“I figured. But you canproveTania Garrett is behind this?”
“Not yet. It’s still a hunch.”
“You will need a lot more than hunch. Tania Garrett is American oligarch now. They say she has President of America and President of Russia on speed dial, and sometimes she is go-between. But these connections are not something she hides. I would not be surprised if she also plays Scrabble with head of the CIA and head of FSB.Gavno, you are right—there is a lot on this laptop. Where was all this stuff? I looked for it in Nika’s room.”
“She had it well hidden.”
“I better get hunkered down.” He pulled out a phone. “But first I call my contact in Moscow. It is evening there so too late for shoe shopping, but she can go for visit.”
As he was finishing the call, the apartment door burst open. Alice screamed, but she saw nothing more than a flash of movement before Yuri shoved her into the bedroom. His phoneclattered to the floor, and she turned to see him draw a gun, facing the intruders.
“Put it down,” came a woman’s voice, “or I’ll blow your head away. Shoot me, and my friend here will blow your head away. Either way, your head gets blown away.”
Alice let herself onto the balcony, cursing her shaking hands and the tricky catch on the glass slider, and peered over the edge of the railing. The balcony below looked a lot further away than it had when climbing down to it had been a joke. Not to mention that she should have first grabbed the list, the laptop, the flash drive… They were all right there on the table.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” came the woman’s voice, directly behind her.
Chapter 32
Carter
“Carter, come on,” Silvia said, frustration creeping into her voice. “Every minute that goes by… Let’s prioritize finding Alice, and then we can start to sort out the rest of this mess.”
She was right. Whatever the bigger picture here, the immediate priority was Alice.
“I’m gonna need my phone,” Carter said. If Alice was still wearing the tracker ring…
Schneider stepped back from the table, straightening. “Ah, your phone…”
“You guys have tried to hack into it, haven’t you?”
“Seems to have triggered some mechanism that’s wiped the whole goddamn contents.”
“Bring it to me, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Schneider screwed up his face. “Yeah, I don’t think your phone’s gonna be any help.”
“That phone is the best chance we have of finding her.”
“You know, Mr. Beck,” Schneider said, leaning against the gray wall and crossing his arms. “I’ve spent my career assessing when people are hiding something from me, and you’re hidingsomething from me. And I don’t like it when people hide things from me.”
“Funny, I was just thinking the same about you.”
Schneider’s expression shut down. For a guy who did a lot of prodding, he sure didn’t like to be on the receiving end.
“The phone?” Carter said.
“You can have your phone once we have the evidence.”
“Oh, so this is blackmail now?”
“Ben, can we discuss this outside?” Silvia said tightly.
Schneider advanced on Carter, jabbing his pointer finger at him. “Mr. Beck, I want to find her as much as you do.”
“You know, I’m beginning to think that’s not completely true,” Carter said, testing him. Sure enough, his face colored. A guy of his rank shouldn’t be so easily rattled.
Someone knocked on the door and opened it. “Here’s the evidence you wanted brought up,” a woman said, and passed a paper bag to Silvia. “Plus, gloves to handle it with.”
