She watched the angry flames burn white hot, tears running down her face.
“Feo!” she cried in anguish. “Jack!”
“I know,” he replied grimly. “Strap in, we need to get out of here.”
She staggered to the co-pilot’s seat in a raw state of shock and slumped down. She absently reached for the four-point harness and clipped in. She couldn’t shake the horrific images of Jack’s death from her mind.
Feo pulled the chopper into a steep climb, and accelerated away from the chaotic scene. Dinara glanced down as they banked. She saw the flames recede, leaving nothing but charred devastation and clouds of smoke in their wake. All around the blast zone, camouflaged attackers who hadn’t been killed in the explosion, staggered as though badly injured. Everything caught in the blast radius had been incinerated.
Fresh tears came as Dinara realized Jack had truly gone. They had failed in the worst possible way.
Feo took them up toward the blue sky as the two Mil Mi-24 flying tanks set down and camouflaged men jumped out to attend to their injured comrades.
Dinara watched them with rising anger. She burned with hatred for them and longed for revenge.
Feo touched her arm reassuringly. A moment later they banked round the shoulder of the mountain and left the horror far behind.
Chapter 52
“Victor Andreyev is a Russian venture capitalist with interests in shipping, energy, chemicals and armaments,” Mo-bot said. “He served five years in the Russian Army and rose to the rank of colonel.”
“Intelligence asset?” Sci asked.
“That would be my guess,” Mo-bot replied.
Justine pinched the bridge of her nose and inhaled deeply. Private had almost been ruined going up against a rogue Russian intelligence plot in Moscow. This investigation was getting out of control, and she couldn’t help but think of Jack facing these people out there in Afghanistan. She leaned over to get a better view of Mo-bot’s laptop. They were seated around the board table in the main meeting room on the thirty-sixth floor of Private New York’s headquarters. They were facing the windows and the blackout blinds were down, so there was no chance prying eyes could see the content Mo-bot was sharing.
“We traced the billfold to the penthouse apartment,” she went on.
“Figures,” Sci remarked. “Looking at his profile, he’s definitely a penthouse kind of guy. Top of the heap.”
“What do you want us to do?” Jessie asked.
In Jack’s absence, they were looking to Justine for leadership.
“Put a tail on him,” she replied. “Find out where he goes, who he talks to.”
“What about counterintelligence?” Mo-bot asked.
Justine nodded. “We should notify the Bureau. Share what you’ve found. If there’s an intelligence cell operating in New York, they need to know about it.”
“Send an anonymous tip to Max Pimenta. Tell him to look into it himself,” Jessie said. “He’s a good man.”
The phone on the console that stood against the back wall rang. Jessie rose to answer it.
“Do you think you can map out his business interests?” Justine asked Mo-bot while Jessie took the call.
Mo-bot nodded. “I have some of it already. I can complete the picture.”
“Yes... Yes, I’ll just get her,” Jessie said, and Justine registered the change in her tone immediately. “Justine, it’s Dinara. She’s on the satellite phone. I can’t get any sense out of her. She says she wants to talk to you.”
Justine rose slowly. Somewhere deep within, she felt a dark dread building.
She crossed the room and took the phone.
“Hello?”
“Justine. It’s me — Dinara.”
Justine didn’t need to hear any more. She knew from Dinara’s cracking, tearful tone, the croak in her voice.
“No,” Justine said quietly.
“I’m sorry,” Dinara replied. Justine heard shuddering sobs. “There was nothing we could do. Nothing. I’m so sorry.”
Justine felt a hand on her arm.
“What’s happened?” she heard a voice ask, without registering whose it was.
The room shrank away to nothing, as though the foulest darkness had oozed from the receiver and consumed her world. There was no shape, no form, no meaning.
“No!” Justine cried. “Bring him back! Bring him back to me!”
“I can’t,” Dinara replied. “There was an explosion. Jack and Joshua...”
“No,” Justine said. “No. This isn’t real.”
It didn’t feel real. She was alone. Utterly alone in a void. Holding a phone that connected her to somewhere she despised. A source of misery.
Justine dropped the receiver and heard it clatter against something. Tears flowed, and she heard herself gasping for air, sobbing, but it was all so distant, as though it was happening to someone else. She was aware of ghosts clustering around her, trying to soothe away the pain, but they were shades, existing on a different plane. They couldn’t touch her grief, nor do anything to make it better.
She was aware she kept repeating the same phrase over and over.
“He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s dead. Jack’s dead.”
Chapter 53
“They have my name,” Victor Andreyev said. “They seem competent.”
He was standing on the rooftop of the gray stone building on the northwest corner of Madison and East 26th Street, diagonally across the broad intersection from Private New York’s headquarters, using an Optika Blu, a Russian handheld version of Camero’s XAVER LR 80 field imaging system, which enabled him to see what was happening inside the meeting room. Taras Gurin, the cunning psychopath headquarters had assigned to be his head of operations in America, held a directional microphone that had picked up almost all of the conversation that had taken place between Jack Morgan’s team.
Taras had a reputation as a man without conscience. He was rumored to have undertaken some of the most difficult interrogations during the Ukrainian uprising. He had a narrow face that almost seemed too small for his muscular body, and his eyes were set close, which Andreyev had always thought signaled a lack of intelligence, but this man was sharp and possessed of a rough street cunning that made him very insightful and dangerous. As an enemy, Taras would be formidable, but he was fiercely loyal to Russia and served Andreyev with devotion.
Taras had discovered the signal transmitter concealed in the billfold the Americans had left at Andreyev’s apartment building. It was an effective if unsophisticated ruse, although he was surprised they had been able to discover the location. It suggested they had advanced surveillance techniques he was not yet aware of. If his phones were compromised... he would ask Taras to conduct a full sweep to be sure.
Taras had traced the signal from the billfold to its receiver, turning Private’s tricks against them. There was now no doubt these people knew Andreyev wasn’t really Elizabeth Singer’s father, which meant subterfuge and deception with them would no longer be useful. Hostilities were inevitable.
“Do not overestimate their competence,” Taras replied with a smile. “The billfold tracker is available from any gadget store. A child could have used it.”
“American law enforcement has never troubled us,” Andreyev countered.
“True, but that is no measure of competence,” Taras sneered. “What should we do about them?”
Andreyev had been alarmed to hear the woman babbling that Morgan and Floyd were dead. That was a major setback. He would have to verify the report with Kolokov, who was leading the Afghan mission, but he very much doubted Private would be giving false information. There was little to no chance they knew they were being watched. The death of Morgan was of no concern; Floyd’s death, however, was more of a problem.