Chapter Twenty-One

Red

Having waited in the bathroom stall until she was sure Elena was back in the ballroom. Red followed after her, listening to a conversation between Elena and a man that the AI had labeled as Joel Brighton, Kamal's representative.

Red glanced around and almost immediately spotted Grey. Red sent a piercing glance across the room until he turned her way, and then she telegraphed that Grey should come join her.

And he started purposefully over.

Without a preamble, Red handed him a bud that he popped into his ear that was closest to the wall. He leaned his shoulder into the wall, casually swirling a martini glass. His other hand debonairly thrust into his pocket, looking like the kind of man who should be at a Great Gadsby soirée.

"I am so confused," Elena's frustrated voice was heard clearly. "Why can't we simply perform the transaction this evening? It's simple enough to do. If not here, then your hotel, for example?"

"Kamal wishes to make the circle complete. You see, Sireen's great-grandmother Haamida and her sister tried to blend in with the local population, hiding from the Gestapo in the Marrakech Medina. Despite their best efforts, the Nazis found them, obviously. That is where the sisters were arrested, and the ring was stolen from Haamida. We know the sisters lived in the Secret Garden, Le Jardin Secret . You will meet Kamal there. And in the garden—which is very tranquil and beautiful after its restoration—you will hand him the ring, and he will transfer the money to your account in the currency of your choice."

"I thought I was here to affect the transaction."

"No. I am merely verifying that you are not playing a game."

"And if I were?"

"I would not have looked kindly on the act. And discipline would be applied so that a naughty girl would learn to act in a mannerly way." He said it in a cheeky way, as though he were commenting on an absurdity with an absurdity. But Red knew from the slight acidity that gave his last syllables their bite that he had very much meant it. His boss was not to be toyed with. "But here I find that you have refined taste, a beautiful waltz, and you are a woman who acts with integrity."

So weird, Red thought. People with too much money like Kamal were just super weird—everything was a go, and yet, Morocco? Full circle? Red was frustrated for Elena. And herself. How would Red discover where the money was going until she could follow the transactions?

Morocco?

If he wanted things to be full circle, why wouldn't Kamal simply invite his fiancée and present the ring to her in the Secret Garden? Would Sireen even know what had taken place?

What was the game here?

Red caught Grey's gaze, asking him his read on this.

Grey's read was a shrug and a twitch of the head with raised eyebrows.

"You brought the paperwork from Dr. Klein?" Joel asked.

"Of course."

"I will accept that now."

"No," Elena said.

"What, no?" Joel stopped dancing and took a step away from her.

Elena had put him back on his heel. He thought he was in control, and yet there she was exerting her power.

Yeah, Elena was a dangerous, murderous woman, but still, in this situation where everyone would be inconvenienced for the amusement of a bajillionaire, you go, girl!

"No," Elena repeated smoothly. "The paperwork is part of the sale. With no money for me, there is nothing tangible for you."

"But I can see it?"

"No, you would simply take it from me." She gestured down the length of her dress. "I came here to waltz, not fight. Besides, I've sent you images of the documentation so that the signature can be verified in advance. Obviously, you know that the paperwork is in order, or you would not be here talking to me now."

For whatever reason, silence had fallen between Elena and Joel.

"I'm not going to be able to switch the rings," Red whispered.

"I figured," Grey said. "I saw her hands. I think it's on the right ring finger."

"I thought the same. It's not coming off," Red said.

"I have a flight for you," Joel took Elena back in his arms and picked up his simple box step, "for tomorrow morning. You will fly from Vienna to Amsterdam, then to Casablanca, and from there to Marrakesh."

"Why such a round about route?" Her voice was suddenly suspicious.

"There were no direct flights available from Vienna to Morocco. But it's all first class. And you'll have comfortable accommodations in the Medina for tomorrow night. I'm sending you the information now."

"That will have to do." She sighed.

They continued their boxed step, though they dropped their hands to pull out their phones.

"If I must. I must."

Red opened the tracking app and waited for a moment, then watched as the airline and hotel information dropped into an encrypted messaging app bypassed by the CIA spyware.

Grey leaned over the top, reading it upside down. "Send that to Langley, have them get you on those planes in any way they need to. You are going to befriend Elena. We need to figure out a cover story to make that happen. Something beyond, ‘Oh! What a coincidence. Are you going to Marrakech, too?'"

Red lifted her brows. She had nothing. "Any ideas?"

Both stopped talking as the conversation began again between Elena and Joel. "When you go to the gardens for the exchange, please be dressed beautifully. Kamal wants to receive the ring and be able to tell the story at his wedding party. The story is as important to him as—well, maybe not as important as the ring itself—but the story from the 1920s over the century, through love, pain, loss … Yes, Kamal enjoys a good plot arc in his stories. And this is how he wants things to play out. There will be a videographer."

"No," Elena said, quiet but firm.

"What, no?" Joel's brow crisscrossed with lines.

"Hire an actress to reenact the scene. I will not be participating in a video. That would make me a mark for anyone who wants to try to steal my money. I worked hard for it. I need it to pay my team. And I am not going to pay for security for the rest of my life."

"No?" Joel dipped her low. From that vulnerable position, he looked down into her face when he asked, "And what do you plan to do with this new wealth?"

Elena waited until she was lifted upright once more, then laughed lightly. "I will luxuriate in beauty."

"You mentioned a team?"

"Do you think I found the object on my own? I had a team of treasure hunters."

"Are they here?" Joel's gaze scanned over the room.

"My team? I don't know how it would make any difference to you one way or another."

As Red heard that in her ear, she thought the group of men she spotted circling Elena all evening made a lot more sense. She had counted four, possibly five.

The Pied Piper guy didn't quite fit with the others. But he was one of a handful that circled Elena. Red had almost convinced herself it was Kamal's security. Kamal would have enough money to pay someone to stay home that night so they could access the much-sought-after tickets.

Did Elena have that kind of cash and connection, too?

Now, Red was assessing the idea of Elena on a deadly team. Elena was probably in her early thirties. Like most thirty-something women she'd met, Elena took her exercise routines seriously.

How seriously? "I want to be strong and healthy" seriously or "prepared to go hand to hand, trained for military missions" seriously?

Was she just there to hire the shooters and saunter onto the scene to take control of the briefcase containing the Fire of the Desert? Or was she the leader of the pack with sharp enough teeth and claws that she was able to take down anyone and everyone who stood in her way?

Red's mind went to the movies she'd seen about Russians who took control of beautiful girls who they trained as special agents with feats of incredible (and off-screen impossible) gravitation-be-damned acrobatics, killing a whole platoon as she raced down the stairs.

Red tried to imagine that of Elena, but she wasn't sure.

Luckily, in a setting like this, with her mission being to "follow the ring," Red's job was to absolutely not get into a fight with the lovely Elena.

Red turned her attention to the grandmotherly woman with her chin drooped to her chest, sitting upright but asleep on the sofa. She hadn't budged.

And there behind her was Pied Piper.

Their eyes locked momentarily.

He'd clocked her and not Grey.

She was on his radar.

In Red's experience, if this exchange happened as a romantic overture, the man immediately slid his gaze to her dance partner to see if they had noticed. To see if they made some physical display of dominance or possession, a puffed chest, or physically turning to block the visual path to the woman.

Pied Piper didn't do that. His eyes were on her. She got nothing else—not curiosity, not interest, not a decision to invite her to dance next.

Nope. He was as stoic as a seasoned operator when he locked in on her face. He'd remember who she was later.

Why would that matter?

Why. Would. That. Matter?

It mattered. Red was sure of it.