He grit his teeth. It was clear he hated the switch in power. “He will not. He thinks I’m still in Vegas. He has no idea what’s happened. I was to arrange to meet with him in the week to make the exchange. That is all.”
Good. Then the damn Chameleon wasn’t my concern either. If we got out of this, I’d hand the blueprints over to Jack and he could give them to the right people. That was what I’d decided.
“Fine.” I kept my gaze trained on Giovanni who was still staring at me.
“There’s still stuff you need to tell me too, Xander Cage. Did you ever work out who the joker was? I still can’t.” He gave me a wicked smirk. The menace behind it suggested he knew I knew by now that I’d been played.
“Ethan Ranger, the man who hired me. It was him,” I replied keeping my tone even to tamp down my rage.
Giovanni smiled and started clapping. “Sometimes I really love myself. I have a beautiful mind. You know, had you told me something I would have figured it out. I would have figured out that someone was playing us. And you’re an agent.”
“I am not. I was doing a job I thought was for the greater good. I didn’t realize I was just another piece in a game. A pawn.” I intensified my glare on him. Frankie mentioned the Russian government as the leads in charge of the whole operation. Now was a perfect time to get answers. “What about you? Who were you holding these for?” I waved my hand over the blueprints.
“Does it matter?”
“If I didn’t want to know I wouldn’t ask the question.” Actually it didn’t matter one fuck, but it added to the details of what I knew.
“The Presidency of Russia,” he answered, sharing. Actually telling me. Frankie heard right.
“Okay. Now we know the back story. Do you have any idea where they might have taken Jia?” It was time for action. We’d talked enough about shit we couldn’t do anything about.
Giovanni shook his head. “Not a damn clue. I have no idea. For all I know they could be in Timbuktu. The only consolation I have is that they’d have to move with the speed of light to get there. I just have to wait for the call.”
“They’ll be watching,” Jack suddenly said.
Giovanni looked to him. “Of course they will. Those people never stop watching. They know I’m here but do not care about that. They just want the prints. That is all. They don’t care about the details, that is the power of The Ra.”
I wish to God we were dealing with anyone else besides them, anybody else.
Fucking hell.
A shiver ran down my spine when his phone started buzzing.
He reached for it and answered it.
I had my eyes peeled on him but out the corner of my eye I noticed Dorian pull something from his pocket too.
“Hello,” Giovanni said into the phone. He pressed it to his ear. His face hardened and my heart sped up its beat to a hundred miles an hour.
It was beating so fast as I waited.
“I will see you then,” Giovanni stated and hung up. He grit his teeth and growled. “Twin Falls. They want me to come to Twin Falls at noon tomorrow with prints. I get to the civic center and they’ll send a fucking address.”
“I got the address,” Dorian announced, pulling our attention to him.
“What?” I asked.
He held up the device he’d taken out earlier. It looked like one of those battery charger units but it had a more slimline look to it.
He smiled. “My device tracked them within seconds.”
“It said unrecognized number on my phone,” Giovanni stated widening his eyes.
Dorian waved his hand as if that was nothing. “Ugh, that’s nothing lad. I can get round that piss easy with my wee device, so much the better when they’re live in conversation for longer than a minute. I picked up your number when you got here and set my device to track any number that made contact with you.”
I knew I would like this guy. A plan was brewing in my mind.
“Dorian, can we locate the address and hack the systems? Do you have anything like that?” I asked. “I’d just need something to rewrite a few algorithms and codes.”
