectified itself. And it never would have happened if he had not taken the time to go to Nice and clear his head. The solution did not come in the form of clear thinking as he hoped it would; rather, it came in the form of an old associate.
Florin recalled Mikhail coming aboard his yacht and reminding him of the dire situation he was in. And it was not half an hour later that Florin saw Kathleen window shopping on the streets of Nice’s fashion district. That was the moment the solution had come to him like a perfectly completed tapestry, all the necessary connections converging to create a single perfected image.
Florin thought back to the genesis of it all. After shorting Tanzania's currency with Mikhail and leaving his post with Romania’s Foreign Intelligence, Florin spent the next several years investing in tech startups, oil exploration, and the newly emerging cryptocurrency markets. Over time and with much patience, he turned thirty million into three hundred million.
Not long after that, Simon Luganov defected from Russia, leaving behind a scientific legacy that virtually no one in Russia could interpret. Luganov was absolutely brilliant, and only two other scientists, a Canadian and a German, were said to be capable of turning his research into marketable technology. Russia was not willing to hand off such science to just anyone. They kept it back from the international scientific community and continued to push their own scientists to attempt to finish what Luganov had begun.
Florin’s foray into it all came when a Romanian scientist approached him with an offer. He’d heard that Florin liked to invest in forward-thinking projects. This man’s proposal was simple but bold. If Florin could get copies of all of Luganov’s research, the scientist could fill in the gaps. Perhaps not as quickly as Luganov could, but he could do it. No doubt in the scientist’s mind.
Florin had gone to Mikhail with the proposition. The potential was too good for either of them to pass up. Mikhail found a way to get the research, and they were off to the races. For two years, their man in the lab coat worked tirelessly with a team they put around him. He was making tremendous strides, and international patents were on the horizon. Florin and Mikhail expanded their profit potential by bringing in over one hundred private investors. The IPO for their new company was but months away. They all stood to make ten, twenty, even thirty times their initial investments. Everything was going far better than anyone could have hoped.
And then, just three weeks ago, the unthinkable happened. Their lead scientist, the man who had brought the idea to Florin in the first place, experienced a massive stroke while leaning over a microscope in his lab. He died twelve hours later.
Everything they had built, all the money invested, had been dependent on that one man. Now he was gone, and technology was not yet complete.
As it turned out, Kathleen would be the key.
Florin had first met her nearly three decades ago when he was with the RFI and she in her early days as a case officer with the CIA. They even worked a case together in the mid-1990s. After Luganov defected, a friend of Florin, who had worked at the CIA station in Brussels, mentioned to him in passing that Kathleen had personally taken the lead on transitioning Luganov into his new life. Florin had filed that away as an interesting but irrelevant piece of information. At the time, he had no interest at all in Luganov or what he knew about isotopes and radioactive nuclei.
And when his scientist had died three weeks ago, he still hadn’t thought of it. Why would he? Kathleen worked and lived in America. He didn’t even know where. It had been years since they had spoken. Even entertaining such an idea was on the brink of madness.
But then, at the very moment that he was biting his nails, wondering how he was going to protect hundreds of millions of dollars of his investor’s money, she walked down the street right in front of him. She was right there, out in the open, standing across the street from him like a juicy carrot. Florin returned to his yacht, and with a few cal
ls, he had the remainder of Kathleen’s cruise itinerary. She would port in Athens four days hence. Plenty of time to make the proper preparations.
Now, Florin took another sip of his whiskey and found that he couldn’t help but admire the ease of it all. He had Vasilly to thank for that. When Florin finally had Luganov in hand and had him properly motivated back in the lab, Florin would remember to pay Vasilly a handsome bonus.
And tomorrow night, he would host the soiree on his yacht at a private dock in Naples. He would strut Simon Luganov in front of his investors and put them at ease. He would let them know that, despite all the recent rumors, their money and his technology were still moving forward.
Florin returned to the couch, leaned his head back, and smiled.
