Chapter Sixteen

Red

"Look at you, all pale and thin." Her teammate Grey walked into her room—handsome guy, smart, talented at his job. But there was no chemistry between them. It was all deep friendship and work ethic.

"Surprisingly, I'm alive. Who woulda thunk it?"

"What the hell was wrong with you?" Grey wandered over to her I.V. bag and read the prescription. It didn't seem to interest him. Probably just saline.

"Meh, just a little salmonella typhoid."

"I told you to get the oral vaccine." He pulled a chair over and sat.

"Yeah, except I'm not a virologist and didn't know how to whip one up. The shot was the only thing available. But also, they debunked the difference in efficacy. It's fifty-fifty on a good day.

"Antibiotics, hydration, and time?" He inched down in his chair, then raised an ankle onto his knee, looking like they were kicking back and having a beer together.

"Luckily enough."

"So good to go?"

"Go?" Red quirked a brow.

"We're told you're over whatever and are resting. Are you rested?"

She pulled her brows together. "That depends. Rested for what" Not really. What the heck?

"Dancing?" he asked.

"With whom?"

"Me." He hitched a thumb toward his chest. Grey was a good dancer, smooth and confident on the dance floor.

"No. But thanks for the invite. Why are you asking? Maybe I can think of someone willing to have her toes trod upon all night."

Grey gave her a slow smile, letting her know he found her teasing amusing instead of an offense. After a moment, he licked his lips and said, "Sophia Abadi Ackerman passed a message from your buddy, Wajeeb, to Black." He shifted his weight and reached behind him to pull a folded English-language newspaper from his back pocket. As he handed it out to her. He pointed at the article he wanted her to see. "Speaking of Wajeeb, there was an earthquake yesterday in Zaghreen. If you'd been conscious, you would have felt it in Lebanon. It hit as your extraction team was loading you onto the boat. Good thing they didn't drop you in."

"Yeah, good thing." Frowning, Red scanned through the article. More horror. Those poor people. After a moment, she looked up and pressed the paper back at Grey. "How is it Sophia was passing on a message to Black? I mean, she met him when the FBI arrested her, but it's not like she can ring Langley and say, ‘Hey, can you put me through to John Black?'"

Grey reached between his knees to grab the chair, pulled it closer to the top of the bed, and lowered his voice. "She asked Iniquus to develop a meeting."

"Smart. Yeah, she's married to that guy with Panther Force."

"Exactly. Their TOC called Black and asked him to swing by so she could pass some information."

"Wow. It must have been big."

"That's what he thought. Knowing Black, he thought a more colorful word." Grey offered up a lopsided smile. "I have to say, your assets are batting a thousand for Team USA right now."

"Poole?" She pressed the button to raise her bed so she was sitting upright. "Tell me what's going on."

"He's with the interrogators."

"So the intel was good. That's huge. But also, Sophia and Wajeeb would have nothing to do with him."

"There's a woman named Elena Savas. She works in our sphere."

"Savas, yes, I know her name. It's an alias. I recently discovered she has a Russian name that I can't recall right now. An asset was telling me about her recently and filled in some of my questions." Red licked her lips.

Grey reached over to the side table, poured her a plastic cup of water, and then handed it over. "We have an old school picture that's getting AI age corrected. I'm going to forward that to you."

"That's good because I've never seen her or her picture. So what's up with Elena?"

Red listened intently as Grey recounted Black's meeting at Iniquus.

It was a lot to process, given the sedated condition of her brain. It made Red think about a bottle of medicine. The useful stuff at the bottom was tightly packed by a wad of cotton that held it still. Did that batting have its place? Sure. Was it helpful? For a time.

That time was over, and Red needed to be alert.

She pinched her thigh to find something sharp to clear her thoughts. It was an idea that didn't help. She smoothed a hand over the leg, offering up. "That woman is amazing."

"Agreed," Grey said, then his smile fell off. "We're talking about Sophia here, right?"

"Yes. But Elena is pretty amazing, too. Smart. It turns out that she has a degree in antiquities. Minored in business. Skilled. And angry. So she's very focused."

"Tell me about the angry part," Grey said.

"Her dad is Russian. He worked between Russia and Syria. Elena and her mother were in Damascus. They lived a very comfortable, even luxurious life. Good schools, European vacations. The Civil War broke out just after Elena graduated from university. At the same time, Elena's mother got an ALS diagnosis. That was when her dad disappeared from the scene. He wasn't answering her phone calls. Money stopped coming into their bank account. So Elena decided to jump on a plane and fly to Russia. She's a dual citizen. When she got to Moscow, Elena discovered that her dad had a whole other family—a wife and four children around Elena's age. Some a little older than she. There are nieces and nephews. As it turned out, her dad had been living a double life while it was convenient for him. When Elena confronted him, he told her he'd have her arrested and sent to Siberia if he ever heard from her again."

"That explains the angry part, all right. You got this story from your asset?" Grey asked.

"Yes, I was trying to understand why a woman as polished and educated as Elena was reputed to be would get mixed up with conflict relics. And I wanted to know where the money was going."

"Not to an offshore bank account, I take it."

