Leo’s on crutches and using any excuse he can to wander over to this end of the facility since the Secret Service prefers he doesn’t go outside right now. Since he can’t burn off excess energy running on a treadmill or riding a stationary bike like he normally would, he’s going a little stir-crazy as a result.
I can’t blame him.
A phone alert goes off and Leo frowns, fishing a phone I recognize as his private burner out of his inside blazer pocket.
“What’s that about?” I ask.
His expression changes into an answerless mask as he studies whatever’s on his phone. “Jordan, get John Kensington in here,” he quietly says. “Rightnow.”
That’s the director of the FBI. “What? Why?” I ask.
Casey-Marie sits up, alert. “What’s going on? Is it another attack?”
Leo motions for Jordan to close the door leading out to my AA’s office. The other doors were already closed. Jordan does that before walking over to my desk, where he makes the call from my landline as if I made the request.
Normally I might take umbrage at that except Leo’s tone freaks me out. That nasty, cold, tingling ball is back at the base of my spine, firmly rooted and quickly spreading throughout my body. “Leo,talkto me.”
Leo’s voice remains low. “A Russian national was admitted to Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires overnight with symptoms of poisoning. Polonium-210.”
Casey-Marie’s eyes widen. “Oh,fuck!”
My dread grows. “A Russian national?”
Leo holds up his phone so we can see the screen. On it is a picture of a man obviously in a hospital bed, eyes closed, not looking like he’s in good shape. While it’s hard to tell because of the ventilator tube, I suspect I know who it is.
Pasha Belyaevskin.
“Holy shit,” I whisper. “Where’d you get that?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He deletes the picture.
Jordan rejoins us. “He’ll be here in five.”
“Why am I calling Kensington in here?” I ask Leo. “Shouldn’t I be getting the NSA or CIA on the phone? Or the DNI? And again,wheredid you get that intel? Who sent it to you?”
Leo does something else to the phone and I suspect that something is deleting the communications app he received the picture through and factory resetting the device.
He meets my gaze. “Because Kensington and I go back far enough he won’t ask me questions like that. Plus, he’s high enough up the intelligence food chain he’ll have contacts of his own to get the balls rolling without naming me or demanding my source.”
Shit.
“Also,” Leo adds, “he’ll be able to find out more about a video Belyaevskin filmed and sent to a reporter atClarínlast night just before he was admitted to the hospital.”
“What?” Now I’m lost. “Video? What video? What’sClarín?”
“A newspaper in Argentina.” Leo waggles his fingers at Jordan and holds out his open palm. Apparently on the same wavelength as our Master, Jordan passes his burner phone to Leo, who swaps his burner with Jordan’s. “As soon as that finishes resetting,” Leo tells Jordan as he starts looking up something on Jordan’s burner, “pop the sim card, battery, and you know what to do from there.”
Jordan nods and tucks it into his blazer. “Yes, Sir.”
Casey-Marie’s wearing her chief of staff mask now. “Feel like sharing with the rest of the class, Mr. Cruz? Can’t let a civvie have all the fun now, can we?”
Leo finishes tapping something in and turns the phone so we can see the screen. We all gather close. It’s a video, of Belyaevskin looking like shit and speaking in what sounds like halting, pained Russian, and which is also being translated into Spanish via a voiceover by a male voice.
Leo, our resident polyglot who can speak both Russian and Spanish, translates it into English for us.
“‘I am certain I was betrayed by and poisoned by the partnership of the people who are responsible for the attacks on US soil and their Russian benefactors. I was used to move the money from Russia to the United States and then distribute it to the people there who conducted the attacks. I have provided podcaster Felipe Sosa with all the proof and he will work with his partners atClarínto get that truth out to the world. I warned all the involved parties if I was betrayed that I would ruin them. Their mistake was not that they betrayed me but that they underestimated me and let their greed for more power get in the way. Their next step was going to be working together to attempt to take over the government of Russia by conducting similar attacks there next week to create fear and undermine the government. I have evidence of those conversations, too…’”
Kensington arrives at the end of the video. Leo starts it over and translates again as I stand there, stunned.