Chapter Twenty
It was dark by the time Bahar’s driver dropped me back off at Victoria Circle. After I stepped out of the car, he handed me my phone along with the detached SIM card. I stood on the exact spot where I was grabbed only hours earlier and slipped the SIM card into its tiny slot. After turning the phone on, I waited for it to boot up and glanced over at the gyro stand. Just my luck. My stomach was growling, and the stand was closed for the night.
As soon as my phone displayed a service bar, I put in a call to Boomer.
“Savage?”
“I’m all right,” I said right away.
“Man, where in the hell are you?”
“I’ll explain later. For now, I need you to come get me.”
“Where are you?”
“Victoria Circle.”
“You’re kidding me? Do you know I drove all over there for two hours? Granger kept pinging your phone but couldn't get anything. I swore we had another Kathleen situation on our hands. You sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. But I’ve got a lot to explain. What did you end up doing with Emmanuel?”
“He’s still in the trunk of the car.”
“He’s still in there?”
“You disappeared! I pulled him out long enough to pistol whip him a little. But after I didn’t get anything out of him, I shoved him back in. He’s probably pissed his pants twice over by now.”
“Let him go,” I said. “We’ve got everything we need out of him.”
“Let him go?”
My phone vibrated with an onslaught of new voicemails and texts coming in from its time offline. I glanced at the screen. “Boomer, I’ve got to go. I’m here at the Circle. West side.”
“All right, brother.”
“And let Emmanuel go.”
He paused. “I’ll unhook him.”
We hung up, and I started through the texts: Charlotte, Zoe, Brad, and even Roscoe, all of them asking where I was and to call them. A quick scan through the details suggested something had happened with Zoe. I bypassed the voicemails and called Charlotte.
“Is Zoe okay?” I asked.
“She is now. Did you get my texts?”
“I’ve been out of pocket. I haven’t read them yet. What happened?”
“Earlier today, she was followed all the way from The Reef up to Homestead. She noticed a man following behind her and finally called Brad.”
“Good girl,” I said.
“Brad intercepted him, and the man had taken several photos and videos of Zoe.”
My grip tightened on the phone. “He did what?”
“He was being paid to do it. After Brad arrested him and the Homestead PD carted him off, he had Spam dig deep on him. It turns out he picked up a two-part request from the dark web. The first part of it was to take and send the videos and pictures. But are you ready for the worst part?”
“There’s worse?”
“This man is a killer. The second part would be to have her killed if the initiating user wanted to exercise that right. Spam found a username this man was operating under and images he had posted of the expired victims.”
“So Spam just solved a cold case?”
“Two of them.”
I sighed into the phone. “Where is Zoe right now?”
“We’re staying at Roscoe’s until you get Kathleen back. Ryan, this has got to be related to Kathleen. Don’t you think?”
“I absolutely do.” The pieces fit. “Kathleen’s abductor wants something from her. What, I don’t know. But he’s clearly using Zoe as leverage.”
Charlotte’s next words sent a chill down the back of my neck. “Ryan, if someone is willing to send a man like that after Zoe, what would they be willing to do to Kathleen?” I didn’t reply.
“You’ll find her. I know you will.”
“I need to call Brad. You two stay safe, and hug Zoe for me.”
“I will. I love you.”
Hearing Charlotte's voice in the middle of all this chaos made me want to be home all the more. “I love you too.”
After we hung up, I shot off a quick reply to Roscoe and Zoe and then called Brad. When he didn’t answer, I left him a message.
Boomer pulled up in the Hummer fifteen minutes later. He rolled down the window and shook his head. “What in the hell happened? One minute you’re getting us some grub and the next you’re off on a field trip?”
I got in, and he started down the road, blending with the flow of traffic. “How long to get back to the warehouse?”
“If I go the speed limit, then maybe thirty.”