"Yes, to that. But also, she can only get to the relics and fulfill her client orders because part of her proceeds goes to supporting ISIS. I thought it was transactional—to trade in the Syrian relics black markets, you also have to be involved with ISIS bureaucracy. I have nothing definitive or actionable, or I would have handed it off to the right agencies. This story of a ring that Sophia told Black … Does that make sense?" She pulled her brow together and tipped her head. "It's not Elena's usual M.O. That kind of treasure hunting is a different stomping ground."

Red paused. "Okay, thanks for sharing the story about Elena. But what has she got to do with dancing?" Had Grey asked about dancing? Or had that been part of her dream? "You started by asking me if I felt like dancing, right?" Right?

"There's a charity ball on Saturday in Vienna, the annual—"

"Saturday? The Secret Order of the Raven's Gate Gala? That's huge. We're talking about royalty, stars, and the world's bajillionaires."

"That's the one."

"Nope." Red shook her head. "We can't get in. We'd need tickets, and they go up for sale a year in advance. There's no stealth mode into the ball."

Grey popped his brows mischievously. "I have two tickets in hand."

Red's eyes stretched wide with surprise. "How?"

"The ambassador and his wife."

Red grimaced. "Making enemies?"

"True, they're none too pleased. Or so I understand. I didn't make the ask. A call from the White House was persuasive."

"The President?" she whispered.

"Secretary of State, but since she serves at the pleasure of the president, close enough."

"Close enough, yeah. So they're pissed, the ambassador and wife? Because if things turn to shit—as well they might—the ambassador is our first line of defense."

Grey shrugged. "Right now, that's not my worry. We need to get into the ball and see what's up."

"You're planning to steal the ring?"

"Steal … well, no ring, no reward money. We wouldn't keep the ring, of course. We'd make sure it got into the hands of the heir, right? In effect, Elena doesn't own the ring. She simply has possession of it. She got it via the assassination of five men. And Dr. Klein as collateral damage. So six down, that we know of."

"Dr. Klein is a loss. He was a grumpy old man, set in his ways. But he knew his stuff. And he always helped when he could." Red tipped her head. "You're sure the woman who took the briefcase is this woman making contact? One and the same?"

"With Dr. Wajeeb providing us with a name, we were able to get more examples of Savas on security cameras, airports mostly. AI compared those samples to the woman at Dr. Klein's address. It has a high probability of the right body composition, height, and walking patterns. We had no face for comparison. We have some now. But it's CCTV crap. The clarity isn't there. Better to wait on what Iniquus hands us from the aging process."

"Okay. And you think Elena will have the ring on her at the ball? What if she doesn't?"

"She's meeting the guy, Joel Brighton who has the passwords and the bank account number. Joel asked to meet Elena at the ball to make the exchange happen. So one assumes she'll have the ring on her somewhere."

"Forty million." Red drummed her fingers on her thigh.

Grey nodded. "It's a lot."

"They aren't going to do that at the ball." Red pursed her lips as she paused. "They'll just be setting up the handover."

"That's what Black and I decided as well."

"So it could be anyone who shows up," Red said. "It might not even be her. I mean, she would be exposing herself."

"True."

"And this guy, Joel, he'd have to have had his ticket well in advance?"

"He did. Two tickets, one for himself and a plus one."

Suddenly, Red's eyelids grew heavy. Her head clanged. She so wanted to go back to sleep even though that damned dream was an oily sheen on her thoughts, and she didn't want to sleep if it meant revisiting those sensations. "Grey, you figured this all out. I'm not enjoying this game. Let's cut to the chase. What's the plan?"

"We're told Elena was offered a ticket. Until then, she'll be a mole in the ground, right?"

"Yes," Red acknowledged. "So we go to the ball, you and I? To what end? I mean, taking the ring would be the simplest task. But when do we ever do simple?"

A grin spread across Grey's face. "Simple is boring. What would you like to get out of seeing Elena talking with Joel?"

"What I want to know is the end goal of this transaction. Is Elena heading into a cushy retirement? Or is she planning something? I want to know if this reward will fund something big and bad. Saturday? I can dance on Saturday, but I don't have a ball gown."

"That's being handled."

"Thanks, fairy godmother. And if you could turn my pumpkin into a coach?"

"I'll do my best," Grey said, then added, "The assignment needs to answer the following questions: What is the money paying for? What's plan?"

The truth about terrorist plans was that they were hard to extinguish once conceived. If you kill the planner, the plan survives. If you kill the financing, there are other ways, other times, and other avenues. In order to kill the plan, you needed to know the plan, and you needed to destroy the plan and all of its pieces and parts.

How?

Typically, sunlight did the job. Tell everyone about the plan. Tell the public the day, the time, and the perpetrators.

Getting Elena Savas might possibly—but improbably stop the plan.

Getting the ring wouldn't stop the plan.

Red needed to follow the money.

That meant that Red needed to protect Elena's ability to get to her payday so they could watch the money move, find out who the players were, and where the money was spent.

Find the plan. Kill the plan.

What did that look like? Above her pay grade. Those decisions had absolutely nothing to do with her.

She was a field officer who discovered the dangers. That was her kind of treasure.

And now, she was on the hunt.