That actually made her worry flare hot once more. “Eric, when have two plus twoeverequaled four for us? It’s always, inexplicably, five.”
“...Fuck.”
“Got it,” Zoran said, pulling off the headphone.
A second later, sound came from the computer speakers.
“It’s just cheese.”
Nikolett hid a wince at the sound of her own voice.
“I think having it with bread and fruit is not a French thing, though I’m glad it’s not a fullcharcuteríaand there’s no meat. I’d be tempted to eat it and I’m almost too full for the cheese, let alone meat.”
Maxim held out his phone and tapped the screen. A second later, a voice repeatedcharcuteríawith the exact same pronunciation Gus had used.
“That’scharcuteriein Spanish,” Maxim said, voice flat.
Eric crossed his arms, feet braced. “Here’s what we have. He knew you tested the flowers for poison, even though he shouldn’t. He’s either good at deductions, or understands Romanian, but for some reason tried to hide that fact. Also, he called the cheese course charcuterie, but used the Spanish word for charcuterie. He did tell you he spoke Spanish, but why would he use one random word inthatlanguage?”
“There’s probably more,” Nikolett said. “We need to go over the recordings.”
Now that she’d spoken this horrible, insane thought aloud, she couldn’t shake this feeling that she was right.
That the man she’d been flirting with, the man she’d planned to have sex with, the man she planned tomarry, was the same person who’d spent the last year terrorizing her and the rest of the Masters’ Admiralty.
“We’ll go over them,” Zoran said. “I didn’t even open the recordings, but it’s running through a second more detailed transcription now.”
“How were you monitoring?” Nikolett asked.
“We were running a real-time word recognition software. We had a list of flag words, and if the mics caught any of them, or a sound over a certain decibel, the system would alert us and we’d start listening.”
Nikolett’s thoughts were whipping so fast, there wasn’t even an internal monologue, just whipping, whirling thoughts.
“What’s going on?” Grigoris asked as he rushed inside, phone still in hand.
Everyone looked at her, but Nikolett had gone stiff, retreating to a formal, in-control posture that made her feel less vulnerable. She couldn’t look at one of her best friends, her security minister, and admit that she might be the most naive, pathetic fool in the world.
Iacob stepped into the silence, giving a quick rundown of the inconsistencies in Gus’ story, and Nikolett’s theory.
Grigoris didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he took a moment to curse viciously before visibly gathering himself. “If it’s true, it means either we all missed something, or he’s so good at erasing his digital footprints that we never stood a chance.”
Nikolett looked at each man in turn, realizing that it wasn’t just her. If she was right, he’d made fools of all of them.
Zoran’s jaw clenched. “I checked everything. Everything.”
If not, even Zoran could find a digital trail hinting that Angus wasn’t what he seemed then either it wasn’t true, or Gus/the Spaniard was shockingly, terrifyingly good at evading detection.
“Sometimes there’s nothing to find because there’s nothing there. Sometimes there’s nothing there because it was eradicated from existence,” Grigoris said.
Zoran was shaking his head, but Grigoris held up a hand. “It doesn’t matter.”
Nikolett stared at him, almost angry with his dismissal. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter?”
Grigoris held up the phone. “The Spaniard accepted the job.”
The mood shifted, and Nikolett let herself relax a little. Something had worked. They might, finally, be coming to the end of this.
“We anticipate he’ll move either tonight or tomorrow night. Once we catch him, we’ll know who he is.” Grigoris looked at her. “If the Spaniard is also Gus, we’ll add some questions to the long list of things we’re already planning to discuss with him.”