“Good. Go the speed limit. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
Kathleen didn’t allow herself to cry for long. Two minutes—that was all. Just long enough to release some of the internal pressure and to process the weight of what she was being asked to do. She hated to cry. Emotions were useful to a point, but when decisions before you were black or white, tears only served to turn them gray.
All said, she found herself in a retelling of Sophie’s Choice. Whichever decision she made, she would be staring betrayal in the face. It went against everything that made her who she was.
Now, the man who called himself John was standing before her again. He was staring down at her, his arms crossed, waiting.
“Kathleen. I need an answer.”
Images of Zoe and Simon flashed through her mind. She bit down hard on her bottom lip. She closed her eyes and shook her head as she spoke. “Austria,” she blurted. “He’s in Austria.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The Delta team gave me a standing ovation when I walked through the door—whoops and a couple of catcalls. I happily gave them the finger, and we all gathered near Granger's workstation.
“We thought you flew the coop,” Chachi said. “That, or you just got tired of hanging with Boomer.”
“What happened?” Teacup asked. “You’re late for dinner.”
“I’ll update you all in a second,” Boomer told them. He turned to me. “Have you eaten?”
“Not a thing. The dudes who grabbed me ate the gyros.”
“Then you’re in luck. Follow me.”
He led me across the floor to the table at the common area. What looked like a burrito was wrapped in foil sitting on a paper plate. “Teapot finally got bored just sitting around and tired of hearing me gripe about the gyro I never got, so he went out and got the makings for them. Even bought a fryer.”
“No kidding.”
“That one is yours. It’s not warm anymore, but damn if Teacup didn’t miss his calling.” He turned and started away. “I need to brief the team on Bahar and Zoe.”
Boomer was right. Teapot had missed his calling. His fried gyro was everything I guessed one should be. The lamb was tender, and the flaky wrap nearly melted in my mouth. As I finished my last bite, Brad called back and gave me his version of what happened with Zoe. Spam, he said, was working overtime trying to find any digital bread crumbs in the correspondence between the guy who took the pictures and whoever had sent him the job. I texted Granger’s and Bahar’s email addresses to Spam and asked him to send them everything he had. Three sets of eyes are better than one, and if Granger, Bahar, and Spam were all looking at the same data, it bet
tered the odds that one of them might be able to trace it back to its source. After sending the text to Spam, I called Bahar and explained what I had learned after I left his place and asked him to be on the lookout for the email.
Now, hours later, Granger was still at his station, working to find anything actionable that could lead us to the people who kidnapped Kathleen. The problem, I was told, was that the data links were nearly untraceable, the information having originated from a series of encrypted servers and a data flow on the blockchain.
As the hours ticked by, the atmosphere in the old warehouse grew more serious. All joking fell to the wayside, and no one could sleep. Something was in the air—something we couldn’t explain. With the added news of Zoe and the man who had been sent to get pictures of her, possibly even to kill her, we all sensed that if we didn't find Kathleen soon, it would be too late.
From our end, Granger stayed at it, no one speaking to him while he tried everything he knew to do. I paced the floor, texted with Charlotte, and once again found myself feeling helpless.
Finally, well after midnight, Granger’s phone rang. It was Bahar. As they spoke, the team slowly wandered over, all of us wanting to shake the feeling that, at least for now, we were just dead weight.
“Bahar,” Granger finally said, “I’m going to put you on speaker. I want you to tell some of this to the team.” His tone had lost the drabness brought on by the monotony and the continual dead ends of the last few hours. He tapped the speaker icon and placed the phone beside his keyboard. “Okay, Bahar. Go ahead.”
“I was telling Granger that, after tracing the data flow as far we were able, I sent the data signatures to a private sector analyst I have worked with many times in the past. He is the world’s leading expert on helping his clients maintain their anonymity. Without providing Kathleen’s name, I explained the situation to him and asked him to do whatever he had to do, regardless of what lines he had to cross. I will spare you the technical details, but after analyzing the information, he followed a string of metadata into a server farm in Dublin. From there, he hacked into five other data centers until he had something usable.”