Chapter 18

Veni had barely sat back down again, when she heard an odd sound from her mother. She hopped to her feet and leaned over, only to hear a weird rattle, and then she heard nothing.

Complete silence.

She stared breathlessly, waiting for her mother to take another breath, but it never came. She slowly sagged back down, as the enormity of what just happened hit her. They had traveled all this way to find freedom, but her mother had found freedom in a completely different way. Veni bowed her head and let the tears flow.

*

Standing outside inthe hallway, Anders walked over to Reid. “Her father left under escort, but they left two men behind.”

“Do we know where they are?”

“No, not at the moment.” He nodded toward the room. “How is she?”

“Pretty shocked. I think the end will be way faster than she’s expecting. The bottom line is, I don’t trust her father or her mother in terms of the work.”

“Veni gave it to him, huh?” Anders asked curiously. “I thought maybe she would have held on to it for her mother’s sake.”

“She didn’t give him all of it. From what I could tell, she gave him earlier stuff, from before Veni started to work with her mother, applying her special gift—trying to keep herself out of it as far as Russia and her father are concerned.”

Anders let out a low whistle.

“She also did her best to convince him that her mother had been losing it mentally for the last several months, rendering anything she had claimed about her work patently unreliable and not even fit to record. She downplayed her own role as just going along and trying to shield her mother from the realities of her own mental decline.”

“That was a hell of a way to play it. Now if only her father believed her.”

“I think in a way he did. Maybe he wanted to, and it did serve his purpose really. It also let him off the hook in the sense that it all may have been too far out of the realm of scientific possibilities. So, Veni gave him enough to send him on his way and to appease the Russian government, but hopefully distanced herself from it in the process.”

Anders nodded. “So, now the question is whether the Russians want to get rid of the person who delivered the message.”

“Or,” Reid added, startling him, “do they want to get rid of the person who may still have copies of it.”

“Right. So, if they get rid of Veni, then nobody else has access to anything.”

“Exactly. And a sniper would be the logical play.”

Anders winced at that. “And hardest for us to find.”

Reid added, “I’ve got law enforcement out there looking already. Jonas had already called in about it once, and I informed him that her father was here. He’s pretty pissed off about it, but there’s nothing he can do about it because of the diplomatic immunity thing.”

“Which is a nice way of the Kremlin saying, screw you to MI6, and Jonas knows it.”

“Exactly. So back to the sniper thing. If you were a sniper, how would you do it?”

He nodded. “If it was a simple takedown, a sniper would be the perfect answer. It’s remote, and even a drone could do it these days,” he murmured.

“Exactly, that would be my best guess. She’ll be outside, so a simple kill shot—could even be a car accident for that matter. Just tidying up loose ends with some local talent, so who can prove that the Russians were involved and wanted it this way.”

“So how do we stop it?” Anders asked.

Reid shrugged. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think the father is necessarily a part of it. He said that he would do what he could to get them off her case, but I’m not sure he understands how this game is played.”

“He’s a scientist, so I doubt it,” Anders stated. “He’s all about budget money and labs, and, if he’s worked only in Russia, then he’s not even about budget money, since it’s all about results. If you get results, you get what you need. If you don’t get results, well, too bad for you. You had your chance.”

“Right, no second chances with the Russians, and we both know it all too well.”

“Never any second chances,” Anders clarified. “I’ll talk to Jonas and see if we can get surveillance outside. It would be nice if we could just take down the shooter before it ever gets initiated, and, chances are, the failure would be the end of it.”

“Do you think so? We have had dead agents and dead kidnappers and a dead witness or two as well.”

“I think the Russians are pushing it on UK soil,” Anders replied. “They’re just cleaning up in Germany and Kazakhstan,” he stated, looking over at Reid. “I know it sounds foolish, but the Russians need something to justify that kind of money, that kind of international incident. Look at the bigger picture. It’s not as if Veni would sell that information to somebody. Even if she thought about it, does she know how? The UK government may want it, but, if they are given the same material as the Russians have, then the race is pretty even at this point.”

“I don’t think the Russians particularly like it even though,” Reid noted, with a wry look.

“No, I’m sure they don’t.”

“So let’s be safe, rather than sorry.”

Anders nodded. “Agreed.”

The hospital room door opened behind them just then. Reid spun to see Veni staring up at him, wordless and almost dazed, and he knew instantly. “Aww, sweetheart.” He opened his arms, and she bailed into them, crying in great big, noisy sobs. He looked over at Anders, who nodded and quickly disappeared. Reid held her close and just rocked her.

Nurses moved into the room, after seeing Veni come out.

When she finally had a chance to calm down and to breathe, she looked up and whispered, “She never even woke up again.”

He nodded. “Yet she got to see you at the end, and she got to see her husband. Whether that’s right or wrong, it’s probably all she could do, and that was her time.”

Veni sniffled. “I still had no idea, and yet my father did.”

“I suspect they kept in touch to a certain extent. Although there was a lot of anger between them and animosity from their work, there was also love.”

“What kind of a love is that? To steal the other’s work? To deceive and betray each other every chance they got?”

“Truth be told, it was probably a collaboration to some degree because, like it or not, they did a lot together, and how do you divide up something like research and lab tests when a marriage splits?”

Her lips twitched. “I guess you don’t. You just sit there and have ugly recriminations for the rest of time.”

“Maybe,” he murmured.

She looked up and asked, “Can we leave now?”

He nodded. “Anders is checking to see if it’s safe.”

“My father left with the lab work. Shouldn’t that be enough?”

“We’re hoping so,” he murmured, “but we can’t be certain yet.”

She shrugged. “Now that he has the material, I don’t think the Russians care beyond that.”

“What if you still had a copy of it though?”

She pondered that and shrugged. “They always believed that they’re superior in every way. So, as long as they have the same material, they rest assured that they can get to the end result faster than anyone else.”

He chuckled. “If that’s the case, we may be good to go.” Then he ushered her toward the exit, sending Anders a text that they were coming out.

As they approached the front door, a vehicle pulled up right to the door, up on the walkway even. She looked at the driver and confirmed, “That’s Anders.”

“Yep, we’re taking you to a hotel for now, and then we’ll have to reestablish where and what we’re to do with this mess.”

“Great.” She shuddered, leaning against him. “I don’t even know how to feel anymore.”

“I understand, but it’s not today’s issue,” he stated. “Today is just about recovery. It’s about figuring out and honoring your mother for who she was at the best of times, setting aside the other times, the secrets, the lies. There’s enough of those kinds of things in the world, so nobody needs to remember them.”

She squeezed his hand again. “I know you don’t like it when I say it.”

“Don’t—” he warned, with a smile in his tone.

“You’re still a really nice man.”

He winced as that hit home. “The insults, oh, the insults.”

She burst out laughing. “You’re such a ham,” she muttered. “I forgot about that sense of humor of yours.”

“Seems to me that you’ve forgotten an awful lot.”

“I did,” she admitted, “but that’s okay because you will remind me.”

He opened the front door cautiously, checking his surroundings. He saw several other men moving through the hospital complex, separating, going into individual buildings. He moved her quickly to the passenger side of the vehicle.

She frowned. “From the way you’re moving, you’re expecting an attack.”

“Let’s just say that I’m not sure that we’re out of danger,” he replied. “The Russians have a tendency to clean up loose ends.”

“Maybe so, but I don’t know anything. We don’t know that anybody would care at this point.”

“The news isn’t out yet that your father has her research. Plus the Russians don’t even know that your mother’s gone, not to mention that you’re not a scientist and don’t know what to do with her work anyway. Then there’s the fact that it was probably written in Russian anyway.”

She nodded. “Because that was my mother’s first language, although born and raised in the UK, my grandfather insisted on our learning the language.”

As he gave her a boost into the seat, he added, “Scooch over, and I’ll come in behind you.”

Crack!

Shouts from both Anders and Reid filled the air, as the vehicle lurched forward, almost leaving Reid flat on the sidewalk, but he was still hanging on to the side, with her screaming in the back seat. He quickly propelled himself inside and slammed the door shut. “Are you okay?” he yelled at Anders.

He nodded, his face grim. “Yeah. Didn’t see that one coming. He took out the front windshield though.”

“Great,” she muttered from the back seat. “I always wanted a better view.”

He looked into the rearview mirror and smiled at her. “Hang tight.”

Several other shots rang out in the parking lot, as they swerved to get out and around the hospital parking, shouts coming from everybody all around. Anders hit the brakes, due to all the cars stopped before him, then saw a fight on a nearby rooftop.

The shouting was off the charts, both here on the ground and also on that rooftop. Then one of guys, with a big rifle slung on his back, jumped over the edge and fell to his death.